USA > Massachusetts > Berkshire County > Cheshire > History of the town of Cheshire, Berkshire County, Mass. > Part 14
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23
He had a wife and two boys. One day when on the wharf he was kid- napped and compelled to enlist on board one of His Majesty's ships that lay at anchor in the offing. In vain he told of the wife who would wait long for his coming, and plead that he might go home to bid his boys good bye. He was hurried away in a boat, and the ship cast anchor, and put out to sea. For three years he was held in this forced service. Twice he passed within sight of his own home, but was permitted to give no sign of his presence. It so happened, one day, that he was sent on land to a mill for some supplies. In the miller he found a friend who provided him with a horse, and a boy and said:
" Go, mount this horse, ride rapidly for ten miles, send back the boy and make your way to your home and friends." Chapman needed no second invitation, and leaped over the ground. His wife had long e're this given up the idea of his being alive. She had broken up the home, bound out her boys, and was making an effort for self support. Her surprise and joy at his appearance can scarcely be described.
They took the boys and went up to Great Barrington. After a few years they made a home in Windsor, until at this period, they crossed over into Cheshire.
A son of each of these boys lives in Cheshire, Stephen Chapman buying his present home on Main street, in 1855, and Mason Chapman some years later (1858) became a resident.
CHAPTER VII.
FROM 1827-1837.
VILLAGE HOMES. LAND DEVELOPED. METHODISM. UNION OF THIRD CHESHIRE AND ELDER SWEET'S CHURCH. DEATH OF DEACON DANIEL COMAN. R. C. BROWN. DR. L. J. COLE. SCHOOLS. MANNERS AND CUSTOMS. ANN REXFORD.
Of all the proverbs that have come down through the generations there is none truer than that which runs, "Distance lends enchantment to the view." Looking at history through the arches of distance it is surrounded with a romance wholly irresistible to most minds.
One follows with keen delight the brave pioneer as he leaves his home to wander through the wilderness, and journeys with him as he plunges deeper and deeper into the ancient forests, ever retiring before the civiliza- tion he heralds. It is a curious, charming life he lives, this frontier life in a new settlement ; when lived a hundred years behind the actors ; when the wolves and the catamounts are all hunted from the woods-in short when it is lived in a comfortable parlor, rather than in the wintry days that felled the forest trees, or in the tough experiences and hardships of every hour.
This township of Cheshire, in that part where the hamlet of the " Corners" Centre, was made up of meadow and upland. The first settlers located along the margin of the meadows, and back on the low, rising upland.
The roads were, by this era, beginning to be kept in good repair. They were smooth, hard, and those that run up and down the valley were free from steep hills, lined with pleasant village homes, and now and then a substantial farm house. Of course, in the very necessity of things, there would be, here and there, a hill to climb but as the pioneers became way- wise they circled their hills oftener than they went over the summit with their roads.
Rural felicity smiled on every hand, and people going down country to visit carried such flattering reports of the Berkshire settlement and its possibilities that more of the Rhode Island people resolved to come np hither.
127
FROM 1827-1837.
Eli Green had put up a row of houses on the hill this side of the burying ground, all of which were occupied.
Widow Read, the widow of a sea captain, and her daughter, Sally Heath, lived in the house at the foot of the hill coming down from the church. This house is one of the venerable ones, going back to the first days to the very beginning of things.
This house, to which they came from Rhode Island, and where they lived always, was embowered in rose bushes. Beds of clove and June pinks lined the garden walks, and filled the summer air with their musky odor, a wicket gate opened at the west from the street, and a narrow path led by clumps of Southernwood and Rhode Island flowers up to the western door, where Grannie Read used to sit and knit her lamb's wool stockings.
In this house, or beneath its door stone, the legend runs, a pot of gold lies buried, placed there by the wonderful Capt. Kidd. When forced to leave the land and find a home on the rolling deep, 'tis said, he hastily digged a hole for his treasure of gold and silver and concealed it, expecting to return at no very distant day.
One morning in that far off time some strange gentlemen appeared at the door begging the privilege of digging for this legendary gold, but Capt. Read positively denied the request, professing to have no faith in the tale. Whether armed with pick axe and lantern, the Captain tried it him- self at the witching hour of night or not there is no record, neither is the truth known whether beneath the tottering steps the pot of gold still waits for some lucky digger, or has been unearthed in the past.
