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 49
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Here lies Thomas Dudley, that trusty old stud, A bargain's a bargain and must be made good.
Mr. Pynchon had come to New England to avoid persecution. He now left it to escape from intolerance. When out of the reach of the vindictive malice of
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his enemies, he wrote and published a reply to Mr. Norton's book, in which he controverted Norton's arguments, and reaffirmed his own views.
From the nature of the publie duties devolved upon him by the General Court, it is apparent that Pynchon was regarded as an astute man of affairs, capable of conducting any kind of business. He could make a contract with the Indians for a large tract of territory. He could manage successfully the financial concerns of the colony, and so was made its treasurer. He could dis- cuss and elucidate to the satisfaction of a man as captious Gov. Thomas Dudley, a question of policy in the treatment of the Indian, so as to avoid difficult and dangerous complications. All this Mr. Pynchon did. He could and did admin- ister wisely the judicial duties that were devolved upon him as the only magis- trate in western Massachusetts. He was a man of great enterprise, and devoted his energies to building up this town which he had founded. He intended that it should become a commercial centre in this valley, from which should radiate an influence for the prosperity of all this region. To this end he gathered about him here men of various trades and occupations, with skill and resolution adapted to give success to the town. He established a trade here in furs and farm products that reached not only to the towns below on the river, but to Boston and the settlements on the bay. Mr. Pynchon never returned to America, but died at Wraisbury, in England, on the 29th of October, 1662, at the age of seventy-two.
With Pynchon went his son-in-law, Henry Smith, who had been appointed by the General Court as his successor in office. He was a man of capacity, and well qualified to fill the place vacated by Pynchon. But he preferred following the fortunes of his father Pynchon to remaining here.
With Mr. Pynchon also went another early settler, Rev. George Moxon, who had come to Springfield in 1637, as its first minister. He brought with him a wife and several children, and had some children born here. He was educated in England, and received ordination to the ministry there. So that, upon his arrival in New England, in 1637, he was ready to fulfil the purpose of the first settlers as the godly and faithful minister, with whom they desired to join in enurch covenant. Mr. Moxon continued the minister of the town, and was useful in his vocation until 1651. About that time suspicions of witchcraft began to be entertained here. A nervous and probably insane woman by the name of Mary Parsons, wife of Hugh Parsons, was accused by Martha and Rebecca Moxon, the daughters of the minister, of practising the arts of witchcraft. To her agency were aseribed some distempers from which they suffered. She had killed her own child, and so was arrested and taken to Boston, and tried there both for murder and witchcraft. Both of these offences
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were capital. She was acquitted of the charge of witchcraft, but convicted of the murder by her own confession, and sentenced to death.
The connection of his family with this case made it disagreeable to Mr. Moxon to remain here, and concurring with the troubles of his friend, Mr. Pynchon, indneed him to accompany Pynchon to England, from which he never returned to America.
The loss of these three so prominent men was a serious blow to the young town of Springfield. In his century sermon, delivered here October 16, 1775, Mr. Breck, speaking of it, says : " It was a day of darkness with this town," that he " remembered to have formerly heard some of the aged people, who had it from their forefathers, say that it went near to break up the settlement."
The departure of William Pynchon brought at once into prominence his son, John Pynchon, then about twenty-six years of age, who had come to Springfield with his father at its first settlement, and was familiar with its history and all its interests. He had received a training under his father that prepared him at once to enter upon the management of all affairs, both private and public, that had previously been conducted by his father. John Pynchon became immediately the leading man of Springfield in every respect.
His private business was very extensive. He was the merchant who carried on a large trade, buying of his townsmen whatever products of their farms they had for sale. He had a storehouse at Warehouse Point, from which his goods, received from Hartford, were transported to Springfield and sold to his neighbors here. He was a large dealer in furs, particularly of the beaver, which abounded in the Connecticut and Woronoco (or Westfield) rivers. The collection of these furs gave employment to many men, as well Indians as white men. He was part owner of a vessel that transported beaver skins and other goods from Hartford to Boston for transshipment to England. He was the proprietor, with his brother- in-law, Holyoke, of a corn-mill and a saw-mill, at which the grain of the inhabi- tants was ground, and their lumber sawed. Ile had in his employ boats on the river, and teams on the land. All this work required the services of his fellow- townsmen of different trades and occupations, and brought to Springfield many persons who became useful citizens. Many of them had experience and skill in some particular kind of business. But whatever that may have been, they could readily turn their hands to almost any kind of work. In general, they appear to have been industrious and honest men, who feared God and were just to their neighbors.
