USA > Massachusetts > Berkshire County > Pittsfield > The history of Pittsfield (Berkshire County), Massachusetts, from the year 1800 to the year 1876 > Part 30
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This announcement was not at all agreeable to a considerable number of the citizens of the town. The celebration of Independ- ence Day, was at that era invariably observed in all towns of the size and character of Pittsfield ; and the programme of exercises was almost as well fixed by custom as those of the Sabbath. The ringing of the bells, and the salutes of artillery at sunrise and sunset, the procession, the reading of the Declaration of Independ- ence, the oration, with the accompanying prayer and singing, never failed. The orations were frequently published, and the toasts always. In fact, selections from the most brilliant of these intellectual scintillations at the celebrations in different towns and cities sparkled in the columns of the newspapers for weeks after the great day. To the younger portion of the community, the Fourth of July afforded the happiest hours of the year; and by many of the older generation, with whom the traditions of the revolution were yet fresh, it was observed as their political Sab- bath. In June, 1821, the press throughout the country expressed a pleasing expectation of unusual spirit in the approaching cele- bration of Independence Day ; and it held up as a good example, the city of Washington where John Quincy Adams was to read the declaration, and William Wirt was to pronounce the oration. A large number of the citizens of Pittsfield were unwilling to forego the realization of these pleasant anticipations, and notwithstand- ing the assent of the regular committee to the request of Dr. Humphrey, they resolved to celebrate the anniversary, as the Sun put it, " with those demonstrations of joy which become a truly free, patriotic and grateful community."
There were the usual salutes and bell-ringing at sunrise ; and at 12 o'clock, a procession with martial music and a military escort. The exercises were at the meeting-house, but Mr. Hum- phrey declined to act as chaplain, and Rev. Robert Green " made an appropriate and patriotic address to the Throne of Grace," Major S. M. McKay read the Declaration of Independence, and Henry K. Strong, principal of the academy, pronounced an ora- tion, after which the procession returned to the hotel.
" As the hour for the celebration of a solemn and religious character was to commence," said the Sun in its report, "had arrived, the committee of arrangements gave notice to their elder fellow-citizens, many of whom had joined in the procession, that the dinner would not be served up until after the religious exer-
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cises were closed ; so that.all who might wish should have an opportunity to attend without interruption." The exercises in the church were attended by a solemn and reverent congregation. Mr. Humphrey made an impressive introductory prayer and deliv- ered a sermon of remarkable power from the text, "If the Son, therefore, shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed." John viii : 36.
Unfortunately the meeting-house was situated upon the little public square in whose circumscribed space it was the custom for the people of all classes to assemble on all anniversaries and other exciting occasions, and around which were located the three princi- pal hotels of the town-the largest within a few feet of the meeting-house. It was especially the place of assemblage on the Fourth of July, and at cattle-shows. And on this occasion the usual Fourth of July crowd was gathered upon it, making the usual noises with Chinese crackers, drums, and all the instru- ments which make that day hideous to sensitive ears. Besides this, the Flood-wood company of militia, which had begun to cel- ebrate the anniversary in the manner inevitable before the tem- perance reform, and not altogether disused since, paraded, and after marching as well as they were able around the square, pro- ceeded, with the insolence of intoxication, to pass with drums beating and fifes screaming through the tower under the belfry of the meeting-house.
