USA > Massachusetts > Hampshire County > Amherst > The history of the town of Amherst, Massachusetts, pt 1 > Part 14
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102
HISTORY OF THE TOWN OF AMHERST, MASS.
:
public meetings; was for a long time justice of the peace ; town clerk ; selectman ; assessor ; Representative to the General Court. In 1755 he was sent to the General Court to appear in behalf of the precinct in its petition to be set off a district: he went to Boston and secured the object of the petition. As a Justice of the Peace many important cases were tried before him. An aged lady, who remembered him well told me that there were frequently large collections of people assembled to witness the trials before Judge Chauncey. In the time of the Revolutionary War, he, like many of the leading men in the region, was suspected of being a Tory. They felt that the time had not come to take up arms against Great Britain. Rev. David Parsons, Judge Simeon Strong, Dr. Seth Coleman, and others, sided with Esquire Chauncey. Mr. Chauncey held no office during the war. But immediately on the declaration of peace he resumed his place at the head of affairs. He cul- tivated a large and excellent farm about half a mile south of the college now owned by Mr. Horace Kellogg. The remains of the fish-pond which he constructed are still to be seen. He was a professor of religion from early life. About the year ISo2 he removed with his family from Amherst to Albany Co., now Schenectady Co., N. Y., where he died and was buried the same year."
John Field was son of Zechariah Field and was born in Hatfield, Jan. 12, 1718. He was a prominent man in the community and among the large property owners as is shown by Amherst's valuation list in 1770. In 1773 he was appointed by Gov. Hutchinson a lieutenant of militia, but gave up his commission the following year owing to the disturbances incident to the outbreak of the war. He married, July 10, 1739, Hannah, daughter of Samuel Boltwood, by whom he had eleven children.
The Boltwoods were among the earliest settlers in the eastern part of Hadley, Samuel Boltwood being numbered among the "east inhabitants " in 1731, while Solomon came to the new settlement as early as 1737. They were men of note, prominent in public affairs and the name of Boltwood appears frequently on town and district records. In 1770, Solomon Bolt- wood was the largest property-owner in the district, his estate being rated at {228. William, son of Solomon, was commissioned a lieutenant and served in the French and Indian war. Solomon, brother to William, and his son Ebenezer, were among the earliest merchants, or " traders " as they were then called, in the east settlement.
CHAPTER XIV.
PROPOSED DIVISION OF AMHERST .- PETITION AGAINST A DIVISION.
The first meeting-house, completed in 1753, afforded at that time and for some years after ample accommodations for the worshipers who assembled there on the Sabbath, and the voters who gathered on town-
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103
VOTES TO DIVIDE AMHERST.
meeting days. But owing to a considerable increase in population, the need of a larger meeting-house became apparent as early as 1771, when the . question of building one began to be agitated. This question, innocent in itself, formed the basis of a controversy that was waged with bitterness for many years, whose echoes even now are heard in our town-meetings as the rights and privileges of the " center " of the town are placed in oppo- sition to those of the outlying villages. It was a bitter struggle at the out- set, and but for the sound common-sense displayed by the General Court, would doubtless have resulted in a division of the lands in Amherst into two parishes and later on two townships. A majority of the first perma- nent settlers had located near what is now the center village, and the meeting-house was set as near the center of population as could be conven- iently. As new members were added to the settlement, the lands to the north and south and cast were occupied, the population becoming more generally distributed over the territory comprised in the District. The voters and church-goers at the extremities of the District soon grew into a majority, a fact they were quick to appreciate and take advantage of. They needed a pretext for action, and this was afforded when the question of building a new meeting-house was broached. Their proposition was to divide the District by an east and west line through the center. the latter thus being placed at the extremity of the two new districts. At a meeting held Jan. 13, 1772, the proposition was submitted to the voters and passed in the affirmative. Legislative sanction was necessary in order to such a division of territory, but that some immediate benefit might be obtained it was voted. April 14, 1773, to build two new meeting-houses at the expense of the whole District. Of the '120 owners of real estate in the District when this controversy began, 70 were opposed to the division, but there were in addition some 25 legal votes living at the ends' of the District, mostly farmers' sons, to whom their fathers conveyed small tracts of land that they might, in accordance with legal provisions, vote upon the question. This gave a majority to the divisionists, leaving the wealthy property- owners at the center powerless as far as any action by the District was con- cerned. The natural recourse was an appeal to the General Court for a stay of proceedings and a hearing. The following petition was drawn up and forwarded to the General Court in May, 1773 :
" To his Excellency Thomas Hutchinson Esq. Captain General and Governor in Chief in and over his Majesty's Province of the Massachusetts Day in New England and Vice Admiral of the same.
