USA > Massachusetts > Hampden County > Holyoke > Holyoke daily transcript > Part 6
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"One eye chused up, and the other coal black, Street, Street, you're drunk."
The scholastic glee hurst all bounds, the school howled ¡is one, and in the writer's enthusiasin hie bounded up on a settee, when "Stubby" Chase, fixing him with a cold, gray eve, said: "Allyn, call and see me after school, and pos- sibly I can calm your exidtation." It was already calmed, and in mortal terror I waited to go to the office with a diminutive Irish lad named Michael Lavelle, older, but
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SKETCH OF HOLYOKE
GEORGE H. ALLYN
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DR. J. G. O'CONNOR.
even smaller than myself. While awaiting the flagellation the writer probably looked ghasther than a corpse, for the warmı little Irishi heart of "Micky" Lavelle was stirred with compassion, and he whispered sympathetically: "Don't yon be afraid, George, I'll punch him." The exquisite humor of three-foot, ten-year-old "Mickey's" thrashing the wiry principal restored the writer's equanimity, and event- ually Mr. Chase discharged ns without the thrashing.
I have often thought that St. George, attacking the dragon, and Leonidas sending defiance to the three million Persians, were poor and weak compared with the defiant courage of little "Micky" Lavelle.
111 1872 came H. B. Lawrence to this school, and what he was to the youth of the city cannot be fitly related. Teacher from the crown of his head to the soles of his feet, he fairly drove education into his pupils, and inoch- lated them with the fever. Not a scholar hut knew that the best and greatest favor he could ilu Mlr. Lawrence was lo make rapid progress in learning The dallest and crudest would probably expand under his care until the result would be almost unbelievable. If Holyoke ever erects a Hall of Fame there should be inscribed, hugh up on the scroll, simply, "H. B. Lawrence, Teacher," and some of our presidents have earned less of real honor than that sym- bolized by the one simple line.
By 1870 Holyoke had gone ahead splendidly ; the old Albion Paper Company had been formed, the new Prentiss Wire Mill on Dwight street, am) the Crocker No 1, and also the U'nion Paper Company (succeeding the Bemuss ) established, the Holyoke & Wessfielil railroad projected, the Riverside Paper Company hanil been organized and a mill built back in 1867, and the popularmm huil merensed to 10.133, a figure no scholar of those days ought ever to forget, in view of the way it was drilled into its.
There was steady work, and plenty of it. The spirit of linstle and success had pervaded the bustling town, We had no suburbs really worthy of the name, no Highlands (save the Manchester Grounds ), and the most pretentions house in the Highland section was George C. Ewing's brick mansion on Dwight street, erected a few years before.
The wain of an adequate water supply held subur- ban development in a viee. Several nice resulences had been erected down town, and more were planning. In the next few years the fine William Whiting, Jaines H. Newton, R. P. Crafts, George W. Prentiss, and others were built.
It w.is not till 1819-70 that the water question was keenly agitated, and August 2, 1871, a citizens' committee was furmed, comprising Messrs. John C. Newton, Timothy
Merrick. W. B. C. Pearsons, and others. to see what could be done. An awful sen- son of drought set in that year, the pump- ing machmery of the reservoir works broke down, and the writer will never forget "hooting it" down to the river bank, where there were some nice, cool springs, for pails of drinking water, while the domestic supply was teamed up the steep grade from the sawmill in barrels. C Waldo Kelton, who drew a lot of it when he worked for the writer's father. always maintained that the horse he used went blind afterwards because of the ter- rific pull up the steep grade. The Man- chester Grounds at that time were sup- plied from the Mt. Tom Aqueduct Com- pany, whose spring was in the rear of the Wakelin residence, about 400 yards to the northwest, but that also failed, and water was hawked through the streets in bar- rels.
Holyoke's most hardened "soaks" real- 7ed the need of water that senson,
After considering five plans the taking over of Ashley and Wright ponds was de- termined upon, the necessary legislation secured, the first water board comprising Judge J. P. Buckland, W. B. C. Pearsons. John Delancy, Dennis Higgins, Joel Rus- sell, and Jolin E. Chase chosen March 21. 1872, bonds to the amount of $250,000 is- sued, and the work begun.
