USA > Massachusetts > Hampden County > Picturesque Hampden : 1500 illustrations > Part 14
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AN OLD BRIDGE-CHESTER.
102
PICTURESQUE
IN THE VALLEY ON THE ROAD DOWN FROM BLANDFORD.
with slabs of the original stone on which are the inscriptions: Hiram Smith, died 1873; Sarah Toogood, died 1869.
There was something strangely lonesome in the situation. Here was one of Nature's
great, rough bowlders, hidden in a gloomy hemlock thicket, far from habitations, in a half-wild pasture, made the last resting place of these two people; and though their spirits have flown and it is only the bodies which rest here, there comes to one an involuntary sympathy with their imagined loneliness.
I made my way back to the main road in a vastly straighter course than that by which I came. Then I hastened down into the valley and there hunted up a place to spend the night. There was a grandmother in the family where I found lodging, who, at seventy-eight years of age, could still read the news- paper without "specs." She said that people spoiled their eyes by using kerosene lamps. If they would only stick to their tallow candles as she did, their eyes would be all right. They made tallow candles every
HAMPDEN.
spring, and she said she thought them the very best lights that could possi- bły be had.
The next morning opened pleasant, a bright sun looked over the eastern ridges and soon dispelled the light mists which lurked in the valley and veiled the hills.
CHESTER-METHODIST CHURCH.
AT THE MINES.
CHESTER -OLD TAVERN AND CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH.
Here in the valley was once quite a populous village, and it had manufacturing enterprise in the way of some small cotton mills. But the mills are a thing of the past and many of the in- habitants have moved away, and the school of the district can at present muster no more than eight scholars.
Presently I took the winding road by the stream and kept in its company down through Lit- tleville (which is like its name), and Huntington to Russell where I turned northward and climbed the mountain by an irregular road through the woods to Montgomery. The incline be- came gentler in time and I be- gan to come upon open fields. Then I espied a farmer at work with a pole knocking off apples in a roadside orchard. I stop- ped to inquire the way. The man came to the fence and hav- ing hoisted a foot into a com-
THE LINE OF THE BOSTON AND ALBANY.
fortable position on the lower rail, asked: "Be you the feller that's getting up them doings for to-night up at the church?"
I declined any knowledge of the proposed doings at the church and
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PICTURESQUE HAMPDEN.
learned that a magic lantern show, or something of that nature, was coming to town. I journeyed on over the hills till I came to the churches. There are two of them, white-painted, very much alike in size and architecture, facing each other from opposite sides of the road. There was nothing in their ap- pearance and their neighborly prox- imity to suggest that different denomi- nations worshiped in each. From here I turned eastward and went on over the pleasantly rolling hill-top till the land took a sudden pitch downward and I had the vast sweep of the Con- necticut valley outspread before me, with the Mount Tom range northerly, looming up in the blue haze that over- spread the landscape. I went down the long hill with its beautiful outlooks till I came to the plains that lie below. The pleasant hamlet of West Farms was passed, and then the sandy levels, with their young tree-growths and small, scattered houses on the way to Westfield. From there I followed along the river in the quiet afternoon
EVENING.
CHESTER STATION.
IN THE OLD CEMETERY.
sunlight, and toward evening crossed the old toll bridge which spans the Connecticut, and entered Springfield. Oddly enough, just as I turned up to a hitching post, one of the front wheels of the buck-board came off. It seemed a lucky chance that this should happen at the very close of the journey and not on one of the long roads, far from houses and repair shops, that I had been traveling all day. As it was, I tied together the crippled vehicle and hobbled it over to a machinist's, and soon it was "as good as new," as the saying goes.
THE SCOTCH-IRISH COLONY IN MURRAYFIELD.