The character of the gentlemen engaged in the secular celebra- tion forbids the belief that they gave countenance to these acts ; and we have the word of those whose word was never impeached, that they did not. Mr. Humphrey, however, believed that the disturbance was incited by them, and in his indignation prolonged the services to an unusual length ; upon which the committee of arrangements, in their turn provoked, ordered the dinner to pro- ceed with the ordinary salutes by cannon, at the close of each regular toast. The cannon were of necessity placed within less than a hundred feet of the meeting-house, and the result was a complication which produced a remarkable and memorable scene within. Doctor Humphrey, fifty years afterwards, gave the following account of it :
The first discharge shook the house. My text was, " If the Son make you free, ye shall be free indeed." It was one of the most appropriate I could think of for the occasion. In two or three minutes, there was
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another discharge. The shock of the first being over, the second pro- duced a solemnity more profound than the sermon would have occa- sioned, and gave me opportunity for enlargement which I had not anticipated. I had reached the application of my sermon. By the time of the third discharge, the whole congregation seemed perfectly composed. As the cannonading went on, I took occasion to hold up the contrast of Christ's freemen and the servants of Satan, as strikingly illustrated both without and within the house. By this train of extem- pore remark I added something like a quarter of an hour to the length of the sermon. Each discharge of the cannon overpowered my voice for a moment, but I went on. When I had finished, I called upon Rev. Dr. Shepard, of Lenox, who was present to lead in prayer. His remark- ably heavy voice sounded triumphantly over the disturbance. When we came ont, some of the more prominent men, among whom was the sheriff of the county, were very much excited, and proposed to have the leading rioters arrested and punished. I said, " By no means. In attacking ns they have shot themselves through and through. They have so outraged the feelings. of the whole community that we have only to leave them to themselves, and go on with our Master's work, praying God to give them repentance."
I have never witnessed a more striking example of the moral sublime than on that day and evening. Those who had been foremost in the disturbance hastened away as soon as they could. By eight o'clock there was scarcely a soul left upon the green; whereas, on all former like occasions, a large number lingered there and kept up their " celebration" until late at night. The evening lecture, which had been appointed from the desk under the cannon's roar, was unusually full and solemn. The work went on for some days with more power than ever. We had but to " stand still and see the salvation of the Lord."
A writer in the Charleston (S. C.) Intelligencer thus closes a description of the scene :
I sat near the Rev. Mr. Nettleton ; and so delighted was he with the discourse and so accurately prescient, too, was he of the result, that whenever an apt allusion dropped from the lips of the preacher, he would turn round with a holy smile ; and whenever a shot from the cannon pierced our ears he would say-it would involuntarily escape from him-" that is good-that is good." Speaking afterwards of the events of this day he observed to me: "Did you not feel calm? I thought there was a deep majestic calm overspreading the minds of Christians."
But whatever may have been Doctor Humphrey's views of the importance of preserving this day sacred to religious impressions,
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and whatever may be now thought upon that point, it must be conceded that the gentlemen who then differed with him, and persisted in celebrating the day as they and their fathers had done, year after year, for nearly half a century, could not justly be classed with the riotous militia which with drum and fife wantonly disturbed the exercises in the meeting-house. They, voluntarily, it will be observed, intermitted their celebration while those exercises were in progress, postponing their dinner until an unusually late hour in order that they might not be interrupted ; for the firing of cannon occurred only after the sermon had been protracted to an extreme length which exhausted their patience. The term young men, applied to them, is liable to mislead. The president at the dinner was Timothy Childs, Esq., who shortly after was elected to congress from the Roches- ter, New York, district. The reader of the declaration, Major S. M. McKay, had represented the town in the legislature, and among those associated with them were Jonathan Yale Clark and Dr. H. H. Childs, two of the three gentlemen whom the town had the year before chosen as its delegates to the convention for the revision of the state constitution, and the latter of whom the next year founded the Berkshire Medical College; William C. Jarvis, who represented the town that year and the three succeed- ing years in the legislature, who had just won a high reputation as an author by the publication of an excellent treatise upon political economy, and who in 1822, was a leading candidate for congress ; Henry Hubbard, who seven years before had repre- sented Lanesboro, Dr. A. P. Merrill of the United States army, and others of like character were also of the party.
It was, they averred, no hostility to religion which impelled them to the course they pursued; but that they regarded such patriotic demonstrations as entirely consistent with it, and unprejudicial to healthy religious feeling. From circumstances not peculiar to Pittsfield, but which pervaded all Massachusetts, many of them were at the time in a mood to vigorously resist what they considered clerical dictation, especially when it called upon them to give up observances which they so warmly cher- ished. The Free Masons had manifested the same spirit, the previous week, when the orator previously engaged for St. John's day having been persuaded to break his appointment-members of that body went to Albany, and engaging Dr. Cumming, an
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orator whose eloquence is compared favorably with that of Edward Everett, brought him by fresh relays of horses to Pitts- field, just in season for the hour announced.
