USA > Massachusetts > Berkshire County > Stockbridge > Stockbridge, 1739-1939; a chronicle > Part 11
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Nevertheless even the Williamses and their friends were gradually to learn that times were changing. In Stockbridge the domination of the Hill was challenged. The new people who had moved to the Plain were inclined to be intractable. Building their own houses, wresting their living from the soil," had disciplined them to self-reliance, and liberty was as taken for granted as the air they breathed. So long as King George was a faint, mythical figure, they accepted him as part of their universe. However, when they had to pay him a percentage
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every time they indulged in the luxury of white sugar, when molasses went higher, and when he must make a profit on every legal document they signed, he took tangible form and became an uncomfortable intrusion in their lives.
They were busy enough paying their own debts after the French and Indian War. Massachusetts had been taxed more than twice as much as the other colonies. Why should she be taxed for England's debts besides? It was all very well for the Williamses and the Dwights, who had money and held all the good positions, to preach subordination. Through the meager pages of the papers that reached them from Spring- field, the Plain put out tentacles to hear what Sam Adams was saying. The underground sympathy of class sharpened their ears for the reactions of what their presiding Tories called "the popular mob."
Even as early as 1764, Berkshire had been conscious of the rise of the popular party. Dr. West, married to a Williams, may have had a conservative slant, but in Pittsfield the vocifer- ous Thomas Allen every Sabbath preached a mixture of athletic Christianity and rebellious patriotism. In Sheffield, John Ashley's constituents had severely criticized him for being one of the seventeen rescinders who voted to withdraw the circular letter appealing to the other colonies for aid against English aggression. When the Stamp Act was enforced, Colonel William Williams, who could be trusted to know which way the wind was blowing, was too ill to hold the Probate Court at Pittsfield. Afterwards he wrote to Elijah Dwight in Great Barrington that his state of health had prevented him from attending to any kind of business; but "the Stamp Act being repealed and being some better" he was miraculously able once more to announce the sitting of the court in Stockbridge. No doubt he advised his kinsman Elijah not to complain too loudly about the fact that Boston
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merchants had put an embargo upon the sale of potash. There was no knowing how high the tide of popular resentment might rise. The Whig, or popular, party was gaining ground every day.
There was one angle of the question, however, upon which everyone agreed. A common fear as well as indignation drew Hill and Plain together-the fear that Canada would be given back to France and the old insecurity return.
Made up of varying shades of public opinion, the Stock- bridge Congress was a patchwork quilt which emergency had pieced together. Not only the principal towns of the county, but the small villages-among them Richmond, Egremont, Alford, Hancock, Becket, New Marlborough and Tyringham -had all sent delegates.
When Dr. West opened the proceedings with prayer, he spoke rapidly and his voice trembled with emotion. On hard benches, or grouped together in corners, his listeners bowed their heads; some of them wholly absorbed in commending themselves to God; some of them letting their minds wander to the possible consequences of the step they were taking. John Ashley of Sheffield, who had been chosen president of the Congress, was thankful that people seemed to have for- gotten all about that unfortunate rescinding affair. Like his friend William Williams, he had managed to tightrope rather skillfully through the past stormy years and at the time of the Congress he could proclaim himself loudly an ardent Whig. Timothy Edwards, the first of the Stockbridge delegates to the convention, may have foreseen the sacrifices he was to be called upon to make. To date he had been a prosperous merchant and had numbered sometimes as many as forty or fifty laborers on his place. He traded his merchandise for wheat which he sold elsewhere at a good price. Now, with a possible war in the offing, who knew what might happen to the currency?
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Jahleel Woodbridge, Timothy's nephew, also a delegate from Stockbridge, reluctant as he had doubtless been to sub- scribe to any of the tenets of the liberal party, considered that since Britain had now actually abrogated the Province Charter and ordained that all executives and military officers should be appointed by the Governor, things had definitely gone too far. Dr. Erastus Sergeant, another delegate, allowed his thoughts to wander far afield. He was probably thinking of some medical duty he had had to postpone, for he per- formed all major operations for thirty miles around.
