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 52
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Thus, my fellow-townsmen, I have, I think, shown the reasons for the appli- cation to my distinguished ancestor of the title of Worshipful; it was because he possessed in an eminent degree all the qualities necessary to win and secure the confidence of the community. He was a man to whom men were attracted by his gracious qualities, whom they were inclined to revere, to worship, as it were. Hence he was styled the Worshipful Major.
Mayor O'CONNOR, of Holyoke, responding for his city, said : --
The " infant city" of Holyoke, which I have the honor to represent to-night, is proud to own its kinship and anxious, I am sure, to show proper filial respect and affection for its honored and venerable parent, on this and all other occa- sions. Compared with Springfield, with its two Inmdred and fifty years of hoary tradition, Holyoke, even as a township, has barely reached the period of young manhood. Reckoning age by date of city charters, Springfield may be said to be in the pride of manhood, while Holyoke is but a stripling of twelve tender years. Originally a part of West Springfield (a pasture or a patch on the ont- skirts, so to speak), Holyoke can properly claim to be a child of Springfield (its first-born municipality) on the maternal side, perhaps, and with equal propriety can trace its noble lineage on the paternal side to the broad Connectient river, whose mighty forces have been transmitted and stand revealed to-day in no mean proportion in their joint offspring. Pardon, then, the boastfulness of youth, if, while we delight to honor our parents, and especially our beautiful and gifted mother, Springfield, we use, or abuse, this occasion to remind you all that both " mother and child are doing well," especially the child. Holyoke, I know, wishes me to be modest, but also firm, on this point.
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Although not yet in our municipal teens, having set up housekeeping for our- selves, we gratefully accept the maternal hospitality aud extend our own. Two hundred and thirty odd years, however, is a long while to wait for a like occasion to present itself within our borders, and Holyoke, therefore, authorizes me to extend the open hand of fellowship to-night, and to say that the lateh-string is always on the outside, and a hearty welcome is waiting for the surplus popula- tion and capital of Springfield within our gates. Already we proudly number a score or more of Springfield's brightest names upon the roll of Holyoke's sue- eessful business men, and we welcome them heartily, even though they prefer to seek the suburban quiet and repose of Springfield after the cares of the day in Holyoke. To the rising generation of Springfield, seeking fresh fields and pastures new for the exercise of their inherent energy and enterprise, we extend a special invitation to join their fortune with ours, and reap with us the golden harvest of Holyoke's future. But this is a family party, and perhaps we have already spent too much time in admiring and praising the baby.
Let me, in closing, add a personal tribute to the home of my childhood. Some one has said " that a recollection of old seenes and pastimes we often con- sider among the happiest moments of our lives." Brought here from my birth- place among the Berkshire hills, a child, educated in your schools, and entering my profession under the guidance and patronage of the now venerable Dr. Breek, I feel, and always shall feel while memory lasts, a warm affection for Springfield and a debt of gratitude to her institutions, and I am proud of her record as the pioneer and preceptor of western Massachusetts in all that makes for civilization, education, and the progress of the human race. In the name of Holyoke, and for myself also, then, I greet you, I thank you, and congratulate you upon the record you have made as a representative New England city, and as an honor to the grand old Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
DAVID A. WELLS responded to the toast " Springfield - The flavor of old times makes fresh and sweet the new," and said : -
Remembering the Scriptural proverb, " A prophet is not without honor save in his own country," I could not help feeling greatly complimented at receiving an official invitation to return to the place of my birth and participate in this memo- rable anniversary. Letting my memory run back also, some forty years or more, and recalling " how once upon a time " Elijah Blake -who was at that period pretty much all that the .. Lord High Executioner," " The Lord Chief Justice," " The Lord Chancellor," " The Minster of Finance," and the " Chief of Police" ever was to " Titipu " in the kingdom of the Mikado - fixed liis eyes sternly on
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one of the back seats at a public meeting in the old Town Hall on State street, and audibly remarked, " If that Wells boy and those other fellows don't make less noise and disturbance they will be put out,"- those other fellows being William L. Wilcox and Albert Kirkham, now " grave and reverend seniors," and the late Charles O. Chapin of honored memory. Recalling all this, I could have little thought that the time would ever come when the successors in authority upon whom the mantle of Elijah has fallen would ever wish that the " Wells boy " would come back again. From which, I think, I have the right to infer that if I have made any noise or disturbance since then it has not been, as formerly, altogether of a disagreeable character.
