USA > Massachusetts > Hampden County > Picturesque Hampden : 1500 illustrations > Part 3
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More than one man lost his all by buying land when the town was on the boom, which later became next to worthless on his hands. One example was that of the Chapin Brothers, who had a store at "Baptist Village." It was a country variety store, and took farm produce in
15
PICTURESQUE HAMPDEN.
5
AN ALLEY VIEW OF THE CITY HALL.
KITCOMES
HIGH STREET, LOOKING NORTH FROM HAMPDEN.
exchange, and was doing quite a thriving business. They were bank- ers, as well, in a small way, taking such moneys as the farmers of the region chose to leave with them, and paying interest therefor. This firm, in expectancy of the city's rapid growth, bought up a tract north of South street and east of their village, known as " The Plain," and built on it half a dozen small houses. But they had made a miscalculation, and they presently failed. This failure made a great commotion, as, owing to their banking business, the whole community in the west part of the town was more or less involved. Exposed windows in vacant buildings were a temptation to the boys of those days, and the glass of these dwellings was broken by the stones they threw, and the uncared for houses which had to wait twenty years for occupants made a dismal looking group.
It is remembered that in these dull years just preceding the war, the Hamilton House, then known as the Holyoke House, was offered for sale for $20,000. It had just been built at a cost of $110,000, but no taker could be found even at the price quoted.
TRANSCRIPT
BANSCRIPT
PUBLISHING CC
WEEKLY
BOOK JOB PRINTEI S
HOLYOKE NEWSBOYS.
When the dam was finished, in 1849, the water fell perpendicularly over its crest, and its pounding could be heard for miles about. When the air was just right, the sound was audible as far away as Springfield. The water as it fell imparted to the earth a slight vibra- tion, that would set such windows and doors as were not perfectly tight into a clicking motion. You might see a man jump up in the midst of service in one of the churches and stick his knife into some window that was keeping up
an unchurchly rattling. Everything about a house that was the least bit loose was " a-shaking and a-clapping," and you could see the jarring motions of poles or sticks in the garden which were not very firmly set in the earth. These results were rather astonishing to begin with, but the natives soon became used to them. "The dam was a great music box," to be sure, but once having become accustomed to it, the sensation on getting out of hearing of its roar was a curious one. The stillness was almost oppressive. "It seemed as if Sunday was come ; it made one feel queer; you couldn't think what the matter was, there was such a dead silence."
A BIT OF HIGH ST. ARCHITECTURE.
A little four-foot apron projected from the crest of the dam, and from this was suspended, some eight feet below, by iron rods, a plank walk on which one could pass beneath the sheet of water which was falling over the dam. Not many would aspire to this experience, as a walk on those slippery planks in the mists and sprays from the flying waters, and with such a roar in your ears that you could hardly hear yourself think, would not be enjoyable to the average individual. The logs and ice dropping over the dam soon demolished this walk, and it was never rebuilt.
There are several more or less tragic bits of history connected with the dam that are worth recording. Some time after the structure was finished, three Irishmen were crossing the river in a boat, just above the fall, when an oar broke. The man rowing became confused and pulled furiously with the
LOOKING UP HAMPDEN STREET, FROM HIGH.
16
PICTURESQUE HAMPDEN.
remaining oar, but that only served to turn the boat round and round. So the craft was dashed over the dam. But luckily the swift current below swept the men close by a great rock in mid-stream, which they managed to grasp, and soon were ensconced safely on its top and yelling lustily for help. The cry was soon running through the town that there were three men over the dam, and the crowds began at once to gather on the banks. The accident occurred just at the edge of evening on a cold day in autumn, and the plight of the poor fellows out on the rock after their ducking was in no wise enviable. Night set- tled gloomily down, and bonfires were kindled on either bank to show the shipwrecked that those on shore were planning help. At the Falls and Holyoke there then lived a number of the old river boatmen who were familiar with the stream, and from long practice knew how to handle a boat with the greatest skill and dexterity. Four of these men, Isaac Hadley, Levi Dickinson, Sam Ely and Joseph Ely, manned one of the old flat-boats lying in disuse at the ferry landing, poled it up along shore, crept cautiously out in the bit of water below the dam, which was a little less fierce than that below, took
R B JOHNSON & SON
ANK
IHCLYCKE
SAVINGS BANK
INSURANCE
NAT Ka
HUN SIC
A HIGH STREET EXTRANCE.
