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 4

Author: Green, Mason Arnold; Springfield (Mass.)
Publication date: 1888
Publisher: [Springfield, Mass.] : C.A. Nichols & Co.
Number of Pages: 740


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 4


Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).


Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55


This " Mr. Ludlowe " was Roger Ludlow, who had transactions with Mr. Pynchon, as appears from this letter to William Pynchon, dated May 17, 1637: -


For your debt I am solicitons of, and I think the long before now I was never demanded twice in my life, neither should this, I hope, if not for the wars that 1 cannot go into the Bay to settle business to pay your debt which is the greatest I owe in the world. Therefore pray, sir, have patience.


In this General Court order it will be seen that Mr. Pynchon was the colony agent to buy corn with discretion as to price over what the colony expected to pay. Pynchon would gain noth- ing by an increase of the price. He received his order to trade on the 8th of March, and he returned to Agawam upon the 11th. Three days later (14th) he despatched a messenger to Mr. Ludlow, informing him that corn was very scarce. Mr. Indlow's reply did not contain any reflection upon Mr. Pynchon. The Connectient rec- ords are very imperfect, the dates of some of the orders of the Gen-


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eral Court even being omitted. The following vote at Hartford, it may be presumed, was taken after Mr. Pynchon's messenger arrived there : -


Whereas, it was ordered octo die (Marcii) last that there should be a re- strainte of tradinge for Corne in regarde of some . . with Mr. Pincheon to supply the plantacons. uppon consideracon of Mr. Pincheons that hee is some- what feareful of supplying the plantacons, and whereas there is a Clause in case of necessity 3 magistrates may dispence with the order. It is therefore ordered that Mr. Ludlowe and Captaine Mason or either of them. taking likewise such with them as shalbe meete. shall trade to supply theire owne necessities and the necessities of some other that are in wante. ,


This order may have been dated March 15, 1638. At any rate, Captain Mason called upon William Pynchon at his Agawam home, March 21. He had with him some armed troopers and a Nonotuck (Northampton) Indian. The meeting of these two notable men is nowhere spoken of in the histories, but it is impossible to understand the events that followed without knowing what happened at that time. Captain Mason's exploits in the Pequot war were heralded abroad, and this reputation must have been a source of personal gratification to him as a military commander. He had been an Eng- Jish soldier in the Netherlands, and may have known Pynchon at Dorchester, where they both had first settled in New England. Mason from the start had had a contempt of the Indian as a fighting animal.


William Pynchon, npon the other hand, was a student and law- yer, and a man who believed that only through a primitive code of ethics could amicable relations subsist between the English and the red man. We do not need the testimony of dingy manuscripts to be told that Mason and Pynchon conld not agree about the Indian.


When Captain Mason had entered Mr. Pynchon's house, - the small one that gave way twenty-two years later to the famous Pynchon garrison-house, - the soldier from Hartford said : -


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I am com to trade some corne with the Indians, and I have traded some at Woronoco [Westfield], and I had purposed to have you to Nanotack. but I mett with one of Nanotack, here at Agaam, and I would have traded some corne with him yester night. but he saith he dared not without yr leave. for saide he, he is afraid of you, as alsoe are the Indians on the Riverside, for say they, you re- quire six peeces of cloth of them, whereas they were bat two whole pieces stolen, and thirteen coates, but I told him that I thought you were not angry and that you neyther could, nor would have hurte to them. But I pray, tell this Indian of Nannotak that you will not be angry with him, if he trade corne downe the river.


Mr. Pynchon said at once that he knew no reason why the Nonotnek Indian should fear him. He then proposed that the rest of the conference be carried on apart, as it would not do to let the Indians realize the extent of the English distress for food.


" I care not who knows them," said Mason ; but Mr. Pynchon ordered his trader, Richard Everett (who, by the way, belonged to the family of Edward Everett), to open the trading-house door, and the party repaired there. There were at the trading- house Captam Mason and an associate, Thomas Dewey, and Mr. Pynchon, with his trader. "Sir," continued Mason, ~ I have brought up some cloth and wampam, to trade some corne with the Indians: & I desire you to deal with them for us. & to Binde them to a bargaine to bring it down."


