The Franklin County Publication Archive Index is constantly updated. By creating an account you can elect to receive notices when new articles are added and when people comment on the articles.
To search for a particular subject term, click on the highlighted link containing that term at the bottom of the article. For example, if you are seeking more articles about animals, click on the highlighted link which says Animals/Reptiles/Amphibians.
Gazette & Courier - Monday, September 20, 1875
August Flower
August Flower - The most miserable beings in the world are those suffering from dyspepsia and liver complaint. More than 75% of the people in the United States are afflicted with these two diseases and their effects, such as Sour Stomach, Sick Headache, Habitual Costiveness, Palpitation of the Heart, Heart-burn, Water-brash, gnawing and burning pains at the pit of the Stomach, Yellow Skin, Coated Tongue, and disagreeable taste in the mouth, coming up of food after eating, low spirits, etc.
Go to the Drug Store of Childs & Payne, Greenfield, and W.B. Andrews, Orange, and get a 75 cent bottle, or a sample bottle for 10 cents. Try it. Two doses will relieve you.
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
Foreign
A letter from Germany says Jenny Lind Goldsmith recently volunteered to play the melodeon in the English Church at Carlsbad which she was attending unrecognized. She appeared to be a woman of 50 or upward, with nothing about her to attract attention, and was dressed with great plainness and simplicity, without ornament of any kind. Her countenance, no longer beautiful, seemed marked by sorrow, sadness and care.
Gazette & Courier - Monday, September 6, 1875
A child on the witness stand
Little Walter Ross, brother of the missing Charlie Ross, was on the stand in the Westervelt (brother of the person who abducted Charley Ross [sic] but who was shot for burglary) trial at Philadelphia on Tues. He is about 7 years old, intelligent, and told his story in his own way with very little questioning. His evidence was as follows:
"I live in Germantown, on Washington lane; on the afternoon of July 1, Charlie went out with me into the lane and we were playing; two men came along and spoke to us; they were riding; they heard us shooting fire crackers up in the yard, and they said didn’t we want to go and buy some; and Charlie said he wanted to go and buy some and then the men asked us to get in; they lifted Charlie in and then I got in; they drove up the lane and then drove up toward Limekiln pike; before we got in they said they were going to take us to get some fire crackers.
I was between the two men and Charlie was sitting on one of the men’s lap; we went down Limekiln Pike down to Church Lane; then they turned up a great high hill and then turned up another street, and then they stopped at a hotel and got Charlie and me a drink; then they stopped in a street at the corner; they gave me money and I went in the buy the firecrackers; Charlie was in the carriage; I bought the fire crackers and came out of the store and then the buggy was gone.
A man came along and asked where I lived, and I said on Washington Lane; he asked me if it was in Washington and I said no, it was in Germantown; he asked if I wanted to go to the station house and I said no; I wanted to go home, and he took me home; I met my father in the lane coming up; while we were riding in the buggy Charlie cried a little, and the men said we were going to buy fire crackers now; Charlie said before he got in he wanted torpedoes; the men said they were going to buy the fire crackers at Juliann’s.
There was a red striped cover in this buggy; they had it spread over Charlie and all of us; Charlie rode all the time on the man’s lap; I had seen these two men before the day they took us away in the wagon; I had seen them twice before that and talked with them; when I saw them before that, they were riding in a buggy; they gave us candy first; they gave us candy twice before they took us away; they were right in front of Mr. Boutelier’s place; they were on the other side of the road from me, and they said Halloo; I did not see the buggy that day; that was in the afternoon when we were going to Sunday School...
The day they give us candy I took it up to Papa and told him that the man gave us candy; there were two new houses building opposite our house last summer; there was nothing said by the men about the houses at any time; one of the men had his nose up this way (pushing the end of his own nose upward); and the other had it down; the one whose nose was up had a cut on his nose, and the other had a mustache, which was red, and his hair as red; one man had on black pants and a light jacket; the pocket went below his knees; the other had on black pants and black jacket".
