USA > Massachusetts > The story of western Massachusetts, Volume I > Part 25
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0 10 00
By my brother-in-law Davis.
1 00 00
More by my brother-in-law Davis.
1 00 00
Paid by twenty bushels of wheat.
4 10 00
7 00
00
£4. of it goes for Joseph's two years schooling to May, 1656 and so there is £3. onward to Joseph and John's next year.
Joseph Pynchon was granted the degree of Master of Arts by Harvard College, where he graduated at the age of eighteen, as one of seven who made up the class of 1664. Shortly thereafter he went to England and took over the care of the property of his deceased grandfather. John Pynchon was then fast passing the height of the family prosperity. He was land poor and, with the fur trade on the decline, Springfield had little to offer the family. Joseph eventually became a practicing physician at Uxbridge, adjoining to his grand- father's Wraysbury home. While there, his father wrote him:
"Springfield, November 20, 1672.
"Dear Son Joseph, --
"I received two letters from you this year and rejoice to hear of your health and welfare which I pray God's will to continue to your and our comfort and to His honor and glory, being the great end for which we came into and are continued in this world. I understand you are in a way of settling at Uxbridge in your practice of physic. I no whit dislike your employing yourself therein, but am glad of it, seeing your mind doth not lie to come to New England as yet, and
-
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WESTERN MASSACHUSETTS
though we long to see you, yet I would not obstruct you in that way, but pray God to bless you in it and to help you to be really service- able to your generation and advantageous to yourself. I am desirous as and amiable to help you and furnish you with necessary requisites and to encourage you I have resolved to settle upon you my parson- age land at Wraisbury with all the privileges thereof which, when once renewed, I hope will be a good estate and moreover I do give you all my deeds and writings concerning the purchase thereof. I also give you Blaste house and orchard and the pigeon house and orchard and all my land and housing bought of Mr. Belstroad, only reserving, if I need it, £200. to be paid me out of the rents in four or five years time and £20. per annum during mine and your mother's life. But that trade is decayed with me, I should not make these reserves and may possibly release some of them if I find I can live without them. I also do give you one-thousand acres of land in this country, at New London, besides what I may give you hereafter. I intend also, you shall have all my household stuff at Wraisbury, and though I can ill spare any money now, yet for your present help in furnishing yourself with drugs, if all I can make will raise £100. and for that I have wrote to Mr. Wickins to furnish you with £100. and for that I do not send for any goods, having no trade at all, but am willing to help you now for I doubt I shall not be able hereafter, I not being in the way of trade that formerly cannot do as possibly you may think I can.
"As for renewing the lease, I leave it wholly to you and concern- ing all matters there, act and do all in your own name and to your own satisfaction and content, for I give all to you and would help you more if I had money, but seeing I cannot, you must be the more husbandly and thrifty.
"You speak of tenants complaining &c. It hath always been so, and I am sure the land of Mr. Bulstroad was formerly at a light value, and were it to me, I would not lower the rents. I am put upon it to scribble and some failure I find in my eyesight, which occasion me to draw to an end. In a word, I leave all to your discretion to act and manage though for your own good and future settlement and advancement. The Lord guide you in his way and keep your heart close to advance and bless you in all your undertakings. I and your mother remember our dear and affectionate love to you. Your brother and sister Whiting are well and their young daughter Mary a fine child of about four months old. Your brother John lives at Boston. He was married in September last and he and your new sister, Mar- guerite, his wife, were well lately. I hope John hath sent you your commendamis from the college. Doctor Hoare, the new president of the college, promised it me and I bid your brother call for it. Hope it may be on its way to you. The Lord Jehovah be your protection and overshadow you with His blessing and presence, so prays,
"Your truly loving father, "JOHN PYNCHON,
.
241
THE OLD ORDER CHANGETH
"Uxbridge is a place that hath afforded many servants to this country. Cannot you procure some for me and your brother Whiting? "Superscribed.
"These For Mr. Joseph Pynchon, at Uxbridge in Middlesex. (England)."
YOUTHFUL INDISCRETIONS
Puritan youth did not find life in New England all work and no play, but there was a woeful lack of recreational facilities. One out- door game was called "stool ball", and there was a competitive trial known as "pitching the bar".
