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Gazette & Courier - Monday, September 20, 1875
Greenfield items
Greenfield - Patrick Dunnigan, belonging in this town, was in his second year at Nicolet College, which is situated [?] miles below Montreal on the St. Lawrence, met a sad death on the night of Sept. 7. He had been home on a vacation, and with 2 or 3 fellow students was returning to the college, which is conducted by secular priests. Taking a steamboat at Montreal, Dunnigan accidentally fell overboard at Three Rivers, unbeknown [sic] to his comrades.
His body was not found until Sept. 14, when it had drifted 40 miles below Montreal. His friends here did not hear of his death until informed by a dispatch last week. His brother, James Dunnigan, went north for his remains Thurs. night, and returned Sat. morning. The funeral from the Catholic Church Sat. forenoon, was attended by a large number of people.
The young man is spoken of in the highest esteem by all who knew him, on account of his quiet, studious habits and amiable disposition. He was studying for the ministry, and was possessor of considerable talent. He was 21 years of age and leaves a widowed mother.
Gazette & Courier - Monday, September 20, 1875
Oration of Hon. George B. Loring at Bloody Brook, Sept. 17, 1875
Oration of Hon. George B. Loring at Bloody Brook, Sept. 17, 1875 - Fellow citizens: 200 years ago an event occurred on this spot, which on account of its significance and its touching details, has passed into that long heroic line over which the mind of man is compelled to pause and ponder...At the name of Bloody Brook the men, women, and children of New England started and held their breath in horror, in that primeval time when the sickening tidings were borne on the wings of the wind as it were from hamlet to hamlet...
The sad event of the 18th of September 1675, calls upon us still to remember the trials through which our fathers passed and to rejoice over that fraternal spirit which bound them together in their day of sorrow, and watered the soil of this charming valley with the choicest blood of the sons of Essex. I stand on ground made sacred to you by the sacrifices of your hardy and devoted progenitors; but I meet here the names of Lothrop and Stevens and Hobbs and Manning and Dodge and Kimball and Trask and Tufts and Mudge and Pickering, of the three-score braves who died that you might possess this goodly land and these pleasant homes...
How would they who were familiar with the cruel warfare of the savage; whose ears had heard the shrieks of the tortured mother mingling with the groans of her dying child, and whose eyes had beheld her fear, her patience and her despair; whose highway was an Indian trail, and whose home was a frontier block-house - how would they rejoice over these sunny fields, these laughing harvests, these busy towns, these tasteful homes, this cultivated landscape adorned with these institutions of learning and religion; and how would they count their own sufferings but small when compared with the manifold blessings which have descended upon the spot made sacred with their blood?
...Deerfield two centuries ago, was on the very confines of civilization - one of the outposts of a feeble Christian people, who had hardly a foothold on this continent, and between whom and the strongholds of power and wealth and learning, rolled 3000 miles of stormy and almost unknown sea. The fate of a great and wide spread empire rested then in the hands of a few colonists scattered along the Atlantic seaboard, divided in interests and tastes, perishing continually from exposure and want, not all actuated by the highest motives, but all recognizing, as by an unerring instinct, the fundamental principle out of which was to grow the American government, and all in danger of being exterminated at any time by the "pestilence which walketh in darkness and the destruction which wasteth at noonday".
Scattered up and down the great extent of territory stretching from the Passamaquoddy Bay to the capes of Florida were but about 200,000 souls, of whom Massachusetts, with Plymouth and Maine, may have had 44,000; New Hampshire and Rhode Island, with Providence each 6000; Connecticut from 17,000 to 20,000; that is, all New England, 75,000...
These people had come largely from that "Germanic race most famed for the love of personal independence". They were not men of high estate, but they were men who possessed an inherent love of land, with all the individual honor and freedom which go along with it...
Of one colony said "Spotswood, a royalist, a High churchman, a traveler", "I have observed here less swearing and profaneness, less drunkenness and debauchery, less uncharitable feuds and animosities, and less knaverys and villanys than in any part of the world where my lot has been"...
In all their customs they were obliged to exercise the utmost simplicity and they voluntarily regulated their conduct by those formal rules, which, in their day, constituted the Puritan’s guide through the world. We are told, as an illustraton of their character and manners, that by the laws of the Plymouth Colony, in 1651, "dancing at weddings was forbidden". In 1660, one William Walker was imprisoned one month for courting "a maid without the leave of her parents".
