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 9
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H AYNES HANFORD CHILSON, son of John and Clarissa (Butler) of Buckland, Massachusetts, was born in the neighboring town of Charlemont, April 11, 1816. He fitted for college in Conway, and in the high school at Halifax, Vermont, and in Fellenberg Academy at Greenfield, Massachusetts.
In 1843 he graduated at Amherst College, and for a time was principal of Grove Seminary at Charlemont, and later held a similar position in the academy at Whitingham, Vermont.
He became a law student in the office of Grinnell and Aiken, of Greenfield, in 1846, was admitted to the bar the following year, and began practice in Northampton.
From 1850 to 1852 he was one of the Hampshire County Commissioners, and he was Commissioner of Insolvency from 1851 to 1856. For more than a score of years, beginning in 1850, he was a member of the Northampton School Committee.
In 1851 Mr. Chilson was commissioned Major of the Massachusetts Volunteer Militia. He was the Democratic candidate for Congress here in 1857. From 1858 to 1862 he served Northampton as postmaster, and from the latter year to 1871 he was assistant assessor of internal revenue. In the
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years from 1875 to 1882 he was a trial justice. He also served the public as a trustee under the will of Whiting Street.
In 1851 Mr. Chilson married Catherine Staples Bates of Northampton. Two sons were born to Mr. and Mrs. Chilson -Henshaw Bates of New York, and Haynes Hanford, Jr., of Northampton. Mr. Chilson died July 10, 1886.
HAYNES HANFORD CHILSON, JR. Clerk of the Courts
H AYNES HANFORD CHILSON, JR., was descended, on his mother's side, from Lieutenant Jonathan Hunt. The latter's son, John Hunt, was the father of Martha Hunt, who married Samuel Henshaw, and the Henshaws' daughter, Martha, became the wife of Isaac Chapman Bates. Mr. Bates' daughter, Catherine Staples Bates, who was born November 25, 1815, and who died November 24, 1892, married Haynes Hanford Chilson.
The residence of the Hunts and the Henshaws was the gambrel-roofed house on Elm Street, now standing between Henshaw Avenue and Round Hill. It was built by Jonathan Hunt in 1700, and was bequeathed by will to his son John.
Samuel Henshaw was a graduate of Harvard in the class of 1773. He became a judge in the Court of Common Pleas, and he served as a trustee of Williams College from 1802 to 1809.
Isaac Chapman Bates was the son of Colonel Jacob Bates, an officer in the Revolutionary War. He was a mem- ber of the Twentieth Congress, and of the three succeeding congresses. In 1841 he became a United States senator, and he died in 1845, during his second term in the Senate.
Haynes Hanford Chilson, Jr., graduated from the North- ampton High School in 1876. Two years later he entered Williams College and pursued his studies there until 1880. While in college he became a member of the Kappa-Alpha
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Society. Soon after leaving Williams he went abroad and was a student in the Royal Academy of Music in London.
Mr. Chilson married Kate Phillips Blake, of Boston, a descendant of William Blake, of Dorchester.
From 1883 to 1904 Mr. Chilson was clerk of the District Court of Hampshire. After 1904 he succeeded to the office of clerk of the courts, which office he holds at the present time. He was a member of the Common Council in 1887 and 1888, and of the Board of Aldermen in 1889 and 1890. He has been a trustee of the Forbes Library since 1898. He is an honorary member of the Association of Police District and Municipal Courts. From the year 1903 he has been a trustee of the Northampton Institution for Savings.
In politics Mr. Chilson is a Democrat. In religion he is a Congregationalist and a member of the First Church Parish. Allusion has already been made to his musical training in England. He is a member of the Apollo Club, the North- ampton Vocal Club, and he has sung in both the Edwards and the First Church choirs.
The children of Mr. and Mrs. Chilson are a son, Gaylord Blake, who was born July 17, 1886, and died August 22, 1898, and a daughter, Ethel, who married Ralph Leonard Morse, of Springfield, Massachusetts, October 5, 1916.
