USA > Massachusetts > The story of western Massachusetts, Volume I > Part 21
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In the record of the session of the Suffolk County Court for October, 1673, is preserved the testimony in a suit brought by John Pynchon against Richard Collicott to recover on a debt long since due to the estate of William Pynchon. It concerned a horse, supplied the defendant by the elder Pynchon at Springfield in 1646. The details are of little interest except that Collicott testified to certain matters of which he "spoke with said Mr. Pynchon when he was in Boston, bound for England" and the records conclusively show that William Pynchon made no other journey to England during that period. Such evidence cannot be gainsaid. Boston was his port of departure and his associates had due notice of the fact. He had no more fear of a Puritan divine than he had of a wild Indian, and the latter fear simply did not exist.
The reason generally ascribed for his going was fear of persecu- tion due to the publication of his book, but there seem to have been other reasons. His business had grown to such proportions that a resident manager in England would be of distinct advantage, and that position he could most ably fill, while his son was well qualified to carry on at the producing end. Moreover, such residence in Eng- land would give to him the peace and opportunity for study and cultural pursuits which he craved, and which had been so long denied him during his voluntary exile in America. At this time, this was possible in England because the political situation which led to his exile had so changed when Cromwell came into power. New England had entered the most bigoted period in its history; the half-century which came in with the persecution of the Quakers and went out in a storm of witchcraft.
There is ground for suspicion that in his own mind, his sojourn was to be of a temporary nature, with the thought of leaving to time
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WESTERN MASSACHUSETTS
the quieting of criticism of his liberal ideas. In 1652, apparently while living in England, he published his second book, The Jewes Synagogue, the title page of which reads, "by William Pynchon of Springfield in New England," indicating that he even then con- sidered America his real abiding place.
Against this theory is the argument that before leaving, he disposed of all his property in New England. It is true that on April 17, 1651, he deeded his mill property to his son and two sons- in-law. On the same day he executed a deed of gift, for the benefit of the inhabitants of the town, of the great tract between the Chicopee River and Willimanset Brook, which he had bought from the Indian, Nippumsuit, on April 20, 1641. On September 24th of the same year, 1651, he conveyed to his son John, all remaining lands and buildings in Springfield and along the river.
It is possible that these transfers were due to a fear of con- fiscation of his property, but in any event he was merely following a custom of the family and of the times. In the seventeenth century, a traveler, anticipating a long journey or a hazardous voyage, commonly conveyed his property to his family, by will or deed, possibly expecting it would be retrieved if he survived. John Pynchon, long before his death, passed his property on to his sons, and later generations of the family did likewise.
Certain facts, however, suggest that even before the advent of his book, he had been arranging his affairs for a long journey to England. A notation on the British Museum copy of the Meritorius Price, indicate that it was published June 2, 1650. It was received in Boston, "a few days" prior to October 16, 1650.
On April 22d and 29th, 1650, through agents in England, Pynchon had contracted with Hugh Dudley, James Wells and Edward Foster all of Barnet, in Hertfordshire, to come to New England and serve him for five years from the date of their arrival, which came to be July 2, 1650. On September 9, 1650 he assigned the Dudley and Wells contracts to Henry Smith, and on the same date, Foster was assigned to Elizur Holyoke. It is of course possible that in this entire procedure he was merely using his facilities to secure servants for others, and that his original agreements were actually on behalf of his two sons-in-law.
It is more significant that, on October 15, 1650, he assigned to Benjamin Cooley the three and a half years remaining to him of Samuel Terry's time.
The weight of the evidence indicates that William Pynchon originally planned but a temporary stay abroad. Possibly he found that his representation of the business in England was even more desirable and necessary than he had anticipated. Certainly he found England under Cromwell a pleasanter home than was New England under the bigoted rulers who had come into power.
Of the 1650 edition of Pynchon's book, five copies are known; one privately owned, known as the Hollingsworth copy, and one each in the British Museum, the Congregational Library in Boston, the New
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AGAWAM BECOMES SPRINGFIELD
York Public Library and the Connecticut Valley Historical Society in Springfield. This latter copy was Number 644 in the Brinley Sale in 1879, and was bought by the Hon. H. S. Sheldon of West Suffield, Connecticut. William Pynchon's son John had a daughter Mary, who in turn had a daughter Mary, who married August 19, 1694, Joseph Sheldon, of Suffield. This would seem to explain the Sheldon in- terest in the book.
