USA > Massachusetts > Hampden County > Longmeadow > Proceedings at the centennial celebration of the incorporation of the town of Longmeadow, October 17th, 1883 > Part 27
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Going back to the former days, there was another institution of which Longmeadow is not inclined to boast. Domestic slavery pre- vailed to a considerable extent. Frequent mention is made in old documents of negro servants. In the old church they had their pew in the gallery, and in the burying-ground their appointed place was the southeast corner. But as no monuments commemorated them, and their descendants have passed away, their history is but ill preserved. In "Marchant" Colton's day-book for 1769, May 20, is this entry : "George Cooley, Somers, Cr. By a negrow man named Jack, Sª Cooley Gave me a bil of Sale of sª negrow for £60"-($200). After the merchant's death, Jack became somewhat uppish, and in his grum- blings one day muttered in the hearing of his mistress, the Widow Colton, " Isn't me as free as anybody ?" "To be sure," replied she, " Go about your business." " Me will," says Jack, " if you turns me out." She accordingly led him to the door and manumitted him, in the ancient legal fashion, by a literal shove of the hand out of her door into the wide world of freedom. Jack used to come back and plead for restoration, but unavailingly. He became an impecunious citizen of Springfield, and occupied a cabin on the east side of the town brook, about where the Second National Bank now stands. His motto of freedom was " The State 'bliged to 'stain me."
Tradition says that Merchant Colton, who became the richest man of the precinct, being orphaned at the age of 17, complained of his uncle Ephraim as being hard with him, and set up for himself ; being allowed his own cows for a support, and his negro servant Tony for a helpmate. March 26, 1719, Stephen Williams, then in the third year of his ministry, writes : " This day I bought me a servant man. Some of my neighbors think it may be for the better ; others think not." The negative opinion may have resulted from his having got so little profit from Nicholas, a body servant who attended him and his wife on their horseback journeys. Oct. 21, 1718. "I went to Deerfield and sold my boy Nicholas. He seemed to be very concerned what he was sold about ; and surely I was grieved for him ; but yet I thôt it wd be for his benefit to be sold to a master y' wd keep him to busi- ness, as well as for my profit." Mention is also made at various times of Tom, Peter, Cato, Phyllis, Scipio, and Stanford. April 11, 1754. "This morning poor Tom behaved saucily and unbecomingly, so that we were forced to tye him up. He appeared penitent and I forgave him." In his prayers frequent and tender supplications are offered for " the servants of the family." Oct. 17, 1731. " I baptized our
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negro boy Scipio, I and my wife publickly promising that we would endeavor (God assisting us) that he should have a Christian educa- tion." The church records mentions such instances. July 13. Cæsar, negro servant to Capt. Geo. Colton and Zick, negro servant of Thos. Field, were " baptized and subjected themselves to ye covenant of Christ on his church." Feb. 17, 1733, Peter, negro servant of Ser- geant John Cooley and Phyllis, servant of Stephen Williams, were baptized and made a public profession of their reformation.
It appears from Dr. Williams' diary that his intimate friend, Presi- dent Wheelock of Dartmouth College, owned at least four negroes.
Of the old-time customs, there were both good and bad. The peo- ple were shut in upon themselves-both for their enjoyments and their strifes. Their own community was their little world ; they knew each others' affairs pretty thoroughly, and there was abundant opportunity for the meddlesome. Hospitality was a virtue and a solace. The pastor set a large example. He speaks of having one day twelve chance guests at his table, and during another seven arrivals to spend the night. The blazing fire of logs on the ample hearth sizzled and snapped and roared a cheery evening welcome. The tobacco-box, with its long and short pipes, hung in a handy place. The straight- backed, rush-bottomed chairs tipped back against the wall, and the high-backed settles that beat back the draughts and reflected the ruddy glow invited to free and easy talk. For the convenience of the young lovers, there was no next room, but courting sticks-prophe- cies of the telephone-long wooden tubes that could convey from lip to lip sweet and secret whispers. The merry blast of the stage horn was a more stimulating sound than is to us the distant shriek of the locomotive. The flip irons were always ready on the tavern hearth, and "tavern haunting " was one of the bad customs. Carousings, excessive drinking, "company keeping," "frolicks " among the young people, "all night " sometimes, if Pastor Williams is correctly in- formed, must have been known or else some of his faithful sermons were works of supererogation.
The wood sleddings, when the woodpile at the parsonage began to vanish away, were joyful occasions for the parson, with just a little tinge of apprehension. Never does Stephen Williams forget to make a note of them. Jan. 25, 1757. "Neighbors sledded wood for me and shewed a Good Humour. I rejoice at it. The Lord bless them that are out of humour, and brot no wood." A selected load of hick- ory, expressly for his study fire, rejoiced the good man's heart still more.