The celebrators of the Fourth put their views of it upon record in the toasts which were published in the Sun's report of the occasion, which was headed : " The Day of Jubilee has Come und Flown."
Among the regular toasts the sixth reads :
Religion and Patriotism-They are not incompatible, and may the political Sabbath of our country be celebrated, solemnized, as the dic- tates of good and honest men may incline them. The seventh was : Religious Liberty-without which freedom is but a name. Among the volunteer sentiments were these :
By Levi Goodrich-The Rev. Mr. Green, chaplain of the day: may his " last days be his best days."
By Jonathan Yale Clark-Our national birthday : When the sons of America shall neglect to commemorate it, or to celebrate the memory of those who achieved it, then let nettles grow instead of wheat and cockles instead of barley.
By Spencer Clark-Due respect to our brethren not in unison with us this day ; may they never cherish a hope to deprive us of a celebra- tion sealed with the blood of our ancestors.
By Henry Hubbard, Esq .- Religion : While it nerved the arm of our fathers to fight for freedom, it cannot silence the voice of praise in their sons.
By Nelson Strong-The celebration of this anniversary : It teaches those tyrants who would clip the wings of our American eagle, we prize our privileges, we love our country.
By Arnold Bentley-Liberty, which was bequeathed to us, sealed by the blood of the fallen heroes of the revolution : may it not be abridged by priest-craft, nor trampled upon by a foreign despot.
By Major S. M. McKay-The fundamental principle of civil and religions liberty: The undisturbed enjoyment of civil and religious opinions.
These opinions are more definitely expressed in a card pub- lished in the Sun, of July 11th, which reads as follows :
OUR NATIONAL BIRTHDAY.
As our independence was achieved at the risk of everything dear to the American people; and as it has been the advice of our political patriarchs, as well as the undeviating practice of the friends of the American republic, to celebrate the return of its anniversary with
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decent and suitable demonstrations of rejoicing; it was resolved, at a meeting of citizens of Pittsfield, and the neighboring towns, assembled at the hotel on the afternoon of the 4th current, not to abandon, on any future anniversary, the wise precepts and practice of the best men who ever adorned this, or any other, country.
Influenced by these views, it was resolved by the meeting, that the earliest moment should be embraced to give publicity to its determina- tion to celebrate the next anniversary of our national independence with the suitable and customary demonstrations of joy and national festivity.
To carry this laudable design into full effect, a committee was chosen, of which the following were the Pittsfield members : Henry H. Childs, Joshua Danforth, Samuel M. McKay, Jonathan Yale Clark, John Churchill, Robert Stanton, Jonathan Allen, Jonathan Allen, 2d, Phinehas Allen, Oren Goodrich, William C. Jarvis and John Dickinson. George N. Briggs was the member from Adams.
It will be perceived that a very respectable minority of Mr. Humphrey's parish differed with him in regard to the propriety of omitting the celebration of the Fourth, even in the peculiar season during which that of 1821 occurred. Few of them, how- ever, relaxed their friendship for him on that account, and some of them became members of the church during the revival then in progress.
In addition to his strictly pastoral duties, Mr. Humphrey took a sincere and active interest in the secular well-being of the town and parish. Many of the alterations and repairs of the meeting- house were due to his influence; and so, to some extent, was the improvement in church-music, and the gift by Joseph Shearer of a town-clock. He was active in the management of the common schools, the academies and the library. He was one of the original trustees of the medical college, and gave it his aid in its most trying days. He was also among the foremost in giving to the village those avenues of elms and maples which are now the pride of its finest streets ; some of which he planted with his own hand.
