USA > Massachusetts > Hampshire County > Middlefield > History of the town of Middlefield, Massachusetts > Part 11
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SCHOOLHOUSE IN WEST DISTRICT SCHOOLHOUSE IN NORTH DISTRICT
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HISTORY OF MIDDLEFIELD
This issue grew in importance as the Baptists gained converts among the leading families of the town, but the times were not ripe for toleration. To enforce the statute the standing order deemed it necessary to forcibly seize upon the property of an occasional recalcitrant Baptist who refused to pay the minister tax. Colonel David Mack is said once to have paid a visit to Matthew Smith's farm, taking from his indignant but unresist- ing cousin a gentle cow which he sold for this purpose. Such measures naturally engendered much bitterness between the sects and gave a stronger impulse to the Baptist movement.
Finally in 1805 the town adopted a more liberal policy toward the dissenters by voting to abate the ministerial taxes of those Baptists and Methodists who had for two years been bona fide members of Baptist and Methodists Societies and who have con- tributed regularly to the support of their preachers. This change however, came too late to affect the attitude of the dissenters toward the standing order. Had the abatement of these taxes been allowed from the beginning it seems likely that lacking the stimulus of persecution a separate church might not have been formed in Middlefield.
In 1817 a Baptist Society was formed and a meetinghouse soon erected about a mile east of the Center near the cross roads by the cemetery. At about the same time a class for the study of Methodism was formed in the Den, and the growth of this movement was such that a chapel, called "the Bethel," was erected by the Methodist Society in 1827 across from the Jesse Wright place.3 The wide influence of these centers of religious activity are described at greater length in a later chapter.
How the township could support three different churches can be better understood when it is realized that during this period Middlefield had the largest population in its history. The roads existing to-day, and many others long since aban- doned, as the map facing page 90 shows, were lined with small farms. When we consider the large area necessary for the pasturing of cattle and sheep and the limited amount of land which is suitable for tillage, the conclusion is reached that Middlefield was really over-populated at this time. This is also indicated by the continuous migratory movement of its
3 Where W. E. Prew now lives. (1924).
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THE PERIOD OF ISOLATED FARMING
citizens to other parts of the country. Under these conditions nothing is more natural than that those who did not inherit the farms of their fathers or who could not adapt themselves to the different conditions encountered in the hill country should take the first opportunity that offered to secure cheaper lands in New York State and Ohio. If we include with the emigrating families the unmarried young men over twenty-one who sought to better their fortunes elsewhere, we find forty who had left by 1790; fifty-eight more by 1800; ninety-five more by 1810, and ninety-one more by 1820, making a total of two hundred eighty.
As to the known destination of those emigrating from Middle- field, more than one-half went to other towns in Massachusetts and New England; about a quarter settled in New York State; one-sixth in Ohio and the remainder in scattering western states. Colonel David Mack's family of thirteen married children il- lustrates these movements. In spite of the fact that the com- fortable financial condition of the family tended toward stability, his three sons eventually went to other parts of Massachusetts, where better business and professional opportunities existed. Of his ten daughters, four lived and died in Middlefield; two moved to Hinsdale; three settled with their husbands in New York State, and one in Ohio.
As the families making their homes in New York State were scattered through many towns in the central part of the state, the movement was not an organized one. Albany with its facilities for trade attracted the Durants and Newtons. At Manlius settled Azariah and Joseph Smith, the former being taken into partnership by John Meeker, an earlier emigrant from Middlefield, who had become a successful merchant in Onon- daga County. At Warren there was a group of Middlefield farmers living near each other consisting of Warren Mack, Jacob Robbins, John Ward and Zebulon Isham. At Meridian settled Daniel and William Ingham and Parsons P. Meacham, each of whom married a daughter of Calvin Smith.
The emigration to Ohio, however, was confined almost wholly to Lake and Geauga Counties and the northern part of Portage County situated contiguously in the Western Reserve in the northeastern corner of the state. The first to go seems to have
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HISTORY OF MIDDLEFIELD
been Benjamin Blish, who after making an arduous trip to Mentor in the winter of 1803-4 to purchase his land, returned to assist his family in journeying thither in the summer of 1805. Two years later a considerable party consisting of the several families of Eggleston and Bissell, besides those of Samuel Tay- lor and Captain Phineas Perkins, left for Mantua, spending forty-five days on the road. Some of these finally settled a few miles further west at Aurora where they were joined a few years later by the Middlefield families of the Spencers, Warren Little and Epaphroditus Loveland.