To the Honb his Majesty's Council and House of Representatives in General Court assembled at Boston on the 26th day of May A. D. 1773.
The subscribing Petitioners Inhabitants of the District of Amherst in the County of Hampshire.
Most humbly shew.
104
HISTORY OF THE TOWN OF AMHERST, MASS.
That the District of Amherst contains a Tract of Land nearly equal to seven miles in length and three miles in breadth taken together: That in the year 1735. a Precinct or Parish was erected there by the name of The Third Precinct of Hadley, in which town said lands then were. That in the year 1738 a Meeting House was erected, and in the year 1739 a Minister was settled there. That in the year 1759 the same Parish or Precinct was erected into a District by the name of Amherst, with some Inhabitants of Hadley Parish with their Farms annexed thereto. That your Petitioners are most of them inhabitants of the middle Part of the said District, whose Lands and Estates are adjacent to the said Meeting House on each side, and towards each end of the District, and that they and their predecessors were the first original settlers of the Parish of East Hadley. from which said Amherst was erected, who bore the principal part of the burden of beginning and bringing forward the settlement at first, of building a Meeting House, supporting the Ministry and all other charges ; and have continued to bear the greater part of Expenses of every kind from the original settlement of the Parish to this day. That though they have long held a state of good agreement and harmony among themselves, and conducted their affairs both ecclesiastical and civil with great unanimity, yet are now in a most unhappy controversy with the inhabitants of the remote parts of the District respecting the building a Meeting House for Public Worship. That partly by reason of the Inhabitants who were admitted from Hadley Parish to be incorporated with Amherst at their own request. and because of their great distance from their own Meeting House, partly by reason of the increase of settlers in the remoter parts and near the two ends of the District, and partly by the methods used by the opposite party to multiply their votes, by transferring property from the father's List to the son's who tho' qualified according to the letter of the Province Law ought to every equitable purpose to be considered as having no property at all: Your Petitioners, though owning the greater part of the Property within the District, are yet in respect of their number of voters become a minor party, and being as they conceive oppressed and likely still to be oppressed by the strength of a prevailing majority, and being under necessity thereof to seek redress & Protection in Legislative Power. humbly beg leave to open and state their matters of complaint in the following manner (viz.)
That within two years last past the Increase of inhabitants made it needful to provide a new Meeting House for Public Worship : That on a motion for this pur- pose, the Inhabitants of the remoter settlements towards each end of the District united together in a Design of procuring the district (however small in its extent) to be divided into two Districts, so that the extremities of the two Districts should be at the present Centre, and your Petitioners on each side of the present Meeting House, to be at the remote or extreme parts of the two proposed Districts. This Proposal was brought before a District Meeting holden on the 13th Day of January A. D. 1772, and though opposed by your Petitioners, a vote was then passed for the proposed Division, That from a supposed insufficiency in the proceeding, the same matter was again brought before a District Meeting holden the 10th Day of March in the same year : and there being then an equal number of voters on each side of the question no vote was passed. That afterwards the Party for the Division entered into an agreement for effecting their purpose by procuring a Majority for erecting two Meeting Houses at the joint expense of the whole District before any Division should be made, or any new District erected, and to place them so as to subserve their design of a future Division towards the ends of the present. and in the middle of each proposed District, whereby they apprehended that your l'eti-
105
PETITION AGAINST A DIVISION.
