USA > Massachusetts > Berkshire County > Pittsfield > The history of Pittsfield (Berkshire County), Massachusetts, from the year 1734 to the year 1800 > Part 42
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At the close of the war, he became a citizen of the State ; and we shall continue to find him prominent in town affairs and in social life. But he finally returned to Kinder- hook, where he died.
CHAPTER XXIII.
COUNTY COURTS IN PITTSFIELD.
[1761-1787.]
Courts on Unkamet Street. - Peculiarities of the Court of General Sessions. - Court-house Scenes. - Dissatisfaction with the Place of holding the Courts. - Contributions and Plans for a New Court-House. - Various Sites Advocated. - Change in the Shire-Towns proposed. - Popular and Legislative Action. - A County Convention decides for Lenox. - Opposition. - Delays. - The Legislature insists. - Court-House and Jail built.
L IEUT. GRAVES'S house, on Unkamet Street, was an impor- tant spot in the Pittsfield of old times, when the county courts held in its long room their quarterly terms ; events of much greater public moment then than now, on account of the peculiar compo- sition and functions of the General Sessions of the Peace.
This tribunal, in addition to its jurisdiction in criminal cases, was a sort of county parliament, in which not only were many impor- tant matters, now intrusted to the commissioners, officially decided by the justices ; but the general affairs of the county were debated informally by all the gentlemen in attendance, and sometimes de- terminations reached to which the influence of those who partici- pated in them gave almost the force of law. The personal influence of village magnates, powerful still, was then immeasurably more so; indeed, if united, irresistible : and, when matters of engrossing interest were agitated, a very large proportion of the men of wealth and standing were sure to congregate at " the Sessions."
Four justices composed this court in 1761, who, six years later, had increased to ten. Probably, when the Revolution broke out, the number of magistrates on its bench exceeded a dozen ; but the records of the intervening period are missing, having, perhaps, been a part of those which, as traditions state, were destroyed with
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the house of Lieut. Graves when it was burned, just previous to the removal of the courts to Lenox.
After the Revolution, the number of justices was greatly aug- mented ; twenty-six being reported present at a session of 1800.
Besides the judges of the two courts, many of the principal gentlemen of the county were usually collected, as executive offi- cers, lawyers, suitors, jurors, witnesses, or spectators interested in the civil matters before the Court of Sessions.
In Lieut. Graves's homestead, the most spacious room had been fitted up with the furniture necessary for the court ; and, the winter terms being held at Pittsfield, a blazing fire roared up the huge old- fashioned chimney, and garrisoned the seat of justice against the besieging cold.
Among the groups gathered in the recesses of the courts around the cheery blaze, or those which no less ruddily illumined the windows of the neighboring taverns, might generally have been seen most of the men noted in the county annals of those times.
Some of these were in active correspondence with the leading spirits of the age at the centres of political influence ; all were readers of some of the few journals then published ; and many were diligent students of State lore and of the polemical essays which flooded the country. Here they interchanged information and views, discussed the agitated course of events, and concerted measures in regard to them.
Nor has tradition forgotten the genial social intercourse of the gentlemen - many of them such in the best old use of that word - who were brought together in the long winter evenings of court- time. Many are the jokes, quips, quirks, and quiddits, the stories, anecdotes, and repartees, handed down of those whose sterling worth and brilliant talent are overshadowed to posterity by the quaintness with which their wit and humor, as well as their old- fashioned gentility, have invested their memory. They were good livers all, and, in the manner of its enjoyment, could impart an ad- ditional zest to either the haunch of venison, the gloriously-flavored wild turkey of the Berkshire woods, or the homely roast; to the fine old Madeira of Col. Williams, or the "bottled eider " of their own making, such as Major Van Schaack boasted "equal to the best champagne."
It must be confessed, that the social glass, unadulterated as it was, wrought its own work upon some of the noblest of the circle;
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and it is true that the magnificence of spirit and nice code of honor which prevailed tolerated vices, especially the profanity and licen- tiousness peculiar to that age, which advancing civilization has since taught New England to ban, if not to banish.