The limits within which this colony settled, may be confined to two miles square in the upper end of Chester, or as the name then was of Murrayfield. It comprised the tableland or plateau north of the old Murrayfield meeting- house, between the middle and western branches of the Westfield river. It was an elevated and rolling tract of land, and, by the early settlers, was con- sidered extremely fertile. The con- figuration of the landscape, if not sub- lime, is at least pleasing and attractive, and presents an endless variety of slopes, irregularities and undulations. Wachusett can be plainly discerned from these summits in the east, and the dome-like form of Monadnock rises grandly in the northeast. The writer remembers hearing William Cullen Bryant, whose keen appreciation of the beautiful was unrivaled, say, in a short address at Middlefield, many years ago, that this whole region was affluent
UP THE VALLEY.
in charming and gorgeous scenic pictures. It was to this region, so rich in natural attractions, that, when opened for settlement, some families of Scotch-Irish origin came seemingly in concert from the Province of Ulster, in the north of Ireland, and most of them from the extreme northern coun- ties in the province, and with hardly an exception they were closely con- nected by marriage. The heads of the families were men of strong and marked individuality. Bell, Campbell, Gordon and Hamilton are historical names in Scotland. Transplanted to the north of Ireland, they carried with them the religion of the mother country, which was Presbyterianism of the
LOOKING BACK ON THE VALLEY FROM CHESTER HILL.
104
PICTURESQUE
AMONG THE HILLS-CHESTER.
type, of Calvin and Knox. We may have outgrown the rigid and stern theology of the era in which they lived. And perhaps it is a fortunate thing for society and the world that such is the fact, but it seems to have been adapted, and admirably adapted, to the times and conditions in which they existed.
Perhaps in any reminiscences of these worthies of the olden time, James Holland, on account of certain idiosyncracies of character, should oc- cupy a prominent place. Perfectly insensible to fear, he would invade a rattlesnake den with bare feet, or face a British battery with equal indiffer- ence. The venom of the reptile he would extract with a dull knife with the same readiness that he would bind a fragment of his clothing around a wound received in battle. I recall two or three incidents in his life which in- dicate in some degree what manner of man he was.
When he settled in Murrayfield he built his house on an elevation a little way east of the Middlefield road. Some disturbance of the elements- a blizzard or a cyclone, perhaps- un- roofed the dwelling soon after its com- pletion. Surveying the ruins after the gale subsided, he re- marked to his young sons: "We will move the house down the hill into the brush out of the range of the wind." For James Holland to resolve to do a thing was to do it; and the house, with the simplest and rudest mechanical appli- ances, was gently moved, with no other assistance than that rendered by his "boys," down the slope to a sheltered nook, where the violent winds no longer annoyed and vexed him. The site upon which it finally rested is that now occupied by the residence of Deacon George W. Holcomb.
For some years the church in Old Murrayfield, to which James Holland was attached, was Presbyterian in form and doctrine. Whether the doctrines of the church were too rigid to commend themselves to the acceptance of the average man, or that a feeling of religious unrest pervaded the community, it is not necessary to inquire; certain it is that some followers of John Wesley invaded these peaceful regions and proclaimed to the people the joyful news of free salvation to all who would seek it. In process of time a society was organized in Middlefield, just over the Murray- field line, in a locality called the "Den." Among others an itinerant preacher, named Thrasher, supplied the spiritual wants of the congregation. James Holland was constantly importuned to attend the Methodist meeting at the Den and hear Thrasher preach, and at last he complied. In the course of his sermon Thrasher exclaimed : " You miserable, rebellious sinners, unless you repent God will shake you over hell as a dog would shake a woodchuck." To the orthodox,
HAMPDEN.
devout mind of James Holland, this illustration seemed coarse, vulgar and utterly lacking in that reverence which is due to Omnipotence. Quickly up- rose this descendant of the reformers of Scotland, and sternly said : " Thrasher, you have said too much ! Sit down. If you don't sit down 1 will sit you down." The significant gesture that accompanied these words indi-
CHRSTER CENTER.
THE AUTUMN ROADWAY TO CHESTER HILL.
cated to Thrasher that he would better obey - and he sat down, and the exer- cises of that meeting were abruptly brought to a close.
James Holland and Zadok Ingell had married sisters- Mary and Christiana Bell. Mr. Ingell was one of the best men that ever lived, and he passed through life without ever hav- ing made an enemy. On account of his virtues and his fervid religious emotions, he was styled by his neigh- bors "the bishop." In his hortatory exercises he was enthusiastic, and, it must be confessed, sometimes vehe- ment. He was a primitive Methodist. On a certain occasion Mr. Holland attended a meeting at the house of his brother-in-law, Mr. Ingell. In the course of the evening Mr. Ingell was the favored recipient of an unusual measure of spiritual afflatus, and mani- fested an unusual degree of spiritual enthusiasm and rapture in his exhor- tation to the people. At length Mr.
