USA > Massachusetts > Berkshire County > Lee > Lee : the centennial celebration and centennial history of the town of Lee, Mass. > Part 6
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LEE'S PART IN SHAYS' REBELLION.
In the long-protracted struggle, the people had neglected their pri- vate affairs ; their farms aud buildings had gone to barrenness and decay ; business was ruined, and debts (contracted for the support of their families), were increasing in amount by the accumulation of in- terest, which the debtors found it impossible to pay. The private consolidated debt of Massachusetts was nearly four and a half million dollars, besides nearly one million due to officers of their line of the army; while the State's proportion of the Federal debt was about five millions ; making more than ten millions of dollars of public debt pressing upon a people impoverished to bankruptcy in their own pri- vate affairs. How all this was to be paid, might well cause solicitude in the firmest minds. The paper currency, already depreciated, as we have seen, was still diminishing in value, and very little specie was in the country. The markets for produce were closed or greatly lessened,
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and all means for resuming foreign trade were to a great degree want- ing. Meantime, taxes were levied, and the courts, which in many places had been long suspended, met again and rendered judgments and issued executions, and creditors prepared to enforce collection of debts, by sale of property, at sacrifices quite ruinous to the debtor classes, who constituted nearly the whole people.
In these distressing circumstances were concealed the real causes of the unfortunate and ill-starred insurection, to which its leader, Daniel Shays, gave name. It had, as we have seen, as its basis some serious troubles, and perhaps some real grievances, but like most other popular uprisings, and especially like the extensive and disastrous strike of railroad and some other laborers, so fresh in our memories, it was so conducted, as to do immense harm and no good, and became the most unhappy and disgraceful affair which ever troubled Massa- chusetts, and at one time it threatened the whole State with anarchy. The part taken by some of the citizens of Lee in the matter seems to have been not much to the advantage of their reputation for discre- tion or courage ; but to-day we can well afford to forget the more serious and unpleasant memories originating in that transaction, and to speak only of such ludicrous incidents as the wild retreat of Gen. Patterson's Government veterans before Mother Perry's "yarn beam " mounted upon wheels, as the ignited tarred rope was swung in the air, and the voice of Peter Wilcox gave the order to fire ; or the arrest of Jenkins and Taylor by Lovice Foot and Sarah Ellis, as clad in gentlemen's coats aud hats, with unloaded guns, these bold and res- olute girls compelled the timid fellows to dismount and enter the house, thus revealing themselves to their captors ; while we place quite in the background the subsequent arrest of Peter Wilcox and the imprisonment from which he escaped to give name to " Peter's Cave " at the foot of our beautiful "Fern Cliff," as his hiding place, and the death of his son, Ozias Wilcox, a soldier of the Revolutionary war, shot at Sheffield in an encounter between the mob with which he was acting and the government troops, and of the men of other towns, killed and wounded in the same encounter, and the general sundering of ties of brotherhood and of neighborhoods, of towns and of churches, which was caused by this unhappy and disgraceful affair.
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CONTEMPORARY HISTORY OF THE NATION.
Let us pass on a quarter of a century, and look in passing for a brief moment at the national growth. The Articles of Confederation were approved July 9, 1778, in the third year of our independence. They were entitled " Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union," and
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were approved and ratified by delegates who were thereto empowered by the Legislatures of the several States. It was not till about twelve years after the Declaration of our Independence that the sovereignty of the states was merged in the higher and grander sovereignty of the nation created by the constitution. Although the second clause of the concluding article of the confederation closed with the high- sounding declaration, " the articles shall be invioably observed by the states, and the Union shall be perpetual," their looseness and insuf- ficiency was soon felt, and they came to be spoken of as a "rope of sand." It is difficult to realize how provisional everything then was. The Continental Congress, deputed by the states to assume the gen- eral control, "raised armies, appointed generals, levied taxes and negotiated foreign loans and treaties." "It had no legally established constituency, but one, in fact, existed, which they did not fail to rec- ognize, and for which they boldly assumed to act." They settled and adjusted the conflicting claims of the different States to the title of the land in the almost unexplored territory of the North-west, and adopted for its government the compact between the original states and ' the people " that were to be (of the new Territory), generally known as the ordinance of 1787. This compact was a very important bit of legislation, consisting of six articles. The first provides for entire religious freedom; the second for trial by jury, the writ of habeas corpus, and other important rights ; the third for the encour- agement of schools and good faith towards the Indians; the fourth places new States which may be created out of the territory, on the same footing as the old thirteen; the fifth authorizes division of the territory into states, to be not more than five nor less than three, each to be admitted when it should contain sixty thousand inhaitants, and the sixth contains the famous " anti-slavery proviso ; " that there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, in any of the said States, other than in the punishment of crime, of which the party shall have been duly convicted.
