USA > Massachusetts > Hampden County > Westfield > History of the town of Westfield; comp. for the public schools from Greenough's History of Westfield in the Annals of Hampden County and other sources > Part 2
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As a result of the terrible devastation of the first year of the war, Deerfield and Northampton were abandoned, and the stress of the war was so severe in the eastern part of the state that the authorities could not easily decide what course to pursue. The council at Boston, limited in means, in need of men to complete the depleted ranks, finding it im- possible to properly garrison the towns in the valley, planned to concen- trate the settlements by having the inhabitants of other towns move to Springfield and Hadley.
Events soon proved the wisdom of remaining at Westfield instead
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of moving to Springfieldl. October 5. Springfield was attacked and most of its houses burned. Owing to the destruction of their corn mill, the people of Springfield resorted to Westfield to have their corn ground. Fortunately for both towns, the mills owned by three Dewey brothers. Thomas. Josiah and Jedadiah, and Joseph Whiting, on Two-Mile brook, the outlet to Congamond ponds had been completed in 1672. These mills were on the Windsor road, a mile or more west of the schoolhouse at Little river. The Dewey grist mill was the first grist mill built in Westfield.
The minister. Roy. Edward Taylor, noted some of the events of Philip's war. He says, beginning in the year 1675, "but summer com- ing opened a door unto that desolating war began by Philip. Sachem of the Pokoneket Indians by which this handful was sorely pressed, vet sovereignly preserved, but yet not so as that we should wholly be ex- empted from the fury of war, for our soil was moistened by the blood of three Springfield men, young Goodman Dumbleton, who came to our mill, and two sons of Goodman Brooks, who came here to look after the iron on the land he had lately bought of Mr. John Pynchon, Esq. Who being persuaded by Springfield folk, went to accompany them, but fell in the way by the first assault of the enemy made upon us, at which time they burned Mr. Cornish's house to ashes and also John Sacket's with his barn and what was in it, being the first snowy day of winter; they also at this time lodged a bullet in George Granger's leg. which was. the next morning taken out by Mr. Bulkley, and the wound soon healed. It was judged that the enemy did receive some loss at this time, because in the ashes of Mr. Cornish's house were found pieces of the bones of a man lying about the length of a man in the ashes. Also in winter, some skulking rascals, upon a Lord's day, in the time of our afternoon wor- ship fired Ambrose Fowler's house and barn ; but in the latter end and giving up of winter, the last snowy day we had thereof, we discovering an end of Indians, did send out to make a full discovery of the same, de- signing only three or four to go out, with order that they should not as- sault them, but to our woe and smart, there going 10 or 12. not as scouts. but as assailants, rid furiously upon the enemy from whom they re- coived a furions charge whereby Moses Cook, an inhabitant, and (lem- ence Bates, a soldier, lost their lives. Clemence in the place and Moses et night. Besides which we lost none of the town, only at the Falls fight at Deerfield, there going nine from our town, three garrison sol- diers fell. Thus, though we lay in the very rode of the enemy, we were preserved, only the war had so impoverished us that many times we were ready to leave the place."
During the first year of the war, and earlier. Westfield and other towns in Western Massachusetts repaired and completed their lines of palisades. This work went on during the winter of 1675-6, which is said to have been a mild season. The Indians seem to have retired be- vond the northern boundaries of Massachusetts.
The condition of affairs in the winter of1675-6 was in Westfield most disheartening. Deerfield and Northfield, newer outlying towns
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like Westfield. had suffered terribly and had been abandoned. How- ever mild the early winter, later the cold was intense, and the snow was deep ; yet this may have helped to hold the Indians in their wigwams in the valleys of Vermont. The population, as Edward Taylor said, was but a "handful." probably less than one hundred and fifty, possibly not over one hundred. all told. Some of the men had fallen. Some. dis- couraged with the outlook, had moved to larger towns that seemed safer from attack. Soldiers left by Major Treat, to garrison the town, when he led his division back to Connecticut, were billeted upon the house- holders : less had been planted than usual. The tronblous times and the withdrawal of men for defense and for war had left what was plant- od in a measure uncared for, and in part, unharvested. Grain and other supplies had been levied to supply the needs of the forces. How to husband the limited supplies for man and beast so as to survive the winter, was a perplexing problem, and who could tell how soon they would be assaulted ?
