USA > Massachusetts > Berkshire County > Pittsfield > The history of Pittsfield, Massachusetts, 1916-1955 > Part 6
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The Park, frankly, was a mess. Another $7,000 had to be spent there in making "some long-desired improvements." The
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beloved Old Elm was gone, taken down several years before. But the Park was so packed with trees that many had to be felled to let the others have sun and air. For the first time, the Park was graded and trimmed. Already an oval, the grassy Park was rimmed with heavy granite coping and a broad gravel walk; the latter was separated from the dusty streets by a gran- ite curbing. At length, on September 24, 1872, the Soldiers' Memorial was unveiled in a great celebration, attended by the governor of the State and other notables.
Other changes were made around the Square, including the construction of a new Berkshire County Courthouse. For dec- ades Pittsfield had been anxious to become the county seat. Since 1812 it had been arguing the "incontrovertible fact" that the town was the most convenient and "spacious common center for the people of the county of Berkshire to assemble for the transaction of all public business."
But the fact, however incontrovertible, did not much im- press the state legislature at Boston for more than a half cen- tury-not until 1868, when the legislature decided that the county seat should be removed from Lenox to Pittsfield, pro- vided the latter donated a suitable site for both the courthouse and a county jail.
Three years later, in the fall of 1871, the present courthouse was completed on the corner southeast of the Square. Built of white marble from the Goodale quarry in Sheffield, it was "classical" in design. To make room for the building, the town had bought for $35,000 the Peace Party House and its grounds, moving the noted House across Wendell Avenue to the oppo- site corner on East Street, where it has served a variety of pur- poses down the years.
Another public building soon graced the Square-the pres- ent Berkshire Athenaeum, the town's first large library. Social libraries had been established as early as 1796. But there was no general or permanent library until 1850 when the Pittsfield Library Association was founded. Anyone could become a member by buying a share at $5 and paying an annual fee of $1. Non-shareholders could use the library for $2 a year. Inheriting
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some of the books of the earlier libraries, the Association bought 800 volumes for $500 its first year, establishing itself on North Street in a small room open only one evening a week and dimly lighted by a single lantern.
Reflecting the spirit of the times, the Association was very strict about what books went on its shelves. There were to be no "works of fiction in prose"-poetic phantasy seems to have been at least tolerated. Nor were any books on theology to be admitted without the unanimous consent of the directors, who evidently did not wish to get involved in any doctrinal disputes.
The basis of a better and larger library was laid by the gen- erosity of Thomas Allen, Thomas F. Plunkett, and Calvin Mar- tin. For $8,800 they bought the building next to the court- house, the small old wooden structure formerly occupied by the Agricultural Bank, and offered it rent-free to the Library Asso- ciation's successor, the Pittsfield Athenaeum.
The latter soon changed its name to the Berkshire Athe- naeum and in 1872 formally incorporated itself "for the pur- pose of establishing and maintaining in the town of Pittsfield an institution to aid in promoting education, culture, and re- finement, and diffusing knowledge by means of a library, read- ing rooms, lectures, museums, and cabinets of art, and of his- torical and natural curiosities."
The new Athenaeum immediately fell heir to the few re- maining financial assets of the defunct Pittsfield Medical Col- lege, as well as to the scientific library and exhibits, which in- creased its collections somewhat. But the state of the library in the cramped old wooden building left much to be desired, which was a matter of deep concern to several.
Dying in 1872, Phinehas Allen II, editor-owner of the Pitts- field Sun founded by his father, stipulated in his will that, after the payment of certain legacies and annuities, the remainder of his considerable estate should go to the Athenaeum. The fol- lowing year, another native son, Thomas Allen, the godfather of the Allen Guard in the Civil War, made the town a very generous offer. This grandson of "Fighting Parson" Allen had made a fortune in the West from quarries and railroad build-
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ing. Though he had headquarters and lived most of the year in St. Louis, he built and kept a summer house in Pittsfield, which had him to thank for many benefactions.