In the midst of a life and labors like these, Mr. Humphrey was, in July, 1823, elected president of the Collegiate Institution, which afterwards became Amherst College. This institution was at that time held in the deepest disfavor by the people of Pitts- field and Berkshire county, who had for years been desperately
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resisting the attempts of its friends to build it up by taking away Williams College from the spot where its founder had fixed it, and joining it with their own school at some point in the valley of the Connecticut; Northampton and Amherst being most prominently suggested. These attempts were denounced by the press of Berkshire as neither honest or generous, and the strong- est resentment against their authors prevailed throughout the county. This feeling was intensified when, in 1821, Rev. Dr. Moore, the second president of Williams, and some of its pro- fessors were induced to resign their positions to accept similar ones at Amherst.
Dr. Moore died in June, 1823, and the proposition to fill his place by the removal of the able and beloved Pittsfield pastor, from the field in which he was so eminently useful, and in which it would be so difficult to provide a competent successor, roused all the old feeling into full life. Nor even if the call had been to a field upon which they looked with more favor, would the people of Pittsfield have considered the removal of Mr. Humphrey as justifiable. It did not seem that any other could present claims like those of the parish in which he had accomplished, and was accomplishing, so much good. Men of all denominations, who had the interests of the church and the town at heart, learned with unbounded regret that he was considering the question of accepting the call to Amherst. They feared that some of the moral evils which had been checked, but not destroyed, would revive if the champion, who held them in control, left his guard. The Congregationalists, whose union under his ministrations, had imperceptibly become amalgamation, did not feel themselves as yet in a condition to part with the physician who had healed them more perfectly than they knew. An extraordinary number of new converts seemed to have an especial need of, and claim upon, his fostering care, and certainly regarded him with the greatest affection. In the year 1821, fifty members had been added to the church ; in 1822, there had been a hundred and twenty, and a few others had been received in 1823. More than a hundred and fifty neophytes in religion demanded his training and guidance. If he should remain, how many more might there be ; if he left, how many of these might backslide. "I felt," said he, fifty years afterwards, " that this large increase of new members brought upon me a heavy weight of pastoral responsibility ; and I tried,
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in my poor imperfect way, to meet it as well as I could. After that, no people, perhaps, ever enjoyed a greater quietness than we did. And I said : ' I shall die in my nest.' How could I be lured from it ? Least of all, when there was no storm, how could I shake myself out of it ? But it is not in man to mark out his own destiny; and when he thinks himself most securely an- chored, he may be nearest being drawn out to sea."
The position at Amherst, to which Mr. Humphrey was invited, was not more alluring to him, upon a superficial view, than it was agreeable to his parish for him to accept it.
The Collegiate Institution was, with many enemies and few friends, struggling to raise itself to the rank of a college. Its application to the legislature for permission to assume that char- acter had just been refused. It was barely living on under an old charter as an academy : doing the work of a college, and giv- ing to its students, so far as its scanty means enabled it, a colle- giate education; but with no authority to confer degrees. To become its official head, was to challenge even more arduous labors, and more discouraging difficulties, than the president-elect had encountered either at Fairfield or Pittsfield, and that with far less assurance of success, and far less of the sympathy of his brethren in the ministry. But Mr. Humphrey seems to have found a potent fascination in such encounters; and, moreover, dreaded that, in declining them, he might be opposing the Divine will. He was, at all events, not the man to shun, through cow- ardice, the place to which he believed himself divinely appointed.
The question of duty was nevertheless far from clear, and the argument's for going to Amherst were very nearly balanced in his mind by those for remaining in Pittsfield. He thus states his position in his Half-Century discourse :
I must either say yes or no, which I did not dare to do on my own unsupported responsibility. It might be my duty to go and it might be my duty to stay : which, I could not decide, though my friends here thought the case perfectly plain. I was greatly perplexed ; and more and more so, as I tried to weigh the reasons for and against. At length, after much and praycrful consideration, I came to the conclusion that I ought, in a regular way, to submit the question to an ecclesiastical coun- cil for advice. This, my friends strenuously opposed. They still insist- ed : It can't be your duty to do any such thing. We can't consent to help you off in any way. If you go the burden will be greater than
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you can bear, and you will sink into the grave under it. Why should you run such a risk ? Why give up a certainty for an uncertainty ; or rather for a certain failure ?
