USA > Massachusetts > Berkshire County > Pittsfield > The history of Pittsfield, Massachusetts, from the year 1876 to the year 1916 > Part 9
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It is commonly supposed that when a manufacturing town or city in America grows rapidly, its population is likely to become less and less homogeneous. For striking evidence of this in Pittsfield's case, one searches the figures of the census in vain. In 1875 one resident in every four had been born in a foreign country; in 1910 this ratio was one in every five. Authorized
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statistics of a later census are not yet available. Of the 3,029 foreign-born inhabitants in 1875, fifty-four per cent. were of Irish birth. In 1910 the white foreign-born, among the city's total population of 32,121, numbered 6,744, of whom 1,629 had been born in Ireland, or less than one-half of the percentage of 1875. Next in numerical importance, in 1910, came the foreign- born Italians, with a census of 1,158; and thereafter followed the French-Canadians with 765, the Germans with 623, and the Russians with 580.
Actual homogeneity of population, however, cannot depend entirely upon facts revealed by census figures. From Pittsfield, when its democratic town and fire district meetings were abolish- ed, when an absentee corporation became its principal industrial reliance, when its social life assumed of necessity a character less leisurely and simple, there escaped undeniably a portion of the neighborly village spirit, whether valuable or not, which once tended to unify its people. Taking the place of this, it may be, was the insistent need of concerted endeavors, some of which have been suggested, to sustain the manifold burden imposed by the rapid growth of the city; it is difficult to find a record of a public meeting assembled to consider a matter of local interest between 1900 and 1910, or a newspaper editorial dealing with important local affairs, wherein this need is not implied or ex- plicitly urged; and the community was in small danger of being self-complacent. In this indirect sense, the rapidity of the city's growth compelled co-operation, discouraged faction, and united public effort.
The esthetic and intellectual forces at work in Pittsfield during these years exhibited the same trend toward organization that was seen in the fields of philanthropy, of industry, and even of social amusement. The group seemed to be supplanting the in- dividual; and the period was characterized by the formation of almost countless "home study" and "home travel" clubs, "read- ing clubs", and other small associations, which met to discuss papers written by members, or to listen to an address by a visitor. Of the latter sort, the most important numerically was the Wednesday Morning Club of women, established in 1879, and in 1915 composed of about three hundred members. The sub-
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jects which engaged the attention of such organizations are in many instances recorded; and in so far as the record reveals the intellectual interests of the community, it indicates that they were animated and catholic, and that the traditional Yankee fondness for speculative philosophy was disappearing.
The most powerful single stimulus applied to these interests, since the foundation of the Berkshire Athenaeum, was the gift to the people of Berkshire, by Zenas Crane of Dalton, of the Museum of Natural History and Art. The building on South Street was dedicated on April first, 1903. The great and perma- nent importance of the institution seems not to have been under- estimated even during its earlier years; and the fine effects of the Museum upon the higher aspirations of the public apparently were perceived with a correct vision upon the day of its dedica- tion. A thoughtful and general use of the collections and art galleries in the Museum began almost immediately.
It is believable that Pittsfield, among the many American towns favored by benefactions like the Museum and the Athe- naeum, was peculiarly fortunate in the periods of community development at which the gifts were received. They each came at a time when, in this country, the incitation of the liberalizing influences of art and literature was especially salutary. Thomas Allen gave to Pittsfield the Athenaeum building in 1876. It was a period when the light of chivalry and idealism, which had glori- fied the Civil War, was fading in New England, and when her people, intent upon the support of industries and the readjust- ment of political affairs, were strongly inclined toward the over- valuation of things material. This tendency in Pittsfield was then opposed by whatever force may be exerted through a public art gallery and a large free library. Again, in 1903, when Zenas Crane's generosity gladdened Pittsfield, the time seems to have been singularly appropriate for attempting to stem a local wave of materialism, and for inviting, with renewed emphasis, the busy people of a rapidly growing and prosperous city to a con- templation of the quiet beauties of art and nature.