HIRAM DAY One of Northampton's Sterling Old Citizens
H IRAM DAY was one of Northampton's well-remem- bered citizens whose life was one of integrity and usefulness to his fellow men. He came of an old family. Robert Day, the immigrant ancestor of his family, was born in England about 1605, and came to this country in the Hopewell in 1634. At that time he was only thirty years of age. He had three children, one of whom, Thomas, was born in Cambridge in 1636, settled in Springfield, and married Sarah Cooper there in 1659. He became a consid- erable land owner and man of prominence, and for a time held the office of selectman. He had five children, including Samuel, born in 1671, who probably built the old Day house, still standing, in West Springfield.
Robert Day settled in Cambridge, but went with his brother-in-law, Edward Stebbins, in the company that, under the leadership of Rev. Mr. Hooker, journeyed through the wilderness to found Hartford in 1635.
Hiram Day was born at Northampton June 12, 1824. His father, Nathaniel Day, was a member of the old family alluded to in the foregoing paragraphs. He was a farmer, and Hiram, during his youth, worked on the farm, where he undoubtedly did good service. But, like many other New England boys, he yearned for a change, and he found it for a few years in the lively twelve-hour-a-day work of that
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time at the freight-house of the Connecticut River Railroad. At length he secured the appointment of keeper of the old toll bridge to Hadley. This probably made him happier, as it certainly brought him into closer contact with his fellow citizens, with whom he was always most companionable. Here he became a familiar figure to them and he always had a pleasant word to make the payment of tolls feel lighter.
When the tolls were abolished he was called to the higher service of his fellow townsmen as treasurer and tax col- lector of the town, and he had his office for many years in the store of Lee and Hussey. He closed this work for the city about the time Northampton came under city government.
At the time of his death, September 8, 1913, he was the oldest member of the Baptist Church in Northampton. In 1845 he married Harriet E. Cook of Northampton. Their children were Ella C. Day, who died in West Springfield about seven years ago, Henry C. Day of Northampton, Frank H. Day of Greenfield, and Mrs. John C. Brickett of West Springfield. Two grandchildren survived him - Harold W. Day of Northampton, and Esther D. Brickett of West Springfield.
Hiram Day was a typical New Englander of his genera- tion. From the nature of his life occupations he came to know many residents of the central part of Hampshire county, and he made and kept many warm friends. He was tall and large framed physically, with a keen, intelligent, and strong face. While he had only the schooling of the farmer's boy, he had a native shrewdness or sharpness of intellect, which came from extensive reading, and much observation of men and things. He was sincerely interested in public affairs and public men. During his whole life he was a Republican, and when he left Northampton and went to West Springfield to live with his daughter, Mrs. Brickett, he still maintained
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his interest in politics, and he always returned to his old home to vote. He had a very attractive, genial manner, was fond of conversing with his Northampton friends and neighbors who met him on such occasions, and he frequently enter- tained them at his daughter's home in West Springfield. The last two years of his life were clouded by an illness which he bore with patience and fortitude, but it was a great trial for one of so generally active a mind and body. To the end of his life he maintained that mental clearness which distin- guished him among his fellow men.
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GERALD STANLEY LEE
A Philosopher-Author
G ERALD STANLEY LEE is a native of Brockton, Massachusetts, where he was born October 4, 1862. His father is Samuel H. Lee, born December 21, 1832. His mother, before marriage, was Emma C. Carter of Pleasant Valley, Connecticut. His grandfathers were Wil- liam Lee, born in 1785 and died in 1878, and Evits Carter, born in 1805 and died in 1881. His grandmothers, before marriage, were Emma Taylor of Barkhamsted, Connecticut, and Sally Storrs. Gerald Stanley Lee's father has been a clergyman of the Congregational Church and an educator of prominence.
The American ancestry of the family can be traced back to the year 1641, when Thomas Lee, and Phoebe Brown, his wife, with three children, came from Cheshire, England, and settled in Lyme, Connecticut. Of Thomas Lee not much is found in the history of his times beyond the fact that he was a man of note in his community. Gerald Stanley Lee's great- grandfather was a man of perhaps more prominence. He served for sixty-four years, (1768-1832) as clergyman of a church which he organized in Hanover, Connecticut. He was a member of the Yale Corporation, and was so far a heretic that Harvard invited him to deliver the Concio ad Clerum and conferred on him the degree of D.D. He was a
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chaplain in the Revolutionary army, and, according to tradi- tion, was with Washington at the famous "Crossing the Delaware."
