USA > Massachusetts > Berkshire County > Pittsfield > The history of Pittsfield (Berkshire County), Massachusetts, from the year 1734 to the year 1800 > Part 2
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50
State of the Law. - Appropriations for the New Meeting-House resisted. - Baptists, Shakers, Episcopalians, and Methodists. - Protest of the Dissenters. - List of Dis- senters in 1789. - Inquisition into Religious Faith. - Henry Van Schaack appeals to the Courts .- The Decision. - State Laws for the Support of Religious Worship remodelled. - Pittsfield Parishes . 450
APPENDIX.
A .- Depreciation of Massachusetts Provincial Currency . 467
B .- Rev. Thomas Allen's Revolutionary Diary . 470
C. - Names of Early Settlers . 475
D .- Records of the Revolutionary Service of Pittsfield in the Revolution
. 477
E .- Census of Pittsfield in 1772
. 497
F. - Rev. Mr. Allen's Account of the Battle of Bennington . . 499
G .- Plan of Pittsfield in 1794 . 501
H .- Additional Incidents . .
. 503
EXPLANATION. - The initials T. C. C., refer to the Thomas Colt Historical Collection; H. C. C., Henry Colt Collection; Lanc. Col., Lancton Collection; Am. Ar., to the American Archives of Peter Force; H. V. S. C., to the Henry C. Van Schaack Collection.
TOPOGRAPHY.
" TOPOGRAPHICAL pursuits, my doctor used to say, tend to preserve and promote the civilization of which they are a consequence and a proof.
" They have always prospered in prosperous countries, and flourished most in flourishing times, when there have been persons enough of opulence to encourage such studies, and of leisure to engage in them. . . Whatever strengthens our local attachments is favorable both to individual and national character. Our home, our birthplace, our native land, -think for a while what the virtues are which arise out of the feelings connected with these words ; and, if thou hast any intellectual eyes, thou wilt then perceive the connection between topography and patriotism.
" Show me a man who cares no more for one place than another, and I will show you in that same person one who loves nothing but himself. Beware of those who are homeless by choice: you have no hold on a human being whose affections are without a tap-root." - SOUTHEY : The Doctor.
PART I.
BERKSHIRE.
Geography. - Physical Structure and Scenography. - Central Position of Pitts- field. - Manufactures. - Mineral Productions. - Aspect when first visited. - Geographical Nomenclature. - Derivation of the Name " Housatonic."
rTHE fourteen counties into which Massachusetts is divided are, most of them, distinguished by physical peculiarities, which shape the occupations of their inhabitants, and mould their habits of life and thought ; and among these subdivisions of the Com- monwealth, in forming which the statute has, often with nicety, fol- lowed the demarcations of Nature, not even the sandy Cape or metropolitan Suffolk - hardly even insular Nantucket - is marked by features so unlike those of its sister shires as are those which characterize the county of Berkshire.
The traveller who enters the mountain-walls of its upland valley soon recognizes the intense individuality of this region, and feels that he is among a peculiar people as well as amid novel scenes; and this notwithstanding the large infusion of foreign population into the manufacturing districts, and the constant tidal currents between city and country life, which have gone far to smooth away the strong although never very rugged lines that used to make the aspect of society no less picturesque than that of Nature. The stranger with a moderately observant eye will soon perceive that the old lineaments, however softened, are still there; and he may often find them starting into prominence, which leaves the lineal likeness unmistakable.
The people of Berkshire are the true children of their home among the hills. They are very much what its geographical and
3
4
TOPOGRAPHY OF PITTSFIELD.
physical characteristics would naturally make the descendants of Massachusetts Puritans. Our first consideration, then, is of the influences of this kind which have tended to modify in them the common type of Massachusetts man.
Berkshire, the extreme western portion of the Pilgrim Common- wealth, is divided from the counties of Columbia and Rensselaer, in New York, by a right line1 which runs for fifty-one miles along the summits of the Taconic Mountains.