I do not know that it has ever occurred to any one to make an analysis of the motives that are influential in drawing one back to the home of his childhood. At first thought it may seem that such tendencies are the outcome of an instinct, born and inbred in every one; something akin to love of country. A little examination, however, will, I think, lead to opposite conclusions. And in sup- port of this view, I would mention that a question recently put to a gentleman who emigrated from this vicinity elicited the following reply : "I was born in such a place," naming a town not forty miles distant from Springfield ; " and it is the only thing in my life that I feel particularly ashamed of." I have never visited that place ; but from what I used to hear of it, I should think the native referred to might have had some good and sufficient warrant for his opinion. Again, I sat some years ago at dinner beside one of the merchant princes of New York, a man whose name is well known in commercial cireles and in public affairs. He informed me that he was born in a little town in New York, just over the Berkshire or Massachusetts line; that he had only been back to it since he left to bury his father and mother, and that " he never meant," if he could help it, to go back again. Further conversation disclosed the fact that his father was a farmer, the owner and cultivator of one of those sterile side-hill farms of that section of country ; a man whose fundamental idea of life was work and religion, as he understood it, - to work unremittingly during all the hours of daylight; and to meet any demands of human nature for diversity and recreation by attending meetings, and the study of the Assembly's catechism or such other literature as made up the seant libraries in those days of the supporters of old-time New England Calvinism, - among which he remembered was a well- thumbed sermon preached by the father of David Dudley and Cyrus Field, at a public execution, in which the culprit was advised that although he had been a very bad fellow, and was still impenitent, there was ample time for conversion and a change of heart between leaving the church and reaching the gallows. It was no wonder, then, that my friend, under the circumstances, bought his own
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time - as was then customary, before coming of age- of his father, and emi- grated; and that the town where he was born never left upon his memory suffi- ciently agreeable impressions to have yet received from his present accumulated millions anything commemorative of his childhood, and in furtherance of the interests of its present inhabitants, or is probably ever likely to be thus remem- bered. Therefore, I conclude that there must be something more than the mere fact of having been born in a certain locality that constitutes the attraction in later life to those who have been long absent to return to it; and that it is necessary, in order that such attraction may be powerful, that the impressions of early life, which are so strong that old men babble of them when all other memories have departed, should have been pleasant. And so far as Springfield is concerned, I think I can truly say. not only for myself, but for all other of its children who have wandered from the old home, that the early impressions received here were always most pleasant.
Nowhere among all the towns of New England did the current of life run more sweetly and quietly than here. How vividly can I reproduce the former picture of localities ! On the spot where we are now gathered stood the family home, embowered among great trees, of the Hookers, - judges, legislators, deacons, and town councillors. Next below was the great gambrel-roof parson- age of the First Church in Springfield. Where the railroad station is, grew some of the earliest and sweetest apples,-sweeter if they could be gathered without the privity of their owner, the Widow Hubbard. Where the railroad bridge crosses, was one of the most famous of shad fisheries. Across the street, but lower down, ran, as I think it yet does. the " town brook," once sufficiently pure to be so stocked with trout as to admit of their being caught with a scoop. Across the square rose, as now, the steeple of Dr. Osgood's church, which, to my childish imaginings, seemed something akin in height to the tower of Babel ; and upon the top of its spire still sits that wonderful rooster which, as all children were in- formed, always crowed whenever he heard the other roosters.
