USA > Massachusetts > Berkshire County > Pittsfield > The history of Pittsfield (Berkshire County), Massachusetts, from the year 1800 to the year 1876 > Part 24
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able points, is justly responsible for the safety of the state, and its pro- ection against all foreign annoyances, depredations or invasion.
Resolved, That it be earnestly recommended to every citizen capable of performing military duty, to furnish and keep on hand suitable arms and equipments, and stand ready to aid the government of the United States, either in the repulsion of foreign enemies or in the suppression of unlawful combinations and usurpations against its authority and the constitutional powers of. the state, whether under the form of conven- tions, or any other organized associations whatever.1
The town, also, by vote, instructed the selectmen to purchase, in addition to the usual stock of ammunition, six casks of powder and two hundred pounds of ball; and offered a bounty of ten dollars to each of its citizens who should voluntarily enlist : to be paid within one year after the recruit was called into service.
The last clause in the last of the resolutions was aimed at the Washington Benevolent Society. This was a national secret organization, within the federal party, composed of several state societies ; which in their turn were divided, and sub-divided, into county and town branches. Its political character was not con- cealed-although an endeavor was made to direct public atten- tion to its social and benevolent features-and it seems to have been a formidable and efficient agency, loved and cherished by all . good federalists, and cordially detested by the democrats, who saw all manner of treasonable plots concocting within its mystic cir- cles. The power, which its opponents often ex erienced in unex- pected and inexplicable defeats at the polls, was not to be ques- tioned ; and the democracy of 1812, after the fashion of dominant parties in war-times were slow to recognize the distinction between opposition to their measures, and treason to the country : with how much excuse in this case, the reader must judge.
The Berkshire Reporter, of March 11, 1813, says : " The Wash- ing Benevolent Society of Berkshire has been established about twenty-one months, and consists of more than two thousand three hundred members. It is a most animated and interesting spec- tacle to behold so many good men united, like a band of brothers, solemnly pledged to inculcate and maintain the true principles of our happy constitution ; to adhere to the political maxims which distinguished the glorious administration of their beloved Wash- ington ; to relieve the unfortunate ; and to promote and spread as
1 The italics in these resolutions are those of the Pittsfield Sun.
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far as they possibly can, peace on earth and good will toward all mankind."
Each member, on his initiation, was required to sign the fol- lowing pledge, which is similar in its terms to the Reporter's statement of principles :
We, each of us, do hereby declare that we are firmly attached to the the constitution of the United States, and to that of the state of Massa- chusetts [or to that of such other state as the branch society might be located in], to the principles of a free republican government, and to those which regulated the public conduct of George Washington; that we will, each of us, so far as may be consistent with our religious principles respectively,1 preserve the rights and liberties of our country against all foreign and domestic violence, fraud or usurpation; and that, as members of the Washington Benevolent Society, we will, in all things, comply with its regulations, support its principles, and enforce its views.
The new brother, having signed this pledge, received a small volume, which contained a certificate of his membership, an engraved portrait of Washington, Washington's farewell address to his countrymen, and the constitution of the United States. This volume he made his vade mecum. Such were the principles held, and the obligations taken, by those who joined the Wash- ington Benevolent Society: an organization which embraced a . large portion of the citizens of the county most eminent for probity and talent, and very few with whose names it is possible -even for those who consider them to have been most mistaken in their views of duty-to associate the idea of treason or false- hood. It was, however, very possible, in the heated days of the war, for their opponents to believe the entire organization guilty of these wrongs ; and the secrecy in which it enveloped its opera- tions rendered it impossible to disprove the charges against it. Discouragement of enlistment-a practice which was common to the whole party-was not denied. And, from an act which treads so very closely upon the confines of overt treason, it is but a step to the inducing and aiding of desertions from the army; and but one more, to assist and harbor escaped prisoners of war- and even to aid in their escape.