The clerk of the Congress was a man from Sheffield named Theodore Sedgwick, who was just beginning to make his way in the world. His family had fallen upon evil times and he had determined to retrieve their fortunes. He had studied law under Mark Hopkins, a brother of Samuel, and one of the few lawyers the state boasted. Although Sedgwick was innately conservative, he resented high-handedness of any kind, and for the moment threw his weight on the popular side.
After proclaiming a day of fast to be celebrated on July 14th, the assembly proceeded to draw up its protest:
"Whereas the Parliament of Great Britain have of late undertaken to give and grant away our money without our knowledge or consent; and in order to compel us to a servile submission to the above measures, have proceeded to block up the harbor of Boston; we do, solemnly and in good faith, covenant and engage with each other :-
"I .- That we will not import, purchase or consume, or suffer any person by, or for, us to import, purchase, or consume in any manner whatever, any goods, wares, or merchandise, which shall arrive in America from Great Britain from and after the 1st day of October, 1774, or such other time as shall be agreed upon by the American Congress, nor any goods which shall be ordered from thence, after this day, until our chartered and constitutional rights shall be restored.
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"II .- We do further covenant and agree that we will observe the most strict obedience to all constitutional laws, and authority, and will at all times exert ourselves to the utmost for the discouragement of all licentiousness and sup- pression of all mobs and riots.
*
"IV .- As a strict and proper adherence to the present agreement will, if not seasonably provided against, involve us in many difficulties and inconveniences; we do promise and agree that we will take the most prudent care for the raising and preserving sheep for the manufacturing of all such cloths as shall be most useful and necessary; for the raising of flax and manufacturing of linens. Further, that we will by every prudent method, endeavor to guard against all those inconveniences which may otherwise arise from the foregoing agreement. * *
* * *
"VI .- That if this or a similar covenant shall after the first day of August next be offered to any trader or shop keeper in this county, and he or they shall refuse to sign the - same, for the space of forty-eight hours, that we will not, from henceforth, purchase any article of British manufac- ture from him or them, until such time as he or they shall sign this or a similar covenant."
These resolutions were unanimously adopted and shortly afterwards Timothy Edwards, upon whose judgment every- one depended, together with Erastus Sergeant, Dr. Lemuel Barnard and Deacon James Easton, framed an agreement for the non-consumption of British goods, to be sent to the dif- ferent towns in the county. The resolutions above quoted and the league formed were the first of their kind in Massachusetts and among the first in the colonies, although they were shortly followed by many others. From now on, events throughout the state and nation followed each other with accelerated inevitability. According to one of the Boston papers, "the whole country was inspired by one soul and that a vigorous and determined one."
Berkshire was planning an even more portentous step. Just before the Court of Common Pleas, acting under the new
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British regulation, was to have met, a petition was preferred, "asking the Honorable Court not to transact any business that year." Then the petition "humbly sheweth:
"That whereas two late acts of the British Parliament for superseding the charter of the Province, and vacating some of the principles and invaluable privileges and fran- chises therein contained, have passed the royal assent, and have been published in the Boston paper, that our obedience be yielded to them.
"We view it of the greatest importance to the well-being of this Province, that the people of it utterly refuse the least submission to the said acts
"In order in the safest way to avoid this threatening calamity, it is, in our opinion, highly necessary that no business be transacted in the law, but that the courts of justice immediately cease, and that the people of this Province fall into a state of nature until our grievances are fully redressed by a final repeal of these injurious, oppres- sive, and unconstitutional acts."
Just how long this "state of nature" was going to exist no one at that time could possibly foresee.
Notwithstanding the petition, the court decided to meet as usual. When the judges reached Great Barrington, however, they found a crowd of 1,500 people awaiting them. It was a well-ordered crowd enough, but it managed to take up all the space in the courtroom and to fill even the judge's seat. Elijah Williams came forward with all his native arrogance. The position of High Sheriff became him, and he cut an imposing figure as he called, "Make way for the Court." He was told, however, that the people "knew no court or any other establishment than the ancient laws and customs of the country," and what was more, they would not give way to any other authority, upon any other terms. The Williams world, the world of early Berkshire, was turning upside down. Angry as he must have been, Elijah had to consent to parley with the crowd and he told them that the court would main- tain business under the old laws as the new acts had not
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yet been received. The silent, unarmed crowd remained unimpressed. They knew that the judges' commissions were already revocable at the pleasure of the Governor and that the new acts might be put into execution at any minute. They had left their farms and their businesses at considerable trouble to themselves and they were determined to have their way.