On the north, a straight boundary of fourteen miles separates it from Vermont ; but the town of Munroe, belonging to Franklin County, juts into its north-eastern corner. Immediately south of that point, the width of Berkshire is about eighteen miles. Thence a line, rendered very irregular by numerous attempts to rectify the boundaries of towns and counties, divides the Hoosac Mountains, between Berkshire on the west, and Franklin, Hampden, and Hampshire on the east. Upon the south, the line again becomes straight, and runs for twenty-four miles along the borders of Con- necticut. Thus the four cardinal boundaries of Berkshire lie along four different States, including that of which it forms a part. The region thus defined, containing an area of a little over nine hundred and fifty square miles, forms a conspicuous feature in one of the most remarkable phases of New-England geography, as described, upon the authority of Prof. Guyot's observations, in Palfrey's history of that section : and no better basis for a clear comprehension of the physical conformation of Berkshire could be desired than a slightly condensed extract from that work : -
"Only moderate elevations," says Dr. Palfrey, " present them- selves along the greater part of the New-England coast. Inland, the great topographical feature is a double belt of highlands, sepa- rated almost to their bases by the deep and broad valley of the Connecticut River, and running parallel to each other from the south-south-west to the north-north-east, till around the sources of that. river they unite in a wide space of table-land, from which streams descend in different directions." . . .
" To regard these highlands, which form so important a feature in New-England geography, as simply two ranges of hills, would not be to conceive of them aright. They are vast swells of land, of an average elevation of a thousand feet above the level of the
1 With the exception of a slight deviation at the south, caused by the cession of Boston Corner.
5
TOPOGRAPHY OF PITTSFIELD.
r
sea, each with a width of forty or fifty miles, from which, as from a base, mountains rise in chains or in isolated groups to an altitude of several thousand feet more.
" In structure, the two belts are unlike. The western system, which bears the general name of the Green Mountains, is com- posed of two principal chains,1 more or less continuous, covered, like several shorter ones which run along them, with the forests and herbage to which they owe their name. Between these, a longitudinal valley can be traced, though with some interruptions, from Connecticut to Northern Vermont. In Massachusetts, it is marked by the Housatonic ; in Vermont, by the rich basins which hold the villages of Bennington, Manchester, and Rutland; and, farther on, by valleys of less note. .
" The mountains have a regular increase from south to north. From a height of less than a thousand feet in Connecticut, they rise to an average of twenty-five hundred feet in Massachusetts, where the majestic Greylock, isolated between the two chains, lifts its head to the stature of thirty-five hundred feet. In Ver- mont, Equinox and Stratton Mountains, near Manchester, are thirty-seven hundred feet high ; Killington Peak, near Rutland, rises forty-two hundred feet; Mansfield Mountain, at the northern extremity, overtops the rest of the Green-mountain range with an altitude of forty-four hundred feet.
" The rise of the valley is less regular. In Connecticut, its bottom is from five hundred to seven hundred feet above the level of the sea. In Southern Berkshire, it is eight hundred feet : it rises thence two hundred feet to Pittsfield, and one hundred more to the foot of Greylock; whence it declines to the bed of the Housatonic in one direction, and to an average height of little more than five hundred feet in Vermont in the other. Thus it is in Berkshire County that the western swell presents, if not the most elevated peaks, yet the most compact and consolidated structure." 2
A region thus constituted could not fail to be filled with lovely vales ; but unrivalled here, and with few rivals elsewhere, stands the fame of that occupied by the county of Berkshire. And nowhere else is the combination of its grand but unfrowning circumvallation of hills, with the varied beauty which it encircles,
1 The Taconics on the west, and the Hoosacs on the east.
2 Palf. Hist. N. E., i. pp. 3-5.
-
6
TOPOGRAPHY OF PITTSFIELD.
to be observed with such completeness of effect as from points near the centre of Pittsfield, where the perspective softens and shapes the outlines of the view into unity and proportion, and where you are free from that feeling of oppression which is apt to result from the too close proximity of mountains. The spectator standing on the observatory at Maplewood, on the commanding hill above Springside, or upon some similar elevation, finds no words in which to express his admiration of the scenes which surround him. On the west sweep the Taconies, in that majestic eurve whose grace trav- ellers familiar with the mountain seenery of both hemispheres pronounce unequalled. On the east, the Hoosacs stretch their unbroken battlements with white villages at their feet, and, if the sunlight favor, paths of mingled lawn and wood enticing to their summits; while from the north,
" Greylock, cloud-girdled on his purple throne,"
looks grandly across the valley to the giant heights keeping watch and ward over the pass where the mountains throw wide their everlasting gates to let the winding Housatonic flow peacefully towards the sea.
