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 33
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chusetts-Connecticut boundary commission of 1826, and of the north- eastern boundary commission ( Maine and Canada) in 1842. He served as State treasurer, and was for many years willing to run on the democratic State ticket when victory was out of the question. He became thoroughly identified with Springfield by real-estate invest- ments, too much so for his pecuniary advantage ; but his predictions as to the growth of Springfield have been singularly fulfilled.
Judge Oliver B. Morris holds a distinct place in local annals as lawyer, citizen, and lover of Springfield village. "In my youth." he used to remark, " I saw an aged man who remembered seeing per- sons who came over in the ' Mayflower.'" And the judge was quite as proud of this as if he had led a victorious army to battle. He was preeminently the village man. He knew everybody, and everybody knew him. All the ways of rural New England life were pleasing to him ; he enjoyed its shady walks, its humble thrift, its simple democ- racy, its deference paid to the village fathers, its solemn Sabbaths, and its old nine-o'clock bell. But the satisfaction he felt for his own local prominence was not simply a personal pride. He came by his local patriotism in the study of local history. He thought much of the past, and loved to talk of the plantation of Springfield, to re- produce the pioneer scenes when every yeoman was a defender of the gospel, a tiller of the soil, and at times a fighter of Indians. Morris never wanted to live to see the time when the town-meeting would adjourn forever ; when the stages would be taken from the old turn- pikes, and the town brook buried in the Main-street sewer. But he did, - and he lived also to be the oldest inhabitant, and to see city wards spring up where once were open fields. "I do not like to see so many strangers," he once remarked to a minister here ; " I used to know every voter." This lament was not the result of a natural de- sire to oppose progress, but a deep affection for the quiet, quaint, old days of Springfield. He had been looked upon for nearly two gen- erations as the antiquarian of Springfield. He was familiar with more genealogies than any one else, could give more facts about old
Over amorris
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buildings, the transfers of property, the historic spots, the traditions, the stories, anecdotes, and lore of the place. Law was his profession, but Springfield village his life.
Morris was sent to the Legislature in 1809, 1810, 1811, and 1813, was made register of probate in 1813, county attorney in 1820, and judge of probate in 1829. When distinguished men visited Spring- field, the judge was quite apt to be selected for the speech of welcome. He introduced John Quincy Adams to the people in the First church, and was also chosen to welcome Henry Clay at the ovation given him at the old town-hall. It is related by a citizen who was a school- boy when the Adams reception took place here that Morris had sey- eral times begun public addresses by saying, "When I look about me and behold the sea of upturned faces," etc. This lingo, with more of the same sort, the boys committed to memory, and when the elo- qnent judge rose to introduce John Quincy Adams, and had got as far as "When I look about me," the boys shouted in chorus the familiar " and behold the sea of upturned faces." Perhaps no better picture of the judge in town-meeting could be given than this, which George S. Taylor has kindly furnished :
About the year 1836 (I think) some of the out-of-town people were bound to put down the High School in Springfield. Of course. Judge Morris, who was always on the right side in school matters, was on hand, while both villages in what is now Chicopee turned out en masse. " Uncle John Chase " said that his " shops could not start until that High School was put down," and so the old town- hall was filled with voters. Then came Judge Morris's opportunity, for he was a fine speaker. The question of abolishing the High School was reached, and when the motion was made to abolish it. and it was about to be put by the mod- erator, Judge Morris arose calmly and made a half-hour speech that carried the house, in which he said : " Mr. Moderator and gentlemen, I have lived in the town of Springfield nearly forty years, and have paid taxes during that time, and I am proud of our schools ; these are our safeguard. Mr. Moderator, I am glad to speak for our school privileges. Here, sir, the poor have the same rights and privileges as the rich. Yes, gentlemen, I glory in this, for I am a republican. I was nursed at the breast of a republican mother, and know my rights. - the
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greatest of which is freedom, after which our public schools, at the head of which is our High School." The audience was with him as he sat down, and at that moment a creaked, squeaky voice was heard at the other side of the hall : " The gentleman just seated says he nursed at the breast of a republican mother ; if so he must have lost a good deal of the cream." Such a sudden descent from the sublime to the ridiculous will never be forgotten by those who heard it.
