USA > Massachusetts > Hampshire County > Northampton > The Northampton book; chapters from 300 years in the life of a New England town, 1654-1954 > Part 9
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One of these newly-assigned lawyers, Francis Blake of Worces- ter, made a determined effort to save Daley and Halligan. Al- though he could not, on such short notice, locate any defense witnesses, his expert cross examination did much to weaken the commonwealth's case.
Attorney Thomas Gould was to have closed the defense, "but the evening having far elapsed and the prisoners signifying their assent, he declined addressing the jury."
Blake was tired and was suffering with a severe head cold, but would not cite the lateness of the hour, nor would he ask his clients to excuse him. After subjecting the commonwealth's evi- dence to critical scrutiny, he addressed the jury in words which
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may indicate the tenor of the people of Hampshire County in 1806.
"Pronounce then a verdict against them. Tell them . . . that the name of an Irishman is, among us, but another name for a robber and an assassin; that every man's hand is lifted against him; that when a crime of unexampled atrocity is perpetrated among us, we look for an Irishman; that because he is an outlaw, with him the benevolent maxim of our law is reversed, and that the mo- ment he is accused, he is presumed to be guilty, until his inno- cence appears."
However, the innocence of Daley and Halligan did not appear. The jury remained out only a few minutes and, before the end of the day on which the hearing began, two Irishmen were con- victed of murder. Three days later, Judge Sedgwick sentenced them to be hanged and their bodies to be "dissected and anato- myzed."
On the morning of June 5, the procession did not stop at the courthouse but proceeded a few more feet to the church where Jonathan Edwards had preached. Its pastor, Reverend Solomon Williams, and the other ministers of the county had arranged a special service, but Father Cheverus protested.
The priest probably recalled the words Daley and Halligan had written in their second letter to him: "It will be a painful task for you after the fatigue of a long journey, and especially after the sad impressions made on your heart by the sight of two young men about to die in the bloom of youth; but you will not refuse us this favor, and reduce us to the necessity of listening, just before we die, to the voice of one who is not a Catholic."
The usually mild Father Cheverus was firm. "The will of the dying is sacred; they have desired to have no one but myself, and I alone will speak to them." He gave his sermon on I John 3; 15: "Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him." The priest di- rected some of his words to the many women who were waiting to see the double hanging, and it is said that not a woman re- mained when the sermon ended.
However, there were plenty of men and children to fill the area at Pancake Plain. An eight-year-old boy, hanging out of a tree in order to get a better view, could recall the scene in great detail 70 years later. When their work was done, the guards went
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to Capt. Joseph Cook's for entertainment which cost the county more than $25. Other expenses included $8. to Mr. Pomeroy for the dinner served to the ministers, $7. to Hezekiah Russell who built the gallows, and $2. 17 for ropes and cords.
Mrs. Mary Shepherd, daughter of Gen. Seth Pomeroy and widow of Dr. Levi Shepherd, wrote in her diary about the Catho- lic priest: "a remarkable, mild man" who "explains his religion in a very different manner from what we have always been taught." About Daley and Halligan, she wrote: "The criminals who were executed this day in the last words denied the crime, and de- clared their innocence in a most solemn manner, and forgave everyone as they hoped for pardon themselves. Poor men, they must have been guilty."
Contemporary accounts state that of the 15,000 persons pres- ent, "scarcely one had doubt about their guilt." Notwithstanding this unanimous certainty, many people asked Father Cheverus, to whom Daley and Halligan had gone to Confession, if he would tell whether or not the two men had confessed to murder. In the last of a series of talks requested by Northampton residents, he explained "the doctrine of the Church respecting Confession and the inviolable secrecy imposed upon the confessor, which he can- not break even to save a kingdom."
Joseph Clarke of Hawley Street, who was host to Father Chev- erus during the latter part of his visit here, was one of several townspeople who urged the priest to remain longer in Northamp- ton, but he had to return to his parish duties. Two years later, despite his protests, he was named first bishop of Boston, and served until 1823 when he returned to France to assume bishopric there.