DRUGS
HIGH STREET, CORNER HAMPDEN.
they were working was dragging anchor, and was on the very edge of the dam. The suction of the water on the verge of the fall was terrible. There was no hope. Mr. Hadley called out for each man to take care of himself, and the next instant the boat plunged into the surging waters below. Hadley and one other were drowned. The third man, when he came to himself after the shock, found he was drifting past a rock just below the fall, and he man- aged to gain a foothold on it. His shouts at once attracted attention, and thousands of people gath- ered on the banks within a few minutes. A crew of the old watermen was soon found for one of the flatboats. The boat came up along shore, and
when it turned its head out into the river, and, tossed on the broken waters, made its uncertain way toward mid-stream, the multitude on the bank held its breath with anxiety. Now the rock is reached, the man clambers aboard, and a great shout goes up from the crowds on shore. But it is quickly hushed, for the foaming rapids below are still to be passed. Two of the boatmen are at the oars; the other two stand, one on each side, at the bow with poles in hand and a watchful eye on the currents before
them. They know the channel and the suction of every rock. The boat starts on its course and goes straight down through the rapids like a race horse, tossed or guided this way and that in the wild waves, and at times half lost in dashing spray, but presently coming out safe in the quieter waters below. Then the witnessing crowds breathed freely again, and gave vent to their feeling in long-continued cheering.
In a little shanty by the canal on the South Hadley side, at the foot of the Glasgow hill, lived Rufus Robinson, in his last years, all alone. He was one of
CHILD'S
BUSINESS
HIGH STREET, LOOKING SOUTH; FROM DWIGHT.
the three men from the rock and shot down through the rapids to safety. It was a desperate undertaking carried bravely through.
Not many years later the leader of these rescuers, Isaac Hadley, met his death here. Mr. Hadley was a sturdy, thickset, powerfully built man, a man greatly looked up to in the community, a man of good judgment, who could always be depended on. He had been captain of one of the old river boats, and had later been an overseer in the con- structing of the dam. It thus came about, from his knowledge of the river, boats and the dam, and his general ability and trust- worthiness, that he was always called upon to superintend such repairing as was necessary at the dam. In the summer of 1866 he worked for several days stopping a leak which was mak- ing trouble. A leak was made apparent by an upward boiling of the water below the fall, and was usually stopped by dumping in quantities of sand bags just above. Before this job was fin- ished the water began to rise rapidly, and on the 20th of August, when Mr. Hadley crossed the ferry to begin work, he remarked that he never had so dreaded to go to his work as he did that morning. But the morning wore quietly away, and at eleven o'clock the job was pronounced done. At this moment the three men noticed the flatboat on which
HIGH STREET, NEAR OLIVER.
the old boatmen and had the reputation of being the most skillful waterman on the river, and no one had a higher opinion of Rufus Robinson than Rufus Robinson himself. In earlier days he had distinguished him- self by piloting down the rapids a steamboat which had been built for use above but proved unprofitable. Now, he thought he could row a boat right across on top of the dam and come to no harm. He was a limber, graceful, daring fellow- a very good sort of person, except for the liquor he let run down his throat. And so, as in many a case before his day and since, he met death through drink. One Sunday, having rowed across the river to slake a dryness he was subject to, he was seen to come down to his boat later with stag- gering steps, and a few minutes afterward the boat was dashed over the dam.
17
PICTURESQUE HAMPDEN.
Another tragic story has a woman for its subject. It was a winter's even- ing. The river above the dam was frozen in a glary sheet of ice, and a strong north wind had come up and was sweeping with bitter force down the stream. The woman, having been visiting at the Falls, started across the ice toward home. It was a dark night, the sky was clouded and a fine sleet was cutting through the air. She became somewhat confused in the wind and storm, and when the full force of the gale struck her in mid-river she began to slip along the glary surface. She struggled against the wind, but it still drove her along
HAMPDEN STREET, FROM HIGH.
toward the fatal dam, whose roar was sounding in her ears above that of the storm. She fell on her knees and clung to the ice, but when she rose again to battle toward home, the wind pushed her slowly but surely toward the dam. It was frightful. She cried for help. But few would go abroad on such a wild night, and the wind stifled her shouts so that in the dull roar of the RELAX ENO ROOFER waters, now so near, she could not have been heard a dozen yards away. She sat down with her back to the wind and took off her shoes, hoping that in stocking feet she would not slip. But her feet quickly numbed and she had to give up. In the morning the weather had cleared and quieted, and then a chance passer found her body only a few feet from the edge of the dam on the glary ice, which was streaked with the remnants of last night's snow scud.
