USA > Massachusetts > Franklin County > Whately > History of the town of Whately, Mass., including a narrative of leading events from the first planting of Hatfield, 1661-1899 : with family genealogies > Part 2
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Availing myself of the assistance of that exceedingly well- posted antiquary, D. W. Wells, Esq., of Hatfield, and long time President of the Smith Charities, enables me to fill up the list of the noble band of Hatfield's first settlers. Richard Fel- lows, in the spring of 1661. Then came later John Coleman, Thomas Graves, Isaac Graves, John Graves, Samuel Belden, Stephen Taylor, Daniel Warner, Daniel White, John White, Jr., John Cowles, or Cole, Ozias Goodwin, Richard Billings, Nathaniel Dickinson, Jr., Samuel Dickinson, Obadiah Dickin- son, William Gull, Eleazer Frary, Samuel Kellogg, John Wells, Philip Russell and probably John Hawks, Samuel Gillett. Thomas Bull gave up his claim. And it is claimed that Wm. Allis and Thomas Meekins came in 1661, possibly with the others by way of the cart path through Westfield.
Judd's History of Hadley says that Hadley in 1661 allotted 176 acres to the Hatfield settlers, giving most of the settlers eight acres each where they had families; to some young men four acres each. Thomas Graves, then a very old man, was not given any, as he lived with his son Isaac. A homestead of eight acres was assigned to Thomas Bull, but for some reason
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he gave it up and went back to Hartford. There were six that only had four acres each, making 24 acres; and nineteen that had eight acres each, making 152 acres, which with 24 added makes the whole 176 acres granted by Hadley.
It is quite in the line of probability that each settler knew just where his lot was before he came as Samuel Partridge said, "A meeting was held on the west side of the Connecticut River in 1660." And this was doubtless that of a committee sent up to lay out the several lots on each side of the wide street. The location of these lots is fairly well known to the present gener- ation of Hatfield people.
Perhaps I may be justified in giving a few words relevant to some of the lots now occupied by public buildings. The meeting house, Town hall and Congregational parsonage are all on the lot assigned to Lieut. William Allis. The Memorial hall is on the lot assigned to Thomas Meekins. The Smith academy on the lot assigned to Samuel Kellogg, all nice struc- tures. The Main street was surrounded by a continuous line of palisades. These extended from the highway to Northampton, north about one hundred and two rods and about 12 rods west and so east of the street. This really enclosed all of the orig- inal settlers' houses, with good and substantial gates. Settlers who came later were outside of the palisades, and it was that part that was raided by the Indians September 19, 1677, when 12 were killed and 17 captives carried to Canada.
The first comers were men of wealth and good social posi- tion, and were regarded by the Massachusetts authorities as a most desirable addition to her population. They had, as their subsequent history proved, the self reliance and earnestness and courage which usually attach to men who strike out a new path for conscience's sake.
The agreement to remove to the new purchase was signed April 18, 1659, and some went up that summer to make prepa- ration for a general transfer. Perhaps a few families spent the winter of '59-60 at the new plantation, which at first was called New Town. It received the name of Hadleigh in 1661.
DIVISION OF LANDS. By agreement, made before leaving Connecticut, each original proprietor received an equal share, viz., eight acres of land as a home lot. The street on the Had- ley side was laid out twenty rods wide and the lots extended back from it on each side. The street on the Hatfield side was ten rods wide, and the first home lots at the lower end con-
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tained eight acres, Those granted afterwards, further north, contained only four acres.
Ownership of land in fee simple, by every inhabitant, was a characteristic American idea and was a corner stone of the social fabric built by our fathers. It was personal independence, it was.capital, it was power, it was permanence and it was substan- tial equality. The first planters here recognized the principle that every honest citizen, whatever the amount of his cash assets, had a right to so much land as secured him an indepen- dent home, a real property, which could not be alienated except by his own option; which assured him the means of rearing and educating a family. He was a free man indeed. He had some- thing to build upon, something to fix his affections upon, some- thing to defend, something to leave his children, which they after him could love and build upon and defend. Love of home and love of country are co-ordinate and reciprocal and have their most vital root in ownership of the soil, with the power and privilege it engenders.
