USA > Massachusetts > The story of western Massachusetts, Volume I > Part 29
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Both of these scientists were frankly puzzled at some phases of the conditions disclosed by the excavations. It was not so much that they found a deviation from the type of villages that they had pre- viously explored, as that they sensed some peculiarity. The late Dr. Jacob T. Bowne of Springfield continued their investigations and had a similar feeling. He suggested that it might be due to the fact that the whole affair was possibly some sort of a ceremonial village.
It was not until years later, and after all three were dead, that persistent delving amongst the records brought to light the documents . which showed why it varied from the prehistoric villages familiar to them. Being English planned and English built, it included modifica- tions from the native type, acceptable, however, to the Indians who realized the superior methods of the settlers and their own lack of need for the ways and means of their ancestors.
The top soil was first removed, with its accumulation of leaf mold and debris. This disclosed the location of the stockade, each ten to twelve inch post being plainly shown by the discoloration of the soil.
In form, the stockade was nearly a half oval, with its two sides and point approximating the brow of the hill, but set back quite a bit from the edge of the bank. The location of the eastern wall was never determined. For some time prior to its acquisition by Dr. Kilroy, the property had been leased to Isaac P. Dickinson of Long Hill for a market garden. Deep plowing, compost making and other incidentals of the industry, had at some points so changed the char- . acter of the soil as to make any search utterly futile. It was obvious, however, that it was at about the point where was the shortest dis- tance between the ravines at either side.
Within the line of the enclosure, twenty-six fire holes were found, indicating the location of the individual houses, which would suggest a probable population of a couple of hundred Indians, with possibly forty to fifty warriors. These fire holes, from one to nearly three feet in diameter and of various depths, were packed solid with wood ashes, mixed with bones of sheep, hogs and deer. Also in the ashes
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and about the ground, were numerous pieces of long stemmed clay pipes; the seventeenth century "fairy pipes" each having on its diminutive bowl, the initials of known Dutch pipemakers of that era.
Even the trail to the spring and on to the river was found, and where the trail met the river the native fish sinkers were recovered from the mud in the shallow water. Part way down the hill the trail bowed off to the north for several feet, and then resumed its original course. Digging at this point the explorers found the remains of an immense chestnut tree, which in its prime was too huge to be removed and which had to be circled around.
The finding of this trail on ground that had been pastured for two hundred years was the work of Frank Hamilton Cushing. Lying on his side, with cheek to the ground, just as the sun was setting and giving the desired slanting light, he noted the line of the trail by the variance in the hue of the grass. Where the ground had been trodden hard by hundreds of feet in those old days, the grass differed from the vegetation bordering it. Directing the work of an assistant, stakes were driven along the line which the uncanny eve noted, until the entire way was marked.
Though the building of the house was continued through 1895, the grading was deferred, and all that summer minute search was made for facts and artifacts. It was hoped also that there would be discovered the burial place usually found in connection with a perma- nent settlement, but it was more than a year before that goal was reached.
Quite early it seemed that success was at hand, for on Septem- ber 24, 1895, two skeletons were found on a knoll north of Pecousic Villa. The skull of one of these was fractured at the crown by a blow from some heavy instrument. There was another long cut evidently made with a heavy, sharp blade. The right ankle showed a deep cut an inch and a half long. On the outside of the left thigh bone was another deep cut and just below the upper joint the thigh bone was pierced by a bullet. The second skeleton did not show as many traces of violence, but the left side of the skull was crushed by a heavy blow.
Investigation by Dr. Thomas Dwight of Harvard University Medical School showed that they were not Indians. The bodies had been buried five feet deep and lying at length. Also there was evi- dence that they had been buried in coffins as several hard pine knots had outlasted the boards of which they had been a part. At the four corners of a rectangle surrounding them, were wrought iron nails that had held the boards together.
The mystery was solved by an aged resident of the vicinity who recalled the story of her grandfather, Roderick Lombard, who had lived on Long Hill Street in a house destroyed by fire only shortly before. He was a Tory in sympathies and after the Battle of Ben- nington, harbored two Hessians who were wounded there and brought to his house. He kept them secretly and when they died, buried them in his wheat field.
