USA > Massachusetts > Hampden County > Springfield > King's handbook of Springfield, Massachusetts : a series of monographs, historical and descriptive > Part 5
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Another wide and leafy street, pervaded by the quiet rural beauty and still life of roomy and thrifty farmhouses, is Agawam. The query is sug- gested, Why have all these Connecticut-river villages the same spacious breadth of the long central street ? It was from no æsthetic inclination of the founders; but because, with deep forests and the wild beasts in their rear, and lurking Indians all about, they would provide for the "home commons," where the domestic animals might have a roaming-place, guarded by fences, and within sight and call.
There are parallel roads going down the river-side; one skirting the western bank, with charming prospects of land and water, and meeting the Thompsonville Ferry; another turning back to Feeding Hills ; another to the Southwick ponds ; and another stretching on to the goodly old town of Suffield, and, if one would take a longer ride, to the old ruin of the Sims- bury copper-mines, long famous by prison romance as the Newgate of Con- necticut. Each of these roads is replete with an attractive beauty of continual changing prospects, and not the least, that which is lent by a fertile soil and a thrifty agriculture. The luxuriant, and, as it were, spon- taneous growth of trees and crops belonging to the Connecticut Valley, together with its sheltered situation, gives it a tropical aspect as compared with other portions of New England.
Returning to Springfield by the South-end Bridge, another costly and recent iron-and-stone structure of light and elegant proportions, and com- manding, alike with its northern compeer, a magnificent sweep of the river, with its outlying scenery of city spire and tower, and woodland height crowned with arsenal and mansion, the broad meadows and over-
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looking headlands, and the more distant mountains, let us take the southern highway to Longmeadow. For a while it skirts the river, with the Hart- ford and New-Haven Railway between. On the left rises Long Hill, whence from their palisaded fort 300 of King Philip's Indians stole forth to burn the infant settlement of Springfield ; and at its foot, crosses Pecousic Brook, where John Keep of Longmeadow, with his wife and child, when on their way to Springfield church, were killed by ambushed Indians, and others of their party wounded. Here in Pecousic valley was an Indian village. Rising Pecousic Hill, and now within Longmeadow boundaries, we look back from its elevated plateau on Springfield, set like a gem upon the arm of the circling river, expanding here to the proportions of a lake. If one leaves the highway to the left for the views from either the Goldthwait or the Huck estate, or the open field between them, he will find them of surpassing loveliness. Or if he traverses the woods on the other side of the highway till he comes to the outlook towards the north, or west, or south, he will discover other views of changing beauty, which must by and by attract the eye of future builders, as Mr. Barney has been attracted by the site on which his beautiful house is being erected on the northern side of Pecousic valley.
This southern highway brings us next into the spacious street of Long- meadow, which was laid out by the founders for a "home commons," to the breadth of 16 rods, for a distance of about three miles. As we approach its centre, the straggling houses become a compact village, and the generous street becomes a park-like lawn, shaded by lofty elms or spreading maples. On each side of the green expanse and the double highway, are roomy and well-kept homesteads ; combining in their varied architecture the flavor of a quaint antiquity with the elegance of modern taste, and generally blending, without any division barriers of inhospitable fences, their private grounds with the public green. Longmeadow, like West Springfield, has an ancient and honorable history belonging to sturdy settlers, a permanent ministry, and a stanch fidelity to New-England principles and institutions, which has well preserved the unbroken unity, both social and religious, of the former days when it was the third parish of Springfield.
