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 7
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SPRINGFIELD, 1636-1886.
trading house at Woronock, weh is known to bee within or patent, lying as much or more to the north then Springfeild. Wee heare also, that you have granted to Mr. Robrt Saltonstall a great quantity of land, not far beneath Springfeild, wch wee conceive also to belong to us. Wee desire you to consider of it, as that wch we apphend to bee an injury to us, & do us such right in redresse hereof as you would expect fro ns in a like case. Wee suppose wee shall not need to use other argumts; wee know to whom wee wright. Wee have thought meete upon these oecations to intimate further unto you that we intend (by God's help) to know the certeinty of or limitts, to the end that wee may neither intrench upon the right of or neighbors, nor suffer orselves & or posterity to bee deprived of what rightly belongeth unto us, wch wee hope wilbee without offence to any ; & upon this wee may have some ground of proceeding in or further treaty wth you about such things as may concerne the welfare of us all.
Governor Hopkins and Mr. Saltonstall were becoming extensive traders, and, under favor of the Connecticut colony, were in a fair way to isolate Springfield ; and the above protest from the Bay did not appear any too soon. With a warehouse built by Hopkins at Woro- noco, and with Saltonstall enjoying grants of land " neere to the falls " (Enfield Falls), the plan to bring the trade of the valley to the door of Hartford was well under way. Considering the ill-feeling at this time, one may well be impressed at the diplomacy that strove to loosen the tension of strained relations, by way of deference, shown in the expression, " wee know to whom wee wright."
After the secession from Connecticut, an elaborate paper was drawn up by the Massachusetts General Court, in response to a humble petition sustaining the course. The petition from Springfield had been read in open court and referred to a committe, whose report in favor of Springfield was accepted. The close lines of argument on which this controversy was drawn, appear in this reply (June 2, 1641) to the Springfield petition. "Said commission " spoken of is the one giving power to Roger Ludlow, Pynchon, and others, in 1635, to govern Connecticut for one year ; the "recitall" refers to the letter of the Connecticut commission to the Massachusetts Bay authorities : -
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SPRINGFIELD, 1636-1886.
It is hearby declared, -
1. That the said passages in the said comission (as they are expressed in the petition) are misrecited, so as the true scope and intention is thereby altered ; as, 1. Whereas the words in the comission are, they are resolved to transplant themselves, in the recitall it is, to plant themselves. 2. In the comission it is said that those noble parsonages have interest in the ryver, & by vertue of their patent do require jurisdiction there; in the recitall it is, that wee confesse it be- longeth to their jurisdiction. 3. In the comission it is prvided this may not bee any pjudice to the interest of those noble etc. : in the recitall it is, that nothing should bee done or intended to the p'dice of the lords, or their intendments.
2. That the said comission was not granted upon any intent either to dismise the psons fro us, or to determine anything about the limits of jurisdiction, the interest of the lands & or owne limits being as then unknowne; therefore it was granted onely for one yeare; & it may rather appeare, by or granting such a comission, & thier accepting of it, as also that clause, viz, Till some other course were taken, by mutuall consent, etc. that wee intended to reserve an interest there upon the ryver, & that themselves also intended to stand to the condition of the first licence of departure given to the most of them, wch was, that they should remaine still of or body.
3. For those argumts wch they draw from those articles certified in the peti- tion, wee answer, that they were propounded and drawen out onely by some of the magistrats of each party without any order or alowance of this Court; and therefore (whatsoever those magistrats might intend thereby ) the intend of the Court cannot be gathered from anything therein; but in those articles wch were agitated and brought to some issue in or Genrall Court, in the 4th mo 1638, when their commissioners were present, Springfeild, then called Agawam was claymed by the Court (though by occasion of some private speach &c) to belong to us ; and it was then agreed by the Court, and yielded unto by their commissioners that so much of the ryver of Conectecot as should fall wth the line of or patent should continew within our jurisdiction (and it was then taken for granted that Springfeild would fall to us without question) and those articles had then beene fully agreed on betweene the Court and their commission's, had there not beene some question about them granting us free passage up the river, in regard of the lords' interest (as they alledged).
It is now hearby ordered, that Willi: Pinchen. gent, for this yeare shall hear- by have full power and authority to govern the inhabitants at Springfeild ; and to heare and determine all causes and offenses, both civill and criminall, that reach uot to life, limbs or banishment according to the lawes heare established, etc.
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SPRINGFIELD, 1636-1886.