Elijah no doubt would have been glad to use strong-arm methods, but what could a handful of ponderously arrayed officials do against 1,500 men? The judges quickly realized that the game was up. As they walked slowly out with as much dignity as possible, order was maintained. Only a rowdy element upon the outskirts could not bear to go away without a fight. They carried off David Ingersoll, "a particu- larly obnoxious" Tory, and treated him with the roughness they felt he deserved.
Berkshire's action in obstructing the courts had not gone unnoticed. "A flame sprang up at the extremity of the Province," wrote Governor Gage to England. "The popular rage is very high in Berkshire and makes its way rapidly to the east." A little later he wrote, "Civil government is near its end, the Courts of Justice expiring one after the other."
By October, the first Provincial Congress had met at Concord, to which Thomas Williams went as delegate from Stockbridge and West Stockbridge. The condition of the army was inquired into and committees formed to ascertain the population, commerce and manufactures of each town. The first Provincial Congress was followed by two others. Samuel Brown was Stockbridge's representative to the second and Timothy Edwards and Jahleel Woodbridge to the third. Committees of correspondence were set up in every town. At first these were supposed merely to communicate with the other towns on matters of war and government, but as the years went on they became the real power of the county. Timothy Edwards complained to Boston of their arrogance
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and Theodore Sedgwick considered them unduly radical, but from this impartial distance, they seem to have been efficient guardians, trained by habits of self-dependence, during a stormy time.
Stockbridge's patriotism was not restricted to holding congresses. Two companies of minutemen were raised by voluntary enlistment. So many young men sent in their names that there were not enough arms to go around and the town had to borrow £20 for their purchase and voted £50 to buy tents. Stockbridge youth drilled up and down the village green, no doubt full of hope that Britain would continue in its course so that all these preparations would not be in vain.
These hopes were not destined to disappointment, and the news of April 19, 1775, must have come almost as a relief. Orders had arrived from over the seas to arrest Adams and Hancock, and the British troops which had been sent to seize them at Lexington met a line of fifty minutemen who refused to disperse upon command. "If they mean to have a war, let it begin here," exclaimed Captain Parker. This was at daybreak of a Wednesday and news of the ensuing battle reached Stockbridge on the following Friday.
To arrive too late seems to have been Stockbridge's fate, if not its fault, throughout the Revolution. As quickly as possible on Saturday, April 22, the Berkshire regiments were called. Muskets were whipped out and all uniforms available put on. The only certain piece of news which had reached the soldiers was that an expedition had been sent to Lexing- ton, so that when they finally started out along the road to Tyringham they did not know what their fate might be. When they reached the end of their journey, Lexington and Concord were already history and the British army had been driven back into Boston, which was in a state of siege.
The sight of 16,000 men, similarly recruited from towns and villages, settling down before the state's capital, must
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have been an invigorating one. Like streams gathering to the sea, the American army was gaining force. Together, beyond the barrier of separating hills and rivers, the colonists realized how many of themselves there were. Vermont's homespun hero, John Stark, was already in Cambridge, with his first New Hampshire company. Upon hearing the news of Lexington, the veteran, Israel Putnam, ploughing his model farm at Pomfret, had rushed to Cambridge, and ordered his minutemen to follow. From Connecticut came Benedict Arnold, heading sixty governor's guards and pick- ing up recruits along the way, with a characteristic flourish, while easy-going Governor Gage was surprised at the number of improvised besiegers who had sprung up from every quarter to hem him in.
