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 43

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 43


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John Brown had settled in Springfield in 1846. "Say to Ruth," he wrote that year to his son John, " to be all that to-day which she intends to be to-morrow." Such was the keynote of this extraordi- nary character, whose life of applied morality was a rebuke to the theoretical ethics of the world. Windsor, Conn., was the home of his ancestors. He was, as we have said, a member of the firm of Perkins & Brown, wool merchants, dealing directly with the wool-


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JOHN BROWN ORGANIZING A SECRET LODGE AMONG THE SPRINGFIELD NEGROES, IS51.


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growers of Ohio and the West. Perkins & Brown rented the upper part of John L. King's warehouse, near the depot, and worked with his men daily, in sorting wool. He had changed to Chester W. Chapin's new block, south of the railroad office, in 1848. The firm, which owned fine flocks of sheep in Ohio, had been sent to Springfield to represent the Western wool-growers in New England, where their wool was to be graded. It worked well the first year, but failing markets, a want of proper cooperation in the West, and not over commercial methods of business on the part of Brown himself, con- tributed to financial disaster. He did over $50,000 worth of business, however. Among John Brown's visitors at this time was Frederick Douglass, who was surprised to find him living in a small wooden house on a baek street, furnished in a way to " almost suggest des- titntion." In an attempt to save his fortunes Brown sent the whole output of wool to Europe in 1850. He refused local offers of sixty cents per pound, and away it went over the waters. A few months later Mr. Brown stood in a Springfield freight-house and saw the self- same wool, which had come back from London, sell for fifty-two cents !


John Brown was in the Adirondack wilderness in 1851. It was while visiting Springfield that year that he organized the " Spring- field Gileadites," a " branch of the United States league of Gilead- ites," an order among colored people to resist the capture of fugitives. No less than forty-four negroes joined this league. B. C. Dowling headed the list, and in the list was J. N. Howard, the honored sexton of the South Church. His stories of slave-life were of the " Uncle Tom's Cabin order," and when he was gathered to his fathers a link connecting us with the slave-masters' era was broken.


Curiously enough Reuben A. Chapman, who was not a freesoiler in those days, was Mr. Brown's attorney, and Chapman was always enthusiastic in his tributes to Brown's integrity and sense of justice. Mr. Chapman's character is well illustrated by a remark of his some time after Congress had passed the fugitive slave law, which imposed upon judges and the United States commissioners the duty of issuing


PROFESSOR OF SURGERY IN YALE COLLEGE, Metropolitan ! List de o Engran, . WWW.TL


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warrants for the arrest of escaped slaves, and denied the negroes at the hearings the right to testify in their own behalf. The local feeling among the ultra abolitionists ran high. Springfield became a very important way station on the underground road which ran from Southern bondage to Canadian freedom, and the Emigrant Aid Sociery was generously supported here. Mr. Chapman was a United States commissioner, and great pressure was finally brought upon him to resign, that he might escape the offensive duty of restoring fugitive slaves to their masters, as he was not then a freesoiler. "I refuse to resign," was his determined reply. When an explanation of his real position was demanded, he said, in the event of the pursuit of a slave to Springfield, " As officer of the Emigrant Aid Society I would forward the fugitive to other parts ; as United States commis- sioner I would then issue a warrant for his arrest."


There was flourishing in those days a Springfield organization known as " The Club." It had no written constitution and no archives ; it met on every other Monday night, and was a medium of communica- tion on public topics among prominent citizens. Mr. Chapman is credited with the honor of having originated The Club. At a Mon- day meeting, during the Kansas troubles, some member asked what was to be done with Kansas. Mr. Chapman replied, " We will send on emigrants there ; we will send rifles with them. I will furnish one gun." "And I another," said Samuel Bowles. " And I another," said Daniel L. Harris. " And I another," said the good and true Dr. Buckingham. So the offers went round the room. Mr. Cham- berlain, now of Hartford, and then a law partner of Mr. Chapman, hesitated for some reason, not, however, because he was hostile to the free-soil sentiment, and Mr. Chapman noticed the fact, and said, with as much vigor as he ever displayed on any subject, " And I will give a second gun for the credit of the firm." Mr. Chamberlain, it may be stated, now tells this anecdote on" himself. The rifles were all duly furnished, taken apart, and sent in separate boxes and by different routes to Kansas.