In 1892 H. S. Sheldon sold the Brinley copy to Dr. Thomas R. Pynchon, one time president of Trinity College, Hartford. At that time the price was reported to be $500. For some time thereafter it was deposited as a loan with the Connecticut Historical Society at Hartford, but in 1936 the Pynchon heirs made an outright gift of it to the Connecticut Valley Historical Society of Springfield.
The John Carter Brown Library at Providence has a similar copy, but dated 1652. A comparison gives assurance that the later edition was made up of previously unbound sheets of the first edition, with the inclusion of a new title page. It is conclusive that Pynchon's retractions were made with his tongue in his cheek and that, on reaching England, he figuratively thumbed his nose across three thousand miles of ocean and brought out a second edition without altering a single expressed opinion.
From its inception the Agawam plantation was an enterprise designed to be, as in fact it was, conducted as a one-man affair. As long as William Pynchon remained, it was under his direct control.
The earliest town order provided, in October, 1636, that the tract from Mill River to John Reader's lot (now the Railroad Arch) should be "appointed for house lots, no trees to be cut down by any man" on any part of it. The few stately elms of that residential area were in no way reminiscent of the elms of Old England, yet they were things of beauty to be preserved for the pleasure of the whole. In 1638 a foot-path was provided across the house lots and "next the great river". To make this feasible, stiles were installed at each division fence.
In 1638 land was reserved for a road across the marsh in the vicinity of Court Square, but the steep hill east of the marsh made such a road impracticable. Two years later a similar attempt was made where Harrison Avenue now is, but that also was abandoned for the same reason. The south line and course of Harrison Avenue were established on that 16th day of May in 1636, when the first house lots were assigned. This was also true of the north line of Worthington Street and the south line of Bridge Street, for the lines of division then established between those house lots have remained constant to the present day.
With a single exception the course and direction of every Springfield street between Main Street and the River were deter- mined during the first decade after the settlement of the town. That exception was Fremont Street, the reason being, that in 1768, Timothy Bliss, owner of a sizeable tract there, gave a large share of his holding to his son as a wedding gift. That he might retain a section
202
WESTERN MASSACHUSETTS
on which a barn stood, he made a diagonal division of the property and future divisions were controlled by that same oblique line. That Fremont Street of today meets Main Street with the acute angle that it does, is simply because nearly two centuries ago Timothy Bliss was in need of a barn.
The "great river", the Connecticut, was a most important feature of the settlement. Before wheeled vehicles became common, the River rather than the Town Street, was the common highway. Until that Street was extended south across the marsh the only means of reaching the corn-mill on Mill River was by water.
After the Indians had gathered their crops from the fields in the Agawam meadows, the cattle of the English were put over for pasturage, followed in acorn time by the swine. Such transporta- tion must have been in cumbersome scows, but for their personal use the settlers provided canoes of the pattern used by the local natives. These were made from hollowed out logs and there was such a scarcity of trees suitable for this use that their cutting was re- stricted by drastic town orders. In the Springfield records there is but one mention of a birch bark canoe and that one obviously was brought in from the north, as the canoe birch did not grow to a size sufficient for such construction south of Brattleboro, Vermont.
Quite early a primitive bridge and foot path gave access to the corn-mill, but the first major town improvement was the extension of Main Street to the south, beyond York Street, when in March, 1643, a bridge and corduroy road were built across the brook and marsh to provide a cartway to the mill. This was called the Lower Cause- way, and became South Main Street.
In 1648 some further outlet across the marsh was found to be imperative, and a toll road was built which was known as the Middle Causeway and became State Street. When that road was continued up the hill to join the Bay Path it bore abruptly to the south, east of Maple Street, to avoid the steep grade, continued easterly via the ravine still existing between State and High streets, and met the present State Street line beyond the hill crest. Still later the line of the roadway approximated the line of the Armory fence; the present roadway being quite modern. The dirt removed when State Street hill was brought to its present slope, was used to fill the pond at Avon Place and make possible the roadway there.