Thomas Stebbins, son of the deacon, and four other young men were admonished for "fiercely galloping and running their horses in the street, to the endangering of children". Complaint was made that Thomas Thompson and John Horton engaged in a fistic bout, "on the Sabbath, half an hour after sunset, profaning the Lord's day". Miles Morgan and Jonathan Burt were ordered "to sit in the meeting house gallery, to check disorders in youth and young men in time of God's service". The selectmen concluded that :
"Whereas, for a long time there has been great disorder in our assembly, many young persons stealing out of the meeting house before the blessing be pronounced. So many of them cannot be thought to have any necessity so to do and it being a great grief to serious minds, we order that no person so do, except there be necessary occasion. And we request that Lieutenant Stebbins see that there be no disorderly practice by the youth and if they will not be reformed, then to make return of their names to the selectmen."
The selectmen met to consider "the great damage done to the glass windows by children playing about the meeting house".
In 1640 Samuel Hubbard was licensed to keep a tavern in the vicinity of the present Howard Street, with "some innofensive sign, obvious for stranger's direction". Six years later, complaint was made of "great disorder caused by the game called shuffle-board in houses of common entertainment, whereby much precious time is unfruitfully spent and much waste of wine and beer occasioned".
This shuffle-board was not the game of today, played on ship- board, but a gambling game, a cross between billiards and checkers, played on a table with coins.
In 1640 the General Court forbade dancing in taverns and in 1648 decreed a fine of five shillings for those "who expend time in unlawful games, as cards and dice". But the prohibition was so lightly regarded that, twenty-four years later, the penalty was increased twenty-fold, one-half going to the informer. So came the day of snoopers and official informers.
By spying on their neighbors, sneaking busybodies were enabled to add to their incomes, but it was not all one-sided. "Hugh Parsons was complained of for taking tobacco (smoking) in the open street and James Bridgman did testify the same". In retaliation, at the
W. Mass .- I-16
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WESTERN MASSACHUSETTS
next sessions of the court, the tables were turned and "James Bridg- man was complained of by Hugh Parsons for taking tobacco in his yard".
Personal liberty and joy of life were getting to be a thing of the past in New England, with darker days in the offing. But that the early days were gay and lightsome, there is ample evidence. Young Winthrop concluded an early letter to his wife with the admonition, "Be merry, and resolve to be very cheerful, I pray thee".
In a desperate search for an outlet for their spirits, the minister's sons and the deacon's daughters laid the foundation for the reputa- tion attributed to them in a later era. Irate fathers of careless daughters brought the town youth into Court for shotgun weddings.
Hannah, the unmarried daughter of Thomas Merrick, accused Jonathan Morgan, son of Miles, of the paternity of her child. Another of Miles Morgan's children was employed as a domestic in the family of Samuel Gaines, who became the father of her illegitimate child. Ebenezer and Hannah Miller confessed in open court to improper relations before marriage. Deacon Chapin's daughter Sarah married Rowland Thomas, and their first child was born less than five months after the wedding. Griffith Jones was given fifty lashes on the bare back for "low conversation among young people". Perhaps the most sordid case was that of Rebecca Allen who had an illicit affair with an Indian. After the birth of her child, the girl was whipped because the judges believed that "she did not resist him as she should have done". The Court expressed "great cause to lament and bewail the . sore hand of God against us in suffering such vile enormities to break out amongst us, which, as a flood, do threaten to overwhelm us".
SILVER PLATE
On his initial visit to England, in 1656, John Pynchon saw at his father's home at Wraysbury, a table laid with silver. At once he determined that the table at his own home in New England should be arrayed in a similar manner. The nucleus for such an arrangement was already in his hands, for his wife had inherited from her father's family a solid silver porringer and before returning home Pynchon bought in London, a silver bowl. After arriving home, there came a circumstance that played into his hand.
The trading post at Springfield dealt not only in furs and farm products, but also in lands, mortgages and many other things. It operated as a private bank and on occasion served as a pawnbroker's shop, to which came a transient named Janes, a person who had seen better days, and who was then in need of financial assistance. That he was either a gentleman or a scholar is apparent from the title given to him. On page twenty of volume one of the Pynchon ledgers, is the following entry :
"Oct. 1657. Mr. Janes left three silver spoons in pawn for 21s.