After Cheverus was appointed archbishop of Bordeaux and raised to the French peerage, Rev. Dr. William Ellery Channing, the Unitarian leader in Boston, wrote: "Has not the metropolis of New England witnessed a sublime example of Christian vir- tue in a Catholic bishop? Who among our religious teachers would solicit a comparison between himself and the devoted Cheverus? He has left us; but not to be forgotten. He enjoys among us what to such a man must be dearer than fame. His name is cherished, where the great of this world are unknown. It is pronounced with blessing, with grateful tears, with sighs for his return, in many an abode of sorrow and want."
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Whenever this "remarkable, mild man" of Mrs. Shepherd's diary spoke of the two men whom he had attended at Northamp- ton, he referred to them as innocent. However, in 1836, soon after receiving the red hat of a cardinal, Cheverus went to his death without receiving the report that a certain native-born man had confessed the murder for which Daley and Halligan had been executed.
Chapter Twelve
Oliver Smith, Esquire
By RICHARD C. GARVEY
N O one quite believes the story of Smith Charities the first time he hears it. In Northampton, Greenfield, Amherst, Hatfield, Deerfield, Hadley, Whately, and Williams- burg, boys learn trades and get $500; girls learn housekeeping and get $300, or get married and collect $50, and widows with children get $50 each year.
Some of the disbelievers ask questions trying to find the "catch." "Who or what do you have to be to get in on it?"
Any indigent person can qualify, whatever his politics, color, or religion.
"Does the government furnish the money?"
Not a nickel, but it has taxed Smith Charities a sum greater than the entire original fund.
"Won't it run out of money?"
Let's hope not. Starting with less than $400,000 a little more than a century ago, Smith Charities has given more than $3,500,- 000 in benefits, and now has invested funds of more than $2,000,- 000.
The disbelief that prompts the questions is a tribute to the man who planned the whole thing. This incredulity honors an in- credible man, Oliver Smith, Esquire, late of Hatfield.
Lieutenant Samuel Smith and Mary Morton Smith of Hatfield in the Colony of Massachusetts had six sons, all of whom lived beyond the Biblical age. The last to be born and the last to die, the only one not to marry and the only one to acquire a fortune was named Oliver.
Born only ten years before the outbreak of the Revolution, Oliver never saw service in that war as did three of his brothers. In fact, he never left Hatfield except for a brief stay in Chester- field, N.H., when he was in his early 20's, and even briefer trips
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to Boston and to New York. Yet it was Ohio that started his for- tune.
When Mrs. Smith started to distribute her late husband's estate among her children in 1791, all except Oliver needed the money to help sustain the homes they had established. Bachelor Oliver, living at home, invested some of the $1175 in his cattle business, but also had enough to become a shareholder in the Connecticut Land Co. which purchased all of Connecticut's lands in the West- ern Reserve. When the territory was set off five years later, Oliver owned 1000 acres in Northampton, Ohio, and several hundred acres in a little community named Cleaveland in honor of the company agent, Moses Cleaveland. In 1803, everyone, including Oliver Smith, thought that Ohio had been admitted to the Union. Not until 1953 was someone going to find the error. Blissfully ig- norant of the mistake, Oliver Smith happily watched the value of his Ohio properties climb ever higher. Back in Northampton, Massachusetts, people were organizing a bank and, of course, Oliver Smith was a director.
When Oliver Smith went courting every Sunday after sun- down, maybe he talked only about Ohio land prices and the new bank at Northampton. Perhaps Roxana Graves thought that Oli- ver did not want to talk about more important things because he did not think he should leave his aged mother. When Mrs. Smith died in 1807 and Oliver moved into his brother's house, the 38- year-old Miss Graves married a Northampton widower with five children. Oliver never called on her again until after her husband died 38 years later.
Although Oliver Smith had someone witness Benjamin Smith's signature on the receipts for Oliver's $2 a week board, there are no indications that the brothers were not dear friends. Every- thing Oliver Smith did was done with exactness, whether he was legislating in the General Court, serving as a Presidential elector, keeping the accounts for a Hatfield schoolhouse-raising, selling a cow, or paying his board bill.
When Benjamin gave his only daughter, Almira, in marriage to Samuel F. Lyman of Northampton, he threw open the rarely- viewed front room of his handsome gambrel-roofed residence. Guests sat in the straight, hair-filled chairs and admired the rich velvet wallpaper with its rows of poppies and shepherds. There was another rare sight to be admired. Oliver Smith, whose trips
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to the tailor shops were so unusual as to be the subject of village jests, wore a brand new suit.
