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 40

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 40


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


467


SPRINGFIELD, 1636-1SS6.


At the gubernatorial election Springfield had stood : Whigs, 3,272 ; democrats, 3,209 ; while at the November election Taylor polled 3,302 ; Cass, 3,060 ; Van Buren, 1,200. And this was in the face of a remarkable series of political orations which the brilliant George Ashmun had delivered through this part of the State. Mr. Mills was an extensive speaker himself, but the demand for him in the eastern part of the State weakened his home canvass.


Sumner wrote the following letter to Mr. Mills, dated Boston, Nov. 19, 1850 : " Can't you come to the House of Representatives at Boston this winter? We all feel that your presence would add much to our strength and character. You have already, I know, made sacrifices for our cause ; but I have thought that you might serve in our supreme court without any serious inconvenience, while the good to be derived from such service would be incalculable. We need wise, discreet, and just counsels ; and I know no person who can give them better than yourself. Our party must now meet the trials of success, which are more dangerous than those of defeat." Mr. Mills obeyed the summons, but owing to a deadlock the town was not represented in the Legislature for two or three ycars.


Henry Wilson, the Natick shoemaker, another free-soiler destined to rise to senatorial distinction, was another personage that Mr. Mills came in contact with at this time. In his " History of the Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America " Mr. Wilson refers to Mr. Mills as a man " who had long been one of the honored and trusted leaders of the democratic party."


In accordance with a legislative resolution, in 1849, Governor Briggs appointed B. R. Curtis, of Boston, N. J. Lord, of Salem, and Mr. Chapman to draw up a practice act for the courts of justice of the Commonwealth, except for criminal cases. The rules of practice had become involved. No uniform principle was dis- coverable in the various acts of the Legislature on this subject. At the foundation was the old common-law pleading. Thirteen


468


SPRINGFIELD, 1636-1886.


years before special pleas in bar had been abolished, but general demurrers, pleas in abatement, writs of error, and other intricate and time-consuming contrivances under the old system were retained. As the commissioners in the report accompanying their draught of a practice act say, he who " surveys what remains, sees every plain- tiff left to inhabit the old building, while all others are turned out-of- doors. We seem to be walking for a short distance in the ancient but strongly-built streets of an open town, and all at once to step into the open fields, having here and there a piece of sunken fence or a half-filled-up ditch and some ruins of broken walls, which afford excellent lurking-places for concealment and surprise, but no open highway for the honest traveller." The task of Mr. Chapman and his associates was to build a highway through this ancient legal land- scape. How well they succeeded, the unanimous vote of the Legisla- ture adopting their practice act fully attests. It is understood by lawyers that the hand of Mr. Chapman is seen in the blanks or prac- tical forms that constitute a part of the act. The importance of this move of Massachusetts was that it was the initiative in New England towards a reform in procedure, and went upon ground which even New York had not then occupied.


In February, 1842, George Bliss resigned the office of agent of the Western Railroad, and was soon afterwards chosen its president. The completion of the independent road of the Albany & West Stockbridge Company, between Chatham Four Corners and the State line, enabled the Western Company to dispense with the Hudson & Berkshire road. The Western bridge over the Connecticut was considered quite an engineering feat. It had seven spans, one hun- dred and eighty feet each. It was a covered bridge. The heavy Winans engines had too high chimneys for some of the bridges on the road, and they were lowered, but as this reduced the draught, the lower bridges were raised.


In 1844 the Hartford & Springfield Railroad was opened, joining Springfield with New York, - rail to New Haven and thence by


Ra Chelena


469


SPRINGFIELD, 1636-1886.


steamboat. In 1845 George Bliss declined a reelection as direc- tor of the Western road on account of ill-health, and Addison Gil- more was elected president : and he was succeeded, in 1850, by John Gardner, and a year later by Capt. William H. Swift. In March, 1847, the old passenger-house was burned and was replaced by a brick station, four hundred feet by one hundred and thirteen. The shares in the Western Railroad were thus held in 1849: In Boston, 1,095 ; Roxbury, 43 ; Charlestown, 42; New York, 11; Springfield, 209 ; and elsewhere, 549. The Connecticut River road was also well under way. By the consolidation of the Northampton & Spring- field Railroad Company and the Greenfield & Northampton Com- pany, the Connecticut River Railroad Corporation was formed in 1845. The road was opened to Greenfield in 1846. The fourth annual report (1849) showed that it was completed to the Vermont line ; length, fifty-two miles; total cost to that date, $1,588,874. The road was originally a Northampton enterprise, but was absorbed by Springfield capitalists.


