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 48
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The charter designated by name all the members of the corporation, and prescribed that the officers of the Company should consist of a governor, a deputy governor, and eighteen assistants, who should be elected annually from the freemen of the Company. As it was the purpose of the Company to send out a colony to settle in New England, the question early arose whether the charter of the Company should be transferred with this colony to New England,
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or whether it should remain in the mother country. After much debate and careful consideration, it was decided by vote on the 29th August, 1629, that the charter should be transferred with the proposed colony to New England, and the government of it settled there. This rendered necessary a new election of offi- cers from among those members of the Company who proposed to emigrate and settle in New England. Accordingly, at a General Court or meeting of the Com- pany, held in London on the 20th of October, 1629, John Winthrop was chosen governor, John Humfry deputy governor, with eighteen assistants; William Pynchon being one of the assistants. Humfry soon afterward resigned the office of deputy governor, and Thomas Dudley was chosen in his place.
In pursuance of the plan of colonizing New England, the Company had pre- viously sent out a pioneer party under John Endicott, as its leader or governor. This party had located at Naumkeag, now Salem, where they founded a church with Messrs. Skelton and Higginson as its ministers. A much larger number was now prepared to move to America, in all about fifteen hundred. The transportation of such a body of colonists at that time was a work of serious difficulty, and required careful provision of stores for their support during the voyage, and on their arrival in America.
On the 20th day of March, in the year 1630, four ships were riding at anchor in the harbor of Cowes, a seaport of the Isle of Wight, waiting for a favorable opportunity to begin a voyage to the New World. These ships were a part of the fleet fitted out by the Company for the transportation of emigrants and their families, who had determined to settle in New England. John Winthrop, the governor, and Thomas Dudley, the deputy governor, were on board ships of this fleet with their families. William Pynchon, the founder of Springfield, was also on board with his wife, his son John, and three daughters.
Mr. Pynchon was a man of honorable lineage. His great-grandfather, Nicholas Pynchon, was one of the sheriffs of London in the reign of Henry VIII. This was a station of dignity and importance. The home of Mr. Pyn- chon, the emigrant, in England, had been at Springfield, in the county of Essex, about one mile from Chelmsford, the shire town of the county. He was a man of learning and talent, accustomed to close thought, and could give a reason for his opinions. He was evidently familiar with the pursuits and methods of business. As such he was afterward chosen to be the treasurer of the Com- pany. No person could have been selected to hold such office of trust as he held, unless his associates had full confidence in his capacity and integrity.
When the fleet left its anchorage, near the Isle of Wight, England and Spain were at war. Their hostilities were carried on principally on the sea. It was understood the cruisers from Dunkirk, then a port of the Spanish Nether-
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lands, were lying in wait for the emigrant ships destined for New England. Hence it became important for these four ships to adopt measures for mutual defence and aid. For this purpose all the ships were armed, and to each ship was assigned a particular post of duty. To the " Arbella," a ship named after Lady Arbella, wife of Isaac Johnson, a lady of high rank in England, was as- signed the place and title of Admiral. The " Talbot" was appointed to be vice-admiral, the " Ambrose" rear admiral, and the "Jewel" a captain. Mr. Pynchon and his family were on board the " Jewel."
There was but little favorable weather before the 8th of April, when the fleet weighed anchor. On the morning of April 9 there was quite an alarm. Eight sail were descried astern, which were at first supposed to be Spanish cruisers from Dunkirk, waiting for the emigrant ships. " Wherefore," as Governor Winthrop says in his journal, " we all prepared to fight with them. The Lady Arbella and the other women and children were removed into the lower deck, that they might be out of danger. All things being thus fitted, we went to prayer upon the upper deck. It was much to see how cheerful and comfortable all the Company appeared, not a woman or child that showed fear, though all did ap- prehend the danger to have been great." " Our trust was in the Lord of Hosts, and the conrage of our captain, and his care and diligence, did mueh to en- courage us." There was some sickness among the passengers, especially the children. Winthrop says, "Our children and others that were siek, and lay groaning in the cabins, we fetched out, and having stretched a rope from the steerage to the mainmast, we made them stand, some on the one side and some on the other, and sway it up and down till they were warm, and by this means they soon grew well and merry."
