USA > Massachusetts > Hampden County > Springfield > The history of Springfield in Massachusetts for the young; being also in some part the history of other towns and cities in the county of Hampden > Part 6
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When different localities came to be settled or used it is interesting to see what old Indian names they kept and what new ones they got. Take, for example, the Mill river valley. The land where the lesser river joins the greater one was known to the Indians as Usquaiok, which was, perhaps, the name of the stream. Mill river meant more to the settlers than Usquaiok, yet, just across the Connecticut they kept for the stream and the town, the word Agawam, the fish curing place of the Indians, where there were salmon and shad in plenty.
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HISTORY OF SPRINGFIELD
Following up the Mill river valley, we pass the Water Shops, an odd name, indicating the use of water power. Fol- lowing the south branch we come to the neighborhood of Wachogue, formerly called Wachuet, an Indian word mean- ing "land near the hill." There were once "great Wachuet" and "little Wachuet," good meadow lands near hills on or near the Hampden road. Further on, along the stream, there was a good lot of land which measured about sixteen acres
IT
CHICOPEE FROM SPRINGFIELD STREET, 1838.
in extent. This was allotted to early settlers and "The Sixteen Acres" grew into the name of a locality. Still further up was a tract called "World's End," because beyond this, for a time, nobody wanted to go.
The dingles or old ravines which cut into the terraces of the thickly settled parts of the city all had their names. At the beginning of St. James avenue was, and is, Squaw tree dingle and, near the Chicopee line, Hogpen dingle. The dingle below the Wesson Hospital was Skunk's Misery and the
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one beginning at Avon Place was Thompson's dingle. To the south are Long dingle in Forest Park, and Entry dingle, which last is in Longmeadow. These localities are shown on the map in the first chapter.
Suppose, now, we follow up the Chicopee river for a time, beginning at its mouth, at the place which the Indians called Chicopee. Passing Crowfoot brook, named for an early settler on its banks, and through the center, we arrive at the ancient Schonunganuck, now Chicopee Falls. Not far beyond is Skipmaug or Skipmuck. Noticing the outlets, as we pass, of Skipmuck brook, Poor brook and Higher brook, and the curve at Bircham's Bend we come to Indian Orchard, a name of which the origin is lost; The original locality of that name was on the north side of the river within the present town of Ludlow.
We will return by way of the old Bay road. Crossing Poor brook again and coming into State street, near Squaw tree dingle, and where "the log path," now upper State street, formerly left the Bay road, and crossing the Connecticut, let us follow the course of the Agawam. We would pass through Ramapogue at the West Springfield common and, reaching the stream just beyond, pass under the high bluffs which were once the banks of the old lake. We cross the little "Silver stream" flowing out from the hill in Mittineague or Mened- gonuck and, passing through the village and a mile or more beyond, we come to a great bend called "the neck." The Indians, however, called this place Ashconunsuck. Just above is Tatham or Tattum, the meaning of which nobody knows. Pursuing our way west we cross Block brook and, rounding the course of the stream where it runs between the ridges of trap, we arrive at the fertile interval known to the Indians, and still known, as Paucatuck. This hamlet is the
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HISTORY OF SPRINGFIELD
last before we reach the Westfield line. Paucatuck brook rises some miles to the north, beyond Bear Hole. Thus we see how English and Indian words of description are mingled in our names of places.
Although, as we have seen, the Indians, as tribes, were no longer left in this part of New England, yet they continued to wander back from time to time and were occasionally employed on the farms. The danger from Indians was not yet over, but it was now the red men of Canada who kept the settlements in alarm. They had never been heard of before in these parts, but about ten years after King Philip's war ended and for more than half a century afterwards there were at times wars between England and France, which affected us. The French had settled Canada and, allying themselves with the Indians there, they made invasions of New England, particularly down the valley of the Connecticut. Northfield, Deerfield and Brookfield were most exposed. Men were killed and women carried captive to Canada.
