USA > Massachusetts > The story of western Massachusetts, Volume I > Part 19
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It would appear that Wequogan had an intellect superior to that of the average Indian. Having sold his land at Springfield to William Pynchon, he removed to Hadley, and the land there he later sold to John Pynchon. Apparently he sensed that the time would come when such sales and removals must end, and that the white men would completely occupy the country of his fathers. Quite possibly he con- ferred as to general policy with Philip, who appears to have had similar fears. But there is no evidence to show that Philip ever had a personal hand in any Springfield affairs.
When plans for the Agawam plantation were in their early stages and during the first year of the settlement, the country was in the shadow of an Indian war. For years the natives had coveted the
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THE INDIANS OF AGAWAM
services of the English, but time and familiar contact had reduced the superstitious awe, with which they had earlier regarded them, to a feeling of contempt. Greedy fur traders provided the Indians with prohibited weapons in the hope of greater returns, and with guns and ammunition in their hands they soon came to consider themselves invincible. The Indian of the bow and arrow held little terror for men of Pynchon's caliber. The effective range of the stone-tipped arrow being decidedly limited, the English learned to note the missile
(Courtesy of Pioneer Valley Association)
Mt. Holyoke, as Seen From the End of the Mt. Tom Range
in its flight and dodge it very adroitly. But with modern weapons in his hand the Indian became a foe to be reckoned with.
In November, 1636, Lionel Gardiner at Saybrook bitterly com- plained that "the Indians are many hundreds on both sides of the river and shoot at our pinnaces as they go up and down, for they furnish the Indians with pieces, powder and shot". Pynchon was well aware of these occurrences. While at Roxbury in April, 1636, he received news of the killing of two men at the Connecticut and asked the younger Winthrop to inquire into the circumstances and see that proper retribution was meted out.
In the autumn of 1636 Matthew Mitchell and his son-in-law, Samuel Butterfield (who had been granted house lots adjacent to Mill River), journeyed to Saybrook in one of the Pynchon shallops, to care for some cattle that had been brought to Saybrook in the . barque
W. Mass .- I-12
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Blessing. While securing hay at Six Mile Island (now Calf Island), in the river above Saybrook, Butterfield was captured and burned alive. Mitchell never returned to Agawam and the shallop was impressed by the Connecticut authorities for use against the Pequots.
All through the winter of 1636-1637 the Connecticut towns were terrorized by the savages and several settlers were killed. A Wethers- field man was captured and burned alive and shortly after, the town itself was attacked, ten people being killed and two girls kidnapped. Stirred to action by the growing spirit of defiance, a little army of seventy-seven men met at the Saybrook fort, whence they sailed, on the night of May 20, 1637, for the Pequot country. Landing at Point Judith, they attacked the palisaded village of the Pequots, and in an hour's time, with a loss of two killed and sixteen wounded, practically wiped the nation out of existence; only five of the seven hundred warriors in the stronghold escaping death. The Agawam plantation was spared participation in these hostilities, not only by its remote- ness from the seat of war, but also by its uniformly fair treatment of the savages, and their lesser familiarity with, and consequent greater respect and fear of, the English.
Early in 1638 a levy of £620 was made on four river towns to defray the expenses of the war. Pynchon was appalled on receiving a bill for £86-16s and later was summoned to Hartford to answer for non-payment. He protested that the snow was so deep that it was almost impossible to carry on domestic affairs, to say nothing of journeying abroad. He did appear at the next Court on March 8, 1638, but the records give no hint as to the outcome.
CHAPTER XVIII Physical Springfield
T HE site selected for the plantation that became Springfield was hardly more than a narrow sand spit, almost an island, some two miles in length and having an extreme width of a third of a mile. Westerly it was bounded by the Connecticut and easterly by the Hassocky Marsh (Main to Dwight Streets) ; a swamp filled with living springs, into which drained the waters from the high lands east of it. At the widest part of this sand spit, in the vicinity of Worthington and Pynchon Streets, was the center of activity.
The high land to the east, a sandy "pine barren, interspersed with unimprovable swamps", rose a hundred and fifty feet above the river and stretched easterly for ten miles to the Wilbraham Mountains.