Our birth, and struggle for complete national existence, cover a period of thirteen years, and are marked by four great State papers, of which any nation might be justly proud, the Declaration of Indepen- dence, the Articles of Confederation, the Ordinance of 1787, and the Constitution of the United States. They are not all equally admi- rable. The first and the last greatly transcend the others, and not- withstanding the modern disposition in some quarters to decry and belittle them, each of these two is in its turn a document of rare and unequaled excellence, and they severally mark in this great struggle the beginning, with the Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776,
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and the ending, with the adoption of the Constitution and the inau- guration of Washington as first President, April 30, 1789. We cele- brated the Centennial of our national life July 4, 1876 ; but not till April 30, 1889, shall we have completed a century of national consti- tutional government.
THE SECOND WAR WITH GREAT BRITAIN.
Almost immediately after the close of our Revolutionary war, the infant republic began to feel the heavy hand of the Algerine pirate, and before the expiration of the thirteen years of our birth-struggle the oppressive acts of Great Britain entirely overshadowed in the enormity of their offence and outrage those acts of 1774-5 which had called forth the declaration of the first war for independence, and by force of these events two wars were thrust upon the young nation, to secure to her real use those blessings to which she had so boldly as- serted her "inalienable right." The contest with the Algerines was rendered glorious by the bravery of the gallant Decatur, and the United States has properly the credit of having initiated the deliver- ance of the Mediterranean from the tyranny of those pirates. Our last war with Great Britain was as truly a war of independence as was the first. That proud and arrogant "Mistress of the Seas " had, for the purpose of keeping up and recruiting her navy, allowed her press-gangs in the streets of London, and in the other English cities, to seize American citizens, and carry them on- board her vessels and compel them to serve as common sailors ; and this had been continued, in spite of our remonstrances, till the number of Americans so cap- tured and enlisted in British service was officially reported to be between four and five thousand. It was not till the pride of the nation was touched by the boarding and search of the "Chesapeake, " under the orders of a British admiral in a British frigate, that we could be nerved to a declaration of war; but when once commenced the war was prose- cuted with vigor. Our seamen proved able to cope successfully with the veterans of the English navy, and we established, as the result of some bold and successful sea-fights, our full independence of British interference upon the sea, as well as upon the land. Its direct effect did not extend far inland; but some of the families of Lee, who had emigrated to Ohio and settled near the shores of Lake Erie, had packed their household goods, and made themselves ready for instant removal, if the issue of the famous battle of September 10, had not resulted in the "Victory of Lake Erie " for our sailors and soldiers under Commodore Perry.
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MASSACHUSETTS NOT EAGER FOR THE FRAY.
In the war of 1812, the patriotism of the men of Massachusetts did not reach fever heat. The enslaving of our fellow-citizens by British tyranny did not affect our pockets unfavorably, and the destruction of our infant commerce surely would ; and the bringing of war ships upon the growing sea-port city of Boston was undesirable. Gov. Strong refused to allow the militia of Massachusetts to be marched out of the State for national defense or protection, and the fourteen men drafted from Lee, who joined a company of which the late John Nye was captain, did no heavier or more dangerous duty than to pass from dinner to drill, during six weeks of monotonous service in the Boston barracks and upon the parade ground.
THE OLD TRAINING DAYS.