How little then occurred to break the current uniformity : the publication of the " Weekly Republican ; " the annual town-meeting, which seemed always to occur when the weather was most unpleasant and the roads the muddiest, to the inconvenience of the multitude, who came up as the tribes of old to Jernsaleni, from Cabotville, Chicopee, or Skipmuck, " Jenksville," "Sixteen Acres," Long Hill, and the Water-shops ; the tolling of the "' passing bell," to indicate that some one of the little community had joined the great congregation; the annual train- ing of the Hampden Guards and the Springfield Artillery ; the occasional show ; the winter's lyceum ; the arrival and departure of the good steamers " Agawam " or " Massachusetts," Peck, master ; or the departure before daylight, or the arrival
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after dark, of the Boston and Albany coaches, whose head-quarters were at the Hampden Coffee House. Good society in those days breakfasted between six and seven, dined at twelve, and supped at six. Most people, also, were then of the opinion that night was the time to sleep; and, lest somebody should forget it, the church bell was rung regularly at nine o'clock, when it was expected that fires would be raked up and courting be discontinued. Few of the citizens had trav- elled farther than to New York or Boston; and as for the one or two who had made the journey to Europe, it was thought that there was little more remaining for them, except the kingdom of heaven. Ilow incidents that are regarded as now of little moment swelled to great importance in those earlier days is well illustrated by the circninstance that the completion, in 1805, of the great bridge across the river, at the foot of what was then " Bridge lane," was considered of sufficient moment to require the preaching and printing of a sermon, by one of the most noted of New England divines, namely, Rev. Joseph Lathrop, D.D., pastor of the First Church in West Springfield. And from a copy of this now rare sermon which has come into my possession let me read you a brief extract : " Who among us, twenty years ago, expected to see the two banks of the Con- necticut river united at Springfield by a bridge which should promise durability? Yet such a structure we see, this day, completed and opened for passage, - a structure which displays the wealth and enterprise of the proprietors, and the skill and fidelity of the artificers, and which will yield great convenience and advantage to the contiguous and neighboring towns, and to the public at large. In a work of this kind there is the same reason to acknowledge the favoring and preserving hand of God, as in all other enterprises, and more in proportion to its complexity, difficulty, and magnitude. The structure which we this day behold suggests to us a most convincing evidence of the existence and government of a deity ; and also of the importance of civil society and of a firm and steady government."
It is now the opinion of those most qualified to speak that there is hardly a single department of history, ancient or modern, that does not require to be reinvestigated and rewritten. But be that as it may, the inner, domestic, and social life of the people of New England has certainly never yet been fully explored and written ; and it constitutes a most promising and inviting field, not only for the historian, but also for the novelist. Mrs. Stowe has worked this mine somewhat in her "Sam Lawson" and " Oldtown Stories," and in the romance of " The Minister's Wooing," as has also Rose Terry Cooke in " Mrs. Beulah's Bonnet " and " Squire Paine's Conversion ; " and in all literature there is no story clothed in purer English, richer in word painting, or more ingenious and delicious in plot, than " Twice Married," written by Calvin Philleo, of Suf-
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field, who died when the guild of literature had hardly made his acquaintance, and who gave promise. if he had lived, of developing into one of America's greatest masters of fiction.