Allen offered to build at his own expense, up to $50,000, a new building for the library if three conditions were met-1) it should be a free public library; 2) ample ground for such a building should be acquired around the site of the old wooden library; 3) some provision should be made to maintain the Athenaeum "in perpetuity." Quickly agreeing to this, the town spent $22,400 to enlarge the library site and voted to contribute $2,000 a year-soon raised to $3,000-toward the support of the library, to be spent at the discretion of the trustees.
The new Athenaeum opened its doors in 1876. An odd building constructed of blue limestone from Great Barrington, red Longmeadow freestone, and red Missouri granite, it was described at the time as a "much admired specimen of the richer Gothic style." Others have since pronounced it ugly, a "monstrosity." In any case, it provided Pittsfield with its first adequate library and museum facilities, and for eighty years now it has served the community as a pleasant, helpful, and stimulating center of intellectual life.
At its opening the library had about 8,000 volumes on its shelves. Some of these were "of choice character," it was said, "and scarcely any worthless." Pittsfield had to do with these for some years, till 1880, because there was no money to buy new books. Thereafter, under the direction of the first librarian, Edgar G. Hubbell, and of his successor, Harlan H. Ballard, the Athenaeum steadily increased its collections-books for young and old, pamphlets, documents, local memorabilia, paintings, art objects, and related material.
Valuable private collections were donated to the library- notably, a collection of governmental documents, given by Sen- ator Henry L. Dawes; and 1,000 volumes from the library of that lover of Pittsfield and former summer resident, Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes. The volumes were presented by the re- nowned doctor-poet's even more honored son, that true "Yan- kee from Olympus," the late great Justice Oliver Wendell
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Holmes, as distinguished a member as ever sat on the United States Supreme Court.
Presented to the Athenaeum in 1895, the Holmes library could not even be unpacked, let alone placed on the shelves, for want of space. To relieve its overcrowded condition, the Athenaeum was enlarged in 1897 by building a sizeable exten- sion in the rear, designed by Librarian Ballard, affording room for 70,000 more books.
At this time, too, the Athenaeum amended its charter to give the City official representation in the institution's affairs. As the City contributed largely to its support, the amendment pro- vided-an arrangement still in force-that the mayor, the city treasurer, and the member of the School Committee selected to serve as chairman in the absence of the mayor, serve ex-officio as voting members of the corporation's board of trustees.
Even before the Athenaeum was built, still other new build- ings had appeared around Park Square. In 1868, Pittsfield's first sizable business block was built by one of the community's larger enterprises, the Berkshire Life Insurance Company. Or- ganized in 1851, the company has steadily expanded, doing business in many states. Considerably enlarged in 1911, the building still stands at North and West streets.
In its earlier years it was the business hub of Pittsfield. Almost everyone had occasion to visit it every few days, for in addition to the Berkshire Life home offices, it housed the post office, the telegraph office, the telephone office, the express office, the gas company office, the quarters of the Masonic or- ganizations, the Park Club, the water commissioners' office, other town offices, and three banks-the Agricultural (1818), the Berkshire County Savings (1846), and the Third National (1881). In this building, in 1878, townspeople smiled as they were carried aloft in Pittsfield's first public elevator, a bit apprehensive but happy to have been spared the effort of the long stairs.
On the north side of Park Square, a new St. Stephen's Epis- copal church of red Longmeadow sandstone, still the home of the congregation, was completed in 1890. East of St. Stephen's,
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on a large plot enclosed within a stone wall and entered through heavy bronze gates, stood the elaborate stone mansion erected in 1858 by Thomas Allen. It was his summer residence till his death in 1882, and his widow's down to 1897.
One of Pittsfield's showplaces, a prominent feature of the Park Square scene for a half century, the house was torn down in 1913. The spacious grounds, part of the home lot of Parson Allen, were divided up into lots and sold, mostly for business purposes. Two new thoroughfares-Federal Street and Wen- dell Avenue Extension-were run through the property.
Having long felt the want of adequate facilities for present- ing plays, concerts, lectures, and miscellaneous entertainment, Pittsfield acquired its first proper theatre in 1872. Because of the lingering Puritan prejudice against the theatre, it was styled the Academy of Music. A large four-storied brick building with a mansard roof, it stood on the east side of North Street just south of the railroad bridge.