Their vices, like their virtues, were those of the high-spirited gentlemen of the old school; and, if the groups gathered in that cosey and ruddy nook among the Winter-bergs is not a perfect model for the imitation of modern Berkshire, it is certainly a very picturesque one for the painter, whether he use pen or pencil. Nor is it for the present age, with its manifold creeping and crawling sins, to bestow its indignation in any Pharisaic spirit upon the more robust naughtiness of its predecessor.
In hours like those we have described, friendships grew up which endured for years, in which old men often manifested the most affecting tenderness for each other. Here, too, in the fierce conflicts of law and politics, were engendered feuds which some- times became deadly and hereditary. But, upon the whole, the habitual attendants upon the courts acquired a friendly intimacy which rendered them almost a band of brothers.
Upon those pleasant days broke the distant rumblings which heralded the Revolution. In and around the little Pittsfield court-room at Unkamet's Crossing, as elsewhere, while the hour for resistance to tyranny was approaching, the encroachments of Great Britain were descanted upon; and, as one after another blow aimed at natural or chartered rights was announced, those who had clung to the hope of reconciliation one by one sorrow- fully renounced it, until the few who adhered to the king stood miserably conspicuous, - aliens from the household in which some of them had lately been among the most honored members, ex- cluded from social or commercial intercourse, and branded as " the enemies of American liberty."
But, before this division of those loyal to the king from those loyal to the country was complete, the courts of Berkshire had ceased forever to be held in the royal name; and the interregnum which ensued, until the new government was established in 1780, resulted incidentally in the removal of the courts from Great Bar- rington and Pittsfield, and their concentration at Lenox.
The insufficient accommodations for the courts at Pittsfield had, in 1774, long been a source of complaint; and, previous to that date, measures had been entered upon to provide better. The loss
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of the records, however, leaves us in the dark as to what those measures were, except as light is thrown upon them by the follow- ing unsigned draft of agreement, which was found among the papers of Col. Williams : -
BERKSHIRE, SS.
To the Honorable Ilis Majesty's Justices of the General Sessions of the Peace and Inferior Court of Common Pleas, to be holden at Pittsfield, within and for the said County, on the fourth Tuesday of February next, being the twenty-second Day of said Month, A.D. 1774.
Whereas, for many years past, there has been great uneasiness in said county, that the courts appointed by law to be held at Pittsfield, within and for said county, should from time to time be holden at the house of Lieut. Graves, in said Pittsfield; and, from the extraordinary growth and increase of said county, said uneasiness has grown to a great degree of dissatisfaction, of which, if we are not mistaken, your Honors have heretofore been informed, and at a greater meeting than ever was known of his Majesty's justices of the General Sessions of the Peace for said county, whether it might be called a Court of the General Sessions of the Peace or not we are uncertain, they, the said justices, then and there did nominate and appoint a committee to repair to Pittsfield to view and determine the most suitable place for the erect- ing a court-house in said town, the major part of whom reported, as we are informed, that between the corners of Messrs. Jones, Fairfield, Goodrich, and Root was the most suitable place to accommodate the county and public : -
Wherefore we, the subscribers, for the sake of peace and unanimity, and for the accommodation of the public, do make over, dispose of, and assign to such person or persons as your Honors shall appoint, all and singular such lands, moncys, and articles as we have hereunto subscribed, for the ends and purposes following ; viz., to erect a decent and commodious court-house for the use and benefit of said county, provided the house be erected at said place, and hereby bind and oblige ourselves, our heirs, &c., to the perform- ance thereof, as fully and amply as we can or ought to be holden in any contract or bargain, however precisely and lawfully exemplified or expressed.
In witness whereof, we have hereunto affixed our names, and the articles which wo promise for the purpose aforesaid. 1
The location named is now Wendell Square, the ambitious early projects of whose abuttors, already narrated, 'were now revived, only to be again dashed almost in the moment of fruition. The interested parties tendered a gift of the land and building material ; and tradition avers that the latter was actually collected, and long cumbered the ground. But the term of the court to which the tender was made, and by which it was undoubtedly accepted, was
1 C. C. p. 237.
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the last which Berkshire County saw for over six years. There were also efforts to secure the location of the court-house near The Elm and the meeting-house ; but a more strenuous exertion was made by some proprietors of lands between Unkamet's Cross- ing and Silver Lake, who inherited Col. Stoddard's vision of a central village in that quarter, and wished the new building to be placed at the junction of Beaver and Dickinson Streets, on the lands now a part of the grounds of Hon. Messrs. Benjamin R. Curtis and Thomas Allen, and immediately in front of the house built, and in 1774 occupied, by Woodbridge Little. Here, as upon Wendell Square, land was tendered for the court-house, a public square was actually laid out, and materials for the building collected.