On every side, the exquisite curves of this graceful stream, and the slender threads of its innumerable tributaries, embroider the rich green of the meadows and the more sombre verdure of the uplands ; while not far away, although not all visible, sparkle the bright waters of six beautiful lakelets, companions to
" The stream whose silver-braided rills Fling their unclasping bracelets from the hills, Till, in one gleam, beneath the forest's wings Melts the white glitter of a hundred springs." HOLMES.
Below, the not unfitting centre of this amphitheatre of beauty, lies the village of Pittsfield, with its mansions and humbler homes, its marts, schools, and churches, half hidden by noble trees ;
7
TOPOGRAPHY OF PITTSFIELD.
among which, alas! no longer rises the gray old elm which used first to greet the traveller's eye.
A lovelier landscape one might not desire to see; and when, satiated with long, luxurious gazing, the spectator seeks to analyze the sources of his delight, all the elements of beauty justify his praise. To the eye, the valley here presents the proportions which architects love to give their favorite structures. The symmetry, too, with which point answers to opposing point, exceeds the power of art. Variety the most marvellous, but without confusion, forbids the sense to tire. Colors the richest, softest, and most delicate, charm the eye, and vary with the ever-changing conditions of the atmosphere. Fertile farms and frequent villages imbue the scene with the warmth of generous life; while over all hangs a subdued grandeur which may well have pervaded the souls of the great and good men who have made Berkshire their home since the days of Jonathan Edwards.
The emotion of sublimity is not often excited by Berkshire scenery, unless the feeling inspired by the excess and over- whelming profusion of beauty with which, under certain favoring circumstances, it overflows, may be properly so classed. Boldness, freshness, and variety are the traits by which it charms; and they are those which one would most desire to characterize his home, and under whose healthful influences he would wish his children to be educated. On the heights where Greylock lifts the topmost summit of the State, along the valleys of the Hoosac and the Housatonic, up the rude but flower-fringed wood-roads which penetrate the narrowing opes 1 of the Green Mountains, beauty is everywhere the prevailing element. The rapidly-shifting scenes - never tame, but rarely rugged; never altogether repulsive, but
1 The reader will pardon to necessity the employment of a word of merely local authority and very infrequent use. A hope - or more descriptively, with- out the aspirate, an ope-is a valley, which, open at one end only, loses itself at the other, sloping upward to a point in the mass of the mountains. The word is quite indispensable in the description of scenery like that of Berkshire; and its disuse has resulted in the adoption of such vile substitutes as " hole," " hol- low," or even worse. Thus we have Biggs's Hole and Bigsby's Hollow, or more probably " Holler." Surcly neatly descriptive ope should not be displaced by such abominable interlopers as these.
WEBSTER has " HOPE, 2. - A sloping plain between ridges of mountains. [Not in use.] Ainsworth."-But English local topographical writers sometimes use the word in the sense given it in the text.
8
TOPOGRAPHY OF PITTSFIELD.
often filled with all that can please the eye - follow each other in infinitely multiplied combinations of mountain and valley, lake and stream, rock, tree, and shrub, mossy hillock and crystal spring.
" The delicious surprises of Berkshire " was one of the happiest phrases in the poetic rhetoric of Gov. Andrew, who knew well the scenes he praised ; and the traveller along its winding roads recognizes at every turn how truthful and appropriate was the expression.
But we must not linger, where all love to linger, amid the exceeding loveliness of Berkshire scenery ; but turn to those facts regarding the geographical structure of the county, which, although not devoid of scenographic interest, affect also its internal econo- my, and its relations to its county-seat and central market-town.
Pittsfield Park, which lies very near the centre of the town, and of the county as well, has an elevation above the level of the sea of one thousand and forty-one feet; and, omitting the small unin- habited mountain-districts, that is not far from the average altitude of the township.
Of the neighboring mountains, isolated Greylock, the highest point of Massachusetts (3,505 feet above the level of the sea), rises 2,464 above Pittsfield, from which it is about fourteen miles distant as the crow flies. Of the Hoosacs, some of the peaks near Vermont attain an altitude of two thousand feet above the val- ley at their bases; or perhaps fourteen hundred above Pittsfield. Among the Taconics, Berlin Mountain in Williamstown exceeds the latter level by 1,773 feet ; Perry's Peak in Richmond, - famed for its superb over-view, -by 1,576; and, near the extreme south- west, Mount Everett, the dome of the Taconics, by 1,583.
