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Article Archives: Articles: Vendors and Purchasers
Gazette & Courier - Monday, September 20, 1875
John Chinaman in New York
John Chinaman in New York - The New York Tribune describes the haunts of the Chinese in that city as follows:
In the Sixth Ward is a small district where most of the Chinese in New York live. A visitor to their opium smoking dens may go to Baxter Street, just below Franklin, where was formerly Donovan’s lane, the resort of the most desperate villains in the city, but which is now a Y-shaped court shut in on all sides by high tenement houses.
On the ground floor of one of these buildings is the establishment of "Old John", a Chinaman 74 years old, who has been in the United States 47 years, and was the first of his race to become naturalized. His quarters comprise three rooms. By the door is seated his assistant, who gives out the drug. Upon one side of the room is a low platform or dais; sometimes there are two, one above the other, like births upon which men are to be seen reclining in the different stages of opium intoxication. [How interesting - guess that’s where the word ’berths’ comes from].
The pipes consist of a bamboo stem and a porcelain bowl about 2 inches in diameter, in the centre [sic] of which is a small receptacle for the opium. A small piece of the drug is taken up on an iron rod and heated until it is dried to a proper consistency. Then it is inserted into the pipe, and the smoker slowly draws the smoke through, soon filling the whole room with a peculiar smell.
The proprietor furnishes his customers with pipes and a place to lie down. The drug is weighed out upon a rude pair of reed scales. The weight used is a silver coin. Each smoker is provided with a small horn box, which will contain about 15 cents’ worth of opium, enough to last an average smoker all night. The preparation is undoubtedly adulterated, since it costs the druggist $23.50 a pound.
A few doors below, on the same side, is another place where smoking is carried on, which does not differ materailly from Old John’s. There is, however, a temple connected with it. On the wall is hung a gayly [sic] painted picture of some Chinese god, at whose shoulder, on one side, man’s good angel is represented, and on the other, his evil angel.
The faces are very grotesque, and resemble those painted upon tea chests. Hanging upon the picture are numerous tinsel and paper flowers, with faces painted upon the petals, and a little below the picture is a shrine upon which stand two candles, to be lighted only upon festival occasions.
In the middle is a dish containing sand, in which are the burned fragments of several joss sticks. The pious Celestial lights one of these, and placing it in the sand on the altar prays to his deity. From the ceiling hangs two Chinese lanterns, and there is also a glass vessel containing some kind of vegetable oil in which floats a burning wick.
A cup of the same oil is placed in the shrine for the especial use of the god. Upon the wall are hung bulletin boards where the news which agitates the Chinese world is pasted. A curious scroll, resembling the red cover on a pack of fire crackers, attracts attention and proves to be a directory of business of the principal Chinese merchants in San Francisco.
Gazette & Courier - Monday, September 20, 1875
Why she didn’t catch it
Why she didn’t catch it - One of our prominent merchants was informed a day or two since , when he went home to tea, that there was a mouse in the sitting room; it had run in there during the afternoon, and they had shut the door to keep it in until someone came to catch it. "Well, why didn’t YOU catch it?" said the gentleman to his wife as he started for the sitting room, banging the door pretty sharply behind him.
The ladies - there were 2 or 3 callers present - waited in breathless silence and were soon startled by a yell that sent the lady of the house into a swoon and one of the callers to the rescue.
Opening the door, there was the gentleman with his pants half off, both hands grasping the antipodes of the small of his back,and he executing a Modoc war dance in the middle of the room.
The lady said "What is it?" The gentleman said "You clear out and call my wife". Soon as cold water and camphor had revived her, the lady of the house went in and quiet soon was restored. Inquiry elicited the fact that when the gentleman went in and discovered the mouse he went for it at once, and the mouse went up the leg of his pantaloons and got in such a position that he could not be shook out, and fearing that he would bite as well as scratch, he seized him with both hands, and then found it impossible to get his pants off alone.When the mouse was finally removed his wife quietly remarked "You see now why I didn’t catch it". The gentleman said he did. (Faribault Democrat) [Minnesota].