When age began to tell its inevitable story of lessening powers and ambition, the venerable judge was in the habit of dropping in at the "Old Corner Bookstore " and chatting and arguing with both old and young. It so happened that the judge once took his Sunday- school class of boys, forty in number, over to the parish house, and there gave them some very good advice, after reading the sixth chap- ter of Proverbs. On the following Monday Maj. Edward Ingersoll, one of his Sunday-school scholars, entered the bookstore and found the judge discoursing upon old-fashioned morals. The major made a remark concerning the judge's zeal, which prompted this reply, that has been often quoted before the firesides of Springfield : "I lament and condemn the degeneracy of the times. I do not like to see so many strangers here. There was a time when I could hang any man in the village ; now I have trouble in keeping myself from being hung." There are several variations of this reply, but the above ap- pears to be the most authentic. Major Ingersoll was encouraged to dispute with the judge about the degeneracy that so distressed him, and he asked :
" Do you remember the ordination of Rev. Dr. Osgood?" - " I do." - " And do yon remember whether there were any refresh- ments ? " - " Yes ; a feast, and a ball also."- "Do you remember where you were, Judge, after the ordination ?" The judge was greatly taken aback, for he did not know that it was common talk that he with three other church-members repaired to a chamber over Elijah Blake's shop and played euchre, - and it was not a dry game either.
The figure of George Bliss, Jr., also, stands ont as a marked
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contrast to Judge Morris, his brother-in-law. He was eager for business conquests.
His pride in Springfield led him to take up all new ideas that would advance Springfield's commercial importance. When the incorpora- tion of Hampden county is mentioned, the name of George Bliss, the elder, is at once in mind ; but when the railroading era is men- tioned, one thinks of George Bliss, the younger. He may not have had the mastery of the law that Judge Wells, of Chicopee, had, nor the inspiriting and spontaneous qualities of mind that made George Ashmun a master of oratory, nor the leis- urely dignity of William B. Calhoun ; but he had a deep hold upon those principles of law affecting the commerce of the State and town, as well as an organizing and executive faculty that made him invalnable in a legislative assembly or a di- BLISS RESIDENCE. rectors' meeting. As to his personal characteristics it has been said : " There was something dry about him physically and mentally, and a curtness that made him sometimes pass for irritable ; but this was his manner merely."
" I was not brought up, but merely grew up neglected," Mr. Bliss used to say in after life. After graduation he became a member of the little law school which his father found time to teach ; and upon his admission to the bar, in 1815, he opened an office at Monson, and in 1822 formed a law copartnership with Jonathan Dwight, Jr., the legal member of the famous firm of J. & E. Dwight, merchants. Mr. Bliss built the fine residence now used as the Episcopal rectory. He first appeared in the Legislature in 1827, and upon his reelection in 1828 he was made chairman of the committee which prepared the act establishing boards of county commissioners as a substitute for the town system. This act was largely the work of Mr. Bliss, both in phraseology and service in pushing it through the Legislature.
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Mr. Bliss aided in the support of the Unitarian church ; he gave the site of the city library, besides $10,000 in cash ; and the Home for the Friendless and other local charities knew the extent of his sub- stantial interest. He was president of the Springfield cemetery, member of Governor Briggs's council, and active in organizations like the Hampden Park Association ; and his death at the advanced age of eighty, full of honors and surrounded by the material monuments of his public spirit and sacrifice, was an event of no passing moment to this community.
This was a period rich in philanthropic and public spirit. The Hampden County Colonization Society issued a circular in Novem- ber, 1826, closing with these words : "Our country has been verily guilty of despoiling Africa of her children. Who can say that this will not be overruled by a righteous Providence as the principal means of diffusing the knowledge of salvation by a crucified Saviour to millions of our fellow-beings, who are now buried in the thick darkness of the grossest superstition and idolatry ?" This was signed by Samuel Lathrop, Israel E. Trask, Samuel Osgood, William B. O. Peabody, Isaac Knapp, John Mills, Justice Willard, Frederick A. Packard, George Colton, and Ethan Ely. In February, 1827, at a public meeting presided over by O. B. Morris, measures were taken to send provisions to the starving Greeks. For this cause Dr. Osgood's church raised $150 ; Mr. Peabody's, $90 ; Mr. Webb's (Meth- odist), $12.76 ; Mr. Branch's (Baptist), $12.02 ; and Mr. Phenix's (Chicopee), $11.50. The county raised in all $672.20, and sent one box of clothing, which postmaster Daniel Lombard forwarded to the Boston custodians of the Greek fund, which tunes the local bard to pipe his lay : -
" Alas for poor Greece ! must she drain her best veins,
And find but a sound the reward of her pains?"