The railroad era had given Springfield a genuine business boom. In 1840 agriculture was in a flourishing condition, as appears from these statistics : Springfield, - acres cultivated, 6,369 ; produce, - wheat, 285 bushels ; rye, 29,184 ; corn, 27,095 ; oats, 18,125; and tons of hay, 2,537.


In the winter of 1842 the wooden buildings opposite Court square, owned by John Childs and George Dwight, and occupied by A. C. Cole & Co., tailors, and Covell & Goodwin, druggists, were burned. It was a big fire, but if it had not been for the admirable work of the fire department it would have been bigger.


Charles Dickens passed through Springfield a month later. Adin Allen, the noted river pilot, piloted the steamer " Massachusetts," in which Mr. Diekens took passage. It was the first trip of the sea- son. Mr. Sargeant suggested to Mr. Dickens that as the roads were bad he had better go by steamer. Accordingly, Mr. Sargeant asked " Kit " Stebbins to captain the " Massachusetts " and Adin Allen to


470


SPRINGFIELD, 1636-1886.


pilot her. The " Massachusetts " was the largest of the boats then built. It could not go through the canal, and as the canal was still covered with ice it would not have done to send any boat but the " Massachusetts." The "Massachusetts " had a high ladies' cabin built up on the rear of the deck ; the steersman stood on top of this cabin (which accounts for Dickens's impression as to the insecurity of the steamer), and Mr. Allen was stationed at the bow while shooting the rapids, and the rest of the time he was in the cabin. When they reached Hartford Mr. Dickens asked Pilot Allen if he chewed tobacco, and a few days later Allen received a package from Dickens enclos- ing a tobacco-box.


B. M. Douglas, who was an active boatman of that day, and who is occasionally seen nowadays upon the streets of Springfield, de- scribes Mr. Dickens's personal appearance as follows : "The light- weight Englishman wore a swallow-tail snuff-colored coat, short red and white figured vest that was not long enough to reach his panta- loons, which latter were of the true Yankee check, and looked as though they had been bought from a North-street Jew shop in Boston. Another thing I remember, and that was his short, bell- crowned hat."


We might remark here that two years before the visit of Dickens the steamboat " Greenfield " had exploded near South Hadley Falls, killing two men and wounding several others.


The boilers of the "Greenfield " and " Agawam " were made on Mill River by Mr. Lancy, who was killed at South Hadley Falls when the former boat exploded. Still another boat, the " James Dwight," was built by Charles Stearns, at the foot of State street. This boat, in making a return trip from Hartford, hit a rock at the head of the falls. Help was procured from Thompsonville, and Dr. Osgood, Mr. Stearns, and others waded into the water and worked the boat off with levers. Samuel Bowles was on board, with a new font of type for the " Republican."


This was the period, also, of the underground railroad. Mysteri-


471


SPRINGFIELD, 1636-1SS6.


ous bands of fugitive slaves were continually passing up the Connect- icut valley on their way to Canada. Dr. Osgood's kind offices in furthering this scheme have been referred to. The negroes usually travelled at night, and were sheltered by true and tried friends during the day. The houses of Dr. Osgood, Joseph C. Buell, John How- land, Mr. Church, and others were used as stations of the under- ground railroad. In 1847 Osgood, Calhoun, Rufus Elmer, and a local negro preacher secured a house situated in the woods at Bright- wood, for the shelter of fugitives. Parties had unloaded by night in the Worthington grove, and taken to the Buell house (the Widow Frost place, corner of Spring and State streets) or other houses ; but this was considered a dangerous practice, and they were finally sent to the woods of the North End. The negroes never knew the names of the men at whose houses they slept. Mr. Buell was the preacher at the jail for many years.


The population of Springfield in 1843 was 10,985. Among the business events of that year was the opening of the Massasoit Hotel. in July, Mr. Chapin receiving many congratulatory visits, and a good house-warming followed. The Springfield House (corner of Bridge and Water streets ), owned by Charles Stearns and leased by Bugbee & Clark, was opened the following year. The Dwight Manufacturing Company had been incorporated in 1841, with a capital of half a mil- lion. Some years later it was consolidated with the Cabot Manu- facturing Company and the Perkins Mills, making it the largest cotton-mill company in the Connecticut valley.


The public schools were not in the best condition, one would say, when, in 1843, the average attendance was only seventeen hundred out of three thousand children who ought to have been at school. While the town was spending $10,000 annually upon their schools, they were so bad that no less than one hundred scholars were sent to private schools, at an extra expense of over $2,000.