"June 16, 1658. Sold Mr. Janes 71/2 yards of serge, comes to 3s, 6d. He left with me a silver spoon with a crack in the handle, worth about 7s.
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THE OLD ORDER CHANGETH
"Feb. 1662. Mr. Janes and I accounted and for the four silver spoons, I take them at 28s, only if he pay me the 28s next year, he is to have them."
However optimistic the debtor might have been about redeeming his property, Pynchon had had sufficient prior experience with impov- erished gentlemen, so that from the first he considered himself to be the ultimate owner of the four spoons. In the meantime, as occasion offered, he added a piece now and then to his collection, until, in 1659, he had a sufficient showing to make desirable a permanent inventory, which appears on page 375 of the second volume of the Pynchon books. For some reason it was in cipher, not at all intricate, but sufficiently so as to defy the yokels who might have access to the book during his absence. The original entry reads thus :
My
Plitz Anº 1659
2. C185, 2. SIGts &. 1. 24fs 28 504825- 18. 06.08 1.9049 938929 of 72 553825 about -- 01-02-04 1. 55382 C570 &-1-2917 C520 00. 18.00 460
1. 57162 B45562 . CAft 72 in E896180
1 Sp 4 4825 645ght of MrJ1825 01.05-06 one g36t SIGt 645ght ( Hull & Judrg-
John Pynchon's Cipher Record of his Gold and Silver Tableware, 1659
In any language, the vowels are of most frequent occurrence. In this cipher, the numerals 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, stand for a, e, i, o, u. The liquids, l, m, n, r, are represented by 6, 7, 8, 9; and w (double u) by 55 (double 5). The consonants are used as in the ordinary alphabet. Certain archaic spellings are encountered, but these are quite appar- ent. Literally, the passage reads as follows:
My Plate, Ano. 1659.
2 cans, 2 salts & 1 dossan spoones. 18 06 08
1 porringer of me wifes, about. 01
02 04
1 wine cup & 1 dram cup. 00 18 00
1 smale bowl, cost me in England
4 old spoones bought of Mr. Janes. . 01 05 06 One gilt salt bought of Hull & Tudor
The two cans were probably ale cans. The word dossan was Pynchon's form of dozen in an era before spelling was standardized. The prices given to the various articles, indicates that they were weighed, and their bullion value given.
Thus was the table spread.
CHAPTER XXIV The Mansion House
W ILLIAM PYNCHON'S home in Springfield, from his first com- ing in 1636 to his exit in 1652, was a one and one-half story building, about twenty-five feet square, standing some one hun- dred feet west of the Town Street. It stood on the "hill", to make it safe from high water in spring freshets, the southerly wall coinciding very nearly with the northerly line of the present Fort Street. After the departure of the elder Pynchon, this became the home of his only son, John, though offering but meager accommodation for a family of six, with their numerous servants. It is small wonder that after seeing the spacious houses of England, John Pynchon arrived home in 1657 with the same nostalgic yearning for manor houses and baronial halls that had obsessed some of his father's contemporaries at their first coming in 1630, and he determined to have a home more in keeping with the prominence of his family. Such was not a matter of weeks or months, but of years. No element of such a building was to be had in the open market. Bricks must be made, stone fashioned and timbers hewn,-all by hand. The town brickmaker Hugh Parsons, had been driven out in the witchcraft persecutions half a dozen years before, but Pynchon arranged with Francis Hacklinton of Northampton to supply his needs, his agreement reading as follows:
"January 12, 1658 (1659)
"Agreed with Francis Hacklinton to make and deliver me at North- ampton, forty thousand of good well burnt full sized brick, at least two-thirds to be good weather bricks. This to be done and performed and the bricks delivered, at least fifteen thousand of them by the middle of August and the rest to be all ready against next October, for which said forty thousand of bricks he is to have the sum of thirty-five pounds, to be paid him according as he shall deliver any bricks and one ell of red shag baize, already delivered. And hereto the said Francis sets his hand.
Witness hereto JOSEPH PARSONS."
FRANCIS HACKLINTON.
A supplementary contract was made with Hacklinton, December 2, 1659, for 10,000 more bricks, making 50,000 in all. Though these contracts called for full-sized bricks, those actually used in the house were smaller than those now in common use.