There is a suggestion of romance in this, perhaps the story of two peasants of Hesse-Cassel; brothers possibly. conscripted by their
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ruling prince to serve an English king in the New World, and there to leave their bones in an American museum.
The autumn of 1896 was very mild and winter came late, afford- ing unusual opportunities for exploration. On December 16, 1896, the native cemetery was finally located, completing one of the most interesting aboriginal finds ever made in New England. Across the second ravine to the south, and close by the road, thirteen complete skeletons were taken out and indications found of a few others. The burials had all been made in the aboriginal manner with limbs flexed.
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Roderick Lombard House, East Side of Long Hill Street, Springfield
The discovery was more or less accidental and in connection with realty operations, though a close watch had been kept on all work being done in the vicinity. Workmen leveling the bank which stood some five feet above the roadway first came upon the bodies and work was suspended to allow of proper exploration.
As the bank was sliced away the skeletons were found embedded in the sand, like raisins in the cutting of a cake. Each lay with its head to the southeast; right hand under the cheek; the left across the breast and the knees drawn up under the chin. About the bodies, about eighteen inches under the surface, was a continuous line of charcoal left from the old fires. As the workmen cut away from south to north, the bones were found to be older and more frail until it was possible to see in the soil only the discoloration caused by the mold of the crumbled skeleton. The charcoal, quite firm at first, grew gradu- ally more soft until there was but a line of black beneath the surface mold.
Of these skeletons, nearly twenty-five percent of the skulls had an extra suture at the base of the back. This is a feature seldom found
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in white men, though often in monkeys and suggests a low order of intelligence.
The small number of bodies found was interesting, as confirming the evidence that the village was occupied but a short time, but of even greater interest was the absolute lack of "Indian relics", which it was anticipated would be found with the bodies.
It was customary for the New England Indians to bury with their dead such articles as would be most useful to them in the world beyond. Their most cherished possessions and choicest tools were placed within reaching distance of their lifeless hands.
But these semi-civilized Indians had outlived the primitive stage where a stone knife or arrow point was a prized object. The steel knives of the English made better tools and weapons. Woolen blankets gave greater comfort than harsh skins. But all these were such as "moth and rust doth corrupt", and in the long years they had totally disintegrated, leaving not a trace.
Though there were European made spoons and buckles, there was not an arrowhead nor stone implement nor tool. The sole and single primitive object taken from the graves was a bit of pottery, a native cup, which is now in Peabody Museum at Harvard University. It was of unusual ethnologic value; the last link in the chain of evidence, for it was wholly unlike the pottery usually found in graves.
While made in the native manner, of clay and pounded shells, in shape it bore little resemblance to native pottery, but was fashioned in close imitation of an English child's drinking cup, complete with handle, and could by no stretch of imagination be construed as of the prehistoric period. And it was such a perfect copy that it may safely be assumed that it was no first attempt of the native potter, but was made after long acquaintance and close familiarity with the settlers and their utensils.
Such is the story of the brief life of the Indians on Long Hill; barely ten years in all. Their coming had little of romance in it; their going hardly more.
A sordid, squalid little band, scarcely better than the beasts of the forest. Almost obliterated by the great plagues which scourged them early in the seventeenth century, when probably only the strong- est survived, as their ranks were still further decimated by civiliza- tion's evils, they sensed the fate that was enveloping them and after their ill-advised attempt to exterminate the colony they took to the woods and passed out of the picture forever.
Just forty years, lasted their dream of ease and luxury under white protection.
This conning of the old records shows that originally the name Long Hill was applied to the northern slope only; "the cart way up the long hill to the wood lots". As applied to the hill itself it is a misnomer, as it is not of a shape to make such a name applicable. To the plateau itself, that is, perhaps, from Warner Avenue to Forest Park, the early settlers gave the name of Fort Hill.
That name should be restored and preserved.
