USA > Massachusetts > Hampden County > Our county and its people : A history of Hampden County, Massachusetts. Volume 1 > Part 41
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Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41
Good Cheer Rebekah Lodge, No. 60, of Palmer, was insti- tuted Nov. 22, 1887, by Robert Tabor, grand master, assisted by Alfred S. Pinkerton, deputy grand master, and afterwards grand sire, also J. M. Price, Chas. D. Cole and Julius Clark.
The first officers were Sarah A. Parkhurst, noble grand; Ellen M. Holden, vice-grand; Mary E. Robinson, rec. secretary ; Alice M. Smith, treasurer.
The lodge has been very successful and has earned for itself a reputation in the excellence of its work. Thirty-one persons were present and took the obligation at its institution. The pres- ent membership is 146.
The present officers are Mary E. Murdock, noble grand; Alice M. Shaw, vice-grand; Carrie B. Reed, rec. secretary ; Ellen M. Holden, treasurer.
Samoset Lodge, No. 160, of Chester, was instituted Septem- ber 17, 1872, with sixteen charter members: Joseph T. Gibson, Newton D. Prentiss, Major A. Snow, John Truscott, Lewis C. In- galls, Joseph C. Seagers, George Hollister, Leroy A. Wilcox, Paul R. Towne, Horace M. Wilcox, George F. Higgins, Thomas Simons, Albert E. Mixer, George H. Hapgood, Fred S. Otis and Thomas Hambley. The first officers were Joseph E. Gibson, N. G .; Thomas Simons, V. G .; Horace M. Wilcox, Secy .; Paul R. Towne, Treas.
The lodge now numbers sixty-five members, and is in all re- spects a representative, progressive body. The officers for 1902 are as follows : Wilbur L. Hunt, N. G .; Edward L. Cowles, V. G .; George H. Hapgood, Secy .; Leroy A. Wilcox, Treas.
Monson Lodge, No. 210, of Monson, was instituted by Henry Denver, grand master ; James M. Price, grand warden ; Frank E.
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Ladd, grand marshal; William Parkham, grand chaplain; J. Lawrence Martin, grand secretary. The first officers were SimonTaylor, N. G .; Dana M. Dustin, V. G .; John Crass, Sec .; Frank A. Bills, P. S .; Irving L. Tefts, Treas.
The present membership of the lodge is 77. The present officers are M. C. Howe, N. G .; G. L. Warriner, V. G .; D. B. Needham, Sec. ; F. A. Bills, P. S .; H. M. Smith, Treas.
St. John's Lodge, No. 62, of Chicopee, was instituted March 10, 1845, later surrendered its charter and was reinstituted March 8, 1870. From that time to the present the lodge has been prosperous, having a present membership of 142.
On October 1, 1889, about 20 members withdrew from the lodge and started a new lodge in Chicopee Falls. The lodge gained wide fame in the splendid manner in which it has con- ferred the initiatory degree. Harmony and sociability are the marked characteristics of St. John's. The present officers are George H. Burnett, N. G .; Carl R. McCoy, V. G .; William R. Crompton, Sec .; John T. Lyon, P. S .; Alexander Grant, Treas.
Chicopee Lodge, No. 115, located at Chicopee Falls, was in- stituted by Henry Denver, grand master, assisted by the board of grand officers. The first officers were : N. G., James H. Loomis ; V. G., George D. Bartlett ; R. S., Henry W. Chapin ; P. S., Henry H. Leonard; Treas., Russell Markham. The present member- ship is 95.
This lodge is well known for its hospitality and is often vis- ited because of its known fraternal greetings and good cheer. Its present officers are: N. G., William Henry West; V. G., Fred Snape; Sec'y., Albert H. Hatfield; Treas., Walter J. Burby ; F. Sec'y., Frank E. Bigelow.
Holyoke Lodge, No. 134, was instituted September 27, 1849, by Grand Master Samuel Wells of Northampton and Alfred Mudge of Boston as grand secretary. A large delegation of members was present from Springfield and Northampton. The petitioners were Addison S. Peck, Daniel E. Emerson, William Melches, Samuel H. Batchelder, Daniel Bowdoin, Benjamin Tay- lor, Waldo Shattuck and Abraham Cassey. William Melcher was elected noble grand, and Addison S. Peck, vice-grand. On
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Nov. 20, 1854, the lodge surrendered its charter. On May 5, 1855, a petition was sent to the grand lodge for a return of the charter, and the same was returned Nov. 29, 1855. Owing to circumstances beyond control, the charter was again surrendered Jan. 10, 1857.