On December 24, 1640, Samuel Hubbard was "appointed to keep an ordinary for the entertainment of strangers". This was on Main Street at Howard. In 1646 Robert Ashley succeeded as inn- keeper and in 1660 he gave way to Samuel Marshfield. In 1666 Nathaniel Ely took over and operated the inn until it was destroyed by the Indians on October 5, 1675. Nathaniel Ely died on Christmas day of that year, but the inn was at once rebuilt by his son Samuel. The building was later removed to Dwight Street, where it was a familiar sight at the corner of Sanford Street until it was demolished in 1894.
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AGAWAM BECOMES SPRINGFIELD
In 1644 the town bought from Thomas Stebbins one and one-half acres and from Francis Ball one acre at the river end of their house lots, to provide a combined cemetery and training field. The plot was used for exercising the local military company until 1674 when, additional space being required, there was appropriated for the purpose, a tract of land on the hill that eventually became the United States Armory grounds.
This "burying ground" west of the church, at the foot of Elm Street, continued in use for two centuries. No stones marked the earlier graves, for no lasting stone was then to be had in the com- munity. In the following century it was found feasible to bring from Middletown, Connecticut, a hard brownstone suitable for grave markers; but locally the seventeenth century knew them not. There remains today a stone that marked the grave of Mary Holyoke who died in 1657, but the workmanship of the stone is actually of a much later date. The elaborate brownstone memorial that marked the Pynchon lot is known to be a scant hundred years old; the stone itself being so dated.
There the bodies rested until the coming of the railroad in 1849, when, to make way for the tracks, the remains of 2,404 bodies and 517 markers were removed to the Springfield Cemetery on the hill, that had been opened in 1841. Dr. Joseph C. Pynchon, who then had charge of the removal of the Pynchon bodies, said thirty-six years later,-
"Beneath the Mary Holyoke stone, dated 1657, deep in the white sand, six feet below the surface, were found the remains of two, lying side by side, with no others in close proximity. Is it too much to conjecture that these were the remains of Elizur and Mary Holyoke? The sand was discolored and some few pieces of the skulls and other bones were found while even the nails of the coffins were wholly destroyed, their places being marked by the rust only, while no other vestige of the coffins remained. The few remains were gathered, which soon crumbled to dust on exposure to the air and with the surrounding earth, were deposited in the new cemetery".
Dust had returned to dust.
The contents of all the earlier graves had wholly disintegrated, leaving not a trace. Such a condition indicates that the bodies were then not buried clothed, as today; otherwise some evidence might have remained. Pilfered shoe-buckles and buttons are frequently found in Indian graves as old as those, though it is of course true that the place of interment chosen by the natives would have been in a soil having far greater preservative qualities than the damp soil by the river bank. Clothing was then far too valuable to have been disposed of in such a way. Contemporary inventories include odds and ends of wearing apparel that one would now think fit only for a rummage sale. Rural New England people can recall the times when a man would be deposited in his coffin, lacking trousers and shoes. It was just a bit of New England "nearness". The absolute
SWISS LAUNDRY.
House Formerly on Cross Street, Springfield Erroneously said to be home of William Pynchon.
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AGAWAM BECOMES SPRINGFIELD
lack of identifying articles in the graves of the old cemetery indicates that the bodies were laid to rest, wrapped in a winding sheet or shroud.
In 1640 Elizur Holyoke married Mary Pynchon and acquired the house lot (Worthington to Bridge Streets) next south of Pynchon's which had been Jehu Burr's. He came to be one of the pillars of the community and a great comfort to his father-in-law.
Four years later Capt. William Davis, apothecary, married Margaret Pynchon and carried her away to his Boston home.
The following year John Pynchon married Amy Willys of Hart- ford. On October 30, 1645 William Pynchon wrote Governor Win- throp,-"My only son is now married and he hath brought home his wife this day to my house where he may continue as long as he finds it for his comfort and benefit".
At the turn of the half-century, Pynchon could view the prospect with equanimity. The future of his plantation seemed assured. In the hands of his English agents were bills of exchange and credits for substantial sums, the proceeds of his trading operations. His three daughters were in comfortable circumstances. His able son and two competent and sympathetic sons-in-law had been trained in his own ways. The town was inhabited by its full quota of fifty families and Longmeadow gave promise of duplicating the accomplish- ments of the mother town.
He was sixty years of age and had earned a rest after twenty years in America.