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The "rate days," too, were tests of character and feeling. In the great scarcity of money, the rates were paid in grain which the minis- ter made into beef and pork to pay his debts. " I declined taking some corn that Capt. C. sent here this day. I think I acted upon a principle of justice. I desire that the Captain may be kept calm and composed."
And the spinners came to help the parson's family, and the quilt- ers, and there were "repasts of cake and pies " and merry times. The reapers and mowers also lent a hand when the grass and grain of the " ministry land " were ripe ; but the rum provided by the parson must be of good quality, or there might be " uneasiness."
The customs of that day looked towards mutual help. At every raising the community gathered, and with plenty of drink and great good cheer, sometimes " too merry," the parson thought. For a long time there was no appointed sexton, the neighbors dug and filled the grave, and carried the bier.
The old-time minister had no stipulated vacation, but he indulged in long journeys, election weeks, and commencements, and when the Sabbath found him absent, Dea. Aaron, or Master Jabe would read a sermon.
The Sabbath day was strictly kept, although considerably infringed upon in the war times, from sunset on Saturday to sunset on Sunday ; and yet there was more or less of worldly conversation about the church doors before service, and in the horse-sheds and neighbors' houses at noon. The tithing men also had to watch with considerable vigilance the boys and girls in the galleries.
The church creed was brief, but the real creed was the Westminster Shorter Catechism, recited at the home fireside in connection with the family worship, and on Saturday forenoons, instead of spelling, in the common schools. Dr. Williams held frequent "catechisms" for the children ; he met the young men in the school-house for familiar ques- tionings and instruction, the young women also by themselves ; he held household meetings for prayer in cases of special need ; he re- peated sermons in private houses for the benefit of invalids and aged people. A weekly lecture, set up by the ministers of six adjacent parishes, was for a long time largely attended, and on one of these occasions " after Mr. Brewers Lecture, Goodman B- was set in the pillory before the Congregation." That there were tramps in the for- mer days we have this testimony from Dr. Williams : "Jan. 31, 1766. "We have many persons, passing along, y' appear to be mere cheats, y' impose upon people and get money from them."
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Q .- INDUSTRIES AND MANUFACTURES.
In the early days of Longmeadow, the men and women, boys and girls, were all workers if they would maintain the best repute. Idlers and drunkards were the rare exceptions. There was very little cash : trade was mostly by barter, the exchange being either of labor or pro- duce. Agriculture was the fundamental resource and the manufac- tures were generally home-made or carried on within the limits of the community. There were the great and the small spinning-wheels, and the clacking looms and the darting shuttles, all making house- hold music. There were the spinning and the quilting bees, the candle-dippings, the fulling-mills, the cloth dressers, and the dye- tubs. The shoemakers, like Azariah Woolworth and Jonathan Stebbins, wrought in their little shops with their apprentices, or shouldered their packs and went from house to house to shoe the family by the day or the week, when the tanners, like Oliver Dwight and Gaius Bliss, had prepared the hides ; the tailors and tai- loresses, like Isaiah Morgan and Betsy Colton, peregrinated in like fashion, when the home-made cloth was ready. The boys shook the trees and picked up the apples ; the cider-mills crushed them, and the stills produced the brandy. The cabinet-makers, like David and Wal- ter White, made the furniture, and made it well: the millers, like Abner Chandler and Joseph Morrison, ground the corn and sawed the timber; the coopers, like Elijah Colton, provided the barrels and tubs ; the blacksmiths, like Chandler Colton and Daniel and Israel Gates, shod the horses ; the wood-workers and wheelwrights, like Eli Taylor and Sabin Colton, made the carts; the carpenters, like George Ray- nolds, framed the houses ; surveyors, like David Booth, measured the lands ; and there were masons, hatters, powder manufacturers, ink makers, printers, brick-makers, net-weavers, rope-makers, broom- makers, and, indeed, all the handicrafts that were needed for the uses or comforts of those days. Seven brick-yards, and as many shoe- shops, 17 cider-mills, and 6 distilleries can be enumerated as belonging to the western part of the town alone, and at least 17 other manufactur- ing industries, besides those carried on in the private houses. "My children," writes Stephen Williams in his diary for Sept. 16, 1762, "have been trying the new machine for the winding of silk from the balls, and have been so far successful that I apprehend that there may be some profit in raising silk even in this country." While the women of his household spun and wove, every farmer was something of a mechanic ; or he could exchange his day's work or his farm products
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for the skilled labor of the village artisan. There were no middle- men. Every householder, even the minister, killed his own beef and pork, and loaned or borrowed, as convenience suited. Longmeadow had less need of Boston or New Haven merchants than they had of her farmers to do their winter teaming, although in quiet times of peace large quantities of goods went round by water. The teamsters carried eight barrels of flour to a two-horse load, and their charge for freight to Boston was about $1 per hundred pounds.
