USA > Massachusetts > Hampden County > Springfield > The first century of the history of Springfield; the official records from 1636 to 1736, with an historical review and biographical mention of the founders, Volume I > Part 6
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ecution of the settlement at great expense, while others fell off. William Pynchon's interest went to his son, Jehu Burr's and Smith's went to Holyoke and Dumbleton. In 1656 the question of taxing these lots came up and after considering the original agreement, they were declared to be free of all taxes by the town.
With a boundless wilderness at hand, the founders never- theless guarded the possibilities of a much greater demand for lumber, when some settler pleaded for liberty to transport boards and planks to other settlements,-probably down the Connecticut, and the town adopted this order :-
"It is ordered that any person that desires to transport boards or planks, shall first Tender such to the Selectmen, & if they provide an chapman in ye town within 21 days, at an Indifferent price, then ye owner thereof have liberty to trans- port or re-sell them out of ye Towne."
"Indifferent" was intended to convey what we should mean by using the word impartial. "What indifferent persons shall judge," is an expression frequently found in all early records. With such limited opportunities for acquiring even the means of living, and such an ample supply of timber, it would seem that a broader view might have been taken, with- out endangering the wants of the little hamlet. At that time all boards not riven were sawed by hand, and there was not much danger of overstocking the market or exhausting the forests.
Killing wolves now and then brought money to depleted pockets. The town paid a bounty for many years of 10 shillings to any one who would kill a wolf within five miles of the town, and payments on this account often swelled the town's indebtedness, in which the youths as well as the older persons had a share in creating.
These minor events which have been recorded with consid- erable minuteness are the side-lights of early days in Spring- field. They may seem trival and to some unintresting, but tle by little they reveal to us the conditions and the surround- they help to form the picture of life here at the outset, and lit-
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ings of those who brought civilization and a higher conception of theneeds of humanityto the western world. We may re- gard them as narrow and contracted in many of their views, but they lived up to the divine light within, and whatever may have been their failings in some respects, in the light of our greater liberality of thought, they held firmly to the pur- pose for which they had come, and they never deviated from the convictions which led them from home and country. In this we have a grand example of faith united with patience, born in the hearts of a simple people, whose achievements have been greater than that of the courts and kings they so willingly left behind them to found a state and a government resting on the consent of the governed.
At a town meeting February 18, 1656, "it was voted by consent that whosoever within this township shall kill any ffox or ffoxes shall be allowed 3s ffor any ffox so killed pvid- ed they bring here the body or head unto any of the Select- men." Subsequently this was reduced to "only 12d apeace for every two ffox killed in ye bounds of ye Towne."
On May 10, 1698, it was "Voted to allow Mr. Mackcranny Twenty shillings out of the Rates for his killing of four Cat- tamounts, itt was also further voted that if any Inhabitants of this Towne shall hereafter kill or destroy of the foremention- ed wild creatures within the Bounds of this Towne & bring the head & Tail of every one soe killed unto the Selectmen or Towne Treasurer, they shall bee allowed for soe doeing five shillings for every such creature so destroyed." On Novem- ber 22, 1716, "It was voted to raise Ten pounds in money for Wolves."
The first mill erected not being adequate, on February 6. 1665, "This being the Genll Town meeting, It was consid- ered that there is great necessity of a Corne mill that shall be serviceable for a mor comfortable supply of this than there late has been." A committee was appointed "to consider what course they judge best be taken for the supply of the Towne." They were to report whether it is best to continue
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the present mill or build a new one in some other place, "and the said persons are desired and earnestly entreated by the Towne to consider seriously & speedily what they judge be- hoofeful in ye case; who also have power to call the Towne togetlier as need shall require to declare wt they apprehend requires in the case."
This committee called a town-meeting on February 26, 1665, and reported in favor of a new mill, and Capt. Pynchon agreed to spend 200 pounds in erecting the mill if the town would disburse the additional amount necessary to complete it. "But the Plantation being not cheerful to engage there- in, Tryall was made what would be disbursed by particular persons; and Divers Psons did thereupon promise to allow Capt. Pynchon towards ye worke certain sums." Thirty one townsmen subscribed money and labor to that end.