CHAPTER VII
A MISCELLANY OF CITY LIFE
T HE annual cattle show and fair of the Berkshire Agricul- tural Society continued to be the most enlivening popular festival of the year until the middle nineties of the last century. In 1892, the fair was honored by a visit from the governor of the Commonwealth, William E. Russell. The grounds on Wahconah Street were thronged, and the exhibits, then and for several years thereafter, encouraged the officers of the society to believe that, although the proportion of the farmers in the central part of the county was dwindling, the prosperity of the organization might be maintained. They reminded them- selves that the purpose for which their society was incorporated, in 1811, included the promotion of manufactures, as well as of agriculture; and they made determined attempts both to broad- en the field of exhibits and to add the quality of popular enter- tainment to the fairs.
The venerable society, however, was not so constituted as to be adapted to the management of shows of a composite and spectacular variety. For such a purpose, its somewhat elaborate scheme of organization, with all its membership privileges and its various committees, seemed unwieldy. When the rural flavor of a village cattle show no longer spiced the Pittsfield fairs, the society found that it was ill-fitted to provide more modern sub- stitutes. Attendance languished. The more conservative mem- bers shuddered at the accumulation of debt, and disclaimed in- tention of risking money "in the circus business". Moreover they were led to doubt the present real value to the community of the original functions of the society. The promotion of local agriculture, as a means of livelihood, was now important only to a small minority of the people of central Berkshire, while the promotion of manufactures appeared amply capable of looking
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out for itself; and the former object might be pursued by the state board of agriculture and by the active farmers' granges morc effectively, perhaps, than by a society whosc members, scattered in a dozen towns, met only once a year.
Under these circumstances, the directors of the society ap- pointed a special committee to report a plan of reorganization in 1901. The fair of that year had resulted in a financial loss, and the liabilities of the society, including a mortgage on its real es- tate, were announced to be about $10,000, which its assets ex- ceeded. The directors, upon the report of the special committee, recommended that "the society vote to authorize the president and treasurer to sell its property, subject to the approval of the state board of agriculture, for a sum not less than the liabilities of the society, such sale to be made, if possible, to a company organized for the purpose of conducting an agricultural fair at Pittsfield". The society so voted, at a special meeting on Janu- ary seventh, 1902. Endeavors failed to organize a conducting company; the property was sold to private parties; and the Berkshire Agricultural Society ceased to exist. The final officers were Dr. H. P. Jaques of Lenox, president, A. E. Malcolm of Pittsfield, treasurer, and J. Ward Lewis of Pittsfield, secretary.
The enthusiastic spirit of the society's founder, Elkanah Watson, would have been delighted by the quality of the stock raised on Pittsfield farms between 1890 and 1915, although the quantity of farming had so greatly declined. The farms, at va- rious times within this period, of William F. Milton, Henry C. Valentine, Col. Walter Cutting, John A. Spoor, and Arthur N. Cooley were notable examples of scientific method. Most con- spicuous among similar enterprises was the raising of horses at Allen Farm on the road to Dalton. There W. Russell Allen began to breed trotting horses in 1888. In 1892, Mr. Allen's "Kremlin" established a world's record for five-year-old trotting stallions, and the Allen Farm stock continued annually to de- serve and obtain a reputation among horsemen as high as that achieved by the trotting horses of any breeding farm in the United States.
In the southwestern part of the city, the Pittsfield colony of Shakers, who were the most scientific and progressive farmers in
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the country a century ago, maintained itself in worldly pros- perity, despite a constant decrease in number. By the death of Ira Lawson, in 1905, the Pittsfield Shakers lost an especially im- portant agency for their material welfare. Many years had then elapsed since these thrifty, intelligent, and respectable people, with their picturesque garb and quaint speech, had been figures of almost daily familiarity in the town. Since 1800, the disciples of Mother Ann Lee had been not only a distinctive feature of Pittsfield life, but also, in many ways, a helpful portion of the community, and their gradual disappearance was one of the changes which marked the end of village days.
Many of these changes were pictured effectively by Henry L. Dawes, in an informal address which he made at a public recep- tion in Pittsfield in 1893. The occasion was the home-coming of Mr. Dawes after his retirement from the national Senate; he had represented Massachusetts as congressman and senator at Washington since 1857, and had seen, while in Congress, vast national development. But it was the development of Pittsfield upon which the address of Mr. Dawes affectionately dwelt. At the beginning of his congressional service, it was a rural village of a few thousand inhabitants, and when he returned to private life in it, he found a bustling and growing city.