The Town Street abutted closely upon the marsh, following the line of the bank, which is the reason for its winding course today.
From the east, down the valley where the Boston and Albany railroad now runs, came Garden Brook, from its headwaters in the swamp at Dirty Gutter in East Springfield. Shortly before reaching the Town Street, it turned northerly and, joining with End Brook, entered the Connecticut at the northerly end of Hampden Park. In the earlier days of the settlement, certainly as early as 1638, various lot owners dug a ditch between the highway and the marsh. So effectively did it tend to drain the marsh that it was adopted as a town institution, and in January, 1639, it was ordered that "all that have a ditch by the highway before their doors shall keep it well scoured for the ready passage of water that it may not be pent up to flow the meadow."
In December, 1641, each inhabitant was required, before the fol- lowing May, to make a ditch the full width of his lot, and this grew to be a flowing brook, conveniently furnishing water for household purposes as well as for washing flax and hemp. But in March, 1647, this latter use was prohibited as it was "judged offensive and noisome" and prevented the brook's "ordinary use for dressing meat".
In March, 1660, each inhabitant, "from the middle of the town upwards" to John Pynchon's was required to maintain "a good and sufficient ditch for the free and ready passage" of the surplus water, and between Pynchon's and Holyoke's lots (now the northerly line of
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Worthington Street) the ditch was to be extended easterly "six or eight rods up the meadow". This extension connected it with Garden Brook at the point where it turned northerly and thereby partially turned Garden Brook into the ditch, although it still followed its original northerly course, but as time went on and the current scoured out the bed of the ditch, more and more of the water flowed through the new channel. This was possible simply because at Worth- ington Street is the highest point on Main Street, the ground gently sloping both north and south from that point.
Thus was unwittingly created a new brook that became known as the Town Brook, certainly as late as the late nineteenth century. It was of great economic importance to the town, flowing as it did parallel with the town street for nearly its entire length. Its value for fire fighting alone was inestimable and for two centuries it was the town's main reliance for that purpose. At a point south of State Street, other brooks coming down from the east joined with it, and · so entered the Connecticut adjacent to the mouth of Mill River.
Garden Brook was quite a sizeable stream. Tributaries from the south were the brook from Kibbe Hollow, now covered, that form Squaw Tree Dingle, now the playground between Magazine and Bowdoin Streets and the one from Ingersoll Glen. The lowest tribu- tary from the north rises at Armory Street and passes under Nursery Street. The next easterly is the brook emerging from the angle at Armory and Liberty Streets, and further east is the stream from Lombord Reservoir.
It was long the source of power for manufacturing. At Armory Street (where in 1673 John Ladd had a tannery) Paint Shop Pond was created and at Spring Street a dam formed Nettleton's Pond, which furnished power to the plant that later became Gilbert and Barker's. Near the corner of Chestnut and Worthington Streets was another mill site, at one time occupied by Howland and Barnes. Still later the stream supplied water for the Springfield Aqueduct Com- pany, providing the town's earliest modern water supply.
From Chestnut and Worthington Streets, Garden Brook followed the present line of Worthington Street, until shortly before reaching Main Street it turned abruptly north and passing under number twenty-one Lyman Street, joined with End Brook, and entered the Connecticut at Hampden Park.
In 1828 Charles Stearns contracted to put into underground con- duits the section of Garden Brook from Chestnut Street down to and along the entire length of Main Street. After 121 years, those con- duits are still doing duty under the northerly sidewalk of Worthing- ton Street and the easterly sidewalk of Main Street.
The hill south of Garden Brook was a mass of springs. The west- erly approach to the Armory grounds was at one time terraced as is the Pearl Street side, but eventually it became necessary to grade the hillside to a continuous slope to prevent washing.
The southerly slope of the Armory grounds was the source of another mass of springs which originally drained into the brook
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PHYSICAL SPRINGFIELD
between High and State Streets. There, in the hollow known as Skunk's Misery, was Card Factory Pond and a stream, which in the nineteenth century supplied water for a brewery near Myrtle Street and another where Unity Church now stands, following the line of Stockbridge Street, turned south at Main Street, and becoming the southerly part of the Town Brook, entered the Connecticut near Mill River, receiving in its course the waters of numerous brooks and springs originating in the hills east of it.