In 1832, sand was developed on the present farm of Elisha Prince. Major Joy of Hawley, took the contract to draw the sand to Keene, New Hampshire.
In 1823 an interest in Methodism was awakened in this vicinity. Elder Davis came to Cheshire, preached at different houses, at school houses and occasionally in the Baptist Meeting House which at this time was occupied jointly by Elders Leland and Sweet and their flocks.
There were many converts, some among them who had been awakened in years gone by, but had never joined any church. Some who had been baptized by Elder Leland, and not considered it necessary to associate themselves with God's people ; these were now gathered in and swelled the numbers of the Methodists. Perhaps, a little to the annoyance of Elder Leland, possibly not, it is told of him, however, that meeting one of his early friends, and continued admirers, but one whom he had baptized and allowed to go unsealed by church admission, and who had now joined the followers of Elder Davis, he said to her :
" Well, my friend, you were my chicken-you are Davis' pullet-and whose old hen you will be remains with the future."
128
HISTORY OF CHESHIRE.
Following Elder Davis came Elder Mac, then Elder Pratt who lived in the gambrel roofed house, and eked out the small salary that the Metho- dists were able to pay by working on week days.
After a time one Peter Gates an itinerant minister wandered into Ches- hire and preached often, usually in the school house. He talked long, was dull, and made himself obnoxious to the boys, up and growing. Boys, some of them, whose parents insisted upon their attending the meetings.
Peter Gates attached himself to the family of Elder Pratt and took up his abode at the gambrel roofed house where he ate and slept, and lived, save when he went out to preach. The boys held a consultation and decided that it was all wrong for Peter Gates to board and lodge any longer with Elder Pratt, so they formed themselves into a committee of ways and means to devise some plan by which to rid the town of Gates. One warm, fall night when Gates had gone to his room to retire and left his chamber window open, the boys stole over the hill at the rear of the house, and took a position above the low windows, then in deep tones one of them called. "Peter-Pe-ter-Pe-t-e-r Gates, Peter Gates." The preacher heard the voice in the darkness, and being a trifle given to super- stition, he leaped from his bed, went to the open window and throwing himself upon his knees, with clasped hands and upturned eyes he cried : " Here am I. What wilt thou Lord ?" When the wicked boys, overjoyed at the success of their plot, exclaimed:
"Go, Peter. Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel."
Elder Gates believed the call was genuine, and so reported it to Elder Pratt in the morning, who, nothing loth to be rid of so unprofitable a boarder, advised him by all means to go, and the boys were troubled no more with Minister Gates.
In 1827 there was quite an addition to the different churches.
In 1832 an association was founded at Stephentown. The Third Ches- hire Church sent as delegates to this association, Elder Leland and Elder John Vincent, with the power delegated to them to join the association if they deemed such a move a wise one.
Upon listening to the creed offered by this body they gathered that it would occupy the time at its sessions in religious worship and preaching, would oppose benevolent societies of all kinds, and not take up with missionary work. Therefore they joined the Stephentown Association with the understanding that when they chose to do so they could be at liberty to leave the association and go on alone as they had been doing heretofore.
In 1833 the same delegates were sent by the Third Church to the asso- ciation they joined the previous year, and which met at Canaan, N. Y. Quite to the surprise of these delegates they found that the Stephentown,
129
FROM 1827-1837.
like the Shaftsbury Association, had adopted work in behalf of missionary and benevolent societies, which they so bitterly opposed.
Declaring that the Third Cheshire Church was not so ready to be at- tracted by every "So here," and "So there," but rather, would follow the Bible, they would have recanted, and left the association had not other circumstances arisen that changed the relation of the churches.
During the spring of 1834, both, Elder Leland and his wife, were sub- jects of a peculiar influence concerning the division in the church. Great results follow from the smallest beginnings, from a single grain of wheat whole harvests grow. Lafitte, the poor French boy, "tattered and torn," picked up a pin, and became the richest man in the realm.