DIEAV TT
STE
PICTURESQUENESS IN THE REAR OF HIGH STREET.
In the course of time a suspicion arose that the constant pounding of the water over the dam must be wearing away the bottom below, and so endangering the base of the structure. A test showed that hollows twenty, thirty and even forty feet deep had been worn in the river bed, and steps were at once taken to build an apron to the dam. This
LOWER HIGH STREET.
THE MILLS, SEEN FROM LOWER HIGH STREET.
was done in 1868-70. First these worn hollows were filled with sand-bags, and with " cribs" made of logs criss-crossing and filled with stone till they sank. The stone came from all the country around, and many a farmer took this opportunity to sell at a profit the old stone walls zig-zaging about his fields. While this work was going on a diver, who had gone below to examine the cavity they were filling, was caught by the current, the tubes and cords connecting him with the surface were snapped, and he was never seen after. Search for the body was unavailing. He was probably drawn into some crevice and there buried beneath the sand and rubbish churning about in the water. So there he lies to this day, walled in the dam. The apron almost rivals the main structure in size and solidity. It has the same slope as the upper part, and a base of fifty feet. Down this the water slips with a mellow roar, quite gentle beside the heavy pounding of earlier days, and the loose windows and doors of the neighborhood tremble no more at the dam's mighty pulsations.
THE PROBLEM.
The common problem, your's, mine, every one's, Is - not to fancy what were fair in life Provided it could be - but finding first What may be, then find how to make it fair Up to our means.
-Browning.
SITE OF THE NEW Y. M. C. A. BUILDING, 1891.
FOR THE ABSENT SONS OF HAMPDEN.
No more grateful act can be performed than to send the absent sons and daughters of Hampden both volumes of " Picturesque." The price is so low that several copies, sent on their friendly mission, would seem small expense in view of the pleasure they will give. How welcome such a work as this must be to one who has been for some years away from his native hills and meadows. Every Hampden man and woman should save a copy for the home, and it is suggested that in the holiday season no gift could be more appropriate than our "Family Edition," with its substantial and attractive cloth cover, or, if you can spare a few dollars more, the "Holiday Edition," richly bound in full leather.
18
PICTURESQUE HAMPDEN.
THE CULVERT AT THE DINGLE.
SPRING FLOODS ON THE CONNECTICUT.
THE SOUTHERN END OF HIGH STREET.
By the beginning of April the ice which, during the winter, has bridged the Connecticut river in its quieter parts, has been loosed from the shore by the sun's increasing warmth, and, worn away by the water till it is weak and honeycombed, it crumbles and is swept down the stream. The upper portions of the river are often some weeks later in breaking up, but in mild years are sometimes clear by the end of March. When the snows on the New Hampshire hills and the Green Mountains fairly begin to melt, and every little stream becomes a torrent and rushes down to the river to swell its current, the channel fills to the brim, and all the low- lands are flooded, and the brown meadows which lie higher have long streaks of water in every hollow. The water bears with it great quantities of brush, bits of board, wood left by choppers within its reach, and like rubbish, known to the natives under the comprehensive name of " flood- trash." Amongst this is a sprinkling of logs, some rotten or filled with knots, others smooth and sound -runaways from some upstream sawmill. Some are bat- tered and slivered by collision with the ice, and many are run through with long bolts and spikes, showing them to be a part of some washed away dam or pier. A GROUP ON THE SIDEWALK. Often there will be heavy plank and great timbers from a destroyed bridge on the current, and many are the prizes to be had for the taking The farmers living on the banks who possess boats, are not slow to take advantage of this circum- stance. To some of them the river becomes their wood lot and their lumber yard. Those who have the best positions, take their pick from what comes down and do not waste any time over the poorer stuff. What passes them, no matter how apparently worthless, is thankfully received by the
poorer classes in the cities below, who watch the stream and fish from it every- thing burnable which comes within their reach. Happy is the man among them who owns some old scow of a boat. Fortune smiles on him, and he is the envy of all his fellows.