On October 13, 1844, Springfield was visited by another destructive fire, which broke out in the shop of E. T. Amadon, in the Frost building


472


SPRINGFIELD, 1636-1886.


(Main and Sanford streets), and five buildings, ineluding eight stores and shops, were consumed ; losses, $25,000, including Daniel Bonte- cou's frame building, Main street, in which were Briggs & Forward, dry goods ; Smith & Taylor, printers ; Cowles & Lombard, barbers and faney goods ; and T. L. Clark, tailor : Joshua Frost's frame build- ing, corner of Main and Sanford streets, in which were Palmer & Clark, ready-made clothing ; J. L. Skinner, printer ; and William B. Hancock, tailor : Daniel Bontecou's brick building, Sanford street, in which were Henry Adams's meat market and Willis Phelps's wool-room : Dr. Chauncey Brewer's wooden building, Main street, in which were H. & J. Brewer, druggists : Justin Lombard estate's frame building. in which were Rufus Elmer, boots and shoes ; F. R. Rider, shoe- maker; Simons & Kibbe, confectioners. The buildings of Elijah Blake, Cicero Simons, and Raynolds & Morris were also damaged. The fire spread because there was no water in the town brook, a mill- owner above having shut it off during the night in order to get water for the day. Before the gates were opened the fire had become seri- ous. Three or four small fires that followed led to the general belief that a fire-bug was at work. The armory barraeks had been burned in 1842. But these fires seemed to stimulate enterprise. The popu- lation passed the fourteen-thousand mark in 1845, which was an in- erease of over thirty per cent. in five years. The open pastures on the east side of Main street were being filled up. The seven streets open from Main street to the river in 1838 had increased to eighteen by 1845. Chestnut street had been continued through from Bridge street. The burned district had been covered with brick buildings. Cabotville and Chicopee Falls were growing rapidly, and Springfield was being called a "eity-like town." There were twenty-two churches, - ten at the Centre. The Dwight & Orne building (Main and Bliss streets), fitted for stores and a hotel, was one of the most conspicuous additions to the street. Mr. Byers was putting up four stores opposite the Alden Ilouse. The Brewer & Lombard block was also going up. The valuation of real estate was $3,861,917,


473


SPRINGFIELD, 1636-1886.


and personal property, $1,447,129, - nearly half a million increase in a year. James Byers completed Hampden Hall (opposite the Alden House) in 1846 ; Chauncey Shepard, architect. The Niagara Fire Company opened this, the largest hall in western Massachusetts, by a ball, in February. Elam Stockbridge completed his block in the rear of the Universalist church in 1846, and many private resi- dences were going up.


At a meeting of School District No. 8, William Dwight, Eliphalet Trask, Simon Smith, John B. Kirkham, and Benjamin Day were appointed a building committee for a school-house on Elm street. The average wealth of Springfield was a matter of remark ; the largest estate being in 1846 only $68,000, and there were but five estates with a valuation of over $50,000; but twelve exceeded $40,000, twenty exceeded $30,000, thirty-eight exceeded $20,000, fifty-one exceeded $15,000, and ninety-one exceeded $10,000 ; total valuation, $7,078,500, there being $5,000,000 distributed among those having less than $10,000. There were comparatively few poor people in Springfield.


The general condition of the town religiously was perhaps not so good, although the ministers in those days maintained sharper lines of demarcation and made more direct denominational appeals than at present. There were about eighteen hundred families in 1847, divided roughly as follows : Congregationalists, 430 families ; Methodists, 250 ; Roman Catholics, 170 ; Unitarians, 130 ; Baptists, 112 ; Episco- palians, 90 ; Universalists, 80 ; Wesleyans, 20; " Come-outers," 14 ; Lutherans, 4 ; non-church-goers, 500. Negotiations had been long pending for the purchase of the water-power at Ireland parish and South Hadley Falls. This culminated in 1847, and the work of building a manufacturing city began at once. Men spoke of the " coming city " before a stroke of work had been done.


John Mills bought the Alden (Hampden) House, furnished, in 1846 for $26,000. He had entered upon a career as real-estate owner, and was in the end crippled by these investments. Homer Foot bought


474


SPRINGFIELD, 1636-1886.


the United States Hotel property of Jeremy Warriner, in 1847, for $19,000, and " Uncle Jerry " retired covered with laurels. He, how- ever, could not remain long quiet, but with his brother, Lyman War- riner, took the Union House.