The ponds comprised a flowage of one hundred and eighty-tive acres, had a wa- ter shed of three and one-fourth square miles, and were promptly acquired with the land immediately adjoining.
Then came the question whether a branch main should be laid down Northampton street ti the "Manchester Grounds." or whether it should be left for a later day.
The Water Power Company, though most liberal in its policy toward incoming manufacturers, was dog-in-the- mangerish toward owners of outlying land. The Man- chester Grounds extension would bring the George C. Ewing, the J. F Allyn, Edwin Perkins, and R. M. Fairfield Iand into ilemand, and the company fought the extension with the utmost bitterness, using the same arguments which recently obtained against the Smiths Ferry exten- sion, viz .: That the income from consumers wouldn't war- rant the expenditure.
But we had big men in those heroic days and the extension was promptly determined upon. Even before the work was completed, on August 6. 1873, the land boom started. James F. Allyn built a beautiful resilence on Pleasant street, where before there had been but three houses, ouc small one jas south of where the First Congregational Church now stands. A small honse at the corner of Pleasant and Dwight streets, oc- enpieil by J. F Sullivan, and a little house nearly opposite where liveil a German named Wagner. This worthy man started in what we would now call the express or MMIT- cel delivery business, but ms those days the vehicles were called "joh wagons." The Tenton proceeded to letter the wagon himself, and. to the infinite delight of all the imterrified youth, he spelled it. "Gub Wagon." The Transcript hilariously com- mented upon it for a week or two. and the small boys nearly suffocated with their emotions, till some kindly spiris told the Teuton where the trouble lay, und the next issue of the Transcript announced that the "Gob Wagon" had "gone to the paint shop for repairs."
Lots on Pleasant and Pearl streets went hke hot cakes with the pros- pret of water, and the territory near- ly all changed hands on paper, most
of the buying being speculative. Then came the terrific panic of 1873, and most of the fots went back to be resold to genuine home-huilders.
The Holyoke Public Library was established May 16. 1870, W. S. Loomis being the king pin The library was first in the Appleton street school, and the writer verily be- lieves he drew the first volume from it, being promptly on hand at 2 p. m., when it opened, and, while he is prone to forget what happened yesterday or last week, he remem- bers to this day the name and number of the book, Mayne Reid's Boy Hunters, Shelf 73, No 93. If any old catalogue of the original library exists we should be glad to have our recollection tested.
Miss Sarah Ely, the first and long-time librarian, was a remarkable woman. Not only did she have a phenome- nal knowledge of what the library contained, but an intui- tive knowledge of what appealed to the youthful mmd. Her selection was almost magically attractive to all classes, and the writer used to wonder at the range of her mind.
Some thirty years later W. S. Loomis inaugurated a movement for a new hbrary, to which the cuizens con- trilinted most generously, and the Holyoke Water Power Company donated a valuable, central and sightly lot, so that the beantiinl building on Maple street was completed and occupied in 1902.
In 1870-71 the commercial aspect of the brisk town had changed considerably. Main street was beconung a factor, quite a number of blocks having been built south of Dwight street during the 60's. David Adler was the first Jewish merchant we personally recall, he locating in 1867 or 1868, just south of the Hadley Falls bank, where George Attinger now holds forth. This section between Dwight and Cross streets soon became to be known as "Rum Row "
In the early 70's, Matt Walsh, John Ayen, Martin Smith, Tom Lawler, Matthew Doland, John Norton, Gar- ret Barry and others dispensed the liquid refreshment, but Jolis Ayen was, by universal consent, awarded the palm for the best heer, and thirsty souls would foot it down from the "hill" to have a schooner drawn by John's skilled hand. Tom Crowley was the most enterprising huilder of the late 60's and carly 70's, Judge Pearsons being his backer.
Mr. Crowley built many of the wooden blocks now standing at the northerly section of Ward Fonr.
The Thorpe brothers, Charles and George, were just making a hegmning up at Ewingville. Tom Fair was an extremely enterprising merchant, making money like smoke, only to lose it later Herman Berger used to drive in with a magnificent four-horse team and a palatial dry goods cart (Jin Fisk style), and he coined money while so doing. But later, opening a large dry goods store on High street, he "went broke."