It is, therefore, not surprising, that the democrats, including
1 A clause inserted for the benefit of Quaker and other conscientiously non- resistant members.
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most of the United States officers in garrison at Pittsfield, should attribute the escapes, desertions, malignant stories and other troubles which beset them at the Cantonment, to the secret cabals of the Washington Benevolent Society. The long and spotless lives of many of its leaders enable us to credit their denial of these charges; but to the democrats of 1812, they were not ven- erable fathers whose patriotism had been long proved, but active and bitter opponents of their much-loved party; often guilty, as men at such periods are apt to be, of indiscreet speech capable of an interpretation that would prove them guilty of much which their better second thought would condemn.
Still, the very existence of a secret organization of opponents of the war in the immediate vicinity of a military post and prison, rendered the strictest watchfulness on the part of its officers not only excusable, but imperative. But, whether justifiable or not, the jealousies, hatreds and assaults of the democrats were, in a great measure, concentrated upon this society. They denounced its political aims and action as treasonable, and its secrecy as intended for the most pernicious uses. They declared its benevo- lence to be a hypocritical pretense, and scouted its fraternal kind- ness.
On the other hand, there has rarely been a political organiza- tion, whose members were so thoroughly conscious that in joining it they were governed solely by the purest and noblest motives ; and there was, probably, not one of them who did not consider that in the Washington Benevolent Society, he was in the best of all possible good society-at least, on this side of the Atlantic. He proudly preserved his certificate of membership while he lived-if he did not become a violent Jackson democrat, after the war-and when he died, he transmitted it, as proudly, to his children, as a testimonial that he had well-served his country ; and served it, too, in company-nay, in fraternity-with the most respectable people in the county.
In the same proud spirit he walked in the procession and took his seat to listen to the oration and to eat the dinner, with which it was the delight of the society to honor the birthdays of their country and of its father. Pater Patric was their patron saint ; and to him was accorded the excess of honor usually bestowed upon such personages. It is even related that on one unusually cold 22d of February, rather than forego, mar or shorten the
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parade, they heroically sacrificed their ears ; every one of which in the procession was frozen, while their owners moved on without flinching.
In illustration of what these celebrations were, which the peo- ple of Pittsfield in the earlier years of the century deemed so important, and enjoyed with so much zest, we print an account of one which, although among the more splendid, must represent many; and those of the democrats, or republicans, as well, for there was no essential difference in their external characteristics.
The anniversary to be celebrated was Washington's birthday- February 22, 1814. It was announced as early as the Sth of Feb- ruary that the " Washington Benevolent Society of the county of Berkshire, would celebrate the day at Pittsfield, with an oration by Daniel Noble, Esq., of Williamstown ; " and " that every effort would be made to render the occasion splendid and agreeable." In its issue of February 17th, the Reporter printed the programme displayed attractively ; and we copy it that the reader may, in his imagination, reproduce the scene of that cold winter-holiday :
CELEBRATION
OF THE ANNIVERSARY OF THE BIRTHDAY OF WASHINGTON, BY THE MEMBERS OF THE WASHINGTON BENEVOLENT SOCIETY OF THE COUNTY OF BERKSHIRE.
The members of the fociety will affemble at nine o'clock, A. M., at Wafhington Hall, in Pittffield. Each member will appear with his badge. The meeting will continue open until half paft ten o'clock, for the initiation of members. The proceffion will move at eleven o'clock, A. M., under the direction of the marfhal, to the Union parifh meeting-houfe. Citizens who are not members are invited to unite with the fociety in the celebration.
ORDER OF PROCESSION.
Marfhal, Deputy-marthal, Artillery in uniform, Infantry in uni- form. Citizens : Ift, young men ; 2d, middle-aged men ; 3d, aged men ; two officers in uniform, Wafhington Standard, two officers in uniform, members of the fociety, two abreaft, in thirteen divi- fions, each divifion preceded by a banner, each banner attended by two of the cavalry ; vifiting members of other Wafhington Benevo- lent Societies ; Stewards and other officers, Secretaries and Treaf-
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urers ; Standing Committee ; Committee of Arrangements ; Orator and Chaplain. Vice-prefidents : the oldeft Vice-prefident with Wafhington's Farewell addrefs ; 2d Vice-prefident with the Dec- laration of Independence ; 3d Vice-prefident with the Conftitu- tion of the United States ; Prefident and an officer in uniform ; Band of mufic, two officers in uniform.
