USA > Massachusetts > Berkshire County > Cheshire > History of the town of Cheshire, Berkshire County, Mass. > Part 7
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" Be it therefore enacted by the Council, and House of Representatives in General
61
FROM 1777-1787.
Court assembled and by the authority of the same, that the plantation called New Providence, in the county of Berkshire, together with the inhabitants thereon be, and hereby is annexed to, and incorporated with the town of Adams, and that said plan- tation with the inhabitants thereon shall be considered as belonging to said town of Adams provided nevertheless that the said inhabitants shall pay their proportionable part of all taxes which are already assessed, and levied on said plantation as hereto- fore; anything in this act notwithstanding; and be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid that the account of the estate contained in said plantation, and the polls thereon returned by the assessors of said plantation in the valuation list taken be set to the town of Adams."
This act passed April 10th, 1780.
In 1786, the New Providence people built a new meeting house on the top of Stafford's Hill, because the busy village was located there. On either side of the long street were houses and stores and it seemed appropriate that the meeting house should be in their midst. The old building down the northern slope, hard by the present burying ground, was then converted into a dwelling house and moved to the glebe farm where it still stands in good repair and condition.
John Wells, who came up from Rhode Island with his wife and baby, and all of his earthly possessions on the old gray mare, took up, first, the land now known as the Bennet farm. They hired a man and horse to help break the land and clear the trees, the days were very busy ones, and when evening came, Mr. Wells sat down and made a pair of shoes, and his wife sat by his side and made a pair of pants. The price commanded for the shoes and the pants paid for the use of the horse and the man through the day.
In 1780, Joseph Bennet who had taken up the land now belonging to the Wells' farm, traded with Uncle John who moved on to it; which farm has always been the home of the Wells family since 1780. The pres- ent house was erected about 1768, and is one of the most ancient houses of the town, but has always been kept in such perfect repair that one scarcely notes the record of time. It still stands one's ideal of an old New England farm house with its low walls, its long front entered by three doors, its dormer windows from which one has a charming view of the winding Hoosac, the distant village, the large reservoir shimmering in the sunshine, while in the far distance the mountains of Southern Berkshire loom up in dreamy indistinctness. The fifth generation is living in it now, and in every one has been a John Wells. The present Mrs. John Wells is a granddaughter of Henry Tibbits of Bennington fame. The first land cleared by him was on Mount Amos, and it was there he was felling trees on the 14th of August when his wife went out to carry him the musket. Nathan and Daniel Wood are two more pioneers who came at an early date. They were brothers and settled at Lanesborough. The land and homes upon which they settled
62
HISTORY OF CHESHIRE.
have been bequeathed from generation to generation to their descendants. Both Nathan and Daniel were at Bennington. Mrs. Daniel Wood took the farm work from the hands of her husband, finished the unploughed furrow, tended to the crops. milked the cows, and made the cheese. New houses have been put up on these farms.
The Medad King Inn, and the gambrel roofed house under the elms were built the same year as the Wells' homestead, 1768. The wife of William Jacques came from Windsor at an early day. She lived upon a small farm on the slope of Stafford's Hill, just before reaching the David Bowen place. There she kept a store and reared her children. William Jacques, a son. lived upon the hill all of his life. His son, Herbert Jacques, resides upon the Bowen farm, a portion of which he owns, it having been divided in its sale. This family boasts a Coat of Arms, which makes four in town thus distinguished. They are descendants of John Hancock.
John Chase was a pioneer who settled on Pork Lane. He belonged to an old English family and his descendants have been notified that a large for- tune is lying still for them in London. Some members of the American Chase family, gifted with legal lore, have given attention to the matter, and become convinced that there is money there, however, they fear that more money will require to be raised on this side the Atlantic, than is locked up for them on the other, before they could secure any legal movement.
CHAPTER III.
FROM 1787-1797.
ABOLISHED CUSTOMS. MOSES WOLCOTT'S TAVERN. DISSENSION FROM THE
, SIX PRINCIPLE CHURCH. ELDER LELAND. BRICK SCHOOL HOUSE BUILT.
INCORPORATION OF THE TOWN OF CHESHIRE. FIRST TOWN OFFICERS.
BUILDING OF CHURCH. LAYING OUT A BURIAL GROUND. JESSE JENKS. EDWARD MARTIN. DEVELOPMENT OF INDUSTRIES. ANECDOTES OF CAPT.
BROWN AND FAMILY. DR. JENKS. DR. CUSHING. INNOCULATION FOR SMALL POX. HOLDING OF SLAVES. THE DARK DAY. THE BLISS AND SOUTHWARD FARMS.