In 1675, because "there is manifest pride appearing in our streets", the "wearing of long hair or periwigs", and so "superstitious ribands, used to tie up and decorate the hair were forbidden under severe penalty"; the keeping of Christmas was also forbidden "because it was a popish custom". In 1677 an act was passed "to prevent the profaneness of turning the back upon the public worship before it was finished and the blessing pronounced".
Towns were directed to erect a cage near the meeting house, and in all this all offenders against the sanctity of the Sabbath were confined. At the same time children were directed to be placed in a particular part of the meeting house, apart by themselves, and tything-men were ordered to be chosen, whose duty it shall be to take care of them. So strict were they in their observance of the Sabbath that "John Atherton, a soldier of Col. Tyng’s Company", was fined 40 shillings for wetting a piece of an old hat to put into his shoes, which chafed his feet on the march; and those who neglected to attend meeting for 3 months were publicly whipped.
Even in Harvard College students were whipped for gross offenses in the Chapel, in presence of students and professors, and prayers were had before and after the infliction of the punishment. As the settlers of Deerfield are described as being of "sober and orderly conversation", we may suppose that these laws and customs were here rigidly enforced.
[Here follows a section on "subsistence and diet of your ancestors". Also talks about how they were good farmers, fishermen and readers]...
...Possessed evidently of a common origin, for "between the Indians of Florida and Canada the difference was scarcely perceptible", they were divided into tribes, which differed from each other mainly in their fighting capacity, and the vigor with which they roamed from place to place; and they were liable at any time to be swept off by disease, or exterminated by war, or absorbed by other and more powerful tribes.
In language, the North American Indian was limited by the material world, an abstract idea finding no birthplace in his brain and no expression on his tongue. "In marriage the Indian abhorred restraint, and from Florida to the S. Lawrence polygamy was permitted". Divorce meant merely desertion. The wife was a slave. Domestic government was unknown. The Indian youth grew up a warrior, adorned with vermilion and eagle’s feather, as fleet of foot as the deer, and as tolerant of hunger as the wolf; the Indian girl grew up a squaw, degraded and squalid and servile.
A rude agriculture, resulting in a weedy corn crop, and a few squashes and beans, was the Indian’s, or rather the Indian woman’s occupation; he had neither trade nor manufactures. "There can be no society without government; but among the Indian tribes on the soil of our republic, there was not only no written law - there was no traditionary [sic] expression of law; government rested on opinion and usage and the motives to the usage were never imbodied [sic] in language; they gained utterance only in the fact, and power only from opinion...
The Indian had a government without laws; a State without institutions; a church without faith, or creed, or head; a town without schoohouse or meeting house; a punitive system without jails or gibbets; a history based on tradition; a religion based on superstition; he was ignorant of the ownership of land; and knew nothing of a system of inheritance.
As in peace he was an idler - so in war he was a marauder. An organized army was to him unknown. He fought in small bands, seldom over 50 in number, to surprise and slaughter. He pursued, and killed, and scalped. He had neither commissariat nor hospital. He fought his enemy in the rear and in ambush; and he tortured and roasted and devoured his captives. These were the national characteristics which our fathers found on this continent.
Nor did their attempts to modify and humanize and Christianize them meet with much success. The Indian could be tamed, but he was the Indian still...Neither John Eliot nor Roger Williams was able to change essentially the habits and character of the New England tribes..."They are unspeakably indolent and slothful; they deserve little gratitude; they seem to have no sentiments of generosity, benevolence or goodness".
The Moravian Loskiel could not change their character...In New Hampshire and elsewhere schools for Indian children were established; but as they became fledged they all escaped, refusing to be caged. Harvard College enrolls the name of an Algonquin youth among her pupils; but the college parchment could not close the gulf between the Indian character and the Anglo American.
The copper colored men are characterized by a moral inflexibility, a rigidity of attachment to their hereditary customs and manners. The birds and brooks, as they chime forth their unwearied canticles, chime them ever to the same ancient melodies; and the Indian child, as it grows up, displays a propensity to the habits of its ancestors...
