USA > Massachusetts > Hampshire County > Northampton > Representative families of Northampton; a demonstration of what high character, good ancestry and heredity have accomplished in a New England town . > Part 4
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The Williston Family
This was the beginning of the success of Haydenville as a manufacturing place, and Easthampton was also much helped thereby. Mr. Williston was later partner with Lieutenant Governor Horatio G. Knight in the manufacture of suspenders in Easthampton.
Mr. Williston came of a long-lived family. His father attained the age of ninety-three, his father's father lived to be seventy-seven, his mother eighty-two, and her father one hundred and three. He had two sisters. One was the wife of Josiah D. Whitney of Northampton, and mother of the celebrated professor of that name. The other was the mother of the late Mrs. Dr. Adams of Boston.
In their domestic life Mr. and Mrs. Williston were much afflicted, in that their five children all died in early childhood of that terrible scourge, scarlet fever, but they afterward reared five adopted sons and daughters, among whom were Professor Lyman R. Williston, who became principal of the Cambridge high school; the wife of President Clark of the Massachusetts Agricultural College; the wife of M. F. Dickinson, Jr., of Boston; and the wife of Rev. Joseph Lanman of Lynn.
Mr. Williston's greatest material monument was the Williston Seminary for young men, which was established with a handsome endowment for that time. The institution has always been of the highest character and so carefully has it been managed that parents who would have many com- punctions about sending their sons to some of the older and more advanced colleges feel perfectly safe in sending them to Williston Seminary for an education. Mr. Williston's will provided for the seminary in such a manner that its success today is as great as ever.
Samuel Williston was a dominant church pillar in the Congregational house of faith in the Connecticut Valley. In
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1837 he took a prominent part in organizing the First Church of Easthampton. He founded the professorship of oratory and rhetoric at Amherst College in 1845. Then he traveled in Europe for six months. In 1846 he founded the professor- ship in Greek, and one-half of the professorship of natural theology at Amherst, giving fifty thousand dollars therefor. He was a member of both houses of Legislature, to which he was elected as an anti-slavery Whig, and he was chosen by that body a trustee of Amherst College, a position which he held for thirty-three years. For the same number of years he was trustee and treasurer of Williston Seminary. Pro- fessor Tyler has said that "he came to the relief and rescue of Amherst College when it was in such imminent peril that its friends and officials threatened to desert it. He well deserves the highest rank among its benefactors, and title, by common consent, of its preserver and second founder." He was appointed by the Governor and Council one of the trustees of the State Reform School of Westboro, and he gave his services in overseeing the erection of the buildings. He was also one of the first trustees of Mount Holyoke Sem- inary, and a corporate member of the A. B. C. F. M. The banks, business corporations, manufacturing, water, gas, and power companies in Holyoke, Northampton, and East- hampton, of which he was an influential corporator, were too numerous to mention. In 1854 he was a leading factor in the building of the Hampshire and Hampden railroad, con- necting Northampton, at Granby, Connecticut, with the railroad from that place to New Haven. His name had great value to all of these organizations because his integ- rity and high business endowments inspired confidence.
When Samuel Williston died his charities had exceeded one million dollars, and his will provided for the distribution of three quarters of a million more.
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Samuel Williston's life, in its wonderful fruitage and success, in its full exemplification of the gospel of man's stewardship on earth, according to Holy Writ, was rarely blessed - living as he did, to see something of its results. So was his death mitigated and softened by the same influ- ences. Surrounded by relatives and friends, and lovingly ministered to by a whole town, which looked up to and honored him, his end was truly that of the righteous man. No person, perhaps, in all western Massachusetts could have been more missed at that time than he. Certainly no one man in this region, in his generation, had achieved so much in business and educational service, and had, either directly or indirectly, exerted so wide and beneficent an influence.
