USA > Massachusetts > Hampden County > Springfield > Springfield, 1636-1886 : history of town and city, including an account of the quarter-millennial celebration at Springfield, Mass., May 25 and 26, 1886 > Part 26
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In 1779 the proprietors of the iron-works on Mill river were granted lands and water privileges near by for a paper-mill ; but this was soon cancelled. These iron-works were the first symptoms of our famous Water Shops ; and it may be here noted that the first appearance of the name " United States " on our town record is in August, 1779, when a committee, headed by Capt. Thomas Stebbins, was ordered to lease, at the request of Col. Thomas Dame, a piece of land to " the Treasurer of this State in trust to the United States." Five years later the selectmen were authorized to lease ground on the training-field for a magazine. Capt. Joseph Stebbins ran a battery on the east side of North Main street all through the Revo- lution. He was a man of influence, and much respected.
During the war market prices were carefully regulated, the list of prices of the necessities of life being submitted for the approval of a special committee. The town stock of salt was distributed at times by the selectmen. We do not think that the select board at this time was as important a branch of government as it had been seventy-five or one hundred years before. The trying times when the monarchy ended and republicanism under constitutions began had restored the town-meeting to its ancient glory. This sovereign body met in the old court-house, was opened by prayer, and, we believe, still dis- missed with a blessing. It was sad to find in these gatherings men notably rich and notably poor. A deep gulf yawned between the two classes of men, and while the course of public business went on, now tinkering a State constitution, now authorizing yoked swine to run at large, and now building a school or a poor-house, men looked into the future with deep concern. There was a cloud over the Commonwealth during the Revolution that not even the glories
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of a struggle for liberty could dissipate. This cloud was the great confusion about property and finance. The community of land and the community of interest in market values, religious prerogatives, and so on, had fostered rather than hindered petty monopolies, that sprang up like poisonous dogwood in the shadow of the Puritan struct- ure. The land theory of the Henry Georges of the nineteenth century, which was the practice of the seventeenth century in Massachusetts, was the consternation of the eighteenth century, and we can find here in Springfield how it ended. The common ownership in land, whether by the unconscious native or the followers of a speculative theory, is a step through which natives may advance ; but after a certain point this land communism is reactionary and mediaeval.
We have seen how the parent plantation, with communistic motives, soon by local gravitations divided up the land into common fields, the proprietors of which becoming regular incorporators empowered to hold meetings, transact business, sue, and be sued. These " com- mon fields " ripened into parishes and precinets, while these in turn became " distriets " and independent towns.
The province first issued indented bills of credit in 1690. They passed at a discount of about thirty per cent., but as they were re- deemed in part they rose to their par value. They were accepted for " country rates," though for many years, as we have seen, the river towns paid their taxes in produce. A want of a circulating medium had forced Massachusetts in 1702 to emit " province bills," which were continually redeemed and reissued or burned until 1749. The duties of impost and excise added to the public rates did not equal the amount of the " province bills" set in circulation. Prop- erty, labor, and produce advanced in value; or, to state it more accurately, paper money depreciated. In 1736 the bills issued were to be equal to coined silver at 6s. 8d. per ounce. This was called " new tenor," and £1 new tenor was equal to £3 in " old tenor." The new tenor bills were called "middle tenor" after 1741, when another emission (£1 equal to £4 of old tenor) was ordered. These
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issues were occasioned by military expeditions, and the reimburse- ments from England made hard money free enough to secure in 1750, - a practical resumption of specie payment. All debts payable in old tenor were paid in silver at $1 (Spanish pieces-of-eight) for forty-five shillings. Debts in middle and new tenor were settled at the rate of $1 for 11s. 3d. Specie currency continued until the Revolution. The Continental Congress issued paper money in 1775. Massachusetts made this money legal tender here in 1776 ; and this emergency currency continued to depreciate until 1780, when it was redeemed in specie at a depreciation of 40 to 1.
An important convention gathered in Springfield in the summer of 1777. It will be remembered that at this time Massachusetts was in doubt what course to take about a new constitution, and the con- vention, or rather committee from the five States represented here, went over some of the very subjects. We quote from the official journal, which is still preserved in manuscript in the city. The first session was on July 30.