[For more information see Charley Ross in Wikipedia].
Gazette & Courier - Monday, August 30, 1875
Foreign
Victoria Anderson, a rope dancer [tightrope walker], 23 years old, who once performed in Barnum's hippodrome, fell from a velocipede on a rope 80 ft. high during a performance at Berlin recently, and was killed.
Gazette & Courier - Monday, August 30, 1875
News of the week
Tom Thumb has a rival in Admiral Tom Trump, a Dutchman of 26, who is 6 inches shorter than the American dwarf and weighs but 26 pounds. He is very intelligent, and speaks 5 languages fluently, English, French, Dutch, German and Italian.
[See more in the Aug. 23, 1875 article entitled "A rival of Tom Thumb" in the New York Times Online Archives].
Gazette & Courier - Monday, August 23, 1875
Shelburne Falls
H.C. Eddy of Chicago, Mr. Gleason of Hartford, and Miss Annie Whitney of Shelburne Falls, who were musical students together in Germany with Miss Isadore Pratt, who was for a time with them in Berlin, had a pleasant reunion Fri. aft. at the home of Miss Pratt. In the eve. Mr. Eddy entertained quite an audience at the Congregational church by his finished organ playing.
Gazette & Courier - Monday, August 23, 1875
Turners Falls
The new bell was hung in the Baptist church belfry Wed. The Congregational Society have bought a communion service, and will use it for the first time the first Sun. in Sept. Congregational services in the German church, on Sun. mornings, will begin at half past 10 o'clock hereafter, instead of 10:45.
Gazette & Courier - Monday, August 23, 1875
Statue of Prince Arminius
The ceremony unveiling the statue of Herrmann, Prince Arminius, took place at Detmoldt, Germany on Mon. The Journal about a week since gave a brief history of this personage, who was the chief deliverer of Germany from the Roman power over 1800 years ago. The festival commenced on Sun. by the reception of Emperor William and his Princes and other leading men of the nation. There was a fine military display and long processions from all over the country. At least 50,000 people were without beds on Sun. night. The monument and statue were commenced 37 years ago. The great deeds of the chieftain were achieved when the Savior of all men was in his 9th year.
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 9, 1875
News about home: Greenfield items
There has been but little change in railroad matters since our last issue. The route adopted for the road, west of the point of curvature, near the Methodist property, is the upper line surveyed, or the one nearest to Main Street. This crosses the premises of Edward L. Pratt, who live on the avenue in the rear of Jesse Coombs', necessitating the removal of his house, and also the house opposite, owned by a German named Merzh. The location of the depot is still in doubt.
There is to be another meeting of the representatives of the different roads, and an effort made to unite on a union depot. Failing in this, it is possible that the State and the Fitchburg road will set up for themselves, rather than share the meager accommodations of the Connecticut River depot. Surveys have been made for a carriage road leading from Main Street, west of the culvert, to the location of the proposed depot. It is ascertained that the grade would be a fraction over 3 degrees.
The Town already owns the road east of Dr. C.L. Fisk's premises, as far back as J.H. Osterhout's house. It also owns Newton Place avenue, and would be obliged, if so ordered, to bridge the railroad track at the termination of this avenue, and thus afford quite a shortcut to the new depot. Contractors have thronged to Greenfield the past fortnight from all parts of the country.
The bids will be closed today, and the contracts, without doubt, awarded. The work to be done is divided into 4 sections. The first includes that portion of the work which lies between Bardwell's Ferry - a point to which B.N. Farren's contract extends - and the West Deerfield station and a point fixed by the engineers in Blakeley Hollow, and a point on the easterly side of Green River, a distance of about 1 3/10 miles. This section covers some heavy train and steam shovel work, and also the masonry of the important bridge at Green River.