CHAPTER XXVIII
The Second Meeting House
T HE little meeting house of 1645 gave satisfaction for nearly thirty years, but at a town meeting in 1674, "there being through the favor of God, so great an increase of inhabitants, considera- tion was had concerning want of room in the meeting house for convenient seating of people," and it was decided that the problem should be solved by the building of a new church.
However, before anything was accomplished, King Philip's War broke out, and the major part of Springfield was destroyed by the Indians.
King Philip was killed in August, 1676. The Indians quickly faded out of the picture and life became fairly normal. The reaction at Springfield was very prompt, for less than two weeks after Philip's death, the question of a new church was again brought up. Though the little church of 1645 had survived the disaster, it was most inade- quate and it was ordered that the town committee for meeting house affairs should "treat with John Allis of Hartford, in regard to the town's poverty by reason of the war. If he will stay for his pay, then to get him to raise the meeting house as soon as may be." To this, John Allis agreed.
The building was designed to be fifty feet by forty feet, or exactly double the size of its predecessor. It was to be underpinned with stone, two and a half feet above ground and high enough so that galleries might be installed when required.
John Allis cut and squared the heavy timbers and built the skeleton or frame, for which he received £140 in three installments. Nathaniel Pritchard was paid two shillings for showing Allis where the timber was to be had and we may be confident that it was west of the Connecticut, for £6 was paid "for getting the timber over the river." There were a dozen iron casement windows for which John Gilbert fashioned the diamond-paned leaded glass. Besides the usual wage and two quarts of drink he received three shillings extra for one sheet of glass broken by romping dogs. These windows were a constant problem and the selectmen were forced to "consider the great damage done to the glass windows by children playing about the meeting house."
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Four shillings were paid for "brass for the weather vane," which takes the story back to the old country.
John Stewart, a Scottish royalist was taken by Cromwell's troops at the Battle of Dunbar in 1650, and deported to Massachusetts for a period of servitude. His time was bought by John Pynchon who brought him to Springfield, and here he spent his life as a skilled metal worker. Eventually he redeemed himself and lived as an honored citizen of the town. For the making of the vane he named a price of two pounds and six shillings more than the committee was willing to pay, and reluctantly the project was dropped. However, Stewart could do naught else. His home and his shop at Pynchon and Main streets had been utterly destroyed by the Indians. He was an old man, infirm from battle wounds. For his own rehabilitation he was dependent on the fruits of his labor.
In the crisis, help came from an unexpected source, as a group of young men gave their aid. Figuratively, they passed the hat and contributed the required excess sum. The record of the transaction reads,-"Due to Goodman Stewart on the vane, one pound, eight shillings besides the two pounds, six shillings paid by the young men."
There is something rather fine about this. These lads had just passed through a bath of fire and blood. They had rebuilt their homes and their barns. They had done their part in the reconstruc- tion of the saw mill, the corn mill and the parsonage. Yet in this time of need they were not found wanting.
Five rods of five-rail fence were erected on three sides of the building and Miles Morgan planted a thick hedge at the rear. Thomas Stebbins paid five pounds for the earlier meeting house, which then became a mere barn. With all charges paid, the committee reported that the complete cost of the building was four hundred pounds.
The new church was off to seventy years of good work.
At a Town Meeting held February 5, 1677-78, it was "concluded that something be done for the fortification of the new meeting house" and it was decided that this should be done by erecting a palisade of logs ten and one-half feet long, with a diameter of ten to twelve inches. A committee being appointed "to proportion out men's parts", seventeen individuals provided "stuff" for a total of nineteen rods of palisade, six others gave twenty-seven shillings and nine provided eleven days of labor.
A year later the newly built parsonage was "fortified as the new meeting house is fortified", the cost being added to the tax rate of the year.
In 1864 this parsonage was moved to the south side of Hillman Street, and an item in the Springfield Republican on September first of that year mentions a West Indian pistareen coin that rolled out of a crack of the building during the operation.