The public stations filled by John Pynchon, and the public duties performed by him, exceeded in number and equalled in importance those of his father. When the captaincy of the military company here was vacated by the departure
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of Henry Smith, John Pynchon was appointed captain in Smith's place. From this he rose to be the commander of the regiment of the county, which then com- prised all the State west of Middlesex county. In this capacity he acted during the King Philip war. In the records of that time he is commonly styled the " Worshipful " Major Pynchon.
In 1659 he was chosen a deputy from Springfield to the General Court, and continued in that capacity to represent the town until 1667, when he was elected by the court to the upper branch of the Legislature as an assistant. He held that office until 1686.
He was often appointed to transact important business beyond the limits of this State. In 1664 he was one of the commissioners who represented the English government in receiving from the Dutch the surrender of New Amsterdam, which then took its present name of New York.
In 1680 he was sent as a commissioner by the General Court of Massachusetts to Albany to arrange, with the aid of the governor of New York, a treaty with the Macquas or Mohawk Indians, to secure the people of Massachusetts from the inenrsions of the Indians of that powerful tribe.
In this negotiation he was successful. The Indians gave him a written answer to his proposition. This answer, originally drawn in the Dutch language, was translated into English by an interpreter, and recorded in the colony records. It is a curious and interesting document. The Indians addressed the major as " Brother Pynchon," and expressed their gladness at seeing him again at Albany, as they had seen him four years before, and their resolution to keep inviolate the treaty which they had just made with him.
The General Court directed the entire paper to be recorded, and ordered " that Maj. John Pynchon, for his great paines in his hard journey last winter to the Macquas and concluding a peace with them, be paid £12." Often associated with Major Pynchon were his brother-in-law, Elizur Holyoke, and Deacon Samuel Chapin. The three were appointed commissioners in 1652, after William Pynchon left, to hold courts and administer justice in Springfieldl. They had jurisdiction in all actions of small amount, and in the trial of criminal cases that " reached not to life, limbs, or banishment," saving to the parties the right of appeal to the Court of Assistants at Boston.
Holyoke was a native of Tamworth, in England, and came to this country with his father, Edward Holyoke, about 1637 or 1638, and lived for a time at Rumney Marsh, now Chelsea. He was probably drawn to Springfield by an attachment formed for Mary Pynchon, the daughter of William and sister of John, to whom he was married in November, 1640. She is described as a very lovely woman. " a very glory of womanhood."
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A home lot twenty rods wide was assigned to Mr. Holyoke next south from that of his father-in-law, William Pynchon. It occupied the whole space from the northerly line of Worthington street to the southerly line of Bridge street. He afterward acquired, by purchase or grant from the town, large additional tracts of land on both sides of the river.
In 1662 the towns of Springfield, Northampton, and Hadley were made a county by the name of Hampshire. Springfield was made the shire town, but courts were to be held alternately at Springfield and Northampton.
In 1665 John Pynchon was made presiding judge of the court, with four asso- ciates. Holyoke was the associate from Springfield, and was also the recorder of the court.
Deacon Samuel Chapin came to Springfield, in 1642, from Roxbury, where he had owned a house and lot. On June 2, 1641, he took the freeman's oath at Boston, and so became legally a citizen of Massachusetts. It appears by the church records of Roxbury that he and his wife, Cicely Chapin, were both mem- bers of Rev. John Eliot's church in that town. Ilis son, Japhet, was baptized there October 15, 1642.
In December, 1643, he appears by the records to have been at Springfield as one of a jury of which Holyoke was foreman, and Samuel Wright, afterward a deacon of the church, was a member. Wright and Chapin were the first deacons of the church here. Deacon Wright removed to Northampton, and died there. His descendants abound in that place and vicinity. Deacon Chapin continued to reside at Springfield, where he had a large family of sons and daughters. The northern part of the town was at one time almost peopled by his descendants.