The question was already being asked, "Shall Springfield be a city? " and the setting up of Chicopee as a separate town also became an acute issue. When a proposal for a division was up in the town- meeting, December, 1847, Judge Oliver B. Morris made a strong plea against division. A legislative committee was in Springfield, March, 1848, and listened to arguments, both upon a division of the town and a city charter. At the April town-meeting a pitched battle was waged over division, and the final vote stood : For division, five hun- dred ; against, seven hundred and twenty-two. The legislative com- mittee had, however, already drawn a bill creating a new town out of Cabotville, Old Chicopee, and Chicopee Falls, although there was clearly a majority of the town against it. There were a succes- sion of town-meetings that year, the charter of the Springfield Aqueduct Company and other matters seeming to demand special consideration. The Springfield Gas-Light Company was organized that year.


We will not linger over the struggle attending the division of the town. It was said in 1841 that ten years before Cabotville had been " a wild spot, the habitation of frogs, quails, snipes, rabbits," etc. It had now six cotton mills, eighteen operative boarding-houses, a forge and two machine-shops, the Ames Bell and Cannon Foundry. and several small mills ; while the Universalists, Congregationalists, Baptists, Methodists, Unitarians, and Roman Catholics had secured lodgments there. The thirty-seven stores and shops and three thou- sand five hundred population were the nucleus of a village, indeed. " The Cabotville Chronicle " of that day was quite a paper. The question of division had become so heated in 1843 that at the annual meeting the town failed to elect a board of selectmen. The " Cabot folks" renewed the fight in 1844 for their section, which had five


475


SPRINGFIELD, 1636-1886.


hundred voters, three thousand nine hundred and forty-six population, and a tax-rate of $5,000.


N. P. Ames, of Cabotville, died in the spring of 1847. He was born near Lowell in 1803. He removed to Chicopee Falls in 1829, and to Cabotville in 1834, and was one of the founders of its commercial prosperity. He visited Europe in 1840 in order to study the mechani- cal arts for the benefit of the Ames Manufacturing Co., and returned broken in health. He was a dignified, affable, and generous man, and was an active church-member. He gave $5,000 to build a Congrega- tional church. Among other deaths during this period may be men- tioned those of Justin Lombard, October, 1841 ; Samuel Bowles, founder of the "Weekly Republican," September, 1851 ; John Howard, lawyer, 1849 ; and Moses Bliss, merchant, 1849.


The division of the town came in 1848 by a decree of the General Court, and the selectmen's board of Springfield was reorganized as follows : Solomon Hatch, William E. Montague, Philo F. Wilcox, Waitstill Hastings, and E. W. Bond.


The committee of the two towns appointed to divide the property of the original town decided that the surplus revenue was to be di- vided on the valuation of the two towns, giving Springfield sixty-one per cent. and Chicopee thirty-nine per cent. Chicopee got a little larger share of the school fund and property. The debts of the old town aggregated $20,000, and Chicopee made a point, as $8,000 of this was for the two new bridges over the Chicopee river. Spring- field took the town farm, town hall, etc., except the old safe, which was to remain with the Springfield town clerk for the preservation of the old records.


But the town, reduced in territory as it was, seemed as gay and full of business and pleasure as it ever was. Trade was good, and we notice that the following January (1849), in one week the Niagara Fire Company had a ball at Hampden Hall ; the Campbell minstrels followed ; Eastcott gave a musical soirée at Concert Hall, Foot's block ; while J. H. Green, the reformed gambler, exposed the secrets


476


SPRINGFIELD, 1636-1886


of the profession in so adroit a manner that it is said a clergyman wanted to bet a small amount that a certain card had not changed from one hand to the other.


The introduction of gas, also, was a matter for self-felicitation. " We shook off our suburbs," one man remarked, "and now Spring- field is in better shape for becoming a city than ever before."


David Ames died in August, 1847, at the age of eighty-six. He was born at Bridgewater, and became a manufacturer of shovels and guns, supplying both for the American army. Ames was an officer in the Revolution, and in 1794 was appointed by Washington superin- tendent of the national armory in Springfield. After nine years of service he became a manufacturer of paper, and, in the course of the establishment of the largest paper manufactory in the country, made many inventions and improvements, including the system of " hot pressing," which subsequently came into general use. In June, 1847, came the death of Dr. William O. B. Peabody. He was a son of Oliver Peabody, of Exeter, N.H., twin brother of Rev. Oliver B. W. Peabody, of Burlington, Vt., was graduated from Harvard in 1816, and, as we have said, settled in Springfield in 1820.


Two years later Edmund Dwight, of Boston, died. He was a large owner of the factories at Cabotville and Chicopee Falls, and was one of the first to take up the project of starting a new city at Had- ley Falls. He was born at Springfield, was brother of Jonathan Dwight, represented Springfield in the Legislature several years, and was a substantial friend of the Western Railroad.