At the same meeting on February 26, 1665, the town made a grant of fifty acres of upland, thirty acres of meadow, "if he would build a saw mill on fresh water brook or on the old Mil Stream," within three years, otherwise "this grant to be voyd."
This offer not being attractive, on August 11, 1666, the town voted Capt. Pynchon "for his encouragement," and in addition to the former grants, thirty acres on "Old Mill Streame," "the free use of ye said streame for ye said Worke, as also free liberty for felling and Sawing what trees he shall please that are upon the Comons belonging to ye Planta- tion except such trees as are between ye Bay path & Chicuppe River."
Great attention was given to highways, those necessary means of communication. The method of determining them is shown by the order of the Selectmen on "October ye 12th, 1650. It is ordered there shal be a high way of 5 or 6 rod broad from ye way that Leads to ye mill up to the cart bridge that is over the mill River & Soe from that bridge up into the Pyne plaine on ye South side of ye mill River to be laid in place most convenient by Benjamin Parsons, Jonathan Burt & Nathaniel Pritchard."
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WITCHCRAFT IN SPRINGFIELD .- HUGH AND MARY PARSONS.
Certain shadows from the Dark Ages still cast a gloom over the New World in the seventeenth century, and it is not strange their malign influences should have fallen upon the little settlement of Springfield. The belief in witchcraft had prevailed throughout the world from the earliest times, and in even the most enlightened countries of Europe, the lives of thousands upon thousands of innocent persons had been sac- rificed to the delusion. With the Puritan settlers this belief came to New England, but during the first sixty or seventy years of our history there were only a few isolated cases that found their way into court. Some forty years before the ter- rible outbreak of 1692, at Salem Village, Springfield had what was practically its sole visitation of the witchcraft craze. It came under strange and sad circumstances, only a part of which are disclosed by the record, but enough appears to make a distressing story, in which the alleged killing of an in- fant child by its insane mother is the central event.
Hugh Parsons, a sawyer and bricklayer, and Mary his wife, were the unfortunate principals in the sad case. They were married at Springfield October 27, 1645, her name before marriage being Mary Lewis. Three children were born to them: Hannah, b. August 7, 1646; Samuel, b. June 8, 1648, d. about the last of September, 1649; and Joshua, b. October 26, 1650, and said to have been killed by his mother March 4, 1651. Parsons seems to have been a roughspoken fellow, quick to engage in a quarrel, and both he and his wife appear to have shared the general belief in witches. Some trouble occurred in 1649 between them on the one hand and Reice Bedortha and his wife Blanche on the other, in which the Widow Marshfield, who nursed Mrs. Bedortha in confine- ment, took part. The result was a suit by Mrs. Marshfield against the Parsonses for slander, she alleging that Mary Parsons had called her a witch. Mr. Pynchon, as magis- trate, found Mary guilty, and sentenced her to receive twen- ty lashes or pay £3 damages, which amount was paid in 24 bushels of Indian corn. This affair, together with other
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troubles, apparently affected Mary Parsons's health, and finally her mind gave way. Hugh fell under the suspicion of witchcraft, and the most absurd and childish stories were told of him. In February, 1651, Hugh and Mary Parsons were arraigned before Mr. Pynchon upon formal charges of witchcraft. The special complaints against Mary were the bewitching of Martha and Rebecca Moxon, children of the minister, while her husband was accused of practicing dev- ilish arts upon perhaps a dozen persons. The records are not altogether satisfactory as to details, but it appears that the examination of Hugh Parsons was adjourned from time to time, beginning February 27, and ending about April 7, some of the witnesses giving their testimony. His wife was one of his accusers.
The testimony heard by the magistrate was nonsensical in the extreme, but no more so than such as was received in England in all seriousness by so great a judge as Sir Mat- thew Hale about this period. Here are some specimens of it: Hannah Lankton several times found the pudding cut from end to end when she took it from the bag, and on one such occasion Hugh Parsons came to her door about an hour after. He did not satisfactorily explain his errand to the court, which thereupon infers "that the spirit that bewitched the pudding brought him thither."
Thomas Miller joked Parsons about the pudding while eating dinner in the woods with a number of men engaged in lumbering. Parsons said nothing, but a few minutes later. when the men resumed work, Miller cut his leg.