The trouble lay deeper. Year after year the Indian discovered an irreconcilable difference between himself and the stranger...When he entered the home of the settler, he discovered that the joys of the fireside could never be found in the group squatted beneath the shelter of the wigwam. He felt the antagonism - and his soul burned within him. The strife was not for land...It was for supremacy. And as revenge is stronger than ambition, and hate is stronger than avarice, so the war raged with unspeakable fury, and was as cruel as the passions of a desperate savage could make it.
The great contest which grew out of this antagonism, and lasted more than a year, unabated either by the heat of summer or the frosts of winter, threatening destruction to the New England colonies, was known as Philip’s War. With the story of this conflict you are all familiar. The peaceful death of Massasoit at a good old age, after a long life of friendly relations with the Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay colonies; the sadder death of his son Alexander, worried out of life by the failure of his intrigues against the colony, and the exposure of his meanness and his crimes; the gradual development of the worst of passions in the breast of Philip, and his passage from treachery to war are all fresh in the memory of all who have traced the hard path which our fathers traveled in the work of settling these shores.
The war which began in Swanzey on the 24th of June, 1675, reached this spot on the 18th of September - three months of murder, and fire, and all the bloody horrors of savage warfare. At the time the war broke out Deerfield had been settled 10 years, or had been deeded for the purposes of settlement to John Pynchon that length of time. It was then, as it is now, one of the most delightful spots in New England...
And here in the luxurience of that natural beauty, and in the wealth of wood and stream, the Indian found his favorite resort. In this town and in the towns of Hadley and Hatfield he mustered a numerous and a powerful tribe. And upon these lands purchased by the settlers, with titles confirmed by the court, the whites and Indians lived together in peace for years. It is amazing with what rapidity the war, once opened, spread from village to village, and from tribe to tribe in this wilderness...
The Pocumtucks had received their orders - and in a day had stepped from the blessings of peace to the misery of war. having promsied to deliver up their arms, on suspicion that they might misuse them, they broke their promise, fled to Sugar loaf Hill, engaged with Captains Beers and Lothrop commanding the English here, lost 26 of their number, and then sought shelter under the standard of King Philip...
Deerfield too was abandoned; and the attempt to secure a quantity of wheat which had just been partially threshed by the farmers there before their flight, resulted in the massacre which still thrills me with horror, and the anniversary of which we have met to commemorate...From behind hundreds of trees the savages poured their deadily [sic] fire. At the first volley many were killed, and the remainder were panic stricken...Lothrop...was among the first to fall. The savages, numbering nearly 700, "rushed upon the defenceless men, and the work of slaughter was soon complete.
But 6 or 7 Englishmen escaped to tell the tale, of whom one had been shot and tomahawked and left for dead, and another forced his way through the yelling ranks of the savages with the but [sic] of his musket...
While the Indians were employed in mangling, scalping and stripping the dying and the dead, Captain Moseley, who, as has been observed, was ranging the woods, hearing the report of musketry, hastened by a forced march to the relief of his brethren. The Indians, confiding in their superior numbers, taunted him as he advanced, and dared him to the contest. Moseley came on with firmness, repeatedly charged through them, and destroyed a large number with the loss on his side of but 2 killed and 11 wounded...
A quantity of bones lately found in that quarter is very probably the remains of the Indians who fell there at the close of the action. The united English force encamped for the night at Deerfield. They returned in the morning to bury the dead and found a party of the Indians upon the field stripping the bodies of their victims. These they quickly dispatched, and the remains of the brave young men, or some portion of them, were committed to the earth near the spot which we have this day consecrated anew to their memory.
The stream on whose banks they fell, and whose water ran red with their blood, has been called from that day, in memory of the disaster, Bloody Brook...[Two more entire columns follow, but they are quite blurry and unreadable].
Gazette & Courier - Monday, September 13, 1875
Hawley
Hawley - A couple of days ago a couple of young men, claiming to be grandsons of Dr. James King, came along here and passed the night with one of our families. Unfortunately they had fallen among thieves at Greenfield and were robbed of their valises and their money. They had a check which they sought to get cashed, but failing in this, endeavored to borrow money to pay their expenses to Montreal.
But they found nobody who had any to lend for such an object. They rode off in the stage with Cleveland to Shelburne Falls, where they slipped away, leaving their fare unpaid. It is thought that the King blood in them is greatly diluted, and not a little vitiated at that.