Captain Ezra Lee-third from the Thomas Lee above named- invented a submarine boat equipped to scuttle ships. When the British fleet lay in New York harbor it was sent out one dark night while General Washington stood with Captain Lee on the shore for observation. The craft became unman- ageable, however, and did no scuttling, but its fumbling around scared the British officers so that they made haste to retire from the harbor.
Mr. Lee's grandfather, on the paternal side, rode in the American Cavalry against the British, in the war of 1812, and his grandfather on the maternal side was the first manufac- turer of silk in the United States, or, perhaps it might be said more correctly that the Storrs family of that era was. Through his Grandmother Carter - a Taylor-Mr. Lee is ninth in direct descent from Elder Brewster. William Taylor was a surgeon in the Revolutionary army. He served with Baron Steuben, of whom he was a great admirer, and he named a son after him. This son was appointed Professor of Science in Brown University, but died soon afterward. The records of that time declare there was great grief over his early de- mise among others besides his own family relatives.
In this connection Rev. Samuel H. Lee, the venerable father of the subject of this sketch, who is now living in Springfield, contributes the following paragraphs, in response to a request for information concerning the early history of the family :
"The Taylor family was an exceptional one. But Walter Carter found in his researches that in England the Carter family ranked higher than the Taylor, there being a bishop of the English church among them.
Gerald Stanley Lee
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"This matter of heredity is a considerable puzzle. Gerald had one father and one mother, but he had two grandfathers and two grandmothers, and so on. Where did he come from? Whose blood is in him that is 'thicker than water'? At the time of the Columbian Exposition at Chicago a descendant from old Christopher was here, and Editor Buckley of the Christian Advocate figured that out of twelve hundred drops of his several gallons of blood only one was from Columbus.
"There seems to be wide opportunity for discursive thought on this subject of heredity. The blood we have from Adam has taken a long sweep around the universe to get to us and has become more attentuated than the undis- coverable germ of poliomyelitis. However, I think that Gerald gets his intellectual, artistic and spiritual qualities from the Taylors and the Storrses, and his modicum of common sense from the Lees.
"The Lees came over in five groups-in 1633, 1635, two in 1641, and another much later to New Orleans. All came from Cheshire. In 1641 the Lyme contingent-our crowd-and the Virginia contingent both came. They were of the rank styled gentlemen. The Virginians were English Churchmen, the Connecticut men Puritans."
Gerald Stanley Lee's education was determined by the movements of the family. He first went to school in Green- field until he was ten years old. Presently his father became pastor of the First Congregational Church of Cleveland, and he continued his education in the public schools of that city. When the family moved to Oberlin, and his father accepted the position of professor of Economics in Oberlin College, he became a student in Oberlin College. But at the end of his junior year the family moved to Brattleboro, and he took his senior college year at Middlebury, where he graduated in 1885. He studied theology at Yale Divinity School for three years,
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and was ordained in 1888 as minister of the Congregational Church in Princeton, Minnesota. After a year of service there he came East and spent a year making his first experi- ments in literature and in having his first experience with editors. In 1893 he became the pastor of the church in Sharon, Connecticut, and his more or less unconventional address on the hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the Sharon Church was widely noticed, and was published under the title of "About an Old New England Church-by a Young New England Parson." This was his first book. In 1893 he be- came the pastor of the Congregational Church in West Spring- field. It was in West Springfield that Mr. Lee began to see that he would have to be an author. A little humorous article on "Literary Prizes" sent to The Critic led to his being asked by the editors of that journal to review such books as they might send him, and his reviews of Kipling and Barrie and Zangwill, the other leading authors of the time resulted in his being asked for books of his own. It was the reception of "The Shadow Christ" (a publication in a literary form of the leading ideas of his Sharon and West Springfield sermons) which made him conclude to immediately resign from his profession and devote himself to literature.
Soon he bought his present place in Northampton, and became for some time a substitute in the department of rhet- oric in Smith College, and a lecturer on literature and art in modern times, and began to publish his books.