There was, of course, no occasion to discuss the location of court-houses while the courts were suspended, noi, in the absence of the General Sessions, was there any authority to build upon the spot already designated; and when, almost immediately after the re-establishment of civil government, the subject was again agitated, it was with a view to a change in the places of holding the courts.
Rev. Mr. Allen states positively 1 that the courts were removed for political reasons; and it is likely that the leading part which Pittsfield took in opposition to eastern sentiment regarding civil government during the Revolution may have been artfully used to influence the legislature in favor of the change. But it could hardly been the motive of the originators of the movement in the county.
What, if any thing other than local interests of the towns which wished to supplant the old county seats, really prompted this movement, it is difficult now to determine.
The population of the county, which in 1761 lay almost entirely south of the north line of Pittsfield, had now extended itself largely in the north, but not sufficiently to demand the transfer of the county seat in that direction. The preponderance of wealth and numbers was still with the lower towns.
Lanesborough was flourishing, and rivalling her next southern neighbor in business and population ; but there were few spots among the sterile hills of the north to tempt the agriculturist from the broad and fertile meadows which extended along the Housa-
1 Pamphlet of 1810.
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tonic from Sheffield to Lanesborough, or from the superb uplands of Pittsfield and a few other towns in the south. Sheffield, Great Barrington, Stockbridge, and their neighbors, still retained the advantage in point of wealth which they had gained while Pitts- field, and all north of that point, was a wilderness, or was barely held by a military occupation against the savage. Those noble manufactures which have since brought such wealth and increase of people to Northern Berkshire were then but feebly dreamt of, if at all, by such enthusiasts as Parson Allen; and the railroads which now vein the county in all directions from Pittsfield were as yet not even prophesied by the poor foreshadowing of a single turnpike. There was nothing to indicate that the northern section of the county would ever equal - much less excel -its favored southern sister, either in wealth or people. Pittsfield was thus, in 1781, a more suitable place for holding the courts than when, almost upon the northern frontier of settlement, it was selected twenty years before; and there is no apparent reason other than the local ambition of rival towns why change should have been desired. The suggestion of the evils of a divided shire, so apparent as to show the necessity of concentration of all the courts at one place, evidently did not influence the first agitators of the subject.
The first recorded action in regard to a change was in Novem- ber, 1782, when the legislature, upon the petition of Asa Barnes, a prominent citizen of Lanesborough, acting as agent for that and other towns, appointed a committee "to repair to the county of Berkshire, take a general view of it, and determine where the courts shall in future be held."
The committee - Charles Turner, Esq., Gen. Artemas Ward, and Hon. John Sprague - visited the county in June, met the delegates of twenty-two towns at Stockbridge, and made such an examination of the county as they thought necessary, or the delegates desired. The result was a recommendation, which the legislature adopted, that, after the 1st of January, 1784, the courts should be held at Lenox, in some convenient place between the meeting-house and the dwelling of Capt. Charles Dibble. This act passed in February, 1783; and, in the little parliament which assembled around the General Sessions at the Great Barrington term in May, a petition was set on, foot praying for an indefinite postponement of the proposed change, upon the ostensible ground that the county was too poor to erect the necessary buildings.
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The legislature granted a delay of two years, until January, 1786; and the opponents of Lenox made a busy use of the respite. In the fall of 1784, a spirited movement was entered upon for what was doubtless the object of the Barnes petition, - alternate courts at Great Barrington and Lanesborough; but the project met little favor. The people, however, were so ill content, that the legislature submitted the matter again to a county convention, which assembled at Lenox, Sept. 28, sixteen towns being repre- sented. This convention adjourned, after appointing Woodbridge Little of Pittsfield, Timothy Edwards of Stockbridge, and William Whiting of Great Barrington, a committee to receive the proposals of the several towns which desired to become the county seat.