In Major Pynchon's day he was the military governor of the whole valley, and once when Brookfield had been attacked, he sent a force in pursuit of the Indians who were making fast for Canada. Among the pursuers was the same Thomas Gilbert, who had once escaped from Indian captivity. The Indians were overtaken while at breakfast. Six of them were killed, and nine guns, twenty hatchets and about twenty horns of powder taken. It was just like John Pynchon, writing an account of the affair, to say, " "Tis God, not our twenty men that hath done it." Although the French were, from time to time, raising such dark war clouds to the north, yet in 1718, there arrived in Springfield a Frenchman who followed the ways of peace. He was a peddler, Samuel Malle- field by name, and appeared riding an iron gray horse. He
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brought more goods than one horse would carry, so, doubtless, the goods came by water from Hartford. There is in existence a list of all his wares, from which it appears that he brought something for everybody,-handkerchiefs, penknives and ink horns for the men, silks, fans and laces for the women and jewsharps and little books for the children. Among a multitude of other things were over 11,000 pins. All this we know because no sooner had the peddler arrived than he fell sick and died, and a complete inventory of his goods was made for the Probate Court.
But the peddler, Samuel Mallefield, especially interests us, not so much because he came on an iron gray horse and brought 11,000 pins, but because on his deathbed he directed that all his property, after paying his expenses, should make a fund for the relief of the poor. The town accepted the bequest and erected a stone of table form to the memory of the French peddler, which may be seen among the ancient stones on the Pine street side of the cemetery. Very many years were to pass before his example would be fol- lowed; but in 1863 James W. Hale, a benevolent grocer, left most of his fortune to supply the worthy poor with coal, fuel and flour, from what is now called "The Hale Fund." These two men were the forerunners of many kind people who have made gifts and bequests for the use of the city. JAMES W. HALE.
We are now come to the great days of the Revolution. Its battles were waged far away from Springfield; but, besides sending her men to join the-armies of freedom, she had little
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glimpses and side-lights of events as they passed and made history for the now United States. It was on a day in June of the year 1775 when one, standing on Main street, near the Court House, and looking up street, might have seen a cavalcade of horsemen approaching from the north. They had just crossed the river and had turned into the Main street from
PARSONS TAVERN, MAIN AND ELM STREETS.
the upper Ferry Lane, now Cypress street. They advance down the street and halt in front of the tavern at (the present) Court Square. The central figure is a tall and really fine- looking man of dignified yet pleasing countenance. It is the new General, George Washington, on his way to Cambridge to take command of the Continental army. With him is General Lee. "He was," says Irving, in his "Life of Wash-
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ington," "in the vigor of his days, forty-three years of age, stately in person, noble in demeanor, calm and dignified in his deportment. As he sat on his horse with manly grace, his military presence delighted every eye." After dinner at the tavern, the afternoon saw the party again on their way up State street and along the old Bay road. We may believe that General Wash- ington, who was an ob- servant traveler, drew rein for a moment at the Wait monument, then rather new, and read the inscrip- tion carved for the benefit of wayfarers. STON BORG
The battles of Lexing- ton and Bunker Hill had already been fought. The minute-men of Springfield were already stationed at the fortifications around WAIT MONUMENT. Boston. Here is a letter, with misspelling corrected, which one of the young soldiers from Springfield wrote to his father. It was written about the day of Washington's arrival, written from the very town whence the settlers had started, as told in the second chapter.
HONORED FATHER:
Roxbury, June 29, 1775
After my regards to you I take this opportunity to let you know that I am well, as I hope these lines will find you and all my brothers and sisters. I have some news to write. In the first place there was a skirmish between Charlestown and Cambridge and the
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King's troops drove our men out of our intrenchment because they had no powder and they have intrenched on Bunker's Hill and our men have intrenched on Winter Hill where the regulars retreated to when the first battle was at Concord which was June 16. They fired the same day at Roxbury and threw bombs and car- casses in order to set the street on fire, but by the goodness of God they did not, for our men, as soon as they had set it afire, would go up and put it out and they fired no more until last Satur-
day. Then they fired again and tried to set it on fire but they would go and put it out. One of our men took one of the car- casses and brought it up to the General before it went out. And they set two or three houses afire. But they were as fierce as a bloodhound to put them out. Then the Rhode Islanders went down on the Neck with two or three field pieces and fired at them and made their sentries run to the breast-work. And then they fired upon our sentries and killed two of them. We are building a fort in Roxbury and digging a trench across the Neck. No more at present, so I remain your obedient son,
JUDUTHAN SANDERSON.