THE GRASS-GROWN ROADWAY -CHESTER HILL.
105
PICTURESQUE HAMPDEN.
Holland became uneasy. He thought that the language and manner of his Brother Ingell in- fringed somewhat on the pro- priety and solemnity which he had been taught should charac- terize a religious meeting, and he thus abruptly addressed him : "Brother Ingell, sit down. You have said enough. Give some- body else a chance to talk a while." Brother Ingell knew his Brother Holland and sat down.
Holland's sons, when they arrived at manhood, with per- haps one exception, became members of the medical pro- fession, and Daniel Falley, the great uncle of Grover Cleveland, who had married his daughter Elizabeth, came to the Holland homestead and cared for the old man in his declin- ing years. But in time Holland removed to Oswego, New York. When the British made a descent upon that place, in the war of 1812, he was observed to mani fest great restlessness, and was closely watched by the family. Eluding the vigi- lance of his guardians, and armed with the musket which he had used with good effect at Saratoga, and perhaps at the "Crowning mercy" at Yorktown, he has- tened to the American lines, took his place in the ranks of the defenders of Oswego, and participated in the battle until the enemy was defeated. He returned to his home at night, uninjured. He was then an old, venerable man. But his conduct on that occasion was characteristic of James Holland.
Isabella Walker Quigley, the wife of James Quigley, carried heroic blood in her veins, and was very much of a heroine herself. Her father was the near kinsman of George Walker, the famous defender of Londonderry, in the war between James
THE OLD WOODRUFF PLACE.
II and his son-in-law, William Prince of Orange. In colonial times the Walker family received considerable grants of land in the District of Maine on the southwest side of Penobscot bay, and while Isabella was still a young girl, her brother, in company with several associates, commenced a settlement on these lands. The times were perilous and the location was a dangerous one, as there was an almost constant state of hostility between the inhabitants of New England and the French in Canada. To insure the safety of these pio- neers in the wilderness, a block- house was erected. 'On a certain occasion, during the French and Indian war, indications not to be
THE APPROACH TO CHESTER CENTER.
disregarded were observed that hostile Indians, intent upon mischief, were lurking in the woods, waiting for a favorable opportunity to make a descent upon the settlement. Being obliged to procure forage for their cattle at some distance, the few men left in the morning, giving strict injunctions to the women, in case of the appear- ance of the savages, to retire within the fortress and give the alarm which had been previously agreed upon. Nothing occurred to excite the attention of the women until late in the after- noon, when their suspicions were aroused by the appearance on a near hillock of an evergreen bush,
A WINTER EVENING.
which they had not previously noticed. Presently it approached nearer, and similar bushes also made appearance. Clearly something was wrong. The block- house was immediately barricaded and the alarm given, and preparations were instantly made to give the redskins a warm reception. It so happened that one of the women had been boiling soft soap in a large caldron at the blockhouse, and now, while scalding hot, rye flour was added to the liquid to render it adhesive. The blockhouse was so constructed that the second story projected several feet over the lower one, and was pierced at intervals with portholes for the purpose of dislodging any enemy who should be able to reach the side of the building. To this second story the mixture of soap and rye flour was instantly conveyed. With a ladle in her hand the courageous girl Isabella, just entering her teens, took her station by the portholes and awaited the assault of the foe. At the same moment the savages threw aside the bushes that had concealed them and made a rush for the block- house. In the dim twilight Isabella poured ladleful after ladleful of the seething, bubbling mixture of soap and rye flour through the portholes upon the upturned faces and half-naked bodies of the savages. Wherever it touched it stuck. With terrific yells and shrieks they started for the woods and were seen no more. Years after- wards, upon the peaceful heights of Murrayfield, Isabella Walker Quigley would narrate this and other adventures among the Indians in the wilds of Maine, to a group of interested and delighted grand- children.
Alexander Gordon married the sister of James Holland, and lived on what is known as Gordon Hill. His son, John Gordon, was one of the brightest young men ever raised in Murrayfield. A career which promised to be one of great useful- ness and even brilliancy was cut short by death just as he attained to
THE PLATEAU OF CHESTER HILL.