The reception, which was held at Central Hall on March twentieth, 1893, was memorable for its neighborly character, and in this respect honored the popular spirit no less than the distinguished and revered public servant whom the city wel- comed home. With the same heartiness, Pittsfield shared in oc- casions of a similar nature in the adjacent town of Dalton, and notably so in 1912, at the reception there of W. Murray Crane, after his service in the Senate of the United States.
The city was twice visited briefly by President William Mc- Kinley, once in 1897 and again two years later. On September second, 1902, President Theodore Roosevelt arrived in Dalton, where he was the guest of W. Murray Crane, then governor of Massachusetts. In the morning of the following day, the Presi- dent came to Pittsfield. He was received at the Park by the mayor of the city, Daniel England, and was presented to an enthusiastic throng, which packed Park Square. The occasion
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was well-ordercd and pleasant, the day was fair, and it was known that the President was happily impressed by the hospitable warmth of his welcome and by the peaceful beauty of the majes- tic hills. After making a short speech from a platform near the Soldiers' Monument, he set off toward Lenox in a four-horse carriage, with Governor Crane and George L. Cortelyou, the presidential secretary.
About a mile from the Park, at the foot of the hill on South Street, where Wampenum Brook crosses the highway, a crowded trolley car, bound also south, crashed against the President's car- riage. The driver was severely injured. A secret-service guard, who had been sitting beside the driver, was instantly killed. President Roosevelt, Governor Crane, and Mr. Cortelyou es- caped unhurt.
Rarely was Pittsfield so distressed and humiliated as it was by this deplorable and shocking occurrence, which came within a hair's breadth of national tragedy. A resolution, passed two days later by the city council, tried to voice the popular feeling. "With profound sorrow, the city council of the city of Pittsfield regrets the accident which befell the president of the United States and his party. The impressions of the happy incidents of the morning, including the president's felici- tous address at the Park, were instantly dissipated by the shock- ing news of the imminent personal danger which had threatened the president, the governor of the Commonwealth, and their party, and of the awful death of Officer William Craig, the presi- dent's body-guard". It is impossible, however, that any words could have expressed adequately the shame and concern felt by the community. Judicial procedure in January, 1903, affixed the legal responsibility for the fatal collision, and the motorman and conductor of the car each pleaded guilty in court to a charge of manslaughter.
President Roosevelt visited Pittsfield a second time in June, 1905; and in July, 1911, President William Howard Taft tarried in the city long enough to deliver a genial little speech about the 150th anniversary of Pittsfield's foundation, to an audience at the triangular, red, railroad station on West Street.
During the summer of 1898, the station frequently became a
THEODORE POMEROY 1813-1881
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JAMES D. COLT 1819-1881
ENSIGN H. KELLOGG 1812-1882
EDWARD LEARNED 1820-1886
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theater for the display of that patriotic fervor which the brief war with Spain excited everywhere in the United States. Pitts- field had ceased to be the headquarters of a company of state militia with the disbanding of the Colby Guard, twenty years before. When Governor Wolcott, in May, 1898, called out the Western Massachusetts regiment for service against Spain, the town of Adams possessed the only Berkshire company; in this, two Pittsfield recruits were enlisted; and one of them, Franklin W. Manning, lost his young life in his country's service, dying of fever on the return voyage from Cuba.
On its way from Adams to the mobilization camp, Company M, Second Massachusetts Infantry, passed through Pittsfield. This glimpse of the actual departure of Berkshire soldiers seemed immediately to kindle the popular spirit. The pas- sage through the city of other troops, from Massachusetts and New Hampshire, awakened tumultuous excitement. Local bands and vocalists exhausted themselves; fireworks blazed; a veteran fieldpiece of Civil War days roared salutes; and food and coffee were pressed upon the men in the cars, regardless of the hour.