At a meeting of Committees from the States of New Hampshire. Massa- chusetts Bay Connecticut Rhoad Island and New York holden at Springfield in the County of Hampshire the 30th of July Anno Domini 1777 for the purpose of holding a Conference Respecting the State of the Paper Currency of the said Governments of the expediency of Calling in ye Same by Taxes or other- wise of the most Effectual Expeditions and Equal method of Doing it and to consult upon the Best means for preventing the Depreciation & Counterfeiting of the same, And also to consider what is proper to be done with the acts Lately made to prevent monopoly and Oppression and to Confer upon the Late Acts for preventing the Transportation by Land of Certain Articles from one State to another and to consider such other matters as pertieularly Concern the Immediate Welfare of said States, And are not repugnant to, or Interfering with the Powers & authorities of the Continental Congress, and to Report the Result of their Conference to the General Courts in their Respective States; Sundry Gentlemen not being arrived adjourned till thursday : Then met aceord- ing to adjournmt. Present for New hampshire Colo Josiah Bartlett Colo Nath" Peabody
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for Massachusetts Bay Hon" Thos Cushing Esqr Honº Robt T. Paine Esq" for Connecticut Honº Roger Sherman Sam" Huntington and Titus Hosmer Esqr for Rhoad Island Honº Wm Bradford Esqr Honº Stephen Hopkins Esqr & Panl Mumford Esqr
for New York John Moss Ilobart Esq"
The Honº Stephen Hopkins Esq' was appointed President and Wm Pynchon Jun' Esqr Clerk.
The first act of this interstate committee was to recommend to the several Legislatures to make provision for the "drawing in & sinking the Bills of Credit which are not upon interest," denomina- tions less than a dollar excepted, " either by Taxes or by exchanging them for Treasurers notes for sums not Less than Ten Pounds on Interest at 6 p. c. p. Annum or for Continentall Bills of Credit, and to prohibit the Currency of their respective Bills of Credit." The committee recommended that the future war expenses be secured by taxation on the various towns withont a resort to more bills of credit. This was proposed in order " more effectually to establish the credit of the Continental Currency." The committee complained also of the habit of fixing by law the market price of the necessities of life. Soldiers were to be protected from loss by any disturbance of values resulting from such a course, and the Legislatures were warned against any attempt to "accumulate proffits " among speculators by making a corner in staple articles. A free commercial inter- course between the States was strongly urged.
We can follow the fluctuations in value very readily by the town ex- penses. The school appropriations of Springfield in 1777 amounted to £372. John Worthington had not been paid for his services as representative in 1773 and 1774, and the bill when cancelled in 1777 amounted nominally to £343 15s. ; and in 1779 Moses Church was paid £125 for transporting two hogsheads of salt from the Bay in 1777. Thirty yards of linen furnished by Capt. Nathaniel Alexander in 1775 cost the town £5 two years later, when the bill was paid. And how was it in 1780? Think of appropriating £16,800 for schools,
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- $84,000 ! And the appropriations for 1780 mounted up to £26,- 190 7s. 6d. - over $100,000! The town this year (1780) had to appropriate £18,000 to pay its quota of beef to the State. The num- ber of men required was twenty-four, and the town, for some un- happy motives, was all winter getting to work. Meeting after meet- ing was held, and not until April, 1781, did the opposition give way. An extra allowance was granted the constables " for their extraor- dinary Trouble in collecting the moneys that may be assessed upon the Town for the Current year." Further requisitions for men and provisions late in the year were promptly responded to.
An idea of true values is gained by this order, passed in September, 1780 : " Voted, that the Treasurer be directed to receive into the Treasury the new money emitted, at the discount of forty to one." The town had to pay £100 in specie the year following, to meet the loss " from the late depreciation of the Continental money ; " but the accounts look much better with £160 for schools in place of the £16,- 800 in 1780. There was a long list of delinquent tax-payers upon whom were assessments in old Continental money. These delinquents were dealt with at the January meeting of 1782. Renben Bliss was moderator. This town-meeting demonstrated that the blood-bought privileges and honors of self-government were not to be put on like a garland of roses. To meet the unpaid State taxes assessed in old Continental money, it was directed that Treasurer William Pynchon, Jr., issue " his warrants of distress upon the Constables that had the old Continental money Committed to them," and Pynchon was also directed to dispose of both the new money and the old Continental bills in his hands as best he could.