On the 12th of October, this committee sent out circulars to all the towns in the county; of which the following paragraphs form the gist: -
" We, the subscribers, a committee of said convention, beg leave to inform you, that it is the wish and desire of said convention, that you, without fail, send one or more delegates to attend in a county convention to be holden by adjournment at Lenox, on the second Tuesday of November next, at the dwelling-house of Capt. Charles Dibble, at ten of the clock in the forenoon.
"The following proposals are submitted to your consideration ; and it is desired, that, in your deliberations, you will attend to the same, and instruct and direct your delegate or delegates in what place or places it is the choice of your town that the courts in and for said county shall be holden.
" The proposals are as follows : -
" Great Barrington will repair the court-house in said town, and furnish and provide a sufficient jail in said town for the safe keeping of prisoners, and for this propose to give ample security, provided one-half of the courts be established in said town.
" Lanesborough will build and complete a good, sufficient, and elegant court-house in that town, and propose to give ample security therefor, provided one-half of the courts be established in that town.
" Pittsfield will be at the sole expense of erecting a court-house equal in value and elegance to the court-house in Northampton, and propose to give ample sccurity therefor, provided one-half of the courts be established in said town, and the other half in Stockbridge.
" Stockbridge will give the sum of five hundred and seventy-eight pounds and ten shillings towards the public buildings for said county, provided one- half of the courts be established in said town, and the other half at Pitts- field ; and further propose to give the sum of seven hundred and fifty pounds and ten shillings, if all the courts shall be established in Stockbridge; and propose to give ample security for the respective sums, as the case may require.
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" Lenox will give the sum of eight hundred pounds towards the public buildings, and propose to give ample security therefor, provided all the courts are finally established in that town.
" And it is further proposed that the securities above mentioned be laid before said adjourned convention, that they may be able to determine upon them, as they shall judge proper.1
The convention mnet, according to adjournment, at the house of Capt. Charles Dibble, in Lenox, and chose Nathaniel Bishop scribe. Delegates were present from nineteen towns, viz .: -
From Sheffield, Col. Root, Mr. Raymond; Alford, Capt. Brunson ; New Marlborough, Capt. Taylor ; Sandisfield, Capt. Kellogg; Tyringham, Mr. Gaffield [Garfield], Mr. Jackson; Becket, Mr. Brown; Washington, Capt. Ashley ; Lee, William Ingersoll, Esq., Capt. Bradley ; Stockbridge, Jolın Bacon, Esq., Jahleel Woodbridge, Esq., Timothy Edwards, Esq .; Richmont,2 Gen. Rossiter, Nathaniel Bishop, Esq .; Lenox, Gen. Patterson, Col. Hyde, Israel Dewey, Esq., Capt. Gray, William Walker, Esq .; Pittsfield, Eli Root, Esq., Mr. [Dr.] Childs; Lanesborough, Gideon Wheeler, Esq .; Hancock, Samuel Hand, Esq .; Dalton, Capt. Cleveland; Partridgefield, Mr. Kenny ; Great Barrington, William Whiting, Esq., Jonathan Nash, Esq., Mr. Elisha Lee, Major King, Mr. Younglove; West Stockbridge, Mr. Hooker.
The propositions from the several towns which had made offers in regard to the county seat were laid before the convention, and pronounced ample in each case.
The question was then put whether the courts "should in future be holden in two towns, or in one only;" and the vote stood as follows: -
For one town only, - Tyringham, Becket, Washington, Lee, Stockbridge, Richmont, Williamstown, Partridgefield, West Stockbridge, Lenox, -ten.
For two towns, - Sheffield, Alford, New Marlborough, Sandisfield, Pitts- field, Lanesborough, Hancock, Dalton, Great Barrington, - nine.
The convention then selected Lenox for the shire-town by the following vote : -
For Stockbridge, - Sheffield, Alford, New Marlborough, Sandisfield, Ty- ringham, Lee, Stockbridge, West Stockbridge, - eight.
