USA > Massachusetts > Hampshire County > Northampton > The Northampton book; chapters from 300 years in the life of a New England town, 1654-1954 > Part 29
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That water supply in a general way was a problem to be met 150 years ago was unexpectedly revealed in September of 1953. Before frost should impede it, an extensive and expeditious engi- neering plan was put through in the widening of the intersections at South, Main, Elm and Green Streets. In the process there was uncovered, in the center of the West and Elm Street corner, a brick cistern 12 feet deep and 18 feet in diameter, almost running over with 17,000 gallons of water. Fed by hidden springs, it prob- ably had been the central fire and water reservoir system in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Its flagstone roof, supported by four brick pillars, was so secure that it had withstood the strain of modern traffic, and high-powered steam shovels broke through only with difficulty. It is believed that it had been linked by lead pipes with the old Mansion House, that hotel of elegance which once stood at the head of Elm Street above the New Haven Canal docks.
Perhaps the most picturesque event of the year 1953 took place at a distance, at the Charlestown Navy Yard. It was the commis- sioning of U.S.S. Northampton, the first warship in our Navy especially designed and constructed to withstand atomic attack. She had been launched in 1945 at the Bethlehem Steel Yard in Quincy, Massachusetts, and christened by Mrs. Edward Lamp- ron, whose late husband had been Mayor of Northampton when the keel was laid. At the commissioning, Secretary of the Navy Anderson, Governor Herter, and Mayor Drewson spoke, wish- ing her Godspeed. A silver service expressing Northampton's pride in her was presented to the ship by the city.
In looking back over the inter-war years, World War II and the post-war portion of time, there are many indications that Northampton, old though it may be, yet had kept step and that celebrating 300 years of its history does not deal exclusively with the remoter past.
PART VI A "Supremely Likable Town"
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Immigration to Northampton
By JOHN FRANCIS MANFREDI
T' HE most striking feature of the data on the migrations of the foreign-born to Northampton was a diversity com- monly found only in the larger centers of transportation. While in the 19th century great numbers of the dispossessed of Europe came to the New World, the majority congregated in the larger centers and it was only the exceptional community of mod- erate or small size that was organized in such a fashion that the immigrant could be absorbed economically, except for mining towns and other special cases. While there was in Northampton evidence of the apparently inevitable hostility toward and dis- crimination against the immigrant, it was relatively speaking slight. There was none of the extreme friction that was character- istic of the large centers such, for instance, as the hostility that was to culminate in Boston in the eerie auto da fé of the Sacco and Vanzetti execution.
In general the spirit of the community seems to have been com- paratively tolerant in a period when what we would regard as preposterous nativist bigotries were the unquestioned sentiments of even the most liberally educated. Foremost seems to have been an unusually cosmopolitan local tradition that made for a toler- ance that was rare indeed in most communities of the size of Northampton. Secondly, the town seems during the 19th century to have experienced a chronic shortage of labor, so that economic competition with the lowest stratum of the native community, a repeatedly recognized concomitant of minority discrimination, was minimized. Thirdly, Northampton was a river town and, having from early times been in the path of a natural movement of population, it had developed the type of open-ended society which is characteristic of such towns and is relatively congenial for the migrant. Whatever the reasons, Northampton seems to have attracted migrants from early in the 19th century.
The two sources of data used here are the censuses of the
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The Northampton Book
United States which are taken every tenth year of the decade and the Massachusetts Decennial census which are taken every tenth year on the years ending in five. Some discrepancies appear between the two censuses which are unaccountable on the basis of the five-year interval, and the present writer has depended more on the data from the Massachusetts reports, for the simple reason that enumeration seems to have been less hit-or-miss than the Federal censuses. (It is only the last few Federal censuses that can be called either conscientious or expert, since formerly Cen- sus Bureau positions were assigned largely on the basis of politi- cal patronage.)
In the data which follow it should be pointed out that errors in the count of the foreign-born probably are ones of underenumer- ation. Generally speaking census reports tend to have their great- est inaccuracies in the data concerning the lowest strata of society, partly because of the often observed negligence of the enumer- ators concerning lower status people and partly because of the difficulty of eliciting accurate information from the poorly edu- cated and from foreigners. (This is not to say that these portions of the census data are necessarily inaccurate, but merely that they are the most likely to be so.)