Nor should the Longmeadow flat-boatmen, like Capt. John Cooley and William Hixon, be forgotten, as belonging to the old days when the Connecticut River was whitened with the great white sails of the flat-boats, and merry during the summer season with the shouts and. songs of the jovial watermen. As for her own merchants, Samuel Col- ton, Jonathan and Hezekiah Hale, the first built his own vessels, and they all exported staves, hoop-timber, tobacco, or some other home product for their rum, sugar, salt, or drygoods. A bill of lading for Merchant Colton's brig Friendship has been cited in the histori- cal discourse. Here follows an invoice of Jonathan Hale & Son, con- signing 425 pounds of tobacco to Jonathan Smith, "shiped By and on the Resque of Ebenezer Smith, Esq., on Bord the Briganteen Gotton Burgh, Wm. Claghorn, Commander, Bound for gotton Bourgh in Swe- den," and procuring in exchange "23 lbs. of white lead, 14 lbs. of pepper, one silk handkerchief, one set of Cheney, and 3 Snuff Boxes."
In those ante-railroad days the Longmeadow merchants rivaled those of Springfield or Hartford, and dealt with a large extent of country. It was a frequent sight to behold on some fair day the west side of the highway above and below "Merchant Colton's" lined for nearly a quarter of a mile with the horses of his customers, who had come with their saddlebags from Somers, Monson, Stafford, and all the region round about. When the Revolution broke out they were put to severe straits by the emission of the Continental currency. While " Marchant Colton " refused it at par value, Jonathan and Hezekiah Hale, with a wiser foresight, submitted, and no doubt under stress of the following document, in the handwriting of " Master Jabe " :
To M' Jonathan Hail and his fon Hezekiah Hail-
SIRS: it is matter of great grief that you Should give us caufe to call upon you in this uncomon way. Every man whofe actions are unfriendly to the comon Caufe of our country ought to be convinced of his wrong behaviour & made to reform, or treated as an open enemy. We find you guilty of very wrong behaviour in felling things at extravagant prices, particularly Weft India Goods. This conduct plainly tends to undervalue paper Currency which is very detrimental to the Liberties of
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America. We therefore as your offended Brethren demand fatiffaction of you the offenders by a confeftion for your paft conduct & a Thorough reformation for time to Come. We warn you to be careful not to endevour to fell anything at Such an extravagant Price as you have done before ; that you Sell Weft India Goods at no more than the following Prices : Weft India Rum at Six Shillings by the Single Gallon ; Molafes at Three Shillings, Do; Sugar at Nine pence pr Pound ; Salt at Six Shilling by ye Single Bufhel ; and if you Sell thofe articles by the large Quan- tity you are to Sell proportionably Cheaper. We expect an anfwer to this whether you Comply or not ; as if you do not Comply you muft be Treated with as obftinate enemies to your Country. The fpace of an hour is granted for an anfwer for which we fhall wait on you.
By whom signed, if it was signed at all, does not appear. In Mer- chant Colton's case the "Committee of Safety " were disguised. When soon after Col. Gideon Burt joined the Hail firm, we find them doing a good business in gunpowder for the Continental army. An invoice of nine barrels of powder, dated Boston, April 17, 1782, and signed by their consignee, Thos. Foster, records the sale of two barrels to Samuel Bradstreet, and one each to John Fairservice, Capt. Cordis, Wm. and Josiah Brown, Capt. Amasa Davis, Dawes & Coolidge, Sam'l Salisbury and Thos. Newell, Jr., footing up a total of £134 .- 3,-6.
·The farmers as well as merchants of those days were good book- keepers. "Thomas Colton, his Count Booke Bought Feb. 4, 1701-2, of Mr. John Pynchon 3d and price-00-06-08," contains accounts with 156 different persons, paged, indexed, and the credit and debit sides properly balanced. Several such account-books remain to testify to the business accuracy of the ancient Longmeadow farmers.