This decree stood practically undisputed, but it left the question of river commerce open as a fruitful source of further contention. During the two years subsequent to Springfield's declaration of in- dependence from Connecticut, it had little connection with the Bay. Its position had been unique ; it was not included in any tax-rates levied at Boston, and was not represented at the General Court by deputies or by the presence of a magistrate. Mr. Pynchon was not elected an assistant until 1643, and there is no evidence that he at- tended court even that year. Springfield did not figure in the official list of towns included in the four shires of Massachusetts.
Mr. Pynchon continued to be annually reelected an assistant from 1643 until the troublons times of 1650. Mr. Pynchon was also regularly chosen magistrate, as appears by this vote, passed in September, 1643 : -
Commission was granted Mr. Willi: Pincheon, gent., for this year ensning, & till ye Co't take further order, that hearby hee shall have full power to govine, according to former order in 1641, onely to try causes by a jury of 6 men, if 12 cannot conveniently bee had.
Mr. Pynchon had not abandoned the beaver trade. He paid a license to the General Court for special trading privileges. One would say there had been some discussion about the amount of the license from this order at the September session of 1643 at Boston : " Mr. Pinchen is ordered to pay for his beaver trade from the time of the runing of the line." This evidently refers to the line between the two colonies, which was shortly after the order of 1641.
For some reason still unexplained, it was not until the latter part of 1647 that Springfield was included in any of the official lists of Massachusetts towns, and this, curiously enough, was for brands on horses for each town, "ordered to be set upon one of ye nere q'trs." There were five towns in the colony then beginning with " S," and the Springfield brand was a monogram composed of a small " s" and " p."
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SPRINGFIELD, 1636-1886.
Mr. Pynchon's influence over the local Indians was never lost, although he did not have an exalted idea of the stability of the savage. In a letter to Governor Winthrop about this time, he says : -
My advise is that neather you nor the river [Connectient] should do anything else but use dilatory meanes, for I perceive the nature of the Indians is uppon every like occasion to be much provoked with the desyer of revenge, but if meanes of delay be used but a while, the edge of their revengeful desyer will soon be cooled. I perceive they are carefull of this, not to begin first with the English, but they make account, if the English begin first with them, to doe great matters.
Thanks to Mr. Pynchon's sagacity, the Indian portion of our narrative is uneventful for some years. The relations of the Con- nectient towns with the savages were not so assuring at this time. A short time before this letter of Mr. Pynchon, the General Court at Hartford (September, 1642) began an enactment with the words, " Forasmuch as the Indians growe insolent and combyne themselves togather."
During the years 1640-43 a dozen or more new men arrived at Springfield, the most notable of whom being Deacon Samuel Chapin and Elizur Holyoke. There were also in this list Thomas Cooper, Rowland and Thomas Stebbins, and William Warriner. Samuel Chapin became very prominent both in town and church. A man of affairs and a typical Puritan, he was frequently made select- man, held positions of trust, and was the founder of a line of deacons running even to our day. Thomas Cooper also was a useful man, a good fighter, and was held in great esteem in this valley. His personal influence with the natives was great, and it was his over-confidence in their fidelity to Springfield which eventually cost him his life. Elizur Holyoke was a young man, but he soon developed the sterling qualities that have been transmitted to a family of great importance in New England.
The second immigration to Springfield during this period was the
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SPRINGFIELD, 1636-1886.
determining event in our plantation history. The first arrivals out- side of Mr. Pyncheon's immediate family and personal friends were ignorant and adventurous. Both John Cable and John Burr, as we have seen, soon gave up the struggle and drifted down the river, and new blood was an imperative necessity.
This period was full of the smaller complications of pioneer life, and was, upon the whole, anything but propitious. It is recorded in February, 1640, that Goody Gregory, the wife of Henry Gregory, who had only been connected with the settlement about a year, was accused by John Woodcock of " swearing before God I could break thy head." She did not attempt any defence, and was fined 12d., in default of which she was to sit three hours in the stocks. The fine was much below the amount prescribed in the colonial laws for this offenee. One of the new arrivals, Samuel Hubbard, was licensed to keep an ordinary, the vote being passed in town meeting. He was also commissioned to " lay out all lotts " in the plantation. John Leonard ( March, 1640) was appointed surveyor to "See ye high wayes cleered and kept in repayer of all stubbs sawpitts or tymber." Henry Smith and Thomas Mirrick were given power (April, 1640) " to restrayne ye Indians from breaking up any new grownde or from planting any yt was broaken up ye last yeare, alsoe for ye swampe that is in ye neck they are to pitch up stakes yt soe ye Indians may be limited & restrayned from enlarg- ing y"selves in yt swamp. Mr. Moxon is desired to joyne with you in this acte." The importance of the marsh was further magnified by the opening of a highway in the spring of 1640 across " ye hessekey meddowe betwixt Richard Everits Lott & yt wch was Thomas Woodford Lott the way to be 2 rod in bredth." This, we take it, was State street. It had been voted, in 1638, that land for a highway be reserved "out of the Marish ground of Thomas Woodford's Lott."