The last entry in his hand on the pages of the Court Record was dated October 25, 1650. On January 30, 1651, the town appro- priated £5 to reimburse "Mr. Pynchon for the meeting house bell". That was the final appearance of his name on the town records. His work was done.
William Pynchon was going home.
CHAPTER XXI
Longmeadow
A T AGAWAM, on May 14, 1636, there gathered eight men, "being all the first adventurers and subscribers for the plantation" to organize their body-politic. In view of the changed conditions due to the enforced removal to the east side of the Connecticut, the question of provision for their cattle loomed large in their minds, and of the fifteen by-laws adopted, four were related to the control of the remaining pastures,- "the cow pasture to the north of End Brook, lying northward from the town; the pasture called Nayas, toward Patuckett on the side of Agawam, lying about four miles above in the river and the Long Meadow called Masacksic". It was agreed that "the Long Meadow called Masacksic, lying in the way to Dor- chester (Windsor) shall be distributed to every man as we shall think meet, except as we shall find other conveniency for some of their milch cattle and other cattle". The Long-Meadow was thus early recognized as being too valuable to be divided without full considera- tion of the benefits to all.
In the purchase deed from the Indians, the description of the land is most inadequate. Of that on the east side of the Connecticut, but one bound is given; the Chicopee River at the north. The Con- necticut was of course the westerly bound and the easterly limits were later construed to be five miles from that River. The southerly bounds apparently were understood to be at Raspberry Brook, at the lower end of the Long-Meadow, for eventually it was so agreed.
Indian bounds were usually at a stream,-a defensive barrier to people who relied so much on bows, the strings of which were not friendly to water. Moreover, such water bounds were always at points where the character of the land showed a distinct change. No meadow brook (except later, when small tracts were sold) was designated as a boundary. In Longmeadow, neither Cooley Brook nor Wheel- meadow Brook would have been so designated, for conditions there were identical on both sides of the streams. But at Raspberry Brook, the meadow terminated and up the hill to the south were the great plains where Enfield now is. At the north, the Long-Meadow ended at the narrow pass below the misnamed King Philip's Stockade, just easterly of which, Pecousic separated Masacksic from Usquaiok. There the hill fell so abruptly to the river that the road from Spring-
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LONGMEADOW
field to Longmeadow, completed in 1647, was from necessity on the very bank of the river. When, in 1658, John Lombard received a five acre grant of the most northerly bit of the meadows then remaining, it was a triangular piece of land, the point of which intruded itself into the narrow pass. So limited was the area, that the grant was made with the proviso that the highway should always be allowed for, "whatever the river may eat out". Today, the railroad tracks com- pletely occupy the restricted area. It was an ideal Indian ambush point and there is where John Keep was slain in 1676. As in the minds of the Indians, the Long-Meadow ended northerly at Pecousic, so it also did in the minds of the English and when, in 1713-1714, Longmeadow became a separate precinct, the division was made at Pecousic. It so remained until June 2, 1890, when, in order that con- templated additions to Forest Park might be included in the Spring- field area, the present division was established.
When the eight pioneers gathered at Agawam they committed their plans to a writing that they severally signed. Following the preamble was an affirmation of their intention to establish a church "as soon as we can".
Then followed this significant clause, --
"We intend that our town shall be composed of forty families, or, if we think meet after, to. alter our purpose, yet not to exceed the number of fifty families, rich and poor".