On the 17th of September, 1862, a meeting of his descendants was held here in the old First Church, which was largely attended from all parts of the country. Stephen C. Bemis, one of the descendants, and then mayor of this city, pre- sided. Judge Henry Chapin, of Worcester, delivered an address, and the late Dr. Holland, whose wife was a Chapin, read a poem. Other interesting addresses were delivered by other distinguished members of the family. In this way the memory of the old deacon was kept alive. And now, as if all this were not enough to perpetuate his memory, it is proposed to erect a bronze statue on Court square, in front of the church in which he once worshipped and officiated as deacon. An artist of renowned skill has been engaged to prepare this statue, and has already begun the work. When finished and erected, it will, undoubt- edly, be a fit memorial in a fit place of the worthy man it is designed to represent.
While we hold in especial honor the few men who were leaders in the early settlement of this town, and who shared with William Pynchon, during the six-
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teen years of his stay here, the labor and responsibility of laying the founda- tions, we must not forget or overlook the names of others, who, without aspiring to any post of leadership, were content, in the simple capacity of pioneer settlers, to aid in building up this town in the wilderness, although it required them to expose themselves and their families to the privations and dangers of a frontier life. Of this class of early settiers, in addition to those already named, may be mentioned John Searle, Thomas Horton, Thomas Mirrick, John Leonard, Robert Ashley, William Warriner, Henry Burt, Rowland Stebbins, Richard Sikes, Thomas Cooper, James Bridgman, Alexander Edwards, Francis Ball, John Harmon, Miles Morgan, Benjamin Cooley, John Matthews, George Colton, Joseph Parsons, John Clarke, Widow Margaret Bliss and her four sons, Nathaniel, Lawrence, Samuel, and John, also Reice Bedortha, John Lom- bard, George Langton, Anthony Dorchester, John Lamb, John Dumbleton, Rowland Thomas, Jonathan Taylor, Thomas Miller, Benjamin Munn, Jolm Dibble. All these have descendants here, and their names have long been familiar to us.
We are now at the commencement of a new era in the history of this town. One quarter of a thousand years has passed since its corporate existence began in the mutnal agreement of the first settlers. Although weak in its infancy, it gradually outgrew the discouragements of its origin. The steady courage of the founders never failed amid all the trials of its early years. When William Pynchon, the original leader of the colonists, was compelled to abandon the town and return to England, it seemed for the time that the enterprise was almost hopeless, and a deep gloom spread over the minds of the people.
But a new leader came forward in the person of his son, John Pynchon, who immediately showed his capacity to take the place which his father had vacated, and carry on the work that his father had begun. And so a new impulse, for- ward and upward, was given to the enterprise, and the town continued steadily to grow and prosper until that disastrous day in October, 1675, when the Indians, stimulated by Philip, the chief of the Wampanoags, a tribe having its principal seat in Bristol county and the adjacent parts of Rhode Island, suddenly laid aside the pipe of peace, and with tomahawk, gun, and torch began the work of destruction and slaughter.
Philip endeavored to combine all the Indians of New England in a grand con- federacy against the English colonists, in the hope to expel or exterminate the colonists. Failing at first to secure the cooperation of the Narragansett Indians, and being hard pressed by the English and their allies, the Mohegan Indians, Philip was forced from his stronghold in Bristol county and its vicinity to the interior of Massachusetts among the Nipmuck Indians. These joined
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him in a raid upon some of the towns of Worcester connty and the upper towns on the Connecticut river.
They burned Brookfield. Next they appeared at Deerfield and Northfield. A few days later occurred the massacre at Bloody Brook, where Captain Lathrop, with eighty-eight young men, the flower of Essex county, were attacked by a superior force of Indians, and seventy of their number slain. These assaults upon the upper towns on the river were attended with the barbarities usual in Indian warfare, and excited general attention and sympathy. Massachusetts and Connectient sent their forces to protect the endangered towns. Maj. John Pyn- chon was commander-in-chief of the Massachusetts forces. Major Treat com- manded those of Connecticut. Among the subordinate Massachusetts officers were Captain Appleton and Captain Mosely.
