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Gazette & Courier - Monday, September 20, 1875
News of the week
Moses Hull of Boston and a crowd of other lunatics, profaned the Sabbath and the beautiful Lake Walden at Concord on the 12th by a noisy meeting, advocating free love and Spiritualism, and resolved "that our present system of marriage is slavery, and that, considering that idiocy, insanity, prostitution, adultery, rape, drunkenness and murder are its legitimate fruits, it is the duty of every lover of humanity to protest against it".
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
Conway
Conway - An Irish wake held the past week at the funeral of one of their number here, was frought with some unpleasant occurrences from imbibing too freely. Rows, broken carriages, run away horses, etc., are disgraceful to say the least, from such causes at such times. Is this the Hibernian way of showing grief? Not with all of them we are sure, but all nations have their peculiarities.
Gazette & Courier - Monday, September 13, 1875
Shelburne Falls
Shelburne Falls - Mon. Trial Justice John A. Winslow Esq. of Charlemont fined William O. Donahue for drunkenness, $2 and costs; Thomas Sharky for assault and battery upon David Smith, bookkeeper for James H. Edwards, $5 and costs. The complaint against Robert Maloney for disorderly conduct was nollo prosequied. The other two for want of money, went down to lodge and board with Sheriff Wells.
Gazette & Courier - Monday, September 13, 1875
South Deerfield
South Deerfield - The report of the fire, as given by the Springfield Republican on Mon., was anything but satisfactory to the "Law Abiding Citizens", their item in Tuesday's paper to the contrary notwithstanding. The insinuation that Mr.Mulligan allowed a set of roughs to come up on the train, who created "so much disturbance", the citizens do not believe.
On the contrary, we are requested to say that they are very grateful to Superintendent Mulligan and the company which came with him, for the very prompt manner in which they responded to the call for aid, notwithstanding they did not get here to render much aid, they did manifest a disposition, for which they have the hearty thanks of all Law Abiding Citizens". [Very blurry section follows]
Then the insinuation that the Irish were more drunken and disorderly than any other class is a mistake, perhaps not purposely. On the other hand there were many Irish [?] as they always have on such occasions in this place. As for the liquor flowing freely we will say nothing, as judging from the report we presume the said reporter knew better about that than the "Law Abiding Citizens" [more blurriness - sorry]. Law Abiding Citizen.
Gazette & Courier - Monday, September 13, 1875
Leverett
Leverett - H.W. Field of Leverett, on complaint of Amherst parties, was tried before Justice Thomas Mon. for being intoxicated "last June". The evidence was rather conflicting, and showed pretty conclusively that there was some material for the prosecution which did not appear on the surface. The justice was not aware of this fact, and fined him one dollar and costs, which he paid.
Gazette & Courier - Monday, September 13, 1875
Greenfield -
Greenfield - Trial Justice Brainard disposed of the following cases last week: Michael Moran, who took wood from Millers Falls, the property of Oselo Goodnow, was fined $2 and costs, from which he appealed. James Dwyer, Whitney Barden, Horatio Cutler and David Buffum of Montague City, were arrested for assaulting Abner Avery, and were fined $5 and one fourth of the costs each, which amounted to $8.92.
John McIves, one of the Bardwell’s Ferry roughs, was arrested by P.M. Fitzgerald for drunkenness, fined $5 and costs, which if not paid within 3 days, he was to take 20 days in the House of Correction. Dennis Brown for assault on Michael O’Neil, was brought in by Sheriff Swan of Shelburne Falls, and fined $8 and costs. Justice Davis discharged Patrick Mahaney of Cheapside, who was brought up for drunkenness, and fined John McIves $2 and costs - $4.95, who was picked up drunk by night policeman Carbee.
Gazette & Courier - Monday, September 6, 1875
News about home: Greenfield items
(Greenfield) Pat Finn and James Lynch, who had been enjoying the privileges of the license law, were fined by Justice Brainard, the former $7.75 and the latter $12.50, while John Bunting, brought before the same magistrate for vagrancy, had his case continued for sentence.
Gazette & Courier - Monday, September 6, 1875
News about home: Greenfield items
(Greenfield) John Collins, Charles Warren, Peter Quinn, Thomas McCarty and William Howard, were participators in a grand drunk and knock down out at Bardwell's Ferry. Officers H.S. Swan and J.G. Brown "lit" into them and arrested the first 3 for drunkenness, McCarty for assault, and Howard for resistance, and lodged the whole pack in our jail. At Justice Brainard's court on Mon. the former were fined $12.00 each, McCarty $14.50 and Howard $14.15.
Many who are suffering from the effects of the warm weather and are debilitated are advised by physicians to take moderate amounts of whiskey two or three times during the day. In a little while those who adopt this advice frequently increase the number of "drinks" and in time become confirmed inebriates. A beverage which will not create thirst for intoxicating liquors, and which is intended especially for the benefit of debilitated persons, is Dr. Schenck's Seaweed Tonic, containing the juices of many medicinal herbs...
Gazette & Courier - Monday, August 30, 1875
News about home: Greenfield items
The four o'clock train from Boston Sat. knocked an Irishman named William Shehan (one of the Bardwell's Ferry railroad laborers) from the track, on which he was sitting in a drunken condition this side of Lake Pleasant. The cow catcher hit him in the thigh and threw him about 30 feet. He was not dangerously injured, and was picked up and brought to Greenfield where he was attended by Dr. C.L. Fisk Jr.