On March 5, 1875, the lodge was reinstituted by S. B. Krog- man, grand master, with J. C. Porter as grand secretary. The officers elected were N. G., E. B. Tibbetts; V. G., W. E. Symes ; R. S., E. W. Burns ; Treas., Sam'l Snell; F. S., J. M. Sickman.
Bro. Samuel Snell was one of the first members of the lodge and faithfully served as treasurer for over 25 years. The lodge appreciated his services and presented him with a veteran's jewel. The present officers are : N. G., A. H. Rice ; V. G., G. H. Foster; R. S., C. S. Roberts ; Treas., Geo. R. Smith ; F. S., G. H. Burnham.
Glenwod Rebekah Lodge, No. 104, of Holyoke, was insti- tuted Nov. 4, 1899, by J. B. Crawford, grand master, assisted by Louis A. Cook, L. Lawrence Martin, Charles A. Boynton, Austin S. Estey, Joseph York, A. E. Steele and John W. Prouty. The first officers were N. G., Myrtie M. Frissell; V. G., Martha E. Dickenson ; Sec., Addie M. Porter ; F. S., Margaret W. Sargent; Treas., Lillie M. Perry.
The lodge has been very successful and earned for itself a good reputation for the excellence of its degree work. Its pres- ent membership is 165. The present officers are N. G., Hattie E. Caswell; V. G., Edith Foster ; Sec., Florence Brainerd ; Treas., Lucy F. Mooney ; F. S., Lilla Cutler.
Tuscarora Encampment, No. 30, of Holyoke, was instituted Feb. 16, 1883, by Charles N. Alexander, grand patriarch, assisted by Grand Scribe Charles D. Cole and Grand High Priest John U. Perkins. The first officers were C. P., J. W. Prouty ; S. W., A. S. Alden ; H. P., J. W. Meacham ; J. W., J. B. Whitehouse ; Secy., S. A. Bugbee ; Treas., M. J. Kelly.
The present membership is 73. The encampment is in good financial condition and has earned a good reputation in confer- ring the various degrees. The present officers are C. P., Clar- ence A. Bridges ; H. P., George W. Rogers ; S. W., J. M. Toeffert;
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J. W., Chas. W. Dustin ; Secy., Geo. B. Sargent; Treas., Chas. S. Roberts.
Canton Holyoke, No. 65, Patriarchs Militant .- The first meeting in the interest of forming a canton of patriarchs mili- tant in Holyoke was held Oct. 11, 1895. After a few prelimi- nary arrangements the meeting adjourned to Oct. 23, 1895, for mustering.
The mustering officer was general Frank M. Merrill, and the canton was named Canton Holyoke, No. 65. F. L. Brown was elected the first commandant. The canton was mustered in with twenty-five members, and though a number have been added, death and change of residence has reduced their number to twenty-two. The first cantonment was held Nov. 27, 1895. Cantonments have been regularly held on the second Monday evening of each month. The canton has been honored in hav- ing one of its members elected to the office of major, in the person of J. R. Mooney. Captain J. L. McKemmie is the present com- mandant, and Chevalier C. A. Bridges, clerk.
CHAPTER XXIII
AGRICULTURE OF HAMPDEN COUNTY1
The history of any county cannot be complete without an account of its agriculture.
The distinguished ethnologist, Charles Pickering (Harvard, 1823), has maintained that "The History of the progress of man- kind can be distinctly traced to the extension of the areas of cul- tivated plants."
The early settlers of this section brought with them from England the customs of that country, many of which it was found-sometimes by sad experience-could not be applied to the new conditions. They soon learned from the aborigines the importance of the Indian corn crop, and copying their crude
1By Ethan Brooks, of West Springfield.
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methods of cultivation, were generally successful with this as a staple product for the support of both man and beast.
There being no market in which either to buy or to sell, these settlers were forced to procure from the soil as far as possible the necessaries of life. All mechanics and all professional men were in a large degree farmers.
Exchange of produce was common. Meats, grains and fruits were passed from one family to another, the like to be returned at mutual convenience, and the village mechanic, if kept busy at his trade, was paid for his services in general farm produce, and the clergyman, the schoolmaster and the doctor saw little ready cash.
No farm was without its flock of sheep, and few if any were without their fields of flax; and the thrifty housewife and her equally thrifty daughters could card and spin and dye and knit and weave and cut and sew the wool and the flax into articles of comfort and of beauty. Fruits were dried for winter use. The long autumn evenings as a rule were spent in some occupation conducive to the welfare of the family.