The Federal census of 1820 shows the town of Northampton to have had 13 "foreigners not naturalized" out of 2854, while the entire county is shown to have but 16 in 26,487. By 1830, North- ampton is found to have had 43 foreign-born persons in a popu- lation of 3613. These figures are included here for their curiosity value although they do indicate that during the first quarter of the 19th century the town was still largely Yankee and the great migrations that were to change Northampton, as they were to change the nation, had barely begun.
It is when one shifts to the Massachusetts figures of 1855, that one finds the beginning of large scale foreign migrations to the town. The county in that year shows 4732 foreign-born out of a total of 35,485, but Northampton shows 1376 out of a total of 5801. There were more women among the immigrants than men -745 to 631-reflecting possibly the need for domestic servants. Yet this ratio does indicate that even by this time the immigrants were settlers rather than sojourners, as the latter type of migrants are more likely to be men than women. One notion that examina- tion of the data dispels is that all of the immigrants were Irish. The
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Immigration to Northampton
majority, 913, were Irish, but over 15 different nationalities were represented among the foreign-born in the town of that period. Unexpectedly enough 204 came from Germany and Holland, a colony which was actually to decline in size later. The only other substantial numbers were 116 from England, 80 from British America, 40 from Scotland, and I I from France, and other nationalities accounted for the remaining 12.
We now skip to the year 1875. The 1865 figures would be of rather doubtful significance as the Civil War, like all wars, made for transitory shifts in population to industrial towns that would distort the figures. By 1875, the population of the county had grown to 44,82 I and Northampton had grown to 11, 108 of whom 2817 were foreign-born. The Irish still lead among the numbers of newcomers, with 1712. The areas that are today Canada con- tributed 555 persons and England and Scotland, 378. There were still 11 from France (although not necessarily the same 11), but the numbers of the Germans and Dutch had declined to 130, only one of whom was Dutch. At this time however we find 4 listed as born in "Poland, Russia etc." One Italian appears.
For the years 1885 and 1895 we have data that are more finely broken down than previously or since. In 1885 the total popula- tion of the county had risen to about 47,500 of whom 10,500 were foreign-born (a figure which includes one colored). Northamp- ton had grown to 12,896, of whom 3354 were foreign-born. The Irish again lead with 1745 of whom 693 were male and 1052 were female, a difference which accounts for the majority of women over men in the total foreign-born population of the city. For the first time the English-Canadians are differentiated from the French-Canadians. The latter account for 767 and the former for 107 of the Canadians. The Germans were up to 177 and the Dutch were 3. Three are definitely listed as Polish, a group which may have been underenumerated as the Poles appear to have resided on the farms rather than in the areas closer to the center. All told about 30 nationalities were enumerated among the foreign-born residing in the town and they made up about a fourth to a third of its population.
By 1895 the population of the town had risen to 16,746 of whom 4180 were foreign-born. The town with about one-quarter of its population foreign had somewhat less than the state ratio of about 30 per cent but only a little more than the ratio for the
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The Northampton Book
county. The Irish had almost stopped coming in any force and their numbers remained almost constant at 1740 with the preced- ing census, when they numbered 1745. The French-Canadians were the next largest group of the foreign-born with 1074. There were 135 English-Canadians. Germans numbered 192 and Eng- lish, 347. Poles now numbered 122 and there were 49 Italian- born. There were 188 born in Russia. There is no way of telling precisely how many of these Polish- and Russian-born were of the Jewish faith. (A knowledgeable informant, Mr. Leonard Al- berts, gave this writer an estimate that there were not over 10 Jewish families in the community at that time. In 1866 there was one Jewish family in Northampton, the Cohens, and their de- scendants still live in the town. The Synagogue was not founded until 1905.) Over 20 different nationalities appear in town at that time.
By 1905 the total population of the town had reached 19,957 of whom 4942 were foreign-born with roughly the same ratio in the county (46,840 to 15,387) as in 1895. The Irish-born still led but had declined to 1623, still with the earlier ratio of about 2 men to 3 women. French Canada accounted for the next largest group with 1091, with nearly equal ratios of men and women (553 to 538). The number of Poles had tripled from 1895 to 586, in a 3 to 2 ratio of men to women. Russian-born were at 121; Italian- born were at 165 in a 3 to 2 ratio of men to women. The reasons for the various differences in sex ratios differed for each group. The asymmetric ratio among the Poles is accounted for by the fact that the Poles had been brought in as contract laborers dur- ing the 1890's and had not as yet saved sufficient money to send home for their women from the old country. The Italian pat- tern was similar except that the Italian by intention was a little more likely to be a sojourner, planning to accumulate the means to go home (although only very infrequently doing so). In the case of the Irish the preponderance of women was associated with the workings of a rather vicious dowry system in rural Ireland that made it all but impossible for a good number of families to do anything with adult daughters but send them into domestic serv- ice in England and the United States.