Our ancestors in this valley could never have stood against the tides of savage warfare, which in rapid succession burst over them, had it not been that they defended their own and their children's home and heritage.
As we have seen, the first division of home lots was equal. But, after this first equal division, all subsequent allotments of meadows and intervals were made according to estates. Yet here only a nominal inequality was allowed, a single man of twenty-one receiving one-fourth as much as the man of large wealth and family.
The term estates, as used at that time, requires an explana- tion. It did not represent a man's actual property, real or per sonal. Precisely how the thing was brought about we are not informed. But by mutual agreement, evidently satisfactory to all parties, a sum varying from £50 for a young unmarried man, to £200 for a man of independent means, was set against each proprietor's name and called his estate, and used as a ba- sis of land distribution and taxation. The wealthy planters con- sented to receive less than their proper share of lands and were held to pay less than their ratable proportion of expenses; while the young man, for the sake of receiving a larger allotment of land, agreed to pay a proportionate part of the plantation taxes.
And the principle of substantial equality was further recog- nized by the peculiar method adopted in distributing the com-
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mon fields, where no one received his full share in one lot, in which case he would run the chance to get all good or all poor land, but each meadow was first partitioned off into two or more parts, and each proprietor had a share in the subdivision of the several parts, Thus the North or Great Meadow was first ap- portioned into six parts, and each west side settler had a lot in each of the six divisions. Little Meadow was apportioned into two parts and South Meadow into three parts, each proprietor receiving a lot in each part. A £50 estate drew of mead- ow land thirteen and one-half acres in all ; a £200 estate drew fifty-four and one-half acres. At the same time the vast extent of upland was open to all equally for wood, timber and pasturage.
And now they began to build upon these foundations. As there were no sawmills driven by water, the frame and covering of their houses must be got out by hand. Boards as well as joists were sawed in saw pits, as they were called, i. e., two men, one above on a scaffolding, and one below in the pit, work- ing the saw, but most of the covering stuff for buildings was split or cleft. These cloven boards, or clapboards, were com- monly from four to six feet long, five inches wide and six-eighths of an inch thick on the back. Shingles were all the way from fourteen inches to three feet long, and one inch thick at the thick end. At first all stuff was split from oak.
Fences, next in order after roads and houses, were built. The home lots, which were fenced by the owners, usually with posts and rails, required above twenty miles of fencing. The common fields, except Great Meadow, which was surrounded by ponds and brooks, were usually enclosed with a broad ditch, on the bank of which were set two poles or three rails, making the whole over four feet in height. The ditch was on the out- side, as the main object was to keep out roving animals. The by-laws regarding fences were minute and strict. Common fences were required to be made good by March 20th of each year, and to be so close as to keep out swine three months old. Each proprietor of a common field was required to fence accord- ing to the number of acres he held in the field, and "To have a stake twelve inches high at the end of his fence, with the two first letters of his name facing the way the fence runs." The location of a man's fence, like that of his land, was determined by lot.
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Gates were placed wherever a road crossed a common field. If a person, owner or traveler, left open the gates or bars of a meadow after March 20, he had to pay 2s. 6d .; at a later date the fine was 5 shillings besides all damages. Gates were in existence on the River road and in other parts of the town after the Revolution.
All males over sixteen years were required to work one day yearly on the highway and owners of meadow land at the rate of one day for every twenty acres. All over fourteen years were required to work one day in June cutting brush or clearing the commons.
At first the tillage lands were devoted mainly to corn, wheat, peas and flax, as these were the essential articles of food and the means of payment of debts and taxes, and an important item of each season's work was the gathering of fire wood and candle wood. The latter was the pitch, or hard pine, and was the only substitute for candles for a number of years.
The first gristmill was built in 1662 by Thomas Meekins, on Hatfield Mill River. (The stream in a town on which a mill was first erected was usually called Mill River.) He re- ceived a grant of twenty acres near the mill for building it, and the town agreed to have all the grain ground at his mill "Pro- vided he make good meal."