Every farmer among the favored ones who live at the water's edge has one or two spike poles, bought sometimes of the "logmen," when in the summer they escort their big "drive " of logs down the river ; but oftener the poles are home-made. They are some twelve or fifteen feet in length. When making a sally in the boat, some carry a short spike pole five or six feet long, and others what they call "a dog," which looks something like an axe, except for the curious shape of the blade. lf a man catches logs alone, he has attached to the stern of his boat by short
soanine
THE SACRED HEART CATHOLIC CHURCH.
SOUTH CHESTNUT STREET SCHOOL.
chains one or two small iron instruments, also known as " dogs," which he drives into any logs he may wish to tow in. The end driven into the log turns down, and is in shape like a short spike. The opposite end bends upward, so that a sharp blow on it prys out the end buried in the wood. Once brought to the bank, the logs are fastened to stakes and convenient trees, and presently horses are attached and they are drawn up on dry land. .
The rising water, which is very uncertain in its movements till the middle of May, is always the occasion of considerable uneasi- ness among those who live on low ground; for every year some cellars are flooded, and there is always the chance that the water will come up still higher and drive the people from their homes. North- ampton, Springfield and Hartford are all partially overflowed at times. In the great flood of 1862 the old town of Hadley was half under water, and other towns and hamlets are not lacking in similar experiences.
19
PICTURESQUE
HAMPDEN.
SACRED HEART CONVENT AND SCHOOL.
HOLYOKE NEWSBOYS.
Being a newsboy is being one chapter of the world's boyhood. It is being a very busy chapter, and a very bright and quite an important one.
The world knows well enough that the ways of newspaper making are many, and the newsboy knows that so, too, are the ways of selling the printed sheets. He knows that in the same numbers he measures his success, so does the paper that he sells. From this comes a sense of possession, and if the makers of " our paper " only will give something that will suit, he will see that the people take it.
In newsboydom there is a constant pushing evolution. But it is an evolution that takes the boy out of the news ranks and makes him errand boy, or clerk, or steady worker of some kind. Within the ranks boys may come and boys may go, but the newsboy is always the same. Those who sell the Holyoke afternoon papers are like the rest of their motley kind. Perhaps they do not have to rush and hurry as when morning editions must be spread around before breakfast time,
A TOWER-CHURCH OF THE UNITY.
and if anything, they may be a degree brighter and a little sharper at business deals than elsewhere. As financiers they are great successes, and there is no limit to the tricks they will think of and practice in their line.
The paper will go to press at four o'clock, but the boy is on hand early and begins to hang around by two o'clock, or, if school keeps, he comes as soon as he is loose. His aim is to "get out early," for he has customers in whom he takes as much pride as does his senior in business in his patrons, and those customers wan
of them in front of the railing that keeps the crowd from the big press. A rushing, push- ing, grasping, yelling crowd it is.
It is the same crowd getting together every day, and the same uncongenial spirits displaying themselves. Sometimes a sparring match is needed to cement friendship, and nearly every day the same sparrers are settling the same grievance or making fast the
PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH.
same compact. There is a code for these matches. Fighting space is cleared in the crowd, and each sparrer has his siders. A little fellow steps just a trifle out to umpire the fun, and makes brisk music with a jews- harp or a harmonica. The ready strugglers go at it, and fist and push and parry until some one is worsted. Then quarter is called, the music stops, and the beaten boy promises to do the licking next time.
WAITING FOR SUNDAY-SCHOOL TO BEGIN.
the news as soon as it can be got on paper. Besides, there is a chance to do extra business for the boy who gets his news first. He can run from one corner to another and catch the street farer, while the other fellow is still waiting noisily in the press-room for his packet of papers. It is hard to say what the boys do during their two- hours' wait. No boy with full health was ever known to be still for « two hours, and much less could this be expected of the two hundred
AN ENTRANCE -- PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH.
There is a deal of chivalry shown in that noisy crowd. This little fellow fares better than some, because his back is not straight and strong like other boys'. And this other little fellow is very young.
Boys of all sorts are in the crowd. There is the harum-scarum little fellow who sells ten or a dozen papers in a hotel corridor or on a busy corner, the more regular one who sells only to his customers, and the big boy who has been long in the business and takes some hundreds, delivering them over the same course that he has for the past half-dozen years. The boys have a yell all their own, which they originate and shortly forget, but start again in some new form It is generally in sound much like the class yells of college boys, only less complicated.