Samuel Taylor &
September 11, 1810, sixteen citizens of Becket formed a cor- poration known as the Becket Land Company for the purpose of purchasing the unoccupied township of Windham in Portage County, Ohio, which was situated about fifteen miles southeast of Aurora. The following May a church was organized among prospective emigrants with the assistance of Rev. Jonathan Nash of Middlefield and two other ministers, and the company set out for their new home shortly afterward. One of the original sixteen members was Isaac Clark, who a few years be- fore had married Anna, daughter of Colonel David Mack. Alpheus C. Russell, also of Middlefield, who had married Eliza- beth Conant, a niece of the organizer of the land company, was apparently one of the early emigrants to Windham. At a later date they were joined by the families of John Smith, Jr., Champ- ion Smith, Amasa Little and also by two sons of Jacob Robbins from the Middlefield Colony in Warren, New York.
In Geauga County the family of Gideon Russell, Jr., of Middlefield was the first among the settlers in the town of Rus- sell, now Huntsburg. About eight miles south of this town is the town of Middlefield which is supposed to have been named for the Massachusetts town by some early settlers in the region like the Russells, but the fact has not been established. Jona- than and Joseph Ely settled at Bainbridge to which place came also Justus Bissell who had first settled at Aurora. Many of the other early inhabitants were from Becket and Washington. Several instances of the moving of families from one Middlefield
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THE PERIOD OF ISOLATED FARMING
Colony to another and the occasional intermarriage of the chil- dren of these families testifies to the strong bond of friendship formed in the old Massachusetts town.
It would seem at first as though this steady loss of citizens would have a considerable effect on the number of people re- maining in town. We should note, however, that the period of greatest emigration came directly after the town had received its greatest population; that with all the outflow the number of inhabitants did not drop below 700 until 1840, and that even the population at this date, 685, was considerably greater than the number in the first census, of 1790, which was 605. The reason for this was that the natural increase of the families remaining in town together with the newcomers was sufficient to counteract a large part of the loss by emigration.
Aside from the loss of valuable leaders in town affairs, how- ever, the emigration during this period was not, on the whole, detrimental to the town. It was instrumental in correcting an over-populated condition. While it lessened the number of polls and increased the amount of taxation for each farmer, this extra cost was probably offset by the increased profits which the farmers derived from the extra pasture land purchased from those who left town.
The growing production of sheep makes it evident that the rugged Middlefield pastures were at this time steadily increas- ing in value. In a later chapter it will be shown that in spite of the gradual decline in population, the town of Middle- field, entering upon a period of prosperity, attained an enviable position in agriculture, manufacture and trade.
CHAPTER VIII
EARLY FARMHOUSES AND THEIR BUILDERS
I N TRYING to reproduce in imagination the Middlefield whose history has been followed to the year 1815, it is of great help to turn to the houses which the pioneers built. and which are in no inconsiderable numbers, still standing on the ridges. Doubtless the first houses were log cabins in the primitive clearings, but this stage did not last long in the settle- ment of such a town as Middlefield, for all except those who passed on to some other land speculation after a brief stay on the rugged hilltops, proceeded to build genuine houses just as soon as their farms were in anything resembling running order. They came from settled Connecticut and Massachusetts towns, and they had no idea of remaining under pioneer con- ditions a moment longer than was necessary. Sawmills were early set up, as mentioned in Chapter VII, and from the trees around them, pine, hemlock or hardwood the settlers began to reproduce the farm buildings with which they were familiar in their original homes. Within a very few years after the first rush to the new territory and the opening of the first roads worthy of name, house building was under way all over the new township.