Beeves were slaughtered late in autumn, and after dividing with neighbors, a goodly portion was "put down" (salted) for future use, while the tallow was made into candles which came to supersede the pine knot for illuminating purposes. Hides and skins were taken to the village to be tanned for one-half of the leather-the farmer's half in turn being taken to the shoe- maker and harness-maker to be worked up for the needs of the family and the farm. Sometimes the shoemaker brought his bench to the farmer's home and made up the annual supply of shoes, and generally the tailoress and the dressmaker came to the home to do their work.
Gradually passable roads were worked and occasionally streams were bridged, making possible the introduction of the stage coach and leading to the cultivation of such crops as could find an outlet to the country tavern-established in every town- or to the river for transportation to the seaport.
The earliest cash products of the farm were hemp, flax and wool.
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Large apple orchards were planted, affording an abundance of fruit, though the choice varieties known now had not in those early days been developed-the crop being used largely for mak- ing cider, of which quantities were consumed in every family, while the surplus was converted by the nearby distillery into another article of commerce-after supplying the home demand -cider brandy. Soon a demand came for choice beef cattle to be driven to New York or Boston, and so the farmer raised steers with which in their growing years to do his farm work, and which when matured were stall fed and sold to the drover. West- field especially was noted for its large corn cribs and corn fed cattle.
Potatoes, which on the new lands yielded enormous crops, were not generally used as an article of table supply, but were largely grown for feeding stock, and it was a common practice to construct a cellar under the barn floor where loads of this product could be stored for winter feeding.
A factory for the manufacture of potato starch was at one time in operation in North Blandford-the price paid for pota- toes at the starch works being about ten or twelve cents a bushel.
With the advent of improved roads came also the establish- ment of local manufactories, making a market for such agricul- tural products as could be used in these establishments, as well as for general farm produce in the homes of those employed in these shops and mills. Wooden ware was literally "turned" out in large quantities, and iron ore was picked up in some of the open fields of Hampden county, notably in the Brush hill district of West Springfield, and taken to a smelting furnace at Chicopee Falls, then known by the Indian name of Skipmuck, to be made into wares of domestic and local need.
The United States armory at Springfield-developed from the germ planted during the revolution-came into substantial existence in 1794. Thus a market was opened for general farm produce, not only for direct family supply, but for corn to fatten the armorers' pork, for there was often a sharp rivalry among the veterans of the forge and the lathe as to who should slaughter the largest pig.
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The thrifty farmer of those days, schooled to the thought that nothing should be permitted to go to waste, burned into charcoal the wood which must needs be cleared away to admit of growing crops, and as there was then no communication with the great coal fields, this product was consumed in every village blacksmith shop and in large quantities at the United States arm- ory, while the cry of Charcoal ! charcoal! through the streets of the larger towns brought out the prudent housewife who secured direct from the producer her baskets of condensed fuel.
There was little call for young men to leave the farm in those early days, and many a family of stalwart sons tarried on the old homestead, clearing up wood lands, digging ditches for the drainage of low lands and laying stone walls, thus making ready for another step in the evolution of agriculture-that of dairying.
Farms-since subdivided-were large in those days, and many acres were given to the production of rye, for which crop lands that had been in pasture for two or three years-or since the last crop of rye was taken off-were "summer fallowed," that is, plowed in the early summer and left till early autumn, then plowed again and the grain sowed broad cast, as in ancient times, and harrowed in.
This grain, when bolted at the nearby grist mill, afforded ma- terial for a large proportion of the bread of the farmer's family. One man in a town adjoining Springfield made a business of buy- ing wheat and rye of the farmers, having it ground and selling the flour from house to house in Springfield.
Sometimes, as in later years, the most ready cash market for rye was the local distillery, while it is always a valuable stock food, especially on the dairy farm. Buckwheat was grown as an easily produced grain crop and as helpful in subduing new lands; this grain ground with corn and rye made a valuable provender for fattening the farmer's pork. Oats for feeding were also a common crop.
Butter making-in the hardest way, because none of the modern methods and scientific appliances were known-was common here, as throughout all New England, and gave a cash
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product, or at least one that could be exchanged with the grocer for the necessaries, and with cheese-making was long an impor- tant industry, especially in the hill towns.
As the larger manufacturing establishments came in, notably those of Chicopee Falls and Chicopee, in the early part of the last century and before railroads connected these markets with the outside world, large supplies of beef, pork, veal, mut- ton and lambs, poultry and eggs, potatoes and fruits were brought in from the surrounding country, while a few nearby farmers seized the opportunity to furnish milk and garden vege- tables to our growing towns.
