Worcester County, Massachusetts - Chapter 89, 1889

stills OonstitHttvn : Oi>jecti"ii>', Adopiioii - Jeidomij of liujht» - Shaya' Insurrection: Citnses, Convention, High reeling. Dispersion of the Iw aurgents, C'nptnin Dnif, Oath of Allegiance - Vine for Nonltepresentatitni in the t','entr(il Court - Slavery in Leicester - ^^ Instructions^^ - Jews ; Aaron Ijopez - liiveni Letter to Colonel Ilenshom.

Soon after the Declaration of Independence measures were taken for the organization of a Constitutional State Government. These movements were, however, regarded premature and ill-advised. In October, 1776, the town voted that the House of Representatives of this State ought not to institute any new form of government at present, and chose a committee "to show the court why the town objects to settling a new constitution.'' Some of these objections stated were that there was no provision for amendment, that the town was not fully represented, that they were not allowed a Representative, and " that a number of the first principal inhabitants'' were " in the service." The Constitution first formed was rejected by the people.

In 1779 the town voted unanimously to send two men - Seth Washburn and William Henshaw- - "to frame a Constitution of Massachusetts." These gentlemen were prominent in the conventi(m. The Constitution was the next year approved by the town, article by article, by a large majority.

Struggling against the oppression of the mother country, the people were equally jealous of any encroachments upon their rights by the government they were seeking to organize and establish. In their various resolutions and other acts in the later years of the last century there is evidence of their determination to secure a government " of the people, by the people and for the people." They protested against " monopolies.'' In 1777 they earnestly condemned the act of the General Court, calling in bills of credit .and sinking them in a loan, as "cruel and oppressive" and " grinding the faces of the poor." In January of the next year they raised twelve hundred pounds and loaned to the State. In 1787 they instructed their representative, Samuel Denny, to oppose the excessive tax on farmers and on polls ; also to oppose high salaries, as in present circumstances it was not well to "support courtly dignity." They expressed themselves as opposed to the "support of commerce," so "as to prevent their giving due encouragement to our own manufactures.'' The location of the Legislature appeals to have been a subject much agitated, and at the same time the town declared " the setting of the General Government in the town of Boston is* Matter which the Citizens of this Commonwealth are not generally satisfied with," and advised that its removal to some other place be tried by " experience."

The eight years' struggle of the Revolution had hardly ended when the State was threatened with a formidable civil war. It was the natural reaction from the long-continued strain upon the endurance of the people. They bad been taxed to their utmost limit ; all interests had suft'ered ; the people were impoverished ; the currency had depreciated and finally became valueless ; the State had no credit; the condition of the Government and of the community was one of bankruptcy ; and thousands of suits were brought before the courts, and forced sales were numerous. Some of the acts of the Legislature were regarded as oppressive. General conventions were held in the county to confer with reference to these complaints. Two of these were in Leicester. The presence of wise and loyal men like David Henshaw and Col. Thomas Denny was a check upon rash action. When at length the dissatisfaction developed into insurrection, under the leadership of Daniel Shays, the town withdrew its delegates. The excitement was intense and the sentiments of the people were divided, some sympathizing with the insurgents and joining their ranks. As in the War of the Roses the parties bad their distinctive badges, the insurgents a green sprig and the supporters of the Government a white fillet of paper. The Rev. Benjamin Conklin, loyal to the nation and the commonwealth as in the days of the Revolution, was repeatedly forced to leave his home and hide himself to escape seizure by the insurgents in the night.

The same loyal leadership and the same patient devotion to the governmeut which were conspicuous in the Revolution, held the town to a wise and patriotic course. Every man in town over twenty years of age was by vote required to take an oath of allegiance to the State, and the list of those who thus complied was to be reported at town-meeting.

The excitement and peril of the rebellion culminated in Worcester, in December, 1786, in an attempt of the insurgent army to prevent the opening of the court. The house of Mr. Joseph Allen, then residing in Worcester, was guarded by a sentinel, who opposed him with a fixed bayonet to prevent him from going to court. Seth Washburn seized the guard and wrested his musket from him. Lincoln, in his "History of Worcester," states that Justice Seth Washburn him - self was also met by the guard, and that two friends who " seized the gun presented to his breast "were arrested and detained in custody.

in a snow storm of such severity and cold so intense that many of his men were overcome and some were frozen to death, Luke Day, one of the insurgent captains, reached Leicester with one hundi-ed and fifty ii^n, but was prevented by tlie storm from joining the main body at Worcester. Scant courtesy did tlie rebels receive from the sturdy patriots of that day. When this same Day, on his way from Worcester to Springfield on a cold winter day, entered the house of Nathan Sargent and made free to warm himself by the fire and ostentatiously announced himself as Capt. Day, he soon found himself, with hat and sword preceding him, floundering in the snow-drift outside. Several Leicester men participated in the march through drifting snow and were present on the 3d of February when the insurgents, upon the approach of the State forces to their rendezvous at Petersham, tied without the liring of a gun, so completely discomfited that, as Lincoln in his "History of Worcester" e.xpresses it, " liad an army dropped from the clouds upon the hill the consternation could not have been greater.'' Dr. Austin Flint was one of the number, having, as he said, volunteered "to help drive the Mobites out."