And another financial matter of far-reaching import began to affect the inhabitants. This was the excise act. The town-meeting dismissed this subject in short order by directing its representatives to " endeav- our a repeal of it." In the autumn there was a feeling of despair about back taxes, and a special committee, which had been chosen to examine the securities of the town in order to raise funds for Chicopee
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bridge, was also empowered to collect their taxes as best they could. It had been estimated that the overdue taxes would meet the £200 appropriated for the bridge. In November the constables were again threatened with " warrants of distress" if they do not pay taxes assessed in paper money ; and things went on from bad to worse until 1783, when the twenty per cent. added to delinquents for taxes for the soldiers in the Continental army brought complications that will be detailed in a separate chapter.
CHAPTER XIV.
1783-1787.
The Debtor Class in Massachusetts. - Rev. Samuel Ely. - Springfield Jail broken open. - A Mob at Northampton. - Hatfield Convention. - Commotion in other States. - Views of Washington and other Americans on the Situation. - Unsuccessful Attempt to prevent the holding of the Courts in Springfield. - Town Officers. - Warrants of Distress. - Prominent Money-Lenders. - The Town-Meeting on the Situation. - Daniel Shays. - The Court Calendar loaded with Suits against Debtors. - Courts interfered with at Northampton. - The Elections of 1786. - Trouble at Worcester. - Mobs at Northampton. - Extra Session of the Legislature. - Shays makes a Demon- stration at Springfield. - The Town-Meeting again. - General Lincoln. - Lincoln's March to the Connectieut Valley. - General Shepard's Defence of the Springfield Armory. - Shays defeated. - The Towns send in Petitions praying for Peace and Pardon. - The Triumph of Law.
THE return of peace brought grave responsibilities upon the shoul- ders of the American leaders. The Continental soldiers were poor, and the money was largely in the hands of civilians. The men who, by their valor, put property in New England beyond the reach of England found themselves burdened with personal obligations, and the fiercest conflict was precipitated between debtors who had borne arms and creditors who had not. This is the general statement, but there were other complications. A worthless paper medium, a sham- bling and ill-defined union of the States, a jealousy of military power, and wild visions of what the new American democracy could do, com- bined to still further torture the commonwealth. If 1776 was the time which tried all men's souls, 1786 was the time which tried the poor man's soul, for fully one-half of the citizens in the State were in debt. The multiplication of judgments, and the excursions of sheriffs in search of property to levy upon, embittered the people against the courts of law.
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Even before the close of the Revolution the spirit of discord rose to the surface. Rev. Samuel Ely, of Somers, Coun., with uncertain de- nominational connections and an unsavory character, interfered with the courts at Northampton in 1782. He was convicted and thrown in- to the Springfield jail, from which he was released by a mob. It was the 12th of June ; Springfield was in great commotion. About one hundred and fifty men, mostly strangers from up the river and from the Berkshire hills, with swords, guns, and bayonets, demanded the keys of the common jail. Being refused, they broke open the doors, and released Ely, McKnoll, a debtor, as well as a negro. A majority of the people of the parish, including Rev. Robert Breck, were at Longmeadow, attending the funeral of Dr. Stephen Williams. Re- turning citizens pursued the party, and caught and locked up three men as hostages for the return of Ely. Northampton and other towns joined in the chase, and no less than one thousand armed men figured in this episode. On Sunday word was spread abroad that the hostages at Northampton were to be liberated by a mob, and two hundred armed men marched in short order from Springfield to the rescue. General Porter, of Hadley, called ont the militia. The alleged release of the three prisoners on parole, upon assurance that Ely would be surrendered, has been called " contemptibly pusillanimons " on the part of General Porter ; but a competent authority (George Sheldon) says : " It was by the firmness of General Porter that the law was sustained, and by his prudence that a disastrous scene of bloodshed was averted, when six hundred determined men confronted the five hundred and fifty who guarded the Northampton jail, - men equal in courage and social position. The mob had been misled by false reports, and it is a fact that the hostages, while still in prison, made such representations to Captain Dickinson and others, that this well-organized, well-led, and well-armed body of men, whom that distinguished patriot, Joseph Hawley, dignified by calling 'insur- gents,' were induced to disband and disperse without firing a shot."