Gazette & Courier - Monday, September 13, 1875
News about home (Greenfield)
Greenfield - Register Thompson and Town Clerk Pond had rare sport fishing, down near Sherbrook, Nova Scotia, where they were guests of Newell Snow for some 3 weeks. What would some of the fishers in our local streams think of 75 pounds of trout as the result of half an hour’s piscatorial effort.
That is what THEY did down there. Mr. T. outlined one of the speckled treasures which he caught, and shows the profile to his credulous friends. The fish was about a foot and a half long, and weighed a good 3 pounds. They camped out nights, waded through swamps and bogs, fished, ate, and were happy, and came home browned and toughened, in prime condition, to resume the cares and troubles of every day life.
Gazette & Courier - Monday, September 13, 1875
News about home: Greenfield items
Greenfield - A witness who was summoned to appear at a Justice Trial the other day, claimed payment for 500 miles travel, having come from Quebec. The item was reduced somewhat before it was paid by the County.
Gazette & Courier - Monday, September 6, 1875
The town of Rowe
(Rowe) It is well known among botanists that many notable plants grow on sterile soil, so from some of our small and sequestered country towns have come many of our now prominent and useful men. I well remember when a boy, of living in the town of Rowe 40 years ago, just how it appeared.
I was a poor farmer’s boy, at work on a farm for wages, at 12 dollars per month. I had been well schooled in the village schools of the time, but they said "there was to be a select school in the center of the town, to be taught by Mr. John Wells, a son of Hon. Noah Wells of Rowe, who had just graduated at Williamstown, taking the highest honors in his class".
John succeeded in getting a large class, made up of the young ladies and gentlemen of his native town. I was a pupil among the others, and here I wish to say that a more successful school was never taught by any man. John Wells was then a young man, tall, straight as an arrow, with a beautiful face, and an expression like a modest girl. At the close of the school, we had an exhibition in the old Unitarian Church. It was filled to overflowing, and all the scholars took a part. The whole thing was a great success for Mr. Wells and a credit to his pupils.
The succeeding winter I taught the "winter school" in the center of the town, having among my scholars a small boy, the son of Rev. William Stearns, named George Stearns. George was a bright, blue-eyed boy of about 10 years old, good, but very mischievous. I gave him his first lesson in Latin grammar. I well remember how he used to recite in such a way as to make fun for the other scholars.
Well, Mr. John Wells is now Hon. John Wells of the Supreme court; and little Georgie Stearns is the celebrated Springfield lawyer, one of the most eminent of his profession in the State. The following year I taught a school in the north west part of the town, in a little "hut of a school house", and among my scholars was a little boy by the name of Noah Cressy.
[See Google Books "American Law Review: 1875 - 1876" for a long biographical entry on John Wells].
[See Google Books "Second annual report on the diseases of the domestic animals in Connecticut" by Noah Cressy].
There were 3 brothers of the Cressy family living in the district, and their children constituted the greater part of the school. the following year I went away to study medicine, and lost sight of little Noah, and the next I heard of him he was "Professor Noah Cressy of the Massachusetts Agricultural college, and veterinary surgeon to the State of Connecticut".
A chum went with me from Rowe to study medicine in the same office with me, the office of Moses Barrett M.D., located in the town of Charlemont. Dr. Barrett was a native of Rowe and had studied medicine and graduated with high honors. My chum was C.K. Fiske of Rowe, who graduated with me at the Berkshire Medical college in 1842. Dr. Fiske became an eminent dentist and settled in St. Johns, New Brunswick.
The late Major Reed, sheriff of this county, was for a long time a merchant in Rowe, if not born there. He had a son by the name of Samuel Reed, a scholar in my school, who afterward studied medicine, graduated, started for California, and died on the passage.
I frequently meet Prof. Cressy. He is a wide awake, congenial, friendly man, but eminently learned in his profession. Last week we exchanged some books, I giving him Harris on Insects, and he giving me "The Elements of General and Pathological Anatomy" by David Craige, M.D., published in Edinburg in 1828.
On the fly leaf is this, written in pencil: "To Dr. Craige, belongs the merit of having written the first distinct and comprehensive work on general anatomy" signed George Gulliver, M.D. There is probably not more than one or two other works of the kind and edition in this country. David Rice, M.D.