The quaint old meeting-house, which antedated the incorporation of Longmeadow as a town a hundred years ago, was not long since removed from its place in the centre of the green to the adjacent front of the ancient cemetery, and thoroughly renovated ; the only apparent reminders of the old structure being the massive beams (wrought by the recent architect into forms of beauty), the venerable weathercock, and the ancient bell. There is a tradition that this bell, remarkable for its sweet tones, was intended by Lord Somers for the neighbor town, which was named after him, but found its way, by some cross-purpose, into the Longmeadow belfry of the still
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more ancient meeting-house reared in 1716. "Thirty eight feet square," the old specifications describe it, "if the timber that is already gotten will allow it; or, if the timber be too scant, to make it something less." For a century and a half it has magnified its office, ringing out the old and ringing in the new. Until a recent date it tolled off the age of every person in the village who had died, rang a merry peal at noon, and again at nine o'clock at night the curfew chimes. It rang the Lexington alarm, and echoed the Declaration of Independence. It rang so furiously at the joy- ful news of the peace that concluded the war of 1812, that it was cracked, and had to be recast. It tolled the funeral knell for Washington and for Lincoln, and has celebrated all the decisive victories, from the surrender of Cornwallis to that of Lee. It has called to united worship an undivided people, who, since their separation from the mother church in Springfield, have retained their original and unsectarian name, "The First Church of Christ in Longmeadow."
The cemetery in the rear of the church is remarkable for its serried ranks of primitive gravestones, monumental tablets, and quaint inscriptions, call- ing to mind an English churchyard. The chapel which stands adjacent to the church has been long familiar to Springfield and its surroundings as the place of a popular annual festivity, "The Longmeadow May Breakfast." Always closely allied with Springfield, Longmeadow promises to become yet more intimately connected by reason of its local attractions as a sub- urban place of residence. Its broad and level streets, stretching three miles from the Springfield line to that of Enfield, and elevated ninety feet upon the plateau which commands the "long meddowe " and the river, so beauti- ful as well as healthy for situation, will continue to attract the lookers-out for roomy sites and rural homes. Its manufacturing interests in buttons, spectacles, and thimbles, once considerable, have, since the civil war, de- parted to Springfield, save one belonging to William W. Coomes, who continues the thimble and spectacle manufacture.
If we continue our southern route, the thriving factories of Thompson- ville soon appear ; and next, Enfield with its wide and handsome street, in the former days allied to Springfield before Connecticut claimed its jurisdiction.
If we turn now from the main southern highway to the left, we shall strike into the Longmeadow forest, which began from Pecousic Hill. It extends from that point eastward, as well as southward, for several miles, and with such an adaptation of soil that it will probably continue indefinitely to be a forest. A few years ago a wild boar, imported when young from Smyrna into Longmeadow, escaped from its owner, Francis T. Cordis ; and such were the wild and intricate recesses of this forest, that a band of expert hunters with their dogs pursued him for many days without success. Cap- tured at last, though not alive, his effigy may be seen, and further inquiries
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made, at the shop of the Springfield naturalist and taxidermist, Mr. Horsford.
This forest is traversed by a labyrinth of roads, some of them in their winding mystery leading into open fields or cleared wood-lots ; and others debouching at Enfield, or the Shaker villages, or East Longmeadow. One attractive terminus is at the Shaker Pond, a little gem of a lake skirted by a lovely grove, and well provided by its proprietor with all conveniences for a picnic-day of rare enjoyment. At the terminus of another road, is the former site of a hermit's residence, one of Longmeadow's eccentric charac- ters, who, in the depths of this forest, trained a number of domestic animals to follow him about in dumb procession, while he preached in stentorian tones his warnings to the Longmeadow people on the village green. Near his cave was a clearing watered by a brook, from which by skilful care he produced luscious fruits. This Longmeadow forest, already attractive to the inhabitants of Springfield for the natural beauty of its secluded and shady drives, promises to be far more so if Pecousic valley shall by and by be utilized as a public park. In that case, the system of park-roads, which should connect all the environs of Springfield in circuits unsurpassed for variety and beauty of natural scenery, will connect also Pecousic valley with the labyrinth of roads already traversing this widely extended forest, and which, with advantage to its proprietors, as well as to the public, and the adjoining towns, might without much extra cost be widened and variously improved, and still leave intact that peculiar charm of the wild woods which no artificial care can equal.