John Payson Williston, the younger brother of Samuel Williston, was another notable member of this family. He was born in Easthampton and lived to the age of sixty-eight years. He married Cecilia Lyman of Northampton. Their sons were A. Lyman, John P., and an adopted son, Martin L., who became a minister at Stamford, Connecticut. John Payson Williston, like his brother Samuel, was disappointed in his ambition for a college education. Poor health and faulty eyesight handicapped him, and he had only a common school education in the Northampton schools. Then he entered the drug store of Dr. Ebenezer Hunt, one of the famous earlier physicians of the town. While employed here he became much interested in the study of chemistry, with the result that he invented the formula for his well-known Payson's Indelible Ink. Later he was in business himself with Isaac Clark about where the Draper Hotel now stands. In 1835 he began the manufacture of indelible ink, for the marking of clothing. The industry developed so that he was presently the largest manufacturer in the country of this line of goods, and the business is still continued by his heirs.
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In 1846 he became a part owner of the cotton mill at Florence operated under the name of the Greenville Manufacturing Company. He was a director of the Northampton Bank and the Holyoke Water Power Company. For one year he was a selectman of the town, but aside from this he never took or sought public office. He had no taste for the in- triguing and wire-pulling which he knew were generally more or less necessary to obtain office. Mr. Williston's energies, outside of his business, seem to have made him of as much if not more use than if he had held high offices, for he es- poused energetically the cause of the fugitive slave, and la- bored unceasingly for the abolition of the liquor traffic. When an attempt was made to stop liquor-selling by legisla- tive enactment, he engaged in the effort to enforce the liquor law with all his might. During this protracted struggle, which was more than local in its effects, for it attracted the attention of people over a wide extent of the country, his barn was twice destroyed by incendiary fires, and his house also was set on fire and partially consumed.
He became the devoted friend of the colored people when the abolition movement, then in its infancy, was un- popular and even obnoxious to the majority of the New England public. Regardless of fear or favor, he pushed the cause forward, demanding that slavery should be discussed in our halls and pulpits; and the fleeing fugitive slaves, who came his way, on the route to Canada, found him ever ready to help them. His roof sheltered, his table fed, his sym- pathy cheered, and his purse assisted the fugitive bondmen. He was one of the founders of the Hampshire Herald, the first anti-slavery paper published in western Massachusetts, and he gave much money to anti-slavery organizations.
But John P. Williston was best known to the com- munity for his large though unostentatious general charities.
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These were remarkable considering his comparatively limited means, for he was never a millionaire. He might have been, but he gave his earnings in charity about as fast as they came to him. This undoubtedly was because of his extreme conscientiousness as a follower of Jesus Christ. In his early years he espoused the Christian religion as taught in the Congregational Church, and his long life was conspicu- ous for his faithful following of the teachings of his Master. Benevolence, therefore, he came to regard as one of the fundamental Christian principles, and he practiced it with rare fidelity. Soon after he entered on his business life he resolved to appropriate whatever he should make each year in excess of five hundred dollars, during a period of ten years, for benevolent objects. At the end of that time he resolved to give thereafter to charitable objects one-tenth of his in- come, whatever that might be. This resolution he more than fulfilled, and during his later years he gave away his entire income. He gave secretly, to the widow and orphan, the lonely and forsaken ones, in many cases, as the writer well knows personally. He gave to many young men, that they might obtain an education or start in business. He espoused the cause of a poor colored boy and educated him at his own expense, until he graduated at Oberlin College. He gave to the town nearly enough money to build the brick schoolhouse in Center Street. He also gave several thousand dollars toward the erection of the large three-story brick edifice which accommodated for many years the high, gram- mar, and intermediate schools. He gave six hundred dollars yearly to an Amherst College professor, to be expended by him among such worthy students as needed aid. He helped several colleges, and one or two would have been closed but for his assistance. He was the trusted friend and adviser of Mary Lyon, and gave her financial aid in establishing Mount
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Holyoke Seminary. In short, there was hardly a good cause that did not have his support.
In 1838 he was chosen deacon of the "Old" church and continued to hold that office as long as he lived. He was a tower of strength in both church and Sunday school, and his benign and gracious presence was everywhere felt. It is not too much to say that he was the saint of the congregation in his time, and when he left this life the whole community felt that no one could replace him.
What a legacy these two men of the name of Williston left in their day and generation! and is it to be wondered at that those of their name who came after them were imbued with the same spirit of charity and self-sacrifice?