"Mount Tom-An All Outdoors Magazine. Devoted to Rest and Worship and to a Little Look-off on the World" and issued every other month, was started in 1905. "The Lost Art of Reading," which was a study of education, and "The Child and the Book," a criticism of the study of Eng- lish, were published in 1903. "The Voice of the Machines" published in 1906, and "Inspired Millionaires" in 1908, were
Mr. and Mrs. Lee at their Fireside
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the books that first contained the more original ideas which have since become identified with Mr. Lee's name. They were published at the author's own expense, and attracted practi- cally no attention in this country. It was not until transla- tions had been made in German and French, and the English edition of "Inspired Millionaires" had appeared in England that the success of his work abroad brought it into attention at home. "Crowds, a Moving Picture of Democracy" pub- lished in 1913, became almost immediately the best selling non-fiction book of the year. "Crowds" was followed by "Crowds, Jr.," 1914; and by "We, a Confession of Faith for the American People During and After War," 1916.
Mr. Lee's appearance in Northampton in a literary way was first noticed through his publication of the Mount Tom Magazine. It created a mild, but most interesting sensa- tion among the few who had a sympathetic comprehension of what he was talking about.
The comments of Mr. Lee's fellow citizens who under- stood him, or fancied they understood him, were various, but more than one was heard to say, in effect, "Why, this is just what I have thought myself, but have not been able to give expression to."
The Mount Tom Magazine, while it did not reach a phe- nomenal local circulation, attracted large attention, because it voiced the prophet without honor in his own country crying in the wilderness of material thought.
Naturally there has been much inquiry among those who have not read Mr. Lee's books as to whether they were social- istic, or of opposite tendency in philosophic thought. The fact is that Mr. Lee, instead of inclining his millionaires to socialistic action, has incited them, rather, to a more intense and nobler type of individualism. Opinion has differed widely as to the character and value of Mr. Lee's work. Some pro-
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fess to find it unintelligible and ridiculous, but the great ma- jority of critics have declared that his books are not only highly original in their treatment of social problems, but con- tribute much of value toward the successful solution of these problems. Their sale, in this and foreign countries, attests their popularity with thoughtful people.
Mr. Lee is an independent Republican in politics. He married June 26, 1896, Jennette Barbour Perry, third daughter of Philemon and Mary Barbour Perry of Bristol, Connecticut. He had met Miss Perry two years before in the south of Ger- many. They have one daughter, Geraldine.
Mrs. Lee is a graduate of Smith College; was teacher of English at Vassar from 1890 to 1893; head of the English Department of the College for Women at the Western Reserve University from 1893 to 1896; instructor in English from 1901 to 1904, and professor of English literature and language from 1904 to 1913 at Smith College. She is herself an author of note and the following books of hers have been published
"Kate Wetherill," 1900; "A Pillar of Salt," 1901; "The Son of a Fiddler," 1902; "Uncle William," 1906; "The Ibsen Secret," 1907; "Simeon Tetlow's Shadow," 1909; "Happy Island," 1910; "Mr. Achilles," 1912; "Betty Harris," 1912; "The Taste of Apples," 1913; "The Woman in the Alcove," 1914; "Aunt Jane," 1915; "The Symphony Play" and "Unfinished Portraits, 1916." Besides she has written numer- ous sketches and stories.
Approaching the Residence of Mr. Lee
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View from Mr. Lee's Piazza, looking over the Meadows toward Mount Tom
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HENRY C. HALLETT
Former Mayor of the City
H ENRY C. HALLETT had the honor of being Mayor of the city of Northampton during the year the municipality celebrated its Quarter-Millennial An- niversary. The three days of that celebration were the most remarkable gala days that Northampton ever saw, and Mayor Hallett presided over the preliminary work and the festivities with wisdom and dignity. This was not his only honor, for the people retained him in responsible office for three years, which is evidence that he was well and fittingly chosen.
Mr. Hallett's election as Mayor followed as a natural sequence his service to the city as an alderman for three years from the third Ward. He was not a man to seek public office, and it was only after considerable persuasion that he was induced to enter the City's highest legislative body, but having filled an alderman's chair to the satisfaction of his constituents, his friends had less difficulty in drafting him for the mayoralty. In the second year of his aldermanic service he was honored by the endorsement of the Democratic party.