To help fill the void in the house after Almira's marriage, Mrs. Smith brought her 10-year-old niece, Eliza A. Warner of Wil- liamsburg, to live in the Hatfield homestead. This girl became a close companion to Oliver Smith, and was not forgotten by him when he wrote his will.
A rich and frugal bachelor will always be a favorite topic of neighborhood conversation, but Oliver Smith had other claims on their attention. In 1830, when pipes were run through the church to take some of the chill off, Mr. Smith and 40 followers "signed off" and left the society. How the tongues must have wagged when Mr. Smith started receiving regularly a copy of The Chris- tian Register, organ of Unitarianism! By the time Mr. Smith started also receiving The Workingman's Advocate, his neighbors must have stopped being amazed at anything this strange man did.
However, even those who thought that they knew everything that was going on in Hatfield didn't know why Mr. Smith so fre- quently rowed a boat over to the North Hadley home of Charles Porter Phelps, now called the Sessions House, built south of the Moses Porter homestead which now bears the name of Lawyer Phelps' nephew, Bishop Frederic Dan Huntington.
Making money and making plans to give it away were the major activities of the last 15 years of Oliver Smith's life. His visits to the Widow Roxana Starkweather and to his lawyer's home indicate that he was in reasonably good health, perhaps be- cause of, or perhaps in spite of, the various concoctions which doctors recommended for his ailments. These prescriptions are still in existence and may explain why he cut from his will a pro- vision that $5000 be given to a hospital.
Three days before Christmas in 1845, Oliver Smith died and, after brief ceremonies in the meeting house, was buried in Hat- field's cemetery.
None of his nieces and nephews knew that he had sent money to Greece when it was fighting for independence, nor that he had just given $500 to help repatriate in Africa freed American slaves. Even if they had known about these and other charities, they would not have been prepared for the reading of their uncle's 27- page will.
"In the name of God, Amen. I, Oliver Smith of Hatfield in the
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County of Hampshire in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Esquire, being of sound and disposing mind and memory do ... "
Before the first manuscript page was turned, the relatives must have had more than a dim realization that they might not become rich after all. Long before the 27th page was reached, they were indignant, but not speechless.
Their determination to break the will was roundly applauded by the Hampshire Gazette. In its weekly tirades against the late Oliver Smith, the Gazette editor included such barbs as this: "A man's character is formed during life. If he clings to his money, with a miser's grasp, as long as life lasts, and only devotes it to objects of charity when he can no longer retain it himself, we think that he is not entitled to have his name enrolled among the truly benevolent, especially if he makes provision that his estate shall go on in process of accumulation, for years after his decease, in order that some grand, name-perpetuating scheme may be con- summated."
At first, the heirs-in-law thought that they would contend that Uncle Oliver was not of sound mind when he wrote his will, but then they decided instead to argue that one of the witnesses, The- ophilus Parsons Phelps, was incompetent. They hired his first cousin, Atty. Charles Phelps Huntington, to prove it. Judge Itha- mar Conkey was quick to agree when Mr. Huntington contended that the judge, an Amherst resident, should disqualify himself. Too quick, the Supreme Judicial Court decided. It ordered him to hear the case. When he allowed the will, the heirs considered themselves aggrieved and appealed to the High Court.
To assist Mr. Huntington, the heirs-in-law retained Rufus Choate, whose brilliance in the United States Senate had won him world-wide reputation, and Reuben Atwater Chapman, later to be the Chief Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Court. Six of the eight towns mentioned in the will accepted the challenge. They retained Daniel Webster, "the godlike Daniel," to defend the will. Osmyn Baker and Charles Edward Forbes were his junior counsellors. Judge Samuel Sumner Wilde who, like Choate and Webster, was a Dartmouth man, was assigned to the special hearing which opened in Hampshire County's courthouse two days after Independence Day in 1847.
Many records were broken. Judge Charles Augustus Dewey and his wife, the sister of DeWitt Clinton, gave their most im-
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pressive party in the Dewey House. The Mansion House land- lord broke his own temperance rule so that Daniel Webster could treat his cold. Hampshire farmers and Amherst College students hung from the rungs of fire ladders raised to the courthouse win- dows. The judge moved over to let visitors sit at his bench while Webster and Choate argued over $400,000. The thermometer registered 95 degrees, and newspaper reporters sought figures of speech adequate to reflect the drama of the courtroom scene. When this brilliant display was concluded, the jury decided in favor of Oliver Smith, Daniel Webster, and eight very fortunate towns.
