USA > Massachusetts > Berkshire County > Pittsfield > The history of Pittsfield (Berkshire County), Massachusetts, from the year 1734 to the year 1800 > Part 7
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' The extension of Massachusetts a little farther westward than Connecticut, notwithstanding her claim to only coequal bounds, is accounted for by the cession, by the latter State, of a strip from her western border as an equivalent for a tract added to Fairfield County from New York.
2 Among these, one of the most active and influential was Ebenczer Pomeroy, an ancestor of the Pomeroy family of Pittsfield.
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HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD.
afterwards designated as the "Upper and Lower Housatunnuk" were granted; their ample limits embracing the present towns of Sheffield, Great Barrington, Mount Washington, and Alford, with a great portion of Stockbridge, West Stockbridge, and Lee. The settlement of this tract commenced at what is now Sheffield, in 1725, simultaneously with the survey of the New-York and Connecticut boundary-line; but the enterprise lagged until the completion of that survey in 1731. About that time, an informal understanding appears to have been at least tacitly established between New York and Massachusetts ; for a New-York historian of that period exultingly records that "it was left for the year 1731 to be distinguished for the complete settlement of the boundary disputes, - an event, considering the late colonizing spirit and extensive claims of the New-England people, of no small importance."
V
Something very like a Western fever, and speculation in " the un- appropriated lands of the Province, in the county of Hampshire," now sprang up. The General Court, eager to occupy the disputed territory, made liberal grants to actual settlers upon payment of sums barely sufficient to extinguish the Indian title, and defray the expenses of formally establishing the plantations .! To other purchasers, lands were sold at a moderate price per acre. Public men were rewarded for services to the State by gifts of forest tracts ; institutions of learning were endowed with townships; and towns at . the east, upon which an unfair proportion of the general burdens fell, were relieved by drafts upon the same treasury of public wealth.1
v
But, whatever might otherwise be the nature of the grant, provision - generally in the form which we shall find in the case of Pittsfield - was almost invariably made for a speedy, thrifty, and defensible settlement by Massachusetts subjects, and for the support of schools and public worship.
1 There was no division of the territory into townships by general survey ; but grants were made of a certain number of acres, sometimes of a prescribed com- pactness, to be selected from the unappropriated lands of the Province in the county of Hampshire, " to be surveyed, and a plat thereof returned to the General Court " within a specified time, "for confirmation." Afterwards, the nooks between these selections were granted. This practice, the variation of the western boundary of the State from the line at first expected, and the mountainous ridges which intersect the county, are the chief, although not the only canses of the very irregular shapes and sizes of the Berkshire towns.
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HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD.
There was no lack of men ready to accept lands, even upon an exposed frontier, and with Indian claims to be extinguished, .. when the terms were otherwise so easy as those described above. Nor were there wanting many, with strong muscles and intelligent minds, although of feeble purse, who were willing to encounter danger, exposure, and the most arduous labors, that they might build up homes in the newly-opened country.
The system of large farms and scant culture -natural to new countries, and not without its benefits in diffusing population - left many young men, even in the fertile valley of the Connecticut, with no alternative but to till an inferior soil, or bravely win a richer from the forest. We know what class chose the latter: the advancing wave of civilization bore the noblest spirits on its crest. Persons of a riper age and more ample means, whose pro- fessional or political success had not equalled their ambition, or perhaps their conscious merit, were tempted, if of elastic tem- perament and persistent resolution, to new fields of effort in the rising plantations, where their experience, serviceable to the com- munity, would be welcomed and rewarded. Men of public spirit and unemployed capital at once gratified their tastes, and found a profitable investment for their money, in furthering the settle- ment of townships, whose acres were certain to increase many fold in value by the labors and outlays of those who purchased a small portion, often for almost as much as the first cost of the whole tract.
The Provincial archives of the period are full of papers con- cerning wild lands, new settlements, and dealings regarding them ; and, among the names which most frequently recur in these documents, are those most conspicuous also in the transactions preliminary to the settlement of Pittsfield, - Cols. Jacob Wendell of Boston, and John Stoddard of Northampton. ~
These gentlemen were both men of property, members of the Provincial Council, and colonels of the militia in their respective counties. Col. Wendell, born at Albany in 1691, of Dutch lineage, connected with some of the most prominent families in that ancient burgh, early transferred his prosperous fortunes to Boston, where he became one of the wealthiest merchants of the port, a director of the first banking institution established in America, and a success- ful politician. He married a daughter of Dr. James Oliver of Cambridge, and by her became the father of a son more dis-
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HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD.
tinguished than himself, - Oliver Wendell, the bold and ardent Revolutionary leader, - and the ancestor of two men of brilliant intellectual fame in our own day, Wendell Phillips and Oliver Wendell Holmes.