Excluding from the computation these heights, which dispropor- tionately excel their neighbors, the average elevation of the moun- tain-summits of Berkshire above Pittsfield Park may be about eight hundred feet; which is considerably less than their altitude above the level of the Berkshire Valley.1 How slight is the depression of the transverse valleys between the several peaks, massive knobs, and table-lands of the Hoosacs, may be inferred from the fact, that, upon the eastern declivity of the range, the Western Railroad is
1 Prof. Chester Dewey estimated the general average of the Hoosac Range above the bottom of the valley at sixteen hundred feet ; that of the Taconics, at twelve or fourteen hundred.
9
TOPOGRAPHY OF PITTSFIELD.
compelled to almost double upon its track in order to find a gap through which it may enter the county by a valley-summit whose original elevation was 1,478 feet above tide-water at Albany, or 452 above Unkamet's Crossing.1 The domelike summits of the Taconics are more sharply divided; but even between these the depressions are so slight, that, although the locomotive finds a passage at an elevation of only a hundred and twenty feet above the road-bed at Pittsfield, it is the only one that is practicable south of that through which the Hoosac River escapes.
Concisely to outline the geography of the Berkshire Hills, the grand uplifted table-land described by Dr. Palfrey must be con- sidered as here cleft - above its solid substructure of a thousand feet - for a length of forty-eight miles, and to an average depth of fifteen hundred feet; while the longitudinal ridges thus formed are serrated by transverse valleys of less than one-third that average, supplemented by water-courses furrowed by the mountain- torrents.
Between the longitudinal ridges known as the Hoosac and Taconic Mountains lies the Berkshire Valley, having an average breadth of about six miles; although, except in Pittsfield and Sheffield, it is made to appear much more narrow by the spurs which protrude into it, and the isolated ranges with which it is thickly studded. In the basin formed by this valley and the declivities which incline toward it is concentrated the mass of population and wealth which lend character to the county.
The natural outlines which give unity to the region are sufficient- ly well defined ; but practically it is divided into minor compart- ments, 'so arranged, however, as to form a homogeneous whole, with a common centre. In the northern section, the chief barrier which governs this division is the Greylock Range, which, begin- ning near the Vermont line, extends southward through Lanes- borough. In the south, the less continuous Tom Ball Spur, thrown off by the Taconics at Alford, after being broken through by the Williams River at West Stockbridge, extends to Pittsfield, where it terminates abruptly in the Cliffwood terraces of South Mountain.
Between these intersections and the exterior walls of the county extend four valley-reaches, marked respectively by the east branch- es of the Hoosac and the Housatonic, by the west branches of
1 Where the track crosses the east branch of the Housatonic in Pittsfield.
10
TOPOGRAPHY OF PITTSFIELD.
.
the same rivers, by the Housatonic after the junction, and by the track of the Western Railroad south-westward. Into these grand subdivisions of the Berkshire Valley open a multitude of others of minor importance.
Midway between the northern and southern boundaries of the county, the intersecting barriers disappear; and the confluent, valleys merge in the six miles square occupied by the township of Pittsfield, the greater part of which is of moderately uneven surface, with large spaces approaching the character of plains. Only rarely do the highways have to climb greater heights than afford an agreeable relief to the traveller; and few sections of the town oppose more obstacles to level streets than are found in many cities and towns in those portions of New England not accounted mountainous. The Taconies impinge but slightly upon its western border; the Hoosacs still more slightly upon its eastern. The only formidable elevations are Oceola and South Mountain, which cover a small territory in the south.
It will readily be perceived that the peculiar divergence of the valleys which here find their common terminus make this favored locality the centre of the county in a sense and to a degree un- known in regions where the direction of roads is subject to hardly any other law than that which makes the shortest distance between two points a straight line. Among the hills, on the contrary, every boy who goes to mill knows that the farthest road round is often the shortest way home.