Oliver Smith has given more than $3,500,000 to indigent per- sons in the eight communities, and more millions will be given in the years to come.
However, a greater contribution was the example he set for others. He was the first Hampshire County philanthropist, but many others followed him. Judge Charles Edward Forbes, who worked in the courts to sustain the Smith will, left a quarter of a million dollars to found a library at Northampton. Samuel Willis- ton of Easthampton, one of the jurors who voted to have the Smith will sustained, contributed about two million dollars to educational and charitable institutions, most of them in this county. Sophia Smith, Oliver's niece, left her fortune (which her brother Austin had left to her) to found Smith Academy and Smith College, and Deacon George W. Hubbard, second presi- dent of Smith Charities, left his fortune to that college. John Clarke's school where the deaf might be taught was established some 30 years after Oliver Smith outlined such a school. The Academy of Music was given to Northampton by E. H. R. Ly- man, brother-in-law of Oliver's favorite niece in whose home he lived until her marriage.
Oliver Smith did more than give money to the indigent and good example to the wealthy. By his philanthropic will he tried to do more than help train good housekeepers and able craftsmen, more than assist widows and fatherless children.
By setting aside a fund for the American Colonization Society, he hoped to make a contribution to the "relief and elevation" of the Negroes, whom he called "that degraded class of mankind."
Also, writing his will when the Knownothings were riding to power, Oliver Smith put into practice the unpopular ideas of
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Oliver Smith, Esquire
religious tolerance. His will was inelastic: "And provided further, that neither in the selection of the boys, nor in the choice of families in which they are to be bound out-nor in the bestow- ment of any benefit or privilege arising from this fund shall there ever be any distinction made, or preference given, on account of any religious sect or political or other party whatsoever."
Historians claim that every man is a reflection of the times in which he lives. Occasionally, however, there is born a man who apparently comprehends the value of methods yet untried, of theories yet unproved. Succeeding generations marvel at the keen perception of a man whose foresight is confirmed by the passing years. Such a man was Oliver Smith, Esquire, late of Hat- field.
Chapter Thirteen
Dr. Sylvester Graham
1
By RICHARD C. GARVEY
D R. SYLVESTER GRAHAM predicted that many monu- ments would perpetuate his name. There is one: the Gra- ham cracker.
The scientist, faddist, and lecturer believed that people would flock to Northampton to see the peg on which he had hung his hat, but many of those who visit Young's Cafe on Pleasant Street don't even know that they are in his house, to say nothing of caring where he left his hat.
Dr. Graham believed that a huge pinnacle of stone would mark his burial place which would be a destination of pilgrimages. Bridge Street Cemetery workers will locate the little plot for anyone who wishes to visit it.
However, the graham cracker is certainly no insignificant monument. No less an authority than Professor Edward Everett Hale wrote only 25 years ago: "Slavery has gone by, and as a cause is almost forgotten; women's rights are no longer an issue; though temperance and prohibition are still unsettled questions, in spite of legislation and propaganda. Yet people are so used to graham bread that it never occurs to them nowadays that at one time this simple article of food was the subject of prolonged con- troversy; for in the 1830's, the theories of Dr. Sylvester Graham were among the much discussed topics of the time. People put aside the ancient but good advice to take no thought as to what they should eat or what they should drink, but from the very breakfast table they discussed whether they should drink tea or coffee or cold water only, whether they should eat whole wheat or milled or bolted flour, whether animal food was humane and healthful, whether while abstaining from alcoholic drinks, the intoxicant should still lurk in preserves and mince pies. They had as many fads on diet as nowadays, and they rolled the discussion
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Dr. Sylvester Graham
on this inexhaustible topic like a sweet morsel under the tongue."
This man who had such an impact on America's bill of fare was born July 5, 1794, the youngest of 17 children of Rev. John Graham, physician and first minister of the West Suffield Con- gregational Church. At that time, Suffield was no longer a part of old Hampshire County. Hartford, not Northampton, was its county seat. Mr. Graham's friend and Yale classmate, Phineas Lyman, had effected that change soon after the minister was es- tablished. Mr. Graham was chaplain to General Lyman's expedi- tion which took Havana from the Spanish during the so-called French and Indian War, but a treaty gave it back the next year. Much more lasting was the peaceful secession of Suffield. Only that strange little indenture on the Massachusetts-Connecticut line remains to recall the complicated border disputes between the two states.
