USA > Massachusetts > Franklin County > Northfield > Puritan outpost, a history of the town and people of Northfield, Massachusetts > Part 48
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ELIJAH EASTMAN BELDING. Belding traditions, woven into the val- ley history from the beginning in Wethersfield's pioneer settlement and reaching Northfield in the early mill grants, came to a peak of quality and intelligence in the person of this modern model townsman. He was the grandson of Jonathan Belding, the town's exemplar in dignity, who was born in 1729, sickly in youth, doomed to early death from "con- sumption," and lived till 1825, just short of a century. Eastman, the name always used, he gained from his Amherst grandmother, whose other name, Keziah, was just as well not perpetuated. He was born in 1813. He lived in a high-pillared house on the West side very near the Vermont line. He was one of the habitual selectmen and served one year in the legislature. He was a progressive farmer and in the period when hops were a standard crop raised enormous quantities. He sent one of his four boys through college, an enterprise which in his and the next preceding generation had become extinct. He married Eliza Frost, of a substantial Vernon family. They had five children, two of whom died in infancy, and all of whom had names with an initial "E,"-Edward E., Eliza E., Elijah, Edgar F., and Everett E. A sister married E. M. Dickinson, the giver of the public library to Northfield. Eastman Belding died March 29, 1891, at the age of 77.
JAMES WHITE. In the great political year, 1840, and its campaign for "Tippecanoe and Tyler Too," log cabins and hard cider, James White, the fuller, was elected to the senate of the state and later was given two more terms. Captain White, his title coming from militia service, had moved to Northfield from Heath in 1814, and became an important citizen and for several years from 1830 the town treasurer.
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To be a fuller meant to own the fulling mill on Mill brook, an essential industry in homespun days. He had several spirited daughters, the oldest Phidelia, who remained a spinster, the second, Caroline, who mar- ried Porter Cowles of Amherst. She was the mother of James Cowles, an extensive farmer and a bachelor, Sarah, another animated spinster, and Rufus, who was long railroad stationmaster at Fitchburg. In the next generation, the daughters of Rufus, Irene and Kate, were almost as much of Northfield as Fitchburg, the former being for years a teacher in the Fitchburg high school. Irene Cowles, after a few years of retire- ment, died in Fitchburg, in January, 1935.
HENRY KIRKE BROWN. Never actually a resident of the town, the famous sculptor and originator in America of bronze casting, was closely connected with it through the family of his brother, William, who lived in the house, later the home of Francis J. Stockbridge, on East street, and one of whose sons was named for the sculptor. A daughter, Cynthia, married Frank H. Wright. The brothers were both born in Leyden. Henry Kirke, as a farm boy, showed artistic ability and his mother brought about his study in Boston under Chester Harding, also of Franklin County origin. He turned to civil engineering, and was en- gaged in the building of the Illinois Central railroad when, for amuse- ment, he modelled a woman's head, attracted attention of artists, went to Italy for four years and after his return in 1846 made the first bronze casts ever executed in America. The first American bronze statue was his DeWitt Clinton, now standing in Greenwood cemetery on Long Island. Many of his works are still the high models of bronze statuary. He died in New York, July 10, 1886, at the age of 72.
CHARLES DEVENS. In the period when country towns attracted young lawyers for their opening careers, Charles Devens, a cultured, ambitious youth came to Northfield and formed a life-long attachment. He was born in Charlestown, April 4, 1820, the son of Charles and Mary Lithgow Devens, was graduated from Harvard in 1838, and its law school in 1840 and began practice in Northfield. From here he removed in 1845 to Greenfield, where he was of the leading law firm of Davis, Devens and Davis. He was in the state Senate in 1848 and '49 and appointed by President Fillmore United States marshal the latter year. It was his duty to execute the process in the famous Sims case by which a fugitive slave was returned to his owner-and his privilege nearly 30 years later when he was U. S. attorney general to appoint Sims to a position in the department of justice at Washington. He was
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in practice in Worcester when the war for the union began, enlisted in 1861, was major, then colonel of the 15th Massachusetts regiment, rose to command of the 3d division of the 34th corps of the historic troops to occupy Richmond after its evacuation, was brevetted major general on Grant's recommendation in 1864 and commanded the military district of Charleston, South Carolina, in 1865 and '66. He was appointed by Governor Bullock to the Superior court in 1866 and by Governor Wash- burn to the Supreme Judicial court in 1873. After service in the Hayes cabinet as attorney general he was again placed on the Massachusetts supreme bench by Governor Long in 1877. General Devens died Jan- uary 7, 1891. A younger brother, Arthur Lithgow Devens, Harvard '40 and its law school '43, came to Northfield to practice before his brother left and in shrewd local estimate was rated the abler of the two. General Devens never married.