A. LYMAN WILLISTON Builder of The Northampton Y. M. C. A. and Patron of Education
With the inspiration of such a father as John Payson Williston and other similar family relatives, much could be anticipated of A. Lyman Williston, who was born in his father's house, just north of the Y. M. C. A. building on King Street, December 13, 1834. After passing through the Northampton schools he attended Williston Seminary at Easthampton for three years. He received the degree of M.A. from Amherst College in 1881, and was honored by Mount Holyoke College with a degree of Ph.D. in 1914.
After his graduation from Williston Seminary in 1852 he entered the office of the Greenville Manufacturing Company, at Florence. This company was a cotton manufacturing concern which had been established by his father. In due time he became its manager, treasurer, and president, and he lived in Florence for thirty years. He was also president of the Mill River Button Company for a number of years,
A. Lyman Williston
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and treasurer of the Williston-Arms Narrow Fabrics Company. While dwelling in Florence, Mr. Williston and others founded the Florence Savings Bank.
Mr. Williston's early business life was closely identified with the development of Florence, and he did much to make that village a prominent and influential part of Northamp- ton. Here he brought his wife in 1861. She was Sarah Tappan Stoddard, daughter of Professor Solomon Stoddard, of Middlebury College, Vermont. Mr. and Mrs. Williston were among the little more than a score of members who or- ganized the Florence Congregational Church. In 1882 the cotton business was discontinued in Florence, and Mr. Willis- ton removed with his family to Round Hill, where he built a home on a part of the ancestral acres of his wife. Mr. Williston continued to give his attention to the manufacture of the indelible ink started by his father.
In 1877 he was elected a director of the First National Bank, and was chosen its president in 1887, which office he held as long as he lived. While in no sense a politician or political partisan, he was a member of the Republican party, and was put forward by that organization for various local offices. Almost invariably he was handsomely indorsed by the voters of other parties. He was thus led to serve the city as School Committeeman, Alderman, member of the Board of Sewer Commissioners six years, member of the Public Library Committee, and as chairman of the City Trust Funds' Committee. Further than this he would not go, and resolutely refused to accept state office of any kind.
Aside from his business success, Mr. Williston was par- ticularly prominent for his interest in education. He was trustee of Williston Seminary all his life after 1873, and was president of the board from 1885 to 1895, and treasurer after 1880. He became a trustee of Smith College in 1876, and a
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member of the finance committee. But most of all he was interested in Mount Holyoke College. For more than forty years he was treasurer of that institution, and Williston Hall, at South Hadley, completed in 1876, was largely his gift. The John Payson Williston Observatory at the same college was presented by Mr. and Mrs. Williston, as a memorial of their oldest son. Williston Hall was established for the demonstration of all the sciences except physics and chem- istry, and an addition was encouraged by Mr. Williston in 1889 to better fit it for the study of zoology and botany. He was chosen a trustee of the college in 1867, and treasurer in 1873, and he held these offices while he lived. The name of Williston has been connected with Mount Holyoke College since 1836, when Samuel Williston, the uncle of A. Lyman, was elected a trustee a year before the opening of the school. Mr. Williston's father, Deacon John P., was also identified with the success of the institution, as elsewhere mentioned. The oldest building now standing on the campus, and the first to be erected after the main building, bears the name of Williston.
Mr. A. L. Williston's devotion to the interests of this college can probably be best understood from the following tribute paid at the time of the fortieth anniversary of his election as treasurer in 1913.
"The two buildings represent only a small part of Mr. Williston's work for Mount Holyoke during these forty years. His time, his business talent, his energy, have been given without stint. At one time Mr. Williston even placed his own business in the hands of others that he might the better superintend the work on Williston Hall. The period between 1873 and 1877 and the period immediately following the fire were crises which tried methods, as well as men and women. The college gratefully recognizes Mr. Williston's steady sup-
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port through these years. It owes much to his foresight, his sound judgment, his wise caution, and his ability to realize and to help solve the problems incident to great changes in the evolution of Mount Holyoke College."