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THE MANSION HOUSE
Edward Griswold of Windsor had the general contract, his charge being as follows:
Building new house
£40 00
00
Chimneys
7
00
00
Hewing Stone
0
12 00
Tar
2
08 00
50 00 00
By the spring of 1660 the brick walls and chimneys had been completed, the floors laid and the roof timbers installed. In anticipa- tion of the next step, arrangement was made with Samuel Grant of Windsor, to lay the shingles. Pynchon's memorandum of the agree- ment, made when he was in one of his mentally expansive moods, is so descriptive that it is here recited in full.
"March 13, 1659 (1660). Agreed with Sam Grant to shingle my new house of forty-two foot long and twenty-one wide with foot and half shingle and to lay all the boards on which the shingle are to be laid and to lay the planks for gutters and to make all the gutters both for the porch and those joining to the old house and to lay all the boards and shingles on the porch and leanto also as well as those on the house and to join all close and fully and sufficiently well to the old house and to make and shingle a window over the old house and also a window over the leanto which is to give light to the stair case. He is to do all the work of all gutters, planks and shingles, that is to say, the laying of all and he is to go about it as soon as the roof is ready or a part ready for him to begin and to finish it with what speed he can, that it be done before winter, for which I am to allow him nine pounds, ten shillings. He agrees to make all the rafter feet and to scallop two layings of the shingle on the foreside and also two courses at each end of the house and porch and I am to allow him the ten shillings so that he have ten pounds in all and to make good deep eaves and over the shingle at the ends of the house a good way".
Dr. Joseph C. Pynchon, who was born in the house in 1815 and passed his early youth in it, gave in 1878 his recollections of it.
"The main house was of brick with very solid walls. I should judge they were two feet or more in thickness in the first story, being thick enough to afford seats at all the windows in the front and side rooms of the lower story, within the walls, the width or depth of the seats being at least eighteen inches. The house, I judge, was about forty feet in length and twenty feet in width, fronting towards Main street. The roof of the house sloped towards Main street. The height of the house was twenty-two feet from the ground to the eaves
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WESTERN MASSACHUSETTS
and the same number of feet perpendicular from the eaves to the ridge board, making a roof so steep that no one could climb up it without a ladder. There were two large front rooms or parlors on the ground floor, with a small room taken out of the north room for a store room, which was dark, and a corner cupboard with glass front in the south parlor, where the silver and crockery were kept. Between these rooms, from east to west, ran the hall, about eight feet wide to the wooden building in the rear, rising one step to enter the wooden building. From the kitchen in the wooden building, it was necessary to descend one step into the parlors. There were but two chambers over these parlors; a north and south chamber, separated from each other by a six foot passage way leading into the garret, which, from floor to ridge, measured twenty-two feet. The garret was a dark room, only one small window in each gable to give it light. There were no closets in the chambers. All approach to them was from the hall or from the wood part in the rear. The wood part was, say twenty-five feet square, occupied latterly as a kitchen. The rooms were a kitchen, pantry and bed-room leading from the kitchen. This wooden part was brown, unpainted, one and one-half stories high, without chambers, but a dark attic, which in later years was used only as a store-room. The brick of the main house were of very small size, not more than two-thirds the size of ordinary brick. The chimneys were in two stacks at the north and south ends and three flues in each stack protruded from the top of the roof, the flues being united at the corners, making them appear each as three touching each other as by a line. I have no means of judging the thickness of the walls in the second story of the house, only remembering that in the north wall there was a crack which had opened more than an inch, said crack extending from the top of the wall to within two feet of the ground. Having often looked through this crack from the room to the weather outside, I can judge from recollection that the wall was more than a foot in thickness. Tradition said this crack was made by an earthquake. The house was set at something of an angle from Main street. There was a water-table of red sandstone, on three sides of the brick house, about two feet from the ground. This was hewn and rounded, projecting from the brick and designed for ornamen- tation. The porch, extending from the front entrance toward Main street, was pulled away before I was born, but in my recollection, lying in the back yard, were two very massive stones, I should judge five feet by ten or twelve feet surface and one foot thick, one side arched out and evidently made for its ends to stand on some solid foundation. These stones were said to have formed the top of the front and rear entrance to this porch".
