USA > Massachusetts > Hampshire County > Northampton > The Northampton book; chapters from 300 years in the life of a New England town, 1654-1954 > Part 33
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At that time there were approximately 2 100 patients in the hos- pital's care, the medical staff had been increased to include an as- sistant superintendent, 8 physicians and a dentist, and there was a total of 420 employees. Local physicians were on the consulting staff, an enlarged social service department had been inaugurated, and out-patient clinics were held monthly. Recreation, occupa- tional therapy, and industrial therapy, which from the first had been considered as valuable treatments for the patients, had been increased until there were over 250 assemblies in this year, 1935, including church services, movies, and ball games. The first field day, which was to become an annual event, was inaugurated in September, 1935. Classes were regularly conducted in the occu- pational and industrial therapy rooms and on the various wards, and a new clubhouse, replacing the one burned in 1922, was erected in 1932.
The two-year course in psychiatric nursing was abandoned during World War II when it became evident that this type of nursing should be included in general nursing education, and in 1946 the hospital became an Affiliate School for Neuro-Psychi-
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atric nursing. An independent psychology department was estab- lished in 1947.
In 1935 a very definite liberalization in the attitude toward pa- tients and their relatives was adopted. A large increase in parole patients, the opening of certain wards as parole wards, and many other liberties which were extended to the quieter type of pa- tient, added materially to the morale as well as to the peace of mind of the patients, their relatives, and their friends.
Dr. Ball was superintendent of the hospital for 16 years until his retirement in January 1952, when there were 2331 patients and 509 employees.
Dr. J. H. Fernand Longpre, who had been appointed assistant physician in January, 1935, and shortly afterwards senior physi- cian until he went into military service (from 1942 to 1946), was named assistant superintendent on May 7, 1947, and became acting superintendent upon Dr. Ball's retirement on January 12, 1952. He was appointed superintendent of the hospital by the Commis- sioner, Dr. Jack R. Ewalt, on July 1, 1952. Under his leadership Dr. Ball's liberal administration has been continued, and the im- provements which Dr. Ball had planned have been carried out, along with many other major ones, including:
I. The opening of a beauty parlor on the female service October 27, 1952. It has had remarkable results in the rehabilita- tion of women patients.
2. The re-organization of the patients' library on the fourth floor of the main building.
3. The opening of a staff meeting-room.
4. The re-modeling of wards, and furniture, the latter work being done in a special industrial shop in the basement of the Me- morial Group Building.
5. The addition of numerous clinics under the direction of out- side consulting specialists:
a. A gynecological clinic held twice a month by Dr. James Ellsworth Cavanagh, where pelvic examinations are done on fe- male patients, with recommendations for surgery or treatment.
b. An eye examination clinic held twice a month by an eye specialist, Dr. Frank E. Dow, with two optometrists alternating monthly and providing eye glasses at special rates.
c. A dermatology clinic held twice a month by Dr. Alfred
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Hollander of Springfield, Massachusetts, where from 25 to 40 patients, and occasional employees, are seen.
d. An additional insulin coma clinic on the male service which compares favorably with one previously established on the female side some two years ago.
e. The maintenance electric shock clinics added to the previ- ously instituted electric shock clinics.
6. The opening of a new T.B. unit, the Arthur Pruzynski Me- morial Building, with a 78-bed capacity, operating well under the leadership of a T.B. trained man, who does his own new surgi- cal treatment as well as modern forms of therapy.
7. The appointment of a clinical director, Dr. Fred M. Meyer, who began his services here on June 1, 1953.
8. Other aspects of new services include:
a. The fusion of volunteer groups which had not previously been worked together.
b. The organization of a new group of Grey Ladies, under the direction of the Red Cross Chapter in Northampton, who have been working in the men's ward this past year in a mag- nificent way.
c. Local organizations from Amherst and Florence which give specific volunteer services of great advantage.
Chapter Forty-Four
The Hampshire Gazette
By RICHARD C. GARVEY
T IO be a first-class citizen of Northampton, a man must own meadowland, have a pew in the First Church, and be a subscriber to the Hampshire Gazette."
Such was more than one man's estimate a century ago. Now, the meadows are considered only low-valued lots outside the dikes; many look at the historic First Church only to get the time of day. However, almost all of us still read the Daily Hampshire Gazette.