One day of this same spring, 1834, a crowd was gathered in the meeting house. Both churches were present with their respective ministers-Elder Rogers from Berlin was in the high pulpit to offer the opening prayer. A devout man, ever intent upon his master's work, but somewhat prosy at times. That morning, however, he had a divine mission to perform, and the words fell from his lips in prayer as though shaped within the very courts of Heaven. But few, who listened to them, and witnessed the effect they had upon the great congregation, doubted that they were, and one old man sprang to his feet (as the voice of the preacher died away down the aisles) exclaiming while the tears rolled along his furrowed face: "There are two men in this house to-day who could settle that whole trouble in five minutes." No one needed to be told that the two were Elder Leland and Elder Sweet. The next morning sun saw Elder Leland in the Bel- chertown wagon, so familiar on the roads in this vicinity, on his way to the different houses of his own church members, to whom he confided his wishes. Soon a meeting was called, where it was proposed to arrange some plan of settlement, and the following was presented by Elder Leland: Cheshire, March 6th, 1834.
This day the Second and Third (or as some say the Third and Elder Sweet's church) in Cheshire unite together to be called hereafter the Third church upon the following plan of agreement, viz:
"All former differences shall be buried in the sea of universal forgiveness, and all the members of both churches whether present or absent shall be considered in the union under the following provision: Any member here present who from local situation or any other cause may decline the union shall be subject to no censure therefor. Those members who are not present shall have the same indulgence when they make their requests known. In both cases the non-unionists shall be under no obligation to tell the reason why. A clerk shall be chosen in whose office the books and papers of both the former churches shall be deposited merely for information; but shall not be appealed to for rules of proceeding. A new book shall be procured in which the proceedings of the church hereafter shall be registered."
After it was discussed and agreed that they were to come together on
130
HISTORY OF CHESHIRE.
the basis of universal forgiveness and mutual oblivion of the past without any questions asked or reasons given, those who were willing to accede to it declared themselves members of the new church. Many never walked again with that church, but when the Universalist movement reached Cheshire we find the names of their descendants among the leaders of that church and its supporters, and others never took up their connection with the visible church of God again.
The duty of the historian is to gather and state facts-not to give opinions. The facts of this unfortunate church division are on the pages of this simple history as we have gathered them by much patient research, and we will close the story with this decade by a somewhat significant statement that we find recorded by one of the old members:
"And so, this most remarkable event that has transpired in our church history ends at last, and the churches are one again. 'Tis true more than one half of the dissenting members have left this world, and some have refused to return; but those that are living and have returned are very friendly to Elder Leland. The lapse of time that has rolled between the first breaking out of that unhappy discord, and the times we are now speaking of has had a tendency to smother the unpleasant feelings which have been so long in existence."
One church belonged to the Stephentown Association, one to the Shafts- bury-therefore the connection with each was annulled, and the Cheshire Third church went on for a number of years an independent institution.
Elder Sweet was retained as pastor during the remainder of 1834. In 1835 he was dismissed and the pulpit was supplied by Elder Leland, Elder Sweet, and Elder Vincent in turn. For several successive years the church was at rather a low 'tide. The members were much diminished by death, removal, and the disaffections, while no additions were reported.
In January, 1839, a great loss was sustained to both town and church by the death of Deacon Daniel Coman at the age of 86. He was appointed deacon at an early age and held the office through all the years, until blind- ness and failing health unfitted him for its duties when he resigned, and a little later went calmly from this life to that other, parted by such a nar- row tide, yesterday a man among men-to-day a spirit gone.
In 1828 Pardon Lincoln was appointed clerk of the Stafford's Hill church, and with N. Y. Bushnell as pastor it went quietly on its way for many years.
L. J. Cole a young physician who had graduated at the far famed Medical Institution of Fairfield, Herkimer Co., N. Y., came to Lanesborough where for a year he practised with Dr. Tyler a well established physician. At the close of 1828 Dr. Cole came over to Cheshire and began the practise of medicine on his own responsibility. He married the sister of R. C. Brown and lived in the house on the hill owned by Russell Brown.
131
FROM 1827-1837.
In 1832 he moved into the house which has been the homestead asso- ciated with his name and practice for more than fifty years, and which in- stead of going down hill under the tooth of time has reversed the order of things, and seems pleasanter, stronger and in better repair than when it stood upon the quiet street fresh in all of its original glory, better rather than worse,for the fifty years the almanac declares have rolled over its roof, and the four generations that may be gathered within its walls.