The militia service, and the days of "general training," for some years after the Revolution, were matters of personal pride and pleas- ure, and a vigorous rivalry was kept up in Lee, between the North company of 112, and the South company of 113 men. The parade ground was the then open field north of the meeting-house, the Barna Adams lot. The men were refreshed with pails full of liquor, fur- nished at the expense of the officers, and the offices being sought as a means of political preferment, such abuses soon crept in as brought the whole system into disrepute. The trainings became occasions for drunkenness and buffoonery, and the whole business became so dis- tasteful that all who could do so, evaded the duty. It is believed that the last muster in the neighborhood of Lee was held at Stockbridge in 1830. On that occasion, the North Lee company was commanded by Capt. Thomas E. M. Bradley, with Seth D. Graves as lieutenant. South Lee trained under Zach Winegar, who, being detailed that day to act as major, deputed Lieut. Henry Smith to act as captain, who was assisted by Sergeant Harrison Garfield and by Corporal Barnabas Hinckley, while William P. Hamblin was lieutenant of a cavalry company.
THE FIRST CHURCH AND ITS CONFESSION OF FAITH.
The First Church and parish in Lee were co-existent in action and in territory with the town, and may properly find mention here. It was on May 25, 1780, that the professors of religion in Lee, being about thirty in number, assembled, and, with the aid of Rev. Daniel Collins of Lanesboro, were organized into a church. As the basis of their union, they adopted a Confession of Faith which, with the ex-
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punging of the single word " unpromised " from the eleventh article, is acknowledged by their successors in the same church to-day. It included those statements of belief which were even then called "the hard doctrines," and stated with the usual fullness and amplification, that man is born, according to God's holy and wise constitution, "in a state of sin and guilt;" that he is "wholly corrupt and an enemy to God and the Gospel;" that he will not be sinless until brought to a perfect obedience to God's law, which none attain to in this life, but are sinfully defective in all their holy exercises and actions ; " that "as all the promises of the Gospel are made to truly holy exercises, and none but such ; none can have any evidence of their interest in Christ, but by a consciousness of their own holy exercises, and by coming to a certain knowledge of these, as they may, they can obtain an assurance of their salvation." It also asserts in the clearest manner the sovereignty of God, as "having mercy on whom He will have mercy; and leaving whom He will to blindness and hardness."
This was then the only church in Lee, and it is not surprising that Dr. Alvan Hyde in his Centennial Discourse (preached December 22, 1820,) should have had occasion to speak of the former disputes of the people on what were called the " hard doctrines," and of many who had taken " their stand in opposition to the church and the dis- tinguishing doctrines of grace." Nor will it seem surprising to most persons at the present day that there should have been difficulty in settling a minister. Referring again to Dr. Hyde's Centennial Dis- course, we find that on the 8th of June, 1780, the council called to or- dain and install Mr. Abram Fowler, moved by a remonstrance in which many of the town united, declined to ordain him. It was more than three years afterwards, July 3, 1783, that a council was again called for the purpose of ordaining Mr. Elisha Parmelee, to whom there was similar opposition ; but as Mr. Parmelee consented to be ordained, the council proceeded " to set him apart to the work of the ministry in this place." He is spoken of by Dr. Alvan Hyde as "sound in the faith, amiable in disposition, distinguished for his talents and acquirements, and eminent for his piety," but his health almost im- mediately failed, and he died in 1784, while journeying in Virginia.
AN EIGHT YEARS' EFFORT TO GET A MINISTER.