Energy, good judgment, and conscientious application marked Mr. Hallett's several terms as alderman. He was faithful in committee work, devoted to the interests of the city as a whole, and showed the talent of a business man in
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every connection he had personally with city affairs. He declared for economy in the expenditure of public money, and scrutinized carefully the items of appropriation and expenditure. He opposed hasty action in the granting of franchises by the city, and asked that more rigid conditions be imposed on corporations which asked for favors. His vote always went for worthy public improvements, but he wanted careful investigation first, and while especially favor- ing good highways he believed that the city should first bring its main roads into satisfactory condition before re- building the side streets. He favored careful supervision in all departments and only such expenditures as were therein necessary. He did not favor paring down appropriations, and would not favor the reduction of any appropriation unless it could be shown that certain work could be as well done for less money, or that some other department needed attention first.
Probably no mayor of the city ever gave more time to committee work than did Mr. Hallett. He served on several important committees both as alderman and mayor, and when he came to retire altogether from municipal government there were probably few men in the city who were so familiar with the work and needs of the municipality as he was. As a member of the special committee in 1898, he was influen- tial with his fellow aldermen in securing a new armory for Com- pany I, and had the satisfaction of seeing the construction of the building within the appropriation - something unusual in large municipal enterprises.
Mr. Hallett has a war and business record also of interest. At the age of seventeen he showed his youthful patriotism by enlisting in Company F, 34th Massachusetts Infantry for service in the Civil War. He had a long and honorable career in the army. His regiment participated in the battles
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of Petersburg and Winchester, and was in the march on Richmond and the final pursuit of General Lee's army to Appomattox Courthouse. On the morning of the surrender he was orderly at brigade headquarters and went into camp with the Rebel officers. Young Hallett had the pleasure of serving under General George B. McClellan in the early part of the war. His regiment took part in the first skirmishes under General Siegel in the Shenandoah Valley, and later participated in Hunter's famous raid. Then it became a part of Phil Sheridan's army and took part in the vigorous campaign waged by that general. At the battle of Win- chester he saw General Sheridan finish his celebrated ride and turn a rout into victory.
Mr. Hallett cast his first vote in camp, before he was twenty-one, for Abraham Lincoln. At the close of the war he returned to his last place of residence before the war, Ashfield. Not long afterward, however, he was called to the position of foreman in one of the departments of the Nono- tuck Silk Company at Leeds. After five years of work there he was engaged by the Belding Brothers to oversee the erec- tion of their new mill in Northampton. When the building was completed Mr. Hallett was made superintendent of the entire works, and he continued in that responsible position for over twenty years. His long and faithful service there undoubtedly contributed largely to the growth and success of the plant.
The Belding Brothers always reposed the utmost confi- dence in him, and more than once expressed their apprecia- tion of his services. He did not leave them until some time after he had been elected mayor. It was probably a rather unusually vigorous and energetic nature and physical consti- tution that enabled Mr. Hallett to attend to his municipal and business duties at the same time so long as he did. He
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also found more or less time for social and fraternal society gatherings. He was an active member of the W. L. Baker Post of the Grand Army of the Republic, and a member of the Jerusalem Lodge of Masons.
Henry C. Hallett is a native of the Cape Cod district, where he was born at Yarmouthport, in 1844, but he has spent most of his life in the western part of the state. He came to Ashfield after the death of his mother, in 1846. In that good old Franklin county town he was brought up as a farmer's boy until stirring war's alarms roused him to his country's needs and he enlisted, as already recorded.
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RICHARD W. IRWIN Judge of the Superior Court
R ICHARD W. IRWIN was born in Northampton, Feb- ruary 18, 1857. His early education was obtained in the local public schools, and then he learned the trade of machinist, and worked in the Florence Sewing-Machine Shop, and in the Elgin Watch Factory at Elgin, Illinois. For a time also he was engaged in the house furnishing busi- ness in Natick with his brother, T. L. Irwin.
During these years he was much devoted to the study and practice of music. He played the cornet with great efficiency and directed military bands here and in Elgin.
A business life did not appeal to him, and he presently quit it to enter on what had been his long-cherished ambition - the study of the law. He began by studying for two years in Judge Bond's office in Northampton, but in 1882 entered the Boston University Law School. He graduated with the degree of LL.B., summa cum laude, in 1885, and was admitted to the bar the same year. From that time on he practiced his profession in his home city until 1911, when he was appointed a judge of the Superior Court.
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