FORMATION OF A CHURCH AND INCORPORATION OF THE TOWN. The west side proprietors grew and multiplied so that at the end of seven years they numbered forty-seven families. The river was a serious obstacle to the enjoyment of religious ordinances, and as early as 1667 a petition for a separate society was sent to the General Court. The next year the Court granted them leave to settle and maintain a minister, but Hadley objected, and an earnest controversy ensued, the result of which was that the west side was incorporated into a town by the name of Hatfields, May 31, 1670. At the time the Court granted leave for separate church privileges they determined to have their own preaching whether Hadley consented or not, and at a "side meeting," as it was called, held Nov. 6, 1668, a committee was chosen "To provide a boarding place for a minister and arrange for his maintenance, also to build a meeting-house thirty feet square." No plantation was considered fit for municipal privileges till a meeting-house and minister were provided for, and it is likely that their determined action in this matter in-
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duced the Court to set them off into a town, even before they expected, or were quite ready for it.
In addition to preparation for the ordinances it was voted, at a side meeting, February, 1670, to lay out a piece of ground twenty rods long by eight rods wide, upon the plain near Thomas Meekin's land, for a burying place. They had also virtually "called" their minister and fixed his salary before incorporation. In the November following Mr. Hope Atherton, the pastor elect, signified his acceptance of the call, and the town voted him, in addition to the home lot of eight acres, the ministerial allotment in the meadows "To build him a house, forty by twenty feet, double story," and allow him £60 a year, two- thirds in wheat and one-third in pork, with the proviso, "If our crops fall so short that we cannot pay him in kind, then we are to pay him in the next best way we have," and the further proviso, that if Mr. Atherton left them before his death certain sums were to be refunded the town. The precise date of the formation of the church is unknown, but there is pretty clear evidence, however, that it took place near the first of April, 1671.
It appears that only six of the male inhabitants were church members. These were Thomas Meekins, Sr., William Allis, John Cole, Sr., Isaac Graves, Samuel Belden and either Rich- ard Billings or William Gull. At a meeting in February, 1671, the town voted that these resident members should "Be those to begin in gathering the church, and that they should have power to choose three persons to make up nine to join in the work." The exact import of this last clause is not apparent. "As seven is the least number by which the rule of church dis- cipline in the eighteenth chapter of Matthew can be reduced to practice, that number has been held necessary to form a church state. [Ency. Rel. Knowl.] And we find that at Northamp- ton, in 1661, seven men, called the "seven pillars," were organ- ized as a church. Also at Westfield, in 1679, seven men, called "foundation men," were selected to be formed into church state.
Thus all the essentials of social life-homes, fenced fields, roads, a grist mill, a burying place, a meeting house and min- ister-were secured. Schools, as we now use the term, were not regarded a necessity in the first years of a settlement. In- deed, the public or free school system was not a germ, but a growth of our institutions. To give all access to the Holy Scriptures family instruction in spelling and reading was con- sidered obligatory and was common from the first. To secure
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this a law was passed in 1642 requiring the selectmen of towns to look after the children of parents and masters who neglected to bring them up in "learning and labor." In 1647 it was en- acted that every town with fifty families should provide a school where children might be taught to read and write. Practically this secured an education to only those who were able to pay for it and it was commonly understood to apply only to boys.
The first books used were the "Horn Book," Primer, Psal- ter and Testament. The Horn Book was the alphabet and a few rudiments printed on one side of a card and pasted upon a board, and this was covered with translucent horn to prevent its being soiled. They were in use till about 1700 when Dilworth's spelling book was introduced.
Hatfield had a school regularly established in 1678, two- thirds of the expense being borne by the scholars and one-third by the town. The first schoolhouse was built in 1681 and Dr. Thomas Hastings was the first teacher. It was not uncommon to unite the profession of physician and teacher in the same per- son, and as the grandmothers were mainly relied on for prescrip- tions and poultices he seems to have found sufficient time for the discharge of duty in the double capacity. The school year was divided into two ternis, beginning respectively about April I and October 1. A separate rate was made for each term, the parent paying for only the time his child attended. From a record of attendance for 1698-9 it appears that thirty-seven boys were pupils in the winter and thirty-eight in the summer, of whom only four were writers. The salary of the teacher was £30 to £35 per year, payable in grain. This school became free in 1722.