Blanche Bedortha, having had some words with Parsons. suffered from unusual cutting pains after her next confine- ment. Parsons had trouble with Mr. Moxon about making bricks for the latter's chimneys, and threatened to "be even with him." The same week Mr. Moxon's children began to have fits. Then there were stories of bewitched cows, a strange disappearance of an ox tongue from a boiling kettle, and other queer doings about town. For one and all of these there was but one explanation,-the devilish doings of
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Hugh Parsons. Mrs. Parsons also complained of rough treat- ment at her husband's hands, and of his frequent absences from home. There was evidence that he was at Long- meadow at the time of the death of his child Samuel, and that he received the news with no display of natural grief.
On March 4, 1651, before Hugh's examination was con- cluded, occurred the death of his youngest child, Joshua, an infant five months old. Mary at some time during March declared herself a witch, telling of her own misdoings in words which demonstrated her insanity, and either at the same time or later confessed to the murder of her baby She was sent to Boston for trial, as was her husband at the close of his long examination. Mary Parsons was dangerously ill at the sitting of the General Court in May, but was tried on the 13th upon an indictment for witchcraft and was ac- quitted. To the charge of murder she pleaded guilty and was sentenced to death. She was reprieved until May 29, and from the absence of any record of further action it is be- lieved that she died in prison before that date.
The full record of Mary Parsons's case, as found in the Records of the General Court. is as follows :-
"The Court understanding that Mary Parsons now in prison, accused for a witch, is likely through weakness to dye before trial if it be deferred, doe order, that on the mor- row, by eight of the clock in the morning, she be brought be- fore and tried by, the Generall Court, the rather that Mr. Pynchon may be present to give his testimony in the case." -[This paragraph appears under date of 8d .. 3mo .. 1651.]
"May 13, 1651 .- Mary Parsons, wife of Hugh Parsons, of Springfield, being committed to the prison for suspition of witchcraft, as also for murdering her oune child, was this day called forth and indicted for witchcraft: By the name of Mary Parsons you are heere before the Generall Court chargded in the name of this comon-wealth, that not having the feare of God before your eyes nor in your hart, being seduced by the divill, and yielding to his malitious motion. about the end of February last. at Spring-
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field, to have familiarity, or consulted with a familiar spirit, making a covenant with him, and have used diverse divillish practises by witchcraft, to the hurt of the persons of Martha and Rebeckah Moxon, against the word of God, and the laws of this jurisdiction, long since made and published. To which indictment she pleaded not guilty: all evidences brought in against her being heard and examined, the Court found the evidences were not sufficient to prove hir a witch, and therefore she was cleared in that respect."
"At the same time she was indicted for murdering her child, by the name of Mary Parsons: You are here before the Gen- erall Court, chardged in the name of this comon-wealth, that not having the feare of God before your eyes nor in your harte, being seduced by the divill, and yielding to his instiga- tions and the wickedness of your owne harte about the be- ginning of March last, in Springfield, in or neere your owne howse, did willfully and most wickedly murder your owne child, against the word of God, and the lawes of this jurisdic- tion long since made and published. To which she acknowl- edged herself guilty."
"The Court finding hir guilty of murder by her own con- fession, &c., proceeded to judgment: You shall be carried from this place to the place from whence you came, and from thence to the place of execution, and there hang till you be dead."
A marginal note states that she was reprieved to the 29th of May.
Hugh Parsons's trial was put off for a year, probably from the difficulty of bringing witnesses to Boston. He was tried at a Court of Assistants May 12, 1652. Besides calling wit- nesses upon certain facts, the prosecution undertook to use in evidence the written testimony of most of the Spring- field witnesses, which had been forwarded to the Bay by Mr. Pynchon; the accusation of the persons supposed to be be- witched were also offered, together with Mary Parsons's con- fession implicating her husband. The jury returned a re- markably discriminating verdict, declaring that "by the tes-
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timony of such as appeared in court" they find so much against the prisoner "as gives them ground not to clear him," but that if the General Court should hold that the written testimony, the "impeachment" or accusation of the alleged victims and the confession of the wife were "authentic tes- timonies according to law," then the jury find him "guilty of the sin of witchcraft."