Ely claimed that he had acted upon the authority of a convention
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of several towns which had met at Hatfield in April. Springfield, on the 19th of March, had chosen as delegates to such a convention Capt. John Morgan and Dr. Chauncey Brewer. They were to re- ceive their instructions from William Pynchon. Jr., John Hale, and Capt. James Sikes.
In August delegates were chosen to another Hatfield convention. These were part of a series of county conventions in this and other portions of the State. The usual course was to first declare that the conventions were legal bodies, then counsel peaceful modes of agitation ; but, as was the case in Northampton, the counsel was a mere form. We will not follow the example of some writers on the Shays insurrection, and enter into bitter denunciations of the insur- gents. There was not an exceptionally unruly spirit among the
Massachusetts people of that day. They had simply become poverty stricken and distressed. Poverty knows no law. Self-gov- ernment was new, imperfect, and, in fine, ill-understood, and the great mass of the rebels never thought of shouldering a musket for the purpose of securing from others what did not belong to them.
During the years between the departure of British soldiers in 1783 and the meeting of the Philadelphia convention of 1787, which drafted the United States Constitution, the thought of the New World was largely centred upon Massachusetts and New England, and even public men on the other side of the Atlantic were beginning to predict the immediate collapse of the experiment of self-government. The tory element in the States, which the stress of war had forced into sullen silence, had come to the surface, and in Massachusetts and in portions of Connecticut, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire, to say nothing of Pennsylvania and Virginia, the common people seemed bent upon plunging into a democracy that was but one remove from communism in both property and politics. " An aboli- tion of debts, both publie and private," writes Mr. Madison in 1786 of the Shays movement, "and a new division of property are
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strongly suspected to be in contemplation." While the monarchy is the refuge and prayer of the tory wherever found, communism in some form is the untutored aim of democratic mobs.
Congress in 1786 heard of the doings of the Massachusetts insur- gents, and was asked by the Governor of Massachusetts to loan sixty field-pieces ; but that body refused the request. The majority felt that Congress had no right to send arms or move to subdue a rebellion in any State. The spirit of 1776 was the pulsation of a democratic sentiment ; the spirit of 1786 was a contention about con- stitutional forms.
" We are certainly in a delicate situation," George Washington wrote to John Jay in the spring of 1786, " but my fear is that the people are not sufficiently misled to retract from error. To be plain, I think there is more. wickedness than ignorance mixed in our counsels. Under this impression I scarcely know what opinion to entertain of a general convention."
The development of this feeling in Washington's mind was gradual. bnt the condition of unhappy Massachusetts soon determined his course, and the statesmanship at the bottom of it was finally elab- orated by Hamilton, Jay, and Madison in " The Federalist," where the Shays rebellion figures as the most conspicuous argument against the shambling league of sovereign States. One of the strongest papers, contributed by Alexander Hamilton to the " Federalist," turned upon this very tendency among neighboring States to distress- ing contentions. "To look for a continuation of harmony between a number of independent, unconnected sovereignties in the same neighborhood," said Mr. Hamilton, " would be to disregard the uni- form course of human events." He goes on to dispute that com- mercial interests will not prevent rivalry, and adds : "Perhaps, however, a reference tending to illustrate the general principle may with propriety be made to a ease which has lately happened among ourselves. If Shays had not been a desperate debtor, it is much to be doubted whether Massachusetts would have been plunged into a
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civil war." He then answers his own question as to whether it is time to " wake from the deceitful dream of a golden age : " -
" Let the points of extreme depression to which our national dig- nity and credit have sunk ; let the inconveniences felt everywhere from a lax and ill administration of government ; let the revolt of a part of the State of North Carolina, the late menacing disturbances in Pennsylvania, and the actual insurrections and rebellions in Massa- chusetts declare ! "
Mr. Hamilton, in another part of the " Federalist," asks with much feeling : " Who can determine what might have been the issue of her (Massachusetts) late convulsions, if the malcontents had been headed by a Cæsar or by a Cromwell? Who can predict what effect a despot- ism, established in Massachusetts, would have upon the liberties of New Hampshire or Rhode Island, of Connecticut or New York?"