It is plain that this young fellow was heart and soul with the cause of the Revolution. So were the citizens of Spring- field generally, prominent among them being William Pyn- chon, grandson of the "worshipful Major." There were those, however, who stood by the King. "Adamses, where are you
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going?" said Colonel Worthington to the great patriots, Samuel and John Adams, when they appeared in this town
1.
أقالـ
DISCUSSING THE REVOLUTION.
in 1776, on their way to the Continental Congress. "To Philadelphia, to declare these colonies free," was the quick response. "Look out for your heads," replied Worthington.
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The sound of battle was far away; but occasional travelers and soldiers returning from Ticonderoga and other posts kept the people fully interested and informed. It was this remote- ness of Springfield from the seat of war that, with other reasons, induced General Washington to designate the town as the place for the government manufacture of arms. He chose the plateau on which the Armory is now located, on the western edge of what he calls in his diary, describing the country between the Hill and Indian Orchard, "an almost uninhabited pine plain much mixed with sand." The location
chosen was then the town's training field, but it was readily yielded to the new enterprise.
One of the great events in the early years of the Revolution, which is in a way connected with this and neighboring towns, was the surrender of the British COSTUME OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. General Burgoyne at Saratoga. Indeed, some of the soldiers of this vicinity were there and remembered the event as taking place on a clear and beautiful day in September. Standing in military array they saw the British general and six thousand of his troops pass by to the place where the latter laid down their arms. The soldiers of freedom were poor and wore no uniforms, but "they stood well arranged and with a military air." "The men," wrote the Hessian General Riedesel, then serving in the British army, "stood so still that we were filled with wonder. Not one of them made a single motion, as if he would speak with
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his neighbor. Nay, more, the lads that stood there in rank and file, kind nature had formed so trim, so slender, so full of nerve that it was a pleasure to look at them and we were all surprised at the sight of such a handsome, well formed race. Not a man was to be found, who as we marched by, made even a sign of taunting, insulting, exultation, hatred or any other evil feeling. On the contrary they seemed as if they would do us an honor."
General Riedesel commanded some German troops from Hesse-Cassel who had been hired by the king to serve in America. In fact the great mass of the English people had not much sympathy with George the Third in his attempt to crush the liberty of the colonies. They were not eager to join the army and go to America for this purpose, so that the king bargained with the Grand Duke of Hesse-Cassel for 22,000 soldiers to fill up his army. It is not to be supposed that these mercenary troops had any heart in the war; but there was no German freedom in those days and they were compelled to go. Once here, both the English and German soldiers realized that the cause of liberty was the same everywhere and that what the Americans were fighting for was just what they themselves needed in their own country. It is not surprising that many of them deserted and made their homes in the United States.
In the army that surrendered at Saratoga was a large body of Hessians, with their general. All these were ordered sent as prisoners of war to Boston. As there would not be enough to feed them if all went by the same route, three de- tachments were formed and one of these was sent over the mountains into and down the valley of the Westfield or Agawam river, by way of Springfield. It was at the close of a wet day in October when this large body of retired soldiers emerged from between the ridges of hills that divide Westfield
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from West Springfield and encamped on the West Springfield common. More comfortable quarters, however, were found by many at the farmsteads.