In 1833 R. C. Brown entered business in company with Dr. L. J. Cole, occupying the building of Moses Wolcott at the end of the tavern, and keeping there a country store. In 1835 R. C. Brown was appointed post- master. In 1837 the building across the street was put up by L. H. Brown. The upper rooms occupied as a residence, and the lower was filled with dry goods and groceries by A. J. Mason and L. H. Brown.
In November 1834 at a church meeting held by the members of the Third church, they vote to provide wood for the meeting-house during the ensuing winter.
The stoves were long box stoves, with pipes extending the entire length of the audience room to the chimney in the rear,with bright tin pails wired on, where the elbows turned, to prevent the dripping upon the seats below.
Schools were well developed by this epoch, and that held in the brick school house numbered one hundred scholars on its roll call. Upon the low seats in these years was an unbroken row of little ones in every stage of a-b-c and a-b-ab literature. The girls on one side, the boys on the other. Directly back of these were the two and three syllable children who were formed in classes for spelling, the last exercise before four o'clock in the afternoon. Filing down the aisles from the back and middle seats, they stood in a row along a crack in the floor. The scholar that could reach the head of the class and hold it until Friday night received a merit mark.
The boys wore roundabouts, and went barefoot summer days, the girls wore dresses of good length with pantalettes to match, or when clad in holiday attire white ones. These were starched and were tied on with the stocking coming to the heel of the shoe. The hair was brushed from the face, parted in the middle, braided in two long cues which were securely fastened by bright ribbons.
At recess the girls played on the common in the deep shadow cast by the old church. There they built their play houses of stones, and smooth white pebbles gathered by the brookside, and filled them with broken bits of pretty china treasured next to their marvellous dolls which were usually manufactured of cloth, not unlike a cob in form, with little rolls of cotton sewed on for arms and legs, and the most striking features painted or drawn with a pen upon the face.
132
HISTORY OF CHESHIRE.
Children in those days knew but little of books and toys. Indeed, the world itself knew but little of the thousands and thousands of devices for the amusement of children that the years have developed. So they played, happy as happy could be with their dolls and broken china, arranged their shining pebbles, and told fortunes with buttercups and daisies: " Lawyer, Doctor, Farmer, Beggarman, Thief." What girl was there that did not wait with breathless anxiety, as she listened to her fortune foretold by the daisy chains, and turned away with a half sigh if the ex- pected lover coming through the green lanes to kiss the lily white hand proved to be a beggar or a thief.
One verse that was current at quite an early date, was set to music and the names changed to suit the neighborhood. It ran like this :
"Peggy Ingram, Peggy Ingram, where have you been ? Over to Farnum's and back again,
Peggy Ingram, Peggy Ingram who did you see ? Oh! I saw War-ni-er and Ma-ri-e."
In an era when a new book, a new toy, or a new song was a thing to be talked about and treasured for a lifetime, one can see how the simple home ballads would be changed to suit the day, and the circumstances that would arise. We have spoken only of the girls at recess in the days of the old brick school house. There was as well a troop of merry, frolicsome boys, some grand ones, and although they doted on plaguing the girls, hung their dolls in a row by the neck, and tore the play houses down, leav- ing them a heap of hopeless ruins, that was mischief that they could not help. They made the paths in winter, drew the girls on their sleds, let them shoot at a mark with their cross guns, and gave them the rosiest half of their apples.
Steel pens were an invention of the future, one's education was not finished until a first-class pen could be made of a goose quill. Envelopes had never been dreamed of, and letters were adroitly folded so as to bring the fourth page always left blank, in the right shape for the address on the back, and for the sealing with a wafer or wax on the opposite side.
In 1832, Moses Wolcott was Justice of the Peace. In 1833, Ann Rexford a Christian woman, who had prepared herself for the ministry, under the auspices of the Christian Denomination, appeared at Cheshire. She drew quite large audiences to whom she preached acceptably, but she met her fate here and married while in the midst of her success and usefulness the Hon. Russell Brown. A lady of polished manners and much beauty, it was fortunate for Cheshire to gain her society, and to its circle add the pleasant home of which she was mistress.