But neither these nor other reasons urged by his reluctant parishioners seemed to Mr. Humphrey conclusive against his asking the church to unite with him in calling a council. " I did so ask," his account continues, " proposing to submit the whole matter to them and abide their decision. They utterly declined : saying, they saw no reason for it, and I must take the entire responsibility of calling it, if I insisted upon such a reference. This increased my perplexity, but did not satisfy me that I ought to let the matter drop there. I wanted the advice of my brethren in the neighborhood. I called a council, laid the matter before them as well as I could, and was dismissed."
The records of the church do not perfectly accord with this account, and we give an abstract of the story as there given, partly to show what liability to error there is in the memory of the most clear-headed men, earnestly desiring to relate correctly mat- ters likely to impress themselves most deeply and permanently on their minds. Mr. Humphrey's request for the church and society to unite with him in the call for a council was laid before the church . on the 27th of August ; and action upon it postponed to September 3d, in order to enable the society to take precedence in it. At the adjourned meeting, the parish having declined to join in the call, the church concurred. On the 18th of September, however, Mr. Humphrey renewed the subject by the following communica- tion :
To the Congregational Church and Society in Pittsfield :
GENTLEMEN :- Since my last communication on the subject of my removal nothing has occurred to alter the result of my enquiries and reflections, in regard to the path of duty. I still think that the call from the Institution in Amherst is one which I ought to comply with, provided I can obtain your consent for a dismission from my present ministerial charge. This, therefore, is to request that you will, through your respective committees, unite with me in calling a council of pastors and delegates to dissolve the connection now subsisting between us, accord- ing to the usages of our churches in similar cases.
Wishing you the Divine guidance and blessing, I am, gentlemen,
Your Affectionate Pastor,
H. HUMPHREY.
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Upon the receipt of this communication both the church and the parish voted to unite in calling. the council and appointed a joint committee for that purpose, consisting of Deacon Josiah Bissell, and Capt. Joseph Merrick, on the part of the church, and of Samuel M. McKay, Esq., Hon. Phinehas Allen, and Hon. John C. Williams on the part of the parish. The council met on the 3d of October, and approving Dr. Humphrey's purpose of accept- ing the Amherst presidency, dissolved his connection with the church in Pittsfield.
" Nothing now remained," says Dr. Humphrey, "but to make arrangements for my removal, and to take those sad farewells, which cost me more anguish of soul than anything in my long life, except the loss of children." These farewells over, he removed to Amherst and was inducted into office, October 15, 1823.
At Amherst his labors were more arduous; and his wisdom and success, if not greater, were more conspicuous than even in Pittsfield. They are too familiar to need repetition here ; but a curious instance of his jealous regard for the rights of the college, whose building-up was the crowning glory of his life, is found in the Pittsfield town-records, and is worth preserving. He was taxed upon a little real estate which he retained here, after his removal. The assessment was, in itself, inconsiderable, the aggregate for three years being only twenty-four dollars. But among the persons entirely exempt from taxes, by the laws of Massachusetts, were the presidents, professors, and students of Harvard and Williams Colleges. President Humphrey was struggling to establish a perfect equality of Amherst with the elder colleges ; and he conceived that the charter of Amherst, granting to it privileges and immunities usually enjoyed by similar institutions, extended to it their exemption from taxation. He therefore refused payment to the Pittsfield collector, as a matter of principle and precedent. The town, perhaps, still a little vexed at the institution which had robbed it of its pastor, insisted upon the tax; and the matter being referred to arbitra- tors, it was found that the privilege claimed was strictly confined to the colleges named in the law. The legislature, by some over- sight failed to insert it among the immunities specially granted in the charter of Amherst. The tax was therefore paid, and a remedy for the inequality obtained by a supplementary enactment.
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While Mr. Humphrey was considering the invitation to Amherst, he received the degree of Doctor of Divinity from Middle- bury College. In 1846, Yale College conferred upon him the further degree of Doctor of Laws.
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