In a large farmhouse in Paucatuck lived a little boy, Seth by name, whose father had but recently, gun on shoulder, come back from the scene of the surrender. He was intensely interested in stories of Ticonderoga and the doings about there
REVOLUTIONARY OFFICERS IN A FARMHOUSE AT PAUCATUCK, WEST SPRINGFIELD.
and one can imagine his excitement when a party of fifteen or sixteen officers from the two armies arrived at his father's house with the purpose of spending the night. The officers made themselves comfortable in the house and hung their swords and trappings above the blazing hearth-fire to dry. To the end of his life the boy remembered the glistening
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steel and brass of the swords and scabbards as they flashed in the firelight. As for the common soldiers they staid out in the sheds at the cost of a good pile of cider apples that were waiting for the press. In the morning camp was struck on the Common, the farmhouses emptied of their visitors and the whole host crossed the river to Springfield, whence they proceeded towards Brookfield.
But not all went. An Englishman named Worthy thought that this part of the country was good enough for him and contrived to drop out, as did a German named Wagoner. Worthy used to say that when the British common soldiers got over here they found that the Americans had the right of the cause. One other deserter there was, a horse, too lame, perhaps, to go further. He, too, found friends in West Spring- field and to the end of his days went by the name of "Old Burgoyne."
NORTHEAST CORNER OF COURT SQL ARE, 1830.
CHAPTER VII.
SHAYS' REBELLION .- THE CONSTITUTION .- 1783-1789.
S HAYS' Rebellion was one of the unfortunate incidents in the history of Massachusetts. It is interesting because it shows a people, almost a majority, in opposition to the regular action of a government which they had just set up; and it is important in a history of Springfield because it was here that some of the most stirring scenes occurred. Sometimes it has been called an insurrection, sometimes a rebellion. An insurrection is a rising to prevent the operation of the laws by force of arms. A rebellion is such an opposition widely extended. In this case the movement, by spreading through the state, passed from an insurrection to a rebellion, although not a bloody one. It is included in the years 1783- 1787. What was its cause?
During the Revolution the colonies had been too poor to pay the soldiers properly, too poor indeed, properly to feed and uniform the men; men who had, perhaps, left wife and children at home to get a very poor living on the farm while the husband and father served the cause. Money often had to be borrowed for them to live on. But the soldiers were paid in paper money, good so long as it would pass for the value stamped on its face, but it would so pass only so long as it could be exchanged for that which had a value in itself, gold or silver. In the colonies there was not enough gold or silver to go around and be exchanged for all this paper money ; so it began to get worthless, and the more that it was printed and given out the more worthless it got.
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But the soldiers needed real money. When they got home to their farms they found, perhaps, that the oxen, which had not been needed for work during their absence, had been killed for beef. Now that the farmer himself was exchanging the gun for the plough, new oxen must be bought, or a new horse. Perhaps the farmer who had served in one or two campaigns was drafted for another and had to borrow money to pay for some one to go to the war in his place. The money was borrowed in coin and now the returning soldier found nothing in his hands with which to pay, except the now
all to part
Taxet
tako
almost worthless paper. The former price of a yoke of oxen would scarce buy three mugs of eider; and if a man had borrowed a hundred dollars, he must now get four thousand dollars in paper money to make it good. This farmer, pictured in an old broad side, "The Looking glass for 1787," has filled a bag with paper money and even then has scarcely enough to pay his taxes.
When things came to this pass everybody was alarmed for the future. Business, of course, came very much to a standstill and it was hard to sell any- People to whom
thing with which to pay anybody.
debts were due began to collect them. If the debtor could not pay he was brought before the court and his farm or personal property was ordered to be sold to raise the money, and when nobody wanted to buy nothing would bring its real value. The debtor was ruined and under the okl law of imprisonment for debt might have
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to go to jail. Thus it came to pass that a sense of distress, suffering and alarm overspread Massachusetts and involved a considerable portion of the population. The large portion of the people who were not so greatly troubled might have done more to make things better. They might have passed certain laws which would have tided over the difficulties for a time till the cause was removed; but they were not wise enough to do so.
The result was that here and there people began to consult together to see what they could do. All the danger was coming through the courts by the ordering of the collection of debts, so the malcontents decided to prevent the sitting of the courts. This was, of course, a high-handed proceeding. The courts had been established by the people of Massachu- setts for the purpose of doing justice between man and man and they tried hard to do so. The judges were not responsible for the laws but it was their duty to enforce them. The people had made the laws and it is pretty hard to justify the resistance of a free people to laws of their own making, even though some may unjustly suffer by it. In this case historians do not justify; they have done no more than to excuse on the ground of great provocation.