There are several flourishing centres of local traffic more con- venient to their respective sections than Pittsfield is; but it needs only an inspection of the map to show how exclusively the dispo- sition of the interior ridges of the county makes that the intersect- ing, radiating, decussating point of the great highways of Berkshire, -at once the only practical thoroughfare between her northern and southern divisions and the point where they meet each other. The traveller at one of the extreme corners of the county, wishing to reach that longitudinally opposite, will never attempt to do so by the most direct route, - if, indeed, any exist which at all ap- proximate directness, - but, at whatever cost of détour, by one of those which intersect at the central town.
And, if this point is thus marked out by Nature as the centre of intercommunication by the highway, still more emphatically is it so for railway travel, which, by the necessities of the country, is
11
TOPOGRAPHY OF PITTSFIELD.
compelled to wind among the mountain-defiles in a course so cir- cuitous, that, of the thirty-one towns which compose the county, seventeen - containing 45,374 of its 56,966 people - are touched by the iron rails which unite at Pittsfield ; while chartered roads soon to be built will add the most populous portion of the remain- der to the connection.
In its intercourse with the world outside its mountains, Berk- shire, before the introduction of railroads, was circumscribed almost as narrowly as in its internal thoroughfares. How formidable a barrier interposed between it and the rest of Massachusetts may be inferred from the fact that the least difficult access was by the Pontoosuck Turnpike. The Western Railroad now follows the general course of this route, sacrificing directness, sometimes, in order to lessen grades ; and in a distance of twenty-five miles, be- tween Tekoa Mountain and Washington Summit, -notwithstand- ing this sacrifice and the aid of the most skilful engineering, -it is compelled to ascend twelve hundred and eleven feet, of which eight hundred and thirty-seven are surmounted in the last half of the dis- tance by a grade whose maximum is more than eighty-two feet to the mile. The Pontoosuck Turnpike in its best estate was con- sidered, as it really was, a marvel of engineering skill, and encoun- tered no such grades as rendered the great parallel highways which ran north and south of it almost impassable at certain sea- sons of the year. In the last years previous to the building of the railroad, the stage-route over this road was famed also for the luxury of its coaches and the excellence of its horses ; 1 but Capt. Marryatt, in his " American Diary," having graphically described the horrors of stage-travel over the Hoosacs, even when mitigated as perfectly as they could be, exclaimed upon " the madness of certain crazy spirits who had conceived the idea of constructing a railroad through this savage region." Time soon removed the im- putation of madness from the splendid scheme; but the traveller gazing from the car-windows as the locomotive with mighty throes toils up the Valley of the Westfield - now beneath overhang- ing cliffs, and now where the little river gleams far down the deep ravine - will sympathize with the admiration of his British prede- cessor for that daring spirit which conceived the possibility of such an achievement.
1 The Albany and Boston stages, run by several noted contractors, among whom Jason Clapp, Esq., still a venerable citizen of Pittsfield, was prominent.
12
TOPOGRAPHY OF PITTSFIELD.
Upon those sides of the county which border upon other States, the passes were, as has been intimated, less difficult. The banks of the Housatonic opened a convenient avenue along which inter- course with the Connecticut towns was uninterrupted. So inti- mate was the connection of Berkshire with Hartford at the time of the Revolution that "The Courant "1 was not only the medium through which the political contests of Pittsfield were carried on, but also contained the advertisements of the impounded cattle and runaway slaves of that town and of Great Barrington.
Hartford continued to draw to itself a large portion of Berkshire trade until the railroads opened new avenues in other directions; but even before that era, after the establishment of steamboats upon the Hudson, it was successfully rivalled by the towns upon that river : and the tide of traffic flowed through the West-Stockbridge gate of the Taconics to Hudson, Kinderhook, and Albany, and thence to New York. On the north-west, the pass of the Hoosacs, which, to the dismay of all Massachusetts, had long ago been found out by the French and Indian foe, in later times furnished a thoroughfare for more peaceful intercommunication; but, as no great markets then lay in that direction, it less affected the county.
These superior facilities for intercourse with other States than with Massachusetts colored not only the business-relations, but the general character of the people of Berkshire; and, although the traits inherited from "Old-Hampshire " ancestry still formed the groundwork of thought and custom, and were continually re- invigorated by fresh migrations from the old home, they were modified by much which had been spontaneously engendered in the isolation of the hills, or ingrafted from those with whom con- tact was more frequent than with kindred in the Connecticut Valley.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.