The emigrants suffered from the high winds and extreme cold which pre- vailed the greater part of the voyage. Their attention, as they approached America, was called to certain facts, new to their experience, which Winthrop mentions in his journal. The declination of the pole star was much lower than in England ; the new moon was much smaller, and the sun did not give as much heat as in England. On June 7 Winthrop says they put their ship " a-stays," and with a few hooks took, in less than two hours, sixty-seven codfish, most of them very great fish, some a yard and a half long and a yard in compass." This was a very seasonable supply for the passengers, who had now been sixty- eight days on board ship. On Tuesday, June 8, they saw land about ten leagues distant, which they supposed to be the island of Monhegan, but which proved to be Mount Desert. " They had now," Winthrop says, " fair sunshine and so pleas- ant a sweet air as did much refresh them; and there came a smell off the shore like the smell of a garden." Friday, June 11, they were all day within sight of
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Cape Ann and the Isles of Shoals. On Saturday, June 12, they were near their destined port. This was at Naumkeag, the Indian name of Salem. That day they were visited by John Endicott, the founder of Salem, and by Mr. Skelton, the minister of the place. On their return to Salem, these gentlemen were ac- companied by Governor Winthrop and some of the assistants, and some of the women. There, Winthrop says, "we supped with a good vension pasty and good beer, and at night returned to our ship; but some of the women stayed behind." While the chiefs of the party were thus entertained, the greater part of the voyagers went on shore upon the land of Cape Ann, which lay very near, and gathered store of fine strawberries." Such was the introduction to Massa- chusetts of that portion of our fathers who " came in the fleet with Winthrop."
It was not the purpose of those who came to colonize New England to estab- lis themselves at Salem as the guests of Mr. Endicott. They began at once to look for desirable places in the vicinity of Massachusetts Bay in which to plant settlements. Boston, Charlestown, Watertown, and Dorchester were speedily occupied. Pynchon selected Roxbury as the site for his home, and became the founder of that town. His wife died soon after landing in America, leaving one son and three daughters. Mr. Pynchon afterward married, as his second wife, Mrs. Frances Sanford, who is described in the Roxbury Church records as "a grave matron of the church at Dorchester." He had no children by his second wife.
Soon after the colonists arrived in New England an Indian chief from Con- nectient river, named Wahginnacut, called upon Governor Winthrop at Boston and urged that some of the English should visit the valley of the Connecticut and settle there. He described the soil as fertile, and promised to give eighty beaver skins yearly to the settlers who should come to the valley. This invita- tion, although, from motives of policy, not accepted at that time, produced an impression upon the minds of some of the colonists which was not at once effaced. And now, when the most desirable places about the bay had been taken up and occupied by emigrants, and they felt straitened by the nearness to each other, there sprung up in the minds of many a longing for new plantations, and perhaps better ones, for themselves and their increased stock of cattle. From many of the towns about Boston there came petitions to the General Court for authority to remove " themselves and their estates to the Ryver of Connecticut," of whose attractions so much had been said. Liberty had been granted to some of the petitioners to remove, as prayed for, upon the condition that they should continue under the government of Massachusetts bay. Cambridge people had migrated to Hartford, Dorchester to Windsor, and Watertown to Wethersfield. and began new settlements at those points on the river.
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The emigrating party from Roxbury did not so soon commence a new settle- ment in the Connecticut valley, but Mr. Pynchon sent two men here to explore and occupy a part of the valley, preparatory to the removal of his family and the actual planting of a new settlement. One John Cable came here in 1635 from the bay with John Woodcock, and built a small house on the west side of the Connecticut and south side of the Agawam river, in a meadow, which, from that circumstance, was long known as " House meadow." These men occupied this house that summer, and the " old Indian ground " about it, but abandoned it later, on being informed by the Indians that the spot was hable to be overflowed in time of freshets. There can be but little doubt that Mr. Pynchon himself came to this valley as early as 1635, to satisfy himself of its eligibility as the site of a new plantation. He was certainly absent from the General Court that met September 1, 1635. His absence from such a meeting was unusual, and can well be accounted for by the fact that he was then occupied in examining the place in this valley which he designed for his future home and that of the friends who should follow his lead. Until he himself had seen the flowing streams and fertile meadows of which the Indian chief had given such a glowing description, and had ascertained the advantages of the place for his beaver trade, it is hardly probable that a man of Pynchon's caution would have hazarded a step attended with so much peril as the removal of his family and his property from the bay to the river. It was not an enterprise to be undertaken without careful consid- eration of its difficulties and dangers.