When the proceffion fhall have arrived at the meeting-houfe, the line will halt, open to the right and left, and fo continue until the proceffion, counter-marching, fhall have paffed into the meeting- houfe-the band playing at the door until the proceffion fhall have moved into the houfe, and taken their feats. The Prefident, oldeft vice-prefident, the orator and chaplain, will enter the pulpit. The members will take the body pews, the military the wall pews, the ladies will be accommodated with feats in the gallery. The band of mufic will take the high pew in front of the pulpit. Citi- zens and vifitors will be feated by the marfhal and affiftants.
EXERCISES.
Ift, An Ode ; 2d, Prayer ; 3d, An Ode ; 4th, Oration ; 5th, An- them ; 6th, Benediction ; 7th, Wafhington's March, by the Band.
At funrife a National Salute and ringing of the bell. The pro- ceffion will move under the difcharge of cannon. The clergy of the neighboring towns are moft refpectfully invited to attend. All military officers are requested to appear in uniform.
Jofiah Biffell, John Garfield, Eli Enfign, Butler Goodrich, Eli- phalet Reddington, Gerfhom Buckley, Samuel Jones, Jafon Clapp, Henry James, Chauncey Hulbert, Committee of Arrangements.
The Washington Banner, for years the pride of the society, is now in the Historical Cabinet of the Berkshire Athenaeum. It is of the richest white silk, bordered with gold and fringed with blue ; and in size, about two yards wide by two and a half long. On one side it bears a fine portrait of Washington, surrounded by a profusion of warlike insignia; on the other, the national coat of arms. The badge of the society was a strip of white parch- ment upon which winged Fame was blowing a trumpet and plac- ing a wreath upon the head of Washington. It was inscribed with the words, "Washington Benevolent Society " and " Pro Patria."
According to the Reporter's account, the celebration was all
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that its grand heralding promised. Colonel Colgrove was chief- marshal, and his assistants were Ralph Warriner, and Henry Taylor. Colonel Azariah Root carried the grand banner, and thir- teen smaller ones were borne by other " true disciples of Washing- ton ; " and all were guarded by members of the cavalry, " mounted on elegant grey horses." The procession moved to the firing of cannon and the ringing of the bell-only one bell unfortunately. The silvery tones of that which weekly summoned democratic Christians to the First church could not be expected to join in the federal peal. But " the procession made a grand and inter- esting appearance." The exercises at the meeting-house were equally satisfactory. There were two chaplains : the " excellent" -but rather eccentric-"patriot and Christian, Rev. Mr. Jen- nings, of Dalton," and Rev. Mr. Punderson. Of the oration, by Daniel Noble, Esq., the Reporter says :
The sentiments and opinions expressed by the speaker were worthy of a statesman. They displayed a depth of political knowledge and an independence of mind, which excited the admiration of the audience. The orator, in the language of truth and eloquence, called to the recol- lection of his hearers the happiness and glory enjoyed by our country under federal administrations. He contrasted these blessed times with the present days of gloom and despair. He showed that our pres- ent disgrace and wretchedness originated in a hatred of the character, and a departure from the principles of our beloved Washington; and he unveiled and exposed, in their true colors, the guilty authors of our nation's ruin. Deep and lasting will be the impression made on those who heard it, by this oration.
After the oration, the procession marched to Major Morgan's inn, on Bank row, where over four hundred persons partook of a dinner, with appetites sharpened for the substantial viands by the keen winter air, and for the piquant toasts by Mr. Noble's pun- gent eloquence.
That was the age of rhetoric, and a favorite mode for its exer- cise was in the elaboration of epigrammatic toasts ; the most con- densed form in which ideas could be expressed. A sharp and rapid discharge of these glittering, and often envenomed, points followed every public dinner ; and, as the drinking of toasts was not then a mere form, but a substantial honoring of the sentiment pro- posed in a draught of veritable wine or some stronger beverage ; and as the best hits were always received with bumpers, the com-
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pany was generally in a condition, by the time the regular toasts were disposed of, to give and applaud volunteer sentiments with- out severe criticism.