What a wealth of character, material, and incident is embraced within the memories of Springfield during the fifty years or more prior to the advent of the railroads ! Stephen Burroughs, the rogne, whose memoirs, with " Riley's Nar- rative," were read with wonderment by more than one generation of this valley. Thomas Blanchard, the inventor, who built the steamboat " Massachusetts " on a lot on South Main street, and then drew it on massive solid wheels, with long yokes of oxen, amidst a wondering crowd, to its launching-place, at the foot of Elm street; and who, stimulated by a taunt of an armorer engaged in carving gun-stoeks " that he could not spoil his business," invented that most wonder- ful machine for turning irregular forms, inelnding such an irregular thing as a gun-stoek. Elijah Blake, the terror of evil-doers, who seems to have extended his life to some fourscore years or more by becoming transfused with the toughness and strength of his own leather; Uncle Bill Cooley, the old sexton, who gathered in nearly two entire generations before he himself was gathered. William Ames, son of Fisher Ames, who for many years made two visitations to the town ammally, and timed his visits so coincidently with the arrival of shad and the celebration of Thanksgiving, that not a few people, it is said, remained doubtful as to the exact time of these events until the presence of Mr. Ames in town was known to be a certainty. Captain Peck, the hardy navigator, who for many a season breasted the storm of the Connecticut, and safely guided his craft over the rocks and terrors of " Enfield Rapids." Eleazar Williams, the onee prince of inn-keepers, who was so famed for his politeness to all, and his special courtesy to ladies, that it is said of him that once upon a time, com- ing unexpectedly upon a setting hen and perceiving her to be disturbed by his intrusion, he took off his hat gracefully, and bowing respectfully, speedily re- tired with the remark, " Don't rise, madam, - don't, I pray you." And last, but not least, that grand old man, Rev. Samuel Osgood, D.D., to whom Gold- smith's lines to a country clergyman are fairly applicable, -
Remote from towns, he ran his godly race, Nor e'er had changed nor wished to change his place.
New England never produced a more original character, more fertile in wit, more keen in repartee. One anecdote illustrative of the latter quality, which I will venture to relate, and which I think has never found its way into print, was told me by the late Gen. Dan Tyler. The general, when fresh from West Point,
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was ordered in company with two or three other young officers to Springfield, in connection with the armory, and to help pass the time pleasantly, a sort of social club was organized, and a meeting and reading room rented and fur- nished, on the same entry with the post-office, which was then kept by Daniel Lombard, in a little wooden building on State street. At this club Dr. Osgood was a frequent visitor and always a welcome guest; and on entering one day and asking the news, he was informed of a new engagement of a certain young and buxom damsel, the daughter of one of the first families, with an elderly bachelor, who was also one of the wealthiest and most distinguished citizens of the town. " Well, doctor, what do you think of it?" was asked. " Think of it?" he replied. " I think there is a good deal of money got by marriage that better be hired at 6 per cent." The doctor was probably also the originator of the old story, which runs to the effect that, visiting a sick man, and admonishing him upon the necessity of a change of heart, he was interrupted by the rejoinder from the patient, " I don't think you understand my case at all, doctor. It isn't a new heart that I want, but a new liver."
Rev. Dr. Sprague, who was for a time settled in West Springfield, was a man of great culture and refinement, and especially observant of all the " proprieties " of his profession. Engaged to supply the pulpit of Dr. Osgood on one occasion, the latter announced him to his congregation as follows : "On the morning of the next Sabbath Brother Sprague will occupy my place, and blow from the silver trumpet of the New Testament, but in the afternoon I shall be present and will give you the ram's horn of the Old." And then if it is the more comic, as well as the poetical side of human nature that is to be sought, what can be more originally ludicrous than the famous poem, or elegy, of " Springfield Mountain," which has almost become a classic in English literature, and without a sufficiently proper notice of which any historical review of Springfield would, it seems to me, be manifestly most incomplete. This elegy was written by one Nathan Torrey, a citizen, at the time, of Springfield, about the year 1761, in commemoration of a tragic occurrence that caused a great local sensation at the time, namely, the death, from the bite of a rattlesnake, of the son of Lieutenant Mirrick, who resided in that part of the town which was then known as " Springfield Mountain," and which was afterward incorporated as a town by itself, under the name of " Wil- braham,"- a name in some way undoubtedly derived from an old English family by the name of Wilbraham, whose ancestral records and sculptured memorials are still preserved in an old church at Chirk. in Herefordshire, on the borders of Wales.
Nathan Torrey was an odd genins, and removed to Hinsdale. Berkshire county. about the time of the Revolution, and is said to have been the first settler of that
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town. When the steeple of the Congregational Church in Dalton was raised, the parson, it is said, called upon Torrey for some poetry suitable for the occasion. He agreed to so do, and at the proper time took his stand before the audience, looked up at the steeple, then at the minister, and next at the people, and gave utterance to the following : -
Little church, tall steeple, Blind guide, ignorant people.