As William G. Bates has written: "In the case of our fathers, there was nothing to sustain them but their own fortitude, inspired by their own high hopes of the future. It was no holiday warfare which was impending. The result was to be literally victory or death, not a death to them only. but a death of extermination of all their kindred."
"Nor can we fail to admire, also, the heroism of those, who were loft almost alone in their homes of precarious safety, when the stalwart men of the settlement went forth to war. The infirm and those of im- mature age, were their only defenders. It was for them to protect the families against a stealthy foe, whose war-whoop was followed, at once. by the torch and the tomahawk, which too often awoke and sileneed a whole settlement. They were the guardians, who, from the summit of the watch-tower, were to watch, and listen through the long days, and the longer nights, for the approach of the savage and to patrol, during the same periods, along the poorly constructed palisades. In the mean- time, the anxions mothers were snatching their broken slumbers, in the embraces of their terrified children, their rest disturbed by dreams of danger, and visions of disaster."
The news from the valleys of Manchester and Sunderland in Ver- mont, where late in the year 1675 the Indians had made their camps, was not encouraging. Two of the captives taken by the Indians were purposely allowed full opportunity to count their rank and file, when drawn up in full array, and then freed and sent to Albany. They re- ported that twenty-one hundred were well armed. evidently ready to slaughter and devastate until the English should be driven from the land. The effectiveness of this body of Indians was increased by the knowledge and skill of those Indians who had lived near the settlements and mingled with the English.
The wasteful feasting and revelling in the camp rapidly reduced the stores gained by pillage the season before. Soon a large division with limited rations was upon the warpath, as fierce for prey as hungry
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wolves. Early in March, Lancaster. Chelmsford and a half-dozen other places in the eastern part of the state were attacked.
On the 14th of March, the yells of the savages on all sides of the stockade awoke the people of Northampton to the terrific fact that the town was assaulted. The Indians with unwonted fury made the attack on three sides of the stockade. Soon they were pouring into one open- ing. Four houses outside and one inside were soon in flames. The sol- diers of the garrison, under the leadership of Capt. Turner, and those of the two Connecticut companies, under Major Treat, who had providen- tially reached Northampton the night before-less than two hundred in all-in the lurid light of the burning buildings hemmed in the Indians through the opening. These Indians found themselves entrapped and never after did a body of assaulting Indians rush into a stockade through a narrow opening.
The successful repulse of this impetuous assault of the Indians seems to have effectually arrested their advance to the south. Had they succeeded, or had their loss been less severe, Westfield, the next town at that time on the south, must have suffered. The little settlement at Westfield with its slender garrison could hardly have survived the at- tack of so large a force of Indians as swarmed that night around the stockade at Northampton.
Companies of Indians frequently changing their eamp. ever intent upon plunder, stealthily prowling about in the neighborhood of the towns, continued to terrify the English and to gather booty. Soon . after the attack on Northampton, a large body of Indians appeared at Hatfield, but Capt. Samuel Moseley was prepared for them and they were not anxious to repeat the severe experiences at Northampton.
On the 26th of March, 1676, a company of people on their way to church from Longmeadow to Springfield were waylaid by Indians. Two were killed, two wounded and two women and their babes captured. During the winter, two men were killed and two houses burned in West- field.
Harassed on every side by attacks of Indians, now here, now there. and unable to adequately garrison the towns against such numerous and ubiquitous foes, the Connecticut council sent a flag of truce up the river. asking for an exchange of prisoners, and suggesting a treaty of peace. The Indians who had enjoyed the just dealings of the people of West- field, and tribes who had enjoyed the hospitality of towns in Massa- chusetts farther up the valley, were ready for peace. But the larger body of the Indians parleved, that they might lay in a store of provi- sions at the spring fisheries and plant the deserted meadows of Deerfield and some other fields. April was a quiet month ; the Indians were busy fishing and carousing. They were gathered in large numbers in May about the falls above Deerfield on the Connecticut river.