In 1852 the town selectmen reported that "the water which in former years was suffered to spread in various directions over the Armory grounds is now conducted through culverts in State Street and is thus within safe control." In the same report, an inventory of town property included a "fountain or reservoir of water at the cor- ner of State and Chestnut Streets".
Further south was a stream rising in Martha's Dingle, from which was made Rumrill Pond at Avon Place and Batty's Pond, north of Central Street, just below Maple, which also joined the Town Brook near Main Street.
On the plain above the town were numerous ponds. At the head of Squaw Tree Dingle (Bay and Magazine Streets) was a small one, later enlarged by the War Department, and that part of Lincoln Street, between Bowdoin and Magazine Streets, was originally the crest of the dam that created the greater pond.
Further east were the two Goose Ponds, close to State Street, north of Winchester Park, and beyond were dozens of other ponds and swamps, the waters of which drained either into Chicopee or Mill River.
There is little present evidence of the existence of those waters. By drainage; by the leveling of the "hill" west of Main Street; by the breaking up of the subsoil incident to building operations and the digging of trenches for public service pipes, the waters of the Has- socky Marsh were diverted to the river and many of the brooks now flow through the city sewers. The earliest modern effort toward dis- posing of the surplus water of the marsh, was by a drainage sewer installed through Elm Street to the river in 1842, making a section of the marsh dry and usable. The success of this enterprise resulted in a similar installation through Worthington Street in 1863.
The streams were a vital factor in the selection of the planta- tion site. Bordered as they were by water-loving trees, they were the haunt of innumerable beavers and to the beaver the settlers owed much in the way of preparation of the land for their purposes, for that animal created the finest of fertile meadows.
For their winter supply of food a single colony has been known to fell a thousand trees so that little time was required to clear the timber about a pond, which was then abandoned, to fill up and form the level "beaver meadows" so much sought by the early settlers. In the numerous brook valleys Pynchon found these fertile meadows on the sites of the abandoned ponds, surrounded by the land cleared by
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those energetic animals, ready cleared for the immediate needs of the colonists.
Prior to the coming of the Europeans, the natives subsisted on what they gained from the chase, supplemented by meager agricul- tural efforts. Fur gathering was then merely a minor issue and was restricted to the supplying of their own needs for shelter and clothing. They welcomed the establishing of the fur posts, as the proceeds from their furs supplied their needs in a much more satisfactory manner and with much less effort than in the past. It enabled them to live a life which exactly coincided with their idea of an ideal existence.
In the earlier days of the colonies the Indians supplied hundreds of thousands of beaver skins annually, the quantity far exceeding that of all other varities combined. This was partly because of the millions of these animals available and partly because they were much the easiest to secure without going far afield. This nearness was an item of consideration, as skins were of greatest value if taken during the short, cold days when the animal was in its winter coat, during which season extended travel was most irksome.
In the autumn the beavers congregated to prepare shelter and food for the long, northern winter. After throwing a dam across a stream, in the resultant pond they built their house of mud, sticks and stones, partly under and partly out of the water, with the exposed surfaces plastered with mud, which in freezing, made an almost impenetrable stronghold. During the winter, when the fur was in its prime, the Indian, after driving a row of stakes across the up-stream bed of the brook, to prevent escape in that direction, made a breach in the dam, draining the pond, thus rendering the house accessible. As the beavers attempted to escape with the outrush of water, they were clubbed to death as they passed through the breach in the dam. The white settlers had little inclination for this type of hunting, but it was eminently suited to the lazy brutal Indian and was productive of immediate results with no loss of labor, such as would have been entailed in the making of traps or the tediousness of tending them.
CHAPTER XIX The First Meeting House
O N SATURDAY, May 14, 1636, William Pynchon and seven associates, "being all of the first adventurers and subscribers for the plantation," assembled by the Connecticut and drew up a series of thirteen articles for the government of the future town of Springfield. The first article, following the preamble, reads thus -----
"We intend, by God's grace, as soon as we can, with all con- venient speed, to procure some Godly and faithful minister with whom we propose to join in church covenant to walk in all ways of Christ."