As the newspaper reporter was not round in those days, we have no knowl- edge of what happened next; but we can imagine what the ministers and the people thought, and, perhaps, of what they said. But I fear I have exhausted your patience and left myself but little time to speak of my boyhood associates. Springfield has many distinguished names on the roll of her sons. But the num- ber of boys who have notably made their mark from the comparatively small class of my school associates is, I think, somewhat remarkable. Two were successful sailors, and walked the quarter-deck as captains of as noble vessels as ever flew the American flag. Four became general or field officers in the War of the Rebellion, and two fell on the field of battle at the head of their columns. One was avowedly at the head of the editorial profession of the country. Three have risen to the front rank of the legal profession in the cities of New York, St. Louis, and San Francisco. Two now stand at the head of New Eng- land's greatest railroad corporation, while another is at the head of Massachu- setts' railroad commission ; two have become successful merchants in the Cen- tral West and on the Pacific; and of the names of those who have remained at the old home, if they are not widely known, it is simply because to them the opportunity to become distinguished has been more limited.
To be present upon such an occasion as this cannot, however, be a wholly un- mixed joy to the sons of Springfield, who return to her after long absences, and the words of Rev. Dr. Peabody, in his address at the dedication of the Spring- field Cemetery in 1841, come back to me now with a fulness of meaning which they did not convey when I heard them delivered : -
" When the native of this town, after long absence, returns to the home of his fathers, he will walk the streets, and all whom he meets will be strangers. He will inquire concerning familiar dwellings, and the names of their inhabitants will be new ; and when he meets his old acquaintances he will find that they know not the Joseph of former days. He will be forlorn and solitary among the living, and will not feel at home till he comes to the mansions of the dead. Here he will find the guardians and the playmates of former years. Here will be all
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whom he used to reverence and love; and here the heart will overflow with emotions."
Gen. H. C. DWIGHT, of Hartford, said : -
I regret exceedingly that our honored Governor of the Commonwealth of Con- necticut is not present to respond to your very complimentary toast to Connecti- cut, the State he honors, serves, and loves so well. In his name and for this old Commonwealth I thank you for your cordial greeting, your neighborly interest, and kindly good-will. Connecticut heartily reciprocates them all, and congrat- ulates the ancient town of Springfield, on this her anniversary day, on her prosperity and success; on what your city represents to-day, - enterprise. energy, happiness, and wealth, - one of the many pleasant, bright, prosperous cities of our sister Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
Connecticut has now in her borders some of your former territory, and though not naturally covetous, 'tis a pity when the line was drawn including Enfield, Somers, and Suffield in Connecticut, it was not put far enough north to have included your whole town. In fact, we could include the whole of Massachu- setts, so kind is our regard and so great our love for you.
The same spirit was in your founders as in those of our beloved State, - the spirit of liberty, of government by the people, of freedom of worship, of free education, animated them, and the same spirit actuates them to-day. The people of Massachusetts and Connecticut have the same characteristics,-those of energy, industry, frugality, generosity, and inventive genius. The hum of their industries is heard, the products of their skill are known around the world. In war both have proved their valor through these two hundred and fifty years. In peace both have gone hand in hand to the highest success ; no bickering nor enmity has been known, but as neighbors we have both gloried in the success of the other. The white flag of Massachusetts and the blue flag of Connecticut are both com- bined in the flag of our glorious, united country, each star shining as brilliantly as when first placed in the flag of our Union ; and so may they shine, made more and more brilliant by the honor and righteousness of their people till the " perfect day." The town and city of Springfield may well and gladly welcome home lier children, wherever they may be. Happy those who have never wandered from her pleasant firesides ; happy those who have so pleasant a home to return to, wel- comed by a happy, prosperous people, who have worked for, deserved, and earned success. We of Connecticut come with good wishes, and strong, hearty desire for your continued prosperity and success. May your future be in ways of pleasantness! As in the past two hundred and fifty years, so in the future
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