After 1905 the only significantly large foreign-born group to increase in Northampton were the Poles who in 1915 appear with 1 107, with a 6 to 5 ratio of males to females. (They were second
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Immigration to Northampton
in numbers only to the Irish.) According to a study made by Jo- seph Katra, as a senior honors thesis at Amherst College, these originally came as contract laborers brought from New York for work on the farms where they were much in demand as being good, hard workers. They seem to have lived on practically noth- ing, in order to save money to bring their women over from Poland. Once the women came they and the children usually worked a tenant share while the man continued to work as farm- hand until enough money could be saved to buy land. Katra esti- mated that by the time of the Second World War over four-fifths of the farms in the township of Northampton were owned by these Poles or their descendants. The capacity of the Poles to make a better go at farming than the Yankee is sometimes at- tributed to their lack of scruple over having women do field work. This seems a rather superficial explanation. No doubt such factors do have some bearing, but what seems more likely to the present writer is that, to the Pole, farming was a way of life and land- owning was a symbol of prestige. For the Yankee prestige was, after the Civil War, established through the learned professions and in manufacturing and trade and he was simply not very strongly drawn toward anything that did not point fairly di- rectly toward making a fortune and living in town.
The count of the foreign-born by their actual numbers gives a rather misleading picture of the ethnic composition of the town. The figures that are actually significant are those given in the Massachusetts census relating to the places of birth of the parents. A table derived from the state censuses of 1885 and 1895 com- paring 1885 and 1895 as to the nativity of the parents and the numbers of native- and foreign-born is rather revealing:
Year
1885
1895
Total Population
12,896
16,746
Native-born
9,542
12,664
Foreign-born
3,354
4,182
Both parents native-born
5,098
6,853
Both parents foreign-born
6,143
8,022
Father native, mother foreign
388
728
Father foreign, mother native
390
895
Father native, mother's nativity unknown
172
25
Father foreign, mother's nativity unknown
19
I
Father's nativity unknown, mother native
107
36
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The Northampton Book
Father's nativity unknown, mother foreign 12 567 183
3
Both parents nativity unknown
The data given in 1905 are not strictly comparable with the figures given above, but of the 19,957 total population for North- ampton in a ratio of 15,015 native-born to 4942 foreign-born, 10,96I had foreign-born parents. In this year grandparental na- tivity figures were given and these showed that 6513 had all native-born grandparents, 8161 had all foreign-born grandparents and 274 had grandparents some of whom were foreign-born and some of whom were native-born. (Unknown grandparentage ac- counted for 67.)
The figures above should dispel any impression the reader may have that the town is predominantly Yankee. Northampton is no more predominantly Yankee than Philadelphia is predominantly Quaker, or New York City, Dutch. More generally there was a cross-fertilization between the ideas of the newcomer and the old guard that has had very happy results. The newcomer found a proud, well-developed local culture that provided good schools for his children and a proud, sophisticated culture with an intel- lectual tradition of no little consequence. The old-timer on the other hand derived from the invasion of the Old World peoples a broadening of his experience and his culture that comes only from knowing other peoples and other ways.
Smith College Presidents: L. Clark Seelye (center) 1872-1910; Mar- ion L. Burton (upper left) 1910-1917; William Allan Neilson (upper right) 1917-1939; Elizabeth Cutter Morrow (bottom) 1939-1940; Herbert J. Davis (lower left) 1940-1949; and Benjamin F. Wright (lower right) 1949-
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Smith College, 1904
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and 1954
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Narrative History of Florence 1850-1900
By ELIZABETH S. DUVALL
O N April 2, 1867, the Hampshire Gazette printed an elabo- rately detailed article about Florence which began in this manner: "The village of Florence has of late years become so prominent as to call for a somewhat detailed notice of its business interests, past and present, and of its institutions of religion and learning. People over a wide extent of country have heard more or less of Florence, some as a place of successful busi- ness enterprise, others as a place of freedom of thought and of utterance, but all as a place where smartness, thrift, and intellec- tual ability abound." This distinguished record continued long after 1867 and is as impressively worthy of recognition now as then, but a short background of the situation before 1850 seems necessary to make the record clear.