We cannot desire a better photograph of the condition of this small but earnest community as to their spiritual state, than again to recur to the language of Dr. Alvan Hyde, who says that the church, " though small, was happily united; but the town was in a very
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divided state." "Attempts were made for eight years to settle a min- ister without success ; in which many candidates were employed." " Whenever the church could unite in giving one a call to be their teacher and spiritual guide, a formidable opposition would arise in the town and disappoint their hopes." Finally, after eight years and more of this ineffectual struggle, the church and people became happily united in the settlement of Alvan Hyde, then a young and earnest minister, whose qualifications and fitness for the work no one but him- self ever questioned. His own sense of the greatness of the responsi- bility, and of his personal weakness, and the earnestness with which he sought help from the highest source, are shown in a letter to his father, written by him the day before his ordination, in which, after stating the terms of his settlement, he adds :
" But my thoughts are more employed about the greatness of the work in which I am about to engage, than the manner in which I shall be supported. The work of the ministry appears greater and greater to me. I am sometimes almost ready to sink under it, and so cry, 'Who is sufficient for these things ?' but these words, 'My grace is sufficient for thee,' are sometimes comforting. The burden on my mind at the present time is very great. To-morrow is ap- pointed for my ordination, and I have solemn and affecting scenes before me. It is a great thing to take the pastoral office over a church, and to be set as a watchman. I need the prayers of all God's people. I hope you, sir, will remember me at the Throne of Grace."
CHARACTERISTICS OF THE FIRST MINISTER.
Mr. Hyde was a remarkable man. Without genius and without uncommon talents, he, nevertheless, united and combined those quali- ties, acquirements and capacities which constitute the truest great- ness. He was earnest and pertinacious in purposes, and was at all times pervaded with a sense of the greatness of the work which rested upon him, and was overshadowed in all his life by a consciousness of the presence and power of God. For many years he was the central figure of this town, as well as the shepherd of his particular flock. Everything which affected his people affected him, and no man was, more than he, careful and conscientious in the discharge of every duty. All the schools in the town were under his constant supervision, and he visited each of the Summer and Winter schools near their com- mencement and near the close, making four annual visits to the school of each district in the town; and it is the witness of some who remember those visits, that he always left "a salutary and en- during influence behind him." It was not till 1814, that a committee 9
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was appointed to co-operate with him in this work. His activity was constant and unvarying from the beginning to the end of his long ministry, and the results attest its high and continual faithfulness. The year of his settlement (1792) was the year in which commenced "that series of revivals in America," of which Dr. Griffin said in 1828: "It has never been interrupted, night or day, and never will be until the earth is full of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea." Dr. Hyde had part in two revivals that year, and it is probable that the first of those two was the earliest of the series. In 1828, when he had been settled thirty-six years, he had occasion to take a retrospect of his ministry and its results ; six hundred and twenty-four of his flock had died, of whom forty-six had passed eighty years : he had received of members six hundred and thirty-four, and the number of communicants at that time was about three hundred and fifty-five.
Dr. Hyde was an educated and conservative man, but was not big- oted in any narrow or bad sense. Writing of him, soon after his death, his biographer says: "Perhaps it is an act of justice to the memory of a man whose theological tenets have been much spoken against, to say that the Articles of Faith in the church in Lee were drawn up by Dr. Hopkins ; " but if the biographer could have fore- known that they would have remained unchanged for more than forty years, and be to-day the statement of faith and belief of the First Con- gregational Church of Lee, which is certainly one of the most intelli- gent churches in Berkshire county, he would, perhaps, have deemed such apology unnecessary.
Dr. Hyde did not fear fair and candid discussion. He was too fully convinced of the absolute verity of the doctrines which he be- lieved and preached to fear to talk of them; and in 1794 (two years after his settlement), he writes to a fellow-clergyman : "Our differ- ence of opinion on some doctrinal points, is so far from giving birth to the least desire in me to drop the correspondence that it is a real motive in my mind for its continuance. From a man of reading and thought, who differs from me, I shall be more likely to receive benefit than from one who walks exactly in my path." It goes far to nullify criti- cism of his doctrines in reference to points and propositions, before which human wisdom becomes weakness and folly, and as to which he is perhaps the wisest man and truest disciple who has come to a dawning consciousness of his ignorance and incapacity, to remember that, in a parish containing less than two thousand inhabitants, his church embraced during many years near four hundred members, and that during a ministry of about forty years, he admitted to his church
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about seven hundred communicants, who, as also their descendants, became and remain a sober, temperate, self-restrained people, loving and standing by good order and obedience to law ; conservative and yet progressing, having a steadfastness which may be relied on, and a. will of their own, and never having parted with practical wisdom and common sense, nor from the religion of common honesty and payment of debts. The secret of his great usefulness lay in his devoted and earnest piety, in his good sense, exact method, punctuality and dili- gence ; all of which he constantly cultivated, by the reading of the word, by prayer, and by labor for the good of others, so that in all the relations he sustained, his life-work tended continually to elevate, to purify and to bless. He aided in gathering one of the first Sunday- schools, and in 1831, more than four hundred youth and children were present on one occasion, who were connected with the school.