To this Mr. Pynchon replied, that that was not the way to bind the Indians to a bargain, as they would break their promise if they were paid in advance. " whereupon som anger might fol- low, and then if I had a hand in it, they may beare me a grudge ; for I feare their treacherous dealinge, we being remote, & but weaker ; therefore I will neither make nor meddle to binde ym to a bargaine. But I will do this. I will proponnd a rate of 8 sixes to carry downe their corne, and 6 sixes to bringe it to my house, and propound a free trade, and give them choice as before I have declared."


The Captain flew into a " greate passion," and exclaimed : " What


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hurt can it be to you? I pray, Sir, let me know what hurt can it be to you, for it is a dark riddle to me."


Parson Moxon, who had been sent for, arrived at the trading- house at this juncture. Mr. Pynchon explained the situation, and added that Mason had given the Woronoco Indians wampum in ad- vance, and would have done the same at Nonotuck if Pynchon had not objected. The parties were testing Captain Mason's corn-bag when Henry Smith arrived at the trading-house, and the discussion was renewed.


Then said Mr. Moxon : " An Indian promise is noe more than to have a pigg by the taile." This, by the way, is the first quotation extant of anything Moxon had ever said. Mr. Smith's opinion as to advanced payments in buying corn was in the same vein. He said : -


That is the rather to drive them from us, and the worst way to get a supply of Corne; as we have had late experience about the debt they owe Mr. Pinchon ; for they kept away from us, and would not come at us because they were held to their promise. Thus, therefore will they deale with him as they have with Mr. Pinchon, and afterwards say (by way of excuse) that they were fools not knowing what they did.


Captain Mason at last " beganne to harken to Mr. Pinchon's mo- tion of free-trade, (viz.) six sixes a pecke at his house, and eight sixes to carry it downe," and Pinchon promised to aid him as best he could. he having already made the same proposition to the Indians before Captain Mason arrived.


" Why did you not say this at first?" asked Mason. "This is all I desire of you."


Thereupon the Nonotuck Indian, who was loitering about, was called up, Captain Mason appearing to be convinced that Mr. Pyn- chon's way was the better. Mr. Pynchon addressed the up-river Indian, telling of "a sachem, one Captaine Mason, that desired to trade corne," that "it was much minnett to give free-trade," and


PYNCHON OPPOSING CAPT. MAASON'S DEMANDS.


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that he would give six sixes a peck for corn delivered at Agawam, or eight sixes delivered at Hartford. But the Indian protested that their corn was much of it ruined by the snow, and that the river was too high to transport any to Hartford. Mason admitted that the Indian had told him all this the night before.


The points to be remembered in this account are that Mason's re- quest to Mr. Pynchon, to remove the fear of the Indian to trade, was while they were in the dwelling-house, but that Mr. Pynchon's re- mark that he would neither " make nor meddle " was while they were at the trading-house, and was in response to Mason's request that Pynchon should aid him in making a bargain contrary to Pynchon's habit in dealing with the Indians. This point was brought into dis- pute later.


Mr. Pynchon had previously given six sixes a peck for corn, as the Connecticut General Court knew, and therefore it was evident that in the stress under which the English were, the Indians attempted to get more. And besides, the Indians had received eight sixes the year before. This price, then, seemed reasonable : and if corn went up, it went up on the issue of supply and demand, which holds good in all countries and times. In speaking of the trouble in persuading the Indians to trade after Pynchon's commission from the General Court, Mr. Pynchon wrote subsequently : -


I alsoe presented to them dayly both cloth and wampam of the best for corne, if they would bring any to trade ; but still they put it off by excuses, on purpose to make me raise the price, and indeed it would weary any to se what subtill pleadings they nave dayly used for this purpose; as Mr. Moxon and Mr. Smith have plentifull experience.


But now as to the npshot of the Mason-Pynchon interview upon the 21st of March, 1638. They separated in anything but a cordial spirit. Captain Mason was very much displeased, and took an abrupt departure. Three days later the Connecticut General Court issued an order for Mr. Pynchon's presence at the next session. A regular trial followed upon very serious charges. The General Court