In current editions are recorded the births, deaths, marriages, court proceedings, and community affairs of this county seat and the towns in its shire. In earlier issues is the story of Northamp- ton's first 300 years, and half of that history was written when it was news.
When Northampton was only 35 years old, Bostonians saw the country's first newspaper and immediately suppressed it. In those days, being banned in Boston did not augur success, and it was 15 years before anyone tried again to publish a newspaper there.
The people of Northampton, busily fortifying their sturdiest houses during Queen Anne's War, probably paused briefly to read the Boston News-Letter the first time the stage driver brought in a copy. However, the Boston postmaster's chronicle of 13-month-old news must have left them uninspired and unin- formed. The much-later edition which covered Northampton's first big story (the deposition of Jonathan Edwards) by printing Joseph Hawley's contrite letter to his illustrious cousin probably did command a local audience.
The Boston Post Office equipped as it was with scissors, paste pot, and newspapers from Europe, was an ideal place for an edi- tor to assemble a colonial newspaper. Through the years, the News-Letter survived the competition from other scissors-armed Boston postmasters, but sided with the British in 1775 and lost its readers on Evacuation Day.
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The Boston Evening Post remained neutral, an equally fatal choice in times of great decision. The Massachusetts Spy sided with the colonists and escaped a spy's fate by hiding in the frontier town of Worcester. It took that town's name until it returned in triumph to Boston. The Boston Gazette spoke in Adams and War- ren language against British misrule and so survived the Revolu- tion.
Northampton readers could get news only two days off the press by buying the Connecticut Courant, which started publica- tion in Hartford in 1764. David Butler of that fast-growing town watched that newspaper grow, and finally concluded that print- ing might become a stable trade, one in which his son, William, might be suitably apprenticed.
On Sept. 6, 1786, William Butler, 22, a three-year apprentice of a Hartford print shop, turned down his hand press on the first edition of the Hampshire Gazette. From his little shop in the rear of Benjamin Prescott's house, riders started the new papers on their varied and uncertain routes of circulation.
As a printer, Mr. Butler could see opportunity for improve- ment.
A sharper type face, perhaps. He was confident typefounders from Scotland would soon come to the new republic and put their tools and skills to work.
The press was awkward, hard to operate. However, presses were improving. He had seen the mahogany masterpiece built by a watchmaker in his home town.
The paper had twisted on some copies, and paper was too scarce and expensive to be wasted. There was a problem. Again his thoughts went back to Hartford and to those days when the Con- necticut Courant had to suspend publication until it could get its own paper mill into operation. He too would have to build a paper mill, right here in Northampton. Also, he would build a home, a real home, for his new paper.
The young editor walked out of his shop and looked up the recently-graded principal street of this 132-year-old community which was now home to him and to 1700 other Americans.
There was the church where the great Jonathan Edwards preached. A community leader, whether he be clergyman or edi- tor, should never get too far ahead of the townsmen he wishes to lead.
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He looked to the green from which Northampton's young militiamen (and one old commander) had gone forth to war only I I years earlier. "The danger is, that when the feelings excited by our troubles have subsided, our minds will sink into indolence, our children will grow up in ignorance, and ignorance is the parent of slavery and all the national vices which mark the de- cline of empire." His first editorial pleased him now more than it had when he set it into type.
Down the hill was the court house, where history was as fresh as the scuff marks on the soft earth there. Only eight days earlier, a mob had surrounded that building and prevented the court from sitting. These debt-harried farmers had just grievances, the editor knew, but he also knew that muskets and swords had forced the justices to retreat to an inn and adjourn without delay.
Tyranny in homespun instead of velvet, but tyranny none the less. The editor agreed with Governor Bowdoin's strongly worded proclamation, and the next day he would put it into type for the September 13 edition.
During his 30-year editorship, William Butler saw prosperity come to the nation, the state, the Gazette, and its Northampton friends. Caleb Strong, the paper's supporter and contributor, be- came a Founding Father of the nation, governor of the Common- wealth, and first citizen of Northampton.
The editor's paper mill gave the name "Paper Mill Village" to an area we now call Bay State, and thrived under the management of the editor's brother, Daniel, who also kept a store under the Gazette plant in Mr. Butler's own building on what is now Pleas- ant Street.
The editor's cousin, Simeon Butler, whom he helped to start in business in Northampton, became the foremost publisher in West- ern Massachusetts. Those of us who remember Bridgman & Ly- man's Bookshop saw one of the businesses Simeon Butler started.