Col. Stoddard was one of the most remarkable men in the Provincial history of New England, if we may credit so eminent a eulogist as President Edwards, who ascribes to him " the highest native gifts of mind, a peculiar genius for public affairs, a thorough political knowlege, great purity of life, incorruptible principles, and sincere piety." He adds, that, "upon the whole, there perhaps never was a man in New England to whom the appellation of 'a great man' did more properly belong." This is, to be sure, the language of eulogy, uttered by one mourning the newly dead, to whom he had been bound by the ties of kindred, and the closest sympathies of religions opinion ; but the assenting judgment of unbiassed contemporaries of Col. Stoddard, and the record of his public life, permit us to deduct little from President Edwards's high estimate of his character.
There were but few public undertakings of much consequence, in his time, in which he had not some part; and, among other commissions upon which he served, were those to open the settle- ment at Sheffield, and to establish the celebrated Indian mission at Stockbridge; in both of which he was joined with Ebenezer Pomeroy. During Queen Anne's War, his command of the militia, in the most exposed portion of the Province, was credit- able; and, at its close, he was sent to Canada to effect the restora- tion of the New-England captives who were scattered among the savages of that region. .
In 1734, the General Court granted to this faithful servant of the Province one thousand acres of its "unappropriated lands in the county of Hampshire," to be by himself selected in some convenient place. The grant was asked in consideration of Col. Stoddard's " great services and sufferings for the public in divers journeys to Canada, Albany, and the eastern parts, npon public affairs ; his serving in war with good success; his transactions with the Canadian and other western Indians; and his entertaining of them at his own house withont any expense to the Province."
It was required that the thousand acres should be laid ont by surveyor and chain-men, under oath, and a plat returned to the General Court for confirmation within twelve months of the passage
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HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD.
of the act which bore date Dec. 17, 1734. The Legislature were, however, not rigid as to lapses of time when conflicting claims did not accrue in the interval; and the grant was duly confirmed, although the survey was not submitted until June 22, 1736. The bounds of the patent are thus defined :-
" Lying on the main branch of the Housatonic River, about sixteen miles north of Capt. Konkapot's house : beginning east ten degrees, south eighty perch from two hemloek-trees, marked (which trees stand upon a ridge of upland running northerly), and coming to a point a few rods from said trees, which are about ten rods from a sand-bank on the east side of said Housa- tonic River, just above Unkamet's or Antankamet's Road, where it crosseth said branch : and, from the end of the aforesaid eighty perch from said trees, it runneth north ten degrees, east two hundred and forty perch : thence west ten degrees, north four hundred pereh ; thence south ten degrees, west four hundred perch; thence east ten degrees, south four hundred perch ; and thence north ten degrees, east one hundred and sixty perch, to the eastern end of the first cighty pereh."
Konkapot's house stood upon the north bank of Konkapot's Brook, in Stockbridge. Unkamet's Road extended from North- ampton to Albany. It was probably an ancient Indian trail, improved by passing parties of soldiers and surveyors, so as to admit the use of pack-horses, upon which supplies for the army and the settlers were transported. It crossed the eastern branch of the Housatonic, near where the highway, Unkamet Street, next south of the Western Railroad, now bridges it.1 As the meadows at that point were called " Unkamet's," and a neighboring brook bore the same name,2 it is fair to surmise that some Mohegan gnide, whose wigwam stood in the vicinity, acquired among the trav- ellers who passed that way, in Col. Stoddard's time or earlier, the sobriquet of Unkamet, or Old-Path-Over-Yonder, from the phrase which was perpetually recurring in their intercourse ; the transla- tion of the word " Unkamet " being simply " the path over there."