The war of the revolution well over, and the colonists established on a ground of an assured freedom, they renounced many manners and customs that they had brought with them from the mother country, and which were odious to them simply because they were used by a royal government.
One of the laws entered upon the statute books during this decade was: " All drivers required to turn to the right as the law directs." In opposi- tion to the left, as the English law demanded. The custom of wearing mourning for the dead was for the time laid aside, and that of presenting gloves, a scarf, or ring, to servants and bearers that had been handed down from generation to generation, and kept intact in the colonies, was now dis- carded never again to be revived. Because of their bitterness toward any- thing tending to a one man power, democratic ideas gained a strong root. Taxes were high, it is true, but their own representatives levied them, and the people soon ceased to murmur, while under the guidance of a strong administration they were fairly launched upon that wave of prosperity which could not be foretold, and is still at high tide.
In 1790, Moses Wolcott, or " Little Moses," as he was familiarly known on account of his extreme smallness of stature, was keeping store in the house afterwards owned by Sally Heath. In 1795, he built the house at the head of the long main street in Cheshire, now occupied by Mr. F. F. Petitclerc, and opened it as an inn. A tall sign post, forty feet high, an- nounced to travelers that here were furnished refreshments for man and beast. The width of a driveway from the stone door-steps, a row of an- cient, Lombardy poplars stood. Within was a broad hall running directly through the house. On the south side was the best room with a dining-
64
HISTORY OF CHESHIRE.
room at the rear. On the north was the bar room and beyond that, the kitchen. In all four rooms were immense fire places. In one half of the upper floor the partitions were so arranged that they could be swung up and hooked to the ceiling, thus displaying a large hall for dancing. A wing extending to the north of the house was used by Mr. Wolcott as a store, and from the stone door steps a long platform stretched along the entire length of inn and store. A brass door knocker, highly polished, shone as the rays of the sun danced through the branches of the poplar trees upon it, and the queer little diamond paned windows overlooked the drive way. In the yard at the side, country door-yard plants nodded against the windows, and in the garden bevond, were patches of fennel and caraway and a grassy rim where currant bushes stood like a hedge. A regular, old fashioned, characteristic inn of New England, wearing an air of precise respectability which clung to it way down to old age. Equally characteristic was the low store where all kinds of barter was carried on, cash, butter, cheese, and eggs taken in trade.
" Good morning, Mr. Wolcott," said a wag approaching the counter, having a pail over which was tied a snowy cloth as though it was heavily loaded. "What's butter worth to-day," supposing the man had butter to sell Mr. Wolcott replied, naming a price two cents below his selling mark. " Well I don't care if I take twenty pounds," said the wag, as he demurely handed over the pail to be filled. Fairly beaten for once, the merchant filled the order, but he no doubt remembered that customer. Here Mr. Wolcott amassed a large fortune in lands and money. He married early in life, Olive Russell who died young, leaving one daughter Laura. Freelove Burton was the second wife of Moses Wolcott who through the long years of their life together was a most excellent helpmeet. She made cheese and butter, managed the kitchen and home affairs, sold goods at the counter of the little store, and mixed flip at the bar for the many customers. All prod- uce, of which cheese was the staple, was carried by teamsters to "The River " at Troy or some other point where it was sent by sloop to market in New York City, and this inn was a convenient halting place for the drivers to water their horses, and step into the cosy bar room to test Aunt Free- love's flip before setting out for the tedious ride over the western mountains. One day in the busy season when home, and store and tavern were all in her hands, while Moses was absent supervising the works on his many farms, Freelove sold, among other things a teapot. The name of the customer who" bought it was already on the book and he wished the teapot added to the list. In the hurry, and flurry, and many calls for her in the same moment, Freelove forgot to make a minute of it, an I when at night the thrifty woman remembered that it was to be charged, she had entirely forgotten who it was that bought it.
65
FROM 1787-1797.
In vain she puzzled her brains, in vain she appealed to Moses to help her, his only reply being, "I snore! I snore! Freelove, you sold the teapot, you must get the pay."
With no idea of losing the price of the teapot, Freelove at last hit upon this device. She charged the article to every person whose name was entered on the store books. As they dropped in to settle, from time to time, it was presented to each in turn. When the surprised customer looked up from the book with the words, "Teapot! why I never had a teapot here." Free- love would say with the utmost coolness, "Didn't you? we'll just cross it out then." As she approached the bottom of the list she was rewarded by find- ing one who made no objection to the teapot, and with a sigh of relief she made the change, and crossed it off for the last time.