Section 4 will include that portion of the work which lies between a point on the easterly side of Green river and a point where the line crosses the tracks of the Connecticut River Railroad, a distance of about 1/2 a mile. This section includes some cart work near the village of Greenfield, and will cover some portions of all the necessary depot grounds. Bidders, who make separate tenders to do the work between Dec. 31, 1875 and July 1, 1876, can bid for one or more sections.
Gazette & Courier - Monday, August 9, 1875
News about home: Greenfield items
H.C. Eddy is expected home tomorrow. A number of Americans who were musical students with him at Berlin will have a reunion at the house of Miss Annie Whitney at Shelburne Falls Fri.
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]
Gazette & Courier - Monday, August 2, 1875
Foreign
The greatest reaper trial ever held in Germany has just closed at Angenumder [Beats me!] and the highest prize, a gold medal, was awarded to an American Harvester. [See Google Books "Encyclopedia of American Farm Implements & Antiques" by Charles H. Wendel].
Gazette & Courier - Monday, July 26, 1875
News about home: Greenfield items
The badges voted by the Fire District for the members of the Hook & Ladder and Hose companies, have been purchased by the Engineers, and delivered to the firemen of the several companies for distribution. The badges are of German silver, nickel plated, with the name and number of company lettered in black, the design for each company being different. All members of the department are ordered by the chief engineer to carry their badges with them at all times, and when on duty to affix them conspicuously on the clothing worn on the left breast.
Two Germans, brothers, who had stolen some money in Lubeck, went to Christiania, Norway, and had a terrible quarrel in their room at a hotel, in which the elder murdered the younger and then killed himself.
Gazette & Courier - Monday, July 26, 1875
Indiana statutes
Indiana has still on her statue books [i.e. statute books] a law prohibiting the intermarriage of white and colored persons under penalty of imprisonment in the state penitentiary for not less than 1 year nor more than 10 years, and a fine of not less than $1000 nor more than $5000, with a similar penalty for anyone who aids or assists in the commission of the act.
Under this law the grand jury of Floyd County have just indicted John A. Miller, a German of Moorsfield, who recently married a negro woman, and Rev. Jesse Bass, pastor of the Bethel Baptist Colored Church http://www.bethelameannarbor.org/history.cfm of New Albany, who performed the ceremony, and they are both in jail awaiting trial.
Gazette & Courier - Monday, July 12, 1875
News about home: Greenfield items
Gustav Adolph Lodge of Turners Falls and Sedan Lodge of Greenfield, D.O.H., had a picnic at Pierce's Grove on Tues. They marched through the streets in full regalia, preceded by the Montague City Band. They spent the day in a jolly way, singing and dancing, and wound up the festivities by a ball at Schuler Hall in Turners Falls.
Gazette & Courier - Monday, July 5, 1875
Turners Falls
At a meeting of Gustav Adolph Lodge [This is the Gustav Adolph lodge Order of Harugari], No. 299 D.O.H., the following officers were elected: O.B., John Klee; U.B., B. Alborn; Secretary, E. Bankwitz; Regf., Christian Fritz; Treasurer, Carl Schneider; Director, Phillip Jacobus. [For a detailed overview of this organization, see the New York Times Online article in the Aug. 25, 1875 issue].
Gazette & Courier - Monday, July 5, 1875
Shelburne Falls
Miss Annie Whitney, who, since her return from Germany, has been engaged at teaching at Shelburne Falls and Greenfield, and is now organist of the Baptist church in Shelburne Falls, received an appointment as teacher of the piano classes at Vassar College.
Gazette & Courier - Monday, July 5, 1875
News of the week
Attorney General Pierrepont has decided that the German boy who was born in the United States and whose father afterward returned to Germany and renewed his allegiance to the Emperor, has two nationalities. He is a German until he is 21 years of age, when he becomes an American citizen, entitled to all the rights and privileges of one born on our soil. [See Google Books "The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography" from 1895 for more information and a photo].
- Sun, Feb 21, 2010