Among the surroundings of Springfield, the quaint establishments of the Enfield Shakers must not be forgotten. In their plain living, combined in such an unworldly way with large wealth, their exquisite domestic neat- ness, their broad and well-tilled acres, their hospitable welcome to the stranger, and the singular repose of their unambitious life, they illustrate the only permanent success of the communistic theory.
East Longmeadow is a thrifty section of the old town, separated from the parent village by several miles of the intervening forest. It promises to outstrip the elder settlement in material wealth, through the increasing enterprise of its quarries of the red sandstone, a beautiful building-material, already famous in many of our American cities. From early times the out- croppings of surface-stone have been quarried more or less by many small proprietors ; but during recent years the capital and machinery needful for more extensive operations have been supplied, and especially by the firms of Norcross Brothers, and James & Mara. In agriculture, too, the inhab- itants of East Longmeadow are moving on, as is apparent by the neat and thrifty look of its farmhouses and their outlying grounds.
As we ride on towards Ludlow, through "Sixteen Acres," Springfield's
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farming district, Wilbraham and Hampden - the latter recently set off from Wilbraham - are well worthy of a detour. The "Springfield Mountains " draw nigh, distinguished for their quiet, rounded woodland beauty, and also as the dwelling-place of that "likely youth nigh twenty-one, Leftenant Mirick's onley son," whose untimely death by "a pisin sarpent at his heal " is celebrated in famous song.
While the staple occupation of Wilbraham and Hampden is farming, which has been productive and remunerative, the cloth-mills at Hampden, and the extensive paper and grain mills at North Wilbraham, or Collinsville, lend to these towns the stir of active business. Although, at this distance from Springfield, there is wanting the peculiar charm of the "great river" and its characteristic valley scenery, yet the diversified surface of hill and vale, and stream and grove, has everywhere its own charms; and these are enhanced by worthy historical associations, the high-toned character of society, and the special literary culture centred in the Wesleyan Academy in Wilbraham Centre, it being the oldest institution under the patronage of the Methodist-Episcopal Church, and one of the best.
We enter Ludlow - once, like Wilbraham, the " outward commons " I of Springfield - at Jenksville, where the falls of Wallamanumps recall the legend of the " Indian Leap," in the old war times, of a party of Indians surprised and hemmed in upon the little peninsula elevated 80 feet above the dashing stream, who, finding no escape, sprang, in their desperation, over the precipice, into the foaming waters.
It is more credibly handed down, that here King Philip encamped with 600 of his warriors the night after the burning of Springfield in 1675. In this vicinity, and, indeed, all along the Chicopee River, a favorite hunting and fishing ground of the Indians, have been found abundant specimens of their arrow-heads, hatchets, mortars, and other implements of domestic or warlike use.
Ludlow, a thriving and intelligent agricultural community, is chiefly interesting to the inhabitants of Springfield for its water, of which it has abundance in numerous ponds and brooks, two of which, Higher and Broad Brooks, main affluents of the Chicopee River, flood the reservoir of 445 acres, upon which Springfield depends for its supply. The main industry
I The " commons," variously designated as the " outward" and "inward commons," were large tracts of undivided lands, used, under certain restrictions, for pasturage and other common uses. These lands were owned by the town of Springfield, remaining after individual proprietors had received their "grants," or "allotments." When Gov. Edmund Andros, among his other tyrannical extortions, began in some parts of the Province to sequestrate these " commons," and the danger impended that they would all revert to the Crown, Springfield took quick advantage of a saving clause which would except from this operation the private ownership of individual estates, by extending the town jurisdiction several miles eastward and westward of the original town boundary, which extension was called the " outward commons," and then distributing both the outward and inward undivided lands among the individual inhabitants according to their several polls and ratable estates.
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of Ludlow is farming, varied by the prosperous and extensive operations of the Ludlow Manufacturing Company.