The assessment list of 1647 probably closely represents a census of the inhabitants of Springfield in 1645. This being of such impor- tance in the story of Longmeadow, it is here given in full. No lots had then been assigned to Francis Pepper, John Burrall, Abraham Munden or William Jess. The latter two did not long remain a factor to be considered for they were both drowned in the Connecticut River on October 29, 1645. On the Way to the Upper Wharf (now Cypress Street) from west to east, were Rowland Thomas, John Stebbins and Miles Morgan. On the town street, beginning at the present Cypress Street and so south to the Way to the Lower Wharf, (York Street), were the following, in this order, from north to south:
Thomas Cooper Samuel Wright
William Pynchon
Henry Burt
Elizur Holyoke
John Harmon
Henry Smith
Roger Pritchard
George Moxon
Nathaniel Bliss
Samuel Chapin
Edmund Hayes
Widow married George Langton
Thomas Reeve Richard Sikes
Thomas Thompson
William Warriner Sold out to widow Margaret Bliss Richard Exell
Thomas Stebbins Francis Ball Sold out to widow Margaret Bliss Joseph Parsons
Robert Ashley
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WESTERN MASSACHUSETTS
John Leonard
John Matthews
Thomas Merrick
William Branch
James Bridgman
George Colton
Alexander Edwards
Griffith Jones
John Clark
Reice Bedortha
John Dibble
Benjamin Cooley
Morgan Jones
Hugh Parsons
Rowland Stebbins
John Lombard
Here were forty-four inhabitants. Not only was the fifty-family limit being approached but younger sons were nearing maturity. Longing eyes were being cast at the alluvial expanse of the Long- Meadow, which in spite of all appeals had been sternly held in common for pasturage for nearly a decade. At the Long-Meadow were physical conditions quite similar to those in the town proper. In the town was a quarter-mile strip of hard ground by the river. East of it was a wet marsh extending easterly to the hill or river terrace. Undoubt- edly this marsh was the remains of a prehistoric river bed. At the Long-Meadow was a riverside strip of arable ground though appar- ently of a lesser width. Between that and the hill to the east was another old river bed, which at that time was a series of bogs called "ponds". A photograph taken in the meadows today, with the river on the west, the marsh bordering the dirt road, and the hill on the east, would well represent Springfield three hundred years ago.
At a Town Meeting, held May 1, 1645, it was ordered that Elizur Holyoke, Thomas Merrick, Francis Ball and Thomas Stebbins should "speedily take a view of the long-meadow and what other grounds they shall think meet for future distributions".
That they complied with their instructions to act "speedily" is evidenced by the fact that the following week, May 7, 1645, an abor- tive attempt was made to make a distribution of portions of the Long- Meadow among the townsmen, but strong opposition developed to details of the plan then suggested, and all proposals were vetoed.
On May 19, 1645, an attempt was made to reconcile warring factions and it was agreed to divide the town into two parts, based on taxable wealth; those of the northern part to participate in a dis- tribution of the Plain-field, north of the town, while those of the southern part were to share the Long-Meadow. The division came to be made between Robert Ashley and John Lombard,-that is, at the present State Street. The Book of Possessions gives evidence that no participation was had in the Long-Meadow distribution of that date by Robert Ashley or those north of him, while John Leonard and all those south of him did share in it.
That was the birth of Longmeadow,-the first distribution of those acres as far as individual propriety is concerned and the fol- lowing twenty-five individuals then became the original proprietors, in the order here named, from north to south. It is of interest how many of these grantees were heads of prominent Longmeadow families of after years.
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LONGMEADOW
John Leonard 111% acres
Bought by Benjamin Cooley
Thomas Merrick
17
Bought by Benjamin Cooley
George Bridgman 14
Bought by Benjamin Cooley
Alexander Edwards 18
66
John Clark
101/4 66
66
Widow Katherine Jones 6
Rowland Stebbins
131/2
Samuel Wright
151/2
66
Henry Burt 18
John Harmon 15
Roger Pritchard
71/
66
Nathaniel Bliss
191/2
66
George Langton
13
66
Margaret Bliss
191/2
66
Richard Exell 4
Joseph Parsons
5
John Matthews
5
66
William Branch
5
George Colton
13
Griffith Jones
61%
Reice Bedortha
5
Benjamin Cooley
9
Hugh Parsons
7
John Lombard
5
2723/4
As in the town, south of John Lombard's lot, was a lot granted to William Pynchon on account of his mill, so at the Long-Meadow a lot was granted to Pynchon south of the Lombard grant. This came to be known as the "Mill Lot" though there was no mill there. This grant seems to have been of fifty two acres, making a total of 3243/4 acres ; just a fraction over one-half a square mile, or about one-third of the total area of the meadows. The section granted came to be known as the "Upper Field" and as grants were later made in the southerly section, that was called the "Lower Field".
One provision of the first attempts to allot the planting grounds of the Long-Meadow is helpful in determining the original location of the proprietors there. In the "disannuled" proposal of May 7, 1645, it was designed that the "allotments in the long meadow shall lie in this order. Mr. Pynchon's Mill Lot (i. e., the "dividend" accruing to the mill lot south of John Lombard's lot in the town plot) shall be laid out about the knapp of pines by the river side and so all other allotments are to lie in order upward as the house lots lie in order".
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