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of Connecticut, at that time, was not a well-defined body. It was during the transition from a provisional to a constitutional existence. The court consisted of magistrates, assistants or commissioners, and town committees or deputies. Commissioners were at once assigned to hear the case, and the founder of Springfield, with several wit- nesses and Rev. George Moxon as his counsel, put in a full defence. Mr. Pynchon was completely taken aback at the spirit and extent of the charges. It was an indictment of his very manhood. He was represented as one who had actually traded on the extremities and privations of the lower towns. These charges were, in brief, (1) that he had deliberately raised the price of corn as between him and Connecticut, and was holding the Indians to their bargains, all to his private gain ; that (2) he refused to lend a canoe to a Woronoco Indian, who was under contract with Captain Mason to take corn down the river ; that (3) he kept the Agawam, Woronoco, and Nonotuck Indians under abject fear of him, that he might be con- sidered the great English sachem of the Connecticut valley ; and, finally, that (4) he induced certain Mohawk runners to sell him some beaver skins, which were sent by Mohawk chiefs to the Connecticut authorities as presents and assurances of good-will.


As to the great and overshadowing charge of dishonorable and un- becoming speculation, it will be well to note more particularly the condition of Agawam in the spring of 1638. The five hundred bushels that Mr. Pynchon had contracted for with the Indians was not above Agawam's demands, and therefore there was no chance to speculate. In an argument, written out after the trial, Mr. Pynchon said that very little would be left after he, Mr. Moxon, Smith, and others on the street had been supplied. And, moreover, the distress at Agawam was as great as it was down the river. Wit- ness this testimony of William Pynchon : -


In regard to the great straits the whole population was in, both of persons & cattle, for 2 or 3 months together : The wants of the Plantation were such. that


1


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som were forced to give malt to piggs to save their lives, and those that had som English meale, & would have kept it, were faine to spend it for want of corne, & to give som of It also to preserve the life of swine, & 3 or 4 were in Consultation to leave the Plantation for a while, to earne their bread else- where, till corne might be had heere. Some Weomen gave their poultry and swine divers times English graine. intended only for seed, & the poorer sort professed that they desired the price might be raised, that they might hay corne, & they professed it would be noe burden to them soe they might have it at any reasonable price, -yea, though it were at 6 shillings a bushell. Mr. Pinchons wants were often soe great, that divers times he hath not had half a bushell of corne in his house for his family & cattell, & when a Bushell or lesse hath ben brought in to trade. he hath as much prized God's mercy & providence therein, and ben as glad of it, as at other times of 20 Bushells, & the truth is that all the while the Indians were willing enough to trade, if they might have had their price amended. But they would not because Mr. Pinehon refused to give them the price they asked, and as they hav the years before & If I say I did chiefly forbeare for the publike good, I ly not : my conscience before God beares me witnesse. Yea, though my family did dayly urge me to raise the price, partly in merey to my Cattle, & partly to save their lives, they dayly told me that I had lost some cattle already, and I was shure to loose more if some course was not taken to get them corne, & I found their word true to my Cost. Alsoe, my wife, walking more amongst my Cattle than I did, professed yt It was her dayly grief to see them in that poore starveing condition for the want of corne, and did dayly urge me to raise the price (in pitty to the Cattell), whatever it might cost. Yea, at that time, I wrote the letter for advice about riseing the price, my family, cattle, & Nighbors, had spent our former supply, & I then was hopelesse for the 500 Bushells. And whereas, I depended on the payment of that before. now my hopes were like to a spider's webb. Therefore I wrote for counsell, what course I should take with those Indians. . .. I neglected myne owne cattle, & family, & suffered that loss weh mought have been holpen by God's blessing.


As for the trial before the commissioners, under order of the Con- necticut General Court, Mr. Pynchon was surprised to find that the principal witnesses, besides Captain Mason himself, were the very Agawam Indians with whom he had negotiated for the five hnn- dred busheis of corn. Mr. Pynchon might well have felt great


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concern when he looked upon these natives, for they were only too anxious to do anything to be relieved of their bargain with him.


The chief accusation in reference to the natives was that Mr. Pyn- chon kept them in continual fear. and the commissioners, in order to test the matter, did what Mason had asked Pynchon to do at Aga- wam, - desired verbal assurances that he was not angry with the Indians. Pynchon, seeing that such a declaration by him might be interpreted by the Indians as a release from their bargain, which they had failed to keep, objected so to do until the debt had been fully reaffirmed. After some delay, an appeal was taken from the com- missioners to the General Court, and the point argued, as would appear, by Mr. Talcott, a member of the lower house. The court sustained Mr. Pynchon's appeal, but the commissioner who was push- ing the matter was offended at this episode, and, as Mr. Pynchon subsequently said, repressed his feelings " with an hy offended spirit, & to the changing of the forme of his visage." After it had been explained to the Indians that the five hundred bushels must be paid, Mr. Pynchon expressed his good-will and cordial feeling to the knot of dusky savages.