It has been stated on good authority that the first milk of- fered for sale in Springfield was carried in a stone jug by an Agawam farmer, who drove in front of the house of his cus- tomer and "thumped" on the side of his plain farm wagon with the butt of his whip to call out the woman of the house.
Westfield has long been known as the whip manufacturing center of the world, and Holyoke came into being about the mid- dle of the last century. West Springfield, Monson, Palmer, Ludlow and the smaller towns have all contributed to make local demands for the products of the farm.
With the building of railroads there began to come a change. The north and west began to send produce to our growing mar- kets, which in turn demanded more milk and more fresh supplies of poultry, eggs, fruits and vegetables; and while hitherto the farmer had felt obliged to grow all the grain needed to be fed on the farm, he now found that sometimes he could buy grain if an increased supply were needed and feeding it to his own stock bring the fertility of the west to his own farm; or, as one shrewd farmer once said, "If I wanted to buy manure I would buy corn." Tobacco for the last forty years has been a money crop, especially in the river towns, and though giving place in some degree to market gardening and fruit, still holds a promi- nent place. Onions with some are a specialty. Celery was hardly known as a market crop forty years ago; at one time it was claimed that celery could not be grown to the advantage of the producer in this locality. Now with our market gardeners
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it is a leading crop, the consumption having increased a hundred fold within the last ten or fifteen years.
Farm Implements and Machinery .- It has been well said that before the introduction of improved implements and machinery, "So much bread meant so much sweat." The im- provements which have been made in this direction are perhaps as great as in any other industry. The plow in crude form has been an implement of husbandry from ancient days. Our New England fathers used the wooden plow with wrought iron point while strap iron covered the other exposed parts, and this with the heavy drag harrow and the hand hoe were the principal tools in cultivating the soil, while planting and sowing all kinds of seeds was done entirely by hand ; a small harrow for first hoeing and later a one-horse plow were run between the rows of corn and potatoes, always followed by hand hoeing.
The sickle of ancient days seems to have held its place as the only implement for harvesting grain till early in the last century, when the grain cradle came into use. Mechanics and others not generally employed on the farm were accustomed to help in har- vesting the grain crop, an acre being considered a fair day's work for an able man to reap and bind. (There were no re- stricted hours in those days.)
Mowing was all done by hand, and small boys dropped their schooling that they might spread the swaths after the mowers, and turn and rake the hay. The horse rake seems to have been the first labor-saving implement introduced into the hay field; then came the mowing machine, which in some instances could be converted into the reaper for cutting grain; then the tedder, doing in the field with one or two horses guided by one man the work of twelve men turning hay by hand; along with these came the horse-fork for unloading-a wonderful relief to the over- worked muscles of man.
One would need to go through the catalogue of one of our establishments for the manufacture of agricultural implements to be able to give a correct account of the advantages we now have or may have over the methods of our fathers.
Dairying is no longer a burden to the farmer's home, for the milk is either taken directly to market in cans furnished clean
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by the dealer, or the cream gatherer takes the cream raised by modern appliances from the milk of hundreds of cows, and through summer's heat and winter's cold converts the same into uniform high grade butter.
When the total abstinence wave swept over the country in about 1840 many farmers destroyed their apple orchards as cum- berers of the ground, not realizing that the growing markets would soon demand the choicest varieties of fruit which the more thrifty trees could easily have been made to produce by grafting.
Fruit growing as a specialty is receiving more and more at- tention, as the higher grounds are found to be peculiarly adapted to this branch of industry. In the autumn of 1900 a young and enterprising farmer in Chester gathered and sold over $1100 worth of apples from his farm.
For generations the farmer knew no way to maintain-much less to increase-the fertility of his grounds except by plowing in green crops and by the application of wood ashes and the barnyard manure of the farm. Within comparatively few years science has come to his aid showing the needs of growing crops and pointing out the sources of supply, directing also as to methods of destroying insect pests and overcoming fungus and atmospheric blight.
Our agricultural colleges and experiment stations, our boards of agriculture, the grange, the local agricultural and hor- ticultural societies and farmers' clubs, all tend to awaken a desire for the possibilities within the farmer's reach.
The great variety of early and late fruits and vegetables, with the many modern conveniences at the command of the farmer household, do away largely with the monotony of the early days. Still the edict stands, though in modified force, "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread until thou return unto the ground."
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