The provision about canoe trees was broadened in 1640 by an order that none should be sold to parties outside the plantation. In
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SPRINGFIELD, 1636-1886.
December, we find that "There is leave granted to Mr. Ilolly- oke, William Warrener & Henry Burt to seeke out for yr use each of them a Cannoe Tree." Warriner made bad use of this permit, and was subsequently fined for selling his eanoe. In 1641 orders were passed requiring fire ladders with " 16 rungs or steps at least " at each house, and against carrying fire uncovered through the streets. It was during this year that the irrepressible John Wood- cock scored a nominal victory over Henry Gregory in two suits for slander about some hogs, the damages being 40s. and costs. Upon hearing the award Gregory was very indignant at the figures, and exclaimed : " I marvel with what conscience the jury can give such damages ; seeinge in the case of John Searles I had of him but twenty shillings for three slanders." Mr. Moxon interfered, charg- ing Gregory to "take heed ! take heed!" This case was tried before a jury of six, with Mr. Pynchon as magistrate; and in a community where the means of diversion were few, Pynchon's room probably contained a goodly number of absorbed spectators. The informality which permitted the interference of the minister to pro- tect judge and jury from the outburst of an angry suitor-at-law is only equalled in interest to us by the effect of the admonition upon the offender. He ceased complaining that the market value of scandals had gone up. and humbly acknowledged his fault.
Running along for some years appear evidences of a close attention to business and labor. On the part of the town wages were re- peatedly changed to meet the conditions. In 1642 we find that -
It is ordered by ye Joynt consent of ye Inhabitants of ye Plantation for ye orderinge of Sayers wages that workmen of yt nature shall sawe henceforth at 3s Sd per for boards & 4s od p for slitworke, ye tymber to be brought home to ye pit hewen & made ready & if ye sd workmen shall sawe tymber & sell ye boards they shall not exceed ye price of Gs 6d p pvided yt if ye Pit be made within y space of distance yt is betwixt Mr Pynchon's house & Sam: Wrights it shall be accounted as in ye towne.
A little later is this provision : -
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SPRINGFIELD, 1636-1886.
Whereas ther was a clawse in a former order dated December 24, 1641, alow- inge husbandmen or ordinary laborers for 4 months in ye winter pt of ye yeare 18d p day it is therefore ys day above so ordered by ye generall voate yt all such husbandman or laborers shall not exceede 16d p day for tyme to come & to worke 8 howers as in ye former order expressed.
These town acts remind one of the MeFingal conplet : -
.. Or triumphs at town meeting made On passing votes to regulate trade."
One of the first buildings put up after the pioneers had been housed was a saw-mill on Mill river, a temporary bridge being thrown across the stream. In the spring of 1643 this was substi- tuted for a more substantial one. The order was passed at the March meeting : -
It is ordered that there shall be a bridge & high way made to ye mill for yo passadge of Carts & Cattell those ye were wantinge in ye worke of ye former bridge to make it up in ye & then to goe through ye towne every man his day & what is done by every man to be kept on account & to be made even when they make ye way over ve meddowe.
In January, 1642, a second division of planting-ground was decreed. The apportionments . p'vided that those yt have broaken up ground there shall have allowance for it as 2 indifferent men shall Judge equall. Single persons are to have 8 rod in bredth maryed psons 10 rod in bredth, bigger familys 12 rod to begin upward at ye edge of ye hill" (Chestnut street). Here is the list : -
Rod Bredth
John Woodeock
Wid: Searle 10
Robrt Ashly 08
John Deeble 08
Rowl: Stebbines 10
Tho: Stebbines
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SPRINGFIELD, 1636-1886.
Rod bredth.