It was doubtless after a thorough personal investigation of the subject that Pynchon and his associates came here early in the year 1636, and prepared for a permanent settlement in this place, which was known to them by its Indian name of Agawam. By this name was understood not merely the tributary of the Connecticut, still called by that name, and the meadow bordering upon it, but also the interval land on the east side of the river, now the site of our city. This was all called Agawam for several years. In much the same way the term Connecticut was at first applied to designate all the plantations on the river. The General Court of Massachusetts claimed and exercised the jurisdiction over all of them, when first settled, and appointed commissioners to govern them. Roger Ludlow, of Windsor, and William Pynchon were members of this commission. In fact, the geography of the Connecticut valley was not perfectly understood, or the boundary line between Massachusetts and Connecticut settled, for a long time after the plantations on the river were established. Connecticut claimed Springfield and Westfield as falling within the patent of Connecticut. And Springfield was represented in the General Court at Hartford in 1636 by deputies chosen by the plantation.
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However vague and uncertain had been the ideas of the first settlers here as to the jurisdiction over this valley, there was no failure of their purpose to make a plantation here. So they drew np and signed a formal agreement, declaring the purpose of the signers " by God's providence to make a plantation at and over against ' Agaam' on Connecticut," and their agreement to " certain articles and orders to be observed and kept by themselves and their successors " in the management of their plantation. This paper was signed by eight persons, repre- senting themselves to be " all the first adventurers and undertakers for the Plan- tation." The names signed are William Pynchon, Matthew Mitchell, Henry Smith, Jehu Burr, William Blake, Edmund Wood, Thomas Ufford, and John Cable. The paper bears date May 14, 1636 (old style), which corresponds to May 25 of the present calendar.
Besides these eight signers, there were four others apparently concerned in the Plantation and named in the paper; to wit, Thomas Woodford, John Reader, Samnel Butterfield, and James Wood. Of the eight names signed to the paper, Mitchell, Blake, Wood, and Ufford remained here but a short time. Blake returned to Dorchester, from which town he had come; Mitchell went to Connectieut, and lived in different towns there until his death; Burr and Cable were here as late as 1640, when their names disappear from our records. Only Pynchon and Smith of the original signers remained here over five years.
Soon after coming to Springfield Mr. Pynchon made a bargain with the In- dians for the purchase of the land required for the intended settlement. This bargain was put in form July 15, 1636, by a deed from Commucke and Matan- chan, two " ancient " Indians of Agawam, for themselves and as representatives of the other Indian proprietors, conveying to William Pynchon, Henry Smith, and Jehu Burr, their heirs and associates forever, a large part of the territory now occupied by this eity, with lands in its vicinity. This deed was fully ex- plained to the Indians by Ahaughton, an Indian interpreter from the Bay, and was perfectly understood by them. For it they received an adequate considera- tion, according to the values of that day, and were never dissatisfied with the bargain. For the lands sold by the Indians in this purchase they received "18 fathoms of wampun, 18 coates, 18 hatchets, 18 howes, and 18 knives," and reserved to themselves the ground then planted, and liberty to take fish and deer, ground nuts, walnuts, acorns, and a kind of wild peas. Wrutherna, one of the Indians, received from Mr. Pynchon two coats as an extra con- sideration.
There were fifteen articles or specifications in the original agreement signed
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by the planters who first came here. The first three of these articles have a special significance. They read as follows : -
" Firstly. Wee intend by God's grace, as soon as we ean, with all conven- ient speede to procure some Godly and faithful minister, with whome we purpose to joyne in church covenant to walk in all the ways of Christ.