IRA COY. The last of the captains. Such distinction entitled Cap'n Coy to historical record. Aside from it he was a typical New Englander, long of legs as he was short of name, keen, informed of all the world's affairs and with shrewd opinions on them, knowing to all local tradi- tions, reaching back to Indian days and ways, upright, modest, content to live his long life out in the cottage on Warwick road, honorable in all the minor transactions of an unambitious existence, never holding town office but holding definite opinions as to those who did. The Northfield Artillery Company, part of the peace-time army under the command of General John Nevers, formed in 1811, having great trainin' days while in its full glory, lost its glamour gradually, and went out of exist- ence before exposure to warfare in 1861. Captain Coy's life nearly spanned the century, from 1805 to his death, June 27, 1890. He did not qualify for local genealogy, as back of him were only his father, Lemuel, who died in 1852, and his mother, Sarah, six months earlier, and there were no descendants.
ELIJAH STRATTON, M.D. Born in the town, February 4, 1811, of the fifth generation from Hezekiah Stratton, valiant founder of the third settlement, who came from an old Watertown line, Dr. Elijah was a characteristic country doctor, with widespread practice beginning in 1840. His entire days were spent here, his home being on the site of the stockade of 1675. He was a determined Democrat and withstood the disfavor of being a Southern sympathizer in the Civil War period. He served one term in the legislature in 1856, but shared only slightly in town affairs, being devoted to his profession. A daughter, Mary,
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had a large share in the preparation of Temple and Sheldon's "History of Northfield with Genealogies," including such trifles as copying ver- batim all the inscriptions on the tombstones of the old town ceme- tery. Another married George Hastings, the merchant. Their daughter, Mary (always Mazie to Northfield people), a gifted singer, married James Slade of Quincy, which became her home.
THE STEARNS BUILDERS. To more than to any other builders, the substantial houses of the century are to be credited to the skill and thoroughness of the Stearns father and sons. They were craftsmen of the older sort, who had no need of architects, who could adapt their skill to any whim of their patron and who built for eternity or as near it as wood can last. They were of old Bay Colony ancestry, descended from Dr. Isaac of Watertown, whose wife was a sister of the Captain Richard Beers, one of Northfield's discoverers in 1669 and the victim on her soil of Indian ambuscade in 1675. Calvin Stearns came here from Warwick at the opening of the century. His building sons were George A., who died at 44, Charles H., Albert D., and Edward B., all three of whom plied their trade through long lives. Another son, Mar- shall S., was a lieutenant in the Northfield company of the 52d Massa- chusetts Regiment in the Civil War. Charles Calvin Stearns, son of Charles, gained through his mother's family the distinction of being descended from Seth Field, the chief citizen of the previous century.
THE HASTINGS BROTHERS. For a period in the middle of the cen- tury the principal merchants, the owners of the traditional store, which was also the postoffice and news and political headquarters, were Wil- liam D. and George Hastings. They were Bostonian by long ancestry, their father having left that city to settle in Warwick. William D. was postmaster first and George followed him. Both eventually went west. William became a preacher in Janesville, Wisconsin, and George settled in business in Minneapolis. George married, as his second wife, Virginia, daughter of Dr. Elijah Stratton, and after his death she returned to Northfield, her daughter, Mazie, becoming a talented singer with her later home in Quincy, the wife of James Slade. Several sons of the two brothers settled in the West.
CHARLES POMEROY. Grandson of Dr. Medad Pomeroy, (Y. C. 1757) who was the son of General Seth Pomeroy of Revolutionary eminence, Charles Pomeroy was born in Warwick, July 18, 1818, married Laura Connable of Bernardston and settled in the town between these two. He
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gained the title of colonel by service on the staff of Governor Gardner. It was the tradition that the governor required that one of his gold- braided escort be the handsomest farmer in the state. Colonel Pom- eroy was over six feet tall, proportionately broad, handsomely bewhisk- ered, and carried well the heavy military cape which he affected the rest of his days. He bought and lived his life out in the imposing house of General John Nevers. He was a life-long justice of the peace and, as trial justice, the town's Squire, trying the smaller civil disputes and criminal cases and marrying many couples. He was the county's high sheriff for one year, 1855, the last of sheriffs appointed by the governor; the office becoming elective, the county seat, Greenfield, recovered possession. With him the Northfield line of Pomeroys ended. A son, Charles, had died, leaving a daughter. Two daughters were Mary, beautiful in girlhood but deformed by falling from a horse, who never married, and Laura, cultured and brilliant, who married Benjamin F. Field, Jr.
