USA > Massachusetts > The story of western Massachusetts, Volume I > Part 33
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Through the entire period of the Revolutionary War, this road was the most important military road in the country. By order of Washington, General Knox established at Springfield, in 1777, an immense depot for the handling of all war stores, whence were brought the cannon, powder, ball, muskets, tents and other supplies bought in France and other foreign countries. From Portsmouth came the twelve thousand muskets brought from France on the Amphitrite. After the Battle of Saratoga General Gates sent thirty brass cannon to Litchfield and three thousand muskets to Springfield.
At Great Barrington, Deputy Quartermaster General Walter Pynchon gathered corn, wheat, bran, oats, flour, butter and nail rods which he sent to Springfield for storage and distribution. In Novem- ber, 1777, one hundred barrels of flour were sent on from Kinderhook, with the promise of an additional fifteen hundred barrels, "as soon as the roads will permit".
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WESTERN MASSACHUSETTS
At Springfield, was a company of enlisted men serving as black- smiths, another as wheelwrights, one of saddlers and one of nail- makers, and a corps of French artisans serving as armorers. William Lowder, master tinman, made teapots and pudding pans for Armand's Flying Corps, and "close stool pans for the use of Doctor Pynchon at the hospital". There, too, were shod the horses of Pulaski's Legion.
Receipts of the wagonmasters show a constant flow of inbound and outbound freight. To Bennington, -to Ticonderoga, -to Saratoga. To the artillery depot at Litchfield, -to the Highlands of the Hudson, -West Point, -Philadelphia, -Valley Forge. So great was the traffic across the river that the county ferry could not care for it, and Quarter- master General Nathaniel Greene ordered that a Continental Ferry be established. Twelve boatmen were employed, under Thomas Hun- stable, with three scows and a sloop named the Lady Washington.
Sautier's Map of the Province of New York, in 1778, shows New England as far east as the Connecticut River, and this road for its entire distance from Albany to Boston, through Kinderhook and on to Nobletown, either direct or via Claverack. Thence the road went to Great Barrington, Tyringham, Twenty-six mile Pond, Blandford, Westfield and Springfield.
The journal of Joseph Hadfield shows that in an effort to avoid the Greenwoods, he found equally irksome conditions on the Tolland- Granville crossing :
"Sept. 3, 1785 .- This morning we left Albany in a wagon, crossed the Hudson river. On the east side we met with nothing particular, the road being through a wood of pine trees. Stopped to rest our horses at Schodack, fourteen miles, and continuing to Kinderhook Mills, belonging to Mr. Vandusar, six miles from which place we pro- ceeded to Clinnock Hill, four miles. Here we dined at a tolerable house kept by Ostrom, a Dutchman. In the evening we proceeded to the Stone House of Claverack, six miles, kept by a Dutchman. This is an excellent house. Good beds and agreeable accommodations. The country in general is barren and our route through woods of pine trees.
"September 4 .- We left Hogaboon's at six o'clock and continued on our route to Captain Bottel's, four miles, where we breakfasted. A very good house. From this we went to Great Barrington, to one Timothy Younglove; an indifferent place. This is a delightful situa- tion at the bottom of some very large mountains. There is a pretty church and village here. About five miles from here we arrived at Taconic mountain. From Barrington we proceeded to Sheffield, seven miles, a most beautiful village. There are several persons of easy circumstances and several buildings here.
"We had scarce got half way through the village when we were stopped on the public road by Justice Barnard who took us to task for traveling on Sunday. It was impossible to satisfy him that we were strangers and wished to get forward as fast as possible. He insisted upon our remaining at a tavern until sunset and we were
325
THE KNOX TRAIL
obliged to comply as he had the means of enforcing his commands. We were, therefore, constrained to remain, being much mortified at a custom that we would rather have dispensed with. Such are the rigid maxims of these fanatics who will cheat you every day of the week but Sunday and even then, before sunrise or after sunset.
"We went from this eastward, over some horrid hills and bad roads to New Marlborough, a small village, five miles. Here our horses, as well as ourselves, being fatigued, we took our night's lodging. Our ride this day has been over some very high mountains enveloped with woods, so that we had no variety.