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The Buchanan democrats of Springfield raised a hickory pole on the Hill, near the Rockingham house and the Wait monument, with O. A. Seamans, E. D. Beach. and William L. Smith as orators. The whigs put up Robert C. Winthrop for governor upon a Fillmore plat- form. placing our fellow-citizen, Homer Foot, beside him as lieu- tenant-governor. The Buchanan democrats met in Springfield, in the City Hall, and with Ansel Phelps, Jr., in the chair put up their war steed, E. D. Beach,


for governor. Superintendent Whitney of the armory figured as peace-maker


Boston Road


For The Benefit


WERGLEAVES


THE WAIT MONUMENT.


in the convention, and General Butler, with " rolled-up coat euffs " and " tipped- THE ROCKINGHAM HOUSE. up visage," started the party enthusiasm. A flag with sixteen stars was suspended across the hall, but soon torn down. "The flag of our Union !" exclaimed Mr. Beach, after his nomination, and the response was quick and spontaneous. It may be said that later, when Mr. Beach had beaten Benjamin F. Butler in the democratic State convention of 1858, lie


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said to that body, " I have no new pledges to make to you, no new theories to advance, no new principles to follow. The principles I maintain to-day I have maintained always. They are as old as Jefferson's."


General Whitney was bitterly taken to task for refusing to reemploy armorers who had applauded Dr. Chaffee's course in opposing the use of United States troops in suppression of the Kansas freesoilers. This was used as a Fremont cry in the town with some effect.


At one of the largest Fremont gatherings in this memorable cam- paign, Mr. Patterson, fresh from the Missouri, exhibited on the platform the very chain with which John Brown was led for thirty miles in a hot sun after his capture. Its clankings touched a cord, and the City Hall was thundrons with emotion.


One hundred women had formed a sewing club with Mrs. George Bliss president and Mrs. Charles Merriam treasurer, for the purpose of preparing clothing for the emigrants there. The first meeting was held in the Unitarian Chapel, and pins and needles were enlisted for the cause.


But the decree of the nation was for Buchanan and democracy. Springfield's share was small. Mr. Beach polled about 40,000 to over 92,000 for Gardner, the Fremont candidate for governor. Con- gressman Chaffee was triumphantly returned to his seat. The Fillmore ticket flatted out. Homer Foot, the candidate for lieutenant- governor, ran over 8,000 ahead of the Fillmore ticket. W. S. Shurt- leff, Fremont candidate for register of insolvency, ran about 4,000 votes ahead of H. B. Lewis, in Springfield, and was elected. The Fremonters elected as Representatives Henry Vose, Eliphalet Trask. Daniel L. Harris, and John H. Fuller.


If Springfield, by the incident of John Brown's wool agency, was connected by special and local ties to the Kansas embroglio, an odd incident linked her with the equally famous Dred Scott decision. This negro and his family had been the slaves of Dr. Emerson, a United States Army surgeon. After Dr. Emerson's death, Dred


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Scott brought suit against John F. A. Sanford, the administrator of the estate, claiming that he and his family had been carried across the border of the slave region into Illinois and Missouri, and still compelled to suffer a slave's burden. The decision of the United States Supreme Court upon this question amounted to nothing short of nationalizing slavery, and its announcement was really the beginning of the slaveholders' rebellion, as Northern revulsion from this politi- cal theory and princple was deep and unalterable.


Mrs. Emerson, the owner of Dred Scott, had married, after the doctor's death, Congressman Chaffee, of this town, and Mr. Sanford, the administrator of the Emerson estate, was the brother of Mrs. Chaffee, née Emerson. Mr. Chaffee's political enemies were not slow in piling the dry fagots of insinuation under his reputation and light- ing a blaze. He was charged with the intent of making money out of the very slave system which upon the floor of Congress lie had condemned. With a twenty years' honorable record as an anti- slavery man, he was compelled to deny these strictures, and to say in public, " There is no earthly consideration that could induce me to exercise proprietorship in any human being ; for I regard slavery as a sin against God and a crime against man," and he added, " If, in the distribution of the estate, of which this decision affirms, these human beings to be put, it appears that I, or mine, consent to receive any part of the thirty pieces of silver, then, and not till then, let the popular judgment, as well as the public press, fix on me the mark of a traitor to my conscience."