Sam: Hubbard
10
Tho: Mirack
10
Sam: Wright
10
Hen: Burt
12
Hen: Smith
20 10 of wch is for Mr. Moxon
Will : Warener
10
Rich: Sikes
10
Wid: Horton
10
John Leonard
10
Hen: Grigory
8
Eliz: Hollyoke
10
One year later (Jan. 26, 1643), Henry Smith, Elizur Holyoke, Henry Burt, Samuel Chapin, Richard Sikes, and Thomas Mirrick were chosen to lay out the lands, "both of upland and meddowe on ye other side of ye greate river where ye Indians live and all ye meddowe on Aggawam soe far as shall amount to an hundred & fifty acres, alottinge to every p'sent Inhabitant his p"portion of these meddowe grounds and in ye nplande for 30 familyes of plantinge ground to be distributed to every pson his pportionable quantity as shall be by ye chosen psons thought sutable to ye psons & estates of ye psent Inhabitants, soe farr as ye discresion of ye sd psons shall lead ym." It was also voted " ye foresd 6 men shall see Mr. Pynchon satisfyd for ye purchas of ye lands of ye Plantation before any man is possessed of them." This allotment was finally com- pleted and reported to the town April 6, 1643. The record reads : -
A list of ye Alotments of planting lotts as they were cast wth ye order how men doe fall, beginninge at ve ends of ye 80 rod lotts yt face to ye greate River Mr. Moxon is to have ye first by consent of ye Plantation.
Acres.
Mr Moxon 18
Tho: Cooper
Tho: Stebbins 73
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SPRINGFIELD, 1636-1886.
Acres.
2 lott
Tho: Stebbins
Good Bridgman
11
Sam: Chapen
103
Rich Sikes 08
Rowl: Stebbins 11
2 lott
Sam Hubbard
05
Eli: Hollyok
34
Hen: Burt
153
Mr Pynchon
80
Robt Ashly
17
Jno Leonard 09
Sam: Hubbard
103
Will: Warener
83
Alex: Edwards
11
Hen: Smith
453
Tho: Mirack
123
Jon Dover
05
Sam: Wright
134
Jno Dechle
6%
Roger Prichard
05
This allotment was soon . disanulled agayne." One cause of trouble may have been the taking into consideration the estates and importance of the inhabitants in apportioning these lands. The wonder is that this rule worked at all. There are certain expressions occurring a little later, such as, " as the lotts doe fall," which lead to the belief that the planters finally " drew cuts," as the boys say, for their land ; but certainly in this year the rule was .. Unto him that hath shall be given." On the page following the above-given list are two apportionments which seem to have stood the test of the ages. They are as follows : --
Lots casts for meddow grownd on Agawam side where is 2 pts of ye quantity to be divided.
I
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SPRINGFIELD, 1636-1886.
Acres.
Mr Moxon
8
Ell: Holyoke
14
Mr Pynchon 32
(alowance 8 acres)
Will Warener
02 2 acres
2 lot Sam: Ilubbard 01
Rich Sikes
01
Hen Smith
17
Sam: Wright
23
Tho: Mirack
04
Rowl: Stebbins
024
2 lot Th: Stebbins
013
Jno. Dober
01
J: Bridgman 03
Alex: Edwards 03
Jno: Deeble 01
Jno: Leonard
02
Hen: Burt
02
Sam: Chapen
01
Ro: Ashly 043
Tho: Cooper 02
Tho: Stebins 01
Sam: Hubbard
02
108
Lotts on ye other side of ve greate river for meddow :
Acres.
Rowl: Stebbins 13
Rich: Sikes 1
Will: Warener 1
Robt: Ashly
24
Mr Pynchon
165
Tho: Cooper 01
Hen: Burt 014
Alex: Edwards 013
Sam: Hubbard 2 lot 00₺
Tho: Stebbins 2 lot 00
John Leonard 014
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SPRINGFIELD, 1636-1886.
Acres.
Sam: Hubbard
01
Hen: Smith
09
J: Bridgman
023
Jno: Deeble
01
Tho: Mirack
013
Jno. Dober
003
Sam: Wright
014
Tho: Stebbins
00%
Ell: Holyoke
07
Sam: Chapen
005
Mr Moxon
04
-
574
The year 1640 closed with Springfield's first recorded marriage, the new arrival, Elizur Ilolyoke, leading to the altar Mary Pynchon, daughter of William Pynchon. Holyoke was a man of no ordinary force of character, and the event must have made an impression upon the swains of the valley. Within a few months after his arrival he had won the most lovely maiden of her day, if tradition is accepted, and the match carried with it sundry considerations of a worldly nature. Holyoke was about twenty-two years of age. He had been born near . Tamworth Tower and town," in Warwickshire. Eng., and had come to New England with his father, Edward Holyoke. His marriage was followed by the assignment of a very desirable lot (between Worthington and Bridge streets). His father-in-law's large lot bounded him on the north, and Henry Smith, who had married Ann Pynchon before the settlement of Springfield, was on the south. Holyoke also received, according to custom, allotments of meadow and upland opposite his lot on the east side of Main street, as well as land on the west side of the Connecticut, and planting-grounds elsewhere. It was a happy event, and hundreds of descendants in America hold in reverence the Elizur and Mary Holyoke, who, in a dark hour of Springfield's history, refused to return to England and
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SPRINGFIELD, 1636-1886.
give up the struggle for mastery in this valley. Their bones now rest in our beautiful cemetery. It is well written upon Mary Holyoke's tombstone : -
Shee yt lyes heere was while she stood A very glory of womanhood.