On this occasion John W. Hulbert, the most famous wit in Berkshire tradition, sat at the head of the table, as president of the society, and guided the "flow of soul ; " which, in the volun- teer toasts, is said to have been of a more than commonly spicy, pointed and exuberant character.
We are able to quote, however, only a few of the regular toasts, which, with the Reporter's account of the oration, will show the spirit of the federal party in February, 1814:
The militia of Massachusetts: Under their lawful commander-in-chief, may they stand on our constitutional limits, and say to foreign and domestic enemies, " Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further."
Our country : Once happy and honorable, now sunk by democracy to the lowest depths of wretchedness and disgrace.
" O how fearful and how dizzy 'tis To cast one's eye so low."
Our war with England: The prosperity of Bonaparte occasioned it; may his adversity speedily end it.
Free trade and sailors' rights: They have found their worst enemies in our own government.
Peace: May our spears be beaten into pruning-hooks, and our swords into plowshares; and wisdom into the heads of our national rulers.
Bonaparte: The master behind the curtain, who dances the puppets of our administration.
Our navy : It has finally conquered its worst enemies, the democrats.
The memory of Moreau, and his last words : " The scoundrel, Bona- parte."
The World's best friend : The Emperor Alexander.
These toasts were drunk with the warmest applause, followed by the discharge of cannon, and they aid us to comprehend the intensity of the terror inspired in the more conservative classes by the horrors of the French revolution and the subsequent san- guinary career of Napoleon. It must have been deep indeed when a considerable body of the most intelligent and patriotic citizens of Berkshire held up Alexander of Russia, as "the world's best friend."
At this depressing period of the war the spirit exhibited in this Pittsfield celebration, was the same which governed the
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party then dominant in New England. It had, a fortnight before, manifested itself in the Massachusetts legislature, by an act which brought a number of British officers into close confine- ment at the Pittsfield Cantonment, by excluding them from the jails of the commonwealth. Mr. Hildreth gives the following account of the immediate cause of this act :
Dearborn's expedition against York and Fort George having placed a number of British officers in his power, the president, under the act authorizing retaliation, had ordered the close - confinement of twenty-three of them intended to abide the fate of the Irishmen taken at Queenstown and sent to England to be tried for treason. Prevost, in consequence of a special dispatch from Lord Bathurst, responded by the close imprisonment of twice the number of American officers and non-commissioned officers; with a threat, if this system of retaliation was carried out, of " unmitigated severity against American cities and villages." Madison replied by shutting up a like number of British officers, and with threats to retort any further severities, in which the British might indulge; whereupon Prevost ordered all his prisoners into close confinement, an example which Madison hastened to follow. In New England, and among the federalists generally, this policy of exposing our own citizens to imprisonment and death, for the sake of a set of foreign renegades, as they were bitterly described, met with little countenance; and the escape of some of the imprisoned British officers from the jail at Worcester gave very general satisfaction. The demo- crats, indeed, complained that, while American prisoners in Canada, and at Halifax, were often subjected to very harsh treatment and gross indignities, the British officers taken by us were sure of every attention and kindness at the hands of their federal friends.
A number of prisoners confined in the Lenox, Worcester, and other Massachusetts jails, were transferred to Pittsfield; but con- gress soon authorized the marshals of states whose jails were closed against their prisoners, to select other places of confine- ment; and the penitentiary of Pennsylvania, being offered, was chiefly used.
It was a sad and apprehensive party which set out from Pitts- field, when several carriage-loads of British officers, guarded by a detachment of cavalry, left the Cantonment, as they supposed, for a prison in Kentucky. In the temper which had been manifested by both governments, there was great reason to fear that they were going to a place of military execution. As the carriages were driven off, the private soldiers, left behind as prisoners, fol-
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lowed them with a perfect shower of old shoes: their mode of wishing them good luck.
Among these officers was General Riall, and a few others who had made many friends in Pittsfield, who followed them with their best wishes expressed in other forms. Many years after- wards, Dr. Robert Campbell met some of these officers in London, and they expressed to him their grateful memory of the kindness of his father and other citizens in that day of danger.