Dred Scott said that the suit had cost him " a heap o' trouble, and if I'd a known it was gwine to last so long I'd wouldn't a started it." When the decision went against him he simply laughed at " de fuss dey made dar in Wash'nton 'bout de old nigger." But the North did not laugh. It was a dark day ; the Chaffees did not take advantage of their decision and claim him as their property. The charge that Dr. Chaffee did actually profit pecuniarily by the Dred Scott decision makes a further statement necessary. Reuben A.


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Chapman was called in by Dr. Chaffee for advice, and he drew up a legal document, in the form of a quit-claim, of all interest, or sup- posed interest, in Scott and his family, authorizing Taylor Bloom, of St. Louis, to draw up manumission papers. If the United States Supreme Court had put a further stamp of bondage upon this unfor- tunate family the historical paper signed by Mrs. Chaffee, Dr. Chaffee, and Miss Emerson expunged the mark, and the negroes continued, as for years they had practically been, free residents of St. Louis.


Dr. Chaffee was ignorantly and unjustly denounced from one end of the country to the other for this alleged traffic in human beings, but the line-and-cry was of short duration. The facts became known, and, moreover, the man who liberated Dred Scott stood on the floor of Congress shortly afterward, during the Kansas debate, and during a long and masterly argument spoke as follows : " Are you, the con- servative slaveholders of the country, willing to allow the institutions of your section to become the cause and instrument of the future aggrandisement of this administration, -of building up and further extending the power and rule of the African democracy of this country who seek by their policy to Africanize the productive indus- try of the country? I tell gentlemen plainly that while chivalry once had a name and a prestige, yet in these African democratic lands its gold has become dim and its lustre is faded ; and unless it is speedily rescued, its glory will have departed forever. Sir, the civilized world cannot and will not look on complacently and see this great and monstrous wrong consummated upon this people."


Eliphalet Trask accepted, in June, 1857, the nomination of the American State convention for lieutenant-governor upon the Banks ticket, and in his letter of acceptance Mr. Trask said that he did so upon the belief that the party's aim was to consolidate the American and anti-slavery sentiment of Massachusetts. Banks was also nominated by the republicans a few weeks later at Worcester, but Oliver Warner, of Northampton, was given the second place on the ticket. Mr. Beach was again the democratic standard-bearer. By


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a subsequent arrangement Mr. Trask was made the candidate for lieutenant-governor on the Worcester ticket, and Oliver Warner Sec- retary of State. Springfield was also represented that year by George Walker on the republican senatorial ticket, and William L. Smith, his democratic opponent, and Heman Smith, American candidate, for county commissioner. R. A. Chapman supported the Banks ticket, and his old partner, George Ashmun, came out strong for Banks also. Banks was elected, and so was Walker. In the legislative contest Marvin Chapin and Henry Vose, republicans, and Hiram Q. Sanderson, democrat, were elected.


The whole Banks ticket was renominated in 1858, and reelected. So was Senator Walker. The most important local item in the No- vember election was the defeat of William Rice, who for over a quarter of a century had been register of deeds or county treasurer. He was defeated by James E. Russell, democrat. Mr. Norton, a son-in-law of Mr. Rice, withdrew from the office of county treasurer at the same time, so that the change was the more marked. Mr. Rice had been first chosen register in 1830. There were heard upon all sides hearty tributes to Mr. Rice's fidelity and efficiency in the public service, and he was followed into private life by the honor and respect of all. Mr. Russell, who succeeded him, was for many years a conductor on the day express between Boston and Springfield, and had been the popular landlord of the Russell House. Mr. Russell always has shown an intelligent interest in Springfield history, and he has a fund of stories which then, as now, was a source of enter- tainment to his friends. One of his best relates to Daniel Webster, who was a passenger on the Boston & Albany Railroad one day when Mr. Russell was conductor. The distinguished statesman lost his hat out of the window, and he remarked to Mr. Russell that he would have some trouble in getting another large enough. When the train stopped at Palmer Mr. Russell stepped off, and approaching Bill Childs, the station agent, who had the largest head in the county, asked, " What will you take for that hat?" Childs named his price


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with a smile. Russell handed the astonished agent the money, seized his hat, and carried it to Webster. It was a perfect fit. Daniel Webster still owes Mr. Russell for that hat.