Col. Stoddard, in his frequent visits to Albany, Sheffield, and Stockbridge, as well as in his military oversight of the district, must have become thoroughly acquainted with the region ; and he manifested his knowledge of it shrewdly in selecting his thousand acres, which hardly had their equal within the bounds of his choice. Lying in the form of a square at the western terminus of the most
1 Plan of the town in 1752, and deed in Henry Colt's collection.
2 Vulgarly corrupted in later times to Huckamuck.
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HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD.
convenient pass through the Hoosac Mountains, it included some of the most luxuriant meadows and fertile uplands in the Province. One of the best water-privileges on the Upper Housatonic added to its wealth; and its location rendered it likely to become the intersecting point of the county roads. Stoddard's thousand acres must be borne in mind : they will have their distinctive part in our story.
But even this fine tract, encumbered as it was by Indian claims, and with its value largely in anticipation, would, in modern judg- ment, be considered an inadequate recompense for the array of public services which we have quoted of Col. Stoddard. And there are indications that, even with his more primitive notions, he entertained a similar opinion of his reward. He certainly con- templated an extension of his patent, either by grant or purchase, to a full township; and, with this view, obtained deeds and leases from different Indian claimants, by which their title to a tract six miles square, nearly identical with that now covered by Pittsfield, was transferred to him! One of these leases is preserved in the collection of Hon. Thos. Colt, and the material portions are given below : -
To all People to whom these shall come. GREETING :
KNOW YE, That we, Jacobus Coh-qua-he-ga-meek, Matakeamin, and Wampenum, formerly of Menanoke,1 or the island in the Hudson below Albany, now planters in the Indian town on Housatonic River, have de- mised, granted, and to farm-letten (sic), and by these presents do farm-let unto John Stoddard of Northampton, in the county of Hampshire and Province of Massachusetts Bay, in New England, Esq., all that tract and parcel of land, of six miles square, lying and being in the county of IIamp- shire and Province of Massachusetts Bay aforesaid, on the main or principal branch of Houseatunniek River, so called, about sixteen miles northward of the place where Cuncupot now dwells, and at the place where Unkamet's Road, so called, that leads from Albany to Northampton, crosseth said branch, beginning at said crossing, extending thence two miles eastward and four miles westward, three miles northward and three miles southward, extending every way from said point until it embraces six miles square of land, . .. to have and to hold for the term of nine hundred and ninety-nine years. [The yearly rent was fixed at " six pounds, in public bills of the Province, or its equivalent in silver, according to the present worth or estimation," payment to be made upon the 20th of October annually; and the lessors to have the right to re-enter and take possession, if payment was delayed,
1 A Mohegan word, meaning "island place."
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HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD.
twenty-one days from that date. The lease was executed " in the elev- enth year of our sovereign Lord, King George the II., and Anno Domini 1737.]
his
JACOBUS × COOCHEECOMEEK. mark.
his
MAHTOOKAMIN. O mark.
his
WAMPENUM. Q
mark.
Signed, sealed, and delivered in presence of TIMOTHY WOODBRIDGE. JONATHAN WHITE. ABIGAIL WOODBRIDGE.
In other parts of the instrument, the names of the lessors are spelled Coquahegameek, Metakamin, and Wampenon. The de- scription given of the premises would carry their bounds one mile east of the corresponding limits of Pittsfield; taking in Cranesville on the east from Dalton, and excluding Shaker Village on the west.
But, before Col. Stoddard was able to procure a legislative confirmation of his Indian purchase, a grant of the same tract to other parties compelled him to change his plans.
In June, 1735, a memorial from the town of Boston to the General Court - representing the heavy expenditures of that municipality in supporting its poor and maintaining its free schools, and also that its citizens paid one fifth part of the entire annual tax of the Province - asked, in consideration of these burdens, for "three or four townships" of Hampshire wild lands, "to be brought forward and settled as the circumstances of the peti- tioners might seem to require, or upon such conditions as the Court might deem meet."~
/In response to this request, three townships, each six miles square,1 were bestowed, but not without the usual provisions for a speedy and rightly-conducted settlement.„ These conditions, which proved of unexpected moment to the settlers of Pittsfield, were thus expressed in the grant, immediately after the clause requiring a survey, and the return of the several plats within twelve months for confirmation : -
1 Afterwards Colerainc, Charlemont, and Pittsfield. 5
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HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD.