Four months after the defeat of Daniel Shays, General Washington was presiding over the convention that drew up the Constitution of the United States. When General Washington heard of the repeated stop- ping of courts of justice in Massachusetts, he made no attempt to conceal his consternation. "For God's sake, tell me," he wrote to Col. David Humphreys, " what is the cause of all these commotions? Do they proceed from licentionsness, British influence disseminated by the tories, or real grievances which admit of redress?" It is dis- tressing to follow his agitation. " There are combustibles in every State," he writes to General Knox, " to which a spark might set fire. In bewailing - which I have often done with the keenest sorrow - the death of our much lamented friend, General Greene, I have ae- companied my regrets of late with a query whether he would not have preferred such an exit to the scenes which it is more than probable many of his compatriots may live to bemoan. You talk, my dear sir, of employing influence to appease the present tumults in Massachu- setts. I know not where that influence is to be found ; nor, if attain- able, that it would be a proper remedy for these disorders. Influence is not government. Let us have a government by which our lives,
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liberties, and properties will be secured ; or let us know the worst at once." When General Washington heard that the Massachusetts in- surgents had rejected the pardon extended by the General Court. and the governor had called out the militia, the great Virginian wrote : " What, gracious God, is man, that there should be such inconsis- tency and perfidiousness?"
General Lincoln wrote Washington a long letter at the close of the exciting year 1786 in answer to the question of the latter : " Are we to have the goodly fabric, that eight years were spent in raising, pulled down over our heads?" A long quotation is here made, be- cause Lincoln was made a prominent figure in the Shays rebellion, and because his letter has never been read by the general public : -
There is great danger that it will be so, I think, unless the tottering system shall be supported by arms; and even then a government, which has no other basis than the point of the bayonet, should one be supported thereon, is so totally different from the one established, at least in idea, by the different States, that if we must have resource to the sad experiment of arms, it can be hardly said that we have supported " the goodly fabric,"- in this view of the matter it may be " pulled over our heads." This probably will be the case, for there doth not ap- pear to be virtue enough among the people to preserve a perfeet republican government. .. What is the cause of all these commotions?" The causes are too many, and too various for me to pretend to trace and point them out. I shall therefore only mention some of those which appear to be the principal ones. Among those I may rank the ease with which property was acquired, with which credit was obtained, and debts were discharged in the time of the war. Hence people were diverted from their usual industry and economy; a luxurious mode of living crept into vogue; and soon that income by which the expense of all should, as much as possible, be limited, was no longer considered as having any- thing to do with the question - at what expense families ought to live, or rather which they ought not to exceed. The moment the day arrived when all discov- ered that things were fast returning back into their original channels; that the industrions were to reap the fruits of their industry: and that the indolent and improvident would soon experience the evils of their idleness and sloth, very many started at the idea, and, instead of attempting to subject themselves to such a line of conduct, as duty to the publie and a regard to their own happiness evi-
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dently pointed out, they contemplated how they should evade the necessity of re- forming their systems and changing their present mode of life. They first com- plained of commutation ; of the weight of public taxes; of the unsupportable debt of the Union ; of the scarcity of money ; of the cruelty of suffering private creditors to call for their just dnes. This catalogue of complaints was listened to by many; county conventions were formed : and the cry for paper money, subject to depreciation, as was declared by some of their publie resolves, was the clamor of the day. But, notwithstanding instructions to members of the General Court, and petitions from different quarters. the majority of that body were op- posed to the measure. Failing of their point, the disaffected in the first place attempted, and in many instances succeeded. to stop courts of law, and to sus- pend the operations of government; this they hoped to do until they could by force sap the foundations of our constitution, and bring into the Legislature creatures of their own, by whom they could mold a government at pleasure and make it subservient to all their purposes : and when an end should thereby be put to public and private debts, the agrarian law might follow with ease.
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