Great Britain, however, soon practically abandoned her attempt to deal with natives of Ireland naturalized in the United States, and fighting in the American army, as traitors ; and the system of mutual retaliation ended.
The democrats, however, did not soon permit naturalized citi- zens to forget that the federalists had stigmatized Irish soldiers fighting in our army as " renegades." Nor were they unmindful of the general joy expressed by federal papers over the escape of British prisoners of war. Their disgust culminated when the Hartford convention met with closed doors. And, in Berkshire county, to meet the operations of the Washington Benevolent Society, they organized the Sons of Liberty; but this organiza- tion never attained the efficiency of its antagonist.
In the summer of 1814, the Washington Society showed its power by the election of its president, Johnr W. Hulbert, to fill the vacancy in congress, caused by the resignation of Judge Dewey. The opposing candidate was Hon. William P. Walker, of Lenox.
Both these gentlemen were of much more than ordinary ability, and their availability as candidates, although different, was very nearly equal as to the aggregate of probable result. In eloquence and popular manners, Mr. Hulbert was much the superior of his antagonist ; and in legal and scholarly attainments, at least his equal. But the democrats accused him of exceeding even the license permitted by that period, in morals; a fault which not even political malice could impute to Mr. Walker ; and, while the latter was an exceedingly correct, and quite prosperous business -- man, the federal candidate had to bear the unjust opprobrium caused by the failure of the Berkshire bank, of which he was a director, although not a prominent one ; as well as the pecuniary embarrassment-amounting, indeed, to poverty-into which he had been brought by the same misfortune. In addition to all
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this, was the prestige operating against him from the chronic political character of the district, which had not elected a federal- ist to congress since the choice of Theodore Sedgwick, in 1795, and, after Mr. Hulbert, never elected another.
The contest was animated, and Mr. Hulbert was chosen by a majority of only a hundred votes. His election at all, under the circumstances, was a marked triumph, and was doubtless due in a great measure to the personal popularity of the candidate. The Sun scolded the people bitterly for electing " a favorite" to a post of which the editor did not deem him worthy. And, while rebuking its own political friends for their " remissness in duty," being especially severe upon those in Pittsfield, it hastened- "lest the friends of the administration abroad should look upon Berkshire as a real apostate"-to assure them that the result of the election indicated no change of political sentiment.
But, while the personal popularity of Mr. Hulbert contributed greatly to his success, and even his personal friends in the demo- cratic party were induced by the coarseness of the attacks upon him in the Sun, either to withhold their votes or cast them for him ; it is also true that the perfect organization of the Washing- ton Benevolent Society-stimulated by the admiration and love which he had inspired in its members, while its presiding officer -was powerful enough to turn the scale at the polls. Had no such organization existed, Mr. Walker would have almost surely been elected.
In the election for the full term, held in November, 1814, Mr. Hulbert was again chosen, and by a considerably increased majority.1
While the friends of the war in general were exasperated by the national and state action of its opponents, minor events operating in the same direction, happened in Pittsfield. On the 3d of Feb- ruary, 1814, Major Melville published in the Sun, an advertise- ment regarding the escape of prisoners of war from the barracks
1 At the expiration of his term, in 1817, Mr. Hulbert removed to Auburn, N. Y., having become so deeply impoverished by his connection with the bank, and by his devotion to his public duties, that he was compelled to bor- row money of a friend to defray the expense of removal there. But at Auburn his talents were at once recognized. He soon rose to a lucrative practice, notwithstanding the laws then just enacted by the New York legis- lature in its jealousy of the legal profession, and was repeatedly elected to the state legislature and to congress. He died at Auburn, in 1831.
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at Burlington, Vermont, and charged that their escape was aided " by evil-disposed and corrupt citizens who preferred the interests of the enemy to their country." . He warned them of the conse- quences of such traitorous conduct as giving counsel or aid to a public enemy ; and called upon all good citizens to be active and zealous in counteracting internal, as well as external, enemies. He also offered a reward of two hundred dollars for such informa- tion as should lead to the conviction of traitors.
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