" Provided the town of Boston do, within five years from the confirmation of said plats, settle upon each of the said towns sixty families of Ilis Ma- jesty's good subjeets, inhabitants of this Provinee, in as regular and defensible manner as the lands will admit of, each of said families to build and finish a dwelling-house upon his home-lot, of the following dimensions, viz., cigh- teen feet square and seven feet stud at the least ; that each of the said set- tlers, within the said term, bring to and fit for improvement five acres of said home-lot, either for ploughing or for mowing, by stocking the same well with English grass, and fence the same well in, and actually live upon the spot ; and, also, that they build and finish a suitable and convenient house for the publie worship of God; and settle a learned orthodox minister in each of the said towns, and provide for their honorable and comfortable support ; and also lay out three house-lots in each of the said towns, each of which to draw a sixty-third part of said town in all future divisions, - one to be for the first settled minister, one for the ministry, and one for the schools."
In order that these provisions "might be more effectually com- plied with," a committee was appointed (consisting of John Jeffries, Jacob Wendell, and Samuel Welles, of the Council; and Elisha Cooke, Oxenbridge Thatcher, Thomas Cushing, jun., and Timothy Prout, of the House), who were authorized to admit settlers, taking from each a bond of £25 for the performance of his proportion of the duties enjoined, - the lot also to revert to the Province in case of non-compliance with the prescribed conditions.
The requirement that the settlers should be inhabitants of Massachusetts was intended to guard against the introduction of Dutchmen from New York, against whom the boundary quarrels had created a prejudice, and who might defeat one prominent object of the General Court, - to fill up the western territory with a population willing to defend the Massachusetts claim.
The grant was made June 27, 1735; but, notwithstanding the language of the act, the time allowed for survey and return of plat, either by some construction or subsequent provision of law, did not expire until Dec. 29, 1736. And, in June of that year, Col. Jacob Wendell, one of the commission appointed to supervise the settlements, purchased at public auction the inchoate rights of Boston in one of the townships; "relying upon the goodness of the Great and General Court to give him further time to lay out the same, and return a plat for confirmation." This reliance did not fail him ; and he obtained an extension until the 6th of January, 1738. That he should obtain this favor was, perhaps, one of the conditions of the bid at vendue; for it was not until the 13th of
PLAT OF TOWNSHIP, 1738.
Hemlock Tree. Bo. Wt. Coruer.
So. 201. WVt. 462 Chains and 31 links.
Beach Tree. .N. Wt. Corner.
Et. 20d. So. 520 Chains.
A Platt of a Townfhip Granted by the General Court to the Town of Boston, and by the Said Town of Boston Sold to the Honble. Jacob Wendal, Esqr., of the contents of Six Miles Square, Including in Said Plat a Grant of 1000 acres made to the Honble. John Stoddard, Esqr., which contains in the whole 24040 acres. The whole whereof is thus bounded ; viz., Beginning at a Stake with Stones about it, the So. Et. corner, nigh a Small Run of water, about a mile and Halfe Eaft of Hloufea Tunnic River, from Sd. Stake the line Extends No. 20d. Et. 462 Chain 31 Links to a Hemlock tree marked on a Hill the No. Et. Corner. From thence the line Runs Wt. 20d. No. 520 Chain to a Beach tree marked upon a steep Ifill, with Ston's about it, the No. Wt. Corner. From thence So. 20d. Wt. 462 Chain 31 links to a IIemlock Standing by a little brook, mark'd with Stones about it, being the So. Wt. corner. From thence Et. 20d. So. 520 Chain, to the Stake and Stones firft mention'd, which sd. Townfhip is Lying About Five Miles No. No. Et. From the Indian Town on Houfatun- nick River, in the County of Hampfhire. Platted by a Scale of 48 Chain in an Inch. Septemr. 27, 1738.
Per JOHN HUSTON, Surveyor.
Houseatunnick River
N
S
E
Large brook
Houseatunnick River
Stake nud Stones, first Corner. So. Et.
No. 20d. Et. 462 Chain 31 links.
Hemlock Treo. N. E. Corner.
Hampfh., Ss. SPRINGFIELD, OStobr. 4th, 1738.
Examd. Per Ebene. Burrill.
John Huston appearing, made oath that in Platt- ing and Surveying the land Defcribed in the platt aforesaid, he acted therein Indifferently and Impar- tially, according to his best skill and Judgment. Before me, WVM. PYNCHON, JUNR., Just. Pea. Plat accepted and allowed, Decr. Sth, 1738.
Wt. 20d. No. 520 Chains.
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HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD.