The advice of Major Pynchon to the colonial authorities had been that garri- sons shoukl be maintained in the frontier towns for their protection. But this advice had been overruled, and orders had been issued that whenever an enemy appeared, soldiers should be despatched in pursuit of them. In this kind of strategy the Indians were much superior to the English. They were familiar with all the paths by which the forests could be traversed. Their movements were stealthy and rapid. They fell upon the amazed and bewildered settlers when least expected, executed their savage and bloody work with fearful rapidity, and then disappeared as suddenly as they had come, leaving little or no trace of their conrse. It was to little purpose that, when tidings reached the nearest military force, detachments were sent in pursuit. Generally they reached the scene only to find the smoking ruins of houses that the savages had burned, and the mutilated and ghastly remains of their occupants.
In pursuance of the orders which he received from the commissioners, who had charge of the conduct of the war, Major Pynchon, with all the force under his command at Springfield, numbering about forty-five men, was required to march northward on the 4th of October, 1675, O.S. (October 15 of the present cal- endar), by tidings that a considerable body of Indians had been seen near Had- ley. To repel this enemy the English forces were ordered to concentrate in that town. So that when the night of October 4 closed upon the inhabitants of Springfield they were entirely without military defence. Their own militia were with Major Pynchon at Hadley, or on their march toward that place. Major Treat with his Connecticut troops was on the west side of the river at a consid- erable distance from this town.
Notwithstanding their defenceless condition, the people of Springfield did not appear to feel, at first, any serious apprehension of danger threatening the town. Philip and his warriors were supposed to be engaged in distant operations
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farther up the river, where he had the sympathy of the Indians. So the inhabi- tants of Springfield retired to their rest on the evening of Monday, the 4th of Octo- ber, 1675, with a feeling of security. In the night they were aroused by a mes- senger from Windsor, with information that an Indian there, who lived in the family of Mr. Wolcott, had revealed the fact that a plot had been formed to de- stroy Springfield, and that a large body of Philip's men had been admitted by the Springfield Indians to their fort on Long hill, about a mile south from the town, for this purpose. The alarm was immediately given to all the inhabitants, and messengers were sent to Major Pynehon and Major Treat. The villagers fled at once to the fortified houses with such of their more valuable effects as they could readily remove. At that time there were three fortified houses. One was the brick house of Major Pynchon, built by him in 1660, standing near the head of Fort street. and known since, for many years, as the Old Fort. The other fortified houses were nearer the south end of the main street.
Every preparation was made for defence that the nature of the case would allow. But there was a painful consciousness of immediate danger. The peo- ple of the fortified houses awaited with sleepless anxiety the coming of day. The night wore away, and the morning of Tuesday, October 5, dawned upon the watchers. It brought no confirmation of the fears. The risen sun disclosed no savage foes. The honses stretched along the street showed no signs of having
been disturbed. Some of the inhabitants began to doubt the truth of the report from Windsor. Of this number was Thomas Cooper, who had been lieutenant of the Springfield Company, a brave and experienced officer. IIe determined to test the truth of the report from Windsor by making himself a personal visit to the Indian fort. Taking with him Thomas Miller, the two set out on horseback down Main street toward Long hill. They had just entered the woods which skirted the settlement in that direction. but had not crossed Mill river, when they were fired upon by some unseen foes. Miller was instantly killed. Cooper was mortally wounded and fell from his horse, but succeeded in mounting agam and rode to the nearest fort, before reaching which he received a second shot and soon after died.
The Indians then burst upon the town with the greatest fury. Unable to gratify their thirst for blood by the slaughter of the people, who had taken re- fuge in the forts, they applied the torch to the buildings. 1bout thirty-two houses and twenty-five barns with their contents were destroyed. Major Pynchon's corn-mill and saw-mill were consumed.
While this work of destruction was going on. Major Treat arrived with his forces on the other side of the river, but was unable to cross for want of boats. Nothing effectual for the relief of the town could be accomplished until about
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three o'clock in the afternoon, when Major Pynchon with his force of two hun- dred soldiers, after an exhausting march from Hadley, arrived. only in time to see the ruin which the savages had wrought to the homes and property of the inhabitants.