Though the statutes relating to schools use the word child- ren, yet it was understood to apply primarily to boys. Girls were taught to read at home or by "dames" who gathered a class at their private dwellings, but the education of girls seems to have been regarded as unnecessary for the first hundred years of the New England colonies. Even so late as the Amer- ican Revolution comparatively few women could write their names. In the grammar schools of most of the older towns no girls were found. Boston did not allow them to attend the pub- lic schools till 1790. Northampton admitted them for the first time in 1802.
There is evidence that girls attended the school in Hatfield when it was first opened and for several years thereafter and
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pursued the same studies as the boys. From 1695 to 1699 none are found upon the list. In 1700, during the winter term, four girls and forty-two boys were in attendance. In 1709 there were sixteen girls in a class of sixty-four, which shows a rapid change in public sentiment.
Probably the mothers, educated in their girlhood by Dr. Hast- ings, discovered the advantage of an education, (possibly their husbands found out the same fact), and when their daughters arrived at a suitable age they sent them to school, and thus the custom originated and rapidly gained force which resulted in the free school of 1722.
With this fact in mind, there is seen to be a striking fitness that a Hatfield woman, Miss Sophia Smith, should be the first to found a female college in Massachusetts. Whately wisely adopted her mother's views, as no one remembers the time when girls did not commonly attend school and pursue the same stud- ies as boys.
These early settlers lived mostly within themselves, depend- ing on the produce of their lands and cattle, though some, in addition to farming, did carpenter's or blacksmith's work and coopering. The women helped their husbands, reared children, bolted the flour and spun flax and wool and wove them into cloth.
Most families had a few cows and sheep, and many swine. Oxen were used for farm work and to haul grain and flour to market and horses were kept solely for the saddle. Money was scarcely a circulating medium and trade was mostly "in kind" or wampum.
Zechariah Field was the first who carried on trade in Hat- field, but his business was limited and proved unprofitable. Families bought most of their goods of John Pynchon of Spring- field, and paid in wheat, flour, pork and malt.
Taxes were paid in grain, and even the sacramental charges of the church were paid in wheat, for which purpose three half-pecks per member per year appears to have been the usual requirement.
The only communication with the outside world was with Northampton and Springfield and their old homes in Connecti- cut. There was a cartway to Windsor and Hartford by way of Westfield, and there was a road to Springfield on the east side of the river. The Bay Road, through Quaboag, (Brookfield) was only a horse path till after 1700.
CHAPTER III.
THE FIRST INDIAN WAR, 1675-1678.
Thus in their quiet seclusion and healthful pursuits, and the enjoyment of social and Christian intercourse, they passed fifteen years. Some who came to the valley with gray hairs had laid them down to rest in the old grave-yard. The infant had become a youth and the youth had reached manhood. With some homesickness and reverses the sun of prosperity beamed kindly and brightly, and a future full of promise and hope for their children seemed opening upon them. But on a sudden this quiet life was broken up. War in its most frightful form, war, such as the merciless and treacherous savage knows how to wage, burst upon them !
Up to this time the whites and red men had lived together on terms of friendship. There was no social equality and no mingling of races. Each led his own distinctive life and, though the separation between the two forms became daily more apparent, no conflict occurred and suspicion, if it existed, was studiously concealed. The English had plowed for the Indians the reserved planting field or, as they sometimes preferred, had rented their own plowed fields, the squaws planting and tending them "at halves;" the Indians had dwelt in their Fort or pitched their wigwams on the Commons and sometimes on the home lots and gone in and out at pleasure. The only danger apprehended seems to have been from the thieving and begging propensities of the savages and their anger when under the influence of alcoholic drink. The people erected no fortifications, and the militia men were rather for ornament than use. Hatfield had only six troopers in 1674.