As to newspapers, it may be noted that the "Republican " be- came an evening daily in 1844, the first daily paper in this part of the State. It was changed to a morning paper in 1845.


E. F. Ashley & Co. sold out the " Hampden Post" in 1843 to Alan- son Hawley, and Mr. Beach retired as editor, after nearly nine years' work, and turned his attention to the law, as has been stated. The local papers at this time were : The " Republican," age, 19 ; " Hamp- den Post," age, 14; the " Gazette," age, 12 years ; " Cabotville


477


SPRINGFIELD, 1636-1886.


Chronicle," age, 4 years ; " Independent Democrat," age, 2 years ; " Ilampden Washingtonian," age, 1 year ; and the "Olive Leaf " (Cabotville). There were about one hundred and twenty-five papers in Massachusetts at this time. The "Semi-weekly Sentinel " ap- peared in February, 1847, published by Hawley & Tenney, and edited by Alanson Hawley, of the " Hampden Post ; " politics, dem- ocratic. William L. Smith began editing the "Post" February, 1848. He started life in the very pit of political contention, never deserted a friend or quailed before an enemy, was honest and capa- ble, and lived to preside over the city of Springfield and to enjoy an age of honorable repose.


Pynchon-street Methodist church was built in 1845. It was dedi- cated in March, the sermon being preached by Rev. Dr. Olin, presi- dent of Wesleyan University. It is to be noted that Dr. Osgood made the concluding prayer. The Baptist church, corner of Main street and Harrison avenne, was completed in 1847, at a cost of $14,000. In this year, also, Dr. Samuel G. Buckingham began a forty years' pastorate over the South Church. He, as much as any minister known to Springfield, reflected the virtues and softened the austerities of Puri- tanism. The South Church had been organized in 1842 by thirty- four members of the First Church. The edifice was on Bliss street, and Rev. Noah Porter, Jr., was pastor. It was in 1847. also, that Rev. Mr. Porter preached his farewell sermon at the South Church on Bliss street, and left Springfield to assume the duties of Professor of Moral Philosophy at Yale College.


The high school was completed in 1848, at a cost of $10,000, the building committee being William Dwight, Chester W. Chapin, Eliphalet Trask, Josiah Hooker, Simon Smith, and Samuel Raynolds ; architect, Josiah Allen. Judge Morris denounced the high school as a " palace," but he became reconciled to it. The Springfield Young Men's Institute, which had been an informal association, was incorpo- rated in 1847, and these officers chosen : President, John Mills ; vice- presidents, Ariel Parish, E. D. Beach, and Henry Morris ; corre-


478


SPRINGFIELD, 1636-1886.


sponding secretary, E. W. Bond ; recording secretary, Samuel Bowles, Jr.


The Hampden House was repaired in 1845 by O. M. Alden, and the name changed to the Alden House. The new hotel below the depot (Pynchon House), built by Chester W. Chapin and kept by Mr. Jennings, was called the City Hotel, in anticipation of a charter.


The work of removing the old cemetery was completed in 1848, under the supervision of Elijah Blake. Some women formed an association in October, 1840, to raise money to be devoted to the project of opening a new cemetery. They opened a fair in Sep- tember, 1841. Both town and Masonic halls were secured for the exhibition of fancy articles, which were contributed by people of all denominations and classes. The gross receipts were $1,300, and thus netting over $1,100.


The concert of Jenny Lind, in July, 1851, is still treasured as one of the happy memories of Springfield. Dr. Osgood's church was filled with music-lovers, and those who had gone to Boston to hear her pronounced her vocalization quite as good as it had been there. She was entertained by a brother of Solomon Warriner, on Howard street. Mr. Goldschmidt, whom she married shortly afterwards, was her accompanist. The school children marched in procession to the Warriner house, just east of Mr. Charles Merriam's residence, and the distinguished singer appeared upon the balcony and acknowledged their attention by bowing.


It was not until 1851 that the directors of the Western Railroad ordered a new depot, but they appropriated the then fabulous sum of $50,000. Chester W. Chapin, once a driver of an ox-team, as was Willis Phelps, had, by 1851, become the wealthiest man in Springfield. He was president of the Connecticut River Railroad, and had fully George Bliss's faith in Springfield as a railroad centre. As a matter of curiosity we add a few names in the order of worldly possession, as appears by the assessors' books : Chester W. Chapin, James Byers, George Bliss, Jonathan Dwight, James Barnes, M. and E. S. Chapin,




Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.