Uncle Moses and Aunt Freelove lie on the sunny hillside that overlooks their home, and the scenes of their earthly life. The lands they left are still in possession of their descendants; but the wheel goes around and not far in the future, as it requires no prophetic pen to tell, strangers will tread the fields and sit by the board, while the name of Wolcott, so long a part of the town, will be a memory.
In the early part of the year 1789, Elder Nathan Mason, with a number of his brethren, dissented from the strictness of the Six Principle plan, and formed a new church of their own called the Second Lanesborough church. We give here a fac simile letter of remonstrance from the old church to their dissenting brothers, also one from the dissenters, requesting the use of the Pork Lane meeting house to worship God in after the manner they had newly adopted, and the answer given to them by the sorrowing parent church. Quaint documents of a generation of men that have passed away, they are brown and old, whispering of a century gone, with their long S's, their scratches and their ink spots:
From the Second Baptist ch to the old Baptist ch in Lanesborough. Under the sense of your Holding the Right of the Meetinghouse We Pray you to Let Us Know Whene you Can grant us the Previledg of Meeting in the House to worship god Agree- able to the Dictates of Our Conciences as a chh.
Lanesborough, August the 26, A. D. 1790.
Sind By Order and in Behalf of the Church, SQUIRE MUNRO, Church Clerk.
LANESBOROUGH, Aug. 26, 1790.
The Old Baptist Church in Lanesborough to the new Baptist church in the same Town sendeth greeting. In answer to your request which we received this day, we say-that inasmuch as you have left the Meeting house of your own accord, we have determined to keep up publick worship in the meeting house ourselves, on the first day of the week, begining at the usual hours that have been heretofore reserved for publick worship-also on the last thursday in every month we reserve for our Church meeting.
66
HISTORY OF CHESHIRE.
At other times when you have a mind to meet in our meeting house, either for publick worship or for other meetings of business, we are free and willing that you should have the use of it to improve as you shall see meet. Furthermore we are wil- ling and desirous that Elder Mason would meet with us and improve with us when- ever we shall be distitute of other gifts which the Church wants to improve,-and there is freedom and room for all of you to come and hear,-and further we mean to invite foreign ministers of good Character to improve in publick with us, and allow liberty for you to appoint meetings in our Meeting house for Elder Werden or any foreign minister of Character to meet in at any time hereafter, excepting the afore- said times herein reserved by us for our publick worship and Church Meetings.
By order and in behalf of the Said Church.
JAMES BARKER, Chh Clerk.
At a meeting of the standing Baptist Church met in their Meeting-House in Lanes- borough on the 12th of March, A. D. 1789. Voted and agreed unanimously that our Brethren Jesse Mason, Barnard Mason, Hezekiah Mason, and those other Brethren who have sepparated themselves from the standing Baptist church in Lanesborongh, be admonished to repentance for their hasty and unwarrantable sepparation from the Church and causing Divisions, and appointed that committee to write a letter of Admonition to said Brethren and to Deliver it to them at their Meeting appointed to be held here at our Meeting house on the 26th Instant.
We the Subscribers being met together for the purpose aforesaid to our beloved Brethren abovesaid send greeting.
Dearly Beloved Brethren, it is with much grief and heaviness of heart that we have occasion to undertake in this matter, but in faithfulness to our Lord Jesus Christ, we must hereby inform you that we do look upon it that you have sinned against God in your hasty sepparation from your Brethren and cansing divisions in the Church. And we do hereby in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, and in behalf of the Church admonish you to repent of your aforesaid conduct and return again to your Brethren and place in the church from which you have swerved.
Signed by order and in behalf of the Church by JAMES BARKER, AARON SEMANS, WILLIAM CORNELL, NATHAN WOOD, Committee.
Elder Nathan Mason held his place as pastor among the flock that thus separated from the First Lanesborough church in 1789, holding services in private houses ; or in the Pork Lane meeting house by the courtesy of the First church.