The town took pride in its new "opera house." On the street level was space for six large stores. Above, reached by stair- ways "of easy ascent," was a "very elegantly finished" theatre seating 1,100 people before a large and well equipped stage. To add to the eclat, Pittsfield's first cosmopolitan restaurant, the Palais Royal, established itself in the Academy building, offering the more fashionable and gastronomically adventure- some a taste of what was then regarded as daringly exotic fare.
In 1877 the theatre filled up with a crowd of the curious come to attend a demonstration of a strange new phenomenon -the transmission of sound for long distances over electrified wires. For the occasion wires had been run in from Westfield, some forty-five miles away. An organ pealed at that end of the line, followed by a blast of trumpets. Some in the expectantly hushed audience faintly heard something, which seemed re- markable enough.
But it was generally agreed that, as a practical thing, the in- genious contraption had no future. Within a year, however, a telephone line for business use connected the Pontoosuc mills and the Pittsfield National Bank. The next year Pittsfield had
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its first telephone exchange to provide service for its few sub- scribers whenever they turned the crank on their wall tele- phones and yelled for "Operator."
Many of the famous players and entertainers of their day appeared at the old Academy down to 1903, when it ceased to be used as a theatre. Earlier that year it inadvertently provided Pittsfield with an unexpected show, all the excitement of a native safari.
One day two lions, part of a trained animal act, escaped in the alley behind the academy and bolted toward North Street, creating pandemonium and general alarm. The wildest rumors circulated as the town sprang to arms. One of the poor fright- ened beasts was hunted down and killed, the other was cap- tured and returned to its cage, and so ended Pittsfield's first and only lion hunt. As a conversation piece, however, it went on for years.
The 1870s brought hard times to Pittsfield as to the rest of the country, especially after 1873 when a severe depression-a "financial panic"-caused thousands of banks to crash from coast to coast. Business was everywhere bad. Most local mills ran only part time or suspended operations entirely, creating widespread unemployment and serious distress.
Partly as a result of this, a group led by the Reverend Jona- than L. Jenkins of the First Church organized in 1878 the Union for Home Work. It had as its purposes the "relief of the poor, the reform of the bad, the prevention and decrease of pauperism and begging at the door." Though it had a religious character at first, the Union soon gave up doing anything about the "reform of the bad" and concentrated on its non-religious functions-chiefly, how to provide the hungry with bread, how to find jobs for them so that they could support themselves. For four years it acted officially as town almoner in adminis- tering "outside relief."
Designed primarily to centralize charitable work in the com- munity, the Union was one of the first organizations of its kind in the country, being a sort of primitive Community Chest. Supported by donations, with volunteers doing much of its
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work, the Union aided the needy, helped the sick, and tried to find employment for the "indigent." Expanding its program as time went on, it conducted a sewing school, a cooking school, a boys' club, a day nursery, and similar activities, serving the community well down to 1911, when it ceased to be active as more specialized agencies took over much of its work.
Even before the founding of the Union, another important step had been taken to alleviate human suffering in Pittsfield. In 1874, fourteen women led by Mrs. Thomas F. Plunkett form- ally organized themselves as a corporation "for the purpose of establishing and maintaining in Pittsfield a House of Mercy for the care of the sick and disabled, whether in indigent circum- stances or not."
There was, and had long been, a desperate need for such an institution. The only emergency hospital in town was the old village lockup, the decrepit and dirty police station on School Street, where many had died for want of care and proper fa- cilities.
With money raised among people of all ranks and religious beliefs, a small cottage was rented on Francis Avenue, near Linden Street. Here, on January 1, 1875, the House of Mercy began its long and blessed mission with eight hospital beds, caring for twenty-two patients the first year.
Buying a triangular plot at the intersection of North, Tyler, and First Streets, the organization there erected a new building in 1877-a two-storied wooden structure accommodating thir- teen patients-and "what tender prayers rose heavenward on that golden afternoon when, in the slanting sunshine, the cor- nerstone of the House of Mercy was laid." In 1889, another building was added, the Henry W. Bishop 3rd Memorial Training School, a large brick building which almost doubled the capacity of the hospital.