tioners overpowered by their majority, would be finally brought by compulsion to join with them in procuring such a Division, That pursuant to this design a meeting was holden on the 14th day of April last past, at which (having previously multi- plied their votes in the manner above described) they procured a majority for erecting the two Meeting Houses : and a vote was accordingly passed, And tho' nothing as yet hath been done in pursuance of said vote, yet your Petitioners are threatened with the speedy execution of it, All which votes and proceedings, by attested copies thereof herewith exhibited will appear. On which state of facts your petitioners humbly beg leave to represent and observe: That the whole District of Amherst being of no larger extent than nearly as above set forth, cannot admit of having a new District erected therefrom in the manner contended for, without effecting the ruin of the whole, as neither of the two could be able to support public expenses: That the Division contended for is such for which no precedent can be procured, nor any reason assigned : That the very remotest of the Inhabitants have no further travel to the centre of Amherst than what is common to many of the Inhabitants of most of the Towns within the Province. And if any reason could be given for so extraordinary a measure, the same must hold and hold much stronger in almost every Town and District and produce Divisions and subdivisions throughout the whole. That your Petitioners think it most injurious to themselves to be dictated by an opposite Party in respect to their tenderest rights, and especially in matters relating to the Worship of God. That their opponents are unjustly endeavoring to compel them to join in societies wherein they have no disposition to join. and many of them to abandon their Parish, Church and Minister, to which they are most cordially united; and to be so incorporated together in each respective new formed society with those of an adverse Party, of opposite sentiments and exasperated minds: That each of the little, weak and already ruined societies must have nothing in prospect but to be if possible further ruined by increasing Confusion and Discord among themselves. That your Peti- tioners having acquired their Estates at a rate proportionate to the value of their present situation, may not, consistent with justice, have such privileges wrested from them, That confiding in the Equity of their cause, they would cheerfully have submitted it to the decision of the General Court : but that their opponents (either thro' diffidence of the success of their cause, or for some other reason to your Petitioners unknown) wholly declining to make any application to the General Court for a new District to be erected, have adopted the violent measure of forcing your Petitioners to contribute to the expense of the said two Meeting Houses, which purpose if executed they consider as a manifest oppression under colour of Law, and an high abuse of the Power vested in Towns and Districts by the Acts of this Province. That the vote whereof your Petitioners complain was procured by voters qualified by unfair means, as above expressed, and that your Petitioners having the property of more than half the Estate within the District, and who must therefore bear the greater part of the expense, the whole of which they should esteem to be worse than lost. Your Petitioners further beg leave to repre- sent that during the whole controversy they have adopted every pacific measure : have never used any undue method to multiply their voters. choosing rather to want a majority than to procure it by unfair means. And now find all attempts of Accomodation to be in vain : and despairing of justice without the intervention of Legislative Power, Your Petitioners most humbly pray the attention of your Excel- lency and Honors to their unhappy situation. And though they are sensible that no division of Amherst can be made without great prejudice to the whole, and if
105
HISTORY OF THE TOWN OF AMHERST, MASS.
left to their own election should be very far from desiring it in any manner what- ever : Yet since the opposite Party seem resolved to please their own humor at the expense of your Petitioners' ruin, Your Petitioners most humbly pray your Excel- . lency and Honors to interpose for their relief, by allowing them. whose interests and sentiments are united, to be a corporation and Parish by themselves in the middle of Amherst, enjoying all privileges. and being liable to all duties of a Paro- chial nature that are incumbent on the District of Amherst, leaving our Opponents their election to remain with us on reasonable terms: or be incorporated together among themselves as their remote situations will best permit or join to be incor- porated with some adjacent towns or Parishes, as they can obtain consent for admittance there, And if the granting your Petitioners prayer herein. should seem to throw their opponents into much calamity, which your petitioners by no means desire. if it may be avoided : Yet since our opponents which are now the Major Party will be content with nothing short of Division and Division to be effected by such violent means, your Petitioners humbly pray your Excellency and Honors to make such a Division as will save and protect an injured and innocent Party: and suffer our opponents rather to be ruined alone. than leave them the Power of involving your Petitioners with them : Otherwise that your Excellency and Honors would provide for our safety by passing an Act or Order for depriving the District of Amherst of the power of raising or assessing any monies on the Inhabitants for the building of such Meeting Houses, or for excusing y petitioners from contri- buting any proportion of any Taxes raised for such purpose: or grant relief to your Petitioners in any other way or manner as you in yr great wisdom shall think fit. And for the preventing any contention or disturbances that might arise in the District between the Parties in the mean time, yr Petitioners most humbly pray that an Order may be passed for staying all proceedings.either in erecting said Meeting Houses, or in Demolishing the present Meeting House until the final Determina- tion of y' Excellency & Honors hereon. They also pray that a committee of the General Court may be appointed to repair to Amherst, to examine into the Matters alleged in this l'etition if yr Excellency & Honors think fit : And that all the costs arising by this application may be ordered to be paid by the District of Amherst. And as in duty bound shall pray
Josiah Chauncey John Morton
Noah Dickinson
Simeon Strong
. Moses Cook
Simeon Pomeroy
Jona Dickinson
Jona Dickinson Jr.