"Sept. 5 .- At six o'clock this morning we left New Marlborough and began one of the most fatiguing day's journeys I ever had in my life. We came to Sandisfield, eight miles, where we breakfasted. (This was in the New Boston section and the tavern is still operated as an inn.) From this to one Fowler at Granville (now Tolland) a tolerable good house, eight miles and from this to Bates in Granville, five miles farther. The route and the road was one continuous chain of moun- tains, tremendously high, the roads and country around nothing but stones and rocks, so bad that I was obliged to walk seven or eight miles. To attempt a description of the inconveniences and misery of this journey would be impossible.
"Mountainous as the country is, they are settling it very fast, for the soil is proper for wheat. The grass which grows here is remark- ably sweet and fattening. In consequence, large quantities of cattle are sent from different parts to be fed here. We arrived at Bates', which is a most excellent house and civil people.
"Sept. 6 .- We left Granville at six o'clock this morning. We found the road very bad for about four miles, when we descended from the mountains into a charming vale full of settlements. The lands are highly cultivated. Each farm has an extensive orchard. We con- tinued this pleasant ride which appeared still more so from compar- ing it with the barren hills that we had been among so long. We passed a small river just before we came to Westfield and I cannot say too much for this charming village, the inhabitants of which are mostly farmers. Their houses are really elegant, far above rural simplicity, yet their neatness, being all painted, conveys all these ideas that arise from the consideration of arcadian dwellings. I was delighted with the spot. We stopped at one Fowler's, who keeps a very good house. (This is the present 171 Main Street. The old tavern had one of the finest carved doorways in New England, which is now in the Metropolitan Museum, New York, having been sold in 1916, when the old inn was turned into a private residence.) Westfield is ten miles from Granville. We continued our route through this delightful valley and crossed the river about a mile off. The country and prospect around were grand, the whole bounded by some high mountains, at a great distance.
"We came to West Springfield, situated upon the Connecticut river. Here are many good dwellings and agreeable appendages. We
326
WESTERN MASSACHUSETTS
crossed the river in a scow, a flat bottomed boat, to East Springfield and arrived at Parsons's Tavern, being ten miles from Westfield.
"We discharged our wagoner, Bradt, whom we had brought from Albany, having been four days. Paid him seven pounds, New York currency, for the trip and back, allowing the same number of days to return.
"Were unfortunate in not being able to hire a wagon to proceed with us. Walked out to several farmers but were unsuccessful. In
Porter House, Hadley
the evening, Hunter and I strolled about the town which is a long straggling place. There is a court house and church, two good hand- some buildings. The houses in general here were very good, the appearance resembling some of our villages in the neighborhood of London. In the evening we engaged one Morgan to convey us to Boston,-nineteen dollars.
"Sept. 7 .- We left Springfield at eight o'clock and pursued our journey upon a hill about half a mile from the town. There are several buildings which serve as arsenals for their cannon, muskets and all sorts of warlike stores. They have chosen this situation, being so far inland and therefore less liable to invasion or to be destroyed by the enemy.
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THE KNOX TRAIL
"We met with nothing in the remainder of our ride to Wilbraham, ten miles. This is only a small village. We turned into the Hartford road for about half a mile in order to get a covered wagon from a relation of our wagoner, his being open and heavy. We effected this and returned to the great road to Boston, which we continued for five miles to Palmer, to a tavern kept by one Scott, a tolerable house, where we dined. The road and country was uninteresting until our arrival in the vicinity of this place which is beautifully situated on a declivity of a hill near by the delightful river Chicopee, which runs in the most astonishing meandering course I ever saw, seeming to play through the vale which is surrounded by very high mountains.
"We were obliged, in the course of the day, to cross this at least six or seven times, until we lost it in some small lakes at Brookfield. From Palmer we went to Brookfield, fifteen miles, and stopped a few minutes at Rice's tavern to rest our horses. We then proceeded, with our intention to go to Leicester, but finding the road very bad, which had been the case most of the day, being very stony or deep sand, we put up for the evening at Colonel Reed's, who keeps a tavern about two miles farther on. Here we remained the night. A good house and excellent accommodation. The situation is very good, being upon an eminence commanding a fine prospect."
The journal of Jonathan Brooks, Jr., of New London, Connecti- cut, now in the collections of the New London Historical Society, records that in 1789 he traveled over a part of this road.