Gazette & Courier - Monday, September 20, 1875
Bummers in San Francisco
Bummers in San Francisco ... San Francisco has a ...full ... of bummers. Nowhere else can a worthless fellow too lazy to work, too cowardly to steal, get on so well. The climate befriends him, for he can sleep out of doors 4/5 of the year, and the free lunch opens to him boundless vistas of carnal delights. He can gorge himself daily, for a nominal sum get a dinner that a king would envy for 50 cents.
There are two classes of saloons where the midday repasts are furnished - two-bit places and one-bit places. In the first he gets a drink and a meal. In the second he gets a drink and a meal of inferior quality. He pays for the drink, 25 or 15 cents, according to the grade of the place, and gets his meal for nothing.
This consists of,in the better class of establishment, soup, boiled salmon, roast beef of the best quality, bread and butter, potatoes, tomatoes, crackers, and cheese.
Many of these places are fitted up in a style of Oriental grandeur. A stragner entering one of them casually might be under the delusion that he had found his way by mistake to the salon of a San Francisco millionaire.
He would find mirrors reaching from floor to ceiling, carpets of the finest texture and most appropriate patterns, massive tables covered with papers and periodicals, the walls embellished with expensive paintings. A large picture which had adorned a famous drink bar and free lunch house was sold the other day for $12,500. Some of the keepers are men of education and culture. One is an art critic of high local repute, who has written ...very readable...San Francisco. Scribner’s.
[After struggling to read this, I found it to be an excerpt of Scribner’s Monthly, July 1875, "The city of the Golden Gate", by Samuel Williams, p. 274].
Silver plated solid steel knives - a full assortment of these knives which every family is now using in preference to all others, just received and selling low. A good thing for $3 per dozen. C.P. Forbes. Greenfield.
Gazette & Courier - Monday, September 20, 1875
Wendell
Wendell - There are growing signs of an upward tendency, all things included. A new hearse house has just been completed, and a new hearse is, we are assured, under way, and it is time, for the old one had become so frightful that no one would consent to be put into it on any condition.
The remark has often been made that there has been a decided improvement within the last few years in the expectation of men regarding the near future of these old hills, and in the actual effort that is being made to restore the place to its former relations, so far as that may be done. Although our population is the lowest that it has reached for 6 decades, yet there is a future for these hills and valleys that but few dream of at the present day of trial and tramps.
In the mercantile line a new change has occurred. J.N. Beach, successor of Danforth Putnam and the company he represented, as the legitimate successors of O.H.H. Powers, himself the successor of Messrs. Oatman & Fisk, who succeeded Mr. Creagh after the fire, who came in after M.M. Stebbins made the mistake in leaving the place and O. Leach, his immediate successor in quitting the business when it was prospering in his hands.
There is no trouble in trade here except the scarcity of paying, ready paying customers, and this seems to be the general complaint all around. There is one item in this matter which the welfare of the place requires to be stated. It is this: Orange and elsewhere have completely succeeded in deluding a large class of the people with the notion that they are, in coming to them with their trade, doing first rate when they just fleece them, with the expectation that they are getting things cheap.
But there is the other side to this matter. Where did the money come from to build up those fine blocks and shops and sich [sic]? Now quite a large slice of it came off from these hills. But Orange and elsewhere don’t pay any taxes to keep things up here moving; don’t build up anything here and don’t propose to do it.
What these greedy places evidently want is to have us get what we can and run down and bring it to them at the price they think best to give, and take their truck and dicker at their own price.Don’t suppose they feel any pangs of guilt in the matter; but this past and present state of things up here shows that there is a screw loose somewhere.But things will change sometime, if not sooner, when the valleys will be obliged to conform to the old hills, or go without potatoes.
Gazette & Courier - Monday, September 20, 1875
Shelburne Falls
Shelburne Falls - The ladies of the Baptist Society will give us an oyster and pound party at the vestry on Wed. eve. Many novel and interesting entertainments will be introduced. All members of the Society will each carry a pound of something which will be sold at auction. Let everybody attend.