ALBERT S. STRATTON. Born November 10, 1823, son of Albarto and Lucy (Stimpson) Stratton, grandson of a soldier who was at Burgoyne's surrender, and of the fourth generation from Hezekiah, a leader in the affairs of the third settlement, Albert S. Stratton in his early manhood was the miller at the grist mill on Warwick road. Inheriting in 1869 the property of his uncle, Dr. Charles A. Stratton, of Brattleboro, Ver- mont, an outstanding dental surgeon, he moved to Main Street and lived out his days in the imposing, pillared house on the exact lot which his first local ancestor bought in 1713. He was the town's wealthiest citizen and the patron of its town and church interests. For the period of its existence the laurel-wreathed "S. B. B." on the caps of the brass band bore witness to his favor. His wife was Nancy Drake of Warwick and there was a son, Ernest, who settled as a jeweler in Hinsdale, New Hampshire, and two daughters, one of whom married Dwight Preston, of the Kingdom family, their daughter, the wife of F. Leslie Tyler com- ing into possession of the Main street home. Mr. Stratton died May 6, 1906.
LEWIS T. WEBSTER. Long the town's principal merchant and trusted town official. The Webster family, descended from the colonial governor of Connecticut, transplanted from Deerfield to Northfield in the person of Ezekiel, who acquired from Lawyer John Barrett the mill privilege in the heart of the town, to be succeeded by his son, Arad, and in turn by his sons, of whom Lewis Taylor was one. His name was in honor of
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Lewis Taylor, of the pioneer Hinsdale family, who married his father's sister. He was born April 27, 1832, was long a clerk in the store of the Hastings brothers and succeeded them as merchant and postmaster. He was postmaster from 1870 to 1885 and from 1890 to 1895. He was in the legislature of 1877. Beginning in Civil War days, he was for many years selectman, often the chairman and always a leading spirit in the town's affairs, as well as the leader, through thick and thin, of Republi- can party management. His practical ability was the town's safe reliance through all these years and the interests of the town and those of the First Parish his constant concern. He was the perfect type of a New England townsman, with precisely those abilities and that public spirit which would have met the demands of civic service in however large a field if they had not been exclusively devoted to the parochial one. He married, October 5, 1854, Mary A., daughter of Franklin Lord, of Stratton ancestry. Of their three sons, Franklin Arad, Wil- liams Ezekiel and Charles Henry, the youngest succeeded to the busi- ness of his father. L. T. Webster died May 1, 1896.
ROLLIN C. WARD, M.D. Soon after the Civil War, in which he was a captain, there came from Vermont a physician with no known acquaintance and established himself in practice, which rapidly grew to the leading one in the town. He gained his medical degree at Harvard. First occupying the Everett house, which later became the home of Ira D. Sankey, he bought one of the old houses, tore it down and built a new one, which remained his home. An outright Democrat, more at home here politically than in Vermont, he became his party's leader and won his reward in Cleveland days by displacing Postmaster Webster. He shared actively in town affairs and was frequently a selectman. Dr. Ward reached high standing in professional circles as a gifted and skill- ful diagnostician. Having no children, the doctor had as a ward a beautiful girl, Anna Wilcox, who married Watson W. Whittlesey, an architect, and removed to Orange, New Jersey. Dr. Ward was born in West Rutland, Vt., April 6, 1836. He married here as his second wife, Mrs. Harriet Bixby Barker and removed to Holliston, Mass. Later he lived with Mrs. Whittlesey. He died at St. Johnsbury, Vt., December 8, 1913. Mrs. Whittlesey died April 7, 1914.