The following list, taken at random, of Capt. Thomas Colton's charges and payments, will throw light upon the prices of various arti- cles in his day, reckoning six shillings to a dollar :
By 8 pare of thoos (made by Ebenezer Blifs at my houfe) {2. 4. Seting a pach on my fhoo 6d. Side of upper leather {1. 12. Making a Barrill 3s. 6. Meat bar- rill 4s. Hay Knife 175. Coming 12 pounds of Wool 12s. To my jurny to Chick- ebe 2s. Mans work one day 2s. do, mowing 2s. 3d. 1000 tenpenny nails 13s. Cow- hide 59 lbs £4. 8. 6. Horfe 2 days to ride to town 2s. Oxen one day Is. 2d. Oxen and Cart one day 3s. 6d. 8 buthels Indian corn, cath, 16s. Weefinge 54 yards Lin. enge cloth {1. 11. S. Brafs Kittell {1. Quart of Brandy 2s. Quart of melafes Is. Id. Peck of molte 78. 6d. 3 Hog yoaks Ss. Ox Yoak fI. o. o. 17 lbs butter 175. 4 bufhells tornups 5s. 15 lbs tobacco 7s. 6d. In the year 1719 my rate for M' Williams was {4. I. S. My rate to the meeting houfe, 1714, 65. 12. S. To a fword and Belt {1. 8. 3 doz pigens Is. 19 thahs 2s. 9d. 1 doz of pigens 9d. broom Ios. 3 doz Coat buttons 6s. 8. A pare of leder Breches 17s. Anna Col. ton's board 2 weeks 5s. Geo. Colton's board 2 weeks Ss. Boy one day IS. 4000 good marchantabel bords £5. Horfe one day and Halfe to plow Is. Id. Schooling my boys 7 weeks {1. 10s. Setting 32 copies 4>.
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To encourage business enterprise, the town, at various dates toward the close of the last century (see pp. 166-7), leased a strip of land in the middle of the village green, a little north of the church, for shops of various kinds, which made a very slovenly appearance. Little attention was paid anywhere to tidiness of grounds or dwellings. The woodpiles and chipyards before the unpainted houses, the rail fences and steaming barnyards that came to the front, the roaming swine and geese (see p. 175), the blowing sand that threatened the underpinning of the old church (see p. 152), gave no predictions of street-improvement societies.
During the present century the Longmeadow merchants have been John Woolworth, Calvin Burt & Sons, Dimond and Simeon Colton, William White, Horace Newell, Lester Noble, and Edwin K. Colton ; and in the eastern part of the town, Andrew McIntosh, Seth Taylor, Willis Phelps, William Lathrop, Crooks Bros., G. W. Callender, Henry Crooks, C. F. Russell, Prescott Billings, Edward Lathrop, W. H. Dickinson, James L. Pratt, and Henry Hall.
The tavern-keepers have been Simon Colton, Nathaniel Ely, Nathaniel Burt, Demas Colton, Alpheus Colton, Stephen Chandler, Seth Steel, William White, Dimond Colton and Sons, Captain Burn- ham ; and in the eastern part of the town, Daniel Porter, George Hunt, Willis Phelps, Joseph Morrison, Lyman Lathrop, John Ives, and Henry Crooks.
In 1848 Dimond Chandler began the manufacture of buttons in the western part of the town, which was largely expanded by the Newell Bros. The manufacture of spectacles and thimbles was also carried on by Dimond Chandler, Jacob Colton, Gilson D. Hollister, Sumner W. Gates, George Terry and E. K. Colton, John Miller, Samuel Bur- bank, and Wm. W. Coomes, the last named only remaining in that trade.
The physicians, besides those already mentioned as connected with East Longmeadow, have been Dr. Charles Pynchon, William Sheldon, Joshua Frost, Lewis White, Daniel Stebbins, Oliver Bliss, Hiram Bliss, George Hooker, William Vaille, D. A. Dorman, T. L. Chapman, and John A. Mckinstry.
Longmeadow has had but one resident professional lawyer, Asa Olmstead, and his residence was brief. But there have been always unprofessional village lawyers, such as Jabez and Elihu Colton, Nathaniel Ely, Gad O. Bliss, and Erskine D. Burbank, whose techni- cal knowledge and trusted judgment have been relied upon for the drawing of wills, the settlement of estates, and all similar business.
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Stephen Williams, whose eminent sagacity and judicial common sense, combined with the gentleness of wisdom, were held in the highest esteem, was not infrequently consulted in the making of wills, and often acted as a mutual counsellor or referee in cases of dissen- sion and perplexity.