During the year 1792, Elder John Leland came to Berkshire. He was then in the prime and heyday of his life, and ever after this year his name was interwoven with the history of the town. In 1793 he was associated with Elder Mason in the care of his new church, and because the latter was grow- ing aged and infirm of health, Elder Leland became the more active pastor of the two. Full of physical vigor, eager in the work he had accepted as his own peculiar mission, he threw his whole soul into the religions efforts of the time, as well as the political with which he became connected in Vir- ginia. A wonderful growth in both numbers and influence seemed to at-
67
FROM 1787-1797.
tend this favored church. In 1789, when it first seceded there were 44 members, and in 1793, 163 names were written on the pages of its book, a gain of more than three times its original number in four years. Whether another relay from the church of the Six Principles was won by the gentle character and great godliness of Elder Mason to come over to his church- no one can tell. Whether a large revival gave the increase, there is no one left to say. It is certain, however, that the church on Pork Lane disappeared from view, and they who would chronicle its history to-day seek in vain for positive knowledge as to just how it vanished. No man knoweth aught of its last congregation, or the speaker who addressed it. Its site is pointed out where now the meadow grasses wave. The old building converted as early as 1800, into a dwelling, and at a later date into a barn, has fallen to decay and no vestige remains.
One more backward glance upon the quaint church may be of interest, one look at a letter written in that far-away time shows that the hand that penned and the brain that guided were those of a gentleman and a scholar, and leads to the conclusion that the disaffection might have rested with the dissenting brethren, while great caution and wisdom seemed to govern the church in its councils, represented as they are in this letter by their clerk, James Barker.
Hidden beneath the pertinent questions asked, and the somewhat gratui- tous advice given in the last paragraph, one may, perhaps, detect a gentle and wholesome reproof, and smile at the manner in which it is given. The writer, after referring to a shameful, and reproachful treatment, received from one of the departing brothers, Deacon Daniel Irish, who had broken covenant with the church proper, goes on to say:
"We do not get satisfaction concerning the stumbling blocks mentioned. We ask you to own that you do not fellowship said Irish in his conduct. It certainly appears to us that you are acting designedly, rather than ignorantly, as you pretend. What did you mean by calling a council in the name of the church ? What did you mean by publicly assuming to publish your church meetings in our church meeting days ? and in our meeting house, taking possession in the name of the church? What could you mean by sending Deacon Irish to take lead in our meetings without consulting us, and what by calling our brother Dean to account to you at your meet- ings for his conduct ? and furthermore, did you not tell our messengers at your pre- tended church meeting that they were not anybody, and were not looked upon as any- body ? Can it be possible that this was all done, as you claim, through ignorance, and with no design to disannul the Baptist church ? If you are, indeed, thus ignorant, you should be exceedingly cautious how you undertake to take upon yourselves the lead in matters of consequence. We have treated you as brethren-we still intend to do so, but we are not satisfied in the above matters, and ask you to take the above stumbling-blocks from our pathway."
JAMES BARKER, Clerk.
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HISTORY OF CHESHIRE.
Here the story ends. Whether Deacon Irish was sent again to minister to them in holy things without their consent, whether the stumbling blocks were eventually removed, so bringing them all over into the new church-minus the Sixth Principle-or whether the dissenters ever occu- pied the Pork Lane church again, we are entirely unable to state, for here the record ends, and the church with its Sixth Principle drops out of the history of Cheshire.
In 1792 the brick school house was built on the hill opposite the present church. The spot upon which it stood, with the play ground surrounding it, was a gift to the town from Squire Ezra Barker. It was a square struet- ure, with windows on three sides. Between the two south windows was an elevated platform upon which was a high desk for the teacher's own use. On either side of his desk, and extending across to the adjoining corners thence around the room were three tiers of benches, known as the back seat, the middle seat, and the low one. Entering school in this building, as many children did at three years of age, they were promoted as they grew in stat- ure, from year to year until they finally attained to the dignity of the highest seat, the only gradation that this school knew. In summer a lady taught the children of the hamlet. In winter, when the large boys and girls came to the new school house, a master handled the ferule, made the quill pens, taught Webster's elementary from B-a-ba, ker-ker, Baker, to incompatibility, and ciphered with the big boys through the "Rule of Three."
In this building the town meetings were held after 1793, and attention given largely to highways, bridges, and schools. It is scarcely possible at this late era to follow all of these roads, and the changes that have taken place. Such a course would require the services of a civil engineer, and even then the undertaking would be fraught with extreme diffienlty, would fill of itself an ordinary history, and be dull reading at last. Streams were bridged, and roads improved as time and travel demanded that they should be. The money being appropriated for the use of schools, districts were laid out, and school buildings erected as rapidly as the population made them necessary.
In 1793, the subject of incorporating a town, that should comprise an area of 1,800 acres taken from the adjoining towns, was much agitated. The first record that we find is headed " Concerning the town of Cheshire being incorporated:"
"We the subscribers do hereby Covenant, Promise, and engage to each advance the several sums of money to which our names are herein sit towards paying the charges of the Committee appointed by the General Court and to see the money paid in to the . Clerk for that purpose by the first Monday in September next."