Upon reviewing the case the General Court reversed the verdict and acquitted Parsons. The grounds of their action are not set out, but can readily be inferred from the verdict. The introduction of the depositions of absent witnesses, the hearsay evidence of the wife's confession and the ravings of the afflicted was too gross a violation of the prisoner's rights to be overlooked by a court which undertook to follow the forms of established law, and Parsons's life was saved. Had the court exercised such appelate jurisdiction in the Salem cases, forty years later, the colony would in all probability have been spared the disgrace of the barbarous executions that then took place.
Hugh Parsons never returned to Springfield. John Pynchon sold his lands and effects and sent him the pro- ceeds. He, according to Bond's History of Watertown, went to that place, was married again and died there. The rec- ords relating to his case are as follows :-
"October 24, 1651 .- It is ordered, that on the second Tuesday in the 3d month next, there shall be a Court of As- sistants held at Boston, for the trial of those in prison ac- cused of witchcraft, and that the most material witnesses at Springfield be summoned to the Court of Assistants, to give in their evidence against them accordingly."
May 31, 1652 :-
Whereas Hugh Parsons of Springfield, was arrained and tried at a Court of Assistants, held at Boston, 12 of May, 1652, for not having the feare of God before his eyes, but be- ing seduced by the instigation of the divill, in March, 1651, and divers times before and since, at Springfield, as was con- ceived, had familiar and wicked converse with the divill, and
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hath used diverse divillish practises, or witchcrafts, to the hurt of diverse persons, as by several witnesses and circumstances appeared, and was left by the grand jury for further triall for his life."
"The jury of trialls found him guilty. The Magistrates not consenting to the verdict of the jury, the cawes came legally to the Generall Court. The Generall Court, after the pris- oner was called to the barr for triall of his life, perusing and considering the evidences brought in against the said Hugh Parsons, accused for witchcraft, they judged he was not le- gally guilty of witchcraft, and so not to dye by law."
Historians who have studied the case of Mary Parsons as narrated in the records have differed in their conclusions as to her guilt and as to whether or not she suffered the death penalty. Some have come to the conclusion that her con- fession of the murder of her child was only an insane delu- sion, no more to be relied upon than her self-accusation of familiarity with the devil, or the story which it is recorded she told Constable Thomas Cooper to the effect that she with her husband and two women, all under the spell of witchcraft, had passed a night prowling about Stebbins's lot, being, she said, "sometimes like cats, and sometimes in our own shape." Be that as it may, the townspeople unques- tionably believed her guilty. The entry in the town records of deaths, in the handwriting of Henry Burt, sets out that : "Josua Parsons, the sonn of Hugh Parsons, was kild by Mary Parsons his wife, the 4 day of ye 4 mon. 1651." While this does not prove the fact of her guilt, it establishes that it was regarded as sufficiently proved to be made a matter of official record.
Whether the death sentence was carried into effect would seem to be a question of more doubt. She was doubtless just lingering betwen life and death, a mental and physical wreck, at the time of her trial before the General Court. Unfortunately the records of deathis in Boston at that pe- riod in question were very imperfect, and while her name does not appear therein we can draw no inference one way or
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the other from its absence. Charles WV. Upham, in "Salem Witchcraft," sums up as follows all that we can justly infer as to the outcome of the sad case :-
"We are left in doubt as to the fate of Mary Parsons. There is a marginal entry on the records to the effect that she was reprieved to the 29th of May. Neither Johnson (author of "Wonder Working Providence") nor Hutchinson (in his "History of Massachusetts Bay") seem to have thought that the sentence was ever carried into effect. It clearly never ought to have been. The woman was in a weak and dying condition, her mind was probably broken down,-the vic- tim of that peculiar kind of mania-partaking of the charac- ter of a religious fanaticism and a perversion of ideas-that has often lead to child murder."
No other case of witchcraft attended with serious results was ever brought to trial in Springfield after the Parsons prosecutions. It is not unlikely that the sad results of these cases opened the eyes of the people to the folly of the current belief,-and the Connecticut Valley was too far removed from Boston for the influence of the Puritan clergy to be as effective in the stimulation of witchhunting as it was yet to prove in the tragedies of Salem. We can easily condemn our ancestors for their superstition and folly, yet we should remember that only a few generations separated them from the darkest years of Christendom, and they rather deserve praise for so speedily throwing off under their new conditions the yoke of bondage to fear of supernatural influences.