After leaving New London, he stopped at Abbey's Tavern in Enfield. There he crossed on the ferry to Suffield and spent the night at Worthington's in West Springfield. The next day he went ten miles to Clapp's in Westfield. "From Westfield you go on to the mountain called Glasgow Mountain. When you ascend you see a most beautiful country for twenty miles distant".
At Blandford, or Glasgow, he stopped at Blairs, ten miles from Westfield and then went on seven miles to Frary's in the middle of the Green Woods. "Here is the Green Woods. It is five miles through and a road that I cannot describe bad enough. It is a hilly, rocky, miry country, and withal the most dismal place I ever beheld. If I had not seen it myself I should have thought it next to an impossi- bility for a wagon to pass through".
From Becket, Brooks went on nineteen miles to Steel's at Wash- ington, and so to the northwestward. As he states, he went a bare quarter of the westerly route through the Greenwoods, turning north to Becket and Washington. Evidently, even as late as this, the traveler was appalled by the seeming impassability of the westward road.
In 1790 William Loughton Smith went over much of the same route as that of Brooks. Leaving Springfield on the morning of August 26th he crossed the river and breakfasted at Westfield.
"It is nearly at the foot of the mountain that must be crossed in progressing westward; any communication to the east and west of
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WESTERN MASSACHUSETTS
this long ridge is attended with difficulty, as the crossing of this moun- tain in any place is bad and troublesome, particularly with a carriage. I was in a four-wheeled carriage and unfortunately selected the worst place. Leaving Westfield I coasted along the river, through a very bad, but a very romantic road; it is over rocks and through a thick forest; on one side high mountains clothed with woods to their sum- mit; on the other the river just below you, running rapidly over a bed of rocks and high mountains clothed with impenetrable forests, rising on the opposite shore. I then crossed a large wooden bridge, and having the river on my right, began to ascend the mountains; now for miles the badness of the roads exceeds description. We ascended for five miles a steep mountain which took us four hours; the prospect consisted of nothing but other mountains rising one above the other, rocky and bleak, here and there the appearance of a new settlement in the woods.
"We got to a place called by some Glasgow, and by others Bland- ford Street. This is for a few miles a tolerably level country, the prospect commanding. From Blandford Street we proceeded on towards Becket; for a mile or two the road was tolerable and the prospect fine, on the right an extensive view of a well-cultivated country and many waving hills. We then entered a wood and had for about six miles the most execrable road that was ever traveled by a carriage; a narrow track through a forest, the path full of huge rocks and loose stones, up and down hill the whole way; I trembled every step of the way lest the carriage should be shattered or the horses give out; we were obliged to quit the carriage and walk the whole way. I could only advance at the rate of a mile an hour. With much difficulty we reached a tavern kept by one Foley, five miles from Blandford Street, where I put up for that night, and contrary to my expectations from the external appearance of his house, got a decent supper and good bed. He was settled in the midst of the forest, sur- rounded with rocks and woods and his habitation had the most dreary appearance. Early on Friday I proceeded on and had about two miles of road, if possible worse; with much care the carriage was got through without damage, and then quitting the forest we arrived at Becket, where lives one Perkins.
"Becket is a small town situated on very high ground. The country around it appears well cleared and settled in comparison with the wilderness I just left. In the road from Westfield to Becket little else is seen but forests and rocks, with here and there a new settle- ment and others just forming. The whole has very much the appear- ance of a country in its infant state".
There is confirmation that a dozen years later the route was iden- tical with the earlier routes, for the Old Farmer's Almanack for 1802, gives the following stage and tavern list. The distance from Spring- field to Nobletown is about the same on this schedule as on that of 1766, though the entire distance to Albany is eighteen miles shorter,
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THE KNOX TRAIL
probably because the latter route was direct from Nobletown to Kinderhook, instead of through Claverack.
To ALBANY AND QUEBEC
Springfield,
Parsons Tavern,
Over the river to,
Ely's
2.
Westfield,
Clapp
7. 9
ditto
Emerson
3. 12
Blandford,
Knox
6. 18
Greenwood,
Rowley
6.
24
ditto
Emerson
3.
27
Tyringham,
Chadwick
7.
34
Great Barrington, ditto
Whiting
1. 44
Egremont,
Hicks
4.
48
Nobletown, ditto
Mackinstry
3. 55
ditto
Ray
3. 58
Stonehole,
Haggaboom
3.