Blake & Johoun had come to be numbered among
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the druggists, also Brown Brothers, at the corner of High and Hampden streets, opposite J E. Morrill. Mrs. Honora Manning was doing splendidly m millinery and dry goods, while John O'Connell. John O'Donnell, Dennis Higgins. Doyle & Finn, and Thomas Dillon were all doing finely.
The Water Power Company had long looked with envious eyes at the property on Depot Hill owned by Uncle Sam Ely. It was their intention to purchase it, grade it down, and make it conform to their adjoining holdings. But Uncle Sam was a peculiar man in his likes and dis- likes and in his ideas. H. P. Terry wished to buy a lot of him in the early 60's, and Mr. Ely decided to sell hiin one for $100. Later Mr. Ely told Mr. Terry he couldn't con- scientiously make the sale, for he couldn't in common honesty charge later purchasers any higher price. Rufus Mosher had prospered in the livery and grain business, and, forming a partnership with Grosvenor B. Bowers. bought the Samnel Ely holdlings for $40,000. This settled the grade question, for no one but the Water Power Com- pany would stand the expense.
The venture was a profitable one, and later on Mosher
Ward One people (or Depot Hlill, as we styled them be- fore the town became a city) used to call them "woman- killers," because of the necessity of the housewives going from floor to floor to do their work.
Curtis Moore and J. D. Hardy built on Depot Hill in 1872.
Union street was building up from Lyman to Foun- tain street, and detached brick cottages had been built on Newton street, and were a little later built in adjoining sections on Newton place.
After the destruction of the Exchange block, Parsons llall, on Race street, was built, and many a rip-roaring old-time show was given there. Political meetings were also held there.
The Holyoke House (as the Hamilton was then called) was extremely prosperous under the management of E. M. Belden.
Former proprietors whose names we recall had been Messrs. Ross, Brown, Leavitt; we believe there were sev- eral others, but under Belden's management, with Charles Mayo as elerk, its greatest prosperity obtained.
the early 70's there was a slaughter house near the present Wheelock house on Pleasant street, this being the J. F. Allyn & Co. abattoir. Near the corner of Lincoln and Tay- lor streets was the E. Perkins & Co. house, and over in Oakdale, near the junction of Oak and Hampshire streets. was the A. & S. B. Allyn house.
Mr. Nash used to drive the western cattle to the re- spective slaughter houses mounted on a wiry old mare, and they were about as fieree to a footman as so many tigers. L. & W. Perkins exhibited one pair of horns with a spread of five feet from tip to tip. Much of this beef was butch- ered in the afternoon and sold for consumption next dav. and naturally was very fresh and very tough.
One yellow tiger-like steer escaped from the Perkins' slaughter house and was later shot on Blandford mountain.
Abont 1874 Nash & Perkins ( William Nash and Levi Perkins) formed a copartnership and built a mammoth abattoir down on the river bank in Ward One, in which a tremendous business was carried on till the Brightwood plant was built, in the late 80's, though the firm became Nash, Holmes & Co., in 1870, Mr. Perkins withdrawing a
Top row, left to right :- George Bassett, C. H. Knight, A. J. Williams, John Emerson, Charles Herrick, L. C. Dam, James Bigelow. Bottom row, left to right :- John Evans, Isaac Berry, A. C. Pratt, Levi Lamb, Q. W. Lovering, Fred Davis.
bought out Bowers. Ward One built up with great rapid- ity, and included a large portion of the French population that were crowding rapidly in, and some of whom were already becoming prominent. The brothers Prew. Gilbert Potvin, Peter Monat, Isaac Perry, the Moquins, Menards, and others, were showing thrift and push. A church had been built on Cabot street, in 1869, which was the scene of a terrible tragedy on May 27, 1875, when fire caught the altar draperies, and seventy-one persons per- ished. Our present fire chief, J. T. Lynch, displayed splen- did heroism, standing at the door of the blazing furnace- like church, and dragging out people from the heart of the flames.
Holyoke was proud of him then, and is today.
One of the carlier business blocks in Ward One was built on Lyman street by William Ruddy. afterwards mayor, and another was owned by M. J. Teahan.