E. D. Beach refused to run a fifth time for governor, and this opened the door for Benjamin F. Butler, as the democratic standard- bearer, in the exciting elections of 1859. Springfield still had a place on the ticket, however, Stephen C. Bemis being candidate for lienten- ant-governor. A Stephen A. Douglas resolution, presented by ex- Mayor Phelps, was tabled by the convention. General Whitney was in those days an active politician, and had much to do in pouring oil upon the troubled waters. He was assisted by Postmaster Chapin in the convention. The republicans put up Banks and Trask again, and A. N. Merrick was made a member of the State Central Committee.


At the time of John Brown's attack upon Harper's Ferry, the sul- perintendent of Harper's Ferry was the guest of Major Ingersoll in Springfield. Brown had been in Springfield the year previous, and was free to talk to his friends about running off slaves. While the judicious urged caution, they could not but pay him the tribute of re- ligious courage of conviction, and respected him even in his contempt of statute law. Men went to the polls here as in other Northern cities ready to fight as they voted. Governor Banks's vote reached nearly to 60,000; Butler about 35,000, and Briggs (American whig) 14,000, in round numbers. Springfield elected Daniel Gay and Rich- ard Bliss, republicans, and Ezra Kimberly, democrat, to the Legis- lature.


The republicans also had their own way in the city elections, elect- ing Daniel L. Harris mayor. Col. Horace C. Lee also defeated Mr. Ingraham, as clerk, the latter having held that position in town and city for seventeen years. He had been a faithful, painstaking officer, but the desire for a younger man had asserted itself. The new board of aldermen were Edmund B. Haskell, Erastus Hayes, Franklin Chamberlain, John W. Hunt, William Hitchcock, John G. Capron, William Foster, and George W. Holt, - all republicans.


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If a man loves another for the qualities he himself has not, the friendship between Reuben A. Chapman and John Brown is explained, for they were not of kin in any quality of character save the cour- age of conviction and the root-sentiment of humanity and equal rights. Mr. Chapman heard Mr. Brown talk about the negro's wrongs, which he had made his own, collected Brown's wool bills for him, and acted generally as legal adviser. When John Brown was finally in the hands of the law in Virginia, his first thought was of the cool, judicious Reuben Chapman, of Springfield, and he appealed to him for legal assistance in the following letter, now in the hands of Mr. Chapman's daughter, Mrs. T. M. Brown, of this city : -


CHARLESTOWN, JEFFERSON COUNTY, VA., October 21, '59. Hon. REUBEN CHAPMAN, Springfield, Mass. : -


DEAR SIR, -I am here a prisoner with several sabre ents in my head and bay- onet stabs in my body. My object in writing you is to obtain able and faithful connsel for myself and fellow-prisoners, five in all, as we have the faith of Vir- ginia pledged through her governor and numerous other prominent citizens to give us a fair trial. Without we can obtain such counsel from without the slave States neither the facts in our case ean come before the world, nor can we have the benefit of such facts as might be considered mitigating in view of others upon our trial. I have money in hand here to the amount of $250, and personal property sufficient to pay a most liberal fee to yourself or to any suitable man who will undertake our defense if I can have the benefit of said property. Can you or some other good man come immediately on for the sake of the young men prisoners at least? My wounds are doing well. Do not send an ultra abo- litionist. Very respectfully yours.


JOHN BROWN.


This letter was dictated, but is signed by Brown with a firm, plain hand. Mr. Chapman was about starting on court business, and could not go to Virginia, but he gave his imprisoned friend what advice he could by letter.


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One cannot renew acquaintances with the records of these terrible times, - the legal murder of John Brown, the heart of flame that burned with patriotic indignation in the North, the natural apprehen- sion for the future that faded before loyalty and a national sentiment - without the deepest consternation at the political blindness that im- pelled President Buchanan to urge in his message to Congress : "I firmly believe that the events at Harper's Ferry, by causing the people to pause and reflect upon the possible peril to their cherished institu- tions, will be the means under Providence of allaying the existing excitement and preventing further outbreaks of a similar character. They will resolve that the Constitution and the Union shall not be endangered by rash counsels, knowing that should the silver cord be loosened or the golden bowl be broken at the fountain, human power could never reunite the scattered and hostile fragments."


So the year 1860 drew on under a lurid sky. A resolve was indeed made, - not the resolve of Buchanan and human slavery, but the nation's resolve, that the golden bowl should not be broken, - and it was not.