CHARLES HENRY GREEN. That an adopted citizen could match inter- est in the town and devotion to its interests with any descendant from the first settlement was demonstrated in the public spirit of a man,
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Charles H. Green, who came to it just after the Civil War for a distinct business purpose. He was born in Gardner, January 11, 1842. Allied by marriage with the chair-making Heywood family he was sent here in 1866 to manage the supply of lumber from the Northfield hills. Mean- while he had served in the early part of the Civil War, by enlistment in the Navy, first on the gunboat Stars and Stripes, on the lookout for blockade runners in the Gulf, and later on the frigate Pensacola. He had married, the year he came here, Lucy E., the daughter of Hon. Thomas E. Glazier of Gardner. Eventually he bought the house, long the home of James and, more particularly, of "Aunt Jim," Mattoon, famous for its flower garden and of outstanding matriarchal rule. It had been held by four citizens who acted together to make certain a desirable owner. He developed an extensive lumber business and came to have other interests, including a ranch in Arizona and the principal owner- ship of the Gardner water supply, later advantageously sold to that town. His energy and ability were soon at the town's service, for years as a selectman, the promoter of the town's water supply away from the fitfully supplied "strings" of wooden logs, the chief aid to E. M. Dic- kinson in the delivery to the town of the Memorial Library, for which he bought and gave the land, and a liberal supporter of the Unitarian church. In 1874 he was elected, as a Democrat, to the legislature, and again to that of 1902, when, somewhat to his dismay, he proved to be the senior member and charged with the responsibility of presiding over its preliminaries. He was long a trustee of the Greenfield Savings Bank, a member of Harmony Lodge of Masons and of the Orange Com- mandery, Knights Templars. Meanwhile he travelled extensively in Europe and America. Seven children were born, two of the sons, Frank H. (1867-1912) and Charles (1876-1926), holding important positions in the Heywood Brothers and Wakefield Company of Boston and New York. A daughter, Fanny Heywood, married Joseph Warren Field, even- tually becoming the mistress of the fine old Adjutant Field house; an- other, Mary Louise, married Thomas Hale Parker of Greenfield and succeeded to the Green family home. Mr. Green died August 10, 1907; his wife, in May, 1913.
NORMAN P. WOOD. For forty-one years leading practitioner of medi- cine and conspicuous citizen of Northfield, Norman Perkins Wood was born in Barnard, Vermont, July 30, 1845 and came to this town in July, 1888. He was on ancestral territory. He came from the group of Alexanders who numerously shared in the colonization of Vermont, prior
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to its statehood. He was in the same generation, the fifth, as Dwight L. Moody in descent from Ebenezer Alexander, one of the third settle- ment founders, tracing back of that to George Alexander, leader of the explorers from Northampton in 1671. The transplanting to Vermont, in his line, was in the person of Anne Alexander. She had married, in Northfield, Samuel Taylor, third in his line from John Taylor, a grantee in the second settlement. Even nearer to Northfield it was only three steps back to Zebulon Lee, who came up from Connecticut and married Mary, the daughter of Anne Alexander Taylor. Their son, Zebulon, the second, married Rachel Burke. The genealogist is intrigued here to discover, perhaps, descent from Captain John Burk, premier ranger and Indian fighter of the eighteenth century after Captain Benjamin Wright. Captain Burk's prowess included a hand-to-hand fight with Indians after the Fort William Henry defeat, in which he laid them out and escaped. It would be easy for some who encountered Dr. Wood in town-meeting engagements to take stock in the Burk ancestry. Zebulon and Rachel Burke Lee had a daughter, Rosamund, who married Captain Alvan Wood, and the doctor was their son.
He fitted for college at Green Mountain Perkins Academy at Wood- stock and Dean Academy at Franklin, Massachusetts, was graduated from Tufts in 1874, with A.B. and A.M. degrees, to which Tufts added an honorary M.A., a half-century later. From 1874 to '77 he was assistant superintendent at the Lyman school for boys, went back to Perkins as its principal for three years, read medicine in the same period with Dr. O. W. Sherwin of Woodstock, studied medicine at the Uni- versity of New York and the University of Vermont, from which he was graduated with honors and the M.D. degree in 1882. He practiced six years in Londonderry and then came to Northfield. Along with his practice in a region of several towns, he was active in profes- sional and public official affairs, school physician, associate state medical examiner, member of the medical societies of the county and of the two states, an ardent Republican, alternate delegate to the Philadelphia convention of 1900, which nominated Mckinley and Roosevelt, presi- dential elector in 1905 and for one year (1912) a member of the legis- lature. A prime interest with him was the Dickinson Memorial Library and for thirty-two years he was chairman of its board of trustees. While actively Unitarian, he was the close friend of D. L. Moody, his family physician and that of the Seminary. Dr. Wood married February 18, 1879, Nellie M. Weatherhead of Vernon, Vermont. They had two sons, Robert Lee and Norman Philip. He died July 23, 1929, a week short of his 84th birthday.