The methods of building in those days are well known, for they lingered on far down into the nineteenth century in re- moter regions of New England, and were reproduced in the wooded regions of the West. Planks and clapboards were sawed as a rule, but the heavy hardwood beams and joists were more often hand-hewed and laboriously worked into shape by adz and broadaxe. House frames were elaborately fitted and mor- ticed, the easy nail-driving habits of the later time being un- known, for nails were hard to make and wooden pins were re- garded as preferable for frames. When the time came for erecting a house the event took on perforce a community charac- ter, for few families possessed the man-power to raise and pin
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EARLY FARMHOUSES AND THEIR BUILDERS
together the oak, maple or beech frames. The "house-raising" or "barn-raising" assumed the aspect of a sort of festival. Under the direction of the master builder the men were as- signed to the different tasks according to their size and strength. With shouts and cheers the "men with pike poles" were com- manded to raise the sides while the lighter and more daring experts waited the stentorian summons for "men on top pound- ing" to scale the wavering framework and drive together the mortices or hammer home the wooden pegs. All over the rugged hills of Middlefield one must imagine neighbors gathering fre- quently during these years to assemble the framework of houses and barns, on which occasions an ample feast, and a generous ration of hard liquor, were customarily provided.
Houses thus built were capable of lasting almost indefinitely if their two vulnerable points were attended to: viz., the roofs and the sills, and there are numerous houses in Middlefield standing firm and apparently indestructable after a century and a half, their age marked by shrinking and settling here and there, giving their outlines a quaintness and homeliness, but their roofs well protected by the frequent shingling and their sills either carefully kept from wet or, in some cases renewed after years of pressure and nearness to the damp earth had developed decay. On the other hand, a house of this type, no matter how heavily built, is very certain to fall rapidly to pieces if roof and sills are allowed to weaken, and the abandoned farm- house of New England is destined to rapid and complete obliteration under snow and rain. So dozens of the early farm- houses which in the years about 1800 dotted the entire township have not only fallen in but have completely disappeared, their sites discoverable only by the cellar-holes, and the straggling rose bushes, lilacs and apple trees near them ; while neighboring houses, often earlier in construction but properly protected, still stand as firmly as when first erected.
Among these survivors of the early days excellent examples are found in house building of the Connecticut and Massachu- setts farmers of the epoch. To the student of the modest "Georgian" or "Colonial" houses the Middlefield hills furnish a museum of perfectly preserved specimens, some of which, alas, seem destined to perish in the not distant future since their
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HISTORY OF MIDDLEFIELD
location renders them unlikely of preservation. The mortality among the houses of this type has been grave in the last twenty years, and several of the remaining ones have been unoccupied for so long that their stability is seriously imperilled.
Partly then as a memorial of the noble old New England farm- houses, fated to disappear under the pressure of decay and storm, as well as of those that still stand in good preservation it is well to pause and note some of the characteristic buildings of that epoch. But first it is well to record what has been gathered, probably a mere fragment of the whole truth, about their builders.
Grund Church
From scattered notices and traditions we know something of the men who were the leading builders of the early days. Such were three members of the Church family, William Church the first settler of that name and two of his sons, Green Hunger- ford Church and Ambrose Church. About all that is known about the first two is that they were "carpenters and cabinet- makers," and perhaps also "clock-makers." It is also known that William Church besides building his own house, which stood until 1888, was master builder for the meetinghouse, as described in Chapter VI. Green Church is also known to
Ambrose Church
have built two houses, as noted below. Of Ambrose Church we have a fuller picture, showing that he was one of the tra- ditional "Connecticut Yankee" type, a versatile genius-a carpenter, cabinetmaker, machinist and millwright. He tink- ered at everything, even having tried to make a perpetual motion machine at one time. After building at least three houses and one mill in Middlefield, he moved to Lebanon Springs, New York, and later to Canandaigua where he and his sons built and owned the first planing mill and also built some of the finest houses.
Another master builder was Ithamar Pelton, who was dis- tinetly of the architectural aristocracy of those days. Before
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EARLY FARMHOUSES AND THEIR BUILDERS
coming to Middlefield from East Windsor, Connecticut, he already had high standing as a church builder, having built, tradition says, no less than thirteen. He was one of the com- mittee of three in charge of the meetinghouse in 1791, but in spite of his reputation he was called to account in 1792 and
Ethemun pelton
"ordered to do all in his power to nail caps over the windows where it is painted, and where the work in the inside is not sufficiently nailed, to nail the same sufficiently and nail cleats on the roof, where the snow drives through the same." It is quite probable that Mr. Pelton's economy in nails was due to their high cost, which made them in early days much more valu- able than timber. As late as 1814 they were worth a shilling a pound.