Though Capt. Turner was too ill to undertake so hazardous an en- terprise as an attack upon the Indians, he was appointed to lead. Three of the nearly one hundred and fifty mounted men, who made the night march from Hatfield to what is now known as Turner's Falls, were
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Westfield men. These brave men surprised the Indians at break of day, while they were vet sleeping off the night's debauch, the consequence of a successful raid upon the village of Hatfield, May 30th, 1676. This slaughter of Indians at the Falls, was the severest blow yet inflicted by the English upon the Indians in the valley. The courage and endurance of the attacking party. though the Indians greatly outnumbered them, impressed the Indians with the unconquerable valor of the English. The fight at Turner's Falls, where so many Indians were slain, or, in the panie, drowned in the river was one of the most decisive battles in Philip's war. This battle, together with the repulse of the well-plan- ned attack on Northampton, the hostility of the Mohawks and disputes and disagreements that arose between the sachems and tribes soon led to the disintegration of the Indians forees. Still the inhabitants in the valley and those in other parts of the state could not divine when they would again unite. Indians were still prowling about in different places shooting men, occasionally stealing cattle, and committing other depre- dations.
On the 19th of September, 1676. a party of Indians from Canada descended upon Hatfield, killing twelve men, wounding four, and tak- ing seventeen prisoners. This was the heaviest loss of men, women and children yet experienced by any Hampshire town. On the evening of the same day, the raiding party was at Deerfield. Five men were there erecting houses on their abandoned farms, hoping soon to reinstate their families. The five men were captured and though hotly pursued, the Indians made good their escape to Canada.
Not knowing that this was the last raid of the war, and knowing that the skill of the Indians, increased by three years of active warfare, made them, if again united, more dangerous than ever, the general court appointed a committee to bring the residents in towns more elose- ly together in order to better provide for their defense.
Philip's war so far as concerted action of Indian tribes was con- cerned, was over : but roving bands of Indians still demanded unceasing vigilance in guarding life and property.
Early Highways .- The settlers first made their way through the forests and across glades by following the Indian trails. Some of these trails were the result of no little experience on the part of the Indians in finding the most feasible routes over mountains, aeross streams and along valleys. The sons of the forest have proved unwittingly the pre- liminary surveyors of many of our old highways.
As early as 1635 and 1636 the towns of Springfield, Wethersfield, and Hartford were incorporated. From these towns came the first set- tlers of Northampton. Those from Springfield went on the east side of the river. Most of those from the other towns, went by a track on the west side of the river, before the town of Westfield was incorporated. Northampton was organized as a town as early as 1655, earlier than the record of any English settlers in Westfield.
The county of Hampshire, then including all Western Massachu- setts, was incorporated in 1662. Two years later by authority of the
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county two roads or "cart ways" as they were called, were laid ont. One road was to be on the east side of the river to connect Hadley and Northampton with Springfield, the other to connect Hadley and North- ampton with Windsor and Hartford. As this latter road is the oldest highway crossing the territory of Westfield and is in part now main- tained as a town highway. we give its course, taken from the records at Northampton, as noted by Sylvester Judd. The road from Northamp- ton and Hadley to Springfield, from thence "to the dividing lyne be- tweene the Collonyes" (of Massachusetts and Connecticut) is first ont- lined and then proceeding from south to north the road on the west side of the river, as follows:
"And from the said dividing lyne on the West side of ye river to- wards Waranoak, in the way that is now improved, commonly called ye new way, that is to say, to two mile brooke fourty rods, and from thence to Waranoak hill where the trading house stood twenty rods, and from thence to ye passage of ve river where Ve way now lies six rods, and from thenee through ye other meddow to ye great hill as the way now les six rodds and from thence to Munhan river forty rods, and from Munhan river to ve lotts now laid out neere ye mill river fourty rods, and from thence to the town of Northampton ffoure rods.
This road and the road east of the river for nearly half a century were the main lines of transportation for all goods brought into West- ern Massachusetts and for all products carried out, whether the goods Were from places east, south or west, or whether the products were des- tined for places in any one of those directions. If grain, very largely a substitute for money, beef and pork, or lumber, were to be sent-to Boston in payment of taxes, or for purposes of trade, this freight was generally carted to Windsor, below the falls or to Hartford, and thence transported by water. The carting was over the same roads if the freight was to or from New York.