Gazette & Courier - Monday, August 30, 1875
What savages think of twins
In Africa according to Dr. Robert Brown ("Races of Mankind") the birth of twins is commonly regarded as an evil omen. No one, except the twins themselves and their nearest relatives, is allowed to enter the hut in which they first saw light. The children are not to play with other children, and even the utensils of the hut are not permitted to be used by any one else.
The mother is not allowed to talk to any one not belonging to her own family. If the children both live till the end of the 6th year, it is supposed that Nature has accommodated herself to their existence, and they are thenceforth admitted to association with their fellows. Nor is this abomination of twin births restricted to Africa.
In the island of Bali, near Java, a woman who is so unfortunate as to bear twins is obliged, along with her husband, to live for a month at the sea shore or among the tombs, until she is purified. The Khasias of Hindostan consider that to have twins assimilates the mother to the lower animals, and one of them is frequently put to death.
An exactly similar belief prevails among some of the native tribes of Vancouver Island. Among the Ainos, one of the twins is always killed, and in Arebo in Guinea, both the twins and the mother are put to death (Popular Science Monthly).
Gazette & Courier - Monday, August 23, 1875
News of the week
There was another accident at Niagara Falls last week that narrowly escaped proving fatal. William E. Brook of Trenton, N.J., engaged a guide and started for a trip under the Horse Shoe Fall [i.e. Horseshoe Falls], on the Canadian side. When directly under Table Rock, a huge piece of rock, weighing at least two tons, fell from above, narrowly missing the guide and just grazing Mr. Brook's shoulders, while a large fragment struck his leg, bruising it badly, crushing his foot and pinning him to the ground, so that it took 20 minutes to get him clear.
Gazette & Courier - Monday, August 16, 1875
Shelburne Falls
Miss Isadore Pratt of Shelburne Falls, who returned from Germany recently, has accepted a situation as teacher of painting and drawing in Helmouth College [actually Helmuth College], London, Ontario.
Gazette & Courier - Monday, August 16, 1875
A frog
A frog, nearly as large as a cow’s head has made its appearance near Montreal, Canada. Its croaking is as loud as the bark of a dog, and when pursued it makes for deep water and remains perfectly quiet for a few days and nights. It is probably a remote relative of the sea serpent.
Gazette & Courier - Monday, August 2, 1875
Walter Shanly
Walter Shanly [often seen as Walter Shanley] late of the Hoosac Tunnel, has accepted the position of consulting engineer on the Georgian Bay branch of the Canada Pacific railway, and of the Canada Central railway extension.
Gazette & Courier - Monday, August 2, 1875
Foreign
Foreign gossip says, the young Marquis of Lorne has a forlorn time of it among his royal wife's relatives. The young princes snub him as a subject, and his German brother-in-law, the heir to the Kaiser's crown, does likewise. On a recent visit to this prince, while his wife was admitted to the imperial circle of Berlin, poor Lorne was "left to cool his heels among the nobility outside"; and at a recent garden party in London, he was peremptorily directed by an equerry of his brother-in-law, the heir apparent, to leave the royal tent, which he had entered without special invitation.
[See John Campbell, 9th Duke of Argyll, in Wikipedia]
J.A. Crump [read the Google book "History of the town of Whately"] of Whately thinks he is in luck in finding deeds given under the seal of King George the Third of England, to lands now forming the site of the town of Shelbourne, Canada. It appears that William Crump, grandfather of James, was a British soldier, and, being discharged, was given his choice of a pension or a grant of land in Canada. Preferring lands, a grant was made to him and another discharged soldier. their families being in England, William Crump went over after them, but died there. The son, father of James, soon after came to New York, bringing the deeds with him, but neglecting to obtain the property. It has remained to this day in possession of individuals composing that town. J.A. Crump intends to go to Canada and claim that part which was deeded to his grandfather, and which has been regularly recorded according to law.
Gazette & Courier - Monday, June 21, 1875
Shocking business by a dog
A little son of Amasa Campbell, residing in North Adams, was shockingly bitten on Mon. by a Newfoundland dog, which seized the child by the cheek, tearing almost the entire flesh away, indeed, quite a large piece of the cheek could not be found. Drs. Lawrence and Willard found it necessary to administer ether in order to dress the wound.