Early in the history of the insurrection an important court was to be held in Springfield. The Court House stood on the east side of Main street, south of Sanford and, being just across the town brook, was reached by a small bridge. It was the sitting of the court here at this time that the insur- gents wished to prevent. Not wishing to proceed to bloodshed they left their guns of the Revolution at home and came armed with clubs. They gathered before the door of the Court House in so solid a mass that the judges as they arrived found their way obstructed. Before the judges walked the
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high sheriff, General Mattoon of Amherst. "Make way for the court," said the sheriff. Nobody moved. "Make way for the court, I say," he repeated; and struck David Smith, Jr., of West Springfield, a painful blow with the flat of his sword. It is said that one man was thrown into the brook. However that may be, the crowd then gave way and the court was duly held.
There soon got to be a feeling among the towns, particularly towns in Hampshire, Berkshire and Worcester counties, that something was wrong that might be righted; so that from Springfield and elsewhere delegates were sent to a convention to talk about these matters and see what could be done. But nothing was effectively done and the opposition to the sitting of the courts kept growing. Sometimes it succeeded ; but not so in Taunton, where Judge Cobb, a former general of the Revolution, was holding court. When the insurgents arrived, he urged them to yield to the laws, concluding with these words: "Sirs! I shall sit here as a judge or die here as a general." The mob dispersed. At last there appeared military leaders and the forms of military organization and there was no longer an insurrection but a rebellion.
The rebellion took its name from one of these leaders, Daniel Shays of Pelham, a hill town not far from Ludlow. Shays had no great ability but he had served with credit as a captain in the Revolution, he was a good talker and, in concert with Luke Day of West Springfield, Eli Parsons of Berkshire and an ex-minister named Ely, was very successful in rallying the malcontents about him. Luke Day is reported to have said that liberty is liberty to do as you like and make everybody else do as you would have them. Perhaps, if he ever said it, he did not say it seriously; for true liberty is freedom subject to laws made for the good of all, as Day
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and every other soldier of the Revolution well knew. Day is thought to have been abler than Shays, but Shays was acknowl- edged as the leader and even in adjoining states where the same troubles prevailed "Hurrah for Shays!" became a popular cry.
As between the cause of Shays and that of law the people of Springfield were divided. Springfield, because of the Court House and the Ar- mory, became at once a great center of interest, as to which side should prevail, so that September
DEFENDING THE COURT HOUSE IN SHAYS REBELLION.
26, 1786 is memorable in our history. On that day the highest Court of the Commonwealth was to sit here, composed of the chief justice and three other judges and Shays meant to prevent it. His camp was near the corner of Main and Ferry streets. His men had no uniforms but could be told from the rest by a sprig of evergreen worn in the hat. The other side wore a piece of white paper in the same way. General Shep-
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ard of Westfield, a brave and magnanimous officer, was in the town with a force ready to protect the court.
Then there were seen three thousand armed men marching up and down Main street, ready to fight each other on sufficient provocation. Almost all of them were from outside towns; but among the citizens themselves, neighbor was set against neighbor and the next moment men might be firing from one house to the next. The excitement was great, women and children trembling with fear; and we are not told whether school kept or not. Men were continually coming in from other towns and joining one camp or the other. More than one company of the state militia which arrived to support General Shepard, carried away by the "hurrah boys" of the other side, deserted in a body to Captain Shays.
But there were staunch men left to the government side. Dr. Chauncey Brewer, going one night to see a sick person had to pass through Shays' lines and was arrested by the sentries on Main street and brought into camp. Captain Shays ordered him to take the white paper from his hat. "No, Sir," said the doctor, "I shall not do it! Just give me a place to sleep." Twice he was ordered to doff the badge and twice refused. At last he was allowed to go home with his badge on. When the judges arrived they got safely to the Court House but as the grand jury did not darc to come nothing could be done. So the Shays party, having really accomplished its object, went home.
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