Dennis Meehan, was the only Irishman for many years. He lived in the
133
FROM 1827-1837.
cheese house below the tavern of Moses Wolcott with his large family.
When the town voted not to pay the selectmen for their services, they were not remunerated. Sometimes they voted to pay them $10.
The residence built in 1815 by Moses Reed, and occupied by Dr. L. J. Cole, was until 1840 the last dwelling on Main street toward the East, until the bridge over the Hoosac was passed.
On the right of the road, beyond the bridge, with its "antique porch," its rustic summer house, and clump of lilac bushes, stood the house of Mrs. Betsy Brown. The building is still there, but greatly changed from the cheery home of fifty years ago. Just such a weather stained wooden house as we see every day among the hills, and along the country lanes of this town. Sad, lonely thoughts they arouse too. The history of a town is told, next to its people in its houses. To those who can remember these old houses when they were the homes of some one they loved how many a tale is written in the little window panes, in the doorways, recorded on the moss grown roof and stamped upon the threshold and door stone. They can remember some summer evening of the long ago when the curling smoke of the chimney showed the preparation for the evening meal, the line of loitering cows coming up through the lanes from the pasture, the men with their horses, or perhaps a load of new made hay, moving towards the barn, the fields dotted and fringed with trees stretching up to the forest crowned hills ; the children shouting and laughing on every side, and the horn blown from the door by the housewife calling to the supper ready in the neat, pleasant kitchen. But it is all over now, the little children who played and shouted through its rooms in their springtide and the old men who hobbled from its doors in their falltime, are there no more, deserted entirely or occupied now and then by strangers, they stand ready to fall to the ground with nothing but decay written on their fronts, the saddest sight that meets one mid the New England hills, telling silently of the young and the strong gone out from the parent state, with brave hearts, and willing hands to till the Western prairies, and help build up the towns that grow like magic in that wonderful new world.
CHAPTER VIII.
FROM 1837-1847. - -
DEATH OF CAPTAIN DANIEL BROWN. J. B. DEAN. WM. 'WATERMAN. E. D. FOSTER. SCHOOL DISTRICT LIBRARY. RUSSELL BROWN. FARM LIFE.
RAILROAD. IRISH EMIGRATION. METHODIST CHURCH ESTABLISHED.
UNIVERSALIST SOCIETY ESTABLISHED. DEATH OF ELDER LELAND. FAMILY BURYING GROUNDS. ORDINANCE OF BAPTISM. CULTIVATION OF SILK WORMS. R. M. COLE & CO. SAW-MILLS. OTHER INDUSTRIES. DR. A. J. BLISS.
Cheshire at this epoch stands out a picturesque village of Berkshire, no longer new and legendless, but with a character of its own, not growing and racing, to be sure, like a Western town, but with a finished air, a mature dignity with a back ground of colonial life, and a revolutionary history. Settled in its ways and habits its days moved on in calm content. The silvery Ashuewilticook of the Indians stretching through the green country, turned its busy wheels and noisy looms, as it ran from town to town. The school house stood in each district of the Berkshire hills. The results of systematic labor showed from side to side and from end to end of the valley, a beautiful landscape won from the wilderness by every day toil. And away at the east, looked down upon this valley, Stafford's Hill, a name that stands out with breezy prominence upon the history of Cheshire, and where at this period the church spire still tells its benign story, and the marbles below whisper of this and that distinguished man who died at New Providence Hill-write its name ever in capitals- for it lights up the story of that little Revolutionary army who foot sore and weary returned along the narrow, hilly road from the camp at Saint Croix, and the fight at Bennington.
The church laws which were tainted with an intolerance not far behind some made by the Puritans, and which were fought so strenuously by Elder Leland were a dead letter at this period and every one did in very truth worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience.
The links that bind the history of this town, and its people to the past are somewhat obscure from the neglect into which they had fallen ; but
135
FROM 1837-1847.
although hidden by the rust of years there is not a church, or a school-not an industry or a mill, scarcely a road, a farm, or a workshop that has not come to the surface in its first offset, beneath the vigorous search made for this history, but the half has not been told neither can it be told here. It is rich in old time memories, and local incidents, emphasized by many an ancient house, and many a narrative, during the first eighty years of the town's existence.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.