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HENRY W. MONTAGUE. Born in Montague, October 15, 1833, Henry W. Montague was throughout a long life representative in town affairs of the "Farms," the down-river section which constitutes a community but at no loss of its intimate town relationship. He qualified for full identification with its interests by marriage April 18, 1866, into the Field family, his wife being Mary Elizabeth, the first born of the twelve children of Horace F. and Mary (Gage) Field. Between 1863 and 1881, he was for nine terms a selectman and assessor, was in the legisla- ture of 1882, and from 1900 to 1912 a library trustee, having the lead- ing part in the establishment of the Farms library. He was an enter- prising and successful farmer and a model of the unassuming and highly respected townsman. His one son, Frank H., succeeded to his share in town affairs, serving through many years as a selectman. H. W. Montague died December 23, 1922, in his ninetieth year. Of the numer- ous Field family the two who were notably allied to the town's affairs were Martha Gertrude Starkweather, a teacher and a woman of the finest culture, and Ernest C. Field, several years a selectman and a member of the legislature. An older brother of Horace F. was Simeon A. Field, another substantial "Farms" citizen, often a selectman and representative in 1850. They were great-grandsons of Seth Field, the town's chief citizen of the 18th century, and grandsons of Sergeant George Field, who was at Burgoyne's surrender.
IRA D. SANKEY. The eminent, as well as original, author and singer of gospel hymns, became fully identified with the town from the time he bought the Everett house, in the shadow of the First Parish (Uni- tarian) church, in 1885, for the dozen years he lived there. He was born in Edinburg, in western Pennsylvania, August 28, 1840, went to Newcastle in 1857, where he enlisted in the Union army at the open- ing of the war. At a Y. M. C. A. convention in Indianapolis, in 1870, where he was pressed into service to lead the singing, he captured D. L. Moody's attention and his command to go to Chicago to help him in his work. It was the beginning of that partnership in gospel work which the world knows as Moody and Sankey. Mr. Sankey came to North- field in September, 1875, the year of their return from the famous two- year campaign in the British Isles. He was in Northfield each subse- quent summer up to 1898 and attended Moody's funeral here in Decem- ber of 1899. He was a town resident for ten years, up to his removal to Brooklyn, New York, where he spent his last years, the final ones being in total blindness and with his stalwart body, as Northfield had known it, wasted to barely 100 pounds. Mr. Sankey was of striking
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personal appearance, free from self-consciousness, neighborly and inter- ested in the affairs of the town, altogether a popular townsman. A son, Edward, married Grace Joshin, whose mother became the wife of Charles Linsley, owner of the Timothy Swan house. Mrs. Sankey later married John Phelps. Her daughter, Victoria Sankey, married in 1933 Winthrop Packard of Greenfield.
GEORGE FREDERICK PENTECOST. Among the preachers attracted to Northfield in the early days of Moody's life here was one who had already become known as an evangelist and who for the twenty years following was closely identified with the town, Rev. George F. Pente- cost. He was six years younger than Moody, having been born Sep- tember 23, 1843, at Albion, Iowa. As a boy he was apprentice to a printer, became private secretary of the governor of the territory of Kansas, then clerk in the United States district court, studied law and was in Georgetown College (Kentucky) when the states went to war. For two years he was with the 8th Kentucky cavalry, resigning with the rank of Captain. He was licensed to preach in 1864, held Baptist pastorates in Indiana, Kentucky and New York. From 1871 to 1880 he was settled in Boston and at the end of that period bought the house built by Lawyer John Barrett in Northfield, long known as the Brigham castle. Lafayette College gave him the degree of D.D. in 1884. From 1891 to 1897 he was minister of a church in London, England, then for five years of the first Baptist church in Yonkers, New York, mean- while retaining his Northfield connections. In 1902 he was sent to the Philippines, China and Japan as special representative of two missionary societies. Dr. Pentecost was a vigorous preacher, and the author of several religious books. He was not identified officially with Moody's work, although a frequent preacher here. In all things he was an inde- pendent, with gifts as varied as his ancestry which was a mixture of English, Huguenot and Jewish strains. He was an interested townsman, sharing in its affairs, speaking at political rallies and delivering at least one Memorial day oration. The sale of his Northfield property was said to have been due to a quarrel with his head farmer. In the early days of his life here, a brother, Rev. Hugh Pentecost, was with him, but he later turned to the law, became a religious and political radical, quite in contrast to Dr. Pentecost's evangelism and Republicanism.
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