" Secondly. Wee intend that our towne shall be composed of fourty familys, or, if we think after to alter our purpose, yet not to exceed the number of fifty familys rich and poore.
" Thirdly. That every inhabitant shall have a convenient proportion for a house lott, as we shall see meet for every ones quality and estate."
By the limitation of the town to forty families it is evident that the original planters intended to make the town a compaet settlement, and not one of scat- tered farms, separated from each other by long distances. This was essential for their mutual safety, living as they did in the midst of an Indian neighbor- hood, and so remote from the protection and assistance of the older settlements about Massachusetts Bay. Many of the early regulations, adopted in the in- fancy of the town, were designed to secure, as one of their objects, compaetness of settlement. The General Court early passed a law that all dwelling-houses should be built within half a mile of the meeting-house. The first settlers of our town, in furtheranee of the same object, in allotting house " lotts," made the lots, except in a few special cases, so narrow as to condense the population within what they considered safe limits. The street upon which the houses were built followed the general course of the river in a line substantially parallel to it. The house lots were all on the west side of the street, and, with some exeep- tions, were generally about eight or ten rods wide. Three of them were four- teen rods, two were twenty rods, and that of Mr. Pynchon was thirty rods wide. All of the home lots extended from the street to the river. Each of them had an allotment on the east side of the street, of the same width as the house lot. The land east of the street, and adjoining it, was called in the allotments " hasseky " marsh. Still further east there was usually an allotment of the same width, of upland, covered more or less with wood.
Very early the " hasseky " meadow was erossed by a road or path about two rods wide, running east, and widening after passing the meadow. This road crossing the marsh was made passable by corduroy logs laid across the path. At its easterly end it was probably connected with the path leading to the Bay. long known as the Old Bay road, of which the western end is the present Bay street.
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Some of the early settlers here came from the Connecticut towns down the river. Windsor, Hartford, and Wethersfield had each of them some representa- tives among the early inhabitants of Springfield. Such settlers could avail them- selves of the river as a way of travel. Boats, or, as they were usually called, canoes, were in frequent use for the carriage of goods and the transportation of persons. Trees that were suitable for use in constructing boats were called " canoe trees," and the cutting of such trees was restricted by vote of the Plan- tation.
For the accommodation of those persons who wished to pass to or from the town by the river, three wharves or landing-places were established, one at the foot of what is now known as Cypress street, called the upper or "higher " wharf, another at the foot of Elm street, called the middle wharf or landing, and the third at the foot of York street, known as the lower landing. To each of these a street or lane led from the main street. The street leading to the middle landing was the same that conducted to the training-place, part of which was afterward used as a burial-place. This street, the Elm street of our day, was at first one rod wide. but soon was widened to two rods.
Probably the greater number of the settlers who came early to Springfield made the journey of one hundred miles from the bay to the Commectient river by land. Some of them brought their families and goods with them. The journey in 1636 was a serious and hazardous undertaking for an emigrating family. There were no paths through the forest, except occasionally an Indian trail, no bridges over the streams, often swollen and rapid. Rough and rocky hills must be climbed, and tangled underbrush must be threaded. Savage beasts might be lurking in the thicket, and encountered at any moment. Some of these pilgrims, seeking a new home on the banks of the Connecticut. were the wives and young children of the emigrants, and this was their first experience of a journey through the wilderness. There were dangers to be met by day and by night. The forest was full of sights and sounds to which they were nnused. The Indian was there, and the travellers were not so familiar with the savages as to feel perfectly easy in their neighborhood. After traversing the forests for many days without coming to one friendly house, where the women and children could have needed shelter and rest, and without seeing one white face they had ever seen before, how wistfully must they have sought to catch the first glimpse of the beautiful river on the banks of which they hoped to find their home.
Conceive for a moment a party of these wayfarers, fatigued with their long and wearisome journey, as they straggle out from the woods, com- ing, toward the close of an autumnal afternoon, to one of the knolls that mark the borders of our valley, and looking down from it for the first time
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in their lives upon that stream, which one of the poets of the valley thus apostrophizes : -
Fair, noble, glorious river, in thy wave The sunniest slopes and sweetest pastures lave; The mountain torrent with its wintry roar Springs from its home and leaps upon thy shore The promontories love thee, and for this Turn their rough cheeks and stay thee for thy kiss.