/


CHAPTER XXI.


1860-1886.


The War and Politics. - Springfield in the Chicago Convention. - Lincoln's Letter to George Ashmun. - City Politics. - Union Rallies. - Activity in Real Estate. - Va- rions Enlistments. - A Record of Springfield Soldiers who died in Battle and in Hospital. - Fires. - Newspapers. - The Death of Samuel Bowles. - His Character as a Journalist. - Theology at Indian Orchard. - Rev. James F. Merriam.


DANIEL L. HARRIS, republican, was mayor of Springfield during the troublous year of 1860, having beaten William L. Smith, demo- crat, by a vote of 1,179 to 883. In June, 1860, John B. Floyd, sec- retary of war, appointed Col. I. H. Wright superintendent of the armory. He was surrounded by Southern friends, and naturally ex- cited the suspicion of the loyal people. It would not have been a difficult thing to blow up the armory. No one suspected Wright himself, but he had men about him quite capable of it. In 1864 an attempt was actually made, but the infernal machine deposited in the main arsenal was discovered in time to prevent an explosion. Wright had been here but a few weeks when a self-constituted committee of citizens watched the armory closely in order to frustrate the designs of any Southern agents or spies. "There is the slavery question," ex- claimed Carl Schurz, at Hampden Hall, in January, 1860, - " not a mere occasional quarrel between two sections of a country divided by a geographical line, not a mere contest between two economical in- terests for the preponderance, not a mere wrangle between two politi- cal parties for power and spoils, - but the great struggle between the human conscience and a burning wrong, between advancing civilization and retreating barbarism." Thus was the grand issue made up in spite of the efforts of some to foist a constitutional


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hypothesis into prominence by pleading the doctrine of extreme State rights.


We have no space to deal with the multitudinous incidents that added to the local tension of the year 1860, - the private gatherings of loyal citizens, the personal encounters of political enemies, the feuds that disturbed clubs, churches, nay, even the family itself. A copy of the "Springfield Republican " mailed to a man in Georgia was re- turned by the post-office department, stamped " In- cendiary document."


In making up the list of delegates to the Chicago national republican conven- tion that was destined to nominate Abraham Lincoln for President, in May, 1860, the name of George Ashmun was proposed ; but the latter considered him- self in permanent political retirement. He finally con- sented to go, however, pro- ENTRANCE TO U.S. ARMORY. vided Governor Trask would accompany him. Even then, he did not agree to sit in the convention. Samuel Bowles, whose organizing genius came into play when a po- litical or patriotic sentiment moved him from the strict path of journalism, had gone on with a large Massachusetts delegation before Ashmun and Trask had perfected their arrangements. The latter overtook them at Niagara Falls. During the journey Mr. Bowles hit upon the idea of presenting George Ashmun as the candidate of Massachusetts for permanent president of the convention. It was


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thoroughly talked up on the train. The delegates began instinctively to treat Mr. Ashmun as the coming man, and thus it was that the eloquent advocate of Webster, Springfield's fallen whig leader, started West as an almost unwilling spectator, and arrived at Chicago the rep- resentative man from Massachusetts. The great wigwam, designed by Architect Boyington, - formerly a resident of Springfield, by the way, - was thronged with an excited crowd. The Massachusetts plan was at once laid before the leaders of the party. "Slavery is sectional ; freedom is national ! " exclaimed David Willnot, of Penn- sylvania, the temporary chairman, and shortly afterward the conven- tion gave six tremendous cheers as the old Springfield whig was conducted by Carl Schurz and Preston King to the chair, the per- manent president-elect. Mr. Ashmun's speech was short but warm, with something of his old oratory.


Mr. Bowles accompanied Mr. Ashmin and the committee of the convention to Springfield, Ill., to deliver to Mr. Lincoln the great message of the party. Mr. Bowles stood near Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Ashmun while they were making their formal speeches, and after the ceremony he wrote of Mr. Lincoln: "His face, which in repose seemed of bronze, was at the instant of speaking lighted up by an unmistakable fire of intelligence ; and as soon as it was subsequently relaxed by the gentle and rapid question and reply of conversation, the warmth of a great heart shone out of every feature."


Some debate having arisen in the papers about Mr. Lincoln's first name, he sent Mr. Ashmun the following letter : -


HON. GEORGE ASIIMUN : -




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