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It had been the custom for the Indians to apply for ground to plant upon and make arrangements for the same, very early in the season, usually in February, but this spring (1675) they were silent on the subject and made no preparation for putting in a crop. They also removed their wigwams, and whatever goods they claimed, from the home lots and adjacent meadows to the fort. And early in summer a favorite squaw counseled goodwife Wright of Northampton "To get into town with her children." These things were known, but attracted little attention. They may have awakened suspicion, but it could hardly be called alarm as it led to no special preparations for defence.
In about three weeks after the Brookfield fight, the scat- tered bands of Indians gathered on the Connecticut river. They concentrated at the Fort between Northampton and Hatfield. Capt. Lathrop and Capt. Beers, with their companies, composed mostly of men from the eastern part of the state, having scoured the region of the river, came to Hadley, probably on the 23d of August. As a precautionary measure, rather than from a belief in their hostile intentions, it was judged best to disarm the Indians then in the Fort. And on the next day a parley was held and a formal demand for the surrender of their arms was made. The Indians objected and demanded time for considera- tion. And it was finally agreed that if a deputation should be sent over the next morning, a final answer would then be given. Distrusting their sincerity, the officers determined to surround the Fort and secure their arms by force, if need be. To effect this with certainty, about midnight word was sent to the com- manding officer at Northampton to bring up his company to the south of the Fort, "As near as they could without being per- ceived," while the others would post themselves on the north. The two companies then crossed to the Hatfield side and moved quietly down, reaching the Fort a little before break of day.
But the movement was too late to effect its object. The wily savage had fled, taking arms, goods and all, having first killed an old sachem who opposed their plans.
After a brief council of war, the captains resolved to follow and with one hundred men pursued "At a great pace," up the Deerfield path. The Indians had evidently anticipated such a movement and were lying in ambush in a swamp near the road. From the facts that have come to light, it seems probable that the English captains expected to hold a parley rather than to
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fight, and were marching without special precaution. But on a sudden, as the troops were crossing the head of a ravine, the Indians "Let fly about forty guns at them." Our men quickly returned the fire; some of them rushed down into the swamp, forcing the enemy to throw away much of their baggage, and after awhile each man, after the Indian manner, got behind his tree and watched his opportunity to get a shot at them. The fight continued about three hours, when the Indians withdrew. "We lost six men upon the ground, a seventh died of his wounds coming home and two died the next night, making nine in all."* Only one of the killed, Richard Fellows, belonged to Hatfield.
Owing to an apparent contradiction in the two accounts of this fight extant, Mr. Russell of Hadley placing it at "A swamp beyond Hatfield" and Hubbard saying it occurred "Ten miles above Hatfield, at a place called Sugar Loaf Hill," the location has not been hitherto identified.
But there is really no contradiction. Both accounts are agreed that it was a swamp above Hatfield, at a place called Sugar Loaf Hill. It is also clear that our men were pursuing the usual Indian trail between Hatfield and Deerfield. , If, then, a spot can be found where the trail skirts the edge of the swamp near the foot of Sugar Loaf, the presumption would be that the ambush was concealed at that point. And if this point furnished a background fitted for a cover, and at the same time afforded good chance of retreating in case of defeat, the presumption would amount to almost certainty. The chief ground of doubt remaining is the "ten miles from Hatfield," stated by Hubbard. But Mr. Hubbard received hisinformation at second hand, while Mr. Russell, who lived at Hadley and gathered his account at the time from the soldiers themselves, names no distance. And this apparent difficulty vanishes when the common estimate (for no measurement had then been made) of distances on this path is considered. As appears from papers relating to the "Dedham Grant" the distance from Hadley to Deerfield was reckoned "twelve miles." Taking this estimated distance as a basis for getting a ratio of the true distance, the "ten miles" would be to the southward of Sugar Loaf. The only remaining difficulty is as to the exact line of march. By reference to the Indian deed and the act defining the north line of Hatfield, it is plain that the Deerfield path crossed Sugar Loaf Brook where said
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