Gazette & Courier - Monday, September 20, 1875
South Deerfield
South Deerfield - S.F. Fisher has reopened his harness shop in the basement of the Methodist Church; P. Corcoran a shop in Pierce's block; James Baghardt a shop over the post office; E.H. Warren a stable at his residence, and James M. Houston has opened a hotel in the second story of Pierce's block.
Gazette & Courier - Monday, September 20, 1875
Greenfield items
Greenfield - A number of our citizens, principally ladies, were taken in some weeks ago by a fellow pretending to be getting subscribers for a periodical called "Cottage Hearth".They paid their money, and when, after waiting a reasonable time the periodical did not make its appearance, they wrote to the publisher. They were told that no such agent had been engaged and they had been swindled. Moral: don't trust book agents, etc. with your money until you get the equivalent, and still better, don't have anything to do with them.
Gazette & Courier - Monday, September 20, 1875
Greenfield items
Greenfield - J.P. Felton has purchased of W.S. Moore the meat market opposite the American House. D.L. Fay, formerly with Mrs. Moore, takes charge of it for Mr. Felton.
Gazette & Courier - Monday, September 20, 1875
Conway
Conway - Joseph Bennett and his brother-in-law, John Madison, we understand, have been purchasing of late some 30 acres of additional meadow land of a Mr. Hayes. Their fine, extra tobacco, of about 5 acres in all, is safely on the poles.
Gazette & Courier - Monday, September 20, 1875
Conway
Conway - It is said that Arthur Tucker and R.M. Cook have been taking a short trip to the sea shore. There are some new goods in Mr. Tucker's store since his return.
Gazette & Courier - Monday, September 20, 1875
Hampshire County news
A pretty cheeky individual went to the station agent at Northampton Friday night, and asked him to send up a car to Hatfield to be loaded with tobacco for shipment to Hartford, representing himself as the purchaser and shipper. The car was duly sent up and 23 cases of tobacco, worth about $2500, were taken from James Warner's storehouse and placed in the car, and the car was started for Hartford.
The conversation between the thief and the station agent happened to be overheard by Samuel Billings of Hatfield, and after looking into the matter, his suspicions that all was not right were confirmed, and a telegram to Superintendent Mulligan caused the detention of the car when it reached Springfield.
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
Sunderland
Sunderland - Albert Hobart has built a new tobacco barn and corn house. Deacon Gay is thoroughly repairing the house he bought of the E.E. Robinson estate. Tobacco is mostly on the poles, and on the whole is an average crop. Apples are selling low, there being more than was expected. The crop of onions is good, but prices rule low.
Gazette & Courier - Monday, September 13, 1875
Court record
Court record - The fifth week of the Superior Court continued the business of the term, beginning Tues. with the following trials before the court:
John O’Donnell vs. Bartholomew Reardon & Trustees - Finding for the plaintiff, amount $68.68, and the charging of the Trustee (the Keith Paper Co.) with $76.07...Erastus Cowles vs. Edwin A. Ball - This was an action of trespass, wherein the plaintiff alleged that the defendant, who, being a highway surveyor, had, in repairing the highway on Deerfield Meadow, trespassed upon the plaintiff’s land, plowing into the Broughton Pond road, a turf embankment some 3 ft. wide and 68 rods in length.
Also, by removing a stone at the western terminus of the road. The question at issue being the true location of the northern line of said road. The defendant claimed that he had not exceeded the original limits of the road, which was laid out in 1796. The case developed the fact that the race of old men were not yet extinct, and the remembrances of the greater portion of Deerfield were required on the pros and cons of the matter in dispute. Finding for the defendant...
Henry Couillard vs. Elihu Smead - This was an action by the plaintiff, as tax collector of Shelburne, to recover $33.85, being a tax assessed in 1871. The defendant claimed that the tax had already been paid by J.B. Whitney, who, acting as his agent, handed the plaintiff the money in the yard of his livery stable at Shelburne Falls, and moreover, fixed the date as Apr. 29, 1871.