A little earlier (1825), at a meeting in the court-house, this com- mittee was appointed to consider the advisability of forming a negro
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colonization society : Justice Willard, Simon Sanborn, William B. Calhoun, Elijah Blake, Charles Stearns, Samuel Bowles, and George Colton.
The town was now making marked progress in numbers and gen- eral appearance. The building of churches, town-hall, the opening of the square on Main street, and like improvements, had added a healthy ambition to the ancient community .. In January, 1826, George Bliss and one hundred and eleven others petitioned that the village proper be incorporated into a police and fire district, that the meadow might be drained, the brook regulated, and streets widened. There was a natural curiosity to know exactly the local population, and some public-spirited men put their hands in their pockets, eounted noses, and in 1827 reported these results: Over 30, males, 791; females, 803. Over 16, males, 826; females, 983. Over 10, males, 357 ; females, 410. Under 10, males, 707; females, 827. Total, 5,764.
The population of the village in 1820 was 3,914, showing that the tide of prosperity had indeed begun. Northampton in 1827 had a population of 3,840, and West Springfield had also fallen behind the central village. The rivalry between the local communities con- tinued, but the chances were now clearly in favor of the mother town. Hampden county in 1825 had 3,425 houses.
The Handel and Haydn Society, of Springfield, gave their first pub- lic concert Sunday evening, June 17, 1827. In October, 1824, the newly organized Hampden Guards received from the citizens "an elegant standard," Lieutenant-Colonel Colton making the presentation speech.
The Fourth of July celebration of the first half-century of the re- publie warmed the local heart. The celebration was planned at a meeting of men of " all parties, religious or political," and under the special direction of this committee of citizens: Col. Roswell Lee, Israel E. Trask, John Chaffee, Samuel Lathrop, Joshua Frost, Calvin Burt, Benjamin Jenks, Col. Solomon Warriner, Dr. Reuben
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Champion, of West Springfield, Adonajiah Foot, Joseph Hall, Jr., Justin Willard, John Howard, Alpheus Nettleton, and Maj. E. Edwards. The Hampden Guards, commanded by Captain Nettleton, marched from the Hampden coffee-house to Dr. Osgood's church, where William B. Calhoun delivered an oration. Dr. George Frost read the Declaration of Independence, and Colonel Warriner, with the aid of a large chorus, sang an ode written by Rev. Mr. Peabody. From the meeting-house the guards, with Col. Harvey Chapin, Maj. Caleb Rice, and Lieut. Samuel Reynolds, mounted, marched with a great crowd and band music, firing of cannon and ringing of bells, to the new armory store-house on State street, opposite the Olivet church, where a banquet for four hundred was spread. Samuel Lathrop and Colonel Lee offered the toasts, and the speaking con- tinned until dusk.
In November, 1826, a banquet was given at the Franklin hotel in honor of Col. Roswell Lee, who was transferred to Harper's Ferry, Paymaster John Chaffee presiding. Another dinner was given at Phelps's hotel, J. Dwight, Jr., at the head of the table. The Fourth of July celebration of 1827 was denounced by a writer in the " Hampden Journal " as an "anti-administration celebration ; " but there was no foundation for it beyond some hissing at a Jackson toast. This was considered a hit at Colonel Lee, who had returned from Virginia to the armory.
In January, 1825, a committee of the Connecticut River Associa- tion addressed circulars to all towns interested in river manufacture to meet at Windsor, Vt., February 16. It was proposed to open the river traffic to Lake Memphremagog. National aid was expected in continuing trade communication with Canada. A shipment of lumber, which had to be carted forty miles to the Erie canal, thence carried two hundred miles to Troy, by sloop down the Hudson to the Sound, up the Connecticut to Hartford, and then transferred to furniture man- ufactories, troubled the visions of the local students of commerce. The project of connecting the river at Bellows Falls with Boston by
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a canal was also talked of, but engineers preferred to strike the river at Springfield. The Windsor convention memorialized Congress and took steps to form a navigation company. A largely attended meet- ing of the citizens was held at the Hampden coffee-house, May, 1825, to consider canals and river traffic. It was resolved that a Boston and Springfield canal was practicable and desirable, and that the river could be improved so as to admit sloops to Springfield. George Bliss was in the chair and Justice Willard was secretary. Delegates were chosen to attend a meeting at Brookfield. Mr. Willard was present at Greenfield in April, where a Franklin county convention passed resolutions favoring Connecticut river improvements ; and a few weeks later a convention of the three counties at Greenfield took similar action, George Bliss heading a committee to memorialize the General Court on the subject.