At Boston, the two Berkshire regiments were reorganized and separated. That of Colonel Patterson, the tall, sedate officer from Lenox, went to Cambridge and took its place in the great semicircle enclosing Gage from Jamaica Plain to Charlestown Neck. Soon, however, they were set to work building a fort in Charlestown, which was later to protect the rear of the Americans in the Battle of Bunker Hill. In this action Stockbridge's fate again overtook it, for Patterson's was one of the three regiments held in reserve in Cambridge,
and sent to relieve the Americans too late. It received a consolation prize, however, when the newly appointed Amer- ican Commander-in-Chief, George Washington, arrived upon the scene and praised Patterson's men for briskly repulsing a marauding party at Lechmere, and thereby cutting their military teeth.
The other regiment under Colonel Fellowes dug in at Roxbury. It seems to have played a less picturesque part, both now and later, than Colonel Patterson's. The months dragged, although much was happening around them, and Generals Howe and Burgoyne had come to Gage's aid. It
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was not until nearly a year from the time they had set out from Stockbridge, that Fellowes's regiment helped Wash- ington besiege Boston from Dorchester Heights, by which maneuver he forced the British out of the town.
During this time, the siege had not been to everyone's liking, and some of the more adventurous spirits in the Berkshire regiments, attracted doubtless by the brilliant audacity of Benedict Arnold, had enlisted to go with him to Quebec. From Patterson's regiment Jared and Elkanah Bishop and Thomas Williams, of Stockbridge, volunteered and some of Fellowes's men also joined their ranks. The long march up the Kennebec River was enough to take the starch out of anyone. As the regiments cut their way through the wilderness, their shoes were torn to ribbons. There was scarcely any food, and Williams was one of the men who, under Lieutenant Colonel Enos, turned back to avoid star- vation. Enos was later court-martialed for his retreat but succeeded in acquitting himself honorably. The Bishops meanwhile kept on, although Jared's only regular food for a fortnight was one sea biscuit. When finally the weariness of the march was ended and Arnold's battered army climbed the Heights of Abraham and challenged the garrison either to surrender or come out and fight, the climax of intrepidity had been reached. The Bishops were never to forget the day when they had come so near to capturing Quebec.
Back in Boston, Fellowes's regiment and a part of Patter- son's which had not gone to Canada, as well as that which had come back, were ordered to New York. When they arrived, the fate of Patterson's was once more a march to Canada, and once more defeat. On their way up, Thomas Williams, now a lieutenant colonel, died at Skenesborough. Before the rest reached Montreal, they heard that, although Mont- gomery had captured that city, Arnold had failed at Quebec.
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He was now defending the American station at the Cedars, where reinforcements were rushed to his aid.
The news the Stockbridge soldiers wrote home was depressing enough. Arnold was forced to surrender at the Cedars, ingloriously, it was said, despite the fanfare of his personality. No one could hope that the Americans would conquer Canada, when even he had been forced to capitulate. Letters may have mentioned the web of intrigue which already was weaving itself about the American command, the feud beginning between Arnold and John Brown, the hero of Pittsfield, and Arnold's ambitious schemes. More likely they simply stated that the regiment was ordered to New- town, Pennsylvania, where they were to join Washington. As the Berkshire men sailed down the Hudson, the thought that their hills were still menaced by British and Indians was galling to their souls.
A discouraged nucleus showed up at Newtown. Only 200 of the 600 men who had originally set out for Canada had lived through the barrage of disease and starvation whose casualties were far heavier than those of battle. Fellowes's men were there to greet them and had hardly better news to tell. They had been caught in the panic at Kips Bay, had skillfully evacuated New York at the approach of Lord Howe (Elnathan Curtis all the time exclaiming, "This is hot work -hot work"), had been defeated at White Plains, and fol- lowed Washington in his retreat through New Jersey, that retreat which, by the ingenuity of its commander, was somehow robbed of despair.
Henry W. Dwight, son of Abigail and the Brigadier, was clerk to General Fellowes. When not commenting upon American achievement he would note in his diary, "Nothing remarkable." Mark Hopkins was taken sick on the field at White Plains and carried to safety by his erstwhile pupil, Theodore Sedgwick. Perhaps he and Elnathan Curtis met
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at the time, unconscious of their common grandson, the great Mark Hopkins, yet unborn.