March, 1737, that the deed in which these facts are recited, and which conveyed the township, still not laid out, to Col. Wendell, was executed by John Jeffries, Jonathan Armitage, David Colson, Alexander Forsythe, Caleb Lyman, Jonas Clark, and Thomas Hutchinson, jun., selectmen of Boston." 1
The survey was made in September, 1738, by John Huston, a Northampton civil engineer of repute; and the plat, here inserted, was returned to and accepted by the General Court in the follow- ing act : -
" In the House of Representatives, Dec. 5, 1738, read and ordered, 'That the plat be accepted and allowed, and the lands therein delineated and described be and are hereby confirmed to the town of Boston and their assigns forever (exclusive of the one-thousand-acres grant made to the Hon. John Stoddard, Esq., within mentioned), and is in full satisfaction of one of the three townships granted by this Court to the said town of Boston at their session begun and held at Boston, May 28, 1735 ; provided the said town of Boston, or their assigns, effectually comply with and fulfil the con- ditions of the grant, and that the plat exceeds not the quantity of twenty- four thousand and forty acres of land, and interferes not with any other or former grant.'"
The plat thus allowed and described as containing twenty-four thousand and forty acres of land included the six miles square granted to the town of Boston, the thousand acres given to Col. Stoddard, and also a strip sixty-eight rods wide upon the west; the last item being added as compensation " for the waste ponds com- prised in the township." The good people hardly foresaw, that, within little more than a hundred years, these contemned waters would be held of higher value than the same amount of surface in what they classed as "first-rate arable land," and that rich meadows would be submerged to increase their area.
The little oblong notch observable in the north-west corner of the map of the town does not appear in the plat, but it is found in the plan of 1752. Mount Honwee here juts into the angle of the territory, as laid out by Huston ; and probably it was con- sidered that its steep declivities would be an undesirable posses- sion.
More than two years elapsed, after the confirmation of Col. Wendell's title, before his claims and those of Col. Stoddard were
1 Copy of the deed in possession of Mr. J. A. Foote, certified by " William Cooper, Town Clerk," " as of record on the Boston Registry of Deeds."
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HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD.
adjusted; and then, a third person appearing in interest, - Philip Livingston of Albany,1- deeds were interchanged, by virtue of which the three gentlemen became joint and equal proprietors of the township. The deed from Wendell to Livingston, after quot- ing the grantor's patent from the Province, thus recites the mutual agreement, in brief : -
" Whereas the said John Stoddard hath not only a just and. complete title to the thousand acres aforesaid, but hath also, at great expense, pur- chased several grants and leases from the natives, of the lands above described; and afterwards, this very day (March 29, 1741), the said Jacob Wendell and the said John Stoddard, for an amicable settlement of their mutual claims and interests in the township aforcsaid, agreed that the said Jacob Wendell should have two thirds of the thousand acres aforesaid, and the said John Stoddard should have one third of the rest of said township; . .. and whereas, also, the said Jacob Wendell, in all these transac- tions, purchased as well for Philip Livingston of Albany, in the Province of New York, Esq. (by agreement not mentioned thercin), as for himself, in equal halves, and, in his first purchase and after-gratuities to the natives for their satisfaction and other charges upon the premises, disbursed the sum of fourteen hundred and sixteen pounds three shillings and threepence, and for that now hath two third-parts of that whole tract of land surveyed and platted as aforcsaid : now, therefore, know ye, that the said Jacob Wendell, in faithful- ness to his trust aforesaid, and in consideration of the sum of seven hundred and fifty-eight pounds one shilling and sevenpence half-penny in hand, received of said Philip Livingston in full of his part of said purchase- money and other disbursements aforesaid, doth hereby convey . .. to the said Philip Livingston one half of his above-mentioned interest." 2
Thus the cost of the township np to this time - if we allow Stoddard's public service to count in the ratio of Wendell's pur- chase-money3- was precisely two thousand one hundred and seventy-four pounds four shillings tenpence and two farthings.
1 The lord of Livingston Manor, a kinsman of Col. Wendell, and father of him who signed the same name to the Declaration of Independence. The elder Philip, and after him his eldest son, Robert, claimed Westenhook and Taglıkanik as parts of their manor, and were prominent in the troubles which arose concerning those tracts.
2 Copy of deed in possession of Mr. J. A. Foote, certified by " Ewd. Pynchon, Regr.," from the Hampshire Registry of Deeds.
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