The next point involving the Indians taken up by the commission- ers was the charge that Mr. Pynchon bought of Mohawk runners beaver intended as presents to the authorities at Hartford, or, to use the ancient words of the charge, "the English Sachims in the River." Mr. Haynes had reminded Mr. Pynchon that the intended gifts had been spoken of to him, and this was made to appear as an aggravation of Mr. Pynchon's offence. We give Mr. Pynchon's defence upon this point in full, as it is an interesting statement, inde- pendent of its immediate connection : -


Mr. Pinchon answers that when Mr. Haynes first told him of it that he doubted it was but the giveing of the telling of such a thing as their dayly prac- tice is, for any advantage of gayne. He could not Imagin that it was come as


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gift, because they mentioned noe such thing, but caled for trade. Besides it is their ordenary time in the time of snow in the beginning of Winter to trade their skinns & a greate parte of this was such skinns and not fitt for a gift to grate Sachims. I was not at home when they came, & they were in trade before I came home. I repeat that a gift sent to greate Sachims should be offered, & to begg it. is not honorable. Hle that told this to Mr. Haynes was one of them that brought the 7 Sachims locks. & then he was first at my house, & there was alsoe Mr. Ludlow. & they had an Interpretter, and all that they then said was this that the Mohawks did much love the English ; and would be in friendshipp with them, & destroy all Pequotts that came in their way, but mentioned noe such gift at all, neither could they in likelyhood expect such a thing from the Mowhake Sachims, because these Pequott Sachims were killed 2 days journey on this side the Mowhakes at Paquiany, and it was but 3 days past that they were killed, & for them to go to their Sachims 2 days. & bring such a Message, & then you must ad 4 days more to come hither. doth much overgoe that time of 3 days. wherein they killed these Pequotts, & indeed they were chiefly Mohegans that did the act, & the Mowhaks had the least hand in it, & had but the least part of the prey, & therefor it is most likely. that their bever promised. was but as their or- denary manner is, when they would get anything, to give the telling of some pleasing thing.


It will not pass unnoticed that in order to make a case out against Pynchon they had gone back seven or eight months and taken up a matter utterly foreign to the case, except as it was an assault upon Mr. Pynchon's general character. But his aceusers did more : they used hearsay evidence, picked up on Agawam street. " I am ready to take an oath of the Lord hereto," writes Mr. Pynchon, in his " Apology," in reference to the charge of money-making, "and in cases as materiall as this, where there is but ouly surmises, and noe proofe, can be had, an oath of the Lord, must determine the cause. Exodus, 22. 10. 11." 2


But we will not linger over the details of this trial. Finally, the commissioners, having heard Mason, the Indians, and the rest, called in Rev. Thomas Hooker and Rey. Samnel Stone as experts upon the ethical question of Mr. Pynchon's conduct. They both said most emphatically that Pynchon had broken his oath. Mr. Pynchon rose


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and explained his mode of bargaining with the Indians without ad- vancing wampum, as Mason did at Woronoco, claiming that " 8 sixes downe & 6 sixes to his house was an equall proportion to alure them." Mr. Hooker replied that " that offer was as good as nothing, for Mr. Pynchon knew that the Indians being afrayd of him, would not bring downe any corne, but that he should have all the trade to him- selfe, & have all the corne in his own hands, and bring all that water to his own mill, and so rack the country at his pleasure."


This extraordinary conclusion took Mr. Pynchon completely abaek. To be accused by a warrior like Captain Mason mattered little, for a soldier's ways are professionally stiff ; but to be con- demned by the famous ministers, Hooker and Stone, was quite an- other thing. One can well understand the words of the Pynchon " Apology ": "To this Mr. Pynchon was silent, being grieved at such an hard answer."


The commission found Mr. Pynchon guilty ; and they showed no little prejudice, even construing the defendant's appeal to the court as to the Indians an evidence of a guilty spirit.