The circumstances attending the alleged payment were detailed by Mr. Whitney, while the plaintiff, while testifying that at the date named he was at Winchester N.H., engaged in the joint occupation of "courting a woman and trading horses", succeeded in raising an issue of fact, which, after a subsequent attempt by the plaintiff’s side to show the true status of the witness Whitney, for truth and veracity, and the counter attempt of the defense to discredit Couillard on the same ground; the truth might be said to indeed be "trembling in the balance". Finding for the plaintiff, amount $40.78...
The inhabitants of Leverett vs. the inhabitants of Rowe - This was an action to recover for money expended by the town of Leverett in assisting a pauper by the name of Rice, and whom it was claimed, had a legal settlement in the town of Rowe. The circumstances of the case were quite peculiar. One of the ways by which a person gains a settlement in a town is by the possession and residence on an estate of freehold for 3 years.
A settlement once gained of course continuing until a new one is gained elsewhere. In this case, Mr. Rice owned and lived upon a place in Rowe, but a few days previous to the expiration of 3 years he returned the deed of land to the original grantor, who then conveyed the property to a new party. Mr. Rice continued to live upon the land for some few weeks after giving up the deed as mentioned.
The new party who took the property did not take possession; neither did the original grantor exercise any act of ownership except the mere transferring of the deeds till after the expiration of 3 years. The question arises whether the fact of giving the deed back by Rice to his grantor, did moderate the circumstances, divest Rice of his seizin of the freehold. If not, of course he gained a settlement; while if the residence or the seizin were cut short by a few days, the statute would not be complied with and the town would not be liable. The point raised was so peculiar that the Judge reserved his decision...
Lucius Smith vs. Austin Drake, appt. The case came up on appeal from a magistrate’s findings. The court found for the plaintiff and assessed damages of $7.42...
The following cases were disposed of by judgment without trial: Samuel B. Fletcher vs. Henry Herring - This case has stood upon the docket for a long time, having been tried by a jury in 1873. It was settled on agreement by a verdict for the plaintiff, amount $19...Moses Stebbins vs. Jasper Gillett - This was another of the old cases consisting of many items of an account with offsets. Judgment was granted on award of referee...Edward H. Fitts vs. Samuel Sugland - Judgment on award of referee for plff. Damages, $4. Each party to pay their own cost...
Turners Falls Lumber Co. vs. David A. Wood - This was an action on 2 promissory notes, one of $1200...and the other of $518...Judgment for plaintiffs on both...Edwin Pierce et al. vs. Levi A. Bates Jr. et al. Judgment for plaintiffs against Bates for account of $52.50...Edwin Pierce et al. vs. Allen Mansfield - Judgment for plaintiff on a promissory note...for $58...
William L. Bradley vs. Edward Barney - Judgment for plaintiff on a promissory note...for $212...Bradley Fertilizer Co. vs. Edward Barney - This was an action on a note given by George Fuller of Deerfield, upon which the defendant was sued as surety, for $300. Judgment for plaintiff on the same...
Asa C. Lewis vs. Lorenzo D. Joslyn appt. Judgment for plaintiff, amount $30...Nathaniel Holmes et al. vs. Stephen L. Pratt - Judgment for plaintiff on note...for $59.10, upon which $40 had been paid before suit. William R. Armstrong vs. R.L. Goss. Judgment for plaintiff...for $400...Nathaniel Holmes et al. vs. Thomas Lap[?]. Judgment for plaintiff for $11...
George W. Potter et al. vs. R.J. Goss. Judgment for plaintiff on 2 notes, one for $732 and another for $82.89, also an account of $319. Total, $1134.52. Frank L. Eldridge vs. R.L. Goss et al - Judgment for plaintiff on note, amount $350...In the case of S.L. Shattuck et al. vs. George Jones, in which a verdict for plaintiff was given by the jury, a motion was filed for a new trial. But the motion has been overruled.
The docket has been well cleared of old cases this term, some 40 being settled out of court, to which no reference has been made in our reports. Judge Aldrich has earned the thanks of suiters by his persistent labors in holding this, the longest term of the Superior Court, known for many years. The court adjourned for the term Fri...The law term of the Supreme Judicial Court will begin Sept. 28, with the full bench.