Northampton came to honor William Butler and the news- paper he founded, and it wasn't altogether pleased when the 1815 purchaser, William W. Clapp of Boston, appended "Publick Advertiser" to the title, added another column (by making all of them narrower) to each page, and filled the front page with ad- vertisements.
Less than 18 months later, he sold the Gazette to Isaac Chapman Bates and Hophni Judd, young lawyers, and he returned to Bos-
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ton where he became publisher of the Boston Saturday Evening Gazette. The attorneys knew little about printing but admitted to the firm Thomas Watson Shepherd, who did.
In 1822, after Mr. Bates had started climbing the Whig ladder to the United States Senate and Mr. Judd had died, the latter's brother Sylvester of Westhampton acquired the Gazette. His voluminous historical manuscript gives him a reputation as an antiquarian which overshadows his dedicated work as an editor.
Perhaps Mr. Judd, whose namesake son was beginning his studies for the Unitarian ministry, could see nothing dangerous in selling the Gazette to a Unitarian, Atty. Charles Phelps Hunt- ington, but the subscribers had other opinions.
Despite the lawyer's assurances that he would write no re- ligious material for his paper, subscribers showed their displeasure at the arrangement and Mr. Huntington sold out his interest to his young partner, William A. Hawley.
On that December day in 1845 when the first railroad train chugged into Northampton from Springfield, Mr. Hawley got more than a "local intelligence" item for his next edition. He also got an inspiration; the railroad would enable the Gazette "to meet all the reasonable demands of public interest and curiosity."
On completion of the magnetic telegraph to Springfield, news material would reach Northampton and could be printed long before the Boston or New York newspapers reached the town. If Northampton had a daily, such as those being printed in the large cities, it could satisfy its readers' "growing eagerness for early news."
On May 27, 1846, the first edition of the Daily Gazette was presented to the public. As Mr. Hawley said, the bark was launched but it needed subscribers and advertisers: "The only breeze that can fan us along." The first of the Gazette's eight pages was filled with advertisements, and the circulation was large the first day when the editor gave copies away.
When the price went to two cents the next day, subscribers were fewer and advertisers began to withdraw. On July 20, the Daily Gazette published its own obituary.
In 1853, Hopkins, Bridgman and Co., successor to Simeon But- ler's bookstore, purchased the Gazette and moved the office from the Lyman block on Main Street to Colton's new building "di- rectly in the rear of the court house."
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James Russell Trumbull of Williamsburg became editor and, like Editor Sylvester Judd whose manuscript he edited and in- dexed, he is known more as an historian than a journalist. His History of Northampton, fittingly inscribed in memory of Mr. Judd, is a monument to these two editors who loved the city and its history.
Mr. Trumbull purchased the Gazette in 1858 and almost im- mediately took another Williamsburg native into the firm. The new co-editor was Henry S. Gere, who had been a newspaper- man for 13 of his 30 years. When he was 19, this young apprentice had taken over the dying Hampshire Herald. He entered it into a merger with the Northampton Courier and owned the entire enterprise when he marked his 2 Ist birthday.
He revolutionized newspaper editing in Northampton by giv- ing emphasis to local news, and by 1857 his paper was presenting as many as 10 columns of local matter in a single issue. Hampshire residents were avidly scanning the columns to see their own names in print.
For years, the Gazette's many competitors had earned only a little notice in the durable Gazette when they went out of busi- ness. A few, such as the Northampton Hive, were purchased by the Gazette which digested them with such ease that they never showed on the Gazette's title page or masthead. Not so with Henry Gere's popular Northampton Courier. For the first and only time, the Gazette had to accept a partner and give it full bill- ing.
The Gazette and Courier returned to Main Street and took its stand between the Court House and the First Church. In the sec- ond and third floor of the Whitney Building were the offices, and in the basement was the marvel of marvels, a "caloric, 18-cylinder engine" which could develop three horsepower on one-and-a- half-cents' worth of coke an hour. This heated the room, drove the press and did a few other odd chores. The premises were lighted by gas, and speaking tubes permitted the editor and pressman to converse (when that caloric engine wasn't operating!).
At the end of the Civil War, in which Editor Gere served with the 52nd Massachusetts Volunteer Militia, the Gazette moved to an old school building on Gothic Street and during the next 62 years hallowed the ground where customers of the Northampton Institution for Savings now park their cars.