Says a writer in the Boston " Patriot," May, 1825 : " A canal from Springfield to Boston will render our harbor the month of the Con- neeticut river." The papers of the State were filled with arguments pro and con, and every step of the engineers commissioned to survey the Connecticut and a canal route across the State was followed with lively interest. Stages were rolling along regardless of the new- fangled notions of transportation. In 1826 H. Sargeant advertised a new line of stages, which left Springfield daily at 5 A. M. for Hart- ford, taking the west side, and returning at 7 P.M., for $1. This line stopped at Phelps's Springfield hotel (Exchange hotel). The following year there was started a stage line from Springfield to Belchertown, by the Factory village, - N. B. Moseley & Co., pro- prietors. In 1828 still another line was started between Norwich and Springfield, the distance between the two places being covered in eleven hours. The proprietors were N. B. Moseley, of Springfield, and Landlords Kinney of Norwich, Abbe of Windham, and Smith of Tolland.
The local industries were making a fair showing. The paper mills of D. & J. Ames were, in 1825, about the largest in the United States.
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They ran twelve engines and employed one hundred girls, besides many men and boys. Lathrop & Willard had just before this built a four- engine paper-mill, " 10 miles above this place." N. P. Ames began the manufacture of cutlery at Chicopee, with nine hands, in 1829. The Ames Manufacturing Company was incorporated in 1834, with a capital of $30,000.
Mr. Blanchard's steam-carriage was exhibited in these streets in November, 1826, and created the greatest excitement. A bevel- geared wheel, running parallel with the carriage wheels, was attached to the hind axle-tree. Pinion wheels plied into the cogs of this wheel, and the engine attached had a two-inch cylinder, the boiler holding three gallons. The carriage weighed half a ton.
Many business changes had taken place on the street. Horace Lee, who came from Westfield, was running a chair-factory in a brick building on the east side of North Main street, and had a rival in Moses V. Beach, who ran the Springfield cabinet warehouse, now Wright's cigar-shop; William W. Wildman's Springfield comb factory was opposite the Springfield hotel ; Whitfield Chapin kept a lumber-yard at the east end of the bridge over the Connecticut, which passed, in 1826, to Isaac Humeston ; Joseph Bangs had a forge on Mill river ; Benjamin Belcher presided over the Springfield furnace ; Dennis Cook ran a copper and sheet-iron manufactory, and so did Philip Wilcox, the two men having originally been in business together (Cook & Wilcox) in front of the Springfield brewery (Church of the Unity) ; George Colton sold lime, hewn stone, and lumber ; Isaiah Call kept stoves (near the bank) : John Hooker, Jr., was manager of the Springfield brewery ; William Childs & Co., who were known to store liquors in the cellar of the present Congregational church, owned the Sixteen Acres distillery, and Reynolds & Morris were managers of the Hampden brewery. Major Ingersoll was their clerk. The marble yard of S. D. & W. Sturges was one door west of the bank. The Springfield Fire Insurance Company, George Bliss, Jr., secretary, was doing a good business.
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Daniel Lombard was still postmaster. The bookstores included G. W. Calender (opposite Court square), Robert Russell and T. Dickman (opposite Springfield Exchange hotel). E. Edwards and Sterns & Hunt were druggists ; and the prominent dry-goods mer. chants were John W. Dwight (successor of Dwight & Colton), Bangs, Stikes, & Co., D. C. Brewer, Howard & Lathrop, Bliss & Morris, Bontecou & Hunt, Ames & Reynolds, Solomon Warriner & Son, James Brewer, Gilbert A. Smith, and T. A. Merrick. H. Brewer sold fish, cheese, etc. ; Henry Adams was watchmaker ; Rand, Bates, & Co., curriers ; Blake & Kendall (opposite Court square), boots and shoes ; E. Stockbridge, merchant tailor; Lewis Briggs, groceries ; and James Mills, fancy goods and millinery ; while Luther Grant advertised : -
" Shorrevals and Over'alls And Pantaloons he'll make. Cutting too he'll always do And will no cabbage take."
Carlo Smith kept a glazing establishment in the rear of the bank, and Festus Smith ran a blacksmith shop. Reference is made still to the " Plainfield Gate," north of Col. Quartus Stebbins's house.