We hear also of Alpheus Russell, the third of the three car- penters placed in charge of building the church; of Justus Bissell, Elijah and Giles Churchill, and others as having been carpenters, but as a rule no record was kept as to which of them if any, built any particular house. Yet a keen curiosity is aroused by the evidence of difference in taste and inventiveness shown within the confines of this single hill-town. Scarcely any
fatur Biffelt
two houses were exactly alike. They differed in pitch of roof, in relation of front to depth, in spacing of windows, in character of doormoldings, occasionally in arrangement of rooms. Two or three houses have elements of oddity in their plans. Some have a mechanical character, others show feeling for proportion. In short, this little hill-town illustrates once more the generaliza- tion of a recent writer who states :
"Perhaps we instinctively admire the successes and ignore the failures of these early builders, which is both a natural and a generous thing to do. Certainly every country builder was by no means gifted with even a faint spark of architectural genius. Many were downright stupid, but
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HISTORY OF MIDDLEFIELD
most of them, if we are to judge from their work, were strangely endowed with an inherent sense of architectural fitness. '' 1
None of these Middlefield houses, of course, rivaled In size and pretentiousness the contemporary seaport houses of New England merchants, nor the finest of the mansions of the Con- necticut and other river valleys. It was not to be expected that this late-settled community of pioneers should include men of sufficient wealth to erect the square mansions, with central passage ways, doors on each side as well as in front, and orna- mental railings masking the low pitch roof; or the exceedingly refined hip-roof houses, almost Italian in their feeling, which one sees in the rich meadow lands of southern New England. But within the limits set by nature and by the capital of the settlers, the old time carpenters did work that their descendants may well hold in affectionate reverence.
Much of the charm of the early New England farmhouse lies in its location and surroundings, especially in the valley towns where meadows generally stretched around or before the build- ings and wooded knolls rose behind. When the elm trees set out by the early settlers had grown to giant proportions, over- shadowing the farm in all the unsurpassed grace of the full grown tree, the whole group of buildings was often glorified. In Middlefield the settlers had a different problem to meet, with the heavy snow and wet hillsides, and they were driven to locate their houses with primary regard for drainage. Thus they are . frequently placed on small knolls by the roadside, giving them an isolated and rather commanding position but making them less cosily picturesque than the farms of the lower valleys. For this reason it is often difficult to secure an adequate photograph of many an excellent old house in Middlefield. Another habit of the settlers was that of setting out a row of maples in front of the house and often along the road on each side of it, making a charming approach and a shaded dooryard but almost concealing the house from observation except in winter. Several of the pictures given in this chapter and else- where in the book illustrate this feature of the Middlefield farms, which was, of course, characteristic of all New England.
The most primitive type of house found throughout New 1 "White Pine"'; October, 1919.
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EARLY FARMHOUSES AND THEIR BUILDERS
England is that of the single-story house with a high-pitched, gabled roof. The high pitch prevented snow from pressing with too great weight, and also gave several rooms on the second floor under the roof. It is possible to identify several houses of this sort as having been built at early periods in the settling of Middlefield. Such, for instance, is that of Enoch Crowell? built some time between 1790 and 1800, still standing half way between the Center and Blush Hollow much as it was 120 years ago except that it has been painted red, and has had a door cut into the kitchen where a window probably stood originally. Another dwelling? equally old somewhat modified by later ad- ditions, is the house of Thomas Blossom, 1787-1804 originally built on that windswept spot on the eastern slope of the main ridge known as Blossom Corner, but moved in the '30's to the Center. As the picture shows it has the low eaves and simple lines of the earliest buildings. Another, exceptionally well preserved, is the house built after 1801 by Dan Pease on the edge of the Worthington slope, far to the northward on the Ridgepole Road. Oldest of all now standing is the house" Wil- liam Taylor built not long after 1781 on the West Hill, modified by additions but still retaining its primitive character.