Gazette & Courier - Monday, September 13, 1875
Erving
Erving - We learn from good authority that men are here and there purchasing revolvers for their wives to frighten tramps with. One of our citizens has provided his house with one. Strange that women always have to "faint away" after the enemy has been conquered.
Gazette & Courier - Monday, September 13, 1875
Orange
Orange - Darius Stone has purchased the stock of groceries formerly owned by H.C. Davis, and has placed James Dyke in charge of the store as salesman. Should he be successful in disposing of the old stock, he will continue with a fresh lot of carefully selected goods.
Gazette & Courier - Monday, September 13, 1875
The Greenfield end of the Troy and Greenfield Railroad
The Greenfield end of the Troy and Greenfield Railroad - Messrs. Keith and Barton, Greenfield’s committee to adjust damages with parties on the line of the railroad, have been busy the past week, and have not yet completed their task. Starting from the track of the Connecticut River Railroad, a strip is taken from the Agricultural Fair Ground, the width of which is not yet determined.
A small portion of Mrs. Colle’s lot will probably be taken, and a little from the south side of John Osterhout’s lot and also Judge Aiken’s. A corner is taken from the Catholic premises, but the road will not come within 20 ft. of the new house, or seriously interfere with it. A small piece will be taken from the rear of Miss Lucy Billings’ lot, and the road will then cross lands belonging to the Methodist Society, H.J. Davis, A. DeWolf, L.T. Smith, Mrs. L.W. Rice, John Russell, and William Elliot, running for the most part on a side hill, and not greatly damaging any of the parties.
On E.J. Jones’ premises, it takes a part of his garden; on Dennis W. Jones, a rear lot; a strip of 50 rods, belonging to Charles L. Lowell; a strip fro the open lot adjoining, belonging to Joel Wilson, and also the premises in the rear of it belonging to ____ Merzh. Crossing the avenue, Mrs. Helen M. Pratt’s house stands directly in the way, and her whole lot is purchased. Mrs. Mary B. Coombs owns the remainder of the land to the Green River.
On the other side of Green River, the road will run 400 ft. south of James Newton’s hosue. At this point there will be a fill of 30 ft., which will require an embankment 16 rods wide at the bottom. The distance across the Newton premises is 1800 ft. It strikes the east side of J.M. Munson’s lot, not going within 25 rods of his house, taking from him 5 acres of pine land running through a cut of 33 ft. on the extreme south as it comes to the Deerfield line.
The length of the road on Munson’s land is 78 rods. The line of road is about half way between the old trotting park on Petty’s Plain and the County road west of it, crossing land belonging to the Bird heirs, a small corner of land belonging to Allen Newton, George W. Potter and Washington Jones, then lands of Caleb Jones, George W. Jones, ____ Hartwell, L.B. Wise, Elexis Jones, Charles Wood, Frederick Conant, and then on to the line at West Deerfield.
At Blakeley Hollow, the bed of the road is 23 ft. under the present track, and from that point west, runs on the side hill, a succession of cuts and fills, but nowhere interferes with houses west of Green River. The bridge across Green River is to be a two track iron bridge, 500 ft. long and 80 ft. high. The piers and abutments will have to rest on piles, as an iron rod has been sunk near the river, to the depth of 40 ft., and the ground was found to be soft and treacherous.
The bridge is to be of the first things constructed, and will be sub-contracted to one of the parties who are now making estimates.
Gazette & Courier - Monday, September 13, 1875
News about home: Greenfield items
Greenfield - D.L. Moody, the evangelist, was in town last Tues., and won the everlasting esteem of one of our grocers by purchasing 4 pounds of coffee. By the way, they tell the following little incident which occurred the other day when Mr. Moody and his wife went to Brattleboro shopping. Not being particularly interested in the purchases she was to make, he took a walk along the street, and when passing the store where his wife was engaged, one clerk called to another to come to the door and see the famous preacher.
The knight of the yardstick waiting upon Mrs. Moody said "There goes Moody, the revivalist, would you not like to see him? There are a plenty of better looking men than he is, ain't there?" The lady relished the joke, and of course had a good laugh over it with her husband.
- Wed, Feb 24, 2010