Gazette & Courier - Monday, August 30, 1875
News about home: Greenfield items
Officer Kimball was called upon Fri. aft. to take into custody Jim Bowers, living near the Cheapside Bridge, who was drunk and abusing his wife. Jim made some noisy demonstrations when called upon by the officer, but was finally jailed. Justice Davis continued his case on the complaint of drunkenness, and put him under bonds of $100 to keep the peace 6 months.
Gazette & Courier - Monday, August 30, 1875
News about home: Greenfield items
Matthew Harrigan and Pat Sullivan, victims of intemperance, were brought before Justice Davis last week, and the former fined $3 and costs, and the latter $1 and costs, which they both paid.
Gazette & Courier - Monday, August 23, 1875
Orange
A man, somewhat confused in his ideas by imbibing too large a quantity of that forbidden juice, stole a pair of boots from the shop of Job Haskins a few nights since, and got soundly thrashed for the trouble.
Gazette & Courier - Monday, August 23, 1875
News about home: Greenfield items
On Sat. night the 14th, John Hayes, a workman at Bardwell's Ferry, alleges that he was robbed in Greenfield of $80 in money, and a note of $600 from Daniel Hayes. When in a partial state of intoxication, he fell in with John Baxter, who invited him to accompany him home and spend the night with him. About 12 o'clock, Michael Finn and Daniel Finn came up to Hayes and Baxter, near the American House, and asked the latter if he was going to take Hayes home. They pretended to Hayes that they were officers, and were going to take care of him.
The party proceeded down the depot hill, the two Finns escorting Hayes, while Baxter followed behind. Reaching the marble shop building, Hayes was thrown down, and someone, he didn't know who, turned his pocket wrong side out and took its contents. The trio then ran off and left him. Hayes soon after found his way to one Woodlock's, on Washington Street, and the two went to the lock-up to enter complaint. Baxter was arrested on Mon., and from information imparted by him to Officer Fitzgerald, the two Finns were also taken into custody.
A trial was held in the Grand Jury room by Justice Brainard on Mon. eve., continued to Tues. eve., at which time the above facts were brought out. F.G. Fessenden Esq. appeared for the Government, and Austin DeWolf, Esq. for the Finns. Baxter and the Finns were held over to the Nov. term of the Superior court for trial in the sum of $1000 each.
Gazette & Courier - Monday, August 23, 1875
In Bolton
In Bolton, at one time on Sun., within the space of 1 mile, on one of the principal roads in town, 25 persons in different stages of intoxication were counted, from the beastly drunk to the slightly sprung, and were all more or less noisy, and yet the Selectmen have not granted a single license.
Gazette & Courier - Monday, August 16, 1875
News about home: Greenfield items
The robbery at Tough End on the night of the 7th was reported by Michael Kane, a laborer on the Troy & Greenfield Railroad. He said he spent the night at John Bunting's, and in the morning found his pocket minus $11. P.M. Fitzgerald brought Bunting before Justice Brainard, and though some tobacco had been found on Bunting's person, which Kane claimed, the money could not be found, and the man was discharged for lack of evidence. Dwight Clapp brought before the same magistrate as a common drunkard was found guilty, sentenced and appealed.
We wish we could say for the honor of our village, liquor did not affect us, only through tramps. Both women and men seem to copy their example set of late, to our shame. Temperance people better not go to sleep again, or they will find something worse to battle than the dreaded "Colorado beetle".
Gazette & Courier - Monday, August 9, 1875
News about home: Greenfield items
Among the victims who received sentence at Justice Brainard's court last week were James Moran, who was fined $9.95; Thomas Roach, fined $9.53, and James Riley, fined $9.85. These all belonged to the Bardwell's Ferry gang, and were hauled up for drunkenness. Martin McAllister, a local common drunkard, was sent to the House of Correction for 6 months.
Gazette & Courier - Monday, August 9, 1875
News about home: Greenfield items
One of the Bardwell’s ferry roughs, with more Greenfield whiskey that he could carry, settled down in front of Lamb’s music store to sleep it off Sat. aft. Officer Kimball being called upon to remove him, found the man had still life enough to show considerable fight, and was obliged to put "leaders" on him before he could take him to jail.
Gazette & Courier - Monday, August 9, 1875
News about home: Greenfield items
The heavy rain early last week prevented work on the line of the Troy & Greenfield railroad, and the men flocked into Greenfield for a spree. This is a phase of railroad building with which we are likely to become familiar with during the coming year. The contractors complain, with good reason, at Greenfield's gin mills, and threaten to see if there isn't anything that they can do about it.
Gazette & Courier - Monday, August 9, 1875
News about home: Greenfield items
About 4 o'clock nearly every aft., from half a dozen to a dozen or more men, mostly railroad hands at work on the Troy & Greenfield railroad can be seen staggering toward the depot from the various rum holes of this village, to take the train west. This is the "practical" working of the license law. It did not use [i.e. used] to be so under the prohibitory law and the State Constables.
Gazette & Courier - Monday, August 9, 1875
News about home: Greenfield items
The "water cure" treatment didn't work on a tramp in front of the American House last week. The boys turned on a full head from a hose, but the fellow was a little too drunk to appreciate the joke, and leaned against the curbstone and took it without winking.
- Mon, Jan 18, 2010