PYNCHON'S HERESY .- HIS BOOK BURNED IN THE MARKET
PLACE AT BOSTON.
William Pynchon's career in New England was brought to a sudden termination about the year 1651, under circum- stances which reveal a side of his character that we should not have looked for in the enterprising merchant and pioneer and the stern magistrate. In 1650, after fourteen years res- idence in Springfield, he published a book entitled "The Meritorious Price of Man's Redemption, Justification, &c."
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This work was a protest against the Calvinistic theology as preached by the clergy of that day, and proves Mr. Pynchon to have been a profound scholar, a logical writer, and an in- dependent thinker. He read his Bible in the original tongues, and while a sincere believer in the literal truth of the Scriptures and in the exact fulfillment of prophecy, he was his own interpreter and he would not accept as a part of his faith the system which Calvin had framed in all its terrible de- tails. In his book he condemned specially the doctrine that Christ suffered the wrath of God and the torments of hell to pay man's debt to his Creator. His theory of the atonement was that, inasmuch as sin came into the world through Ad- am's disobedience, so Christ by his perfect obedience, paid the full price of our redemption." The killing of Jesus was not the display of God's wrath, but was the work of the devil through his instruments, the Jews and the Roman soldiers. The theory that the guilt of the world was laid upon or im- puted to Christ he denounced unsparingly. "If Christ bare Adam's sin," he says, "by God's imputation, and his curse really, then you make Christ to be dead in sin." Again :-
"If our Mediator had stood as a guilty sinner before God by his imputing of our sins to him, Then he could not have been a fit person in God's esteem to do the office of Medi- ator for our Redemption."
A large part of the work deals with the subtleties and ab- stractions of now by-gone theology, but the one thought stands out strongly that God the Father is a God of Justice, and the writer burns with indignation at the unworthy con- ceptions of the Almighty which the old theologians taught. Quoting Ezekiel's words, "One man shall not die for anoth- er's sin," he adds :-
"By this rule of justice God cannot inflict the torments of hell upon an innocent to redeem a guilty person.
"I hold it a point of gross injustice for any Court of Mag- istrates to torture an innocent person for the redemption of a gross Malefactor."
On another page he writes :-
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"There is no need that our blessed Mediator should pay both the price of his Mediatorial obedience, and also bear the Curse of the Law for our redemption.
"I never heard that ever any Turkish Tyrant did require such double satisfaction of any Redeemer for the Redemp- tion of Galley slaves. I never heard that ever any Tyrant did require to pay both the full price that they demanded for their redemption of their Galley-slaves, and to bear their punishment of their curse and slavery also in their stead. Therefore, I cannot choose but wonder at the common doc- trine of imputation, because it makes God the Father more rigid in the price of our Redemption than ever Turkish Ty- rant was, and to be a harder Creditor in the point of satisfac- tion than ever any rigid Creditor was among men."
The book is written in the form of a dialogue between a tradesman, who is seeking for light, and a minister, who re- plies to his queries in accordance to Mr. Pynchon's views. It is of great rarity, only three copies being known to exist at the present time. One copy is in the Congregational li- brary in Boston, one is owned by Dr. Thomas R. Pynchon, of Hartford, and the other is in the British Museum. Be- ginning on page 89 of the present volume is reprinted sub- stantially the whole of Mr. Pynchon's book, omitting the questions, the answers to which are sufficiently complete in themselves for an understanding of the scope and purpose of the work.
In view of the rigid adherence to the established doctrines enforced by the Massachusetts clergy, at that time, it is not to be wondered that Mr. Pynchon's book should have aroused a storm of wrath and indignation. The book, which was printed in London by James Moxon (very likely a kinsman of the Springfield minister), was received in Boston early in October, 1650. Copies of it were laid before the General Court, which was then in session, and were read by the mem- bers with undisguised horror. Such a heretical publication, in their view, tended to undermine the very foundations of the colony. The following vote was passed :-
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