61
Kinderhook ditto
Geofe
4. 65
Voubarg
2. 68
ditto
Fitch
8.
76
Albany Ferry,
This date was on the eve of the Turnpike Era, in Massachusetts, the days of the toll-road built by private capital. Though the Green- woods tract offered some interest to the capitalist, yet delays held off any real action until the coming of the railroads brought new interests, and the territory saw little improvement in roads, until the automobile brought with it the modern highway.
Based on the foregoing evidence, Massachusetts erected in each one of the twenty-five towns involved, a granite and bronze marker reading :
Through This Town Passed General Henry Knox in the winter of 1775-1776 to deliver to GENERAL GEORGE WASHINGTON at Cambridge The Train of Artillery From Fort Ticonderoga Used To Force The British Army To Evacuate Boston. Erected by the Commonwealth of MASSACHUSETTS.
4.
52
Cowles
Root
9. 43
CHAPTER XXXII The Coming Storm
N 1763 the Peace of Paris brought an end to the Indian wars but it left Western Massachusetts little less than an armed camp of confident, truculent men, trained to war, to whom the taking of a life was not uncommon. The Crown gave them ample cause for irritation. The Stamp Act was passed in 1765. In 1770 came the Boston Massacre. In 1772 the revenue cutter Gaspe was destroyed by a mob, and in 1773 the Boston Tea Party was held.
Benjamin Franklin, when postmaster general of the colonies, had directed the accurate measuring of the post roads and the setting of mile stones, many of which can still be seen. Over these post roads, competent and reliable post riders carried the mails and the news- papers, enabling the yeomanry to band together and form Committees of Correspondence and Committees of Safety while companies of Minute Men were most active in preparing for the inevitable conflict. Opposed to these were many people of wealth, ministers, doctors, lawyers and holders of office under the Crown. They were called Tories by the rebels, or "friends of government" by their own associates, and were deemed akin to the "fifth columnists" of modern times. Prominent among the latter class, in Springfield, were Colonel John Worthington and his son-in-law, Jonathan Bliss. After the outbreak of hostilities Worthington steered a diplomatic middle course and successfully weathered the storm, but Bliss became so unpopular that he retired permanently to New Brunswick, sanctuary of so many Tories.
In 1774 John Singleton Copley, the famous artist left Boston for Europe and never returned. His stepbrother, Henry Pelham, son of Peter Pelham, also an artist, remained in America and between the two half-brothers, a voluminous correspondence was long kept up.
On February 16, 1775, Pelham wrote to Copley an account of what might have been a rather distressing experience in Springfield at the hands of irresponsible Tory baiters. His letter reads:
"I now propose giving you an account of my journey to Phila- delphia. I purchased a horse and disobligiant (i. e., a desobligeant, or chaise) and on the 18th of September in company with our friend Mr. Lee and lady and Mr. and Mrs. Startin, set out upon the tour
331
THE COMING STORM
about two hours before day, hastened by an unexpected visit from the country mob, Mr. Lee having offended them by adjourning the court, which they said was a carrying into execution of the regulation bill.
"We met with nothing remarkable except very fine weather which we had the whole journey, till we arrived at Springfield. Here an unlucky visit from a gentleman, one of the new mandamus council- lors who had resigned a few days before, upon being most severely threatened and ill treated, affixed the name of tory upon us and was
--
---
James Scott Dwight Home, Present Site of Victoria Hotel, Springfield (Sketch by Alice B. Tufts, 1892.)
near springing a mine which would have entirely marred our journey. The occurance, though it disturbed me, afforded nie some amusement. I had often seen the proceedings of a Boston mob but never of a country one. I will give you the particulars, knowing from experience the pleasure arising from a minute detail of the most trifling occur- . ances our distant friends meet with. We had not been long at the tavern where we put up for the night, when a party of four and twenty who had been out that day shooting squirrels, met to divide their booty, which raised a quarrel among them. This, with the plenty of liquor they had, made them noisy and riotous. The land- lord, willing to have his house clear of this confusion, requested they would depart, acquainting them that he had travellers who wanted rest, and with more zeal than prudence, declared they should not have a drop more to drink. This made them outrageous, and Colonel Worthington and Mr. Bliss, two friends of government, coming out of our room and passing through theirs, drew all this resentment
332
WESTERN MASSACHUSETTS
against us. They said he had a damned pack of tories in his house and they would have us out. Resistence on our part increased the tunfult on theirs. They loaded and fired their muskets (for they were all armed) in the house and at the windows. This you may well suppose created much noise and confusion which continued for near two hours. At length, one more peaceably disposed than the rest, persuaded them to disperse for the night and in the morning insist upon our making an acknowledgment of our offenses and recant our principles. This, with the landlords asking their pardon in a very humble manner, cooled them down so we had our night's rest. In the morning early, we set out, leaving those sons of to find recantation where they could. From Springfield to New York we met with nothing extraordinary except now and then a small affront, which experience made us disregard. We were thirteen days between Boston and New York which afforded us ample time for seeing the several agreeable towns which lie upon Connecticut river".