The war had been going on for over a year and except for the conquest of Ticonderoga and the evacuation of Boston, the Americans could point to little military success. Yet there was plenty more action for Berkshire regiments. Some of them followed Washington across the Delaware and were with him when he surprised Lord Howe at Trenton on Christmas morning; some of them were with him at Valley Forge. Later on, Samuel Brewer led a company against Ticonderoga, and Gates at Saratoga had his assignment as well.
Meanwhile things at home had not stood still. Since the very beginning of the war, the Indian note had sounded. The friendship between Indians and whites, founded upon John Sergeant's experiment, blossomed again, forced in the hothouse of emergency. In 1774, the Indians under Jehoia- kin Metoxin had enlisted as minutemen. The Provincial Congress, quickly realizing the asset of Indian sympathy, had notified them, at a good deal of pains to make themselves clear, that the Americans had been forced to arm in self- defense, with the object of protecting their rights and privileges, which had been invaded, and their property which had been confiscated. At the same time a blanket and some ribbons had been voted for each Indian as a present-not to say a bribe.
After a council of two days, Solomon Uhhaunhauwaumut, chief sachem, answered, summing up the position of his tribe: "Brothers, you remember when you first came over the great water I was great and you was little, very small. I then took you in for a friend and kept you in my arms so no one would injure you. Since then we have been friends. There has never been any quarrel between us, but now our con- ditions are changed. You have become great and tall, you
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reach to the clouds and you are seeing all around the world, and I am very small, very little, I am not so high as your heel. Now you take care of me and I look to you for protection." Was there a hint of irony behind these touching words?
Solomon went on to say that they really had never under- stood the nature of the quarrel between America and England, but they were perfectly willing to do anything they could to help. He was personally inclined to think that he could accomplish more by "taking a run to the westward and feel the mind of my Indian brethren, the Six Nations and know how they stand, whether they are on your side or for your enemies." The Indians were quite sure the Mohawks would listen to them, as they had in the past, and they thought consulting them wiser than "marching off imme- diately for Boston," which, however, they did not absolutely refuse to do.
The Provincial Congress in reply undertook to explain the political situation in words of one syllable. "We have now made our hatchets and all our instruments of war sharp and bright. All the chief councillors who live on this side of the big water are sitting in the grand council house at Philadel- phia." It advised the Indians to do whatever seemed best to them, at the same time insidiously suggesting that if "some of your young men should have a mind to see what we are ... doing here, let them come down and tarry among our warriors."
Indian scruples were of no more avail during the Revolu- tion than at any other time, and it is not surprising to learn that early in the war a full company, made up of all the fighting men of the tribe, had enlisted under Abraham Nimham. Another story goes that Captain Goodrich and Charles DeBell asked permission to form two companies of Indians who, however, enlisted with one stipulation-that if they were to fight they must do it in their own Indian way.
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They brought their bows and arrows, their wives and children with them, and added their wigwams to the armed ring encircling Governor Gage. Some even went with Arnold to Canada and some to New Jersey with Washington. They were known to fight well, if savagely, and the Commissioners of Indian affairs considered them good military allies, although the Continental Congress demurred for some time before using them. However, as time went on and the war proved harder to win than was at first expected, Washington wrote to Timothy Edwards that Congress had changed its mind and was anxious to have Indian help as soon as possible.
Early in the struggle, it was apparent, even to Indian intelligence, that the old sin of drunkenness was encouraged by wartime conditions. In a petition to the Provincial Congress the Stockbridges admitted that they were impro- vident and asked that some measure be devised which would prevent their getting too much "strong drink." They wanted Timothy Edwards and Jahleel Woodbridge to dole out their wages as the most hopeful means of insuring sobriety.
The part the Indians took in the Revolution bears a horrid similarity to their part everywhere else. Abraham Nimham's company was hacked to pieces at White Plains, and a little later he was killed and his body devoured by dogs. A pathetic petition to John Sergeant from thirty-two Indians at this time asked for blankets, coats, and money which were owed them. Loyal and brave the savages had been, fighting perhaps too well. At one time George Washington thought they might be used as scouts but they were eventually dis- charged because they were so hard to keep in order. Direct primitive methods burst so easily through the thin veneer of white men's fighting civilities.
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