W. A. Miller bought a tract of land on West street. put in an avenue known to this day as "Miller avenue," and built a number of double brick cottages. These had a base- ment and two floors above for each tenement, and the
Mamsell & Sears had a grocery store where L. Sears & Co. now are, and later Mr. Munsell went into the shoe business on Main street. In the early 80's he made an assignment, but the assignee was able to pay every bill, dollar for dollar with interest, a most surprising experience considering the average run of failures, but exemplifying Mr. Munsell's sterling integrity. Richards & Thayer did a flourishing grocery business at South Holyoke.
The Whiting Paper Company's business had gone ahead with such tremendous strides that the big No. 2 mill on Dwight street had been built. The Holyoke Warp Com- pany had been organized, and the Excelsior Paper Mill was building.
Edw Whitney and George W. Philbrick ran Holyoke, Chicopee, and Springfield express routes, using two-horse tearus, and making one trip a day each way. The Allyns and Perkins controlled the meat business until Seymour E. Gates "butted in," and so much of a gentlemen's agreement was there then that William Nash, who used to wholesale the western cattle for some time, refused to sell to Mr. Gates, who had to pick his beef up around the country. In
few years later, and going into the pork business. The Ward One abattoir was not wholly abandoned till 1890. John M. Carlon, the present beef inspector, was one of the most expert of the Nash & Perkins' butchers, and merci- fully killed each bullock with a single bullet from a 32- calibre Stevens' rifle, an improvement over the old-fash- ioned pole-axe method.
It was inevitable that strong-hearted and strong- minded men like the pioneers of those early days should disagree, but when it came to pulling for Holyoke's welfare they were a unit. S. S. Chase, agent of the Water Power Company, and Timothy Merrick, of the Merrick Thread Company, were frequently opposed.
They lived on opposite corners of Chestnut and Suf- folk streets in 1869, and one morning carly are said to have got into a fierce altercation. The four or five delighted eye- witnesses each gave different versions of the repartee, none perhaps correct, bnt one had it that Mr. Merrick said : "Chase, I don't say you are a liar, but you talk like some of the most splendid liars I ever knew."
Mr. Chase is said to have answered: "Merrick, I
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T
wouldn't call you a thief, but you have a very comprehen- sive and nequiring chisposition." But both men worked in misun for Holyoke.
George C Ewing and Levi Perkins were also fre- quently at swords points. Levi Perkins was, as has been said, a diamond in the rough, big-hearted, generons to a fault. lle would express himself strongly imder provoca- tion. So that when, in Inter years, he was elected state senator, some trouble-maker hastes.ed to carry the news to Mr. Ewing,
That dry old Yankee expressed himself as delighted, to the grent chagrin of the newsmonger. "What," he sput- tered, "you're glad!
"Certainly," replied Mr. Ewing, "and I think he should be elected president of the Senate. He'd sit up there in the chair and say : 'You blankety blank, blank, blank -- sen- ators, come to order; why in h-1 don't you take your scats ?' "
The writer well recalls the presidential campaign of 1872, and the marching ranks of "boys in blue," largely re- crnited from the Union veterans, many of whom were then but little more than boys. W H4. Abbott, for instance, could have been but about twenty-five years of age. Charles Ely was a specially big gin in the organization, and told
and it was a sigh for the gods to see bim streaking it through the fields after the Avet truants.
During this period George C. Ewing was building quite a few houses in the Dwight street Ewingville section, and Asn Willard had built the fat-roofed houses on the enst side of Elm street, from Suffolk street sonth. R. P Crafts also built his fine residence in 1872, and along this period E. C. Tuft, Joel Russell, J. S. Webher, C. A. Corser, and William Grover Imilt, the latter on the site now ocen- pred by the Holyoke Street Railway. Anderson, Samuel, and James F. Allyn also built at or before this date. The Samosett Honse, built in the 30's, had a varying career, sometimes being quite a fine hostelry, and at other times re- garded as a den of iniquity.
We can only recall a few of the proprietors personally : Myron Green, C. H. Hatfield, and S. J. Hobbs, but there were a number of others. A Mr. Dickinson, who ran the place and kept a livery stable in the 60's, relates that the uld dam ned to rumble with the volume of water so that it would seriously annoy strangers, though Holyokers were su accustomed to the sound that they were not aware of it.