CHAPTER V.
1644-1645.
The First Board of Selectmen. - Centralization. - Mr. Moxon's Ministry. - The First Meeting-House. - A Long Sermon. - A Tax-List. - Fencing House-Lots. - The " Longe Meddowe." - Refusal to make Fences. - Planting-Grounds on the West Side. - Social Caste. - Marriages of Hugh Parsons and of John Pynchon.
THE provisional and experimental elements begin to give way to a certain regularity in the methods of government. In September, 1644, the town-meeting took the important step of intrusting the management of affairs to a committee. For eight years the town had been governed without selectmen.
The names of the first board were : Henry Smith, Thomas Cooper, Samuel Chapin, Richard Sikes, and Henry Burt. These townsmen were given power for one year to " prevent anything they shall judge to be to ye damage of ye Towne, or to order anything they shall judge to be for ye good of ye town : & in these affairs they shall have power for a yeers space ; " to these five or any three of them was given power to " serv complaintes, to Arbitrate controversies, to lay out high waves, to make Bridges, to repayer High waies, espe- cially to order ye making of ye way over ye Marshie meddow, to se to ye scowering ye ditches, & to ye killing of wolves. & to ye training of ye children in some good caling, or any other thing they shall judge to be ye p'fitt of ye Towne."
The new selectmen, unless we except Henry Smith, were compara- tively young and poor, so far as having any estate, independent of the lands voted them by the town, was concerned. The placing of so much discretionary power in the hands of any set of men shows the working of a tendency that grew rapidly and naturally out of the prin-
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SPRINGFIELD, 1636-1886.
ciples of democracy, under the most favorable conditions known in history. The masses may protest against centralizing the functions of government : but when they assume those functions themselves, the very first tendency that is developed is this self-same drift toward the centre.
Town rates in 1645 were based upon house-lots only. The town met the last Thursday in each month, and notices of special meetings given on lecture day were considered legal warnings. The penalty for absence, or for leaving town-meetings during the session withont a permit, was " halfe a bushell of Indian corne for every such defect." Numberless instances of caution on the part of these primitive publicists abound in the record-books. Every householder was re- quired to " carefully attend ye sweepinge of his chimney once every month for ye winter tyme, and once in two months in ye summer tyme." If a man neglected this injunction. the town swept the chimney for hun at his expense.
Mr. Moxon's ministry had proved a great success. Not that he was notably a man of parts, but he seemed to have just the elements which kept in check the uneasy spirits that were inevitably drawn into adventuresome enterprises of this sort. He was educated at Cam- bridge University. Eng., graduating from Sidney College in 1623, and he was at Dorchester for a while before moving to Springfield.
There is a passage in a letter from Mr. Pynchon to Governor Win- throp, written in 1644, that has a genuine flavor of devout faith in the cause of the gospel, which is added here the more readily because the concerns of business and trade have been connected so continu- ously with Pynchon's name, that one might fancy that his grand mo- tive in coming to New England was simply to pluck plums of gold. He says : " I praise God we are all in good health & in peace in our plantation ; & the Lord hath added some 3 or 4 yonge men out of the River, that are godly, to us lately : & the Lord has greately blessed Mr. Moxon's ministry, to the conversion of many soules that are lately added to our church. & hetherto the Lord hath preserved
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SPRINGFIELD, 1636-1886.
us in peace from enimies." Mr. Pynchon, in simple faith, waited for the grace of God to have its perfect work npon such of his associates as were not members of the church ; we know how they of the Bay were continually giving the divine agency an impetus by way of punishments visited upon those not disposed to hasten into the fold. The Boston authorities, in their attempt to stamp out heresy by clos- ing the mouth of Error, had only invited an ill-feeling which often came out at the public meetings, and sometimes found expression in harsh words against the ministers themselves. For these offences a fine was imposed, and upon a repetition of the same it was decreed that the offender should stand " two howers openly upon a blocke of fower foote high on a lecture day, with a paper fixed on his breast with this : A WANTON GOSPELLER, written in capitall letters, yt others may feare & be ashamed of breaking out into the like wickedness." This law was over Springfield like other Massachusetts towns, but it is not known that the plantation took advantage of its privileges.
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