Fulfilment of that intention was considerably delayed, due to the enforced abandonment of the original town site by the Agawam River and the removal to the east side of the Connecticut to avoid contro- versies with the Indians.
In due course, however, a church was organized, under the guid- ance of Rev. George Moxon, but the exact date is not of record. Pastor Moxon was born in Wakefield, Yorkshire, England, the seventh son of James Moxon, husbandman. He was baptized in 1602, matricu- lated at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, in 1620. He received his B.A. in 1624 and was ordained to the ministry in 1626. While at college he was a sizar; that is, he worked his way by performing manual services. During his student days he was reputed to be an excellent writer of Latin lyrics. He was chaplain to Sir William Bereton and later obtained the perpetual curacy of St. Helen's, Lanca- shire, where he was cited for having "disused the ceremonies"; that is, he had abandoned the ritual of the established church, as savoring of popery. Because of his troubles with the bishop, John Bridgeman, he left St. Helen's in disguise and fled to New England in 1637. For a time he lived at Dorchester, where he was made a freeman, Septem- ber 7, 1637.
These facts are matters of record, but there is no record of when he came to Springfield. The earliest local date that be positively assigned to him is March 28, 1638, when he was chosen one of two deputies to represent the settlement at a General Court at Hartford. As a whole, the available evidence gives ground for the opinion that
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he probably arrived in Springfield and organized the First Church of Christ in the fall of 1637.
There is no evidence to support the popular impression that Moxon and Pynchon were boyhood friends in England. On the con- trary, in 1637, Pynchon was some forty-seven years old, while Moxon was but thirty-five. Pynchon was a most astute and practical man. Undoubtedly he had long since made known to the authorities in Boston, his desire to secure "a Godly and faithful minister." It is
W.E.D. 36.
The Church Parsonage at Springfield, 1639
This sketch by Wallace E. Dibble, A.I.A., from the recorded specifications of Rev. George Moxon's parsonage, 1639, shows this building on a site where Main and Vernon Streets now are.
of record that he was in Boston in the fall of 1637 and it is more than possible that at that time he was referred to Moxon as a possible incumbent. And that same astuteness would lead him to accept such a candidate only on a trial basis, which explains why the pastor evi- dently lived in the home of his patron for a year or more, but in January, 1639, he seems to have been accepted by the community as a permanent minister. The thirteen individuals who then made up the settlement subscribed forty pounds "toward the building of a house for Mr. Moxon," and forty-seven pounds, eleven shillings addi- tional, for "Mr. Moxon's maintenance till next Michaelmas,"-that is, September 29, 1639.
From this building fund, eighteen pounds went to Jehu Burr "for a frame of a house thirty-five feet long and fifteen feet wide with a porch five feet out and seven feet wide, with a study overhead, with stairs into the cellar and chamber, making doors and laying boards for four rooms with double chimneys, the sides of the cellar planked."
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THE FIRST MEETING HOUSE
John Cable was paid eleven pounds "for the sawing of all the boards and slit work, four locks, with nails and hooks and hinges for the doors."
Henry Smith applied the outer coating of mud-stucco, and for this "daubing of the house and chimneys, underpinning the frame, making the stack and oven, seven feet high, with laths and nails," he was paid eight pounds.
The remaining three pounds of the fund were paid to John Allen "for the thatching of the house, he to undertake the getting of the thatch and all things belonging to it, with lathing and nails."
This typically English, half-timbered, thatched roof cottage, quite similar in appearance to the familiar Ann Hathaway cottage in Eng- land, stood on Main Street, north of Vernon Street. For more than a third of a century, here lived the successive pastors, until the house was burned by the Indians in the assault on the town in 1675.
The plot on which the parsonage stood was Moxon's own homelot, which extended from the present Besse Place to the south line of Forbes & Wallace front building. The westerly bound was the river and easterly it extended approximately to Spring Street. On Moxon's return to England with Pynchon in 1652, the town bought all of his property which, it was agreed, should "forever belong to the ministry in Springfield." It was so held until 1806, and was then sold by order of the General Court, for the benefit of the ministry fund.