On May sixteenth, the city council passed an order directing the mayor "to notify the governor of the commonwealth that the citizens of Pittsfield stand ready whenever called upon to raise one or more companies for any arm of the service in the present war with Spain". On May twenty-third, nightly drills of a provisional company were commenced at Burbank's Hall, under the supervision of John Nicholson, who then held the office of chief of police. No additional troops, however, were called for by the state authorities, and Pittsfield volunteers, therefore, sought enlistment in many different commands. The city thus supplied forty-two men for the war, according to a list read at the Fourth of July celebration in 1898. This number was subsequently increased to 103.
The observance of the Fourth of July of 1898 was conducted with unusual elaboration, and made distinctive by an oration by George P. Lawrence of North Adams, and by the gift of a flag to the city by the pupils of the public schools, which was raised on a mast in the center of the Park. Several other flag
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raisings marked the summer of the Spanish war, where favorite speakers were Rev. John W. Thompson, Joseph Tucker, William Turtle, and William W. Whiting, the mayor of the city. In more practical ways did Pittsfield manifest its patriotism. Liberal contributions of money were made to the Red Cross Society, and toward the equipment of a hospital ship, while many women of the city met daily to sew for the soldiers, as in the days of '61.
The ungratified desire to put a local company into the service in 1898 resulted in a determined effort to establish in Pittsfield a company of state militia. This was finally accomplished three years later, through a petition to Governor Crane, which was earnestly endorsed by the city council; and Company F, Second Infantry, M. V. M., was mustered in, at the Casino on Summer Street, June sixth, 1901. Its first captain was John Nicholson, to whose energetic spirit it owed its inception. The armory on Summer Street was dedicated on December sixteenth, 1908. To its building fund the city made a liberal appropriation.
The armory, in 1912, was the principal scene of a memorable celebration, for which the citizens of Pittsfield proudly and gratefully provided. This was the observance of the fiftieth anniversary of the departure from Pittsfield of the Thirty-seventh and Forty-ninth Massachusetts regiments in the Civil War. A large citizens' committee made industrious preparations for the event, and on September seventh, 1912, about two hundred veterans of the two regiments met in Pittsfield. They were officially greeted at the Park by the mayor, and after the busi- ness meetings of their regimental associations they dined in the armory, as honored guests of the people of the city, who did not fail to show their appreciation of the sentimental and historical value of the event. At the armory, the speech of the day was made by Charles E. Hibbard, on behalf of the citizens; and in the afternoon the old soldiers were taken in automobiles to re- visit their first camping-ground at the former Pleasure Park, on lower Elm Street.
Previously to this by a score of years, the Pleasure Park, with its clubhouse, race track, and baseball diamond, had ceased to be the fashionable center of outdoor pastime. Horse
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racing, however, was conducted there as late as 1889; and in 1903 the half-mile track was publicly utilized for the last time, when the newly organized Berkshire Automobile Club held a field day, on July fourth. Then a crowd of curious spectators was interested by motor car races, wherein the novel vehicles traveled at the rate of two and a half minutes for the mile. The club already had participated that year in its first hill-climbing contest, over a course of two-fifths of a mile on West Street, from the river bridge to the top of Briggs hill. The record of the winning car was sixty-two seconds. Four years previously, in 1899, a local newspaper had reported that "there are two auto- mobiles now in Pittsfield".
A revival of bicycle track-racing, which had been popular at the Pleasure Park in the early eighties, was attempted with a good deal of elaboration in 1893, at the fair grounds on Wah- conah Street. The arrangements for the "tournament" pro- vided for expensive prizes, a street parade, and, in the evening, a wheelmen's ball; but the weather was unpropitious, the track unsuitable, and the effort was not repeated. Road-racing on bicycles obtained a greater share of attention; and during the last decade of the century, until the machines passed out of vogue for the purposes of pleasure, bicycle riding was the most conspicuous feature of Pittsfield outdoor life. It may be said to have been in some measure succeeded, for a time and fashion- ably at least, by the game of golf, first played in Pittsfield in 1897, when the Country Club, having been formed in that year, opened for its members a nine-hole course, which occupied the quadrangle bounded by Dawes Avenue, Holmes Road, Williams Street, and Arlington Street. The club purchased its present beautiful property on lower South Street in 1899, and occupied it the following year.