We follow down the Chicopee River, as useful for its vast water-power as it is beautiful in its winding and impetuous flow, to Chicopee, a territory of about 25 square miles, and three miles north of Springfield. A dense wilderness two centuries ago, when Japhet and Henry, the sons of Deacon William Chapin of Springfield, made the first settlement, it is now the seat of many prosperous manufactures, and the home of mechanics distin- guished for their skill and their inventions. The Chicopee Manufacturing Company, the Lamb Knitting-machine Manufacturing Company, the J. Stevens & Company, B. & J. W. Belcher, the Chicopee Falls Screw Com- pany, the Massachusetts Arms Company, the Belcher & Taylor Agricultural Tool Company, and the bleachery of Anderton & Dunn, are located at Chicopee Falls.
In Chicopee proper, formerly known as Cabotville, the Dwight Manu- facturing Company presents, with its seven five-storied mills, a front extend- ing a third of a mile. The Ames Manufacturing Company, founders of arms and works in bronze and other metals, has long been famous, both at home and in foreign countries, for its skilled and artistic work. Besides these are the Ames Sword Company, the Blaisdell Cotton Waste Company, the bob- bin-factory of Edwin Wood, and the new Southworth Mill, all testifying to the vast amount of manufacturing capital and enterprise employed in this portion of Chicopee. The old street on the Connecticut River, with its ample breadth, fertile meadows, and ancient and comfortable homesteads, bears much the same relation to Springfield as do the similar farming com- munities of Longmeadow, West Springfield, and Agawam. As a manu- facturing town, Chicopee is unsurpassed in its educational facilities, in the generous and stanch support of its various churches, in the general intelligence of its people, in the varieties of its skilled labor, in the number of its prominent and influential citizens, - our Governor, George D. Robin- son, being among them, -in the general look of domestic comfort and taste that characterizes its homes, and in the remarkable diversity of its natural scenery, having, as it does, the peculiar advantages of two such rivers as the Chicopee and the Connecticut.
Holyoke will hardly permit itself to be numbered among the environs of Springfield ; and yet it is near enough to be included in the general land- scape, and close enough by various ties of daily intercourse to rejoice in the friendly rivalry of mutual advantages, and the reciprocities of a common interdependence.
Our brief survey of Springfield's surroundings will be completed by crossing the Connecticut-river bridge at Chicopee to return to our starting- point, - the West Springfield common, - by way of Ashleyville and the
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river's western bank. Again the shining river and the fertile meads, and the old white meeting-house on the hill keeping guard. "The pastures are clothed with flocks ; the valleys also are covered over with corn ; they shout for joy, they also sing." Here is the country, that God made, while man made the town.
Here Miles Morgan, whose statue adorns Court Square in Springfield, tilled his original "allotment." Here the Ashleys, Baggs, Elys, Smiths, and other notable farmers, throughout their generations, have "tickled the earth with hoes till it has laughed with harvests." No better farms nor market-gardens than here; and no such barn anywhere as belongs to our fellow-citizen Warren H. Wilkinson, the profits of whose manufactures enable him to become a public benefactor in farming experiments, which may serve for general instruction free of cost. Could we all farm it in his way, the temptation would be to leave Springfield for such surroundings, and to adopt Virgil's motto without the " if," -
" O fortunatos nimium, sua si bona nôrint Agricolas !" O too happy farmers, if they their own Bonanza knew !
With such surroundings and such antecedents, Springfield is peculiarly rus in urbe, -a rural city. It stands in the relation of a foster-parent to its neighbor towns. They all originally belonged to its jurisdiction, and only as they became of age were they set off upon adjacent homesteads to take care of themselves. With no divisive interests, springing from the same ancestral stock, pervaded by the same general intelligence, sharing the enjoyment of that natural scenery - the rare combination of hill and stream, mountain and meadow - which distinguishes the Connecticut Valley, favored by a sheltered situation and a comparatively even and healthy climate, braced by the moral helpfulness of good principles and steady habits, prospered by the mutual helpfulness of a thrifty agriculture and diversified manufactures, Springfield and its surroundings may well rejoice together in the prospect of an increasing population which shall combine the best elements of society, and in an outlook altogether worthy of the prestige established by the historic past, and replete with encouragement and hope for coming times.