This little band of pioneers, a mere baker's dozen, was for years seemingly unirked by the lack of a community meeting place. In sum- mer they could hold services out under the trees. In winter a spacious barn would have been fully as comfortable as would have been the unheated church of the period and the home of any of the settlers would have been much more so.
By 1645 the population of the town had doubled, there being no less than twenty-four land holders and serious consideration was given to church building problems and on February 28 there was entered a contract for the construction of the church edifice, which reads as fol- lows, as it appears on page thirty-seven of the first volume of the town records.
"The condition of a bargain made by the inhabitants of Spring- field with Thomas Cooper for the building of a meeting house, as followeth .- The said Thomas Cooper is to build the house in length forty feet, in breadth twenty five feet, nine feet betwixt joints, double studded, four large windows, two at each side and one smaller window at each end, one large door at the south side and two smaller doors as shall be thought convenient; to lay justs for a floor above, to shingle the roof, with two turrets for a bell and a watch house, to underpin the house with stone, to daub the wales, to provide glass for the windows (if the pay he hath of the Plantation will procure it) also to find nails and iron work for the full compleating of the building, which is to be finished by the 30th September, 1646. In con- sideration of which work the plantation do covenant to pay him four
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score pounds as money, to be paid quarterly, if he desires it, which is to be paid in wheat, peas, pork, wampum, debts, labor."
During the six years subsequent to the appropriation of a part of the Henry Gregory lot in 1639 as a site for the church, Gregory departed the town and his real estate holdings had been taken over by Thomas Stebbins. Therefore, on May 1, 1645, the town confirmed that taking, with the proviso that the tract for the church should be but six rods square, taking from the remainder sufficient for that lane which eventually became Elm Street, any remaining surplus reverting to the owner. Thus was provided, on the north side of Elm Street, the site for the church and the contract for erecting the same.
In the Town Record Book, following the entry covering the details of the contract with Thomas Cooper for the building of the church is an entry made at a later date, which reads,-"The 26th of March, 1649, this bargain with Thomas Cooper was acknowledged by the town to be fulfilled and be discharged by vote". Thereby . hangs a tale.
Much of local history that has been written in recent years has been based on the printed transcript of the town records made by Henry M. Burt and published by him in two volumes, under the title First Century of the History of Springfield. This is not a reliable source for the student.
Under Burt's pen, the word "natives" becomes "hatwes". The "study" for the pastor becomes a "shady". Date lines are often omitted entirely. In the instance of this discharge of Cooper, on completion of the church, the date becomes 1645 instead of 1649. On the strength of his own error, Burt said,-On the 26th of March, less than one month, the town acknowledged that Cooper had fulfilled his bargain. Such a statement is of course absurd. The church was a sizable structure, built of hewn timbers, which, with so few to prose- cute the work, could not possibly have been built in such a limited time. . Moreover, there fortunately is ample evidence of such an error. On March 12, 1645-46, the town, having previously paid Cooper forty pounds on account, voted to pay him an additional thirty pounds at that time, leaving "the other ten pounds to rest with the town till the house be finished". Presumably, the church was completed within the contract time, September 30, 1646, the formal discharge being delayed through oversight.
For two-thirds of a century Springfield has been plagued with an atrocious picture, reputedly representing the original First Church building, but which actually bears no resemblance whatever to it. With its castellated towers, paneled doors, double-hung window sash and square glass panes, it is in no way representative of the period. Unfortunately, however, many have assumed the picture to be a relic of long ago, made while the building was standing, which is far from the truth.
This original drawing was made by a local German fresco painter, Otto Roloff, for the decoration of a float in the parade, during the Two
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THE FIRST MEETING HOUSE
Hundred Fiftieth Anniversary Celebration in 1886. Copies of Roloff's drawing hung for years in the First Church and have been printed in numerous publications. Whatever talents the "artist" may have had, he certainly had no knowledge of colonial architecture. There is such similarity between Roloff's picturization and the then familiar Olivet Church on State Street, known as the "double-barreled church," that one may well suspect it to have been the artist's inspiration. That
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