The travellers now discover some indications of civilized life. Here and there the smoke from the chimney of a rude cabin arrests their attention, and they begin to realize that they are near to old neighbors and friends. They follow the course of a small brook, since called Garden brook, and descend the slope into the valley. They seek to find first the one man whom they had known in England, and with whom they had crossed the ocean. They find Mr. Pynchon's house. There was nothing striking or attractive about it to indicate that it was the residence of the leader in this enterprise of founding a town in the wilder- ness. It was a one-story-and-a-half wooden structure, unpainted, with a thatched roof, and a chimney of wood covered with mortar. Mr. Pynchon gives the new- comers a cordial welcome to the hospitalities of his house, and they are soon numbered among the settlers of the plantation. By such accessions to its inhabi- tants the population of the place is gradually increased, and from being the plan- tation of Agawam, it aspires to become a town, and in April, 1640, voted to change its name to Springfield. By this name it was recognized by the General Court in June, 1641, and ever afterward known.
Previous to this action of the Legislature, the inhabitants, in view of the fact that by God's providence they were now fallen into the line of the Massachusetts jurisdiction, and that it would be inconvenient to repair to the Bay in cases of justice, such as might often fall out, requiring the action of a magistrate, by general consent and vote, until further direction should come from the General Court, ordained Mr. Pynchon to act as magistrate in the Plantation of Agawam, with the aid of a jury of six persons.
The General Court, in 1641, gave Pynchon a new commission to exercise similar authority for one year. In 1643 this commission was renewed, and ex- tended until the court should further order.
Mr. Pynchon acted under the authority thus conferred upon him until he incurred the displeasure of the General Court, by a theological book written by him and published in England. For this he was suspended from office, and Henry Smith, his son-in-law, appointed in his place. Pynchon was summoned to appear before the court and answer for his offence. He was a religious man of
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the Puritan order, and was a zealous advocate of the faith he had chosen. In his opinion, there were some errors prevalent in New England, particularly on the subject of the Atonement. So, being a keen thinker and a ready writer, he undertook to correct some of the prevailing errors and vindicate the truth, as he understood it, by writing a book, which he entitled "The Meritorious Price of Our Redemption, Justification, etc., Clearing it from Some Common Errors, etc." This book was published in England under Mr. Pynchon's own name, and brought to America, where it soon attracted the notice of the General Court, and produced great excitement. It was pronounced false, erroneous, and heretical, and condemned to be burned by the common executioner in the market-place at Boston. This sentence was executed at once, and Pynchon was summoned to appear before the next General Court, in May, 1651, to answer for his offence, and not to depart without leave from the court. Some of the members of the court did not coneur in the censure of Mr. Pynchon's book, and desired that their reasons for their dissent might be recorded or kept on file. The court would allow neither course. But it passed an order entreating Mr. Norton, an eminent divine of Ipswich, to answer the book. This vote was passed on the 16th of October, 1650, and then the matter rested until May, 1651. At that time the court passed a vote of thanks to Norton for his answer to Pynchon's book, and ordered the treasurer to pay him £20 out of the next tax levied, and that Norton's answer be printed. At the same session Mr. Pynchon appeared before the court and avowed himself the author of his book, and qualified some of the ex- pressions used by him, and explained more fully his meaning. Thereupon the court suspended all further action in the case until the 14th of October following, when he was required again to appear. In October the court extended the time for his appearance to May, 1652. At the session of the court in May, 1652, Mr. Pynchon did not appear. Indignant at the treatment he had received from the authorities at Boston, and apprehensive of further ill-usage, he left New England for Old England. He knew that if he should be convicted of heresy he could expect no lenity from the colonial authorities. John Endicott, one of the most rigid Puritans of the age, was then governor. The deputy governor was Thomas Dudley, a man who had persistently quarrelled with Winthrop, and whose in- flexible temper was satirized by one of the wits of the time in this ironical epitaph : -
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