The way from the valley to the west was from Westfield over the hills through Blandford, to Kinderhook and thence to Albany.
Among the captives taken at Hatfield by the Indians during their last raid upon towns in the valley, were the wife and three children of Benjamin Waite and the wife and two children of Stephen JJennings.
The two husbands procuring the requisite papers from the general court and appropriation toward the expenses, went to Canada whither the retreating Indians had gone. There they found the prisoners. After tedious negotiations, ocenpying nearly two months, they sne- ceeded in ransoming all the captives. As soon as the people of Hatfield learned that the company under a French escort had in spite of the lin- gering winter reached Albany, a company from Hatfield with horses and provisions started to meet the returning captives. Going by way of Westfield they met them at Kinderhook, May 27, 1678. They all returned by way of Westfield to Hatfield. For nearly a century this route seems to have been almost the only one in Massachusetts from the valley of the Connecticut to the valley of the Hudson.
Over this trail passed Indians before and during Philip's war on
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their way to and from Connectient, avoiding Westfield, but coming near enough at times to excite great fear. Along this way during the many years of the French and Indian wars went horsemen and footmen and military supplies. For many years a fort was maintained at what is now Blandford to furnish convoy and defence and quarters for rest. General Amherst and his army on his way from Boston to Canada, des- tined by the aid of Wolfe and Prideaux to strike the final blow to the tottering domination of the French on this continent, stopped one night at Westfield, another at Blandford, another at Sandisfield and another at Monterey.
During the war for independence, the teams mustered in Westfield and elsewhere to get through the snow or over the mud and the hills from Westfield to Albany, were sometimes of no ordinary size. It is a matter of history that "it took twenty yoke of oxen and eighty men to convey a mortar over the hills to West Point." Twenty of these eighty men would be required to drive the oxen. Whether the remaining sixty were employed in opening the drifts or in strengthening the rude bridges and in bedding the mud holes with boughs is not stated.
A part of the prisoners taken at Bennington, in 1777, passed over this road on their way through Westfield to Boston.
This road was the route of Burgoyne's army after its defeat at Stillwater, on their way to Boston. After a three days' halt at Otis, they moved on, stopping one night in Westfield, we are told. After the war, this road was designated, "The great road from Boston to Albany." It was the only road between these places directly crossing Berkshire county. Over this road came Washington when visiting New England after the war. He was for a little while the guest of General Shepard, then living on Franklin street. Other events worthy of note that of- eurred along this highway, however many, are not discoverable in the scanty chronicles of the past. or, if recorded, have escaped our notice. The intersection of these highways in Westfield. the one running north and south with the "'great road" running east and west, has tended to promote the intelligence of the people of Westfield and to render them more cosmopolitan than people living remote from avenues of travel and traffic.
The way connecting Springfield and Westfield was laid out as a highway at an early date.
Westfield, then, at the time of its incorporation, 1669, was not so mich of an out-of-the-way place as many have supposed. It was on the line of communication of all the towns in the valley. with Albany and places farther west. It was on a main line of communication between towns in the valley north and south of Westfield.
The Early French and English Wars .- King Philip's war had end- ed in 1677. As the Indians no longer attacked towns nor massed their warriors for desolating expeditions, the blessings of peace returned. Confidence was gradually restored. Houses and barns were rebuilt, the western towns were strengthened in numbers and in wealth by the ar- rival of new settlers. The areas of occupancy were widened. Forests
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hitherto undisturbed by the woodman's axe began to echo with its sound and open lands untouched by the implements of tillage were sub- jected to the plough. Prosperity returned. The abundance of good land easily obtained as yet in the valley, made it comparatively easy to reduce the indebtedness incurred by the war.
The years of peace, however, were few. In 1688 William and Mary became the sovereigns of England. The war known as King William's war between the French and English involved the colonists in fresh dif- ficulties. This was the first of four conflicts, which, as Francis Park- man remarks, "ended in giving Great Britain a maritime and colonial preponderance over France and Spain." "So far as concerns the colo- nies and the sea" he adds, "these several wars may be regarded as a single and protracted one, broken by intervals of truce." Like the soli- tary oaks upon the mountainside, that come to full strength and ma- turity exposed to the sunlight and the storms, so each New England set- tlement during many years experienced its vicissitudes of peace and war, of plenty and want, of joy and sorrow, through all, growing in strength and in wisdom. At length the character and culture of the people of New England have come to determine the character of a na- tion.