Business changes were of course made from time to time, but about the close of the period covered by this chapter Spencer & Orne had a crockery store north of the Dwight store. Then came Elisha Edwards, druggist and grocery ; Edmund Rowland, dry goods ; Capt. Tom Sargeant, jeweller ; H. Y. Beach, furniture ; Reynolds & Morris, dry goods ; Dr. Brewer, druggist, in the dark basement of which was Henry Brewer's little grocery ; "Springfield Republican," north corner of Main and Sanford streets ; Daniel Bontecou, with Elliot's barber shop in the rear ; Elijah Blake, shoemaker; Sterns & Spar- hawk, druggists ; Seth Flagg, jeweller, and William Calender, book- store ; James Wells, dry goods, boots and shoes (Metcalf & Luther) ; Mr. Tucker, groceries and bottled beer; Josiah Howe, with black-
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smith shop in the rear; Roswell Lombard, farmer (Brigham's) ; Coolidge & Sanderson, hatters ; Mr. Baker's shop ; Mr. Elliot's red dwelling-house (north corner of Bridge and Main streets) ; Emery's lane (Lyman street), leading to the large Emery pasture, where half the cows of the village were pastured ; Jerry Whalen's house (north
BURNING U. S. ARMORY, IS24.
corner of Main and Ferry streets) ; and Amasa Parsons (Franklin street). Other places can be identified by the map accompanying this volume.
On Armory hill Tileston tavern was a resort of note. The hill merchants included Bangs & Ely, Flagg & Chapin (military store), Avery & Stoddard, Bowdoin & Carew, and John Hall. Rand & Shepard was the Armory hill boot firm (Smith's building). Albert
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SPRINGFIELD, 1636-1886.
Morgan kept a grocery and dry-goods store, and Baker & Holbrook owned the Hampden furniture establishment in the Carew building. The main armory building was burned in March, 1824, and during the summer three fire-proof buildings were put up, - two workshops and a store-house, each one hundred and twenty feet long. The two hundred and sixty men employed turned out forty muskets per day.
At Chicopee, Chapin & Bemis were the leading merchants. The cotton factories on the Chicopee river belonging to the Boston & Springfield Manufacturing Company were begun about 1823. In 1826 there were two brick five-story factories, with seven thousand spindles and two hundred and forty looms, and there were about twenty tenement houses for operatives with accommodations for fifty- four families.
On March 4, 1825, the inauguration of John Quincy Adams was observed by a political dinner at the Hampden coffee-house, the report being of a " style which does credit to Colonel Russell." Colonel Lee presided, and J. Dwight, Jr., was chosen vice-president. There was 'some political rancor in the speeches, but patriotism prevailed. John Mills and Justice Willard were elected State senators in April, the latter only after a contest before the Legislature with Jonathan Dwight, Jr. The representatives in 1826 were George Bliss, Jonathan Dwight, Jr., William B. Calhoun, William H. Foster, and Jesse Pendleton.
In 1826, when Solomon Hatch was nominated for register of deeds, an ardent republican closed a long appeal in support of Hatch by remarking that Hatch is " not less honest nor less capable than the present family incumbent, who has, as yet, little reason to know that he does not hold the office as an heirloom from his ancestors, but as the free gift of a free people." This was a signal for a spirited charge upon Edward Pynchon, who had been register since the formation of the county, in 1812. The discussion was narrowed from the principle of rotation in office to the business habits of both estimable gentlemen, and sundry irregularities in land transactions were charged and denied in rapid succession. Pynchon was reelected by a large majority.
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Senator John Mills introduced a bill for the relief of poor debtors, at Boston, in 1826, the object of which was to abolish imprisonment for debt, and it passed that body almost unanimously. Justice Will- ard's action in opposing his colleague created some talk. Mr. Mills was a candidate against Webster, in 1827, for the United States Senate. It was when Mills was president of the State Senate, in 1828, that he created some local contention by coming ont for Jack- son, and declined being a candidate for reelection. William B.
Calhoun also created local heart-burnings by opposing a resolution in favor of the Adams administration. Mr. Calhoun had been elected twice to the Ilonse without opposition, and, at that time, at least, was not considered a party man. He was returned to the Legislature in
1828, and became speaker. The full list of Springfield representa- tives were : William B. Calhoun, Fred A. Packard, JJesse Pendleton, William H. Foster, Simon Sanborn, George Bliss, Jr., and William Childs.
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