Joseph Dickinson
Jonathan Cowls
David Blodgett
David Hawley
John Field Gid Dickinson Jr.
Thomas Bascom
Nathan Moody
Reuben Cowls
Eph" Kellogg Jr.
Alex Smith John Billings
Jonathan Smith
Moses Warner
Thomas Hastings
Jona Nash Jr.
Daniel Kellogg
Samuel Gould
Martin Smith
Elisha Ingram
Moses Warner
Joel Billings
Nathan Dickinson
David Smith .
Thomas Hastings Jr.
Hezekiah Belding
Simeon Clark
Nathaniel Smith
Ww Boltwood Jona Edwards
Hezekiah Howard
Barnabas Sabin
Nathaniel Coleman
Timothy Clap
Edward Elmer
Jonathan Moody
Simeon Peck
John Morton Jr.
Gideon Henderson
Eben' Kellogg
David Stockbridge
Nath' Alex' Smith
Aaron Warner
Josiah Moody
1
Joseph Bolles
Gideon Dickinson
...
,
ACTION BY THE GENERAL COURT.
Jonathan Nash John Field Jr.
Eben' Dickinson
Isaac Goodale
Noah Smith
Seth Coleman
Elijah Baker
Joseph Church
John Nash
Solom Boltwood
Noadiah Lewis
Joseph Morton
Waitstill Hastings
Silas Matthews
Nath1 Peck Timothy Hubbard
I do hereby certify that the whole Rateable Estate of Amherst as footed by the Assessors on their last List amounts to £7800: 0
And of that sum what belongs to one of the Anabaptist persuasion, and others.
not Inhabitants of Amherst amounts to
£202: 15
And that the Estate of the above named Petitioners on the List amounts. to
£4220: 13
Seth Coleman District Clerk.
This petition seems to have had the desired effect so far as any imme- diate division was concerned ; on June 18, the General Court passed an order staying all proceedings relative to building any new meeting-house in the District excepting on or near where the house then stood. Jan. 26, 1774, Amherst appointed Reuben and Moses Dickinson agents to present a petition to the General Court for a division, and also to answer the Court's citation. issued on account of the petition printed above. At a meeting held June 3, it had been voted by a large majority to divide the District by an east and west line from the center of the meeting-house : these agents were to secure, if possible, the authority of the General Court for carrying out the provisions of this vote. After a hearing, the General Court ordered that a committee consisting of Artemas Ward, Esq. of the Council and Mr. Pickering and Col. Bacon of the House " repair to the District of Amherst, view the same, hear the parties on the spot, and make report what they think proper for the Court to do thereon: and that the Inhabitants of s'd District in the mean time wholly surcease & forbear all proceedings relative to the building any new Meeting House or Houses in said District. " March 14, Amherst appointed a committee to meet the General Court's committee to consult with them concerning the division of the District. There is no record of the committee's report to the General Court, but there is reason to believe that it was adverse to those who favored division ; the following entry is found in the Province Laws, Vol. V .: P. 411 :
" Upon the petition of Josiah Chauncey and others, inhabitants of the district of Amherst, it was, on the roth of June. 1774,-
Ordered that the Inhabitants of the said District pay into the original Peti- tioners for their costs and charges in and about prosecuting and supporting their said Petition the sums of twenty eight pounds, fifteen shillings and eight pence, and that the Treasurer of the said District be and hereby is impowered and directed to pay the same out of the Treasury accordingly : and that the sum of thirty
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HISTORY OF THE TOWN OF AMHERST, MASS.
pounds, nine shillings and two pence be paid out of the Province Treasury to the Committee appointed at the last Session of the General Court to repair to Amherst. for their time and expence in the affair, and that the same be laid on the said Dis- ;trict in the next Province Tax."