106
PICTURESQUE HAMPDEN.
which Gordon thrust in their faces. Then they would recoil for an instant, preparatory for another rush. On either side it was alternately the recoil and the rush. It was a fearful and terrific ride- the horse exerting every ounce of strength, in a steady gallop, to reach his home, and John Gordon, waving the brand of living fire, swaying from side to side to meet the onset of the foe. Home was at last reached in safety. But the wolves followed him to the very door of the dwelling.
During the whole period of his life there was no more prominent citizen of Murrayfield than Samuel Bell. He came to the town among the very first of the settlers, cleared land, built houses and barns, and, for the times and locality, achieved an enviable meas- ure of prosperity. While clearing his land, which was situated about one mile west of James Holland's place, he would labor until late in the evening, then, taking a firebrand in his hand as a protection against the attacks of the wolves, would pick his way with
A TOMB IN THE WOODS.
manhood. While still a youth John Gordon went to the Den, two or three miles distant, to assist a neighbor in slaughtering some swine. It was in the short days of December, and it was twilight before the work was completed. Fastening some of the meat to his saddle, he prepared to return home. Before mounting his horse, as a matter of precaution, he took a blazing brand, three or four feet in length, from the fireplace. He had proceeded but a short distance when his horse manifested symptoms of uneasiness, and presently his ears were saluted by the ominous baying of a pack of wolves that had been attracted by the scent of the meat. The wolves were upon him a minute later, and for two miles it became a race for life. The trusty horse knew the enemy he had to contend with, and put forth all his powers. Gordon dropped the reins upon
the neck of the horse, grasped the blazing brand with both hands and met the assault of the hungry and fero- cious brutes. The pack divided, about half on each side. The wolves would spring forward to fas- ten upon the horse's flank, to be met by the blazing firebrand
MONTGOMERY.
THE WESTFIELD RIVER, AT NORTH CHESTER.
MORNING IN THE NORTH CHESTER VALLEY.
A LITTLE FISHERMAN.
some difficulty through the forest, guided only by blazed trees, to the house of Mr. Holland, who was his brother- in-law. One day in midwinter, in company with a settler who had located in his neighborhood, he started on a hunting expedition. Presently the sun became obscured, a blinding snowstorm set in, and the two hunters became bewildered and lost. To add to their perplexities, the obscurity of night closed upon them. It was found impossible to kindle a fire, and to proceed in the darkness would be a useless waste of strength. Observing that his companion was becoming stupe- fied by the intense cold, Mr. Bell, after concealing the. guns, cut a stout birch rod and laid it smartly over his friend's back and legs. This irritated him, and he
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PICTURESQUE HAMPDEN.
started in pursuit of Mr. Bell, who led him in a circle until he became warm and good- natured. This was repeated at intervals during the long, cold, winter night, and was the means by which their lives were preserved. When the sun rose clear and bright in the morning they found that they had passed the night on the banks of the west branch of the Westfield river, about midway between the present villages of Ches- ter and Huntington.
Of these settlers and their descendants within the two miles square commonly styled the Scotch-Irish col- ony of Murrayfield, at least twenty have entered the medical profession; four were clergymen, of whom one was a doctor of divinity and another a missionary to the Sandwich Islands; four were lawyers ; one was a mem- ber of the State Senate and of the Governor's Council in Maine; another was a mem- ber of the State Senate of New York ; one was a member of the State Senate of Massachusetts; and proba- bly fifteen others have been members of the Legislature in Massachusetts and other states. No other four square miles in a secluded, rural district in New England can show such a record as this. S. B. QUIGLEY.
MARCH IN THE WOODS.
ALONG THE BROOKS OF WESTERN HAMPDEN.