Following the fire which destroyed the old buildings of the college in 1896, Mr. Williston was undoubtedly the finan- cial saviour of the institution. It looked dark for a time. There were friends of the institution who were doubtful of the possibility of raising sufficient funds to place it on its feet as formerly, even, and it was generally conceded that some- thing much better must be done, if anything at all. But Mr. Williston proved equal to the emergency, and another phoenix rose from its ashes.
It was the careful, not the lavish spending of money that was characteristic of Mr. Williston in his relations to the college. How so much could have been done with so little, comparatively, amazes every understanding visitor. The real secret is probably to be found in Mr. Williston's gift of time and thought to college problems. In that giving both he and Mrs. Williston were most generous. For months after the fire, when the work of rebuilding was going on, there was not a week day when some one of the family did not go over to the college to supervise the building, which, with careful consideration of every detail of the plans, saved the college many thousands of dollars.
It would be impossible to state to what extent Mr. Wil- liston contributed to the aid of various good causes, besides those strictly educational, already mentioned, but he may safely be called the builder or reconstructor of the Young Men's Christian Association in Northampton, for it had practically no existence when he took it under his wing, so to speak. Those who remember the old Y. M. C. A. back in the '60's, will realize what a transformation has been accom-
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plished in this line of Christian work. As is well known, this has been done largely through efficient business manage- ment, which has extended to the branches of the association all over the country. When it was announced that the Y. M. C. A. was to be energized and equipped nationally in a business-like manner, this appealed to Mr. Williston's business sagacity, and he took hold at once of the work of rehabilitating the organization locally. The devotional fea- tures, which comprehended about all there was of the old association, were supplemented by the homelike and hy- gienic attractions that have made the organization's work so valuable and useful. Mr. Williston contributed the land, which was part of the lot on which his father's house stood, and ten thousand dollars toward the present building, and he substantially aided the development of the enterprise at other times, notably when the building was enlarged and the swimming pool was installed a few years ago.
There were many other ways in which Mr. Williston gave of his means to worthy objects. He was of course con- stantly importuned for subscriptions to this and that charity, but his shrewd, business-like nature demanded to be "shown," if he had any doubt about or was ignorant of the nature of the object for which bounty was sought. The writer has in mind at least one such case. When the Knights of Labor, an ephemeral organization of thirty years ago, was in exist- ence, the members appointed a committee to solicit subscrip- tions to purchase a piano for the use of the order at their meetings. Citizens generally gave generously, and Mr. Wil- liston, when approached, showed no disposition to evade giving, and finally handed the committee ten dollars, but asked for a written guarantee that, if the association dis- banded, the piano should be transferred to the Old Ladies' Home. This was agreed to, but it is far from being to the
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credit of the officers of the organization, that, when the society dissolved, as it did, in a short time, the promise to Mr. Williston was forgotten, and the piano was carried to the home of one of the members.
It is known that Mr. Williston took great pleasure in aiding privately needy friends of his early life. Beneath a quiet, self-contained manner, he hid a very warm heart, genuine human kindliness, and great generosity. The head of a charitable institution in this neighborhood says that after an epidemic which made it necessary to refit the build- ings at an expense that the school could hardly afford, he received a check from Mr. Williston with a kind note saying that he had seen in the papers the account of the epidemic, and, realizing that there would be expense in refitting the house, sent something to help along. He seemed especially to enjoy giving in that quiet, unexpected way.
He gave largely of his services and counsel to the three educational institutions on whose boards of trustees he served, and his interest and work on behalf of the cause of religion were shown, after his removal from Florence, by his holding the office of deacon in the Northampton First Church for more than thirty years, and his membership on various committees of the church.
When the physical end came, Mr. Williston was a well- preserved man for an octogenarian. He had been ill a few days with a cold, which was not considered serious, but it developed into bronchitis and affected the heart, so that the end came suddenly. His death on April 1, 1915, was a great loss to a community which had learned to value him for his integrity, generosity, and public spirit, and it was no less a loss to the colleges and other institutions which had profited richly by his counsel so many years. The tributes paid by these corporations to his memory are a valu-
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able legacy to his family, and the public esteem which was shown for him at the largely attended funeral must have been very grateful to them.