During King William's war Deerfield, being the northern settle- ment in the valley, Northfield not yet being resettled, suffered the loss of several inhabitants at the hands of skulking Indians; but Westfield suffered little. During Queen Anne's war the sack of Deerfield on the last day of February 1704. thrilled with horror the people of Westfield. The French and Indians, after much slaughter and house burning. started over the snow for Canada with one hundred and eleven pris- oners. Who could tell when the next town in the valley would be over- powered ?
May 14, as soon as the condition of the ground was favorable to re- pairing the stockade. "it was voted unanimously that all persons shall work both with themselves and theire teames att repairing of the fort aboute Mr. Taylor's house forthwith & whosoever shall neglect to doe his share shall pay theire equal proportion to others according to what work is done att sd fort or worke at some other public workes of ve towne."
At a town meeting June 30, 1704, "it was voted unanimously by ve inhabitants that ve severall houses in the town that are forted, hereafter named shall stand and be defended and have there severall proportions of men posted to them (by ye committy appointed) as may be accounted convenient under theire circumstances for theire defense viz. Mr. Tay- lor's Stephen Kellog's Consider Maudsley's. John Sacket's John Noble's, Thomas Root 's. "
At the same meeting "it was unanimously voted that ve severall Housen and garrisons above mentioned shall be free (as well for the proper owners. ) for all families and good (according to their propor- tions) who shall be appointed to the severall garrisons by the eon- mitty of malisha."
Trumbull says: "Constant rumors of an approaching enemy kept
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the country in a continued state of alarm. At no time since Philip's war, twenty-eight years previous, had there been so many soldiers in the country. They were quartered in every town, and there were march- ings and countermarchings in every direction. Indian, spies and scouts of the approaching army, filled the forests. Parties of English, many of them citizens of the river towns, incessantly ranged the woods. None of the inhabitants dared venture far beyond the fortifications without an efficient guard and the occupations of the farming commun- ity were greatly interfered with, if not wholly suspended." In spite of the vigilance of the English, during this and several years following, Indians murders were not infrequent. In 1708. Haverhill was attacked, about forty persons killed and many taken captive. The various ex- peditions fitted out by the colonists against the French in Canada. not meeting with the needed aid from England, failed of decisive results.
During the ten years of the war one hundred and nineteen persons were killed in Hampshire county. twenty-five wounded, while the cap- tives numbered one hundred and twenty-five.
The burden of taxes which the war imposed upon Massachusetts was enormous, and the means of paying them were scanty. An aver- age tax of more than a million a year was levied upon the people of Massachusetts. The treaty of Utrecht, in March. 1713, establishing peace was hailed with joy and thanksgiving.
EARLY HABITS AND CUSTOMS.
The first dwellings of the settlers were very rude-log houses or bank houses, facing the south, so that the banks on the north would pro- teet from cold and allow of underground rooms behind the sunny front rooms. These ground dwellings were sometimes called cellars. The banks that bound the lowlands on the north side of the Westfield river and the meadow terraces are well adapted to such dwellings. Here sev- eral seem to have been made, for this side was sometimes known as the north or cellar side. These cellars were not uncommon in other parts of the town. At a town meeting February 4, 1678, during the stress of Philip's war, "there is granted liberty to John Ponder to set a house or cellar within the gate by Lieut. Moseley for a while in case he is thrust from his own by reason of troublous times."
As sawmills were built and the increasing means of the settlers made it possible to provide better buildings, log houses gave place to more commodions dwellings. Those of simpler form were one-story houses, having rooms of good size, while the unfinished attic furnished a generous chamber for children, with abundant opportunity for the storage of corn and other grains, for the drying of nuts and for the safekeeping of manifold household goods. The huge stone chimney, built with elay instead of mortar, occupying a large portion of the cel- lar, and claiming a good share of the house as its right, that it might
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