The central part of Hampden county is such a busy hive of industry that people ignore the rustic beauty of its western hills. The county is indeed a little world in itself as regards the various types of human industry and the various phases of natural scenery. In the met- ropolitan city of Springfield, and in its up-the- river rival Holyoke, and in the larger towns on the river highways, great manufacturing and mercantile interests are sustained ; many towns on the eastern and central plains are almost wholly given up to agri- cultural pursuits, while among the western hills the people divide their time be- tween farming, stock raising, lumbering and mining. Financial prosperity is of course greater in the business centers than in the more sparsely settled towns, but there are riches of natural beauty in the isolation of the wild western hills that are highly appreciated by some of the dwellers there and by the few en- thusiasts who go there for summerrest, or delight to "take a day off" on the picturesque brooks that gurgle and sing and roar through the forest. How many there are in the aggregate who in former years or even up to this present time have followed these lonely streams with some kind of a rod and line and a mass of alluring worms, who can say? There is no complete list of them anywhere re- corded; but old hearts still warm and dull nerves still tingle at thought of the electric effect of "a bite " and the dazzling brilliancy of the rain- bow-hued trout as he first came from pool or rapid. No wonder that old men still cherish this form of youth- ful folly-and go trembling and timorous along a brook that they used to follow with easy agility. The youthful passion burns like fire in their bones, and no joy of early life Hinsdale. Smith, Jr. is clung to more tenaciously and
WINTER ON THE HILLS.
SPRINGTIME.
relinquished more regretfully than that of following a trout brook.
There are fishermen and there are fishermen. The true angler must be a sincere sportsman and something of a poet. He must have a fine sense of honor in the pursuit of his game, and he must find satisfaction in something besides the number or weight of fish in his creel. This is especially true of the brook trout fisherman ; he must find sufficient incentive in small, practical returns for his labor to make him feel that a few little fish are well worth going after; and he must also feel that a day in the woods with all the glories of water and rock, flowers and trees, aside from all the trophies of his skill, brings satisfaction to his soul as a lover of nature, at least equal to any comforts that can come to him as a sportsman. So, though he may get little by his rod, he can get much through his senses.
Because of this double character of a true fisherman's joys, the brooks of the Western Hampden hills afford him rare opportunities for his favorite pursuit. It is a wonder that there are any trout left in them. When we add to the fair strings of which we have heard in our time, the magnificent catches which the old fellows say they made when they were boys, think also of the small boys still tramping along their banks with an alder sapling and a piece of twine, who know nothing of leaders and boiled silk lines and split-bamboo rods, it seems strange that a single speckled minnow has survived the siege. But the race of the salmo fontinalis has not yet became extinct, though, like youthful cigarette smokers, it has become generally stunted in size. The half-pounders are rare, and the pounders very scarce. But the brooks and woods are no less beautiful than when the oldest of us were boys, except where the vandal lumberman has ravaged the forest with its old enemy the axe, and with that modern abomination, the portable steam sawmill. Before this last diabolical contrivance, both forest and trout disappear, for the sawdust which is an evidence of the destruction of one is a cause of destruction to the other.
But these_incisors and molars of civilization have not yet prepared much of the timber on our brooks for further processes of digestion in practical life. The true trout fisherman can, there- fore, always find abundant attractions on these streams.
The fish may be fewer and smaller than in days of yore, but there are fish to be found still, and some of quite respectable size. The shadowed glades and gorges are not yet to be deserted to poets and artists who do not share the sportsman's taste, for these rushing brooks still flash with the golden-bellied and speckled-sided beauties.
Fishermen, like fish, have their favorite haunts, and happy are the former when they find their choices coinciding with the choices of their sparkling game. There are two brooks which, for rich sport and wild beauty, offer as great advantages as any of the many in this delightful region. One of them is Black brook, rising in the eastern part of Blandford, running southeasterly with a rapid fall and emptying into the Westfield river opposite the railroad station at
108
PICTURESQUE HAMPDEN
MONTGOMERY - WHERE THE ROAD DIPS TOWARD WESTFIELD.
Russell. Let us follow it from the upper waters to the grist- mill in the village.
Taking a morning train with the genial Conductor Chapin, who is one of the good deacons of the old First Church in Springfield, we look eagerly on the platform at the Russell station for another deacon whose church lays special stress upon the fact that there was "much water" at Enon, when John was baptizing. Deacon Pomeroy is a true Nazarite in appearance and in principle. His beard is unshaven, and he abhors indulgence in the two popular vices of drinking and smoking. He encourages the use, however, of unfermented cider by carrying a generous supply of apples in his pockets, that he is willing to have filched by any hands. We promptly engage him to take us up the mountain, though neither horse nor wagon look equal to the journey. If ham- pered by a previous engagement
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