Mrs. Williston, who was a woman of exceeding loveliness of Christian character, was in full sympathy with her husband in his interest in causes of religion, education, and charity. For thirty years she was a member of the Board of Trustees of Mount Holyoke College, and served constantly on the Committee on Teachers and other important committees. She was a strong and steadfast supporter of Mrs. Gulick in founding and maintaining the International Institute for girls in Spain, and was one of its most valued directors. She was also one of the founders of the Lathrop Home for Aged and Invalid Women in Northampton, and its able president for more than a quarter of a century. She died in 1912.
Mr. and Mrs. Williston left two sons and two daughters: Robert L. of Northampton, who graduated at Amherst Col- lege in 1892, and trod by natural inheritance in his fath- er's footsteps by becoming assistant treasurer and trustee of Mount Holyoke College, and treasurer and trustee of Williston Seminary, and a director of the First National Bank; Henry Stoddard Williston of Lynn, owner of the Massachusetts Electric Manufacturing Company; Lucy, wife of Charles M. Starkweather of Hartford, Connecticut; and Elizabeth, wife of Judge Herbert S. Bullard, also of Hartford.
The Shepherd Family
FRANGA
FLECTES
AS
NOT
The Shepherd Coat of Arms
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THE SHEPHERD FAMILY
Some Notes from a Wealth of Material Concerning the Family's Past and Present
T HE annals of the Shepherd family through its Pomeroy line have been traced to that period dear to all genealogical hunters, the time of William the Conqueror. It is rare indeed that reliable English records date back to that distant day. Sir Ralph de la Pomeraie, chief of staff of the doughty Norman ruler, by whom he was granted a coat of arms, was the ancestor of the Pomeroy family of which General Seth Pomeroy of Northampton was a distinguished member.
General Pomeroy, a famous soldier of the colonial wars, and one of the heroes of Bunker Hill, fought in the Revolution against the tyrannical rule of Great Britain. He died nobly in the service of his country at Peekskill in 1777 at the age of seventy-one. His daughter Mary married Dr. Levi Shepherd.
The American records of the Pomeroy family begin with Eltweed, who emigrated to this country from Beaminster, County Dorset, England, in the year 1630. He was one of the original settlers of Dorchester, Massachusetts, and his name has a place on the honor roll of the time as president of the first town meeting held in the colonies, or, as the office was also designated, Chairman of the Board of Gov- ernors. He spent his last years in Northampton, and died at the home of his son, Medad, who was the first of the family to settle here.
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Other forbears of the Shepherds in the Pomeroy line were: John Webster, fifth governor of the Connecticut colony, and Jonathan Hunt and John King. The last two were from Northampton, England. They early came to "Nonotuck," which was soon renamed at their suggestion, it is said, for their old home across the Atlantic.
Edward Shepherd, ancestor of the Northampton Shep- herds, came to America in 1639 with his wife, Violet Stanley. He was made a freeman in 1643, and became a member of the Thomas Shepherd Church in Cambridge, Massachusetts. His wife Violet died soon afterward. He later married Mary Pond. In 1666 we find that his son, known as "Sergeant" John Shepherd, had removed to Hartford, Connecticut, where he died July 12, 1777. In the next generation Deacon John Shepherd was of the South Church at Hartford. He married Hannah Peck. Their son Samuel, born February 2, 1684, married, May 17, 1709, Bethiah Steele, a descendant in the third generation of William Bradford of Mayflower fame, and governor of Plymouth Colony thirty-one years.
James, a son of Samuel and Bethiah (Steele) Shepherd, and their grandson, Dr. Levi Shepherd, removed from Hart- ford to Northampton about 1764. The latter became a prom- inent and useful citizen of a wide-reaching community, of which Northampton was the center. He was a successful merchant, and first established himself near the corner of Main and King streets. Afterward, with Ebenezer Hunt, he did a large drug and general business where Kingsley's drug store is now located. In his later years he lived in the interesting old house which some years ago made way for the structure at the corner of Pleasant Street and Hampton Avenue. Farther north was his general store. The land in the rear which extended to Old South Street, was occupied by the buildings and "rope walk" required in the manufac-
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