This action of the General Court, and the outbreak of the Revolu- tionary war, appear to have put an end to the plan for dividing the town.
CHAPTER XV.
.CONTROVERSY CONCERNING A NEW MINISTER .- DR. DAVID PARSONS .--- ACTION BY CHURCH AND PARISH .- ECCLESIASTICAL COUNCILS. -SECOND PARISH ORGANIZED.
The Rev. David Parsons died Jan. 1, 1781. His will was not admitted tto probate until May, 1786. His son David and Simeon Strong, Esq. were made executors. He gave to his son Gideon the " Tavern house " and other property. This tavern-house stood on the site now occu- pied by the Amherst house; a man named Trowbridge had first kept a tavern there. When Mr. Parsons died the District was considerably indebted to him for salary due and unpaid. March 19, 1781, the District appointed a committee to settle with his heirs. This committee failed to .effect a settlement. and July 6, 17SI, the District voted to pay his executors all the salaries due him, in gold or silver, and also to pay interest on the amount. Before this settlement was effected, the question as to who should succeed Mr. Parsons in the ministry became prominent in district affairs. The parties who sought in 1772 to divide the District were dissatisfied with the result of their efforts and cherished little love for those who had brought their plans to naught. There was also a political question involved. Rev. David Parsons was a tory. and while during his life there had been no open rupture between himself and members of his congregation, he had not from many the high esteem with which in the early times ministers of the gospel were wont to be regarded by their parishioners. Now that a new minister was to be engaged, the matter of his political preferences was felt.to be of importance. May IS. 1781, the selectmen were appointed a committee to provide a preacher; June 25 of the same year, a committee was appointed to join with the church committee "to procure a settlement of the Gospel Ordinances in the Town. " This committee was instructed to employ Mr. David Parsons to supply the pulpit for the present.
DR. DAVID PARSONS.
REV. AARON M. COLTON.
FIRST CHURCH-FOURTH MEETING-HOUSE.
109'
DR. DAVID PARSONS.
David Parsons was the son of Rev. David Parsons, and was born in. 1749. He was graduated from Harvard College in the class of 1771, studied theology with his father, was licensed to preach in 1775, and preached in Roxbury, Mass. and . in several towns in Connecticut so? acceptably that he received two or three calls to settle in the ministry. He had about made up his mind, owing to the unsettled state of the country and his infirm health, to engage in mercantile pursuits, but was persuaded. to supply the Amherst pulpit for a time. The following description of Dr. Parsons, (he received the degree of D. D. from Brown University in 1800) was furnished by Rev. Samuel Osgood of Springfield, and formed a. part of the address delivered by Rev. Charles H. Williams, at the exercises commemorating the 150th anniversary of the church :
"Dr. Parsons had the advantage of an uncommonly fine person, of about medium height and rather inclined to corpulency, his features regular, eyes raven. black, and his whole face beaming with intelligence and good nature. He possessed social qualities of a high order. His great fluency of utterance, his fine flow off social feeling, his extensive knowledge of men and things, and his inexhaustible fund of anecdote, seemed to mark him as a leader in almost any conversation that might be introduced. His preaching was sensible and instructive. and gave you the impression that there was a great deal of reserve power. He read his sermons. closely and had little or no action in the pulpit, though he was far from being tame or dull in his delivery. He had not only the keenest sense of the ridiculous, but he indulged himself in this way without much restraint."
Such was the man whom many of the residents in Amherst were. anxious to secure as successor to his father in the gospel ministry: Doubt- less he had faults ; it is said that some of those who seceded from the parish on account of his settlement did so owing to a want of confidence in his character. Judd says the rumor was that Dr. Parsons used to go to ball-rooms to watch the dancers, a heinous offence at one time in the eyes. of the descendants of the Puritans. But his worst offence was found in his political faith ; he was a tory, as his father had been before him. This was a fault that many of his congregation. fresh from the battles and privations of the Revolutionary struggle, could not condone. The dwellers in the District, in their like and dislike of Dr. Parsons, were about evenly divided. It is related that on one occasion the admirers and opponents. of Dr. Parsons passed out of the meeting-house and lined up in front of it, the two lines being of about equal length. The opposition party had at. the time no candidate of their own for the ministry : they were simply opposed to the settlement of Dr. Parsons.
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