When Sylvester was two years old, his 74-year-old father died and the boy's upbringing was entrusted successively to various relatives. Both his health and his education suffered, and he was in his 30th year before he enrolled at Amherst Academy to begin studies for the ministry.
Perhaps it was there, in the autumn of 1823, that Sylvester Graham started to develop his ideas about health, diet, and exer- cise. In his later writings, there are echoes of some of the opinions of Rev. Heman Humphrey, who accepted the presidency of the academy at the time the academy accepted Sylvester as a student.
Mr. Humphrey, like Sylvester's father, was a Yale graduate and a minister. Like Sylvester himself, the new president had been a Connecticut farmer and teacher before deciding to study for the ministry. Sylvester may have been more impressed than some other students as Mr. Humphrey referred in his inaugural to the mother's care of her son. "Instead of keeping him shut up all day with a stove, and graduating his sleeping room by Fahrenheit, let him face the keen edge of the north wind, when the mercury is below cypher, and instead of minding a little shivering and com- plaining when he returns, cheer up his spirits and send him out again."
It was at this time that Amherst was fighting hard for a college charter, and perhaps not enough attention was being given to the academy boys. The trustees abolished the misses' department after the 1823 term, "partly to avoid some difficulties and some
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scandals which at length arose from educating the two sexes to- gether." Also, the administration was upset by reports of oyster suppers at which the academy boys drank cherry rum and gin, and played cards.
Although young Mr. Graham's name is not connected with any of these incidents, he left the academy abruptly during his first year. Some say that he was indignant because some students cir- culated reports derogatory to his character. Others report that teachers thought of Mr. Graham as a "stage actor" because of his unusual talents for elocution and dramatics. More likely, his slender resources and his delicate health prompted his decision.
After a long recuperation, he married in 1826 the young woman who had cared for him, and they moved to New Jersey where he became connected with the Newark Presbytery. In 1830, as gen- eral agent for the Pennsylvania Temperance Society, he began lecturing on human physiology, diet, and regimen, and people crowded halls in Philadelphia, New York, and throughout the East to hear the man who wanted people to eat 12-hour-old whole wheat bread, to open their bedroom windows, to take cold show- ers, to loosen their clothing, and to throw away their feather beds!
It is difficult to understand why Dr. Graham liked Northamp- ton and decided to locate here with his wife and family. Perhaps other citizens were more kind to him than were the newspaper's editors. Said the Gazette in 1835: "Mr. Graham's manner is rather fantastical for the pulpit. He makes great use of the screw- auger gesture boring into the left palm with his right forefinger, and from his upward and expansive heavings with both arms, we should judge he would make an excellent fugler for a band of lunar boy-bats, just learning to expand their leathern wings, and go through the flying drill."
When reports came from Boston that his lectures were draw- ing great crowds, the editor here said that Dr. Graham had 'probably adopted a more chaste manner than he had in this town," and added: "The Bostonians are a dyspeptic variety of the human family and the man who professes to cure or prevent that direful disease takes them on the weakest side. The surest way of approaching most men is said through a dinner, but you must secure a Bostonian by telling him how to digest one. No doubt, Mr. Graham can do it scientifically."
However, even in Boston, editors were not considerate of Mr.
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Graham. After completing his lectures (to gentlemen only) on courtship, he gave a similar lecture for women only and more than 300 attended. The next day, the Boston Herald reported the Dr. Graham had used improper language in his talk, and proper Bostonians were quick to react. Some 200 women suc- ceeded in fighting their way through the picket lines to enter the hall to hear Dr. Graham the next night. As the hour of the lec- ture approached, the crowd became larger and more unruly. Placards warned the lecturer of the summary vengeance that would follow if he tried to speak to these women. The city mar- shal assured the crowd that Dr. Graham would not speak and ordered the women to leave the hall. One shouted back: "If they are going to hiss us, I for one will not move an inch!" The crowd withdrew from the doors, and the ladies went home. The next day, the editor printed a notice that Dr. Graham used no im- proper language or charts, and the newspaper had to admit that the young ladies who signed the statement were "of the first respectability."
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