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There, Henry S. Gere turned the Gazette and Courier into the "Hampshire County Bible" and made it deserve the tribute re- peated at the opening of this brief history. He turned Mr. Haw- ley's dream into a reality. The Daily Hampshire Gazette appeared Nov. 1, 1890, and hasn't missed a weekday since.
He read Mark Twain's claim that the Paige typesetting ma- chine could "do everything but drink, swear and go on strike," but he waited until the linotype had finally proved itself. He saw the typewriter, telephone, cylinder press, Associated Press, photo engraving, and the "Katzenjammer Kids" comics of 1897 drasti- cally change every newspaper in the world.
After 63 years as editor, Mr. Gere was succeeded by his sons, Collins H. Gere and Edward C. Gere. After the latter's death in 1926, Collins Gere moved the Gazette to its present home on Ar- mory Street.
There, some years later, a cub reporter working under the wise guidance of Editor Arthur Frederick, asked about the inscription 'Oct 1907" marked with a punch on the side of the Scott Web press.
The reporter has written some of the answers into this sketch. That press was one of the improvements added by Henry S. Gere who had helped run the Herald's Washington hand press in 1845, who had stood thousands of hours in front of the case, either fill- ing a "stick" or "throwing back," who had worked for 69 years to bring all the news to the people of Hampshire County. When this press was 20 years old, his son directed its transfer from Gothic Street to the new plant, and the paper never missed an issue. His father would have been proud of him.
Also he would have been proud of Joseph M. Lyman, who suc- ceeded Collins Gere in the editor's chair, and of those who today under the direction of Mrs. Harriet Williams DeRose carry not only the name but the spirit of Henry S. Gere and Sons. There are now a new, high-speed press, a Fairchild engraver, two AP automatic typesetters and a battery of linotypes, but it is still the Gazette, "Bible of Hampshire County," read by almost all of the county's first-class citizens.
In 1786, William Butler wrote simply but meaningfully when he set this type: "The establishment of a press in this town cer- tainly promises many advantages to this part of the country."
Chapter Forty-Five
Religious Life in Northampton 1800-1954
By VIRGINIA CORWIN
I HE solidarity of the early years is hard for mid-20th cen- tury Northampton to imagine. One is tempted to explain it by saying that as late as 1830 Northampton was a town of only about 3000-but small size is no guarantee of unity. Its history as a colony of like-minded folk, dependent upon each other in the struggle to set up a largely self-sufficient community, growing its food, spinning and weaving its cloth, joining in rais- ing its houses, must explain much of the solidarity, but it is re- flected even more surely in the profound agreement that men are in all ways dependent upon God, and that the chief end of man is "to glorify Him forever." This was a community in which Chris- tianity, and that of a very Protestant and Calvinist sort, was at the center. Change might come in theology, and Jonathan Edwards, during whose ministry of 23 years nearly 500 people became members of the church, might in the end be dismissed because his Calvinist views were no longer shared in some details by his congregation, but the underlying unity was nevertheless very great ..
The town and the church were one. The bell in the Meeting House rang dinner hour and curfew as well as for divine service. The town meeting came together to call a new minister as well as to assign lands or levy taxes. Although with the completion of the Third Meeting House in 1737 and of the Town House two years later a certain differentiation must have become possible we may surmise that it was only because the religious revivals of the period absorbed the Meeting House so completely that the select- men had little peace. As late as 1806 the trial of two Irishmen for murder was moved from the Court House to the Meeting House
* The writer of this paper wishes to acknowledge her debt to the seventeen authors of the individual church histories which have been published in the Daily Hampshire Gazette.
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in order to accommodate the crowd. The question of building a new Meeting House was a regular item on the agenda of the town meeting in the last years of the 18th century, and finally in 1810 it was voted to build one which would be paid for in part by a subscription of individuals, in part by a sale of pews and in part "by a tax on the polls and estates of the Inhabitants of the Town to raise any deficiency in the sum necessary for the building and completing said house ... "
Although this vote speaks the confidence of a large congrega- tion looking to the future the decision actually marks the close of a long period. A different kind of restlessness from that which seems understandably enough to have characterized the 18th cen- tury children, who found the two hours on Sunday morning and a longer service in the afternoon more than flesh could endure, was spreading to the adults. No doubt word of the preaching of Channing in Boston had penetrated to Northampton, and for a variety of reasons Calvinist theology was losing its hold. A more optimistic view of human nature appealed to the descendants of the men and women who had for more than 150 years dealt com- petently with the world. Within 20 years from the building of the Fourth Meeting House the religious solidarity of the town was gone never to return, and 4 dramatic years from 1822 to 1826 saw the beginning of itinerant preaching by the Baptists, and the formation of the Unitarian, Baptist, and Episcopal churches. A significant number of members of the Old Church moved into these newer congregations. This was perhaps the most important period in the religious history of Northampton in the last 150 years, for at that point the religious diversity began which has marked all the subsequent years.