..
69
FROM 1787-1797.
Wardwell Green,
3s. paid Jon. Remington,
18s.
paid
Benj. Brown,
2s. 6d. paid
Elisha Brown,
12s.
paid
Daniel Bidellcome,
4s. 6d. paid
Daniel Brown,
18s.
paid
Allen Briggs,
4s. paid John Remington,
4s. paid
James Barker,
6s. paid Timothy Mason,
6s.
paid
Harmon Briggs,
3s.
paid
Moses Wolcott,
6s.
paid
Calvin Hall,
6s. paid
Levi Mason,
4s.
Samuel W. Church,
3s.
paid Aaron Seemans,
6s.
paid
Moses Perkins,
6s.
paid Brooks Mason,
6s.
paid
Darius Bucklin,
6s.
paid
Daniel Coman,
6s.
paid
Squire Munroe,
3s.
paid
Peleg Green,
3s.
paid
Jon. Richardson, Jr.,
10s.
Perley Phillips,
1s. 6d.
Nicholas Brown,
4s.
paid Samuel Bliss,
2s.
paid
William Whitaker,
3s.
paid
Asahel Potter,
2s.
paid
William Brown,
4s.
Rufus Carpenter,
paid
Hezekiah Mason,
6s. paid
At a meeting of a number of the Inhabitants belonging to. Adams, Lanesborough, Windsor and New Ashford, petitioners to be incorporated with a township being met together at the new Brick School-House in Lanesborough on the 7th day of August, 1792, to consider of what is necessary further to be done to forward the prayer of the Petition, Harmon Briggs, Esq., was chosen moderator and James Baker clerk. Voted that we will have a committee of nine men appointed to wait upon the committee ap- pointed by the General Court to meet at Col. Remington's on the first Monday of Sep- tember next. Voted that the following men be appointed a Committee: Jonathan Remington, Esq., Capt. Daniel Brown, James Barker, Esq., Elisha Brown, Seth Jones, Allen Briggs, Timothy Mason, Daniel Coman, Capt. Darius Bucklin. Voted that a subscription be made to raise money to defray the expenses of the Court's Committee, and that the money be paid to the clerk by the time the committee meet. Voted that the meeting be adjourned to the second Monday in September next to do what other business may be regularly there to be done.
Paid the committee in wages $3 each
1
16
0
Paid Col. Remington's expenses,
2
7
6
Paid Asa Wilmarth $8 for going to Lenox
4
3
6
Paid Dr. Golt $8 wanting 8d.,
2
7
4
Orders paid John Burchet,
0
5
6
S.
d.
7
4 4
At a meeting of the petitioners for a new town, met at the Brook School-House in Lanesborough on the 22d day of October, 1792. Lieut. Timothy Mason was chosen Moderator and James Barker clerk. Voted to appoint a committee of three to in- spect into the outlines of said township and make such bounds and movements as they see necessary and make the out bounds as explicit as they can, in order to be laid before the General Court. Voted that James Barker, Esq., and Brooks Mason and Jonathan Fish and Hezekiah Mason and Elisha Brown be a committee for that purpose. Voted to appoint Capt. Daniel Brown agent, to repair to Boston to prose- cute the matter aforesaid at the General Court. Voted to adjourn this meeting for two weeks, then to meet at this place at 3 o'clock p. m. November 5th, 1792, met according to adjournment. Voted that our agent move to have our town Incorpo- rated by the name of Vernum, and that we nominate Col. Remington to issue his warrant to call the town together.
70
HISTORY OF CHESHIRE.
History is silent as to the reasons for changing the name from Vernum to Cheshire in the final decision; but tradition says that it was because the town was developing into so fine a grazing and dairying country like Cheshire in England. In March 1793 the grant was actually given. and Cheshire was a town. The form was very irregular, turning and wind- ing, and twisting its border line until twenty-three corners are counted in its circuit. For what reason this zig-zag course is taken it seems difficult. to say. Some logical person claims that the Baptist proclivities were so strong that it was deemed wise to rule out all of a contrary faith, therefore the surveyor was bidden to set his compass, and run his chain in a way to exclude all pedobaptist farmers. While, perhaps, one would not like to risk his veracity on this statement, the fact remains that the farm of Medad King was the only one retained belonging to a Presbyterian. The geograph- icall center of the town came in this farin and regularly, in ruin or shine, the horses of Mr. King went over the mountain on Sunday moraing carrying the family to the Presbyterian church at Lanesborough. The following is the warrant for the first town meeting held in the new town.
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