During all the later years of the century per.-ons who engaged in trade or kept public-houses were required to take a stringent oath of allegiance to the republic.

For many years the salaries of representatives to the "Great and General Court" were paid by the several towns. The town in 1789 was fined for not sending a representative ; and in a memorial, an ancient copy of which is before the writer, the town petitioned to have the fine remitted. The memorial bears date of May 10, 1790, and is strikingly illustrative of the straits into which the people had been placed. They were still in debt for money borrowed to be loaned "to the Commonwealth " and for the payment of " soldiers," and for the erection of a " House of Public Worship," and they were " at a greater expense than most towns for repairing their roads owing to their hills being wet and rocky.''

Slavery has never existed under the Constitution of the Slate of Massachusetts. There were slaves in the Province till the time of the Revolution, but the Constitution adopted in 1780 declared the right of "all men to enjoy aud defend their lives and liberties." The number of slaves in Leicester was small; still they were here ; Titus and Cain, and Ctesar, and Quashi, and Prymus, and Ponipey, and Will, and Pegg, and Jenny, and Dinah, and Prince, and Jethro the last person buried in the burying-yard by the church ; but they were treated as wards rather than as slaves. They lived, and worked, and ate with the families, in some cases were paid wages, and in repeated instances were set free. Mr. Ralph Earle not only freed his slave Sharp, but also gave him in 1701) a farm of thirty acres. But slavery, even in its mildest form, was discordant with the spirit of a freedomloving people. In 1773 th* town gave expression to its views on the subject in instructions to its Representative, Mr. Thomas Denny: "And as we have the highest regard for (so as even to revere the name of) liberty, we cannot behold but with the greatest abhorrence any of our fellow-creatures in a state of slavery."

An interesting episode in the history of the town was the settlement here, in 1777, of a colony of Jews- Mr. Aaron Lopez, who was carrying on an extensive business in Newport, R. I., that year removed to Leicester, Newport beiig then in the possession of British troops; with him came several other Jewish families. There were about seventy persons in all, twelve of them being slaves. He built, on the part of the present Common now owned ^y the Academy, a house in the central room of which he " kept store," in which, in the words of H. G. Henshaw, Esq., he "carried on a successful trafic in Bohea and Gunpowder teas, serges, calamancos,," and doubtless a variety of other articles. Mr. Rivera had a store on the site of the hotel. "They were too patriotic to refuse in payment for their commodities Continental bills, the currency of the times ; but felt rather scrupulous about holding such treacherous paper over the Sabbath, and were careful to pass it off to the farmers in exchange for neat stock or srain." They were strict in the observance of Jewish law. They carefully observed the seventh day, and also refrained from business on Sunday. A child having incautiously tasted of pork, at a neighbor's house, was treated with an emetic, by way of purification.

Mr. Lopez wa.s a man of high character and standing, courteous and affable in manner, of extensive commercial knowledge and strict integrity in business, hospitable and benevolent. His style of living was \ for those days elegant. His stock in trade at the time of his death was valued at $12,000, and his estate at .1100,000. Abraham Mendez and Jacob Reed Rivera were other prominent members of the colony, and carried on business, though on a smaller scale. On the 20th of May, 1782, Mr. Lopez, while on his way, in a sulky, to Providence, accompanied by his family in a carriage, was drowned before their eyts at Smithfield, R. 1., in Smith Pond, into which he had driven to water his horse. At the close of the war the company returned to Newport, followed by the respect and regard of the people, with whom they had found a hospitable and congenial home. After J tlieir departure a friendly correspondence was maintained and probably an interchange of visits. One of the letters remains. It was written by Mr. Rivera to Col. Henshaw, in a clear and beautiful hand, and the whole style and spirit of the letter are indicative of the intelligence and high character of the writer, i and of his appreciation of the friendship of the people I of Leicester, and of the value of our national institutions. " I am happy," he writes, " to find my countrymen (the Spanish nation) begin to divest themselves from bigotry, ignorance and indolence, and adopt in their room learning, liberty and liberality of sentiments in religious matters. That system, with propper encouragements to arts and sciences, make no (ioubt, will, in time, enable them to arrive to that state of perfection that will class them with all othei civilized and enlightened nations, and enrich thai impoverished nation, and I am confident to say, great advantages will derive to that nation in particular, and the whole world in general, from the American Revolution."