One fellow stopped there and, by chance, hash was served at supper and breakfast. He remarked in the morn- ing that they must have chopped up enough hash during
"wuth it," and only the big-brained, far-secing pioneers of Holyoke would have been broad enough to build a city hall befitting a city of 100,000 people for one of then 12,000, In the Ponosby failure a number of local contractors lost, and enmities were engendered that lasted for a score of years after.
During the next ten years Holyoke went ahead with leaps and bounds. Lynch Brothers, L. P. Bosworth, and John Delaney had all they could do supplying brick and stone, and "Bill" Barrett and Daniel O'Connell were busy excavators. A part of Pleasant street and the north end of 'Taylor street, as far as Lincoln, was built np, and with the advent of L. B. White, in 1877, the Highland district grew like a mushroom. Mr. White became wealthy, and then in the carly 80's undertook the building of Fairmount Square, which broke him about 1886-87.
He retained the Fairfehl avenue property, which the creditors didn't think worth while taking over, and became well-to-do again in the early DD's, going bruke ngain on the building of the Empire Theater, and leaving the city in 1896-97.
Until the City hall was started there was nothing on Dwight street, from the Congregational Church down to Front street, worthy of the name of a building. But in
Top row, left to right .- William Ruddy, Thomas Pierce, William Grover. George Golithwaite, Horace Wheeler Bottom row, left to right :-- Andrew Nye. A. H. Dawley. 1 .. F. Heywood, James Rudds, Smwon Fairbanks.
mure big stories tham even the politicians could swallow withont gasping.
In 1873, on April 7th, Governor Washburn signed the bill incorporating Holyoke as a city, and the first city gov- ernment was elected the following fall.
Sime of the carly policemen that we personally recall were W. H. H. Marsh, who afterwards officialed as lamp- lighter ; "Let" Atwood, G. E. Atchinson, Henry Duhaime, Alamado Davis, and last but not least, William G. Ilant, commonly and affectionately known as "Bill" Ham. "Bill ** was chief of police for many years, and gained considerable notoriety at the time of the celebrated E. H. Ball robbery, in 1860. One of the robbers was capturedl and turned state's evidence, and a lot of "joshuing" was inflicted upon Mr. Iam because of his supposed lying in wait in New York, disguised. Considering that "Bill" weighed atumt 280 pounds, and was rather short, disguise would have been difficult, but when the boys wanted to get him going they would ask him seriously if it was a fact that he put on corsets in New York to perfect his disguise.
A. M. Shepardson, stove and tin man, and afterwards truant officer, was a boon companion of Mr Ham, both hig-hearted, kindly men. "Shep" (as he was commonly called) was about six feet four inches tall and very slim,
the mght to run the hotel for a month, as all he could hear all night was the thin-thnd of the chopper on the bowl. 'The bnuming roar of the dam was what had ileceived him Doody's block and a number ni the wooden structures still standing on Maple street, were built long before this period.
In INio the building of a city hall was Grat agitated, and the land bought of the Newtons in 1871, with an ad- ditiopal strip of 12 feet on the somherly end later. The contract was let to Richard Ponushy for, it is stated, $tot,- 000, but, as the writer remembers it, tins was exclusive of the foundation, costing $23,0110, so that the original est :- mated cost was $192,000.
But Pimashy was "dend show" with a losing contract, and the newly orgamved city government threw up the con- tract and fimshed the building with Watson Lly as super- intendent, and anything that Mr. Ely constructed was bound tu he iron ribbed and rock bottom.
W'e recall a line of Miss Emma Wilson's valedietory poem at the high school graduation of 1874: "One ornate and costly building slowly rears its towers of stone," and indeed the building was not finished till the centennial year of 1876, nt a cost of nearly $400,000.
Bnt, as the old Yankee farmers used to say, it was
1875 Metcalf & Luther bought a tract of land of Whiting & Brown, and soon after erected the Holyoke Furniture Com- pany's building, now owned by Livermore-Martin. For several years this concern, with Tilley & Kellogg on Main street, did the furniture business of the city.
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