THE GOOD MAN'S TROUBLES IN HIS LAST DAYS.
The death of Dr. Hyde came in good time for his comfort; for the course of events during the last few years of his life was an increas- ing annoyance to him. He was specially opposed to some of the means then made use of "to awaken interest in the churches." In 1828, he says in a letter to a friend : " A faithful, praying, exemplary minister is clothed with salvation; his best aid at all times, is a pray- ing and active church. The plan of sending out evangelists as revival men when there are settled pastors, is no part of the wisdom which is from above, it comes from a bad source." Again, the next year, he says : " The flood-gates are now open, and the desolating evils which I have long expected, are beginning to be realized ;" and yet again in 1830: "I notice with much trembling the progress of error in this land and in the churches of New England. The New Haven scheme of theology is a broad step-stone to Arminianism. The doctrines of sovereign grace are more and more discarded." And in 1828 he says : " To gather converts into the church has been a great work, far greater than after any former revival, especially to lead them to acqui- esce in that part of the Confession of Faith adopted by the church which makes the sinner wholly dependent on the sovereign mercy of God."
SOCIETY SIXTY YEARS AGO.
Social life in Lee, during the earlier days of Dr. Hyde, was rather simple and primitive. The children of those days made a good sup- per and breakfast of mush and milk ; pork and beans and boiled beef and cabbage were the principal dishes in the farmer's family, while ham and eggs, hulled corn and johnny cake were occasional delicacies.
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The Bible and the almanac and one or two standard volumes of English literature were the common library, to which was added in some families, as the years passed on, the weekly newspaper, and sometimes, though rarely, a magazine. The daily newspaper was not in the early part of Dr. Hyde's ministry, known in this small town, but the news was gathered at the store, or the "Red Lion," and few who have any memory of the coarse or gossiping talk-of the well worn stories, and the rough practical jokes which frequently preceded and followed the flip or egg nogg-would care to exchange our present habits of social life for those of that earlier day. The tailoress and dressmaker and shoemaker went round from house to house, to assist the family in making the changes and preparations from Fall to Win- ter and from Winter to Spring. The common method of traveling was upon horseback, the women riding upon side-saddles or upon pillions, during the first half of Dr. Hyde's ministry. The people being of social nature, lost no opportunity for pleasant talk, and going to meeting, for a family who had been shut in to themselves all the week, was prized for its opportunities of social intercourse by all, and probably by some who cared little for its devotional opportunities. Toddy and flip were the common beverages, and pipes and liquor were always furnished at the meetings of the ministers of the county at Dr. Hyde's. Dr. Gale tells us that in the erection of the meeting- house which preceded this one, Elisha Crocker is credited with one barrel of rum, $40.00, and Seth Backus, by attending three carpen- `ters' meetings; and expending for liquor each time seventy-five cents. Even after a change was brought about, it is said that some people could never believe that Dr. Hyde's voice was quite so sonorous and musical as before he gave up taking a little Jamaica before he went into the pulpit.
TOWN REGULATION OF CHURCH SUPPORT.
The town meeting in New England has always been a source of business training and special education. The subjects for discussion and disposal were broad and various, and in Lee, till 1830, they em- braced the regulation of ecclesiastical as well as lay affairs ; even the hours of public religious worship being settled in town meetings. At the April meeting in 1806, the town voted to reject a proposition that there should be but one preaching service through the ensuing Winter, and a town committee was appointed to wait on Dr. Hyde " to see if it will be agreeable with him to have the intermission one hour, through the ensuing year." The tax for support of worship was then territorial and embraced all residing within the parish, unless they
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