The Longmeadow fisheries were formerly a source of considerable profit. Salmon were so plenty before the dams impeded them and the factories defiled the water, that a proportionate quantity of salmon was stipulated to go with the shad. The shad, however, were always the most of a drug ; the salmon sold the shad rather than the shad the salmon. Almost every family in those days salted down their shad, and it was the stipulation of hired men that they should not have a disproportionate amount of this article of food. Sturgeon, sometimes to the size of 300 pounds, were often seen leaping high out of the water. The Longmeadow fishing rights were in more recent days divided between six proprietors : Oliver Bliss, Nathaniel Ely, Judah Cooley, Isaac Calkins, Dimond Colton, and John Coomes. These proprietors either manned the boat themselves or let out their rights on shares. The April suns called out the nets for shad or sturgeon, which were spread at length on the village green and put in order. A haul would sometimes bring in 400 shad. When the boatmen, who worked on shares, massed their portion at evening on the beach, the fish were distributed in piles as equally as possible. Then one man would turn his back, and as another pointed to each pile with the cry, " Who shall ?" he would call out a name, and to the owner of the name would the pile belong. A big sturgeon made a great commotion in a shad net, but by playing fast and loose was now and then secured.
One of the most remarkable hauls of the Longmeadow fishers was the steamer Massachusetts, commanded by Capt. Burnham, Chester Chapin, proprietor. She had her prescribed right to the channel and
so had the shad-net. But on this voyage she undertook unnecessarily, having room enough besides, to ride over the net. This roused the ire of the shad-fishers. Their floating rope was new and strong, and they had just begun their haul. While the steamer's whistle shrieked and the engineer crowded on steam, they put every man his full strength to the windlass. The Massachusetts' paddle-wheels got en- tangled and gave out, and she had to come in with the shad high and dry. With the swearing of the officers and the laughter of her passen- gers, there was a scene worthy of Charles Dickens' notes of Connecti- cut River travel on one of these same steamers.
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R .- TOWN AND PAROCHIAL FUNDS.
Reference has been made in various places in the foregoing pages to ministerial, school, and other funds, respecting which a condensed statement may be desirable.
THE MINISTERIAL FUND, of about fifteen hundred dollars, has been derived from the sale, at various times, of the parochial ministry lands.
The first reference to ministry lands appears in the following very old agreement of Nathaniel Burt, Sr., Samuel Bliss, 2d, Samuel Steb- bins, and Thomas Hale, who owned lands on the Hill previous to the laying out of the house lots, viz. :
"To incourage to collect on the Hill, and that the land there may be laid out orderly to make a vilage there, We do agree as followeth-
Ist As to Nath1 Burt Sen' concerning my land on the North Side of Long- meadow Brook, I will give fl land to publick ufe to the Miniftry or Minifter, or that fª Lands fhall be given to private men provided that there be land provided for that ufe, that may be more convenient."
By Grant No. 15 (see page 181) it appears that this Nathaniel Burt received an allotment of forty rods frontage on the east side of the main street, north of Meeting-House Lane, which he by deed (referred to in the deed of Pastor Storrs's homestead, given on page 198) con- veyed to the Parish of Longmeadow, "the same to be and remain to the use and improvement of the orthodox Nonconformist minis- ters of said Parish successively forever."
By vote of the parish, March 7, 1715, Pastor Williams was permit- ted to "chuse a hom Lott" (see page 168), and appears to have chosen the south half of this grant, and to have erected thereupon his own house ; receiving also the use and improvement of the other half of the same grant, under the name of the five-acre ministry lot, by further vote of May 4, 1715 (see page 168).
Upon the settlement of Pastor Storrs, by vote of the Town, Aug. 29, 1785 (see page 171), the use and improvement of this five-acre ministry lot was also granted to him ; but no home lot in fee simple, as had been to Pastor Williams. The town being desirous of selling its ministry (and also school) lands, as appears by many votes at dif- ferent times, and Pastor Storrs being willing to purchase, he proceeded, upon this general understanding, to erect, in 1786, a house for himself upon the north half of this ministry lot, depending upon a subsequent transfer of title ; and April 4, 1791, five years after, we find a vote of the town, "To insert in the next warrant issued by the selectmen a
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clause to obtain the minds of the inhabitants respecting giving the Rev. Mr. Storrs an indisputable title to the land on which his house stands, and also to determine upon what terms, or in what method, the town chooses that he shall pay for the said land; " which was fol- lowed by a further vote, May 3, 1791, "To give the Rev. Mr. Storrs a deed of the land which was sold him by the town, if he will pay £40 lawful money for the same, with interest from the 3d of May, 1791." The method of transfer which was adopted has already been described (see pp. 197, 198).
The south half of this five-acre ministry lot remained under the use and improvement of Pastor Storrs during his life, and soon after his death was sold by the parish, through its agents, the Trustees of the Ministerial Fund,-an organization incorporated by act of the Legis- lature in 1823, for the purpose of holding and managing the parochial property, in whose care the fund itself now remains.
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