In colonial days grants of several acres of land apiece were made in this area to many early Northampton settlers whose names were to become famous. John Broughton, Joseph Parsons, Thomas Bascom, Josiah Dewey, William Clark, Jonathan Hunt, Medad Pomeroy, Joshua Pomeroy, Edward Baker, and Joseph Hawley among others, received grants "to parcells of Land which Lieth up the Mill River ... Bordering on the Commons or hill which compasseth it like an elbow Easterly and Southerly." None of these men built permanent houses on this land, but used it only for pasture or supplementary farming, if at all, and over the years these original deeds changed hands many times. It was not until 1780 that Joseph Warner, the first permanent settler, built a house on land in the area which he purchased for $3.33 an acre. His father, Daniel Warner, lived on Blackpole Hill (near the north end of Prospect Street) in Northampton, and for a long
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The Northampton Book
time Joseph Warner's house near Bear Hill at the northwest end of Florence was the only house between Blackpole and Williams- burg. In 1812 there were 7 houses in the district belonging to Joseph and William Warner, Enoch Jewett, Paul Strong (a tav- ern), Josiah White, Gaius Burt, and Captain Julius Phelps. The population at this time was not over 50.
From these early days until 1848 this locality now called Flor- ence was known as Broughton's Meadow Plain, or more often the simpler Broughton's Meadow. Sometime after 1810 it was also known as the Warner School District, and then during the years of the Northampton Association of Education and Industry from 1841 to 1846 it was known both locally and throughout New England as "the Community." When the Northampton Associa- tion dissolved in 1846, Mr. George W. Benson bought their brick factory and formed the Bensonville Manufacturing Company. For a short time the name Bensonville was used, but, when Mr. Benson failed, the name was in disfavor and was changed to Greenville by general consent. However, none of these names having ever found much popular favor, and agitation for a sepa- rate post office coming to a head about this time, a meeting of the villagers was called in the fall of 1852 to choose "a suitable and lasting name" for the place. Shepherd's Hollow with its woolen mills had not long before been named Leeds after the city of Leeds in England; so, at the citizens' meeting Dr. Munde who had come here from Germany to start his water cure, suggested Florence, "because the pretty village, the clear stream, the silk mill, all sug- gest to my imagination the propriety of naming the village Flor- ence after the great silk emporium of Italy, and the stream Arno." The citizens apparently thought well of the neat and euphonius "Florence," but there is no record that the historic Mill River was ever called "the Arno."
On December 28, 1852 "after much hard labor, owing to the opposition made by the postmaster of Northampton," a post office was established in Florence and Mr. Isaac S. Parsons was made the first postmaster, a position which he held for 16 years. During this time the office was in the store of I. S. Parsons & Co., and when Mr. Henry F. Cutler succeeded Mr. Parsons as postmaster in 1868 the office moved to the Cutler, Plympton Co. where it remained until 1884 when the present building at Maple and Main Streets was completed. Up to 1852 all mail for the village had been put
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Narrative History of Florence: 1850-1900
in Mr. Samuel L. Hill's box in the Northampton post office and he had brought it out each day. Apparently many villagers were satisfied with this arrangement in spite of the inconvenience it must have been to Mr. Hill. The record shows that there was much local opposition to the petition to Washington for the new office, so all blame for the delay cannot fairly be placed on the Northampton postmaster!
After the Community disbanded, in 1847 Mr. Samuel L. Hill "assumed all its liabilities, stock, and debt." Part of the stock was the community store which had been run for the members by Joseph Conant and which Mr. Hill continued alone until 1850 when Isaac S. Parsons, the son of Samuel Parsons of Northamp- ton, came to Florence and in partnership with Mr. Hill started the mercantile establishment of I. S. Parsons & Co. which was to have a long and prosperous life. Mr. Hill retired from the business in 1860, and after that the partnerships changed several times but the store operated under the same firm name for a number of years.