All during the 1870s when times were so bad, Pittsfield re- mained alert and hopeful, encouraging new enterprises, adapt- ing its government to meet the town's growing needs. In 1876 it appointed its first chief of police-John M. Hatch, a former constable, who had seven men under his command.
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Previously, it had established a Board of Health. The mem- bers of the Board, though able and conscientious, accomplished little, wanting support from either the law or public opinion. The need of general sanitary measures was ill understood, and the Board's recommendations were highly unpopular, especially when they involved any expense or seemed to impinge upon the privacy of the home and traditional arrangements there, such as the familiar and fragrant outhouse, garbage disposal, the disposition of slops, or the use of raw milk from a neigh- bor's barn.
The town improved and enlarged its water system. The Sackett Brook extension, completed in 1876, increased the sup- ply from the Ashley Lake works. A few years later, the dam at the lake was raised to double the capacity of the reservoir, a timely improvement, for the original pipes had been so im- properly laid that almost every winter the frost caused scores of serious breaks and leaks in the mains, reducing pressure and leaving many outlying households without water for days at a time.
The town's old educational system with its thirteen inde- pendent school districts-each running its own affairs, hiring teachers, setting its own standards-had been officially aban- doned in 1869 in favor of a consolidated, townwide school system. Many had bitterly opposed this change and die-hard opposition continued in devious forms, successfully creating great confusion.
When a superintendent was appointed to take charge of all the schools, the dissidents persuaded the town meeting not to pay him a salary, forcing his resignation, so that the change from the old system to the new began without adequate super- vision and administration.
Two years later, recognizing the need of some central school control, the town meeting gave way and reversed itself. Under its orders, the School Committee chose one of its members as superintendent, naming Dr. John M. Brewster-poor unhappy man, for he led a harried life for years.
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In 1873, the town meeting voted to abolish his salary. It re- luctantly reconsidered when the School Committee threatened to resign. The next year, it reduced his salary to $1,000 a year, cutting it in half. The following year, it restored part of the cut. Then in 1876, reverting to its original stand of seven years before, it voted against paying anything for a superintendent of schools-whereupon Dr. Brewster resigned with a blast against those who had so badgered him.
It was his profound belief, he declared, "that the majority of our citizens earnestly desire that the public schools shall not continue to be made, upon the annual recurrence of town meeting, mere toys and playthings in the hands of educational sceptics and ultra-economists"-sound doctrine at any time.
Pittsfield did not have another superintendent of schools until 1879 when William B. Rice formally took over the posi- tion, having performed for four years without pay the major duties of the office as chairman of the School Committee. A man of broad views, lively sympathy, and deep understanding, Rice did much to lay a sound foundation for the development of better education in Pittsfield.
"To assign lessons and hear recitations," he observed in one of his reports, "is barely to touch the outside of the true sphere of the teacher's work . . . It seems to me that many, in discussing the public school question, almost entirely lose sight of the great question-why public schools should exist at all . . . To look upon the public schools as designed merely to fit children to get on in life, is to underestimate the immensely important interests which the public has in their maintenance."
Under Rice and his successors, graded schools supplanted the last of the old ungraded schools where children of widely dif- ferent ages sat and studied together under a single teacher. School books began to be issued free for the use of pupils in 1878. More and better school houses were built to replace old ones that were fire-traps and disease-breeders. The high school on lower South Street, the former Medical College, burned in 1876-it was a case of arson, perhaps by one of the students- and was replaced at a cost of $16,000.
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This relatively large outlay caused considerable controversy, for many looked askance at the high school. In their opinion it was sufficient to teach children the 3 Rs, as in grandfather's day. They regarded any "higher" education as a frill, a waste of the pupil's time and of the taxpayer's money.
Certainly, most of the town's school children never saw, much less wished to see, the inside of the high school. Only a few boys attended, usually to prepare for college. The small graduating class in 1875, and again in 1878, consisted entirely of girls. Enrollment slowly increased, however. In 1884, aver- age daily attendance exceeded one hundred for the first time. By 1891, Pittsfield had 3,422 pupils attending sixty-three schools, manned-or rather womaned, for the most part-by eighty-six teachers.