Gazette & Courier - Monday, June 14, 1875
News about home: Greenfield items
A strolling band of French Canadians have been excursioning in this vicinity the past week, a la Gypsies, swapping horses, selling baskets, telling fortunes, or doing anything to turn an honest or a dishonest penny.
Gazette & Courier - Monday, June 14, 1875
Deerfield
The old Ware store and lot which has been in the Ware family for more than 70 years, has recently been purchased by George Sheldon for the purpose of securing an eligible site for a Memorial Hall for the P.V.M. Association. This store stands upon a spot of high historical interest. It is located on the south east corner of the home lot granted Rev. John Williams, the first minister of Deerfield, by the town in 1686. On this spot he was living on the memorable 20th of Feb. of 1704, whence he and the surviving members of his family were dragged into a terrible captivity. His house, which was burned, stood about 6 rods in the rear of the store, the common being at that date 20 rods wide.
/ Major Elijah Williams, son of Mr. Williams, succeeded his father in the possession of the homestead, and from 1740 until his death, he kept a store on this spot. During the French and Indian wars, he was commissary for the military forces of this region, and from this store most of the scouting parties of the Upper Conn. Valley were fitted out, as well as the troops that marched to the front in the Canada campaign. On the death of Major Williams, the property passed to his son John, "Esquire John" as he was usually called. He continued in trade here with his sister and other partners until about 1802, when he sold the store to Orlando Ware, having previously sold the rest of the house and rest of the lot to Thomas Dickinson or his son Consider.
/ The Registry of Deeds for the northern Hampshire district was in this building as early as 1791. Esq. John, George Ephraim Hoyt and Elijah Williams (Uncle Josh) were successively Registers of Deeds here. Esq. John administered justice. And here were several lawyers' offices, and the social library was kept here many years. It is to be hoped a complete history of this spot will be given by the President of the P.V.M. Association, who is now occupied in selling off the stock in the store, preparatory to the transfer of the property to the Antiques.
Gazette & Courier - Monday, June 14, 1875
The steamer Vicksburg
The steamer Vicksburg, which sailed from Quebec for Liverpool May 27, with nearly 90 persons on board, was wrecked in a field of ice when 5 days out, and over 80 of those on board, including the captain, were drowned, while the fate of the rest who got off in boats is uncertain, except 5, who were picked up by a passing steamer and brought to New York, after they had been afloat for some days, and had suffered intensely from exposure. [This one is hard to verify - think they got the name of the steamer wrong].
Gazette & Courier - Monday, June 7, 1875
Remarkable story of one of Barnum's curiosities
An old man has just died at Troy, N.Y. who had a most remarkable criminal career or showed extraordinary depravity in claiming as his own, crimes that others have committed, while on his deathbed. He was noticeable for the absence of hair on both his head and face, and he said he was the person exhibited, some years ago, by Barnum as "Vancouver, the no-haired man of Vancouver Island", though he was born at Sharon, Litchfield County, Ct.
/ After being with Barnum 7 years, he said he began a life of crime, and he had had 8 wives, 7 of whom are still living. He said that he had been concerned in 300 burglaries since he left Barnum, 3 of which were attended with murder. He had been arrested 115 times, and served many terms in prison, ranging from 6 months to 2 years. He was an accomplice of Dan Noole in the celebrated bond robbery of 1869, and, being tried at Buffalo, was sent to Auburn State Prison for 5 years, but after 2 years was pardoned out. He was of the gang that robbed the St. Catherine's Canada bank, and made out an alibi, when tried, through the testimony of a woman supposed to be perfectly trustworthy, but who was an accomplice in the robbery. The plunder was $20,000 and a large amount of bonds; the latter were buried in Delaware (N.Y.) County near the Ulster County line, where they are yet, for aught he could tell.
/ There is a reward of $5000 still standing for the capture of the robbers. The dying man also claimed to have planned the robbery of mail bags at Utica about a year ago, to have participated in the Comstock robbery at Utica, and to know who broke open the Port Jervis bank in 1869, when $50,000 was stolen. He pretended too to give a full account of the recent murder of Mr. Edwards at Cooperstown, N.Y., mentioning the names of those concerned in it, and declaring that the man now under arrest is not the guilty party. The confession was made voluntarily to a clergyman whom he called to his bedside. [Sounds like this man had a bad case of reading too many newspapers!].
- Wed, Feb 10, 2010