The Pynchon trial and conviction were probably during the last week in March, 1638. A session of the General Court, at Hart- ford, was held April 5, Mr. Pynchon still sitting in the upper house, and Moxon and Burr, representing Agawam, in the lower house, or the " town committees," as they were called. Either a remarkable amount of business was gone over that day, or the clerk neglected to add the dates of the various orders of the session. Here is the order, recorded after the commission in the Pynchon case had re- ported : -


Whereas there was some complainte made against Mr. Willm Pincheon of Agawam for that as was conceived & uppou p'fe appred he was not so carefull to prinote the publique good in the trade of Corne as hee was bounde to doe. It is ordered the saide Mr. Pincheon shall wth all convenient speede pay as a fine for his soe failinge 40tie bushells of Indian Corne for the publieque & the saide Corne to be delivred to the Treasurer to be disposed of as shallbe thought meete.


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This was pretty severe, and while the court was gracious enough to continue to give Mr. Pynchon the monopoly of the beaver trade at Agawam, this fine was a crushing blow to Pynchon's influ- ence in Connecticut affairs. The Captain Mason theory of dealing with the Indians, namely, wampum in one hand and the sword in the other, inspired the following order, also passed upon this same 5th of April : -


It is ordered that there shalbe sixe sent to Warranocke Indians to declare unto them that wee have a desire to speak with them, to knowe the reasons why they saide they are affraide of us, and if they will not come to us willingly then to compell them to come by violence. and they may have 2 of the English as pleadges in the meane time and to trade with them for corne if they can. It is ordered that Captaine Mason, Thomas Stanton, Jeremy Adams, John Gibbes, Searjeant Starnes and Thomas Merricke, and if Thomas Merricke be gone to Aggawam then Captaine Mason to take another whom he please, shall goe in the saide service ; and if hee see cause to leave hostages hee may ; if hee see cause to goe to Aggawam he may.


The court ought not to have been at such a loss to explain the trepidation of the Indians. The fear admitted in the above order was probably traced to a previous commission given to Captain Mason to "go to Aagawam and treate with the Indians of Waronocke con- cerning the tribute towards the charges of o' warres, to the value of one fatham of Wampom a man. Nawattocke a fatham and a quarter, Pacomtuckett one fatham and a quarter."


Here is a question of no small moment. What right had the English to levy a war tribute upon the native tribes, even admitting (which was not the fact) that the Indians in question were inside the boundaries of their jurisdiction? We know what Mr. Pynchon thought upon this matter, and can well understand why he was not commissioned to collect the tribute. He would have refused, as he subsequently refused to cross the line of Indian rights when called upon so to do by the Massachusetts authorities. And it may not be out of place to anticipate events enough to quote from Mr.


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Pynchon's letter addressed to Gov. John Winthrop, Boston, and dated " this 5 of the 5m 1648." Winthrop and four magistrates had made a requisition upon Magistrate Pynchon for the surrender of three Indians who had committed murder at Quabaug (Brookfield) and had fled to Nonotuck (Northampton). The Indian apostle, Eliot, had also been induced to recommend the requisition, and to follow it up with another letter to Mr. Pynchon, who thus replied to the gov- ernor : -


1157656


But if thinges be well examined : I apprehend that neether the murthered are yr subjects nor yet ye murtherers within yr jurisdiction & I grant they are all within ye line of yr pattent, but yet you cannot say that therefore they are yr sub- jects nor yet within yr Jurisdiction untill they have fully subjected themselves to yr government (wch I know they have not) & untill you have bought their land : until this be done they must be esteemed as an Independent free people.


This was bold enough on Mr. Pynchon's part, but it was a doc- trine upon which he had acted for twelve years, and (to return to the controversy of 1638) we do not need to be told that Mr. Pynchon did not go among the Indian villages collecting wampum to pay the expenses of the Pequot war.


Mr. Pynchon was present April 5, when the General Court fined him the forty bushels of corn, but there is no evidence that he ever again attended the Hartford court. He certainly was not reelected on the January following, and Agawam was not included in the Con- nectieut constitution adopted January 14, 1639, which is so famous as the supposed first written constitution.


But the break from Connecticut was not precipitated beyond re- covery probably until another very disagreeable chapter had been added to the story of Connecticut and Agawam. Mr. Pynchon, after his conviction, hastily prepared his " Apology," which was circulated among the valley towns. This " Apology " is a complete defence against dishonest speculation, written in strong English, with occa- sional passages of graphic relief, and is, all in all, an invaluable sur-




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