There were many indications of the greater freedom of thought that was developing. Father Cheverus, who traveled on from Boston to give the last rites to the two Irishmen accused of mur- der, preached the sermon before the hanging, and tradition says that he had a powerful effect on the women among his hearers. The town asked him to speak to them again. In other ways too the interests that drew the people made them face outward, to join with those outside Northampton in wider concerns. Semi-inde- pendent societies began to exist, expressing Christian convictions but not expressing them through the local church. Missions were a great interest, and by 1823 the Hampshire Society supported 14
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missionaries in Maine, Vermont (where there was reported to be a "state of coldness as to religion"), Ohio, Virginia, New York, and Louisiana. A report in the Gazette in that same year lists the members of a mission group going out to the Sandwich Islands from the American Board of Foreign Missions, and in addition to two ordained missionaries we find two physicians, a farmer, two carpenters, a cabinet maker, a blacksmith, and two or three schoolmasters. There seems to be here a New England sense for practical religion which may well have drawn the approval of Northampton.
The Hampshire Education Society was formed "for the pur- pose of aiding pious and indigent young men of promising talents to obtain an education for the ministry." The society was said to be supported by the "Christian public" which was by 1822 not quite identical with the church. In 1821 the Hampshire Chris- tian Depository was formed for the "reception and sale of such articles of agriculture, manufacture or commerce" as people might wish to contribute for "the advancement of the cause and kingdom of the Redeemer." Some contributions from the De- pository went to such conventional destinations as the American Board for Foreign Missions, but some also to the New England Tract Society, and a Boston society for the conversion of Jews. Sunday schools in Boston begin to be reported in the Gazette, and by 1827 the Hampshire Sabbath School Union was estab- lished.
Articles quoted during these years by the Gazette give indica- tion of the wide religious interests of the readers, or at least of what the editor considers their interests. There is an article to show that geological study and the Biblical story of the creation can both be accepted; one on the aid offered by the telescope in seeing that the Bible's reference to innumerable stars is accurate; a criticism of Swedenborgianism; a critical discussion of an ob- jection by the Pope to the translation of the Bible into various languages. There is an article on Hindu worship, and one on the iniquity of long prayers, which "exhaust all powers of attention in those who join ... a long time before they come to a conclu- sion." These scattering examples give us some evidence of the subjects of lively discussions that went on when our ancestors met along Main Street, or sat comfortably before fires in the winter when outdoor work let up.
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The general ferment of interest in things religious was sympto- matic of the vigor which brought new churches into being in a town which ostensibly had no place for them. Benjamin Willard, a graduate of Brown University, and a preacher for the Massa- chusetts Baptist Missionary Society, came to Northampton in 1822 and, in spite of obstacles put in his way by some of the lead- ing men in the Old Church who were determined to get rid of him, he persisted in preaching from door to door and in an old house on South Street which had a "large room." A group was con- vinced by his earnest affirmation of adult baptism after confession of faith, and he baptized several, against whom the other citizens developed considerable resentment. Slowly, however, the ani- mosity wore down, and late in 1823 it had relaxed enough so that he was ordained in the First Church Meeting House. Religious en- thusiasm began to mark meetings in the little West Farms meeting house and enough converts were made so that the First Baptist Church in Northampton was organized in 1826. The earnestness and conviction of the First Covenant, emphasizing the godly life to be lived as "brethren in Christ, watching over one another in the love of God," is evidence of a warm piety rather than of the primacy of theology-a change which no doubt appealed to many. Northampton in opening its doors even grudgingly was ahead of the legislation in the state, for religious liberty for all citizens was not guaranteed until the passage of a state constitu- tional amendment in 1833. The Baptists built their meeting house in 1829, and entered on a congregational life, but Mr. Willard had to be away much on circuit preaching, and the little church lived through some very difficult financial times.
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