During these years, with the return of more prosperous times in the 1880s, the town started to grow more rapidly. The woolen and other textile mills were active again and expanding. New enterprises were set up. Several firms began the manufac- ture of shoes, a prosperous business for many years, down to the turn of the century. For a time it ranked second only to textiles in Pittsfield's industrial economy. The manufacture of ma- chinery was stepped up by the E. D. Jones and Sons Company, which in 1890 took over the foundries and machine shops of an older company. Other new concerns began to make tacks and clocks. The Terry Clock Company, which operated from 1880 to 1888, appeared as the Apex Electric Clock Company in a very popular and amusing play on Broadway in 1954, "The Solid Gold Cadillac."
A paper mill had been built in 1863 on the Dalton Road near the township line. The mill, the only one of its kind in town, was making paper for paper collars when it was bought in 1879 by Crane and Company of Dalton. This company entirely refitted the mill so that it could make very special paper of the highest quality-"money" paper, for the United States govern- ment. Since that time, all Federal "greenbacks" and securities have been printed on paper made under close security regula- tions here at the "Government Mill," rebuilt after a fire in 1892.
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Something really remarkable was being produced in Pittsfield at this time-"Renne's Pain-killing Magic Oil." It made a fortune for its distiller, William Renne, for whom one of the town's streets was named. The oil was certainly magic if the advertisement and directions on the bottle can be credited. Whether used externally or internally, it worked "like a charm" for practically everything, and it was "Clean, Delicious, and Safe to Use."
Used externally, it quickly cured "Rheumatism, Cholera Mor- bus, Numbness, Stiff and Lame Joints, Sprains, Spinal Difficul- ties, Sciatica, Bruises, Contusions, Burns, Scalds, Lock-jaw, Rusty Nail Wounds, Bites, and Stings." Its range was almost as great when used internally for "Cramps of the Stomach, Cholic, Pleurisy, Neuralgia, Headache, Colds, Sour Stomach, Kidney Difficulties. Mix with soft water for Sore Eyes, and for Earache . .. Try it for Sore Throat, and for Croup ... Every family should keep it in the house in case of accident or sudden dan- ger." It is sad to think that it can no longer be had, and that the secret has been lost.
Even an alchemist set up shop in Pittsfield, on Depot Street, installing vats, retorts, and much complicated machinery. He had persuaded a local financier that he had discovered a won- drous secret-how to transmute scrap iron to copper. One day when the alchemist was at lunch, the financial angel decided to see for himself how the mystery was proceeding. Lighting a candle, he anxiously approached a bubbling vat and looked in. There was a blinding explosion, the angel was singed, promptly withdrew his support, and the enterprise collapsed.
Other enterprises almost as magical prospered-the genera- tion and distribution of electricity. Electric light from the new Edison incandescent bulb was first seen in Pittsfield in 1885, when the Robbins' Jewelry store on North Street used a string of such lights as part of its Christmas decorations. Slowly the use of the incandescent light increased, at first in offices and stores, later in the residential districts.
In 1883, the Pittsfield Electric Light Company had been formed to provide current for the few Brush arc lamps then in
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use. The town had a score or more of these lights, plus some older gas lamps, to light the main streets. On moonlit nights, they were turned off at midnight, so that prowlers after that hour had to stumble home in the dark as best they could. A rival company entered the field in 1887-the Pittsfield Illu- minating Company. The two companies merged in 1890 to become the Pittsfield Electric Company, which built the town's first large central power station at the corner of Eagle Street and Renne Avenue.
On July 3, 1887, the town's first horse car, loaded with be- whiskered notables, made its way slowly along the tracks laid from the railroad station to Pontoosuc Lake.
"Roll on, thou gorgeous Car of Progress, roll!" exclaimed the Sun with mock heroics. "Paw, steed! Tinkle the signal bell! . . . We hope that every trip will have loads like the first, but with more money in them."
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