CHAPTER XXIX The Blast Furnace
I N THE autumn of 1635 the grist-mill was in operation by the Mill River, approximately where the Bemis & Call Company was later located. In 1667 John Pynchon established a saw-mill on the same river, upstream from the grist-mill, and in 1703 Joseph Cooley set up a fulling-mill above the saw-mill. John Warner, who at one time operated the grist-mill for Pynchon, eventually became the owner of it, and in 1709 he re-established it at a point above the Cooley fulling-mill. Much more pretentious and far reaching was the blast furnace and iron foundry erected on the stream in 1697, using iron ore from the south side of the Chicopee River, just east of the pres- ent dam at Chicopee Falls. The success of this furnace and its con- tinuous operation over the years, was one of the determining factors which led to the locating at Springfield, of the Continental Armory by Washington and Knox in 1777.
It is a far cry from the Battle of Dunbar in 1650, but that is where it all started, for when the Parliamentary army under Crom- well totally defeated the Scottish royalists under Leslie, large num- bers of the captured Scots were deported to America as indentured servants, and to Springfield came John Stewart, a skilled ironworker, bound out to serve John Pynchon for eight years as reimbursement of money paid for his passage. As Stevenson said, "he bore a king's name" and was of an honored calling, and he became a person of importance in the community.
In Anglo-Saxon times, the smith was treated as an officer of the highest rank and his person was protected by a double penalty. At the close of the fourteenth century, the smith had entered upon the brilliant career which contributed so much to the industrial pre- eminence of England. Ironwork of that period was most elaborate. The locks and keys, the hinges and bolts, the smith's work in gates and screens, exceeded in beauty anything of the kind which has since been produced.
For some years, Springfield's need for a smith had been most urgent and at a town meeting, January 8, 1645-46, "George Colton and Miles Morgan were appointed to do their best to get a smith for the town". In anticipation of their success, in September of that year, the town contracted with Francis Ball "to build a shop for a
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smith, 12 by 16 feet, with a forge and chimney, and a door and windows in the end", for which he was to be paid £5. It was agreed that the shop should remain town property until it seemed desirable to dispose of it.
The Scottish prisoners began to arrive in Boston in 1651, and in November, the ship John and Sarah cleared from London with two hundred seventy-two, who were consigned to Thomas Kemble of Charlestown. John Cotton wrote from Boston to Cromwell, July 5, 1651:
"The Scots whom God delivered into your hands at Dunbar, we have been desirous as we could to make their yoke easy. They have not been sold for slaves, but for six or eight years, and he that bought most of them, buildeth houses for them for their own, requiring three days in the week to work for him by turns and four days for them- selves and promises as soon as they can repay him for the money he laid out for them, he will set them at liberty".
These were the workers who were sent to Lynn, and made the Saugus Iron Works so successful.
John Stewart's period of servitude was short, for in 1653 he had repaid Pynchon nearly all the £30 due him and received his freedom, agreeing to pay off the balance of thirty-six shillings by doing twelve shillings worth of smithery work each year for three years. For a time he was a member of Pynchon's household, but in 1659 Pynchon bought the lot on Main Street, where the Capitol Theater now is, which had been granted to Thomas Reeves. The rear part he sold to Deacon Samuel Chapin, and the balance, with a street frontage of eight rods and extending westerly for twelve rods, including the house and orchard, he sold to Stewart for £10. At the same time, by vote of the town, "the smith's shop was given to John Stewart. as his own forever". This house was burned by the Indians on Octo- ber 5, 1675, but it was at once rebuilt and was probably not unlike the houses built for the Saugus workers, which have been restored by the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities.
There, the soldier, who, in his own words "was in service in five battles under the noble Marquis of Montrose, for his majesty, King Charles the first and thereby suffered and received many dangerous wounds, having escaped with his life through mercy", passed his life. There he brought his bride, Sarah, daughter of John Stiles of Windsor, and there he died childless, April 21, 1690, after transmitting his skill to his foster son, Obadiah Miller, who was his worthy suc- cessor well into the following century.
There he made the town branding-irons, the hooks and eyes for the common gates, and repaired the leaded-glass windows of the church. Hinges, locks, chains, nails, andirons, candlesticks and other household utensils were the work of the clever artisan. He mended guns, ringed the swine and built farm implements. Even the tools of the carpenters were his product. His services were a necessity to every family in town.