- JOHN WHEELER HARDING.
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highways and Byways.
OLD AND NEW STREETS AND ROADS, THEIR NAMES AND AGES, BRIDGES, BROOKS, AND HORSE-CARS.
E VERY one who gets an opportunity of seeing the streets of Springfield, at once notices that there are many of unusual beauty. The irregular picturesqueness of State Street, winding broadly up the hill, with its gigantic elms, its grass-plats, and elegant residences, churches, and public buildings, would be hard to surpass anywhere. Chestnut and Pearl and Maple Streets are lined with the homes and villas of the well-to-do, the cultured and old- time residents. The immense elms of North Main Street, combined with its ample width and its strips of verdure, make it particularly noticeable. And along the streets the passer-by will here and there be attracted by an old-time house, and may be led to conjecture whether its history would not be an interesting one by reason of its age. It would make a unique collec- tion, to get together views of these reminders of past days, such as, for example, the Rockingham House, the Washington Tavern, the Ely Ordi- nary, and many others shown elsewhere in this volume; and the Lombard House, and the old house on Hillman Street, shown in this chapter.
While it is not possible here to go into a description of the attractions along the streets, it will be found that a brief account of the streets and their nomenclatures alone will afford considerable entertainment. Long ago in the year 1635, when the white man left the Massachusetts Bay, and on horseback wended his way through Nature's trackless forest, inhabited only by Indians and wild beasts, his wanderings towards the setting sun brought him to a halt at the eastern shore of the "Quinetticutt " River, his journey thither having brought him over the hitherto untrodden "Bay Path." The " Indian trail" along the westerly edge of a marshy fen, -in those days called "marish," - which served as a frog-pond in the spring, a slumpy cow- pasture in the summer, and a skating-rink in the winter, served the settlers as a horse-path ; and after the introduction of cattle it was widened for a cart- path, which with sundry improvements has become what might be called the " Broadway " of Springfield, - that is, our Main Street. The settlers mutually agreed to appropriate four rods of land for the width of the road, measuring westerly from the little brook running near the edge of the marsh. This was the only highway constructed for a long time: the Bay Path, al- though never surveyed, was used for travel to and from the Bay.
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This Indian trail, after a vast amount of filling-in and grading-up, and with considerable paving, has become the main artery of the town, and is kept in excellent condition. The settlers divided the land between the marsh and the river into narrow strips of various widths, and assigned a house lot or strip to every new- comer, who, by custom, con- structed the front line of his house even with the west line of the street. Some having appropri- ated part of the highway for the erection of shops, barns, and pig-pens, in 1759 a commis- sion from the Court of Ses- sions, authoriz- ing a survey and location, result- North Main Street. ed in the impo- sition of fines,
amounting in the whole to eight pounds, fourteen shillings, eleven pence,
Note. - The map on the opposite page shows the main part of Springfield in 1883. The letters are explained as follows: CHURCHES. - A. First Baptist; B. First Congregational; C. Memorial; D. North Congregational; E. Episcopal; F. St. Paul's Universalist; G. Trinity Methodist; H. Church of Sacred Heart; I,. St. Joseph's French Catholic; J. Grace Methodist; K. South Congregational; L. State-street Baptist; M. Church of the Unity; N. St. Michael's Roman Catholic; O. Olivet ·Congregational; P. State-street Methodist. PUBLIC BUILDINGS. - R. Brigham's Clothing House; S. City Library and Museum; S R. Skating Rink; T. City Hall; U. Court House; V. High School; W. Massasoit House; X Cooley's Hotel; Y. Haynes Hotel; Z. Hotel Warwick; . Fire-alarm Boxes; 2. Post-Office and Springfield Republican; 3. Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Building.
The plate is used by permission of D. H. Brigham.
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