For Lenox, - Becket, Washington, Richmont, Lenox, Lanesborough, Williamstown, Hancock, Dalton, Partridgefield, Great Barrington, -ten.8
1 This circular, which is signed by Woodbridge Little in behalf and by order of the committee, is preserved in the archives of Pittsfield.
2 The town of Richmond was originally incorporated, owing to a clerical error, as Richmont ; and it was many years before the mistake was corrected by the le- gislature.
8 The record of the November convention is in the collection of papers relating
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Pittsfield did not vote; having probably determined to contest in the legislature the decision of the convention in favor of a single shire-town. There was, in fact, throughout the county, much dissatisfaction with the proceedings we have related; and, in 1785, so general and spirited was the opposition, that it appeared to the General Court that "the inhabitants of several towns in the county are dissatisfied that the courts should be held at Lenox, as by law established :" and, as it was "important that some place or places should be determined upon for that purpose as soon as might be," Hon. Caleb Strong, Warham Parks, and David Smead, Esqs., were commissioned to view the towns of Great Barrington, Stockbridge, Lenox, Pittsfield, and Lanesborongh," - the promi- nent candidates for favor, - and such other places as might enable them to determine the object of their commission justly ; to ac- quaint themselves with the roads passing through the county, and the communications between the interior and exterior towns; to pay due attention to situation, and the probability of future settle- ment; to hear such representations as might be made to them upon the subject; and then to fix upon some proper place or places, and, if they shall find more than one necessary, to deter- mine what terms shall be held at each respectively, and which should be the shire-town."
The committee met the deputies of the towns at Pittsfield on the 11th of May, when all were represented except New Ashford, West Stockbridge, Becket, Sandisfield, and New Marlborough; " and it was agreed what the predilections of those towns severally were." A very thorough examination of the county, in accordance with the instructions of the legislature, was then made. The result was, that the committee " were clearly and unanimously of opinion that it would not be for the interest or peace of the county to have all the courts fixed at any one place ; but that the inhabitants of the county would be best accommodated by having the courts held alternately at Stockbridge and Pittsfield, and that Stock- bridge should be the shire-town," and that the terms of the Su- perior Court should be held at that place.
The legislature, governed by reasons of which we have no knowledge, adhered to its election of Lenox, notwithstanding the emphatically adverse report of its own able commission.
It would have been strange if the opposition of Pittsfield, dur- to the history of Berkshire belonging to Charles J. Taylor, Esq., of Great Bar- rington.
.
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ing the Revolution, to the courts set up by the legislature, and to the policy prevalent at the east, had not left a prejudice against her upon the minds of the public men of that section, of which it would have been easy for shrewd managers in the lobby or on the floor to have taken advantage; but the same could hardly be said of Great Barrington, which, in 1778, had been the only town in the county to vote, as it did almost unanimously, in favor of admitting the civil administration of the State. Lenox, although as perversely against the legislative policy as her neighbors, was less conspicuous. But Stockbridge was rather conservative in politics, was the residence of many eminent and influential men, and was already a lovely village, whose praise was in the mouths of people of culture and intelligence in the great centres of opinion.
It is observable, that when the movement for the change in the courts was begun, for the two years 1782 and 1783, Pittsfield was unrepresented in the General Court, and in the former year was . fined £36. 6s. 3d. for neglecting to send a representative. In 1784 Dr. Timothy Childs, and in 1785 Capt. Charles Goodrich, were chosen, and probably commanded as much influence at Boston as any who could have been selected. In the same years, there were in the legislature, from Berkshire, such men as Theodore Sedg- wick, Jahleel Woodbridge, and John Bacon, of Stockbridge; Eli- jah Dwight of Great Barrington; William Walker of Lenox; and Jonathan Smith of Lanesborough : and all doubtless exhibited the regard for their respective places of residence which is natural and creditable; and it would be pardonable if their judgments were warped by local predilections.
Geographically, as between the north and south, the centre of the county is nearly on the south line of Pittsfield, about equidistant from the Pittsfield Park and the Lenox Court-house ; but, in 1785, the centre of wealth and population was considerably to the south of the latter point, probably in the neighborhood of "Old Stock- bridge on the plain." If the courts were all to be held at one point, the selection of Lenox, therefore, favored the north rather than the south.
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