The Pittsfield Boat Club, soon after its organization in 1898, acquired the Point of Pines at Pontoosuc Lake; and under its auspices canoeing and boating became pastimes of increased popularity. Initiated by this club in 1899, the annual illumi- nated parades of boats and canoes at Pontoosuc were attractive events. The advent of the trolley car, in 1891, had already en- couraged the erection of numerous cottages and bungalows along
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the southern and eastern shores of the lake; refreshment and amusement pavilions werc set up; and the sylvan and solitary environment of Pontoosuc was rapidly transformed into a plcas- urable dwelling place for nearly a thousand people during the summer months. Camp Merrill, the summer quarters of the local Y. M. C. A., was established at the lake in 1905, on land given to the association by Miss Hannah Merrill.
A unique outdoor spectacle, which interested Pittsfield often between 1906 and 1909, was the starting of balloon races. In 1907, the city was officially designated as the balloon ascent station of the Aero Club of America, whose object was the pro- motion of aerial navigation; the choice of Pittsfield as its head- quarters for ballooning was due probably to the residence in the neighboring town of Lenox of one of its influential members, Cortland F. Bishop, and to the efforts of local hotel and news- paper men, as well as to the co-operation of the management of the local gasworks. Land near the gasworks on East Street, beyond Silver Lake, was provided with facilities for the inflation of balloons, and became known as Aero Park. The first trial there of sending up passenger-bearing balloons was made on March tenth, 1906, and high winds prevented a start; but not infrequent ascents were made thereafter, and the city enjoyed a little temporary national fame because of them. The Pittsfield branch of the Aero Club purchased a balloon of its own in 1908, dubbed it "The Heart of the Berkshires", and leased it to ad- venturous voyagers, supplying the services of a licensed pilot. Within two or three years, however, aviation by means of aero- planes and dirigibles superseded ballooning in public interest, and the ascents from Pittsfield were discontinued.
The winter sport of curling was introduced to the city in 1896, when the Curling Club built a rink at Morningside; there ice polo was also popular, until the rink was dismantled in 1903. Beginning about 1887, the American modification of Rugby football was strenuously in vogue every autumn among the , young men and boys of Pittsfield; and games on the Common during the autumn months attracted large and vocal crowds. An excellent ice hockey team represented the city in 1904, but the sport, in organized form, did not appear to stand permanently
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in the affections of the people. Herein the national game of baseball doubtless held first place. In 1894, a team of profes- sional players represented Pittsfield, for about a month's time, in the New York State Baseball League; the local games were played on Wahconah Street at Wahconah Park, which was opened in 1892. The park, in 1913, was occupied by another league baseball team, representing Pittsfield in the Eastern As- sociation.
The indoor game of basketball was first played publicly in Pittsfield at the Casino on Summer Street, which was built in 1898 and was utilized variously as a theater, a rink for roller skating, and an armory for Company F. Remodeled, it became the Empire Theater and afterward the Grand.
The Academy of Music remained the city's chief resort for theatrical amusement until 1903. On the evening of December twelfth of that year, occurred the last dramatic performance on the Academy's stage, which was thereafter dismantled; the theater on the second floor was changed to a public hall and subsequently into a place for the display of moving pictures. The final year of the existence of the theater as originally equip- ped was marked by a stirring night. After an exhibition of trained animals at the Academy in April, 1903, two lions broke loose in the alley behind the theater, and a lion hunt electrified North Street. One of the beasts was killed and the other re- captured.
The Colonial Theater on South Street was opened on Septem- ber twenty-eighth, 1903, with a production of the musical play, "Robin Hood". The building was erected by John and James Sullivan, of North Adams, who conducted the theater until the winter of 1911, when it was sold to a corporation comprising about fifty local shareholders. The fact that the playhouse was then owned and directed by a considerable number of citizens aroused attention somewhat widely spread throughout the country, although the establishment of a municipal theater, ac- cording to the European model, was probably far from the pur- pose of the enterprise. In 1915 the local corporation sold the property. The increasing vogue of entertainment by means of moving pictures encouraged the erection of the Majestic Theater
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