Such was the first brick house in the Connecticut Valley, which the owner invariably referred to as his "Mansion House". Until his death more than forty years later, it served as his home as well as
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THE MANSION HOUSE
his business quarters. There the magistrates assembled on Court Days. When the Indians essayed the annihilation of the settlers dur- ing King Philip's War in 1675, it provided refuge and salvation. For one hundred seventy years generation after generation of the Pynchon family made it their home, but by 1831 it had outlived its usefulness and was wholly and utterly demolished, the debris being strewed on the town streets. At that time a number of drawings of the house were made, each differing from the others in many details, they hav-
Mill River Bridge Looking up Belmont Avenue, Springfield, 1876
ing been made from recollection or hearsay. This is especially true of the porch, which became so dilapidated that it was removed in 1813. This was represented as something in the nature of the porte- cochere, so beloved by architects and builders seventy-five years ago. Actually, it was a protective entrance, with a door in front, the two side walls being solid brick. Above was an office or study, all being in the English tradition of the seventeenth century. The sketch here given, combining the recorded facts, represents the house as it was when built.
With thoughts of its service to the community during the troubled years, in its latter days the "Mansion House was more or less affectionately called the "Old Fort", and thus Fort Street came by its name. When the Springfield Fire & Marine Insurance Com- pany bought the property at Main and Fort Streets in 1857 and
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WESTERN MASSACHUSETTS
erected for its own use, the building still standing there, that build- ing was known as the Fort Block. Some fifty years ago, when the Fort Street addition to that block was built (14 Fort Street), the shovels of the excavators threw out quantities of the old hand-made bricks of 1659, but unfortunately no one was then interested in their preservation.
When the old house was torn down in 1831, a number of souvenirs were made from bits of its timbers. On June 8, 1833 the Springfield Republican reported that "it is mentioned in the Boston Daily Adver- tiser that the Secretary of the Antiquarian Society in Worcester has received as a present from the Hampden Mechanics Association a chair lately made in Springfield of oak taken from the Old Fort or Pynchon House which was built in Springfield in 1660 and taken down in 1831. Two of these chairs were made here, one for Hampden. Mechanics Association and the other for the purpose just mentioned".
Quite recently the American Antiquarian Society of Worcester has deposited this chair with the Connecticut Valley Historical Society of Springfield.
An early guest at the "Mansion House" was a Dutchman from Fort Aurania (Albany), a medical practitioner seeking a suitable field for making use of his peculiar talents.
In contrast with the progress being made in other lines at that period, the ignorance concerning the treatment of bodily ills was appalling. John Winthrop experimented with the feeding of powdered coral to his sister for the relief of cancer. While a glimmering was had of the possibility of cures for tortured, aching bodies, such thoughts were intermixed with superstitious quackery. In England, Anne, Viscountess Conway, was subjected to a continuous dropping of water on the head as a cure for megrim. The wife of Governor Hopkins of Hartford had been insane for years and the distracted husband appealed to William Pynchon, who advised :
"A plain, thin diet will make less matter for those sutble vapors. Gentle nosing will open the brain and give some refreshment, pro- vided it be done by gentle means. Nosing tobacco and the like are too violent, but if lettuce leaves could be had, nothing is so good for nosing".
The inducing of sneezing as a cure for insanity seems most absurd, yet Pynchon was a practical man. His account books show many a charge for "two pills and a vomit", administered to neigh- bors. Frequent return of grateful patients suggests that some relief resulted.
In 1661 Springfield appears to have been visited by an epidemic similar to infantile paralysis. A lame son of Miles Morgan was referred to John Winthrop, then at Hartford, as follows:
"Honored Sir,-
When I was at Hartford, I was at your house, desiring to speak with your Worship about my lame boy and to have had your advice
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THE MANSION HOUSE
and help. But you were from home when I brought him to your house and when I came the second time you were also from home and so I was prevented of your advice and help, which I much desired and there upon I carried him to Goodwife Watts and left him with her. Now my humble request to your Worship is that you would please to see him and afford your help and advice and if you see it needful that he should be purged or take physic that you would give him what physic you judge needful and I shall account it a great favor and be ready to give you full satisfaction and content. Intreating your pardon for my boldness I humbly take leave and subscribe
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