Emanating from a similar lawless spirit was the looting of the stocks of Samuel Colton, the Longmeadow merchant. Under date of July 24, 1776, Pastor Williams noted in his diary :
"A number of people gathered together, some dressed like Indians with blankets and manifested uneasiness with those that trade in rum, molasses, sugar &c. A number went to merchant Colton's and have again taken away his goods. I don't see the justice or equity of it. Many don't approve, but have not resolution enough to inter- pose and endeavor redress."
This was Longmeadow's own form of a Boston Tea Party.
The gentle, eighty-three-year-old pastor was himself strongly sus- pected of Tory leanings. He could "perceive that the people are out of humor with me for things that I have said and done. I fear they are very ready to misrepresent my words, even in prayer. Today, Mr. Trotter of Stafford came hither to preach for me. He appears a bold and daring man; very popular and doubtless greatly pleases our warm people".
His dilemma came from the fact that he was too conservative, and too old, to adapt himself to changing conditions, and fearful of the consequences of an unsuccessful revolt. All his life he had been loyal to his king and it was hard for him to leave off praying for him.
One can sense the resentment with which, on August 11, 1776, he "read publicly, being required to do so by the Provincial Council, the Declaration of the Continental Congress for Independence".
Realizing, perhaps, the futility of his protests, he came gradually to recording the facts without comment.
On October 1, 1776. "Several persons inimical to American liberty were brought to town, from westward, near Hudson river. Some were confined in jail here, others carried to Worcester".
1
333
THE COMING STORM
On November 16, 1776. "A number of men from Long Island called tories, who have shown themselves unfriendly to the liberties of America, were escorted by a party of armed men and came to Deacon Ely's to breakfast".
Lacking barbed wire and other materials for concentration camps, many of these Tories were confined "for the duration" in the underground passages of the Newgate copper mine at Granby, Connecticut.
CHAPTER XXXIII The Storm Breaks
F ROM the time of the first landing of the colonists on American shores, a means of alarming the countryside was invoked, calling for an unquestioning response for the common defense against Indian attacks or other imminent dangers. When the mother country alienated the loyalties of the American colonists by her demands, and used force to stamp out the resentment those policies engendered, she too became an outside menace and the gathering for the common defense was almost an instinctive reaction.
In the decade following the final French and Indian war, opposi- tion to Great Britain's policies became increasingly apparent, and the political maneuvers of Samuel Adams in Massachusetts, and the organization and activities of the Sons of Liberty, were crystallizing the general feeling. Chief among the results of Adams's work, was the organization of the Committees of Correspondence.
With the meeting of the first Continental Congress in Philadel- phia, statutory regulations began to be formulated to provide for united action in case of possible attacks by the British. Soon after its meeting, the Congress considered and approved unanimously a set of resolutions which had been passed by the County of Suffolk, Massachusetts, at a general meeting and submitted by the county to Congress. Joseph Palmer was chosen the Moderator of this meeting. Palmer, who lived at Braintree, was one of the outstanding political leaders in Massachusetts, being a member of the Massachusetts Pro- vincial Congress and later a member of the Committee of Safety.
One of the Suffolk resolutions provided,-"that should our enemies by any sudden maneuvers render it necessary to ask the aid and assistance of our brethren in the country, some one of the Com- mittee of Correspondence or a selectman of each town or the town adjoining where such hostilities shall commence, or shall be expected to commence, shall despatch couriers with written messages to the selectmen or Committees of Correspondence of the several towns in the vicinity, with a written account of such matter, who in turn shall despatch others to committees more remote".
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