Other houses of this type still exist as wings or ells to later constructions, as in the Ingham house6 where the first single- story, gable house erected by Erastus Ingham in 1788 was added as a wing to the later house, not dissimilar in type, built in the '30's or '40's. The same thing happened with the house7 north of the Center probably built by Daniel Chapman, between 1780 and 1800, which now stands as an ell to a larger and later structure said to have been built by Alpheus Russell or Solomon Root. Not infrequently houses of this sort have been subjected to remodeling which now almost entirely conceals their primitive traits. A houses on Windsor Street about a half mile from its junction with the Chester Road, must have been built early
2 Now occupied by Ralph Pease. (1924)
3 Now occupied by Thomas Mulcay. (1924) See illustration page 93.
4 See illustration page 120.
5 Now owned by Mr. Eden. (1924) See illustration page 42.
" Where Samuel C. Willard now lives. (1924) See illustration page 196.
7 Dwelling of G. E. Cook. (1924)
8 The Elbert Pease house where W. Pierce now lives. (1924)
-
4
HOUSE OF ENOCH CROWELL HOUSE OF ISAAC GLEASON
HOUSE OF DAN PEASE HOUSE OF THOMAS DURANT
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EARLY FARMHOUSES AND THEIR BUILDERS
in the nineteenth century either by Elijah White or Samuel Little, but during its long occupancy by members of the Pease family it was undoubtedly modified by having a door of the 1840 type cut on the gable end and sundry other minor altera- tions made.
A still more emphatic change has been made in the appear- ance of an unusually well-built house9 of this type which was erected by Thomas Durant, on the North Road, near the Peru line about 1800, known for the greater part of its existence as "the Meacham place." Here a gable has been added over the front door, which bears the evidences of the moldings of the '30's, and was without much doubt a modification made by Philip Meacham when he bought the place in that decade. In all other respects the house is typical. Finally there may be mentioned the very old house10 on Windsor Street near the cemetery, which was built by Timothy Allen doubtless carly in his stay between 1781 and 1820, but which has been altered out of all resemblance to the primitive type, by the addition of dormers, a piazza, and a large wing and the destruction of the original interior arrangement.
Fully as early in its appearance was the gambrel-roofed house, which was substantially the same as the preceding type, except that the break in the line of the roof gave greater headroom on the second floor. The fitting of the frame called for more elaborate cutting and planning, but it seems to have been con- sidered worth while for a great many of the earliest built houses, still preserved, were constructed in this way. Here for instance is the house11 probably built by Dr. William Coleman, 1781-1800, which in spite of the addition of a modern piazza retains its original symmetry of proportion and attractiveness of appear- ance. Another, smaller and less regular, is the house12 built in 1803 by Ambrose Church. Still another, larger and preserved in almost complete perfection is that built by Amasa Graves not long after 1782.13 Another equally old, but not now in
9 Where Victor Hoskeer now lives. (1924) page 120.
10 Summer residence of Dwight McElwain.
11 Where Ralph Bell now lives. (1924) See illustration page 99.
The dwelling now occupied by W. J. Adams. (1924)
13 The old Graves homestead where Harry Pease now lives. (1924)
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HISTORY OF MIDDLEFIELD
existence, is the house built by Samuel Jones on the Chester Road, probably before 1780, shown in the picture in Chapter VI (page 73). And not far from that stood another of the type, built by John Metcalf, about 1807, and known chiefly as "the Metcalf place. '' 14 It still remains after a fashion, although completely altered by rebuilding and a considerable amount of elaborate decoration, besides a large wing.
Most picturesquely placed were two others of this sort. One, 15 on the southern part of the West Hill, was built by Eli Crowell in 1800, but has been occupied by successive generations of the Graves family for nearly a century. It stands at the edge of the plateau forming the top of the hill, just where the road plunges down, commanding a wide sweep over the valley of Factory Brook to the hills forming the main Middlefield Ridge. Save for the addition of a piazza it has been little changed since it was built. Still more strikingly placed was the house built by Benjamin Blish,16 between 1780 and 1790 and occupied for many years by Elisha Mack, Jr., which although standing on the windswept summit of Johnnycake Hill and deserted for a dozen years, has so far resisted the destructive force of winter snows and summer rains, a tribute to the strength of its con- struction.
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