Although the industrial history of Northampton is covered in a separate chapter, those products manufactured here which were known throughout the world should be mentioned. Even before the days of Samuel Whitmarsh's "mulberry fever" in the late 1830's which marked the beginning of the silk industry, Florence has been a manufacturing village. The Nonotuck Silk Company, organized as such in 1855, was a direct descendant of Mr. Whit- marsh's company which after his failure was continued during Community days and then reorganized on a larger scale by Mr. Hill and other community leaders. It made the first machine twist for sewing machines in this country, and its output grew steadily until it merged with the Corticelli Company in 192 1.
In 1861 Mr. Leander Langdon, while working in a sawmill fac- tory here, perfected and put on the market the first Florence sewing machine. In the same year the Florence Sewing Machine Company was organized and in five years increased its sale of these machines from 50 to 20,000 a year. By 1876 the Crown sew- ing machine had replaced the old Florence, and the company be- gan the manufacture of oil and gas stoves for both cooking and heating purposes. The Central Oilgas Stove Company, incor- porated in 1890, represented the merger of the Machine Company with other stove companies from several states.
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The Northampton Book
The Florence Manufacturing Company was organized in 1866 for the manufacture of toilet brushes, mirrors, daguerreotype cases, and lockets. It became increasingly prosperous and na- tionally known for its "completely waterproof hairbrush" which had been invented and perfected by Mr. George A. Scott, a mem- ber of the board of directors. With the decline in popularity of the daguerreotype, by 1870 the company was given over entirely to the manufacture of these superior brushes, and advertisements of the '70's praised them extravagantly as "Handsomely orna- mented ... Different styles neat and attractive ... Bristles im- ported from Russia and Germany of the very stiffest and best Quality." Today this is the Pro-Phy-Lac-Tic Brush Company operating on the same site with additional modern buildings.
Numbers of other things have been made in Florence includ- ing cutlery, paper products, cotton goods, sawmill machinery, pumps, boilers, tacks, nails, soap; and many small local businesses prospered and still prosper here.
The village was growing fast-from a population of about 500 in 1847 to more than 2000 in 1870-and along with this growth between 1860 and 1880, Congregational, Methodist, and Roman Catholic churches, in this order, were built in the village. Men of more than ordinary integrity and distinction whose lives and work have had a continuing influence here have served all three congregations.
Until 1866 when the system of school districts was abandoned and Northampton took over the school administration, Florence (the Warner School District) maintained its own public schools with questionable efficiency and success. Had it not been for the generosity and public spirit of such community leaders as Mr. Hill, Mr. Lilly, Mr. Littlefield, and others school maintenance by public taxation alone would have been sadly inadequate. By 1863 two small schools, known as the North and South school- houses, had been abandoned and one larger school built nearer the center for which the townsmen subscribed (by taxation) $2000 and Mr. Hill gave $33,000 and equipment! It is gratifying to note that at a public meeting held March 21, 1865, "a resolu- tion was passed which expressed in the strongest terms the grati- tude of the people for this splendid gift."
This was among the least of Samuel Lapham Hill's "splendid gifts" to Florence, and this seems the proper place in which to tell
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Narrative History of Florence: 1850-1900
something of the man who "on the list of the founders and build- ers of Florence ... must by general consent stand highest." Born in Rhode Island in 1806, he worked on his father's farm, had little chance for much formal education until at the age of 18 he used his own savings to go for a short time to Leicester Academy near Worcester. He was raised a Quaker, and when before the age of 2 I he married Miss Louisa Chace who was not a member of the Society of Friends he was automatically expelled from member- ship. Soon after his marriage he moved to Willimantic, Connecti- cut to become superintendent of a cotton factory, which marked the beginning of a long and successful industrial career. In Willi- mantic he joined the Baptist church with Mrs. Hill and became prominent in both church and town affairs, and deeply in sympa- thy with the anti-slavery movement. As a church officer he in- vited the famous and fiery Wendell Phillips to lecture in the church on anti-slavery, and as a result was driven out by an irate mob led by a brother deacon. This so disheartened Mr. Hill that he withdrew from membership and never after allowed himself to become identified with any set creed. He became increasingly interested in the cooperative community idea, carried on a cor- respondence with the transcendentalist organizers of Brook Farm in West Roxbury, and finally, in 1841, came to Florence and was both the spiritual and financial leader of the group which or- ganized the Northampton Association of Education and Industry. Always retiring and shy, he could seldom be prevailed upon to speak or even appear in public, but his integrity and generosity were behind every civic and social reform, and many were initi- ated by him. He built his own home here, and helped finance the building of many others for those he thought would be worthy citizens of the community he loved.
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