When at last the wheels of the big press begin to turn, the rush and push against the iron railing is two-hundred-boy power. There is a two-hundred-boy
THE MASSASOIT.
20
PICTURESQUE HAMPDEN.
UNITARIAN CHURCH.
force to the yell that is raised for papers at the same time. "Gimme twenty!" "I want sixty!" "Forty !" And the pennies go over the railing as fast as the man behind can take them. Perhaps that sharp boy with the funny shock of hair, who is squeezed firm in front of the mass, hands over a loaded fifty-cent piece and cries out, " Fifty papers !" He expects a good quarter besides in change, but he rarely gets it. The man in charge knows his business as well as he knows the boys, and leaded pieces and plugged coins have to be taken back.
One boy gets his bundle of damp papers, there is a squeezing through an almost impossible space that couldn't be seen a moment before and is closed over the next moment, and the boy is abroad with the news. There is a rush for the first street man, and then off for stores, offices, factories and
RESIDENCE OF E. W. CHAPIN.
guests at hotels. His frail and poorly clothed figure is the last on the streets at night, and he is never afraid to appeal to the stranger's kind- heartedness. If he is cold, or hungry, or dirty, with him that is a matter of business ; the look of suffering pain or hardship has a money value.
RESIDENCE OF JAMES RAMAGE.
Because he likes the work, this other little fellow sells a dozen papers, rain or shine, while that big boy is out only when the weather favors. He is a high school lad, for whom selling papers means not so much business as spending money.
Still another schemer is the boy who has "only one paper left," and won't sell it for less than two cents because he " will have to cut some one," and rather than do that he says he will pay double price himself. But no sooner has he made this sale and is on the other side of a crossing, than a paper appears and is ready for the next buyer. Still the scheming is an exception. In the main, it is an honest crowd that sells the news to its readers, crying long from sheltered doorways, "Only a cent, Mister, for Holyoke daily papers."
M. A. RYAN.
RESIDENCE OF K. C. TAFT.
APPLETON STREET SCHOOL.
lounging places. All is business.
One little fellow, who lisps, " I'm doin' to sell all my papers if I stay out till eight o'tlock," is full of en- ergy, and, as well, po- lite. When his pockets don't hold the change for nickels, he runs to the nearest store and gets it, and when some one tells him to keep the change, he is pret- tily thankful. That is the boy who, at six, earns a dollar a week towards his bank-book. He has not yet been to school, but knows how to master his money problems. He began his work on a sound basis with a few pa- pers, and little by lit- tle added customers, until at the end of a twelve-month he takes out forty papers every day.
Another little fel- low, not so honest or industrious, and not so successful, for that matter, but cuter and more schemy, covers his face with dirt, makes it look as if he had been crying, and tries the sympathy of
RESIDENCE OF WILLIAM SKINNER.
THE HIGH SCHOOL.
21
PICTURESQUE
MAPLE STREET, FROM ESSEX.
WORKING LIFE IN HOLYOKE.
A bright boy wrote the following essay on Man :- " Man is an animal that stands up; he is not very big, and he has to work for a living." This description admits of some exceptions, but upon the whole it covers the case very well. And Holyoke is a good place in which to become acquainted with the people who work for a living. In Holyoke, work is the order of the day, and to a large extent, of the night also. It is the order of six days in the week, and in too many cases of seven.
I have no wish to aggra- vate social discontent, of which there is too much al- ready. Most men, whether employers or employes, are anxious to get as much money as they can get lawfully. Business is, in most cases, conducted under sharp com- petition, which does not af- ford a very large leeway for philanthropic principles. Nevertheless, let no man deny that philanthropic prin- ciples should have a place in business ; let no man repeat the guilty apology of Cain,
METHODIST CHURCH - APPLETON STREET.
special need of protection. To youth add poverty, and the need of legal defense cannot be gainsaid. This is now provided in part ; but it ought to be increased, and the employ- ers of children should be particularly mindful of their responsibilities. The subject is of the greatest importance, because upon it depends the future. If it is poor economy to keep a colt at hard work, how is it of a boy or a girl? And if the latter is bad economy, is not the humanity of it to be questioned ? It will be said that the children help support the family. This is very well, if they can do it without injury to their own future. But let us be careful not to injure the health and prospects of future fathers and mothers, for to do this is to invite race degeneration.
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