Besides Cooper and Miller, one woman, Pentecost Matthews, wife of John Matthews, was killed. Edmund Pringridays was severely wounded, and died a few days afterward. About forty families lost all their means of subsistenee.
Of the fearful incidents of that disastrous day I have spoken on another oceasion, and need not dwell further upon them now. It was a time of great dis- tress, and came near to making an end of this town.
But a brighter day dawned. Major Pynehon gave up the idea, which he at first entertained, of abandoning this frontier town for a safer home in the eastern part of the State. He inspired his fellow townsmen with new courage, and trust . in the protecting care of Heaven, and through all the remainder of his long life continued to devote his time and talents to advaneing the prosperity of Spring- field. He died January 17, 1703. universally lamented.
The estimation in which he was held by those who knew him is well expressed in a discourse delivered at his funeral by Rev. Solomon Stoddard, pastor of the church of Northampton, an eminent elergyman of that time. Taking for his text the first, seeond, and third verses of the third chapter of Isaiah, he said : " A great man is fallen this day in our Israel, and it becomes us to mourn and lament under this dispensation. God has removed one that has been a long while serviceable. that has been employed upon public service for above fifty years. He has been serviceable unto the country in general, and in special among our- selves. He hath had the principal management of our military affairs and our eivil affairs, and labored much in the settling of most of our plantations ; has managed things with industry, prudence, and moderation. He has been careful in time of war, and, as there has been occasion, he has been a peacemaker among us and helpful in composing of differences ; he has discountenanced rude and vicious persons, bearing his testimony against them. It is to be feared that we shall feel the sorrowful effeets of his removal a long while. Sometimes where parents die, children do not at present so much feel the want of them as they do afterward. We may have occasion afterward to remember with sorrow that we had such an one among us. Though we have other useful men, yet there may arise such cases wherein there may be great need of his eonduct and help. He was honorable, and had great influence upon men of authority abroad and upon the people at home, and had more experience by far than any other among us."
To this justly deserved eulogium, uttered by one of his contemporaries who knew him well. I desire to add only a word. Springfield owes John
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Pynchon a debt of gratitude and honor, for all that he did and suffered as her preserver and benefactor, that will never be discharged until some memorial has been devised that shall adequately express in an enduring form her obligations to him as her foremost citizen during the first century of her existence.
It is not my province to predict or anticipate the future of our city. We live in an age when knowledge is making rapid strides toward ultimate predominance in the world. Art and science have made wonderful progress during the half- century now closing. No man can foretell or foresee what the next half-century will develop or disclose. Nowhere, perhaps, is the ingenuity of men pushing more vigorously than in this valley the search for whatever will extend the
boundaries of human knowledge and promote the comfort of man and the welfare . of society.
This enterprising spirit must have an important influence upon the coming generations in this city. The issue under heaven minst depend on ourselves. If we are true to our responsibilities - if we perform faithfully our duties, both public and private - if we guard carefully against the intrusion of evil influences - if we cherish a regard for the memory of our fathers and maintain the standard of virtue, intelligence, and religion, which they established, there is no degree of prosperity and happiness, however exalted, to which we may not attain.
Music by the Orpheus Club, assisted by Mrs. P. S. Bailey and Gartland's Band, followed the address.
JUDGE KNOWLTON. - The first settlers of New England were occupied with the practical affairs of daily life. It was not the beauty of the fair Connecti- cut, as eluding the two grim sentinels that stood in her path, she escaped in graceful curves through this fertile valley to the sea, that attracted the attention and fixed the habitation of our fathers. It was her utility, as a bearer of bur- dens to and from the harbors on the southern shore, that made her priceless in their eyes. But their fathers in England had seen Shakespeare, and the spark of poetic fire which they brought with them was buried, not extinguished, and it needed but a zephyr's breath to fan it into flame. Springfield now has poets not a few, and among them all there is none more beloved, or who sings sweeter songs, than he who adorns the judicial bench, and scatters by the wayside garlands of poesy. I introduce the poet of the day, Judge William S. Shurtleff.
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