WV. Mass .- I-19
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The shop was outfitted by Pynchon, who charged Stewart rental for the use of the equipment which would compare favorably with any modern country blacksmith's. On June 24, 1656, "a note of my tools at the smith which John Stewart hath", included a great vise, a hand vise, a great anvil, two hammers, a great hand hammer, a less hand hammer, a chest with good lock and key, three pairs of tongs, a nail tool, a chisel, seven punches, a beck iron, a paring iron, a bolster, a square bolster, a screw plate with three pins, a steel drill or wimble, a round pin, eight horseshoes, a share, an old springlock, a broad
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Bridle Path of Ingersoll Grove in 1886, Now Ingersoll Grove Street, Springfield
hoe without eye, a tool to unbreech guns, a tool for making axe eyes, and last, but not least, a tool for making Indian hatchets.
From this it would appear that even the astute John Pynchon contributed his share to the sowing of the wind which later was to be reaped with such dire results. . The furnishing to the Indians of deadly steel counterparts of their own clumsy stone hatchets had even less excuse than the furnishing of guns, which at least helped them to gain a living.
As the population increased Stewart's work required iron in increasing quantities, which year by year grew more scarce and costly. The furnaces of England were operated entirely with charcoal and the necessary quantity of wood was enormous, a ton of finished iron requiring from two hundred to four hundred bushels of charcoal for its production. About the middle of the seventeenth century the British iron industry experienced a serious check through the civil commotion which then prevailed. Many of the furnaces in Sussex
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and Kent were destroyed and never rebuilt. Soon after the Restora- tion all the ironworks in the Forest of Dean were destroyed, owing to the scarcity of timber. There was a growing dearth of wood for the furnaces and forges. The forests of England, in the iron-making districts, had been largely consumed and there were loud complaints that the whole community would be unable to obtain fuel for domestic purposes if the denudation were persisted in. Acts were passed which prohibited the cutting of timber in certain parts of the country for conversion into fuel for the making of iron. A later act prohibited the erection of any new ironworks in Surrey, Kent and Sussex. In 1620, said Dudley, "many iron works decayed for want of wood though formerly a mighty woodland country". Owing to inability to obtain · fuel, many of the ironworks were laid down in 1676 and England's supply of iron was largely imported from Sweden, Flanders and Spain.
In this extremity the colonies made every effort to supply their own needs. As early as 1643 iron was produced at Saugus from native ore, and by 1652 another plant was in operation at Braintree. At that time, those hardly supplied local needs, but production increased so rapidly that, in 1737, it was proposed in the British Parliament, to get all pig iron from the American colonies.
Encouraged by these successes the Springfield settlers early began a search for iron. Though they seem never have been mis- led by the seventeenth century lust for gold, yet they certainly most aggressively and persistently hunted for iron. Even the dangers of King Philip's War did not deter them, and the Rev. Edward Taylor of Westfield noted in his diary in 1675: "Our soil was moistened with the blood of three Springfield men,-two sons of Goodman Brooks, who came here to look after iron ore on the land he had lately bought of Mr. John Pynchon, but fell in the way by the first assault of the enemy upon us".
Hunters and trappers prospected through the surrounding wilder- ness and such encouraging indications were found to the northward, that John Pynchon formed a partnership with William Avery of Deerfield and Hezekiah Usher, a noted searcher for minerals, of Boston and Lynn; and in June, 1685, they petitioned the General Court, requesting that as they had "been at much pains and costs in searching for metals and having found a hill near a Miller's River, in which are stones encouraging as by some small trials appear and being willing to be at further cost to improve it, to grant them 1,000 acres of land near to that place".
The land was granted as requested but the prospect proved only another disappointment. Finally, after searching far afield, the precious metal was found at their very door. At the present Canter- bury Avenue in Chicopee Falls were quantities of limonite. A con- temporary said,-"This bog or swamp ore lies half-a-foot to two feet deep. In about twenty years from its digging, it grows fit for another digging. Three tons of swamp ore yield about one ton of iron. One
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