Pittsfield City

Might Live

The names inscribed on the monument are those of citizens of Pittsfield who died in the war, either from wounds, or, before their discharge, from disease contracted in the war ; not including citizens of other places, who served on her quota. They are as follows :

Tenth Regiment

Sergt. Haskel Hemenway, killed July 1, 1862, at Malvern Hill. Sergt. Thomas Duffee, killed at Spottsylvania, Va., May 12, 1864. Samuel D. Burbank, killed May 10, 1864, at Spottsylvania, Va. James Cassidy, killed May 5, 1864, at Wilderness, Va. Richard S. Corliss, killed July 1, 1862, at Malvern Hill, Va. Nelson N. Grippen, killed July 1, 1862, at Malvern Hill, Va. Charles F. Harris, Jr., died Sept. 17, 1862, at Newport News, Va. Alfred C. Hemenway, killed May 30, 1862, at Fair Oaks, Va. Gardner B. Hibbard, died November 13, 1861, at Washington, D. C. Michael Hogan.

Twentieth Regiment Twenty-First Regiment

Capt. William H. Clark, died of wounds, August 16, 1864. Sergt. Justin S. Cressy, killed September 1, 1862, at Chantilly, Va. Sergt. Evelyn A. Garlick, killed September 1, 1862, at Chantilly, A''a. Corp. Charles L. Woodworth, killed March 14, 1862, at Newborn, N. C.

Henry F. Chamberlain, died April 6, 1862, at Newbern, N. C. George W. Jarvis, killed June 2, 1864, at Cold Harbor, Va. Hobart R. Mcintosh, killed September 1, 1862, at Chantilly, Va. George E. Menton, killed March 14, 1862, at Newbern, N. C. Samuel Wright, died March 30, 1863, of wounds.

Twenty-Seventh Regiment

Sergt. Willard L. Merry, died April 19, 1862, at Newbern, N. C. Sergt. William H. Monnier, died December 4, 1864, at Annapolis, Md. James S. Bentley, died September 4, 1802, at Newbern, N. C. David Bolio, killed June 3, 1864, at Cold Harbor, Va. Charles H. Davis, killed June 18, 1864, at Petersburg, Va. James Donlon, died July 20, 1864, at Andersouville, Ga. Joseph Goddit, died June 27, 1864, of wounds, at Point of Rocks, Md. Eleazur Wilbur, died August 24, 1864, at Andersonville prison, Ga. James Williams, died in Libby prison, Va., June 8, 1864. John Wilson, died May 21, 1864, at Norfolk, Va.

Thirty-First Regiment History Of Pittsfield

Henry Holder, died October 13, 1863, at Cairo, 111. Edward E. Quigley, died December 2i, 1861, at Cliester, Mass. George L. Martin, died October 12, 1864, at New Orleans, La. John B. Ross, died April 11, 1864, at New Orleans, La. James Tute, died June 17, 1864, at New Orleans, La. Jonathan F. H. Harrington, Jr.

Thirty-Fourth Regiment

Corp. Noah A. Clark, killed October 18, 1863, at Ripon, Va. John Casey, killed June- 6, 1864, at Piedmont, Va. Charles H. Dill, died August 20, 1864, at Staunton, Va. William E. Donnelly, killed at Newmarket, Va. Edgar P. Fairbanks, died November 6, 1862, at Fort Lyon, Va. John Grady, died November 12, 1865, at Salisbury, N. C. Nelson Harned, died January 7, 1864, at Harper's Ferry, Va. Thomas Leeson, died April 3, 1864, at Martinsburg, Va. John Shaw, died August 27, 1864, at Staunton, Va.

Thirty-Seventh Regiment

Miles H. Blood, killed September 19, 1864, at Winchester, Va. Oliver C. Hooker, killed May 6, 1864, at Wilderness, Va. Patrick Hussey, killed July 3, 1863, at Gettysburg, Pa. Robert Reinhart, killed August 21, 1864, at Fort Stevens, D. C.

Thirty-Ninth Regiment Forty-Ninth Regiment

Charles E. Piatt, died June 6, 1863, of wounds, at Port Hudson, La. William Taylor, died March 20, 18G3, at New Orleans, La. Charles F. Videtto, died April 14, 1863, at Baton Rouge, La.

Fifty-Fourth Regiment Fifty-Seventh Regiment

Corp. George H. Hodge, died June 5, 1864, at Arlington, Va. William G. Bourne, killed May 6, 18G1, at Wilderness, Va. Chester H. Daniels, died July 29, 18G4. Lowell Daniels, killed May 18, 1861, at Spottsylvania, Va. Horace Danyon, died July 18, 1864, at Washington, D. C. Peter Monney, killed May 12, 1864, at Spottsylvania, Va. Patrick Thornton, died May 18, 1864, of wounds. Lester Tyler, killed May 6, 1864, at Wilderness, Va.

History Of Pittsfield

One name, wliicli the committee reluctantly, under the strict interpretation of tlieir rules, omitted from tlie inscription, was that of Lieut. George Read, of the Forty-ninth regiment, who died at Cleveland, 0., before reaching home, but after his discharge from the service on account of ill health.

The cost of the entire monument was ten thousand dollars, besides which, Mr. Thompson received a number of condemned cannon, granted for the work by congress, through the efforts of Hon. H. L. Dawes.

It was determined to place it at the west end of the park, in or near which, a large portion of the Pittsfield soldiers volunteered, and which possessed many other associations of patriotic interest; and the park, however beautiful, being not considered in a proper condition for the reception of the contemplated work, the town placed in the hands of the committee before-named, a further sum of seven thousand dollars, for the purpose of making some longdesired improvements. The nature of these improvements was left to the discretion of the committee, by whom the following changes were made : The oval plot which constitutes the park, was surrounded by a handsome and substantial coping of granite, outside of which a broad gravel walk, with granite curbing, was built. The surface of the plot was graded, and a considerable number of trees, which had become so thick as to impede each other's growth, were felled. The Old Elm had fallen in 1861. In addition to this, the grade of Park place was reduced so as to make it more uniform with that of Bank row.

While these alterations were in progress, the town voted an appropriation of twenty-five hundred dollars, to enable the committee to dedicate the monument to its great purposes, with such impressive words and ceremonies, as should fix them, for at least one generation, in the minds of the community ; and at the same time add to the honors which the town bestowed upon the memory of its heroic dead.

To carry these intentions into effect, the committee had the good fortune to secure the services of so, eminent an orator as George William Curtis. It was afterwards determined to have other exercises than those of the platform ; and such as would require very great industry, zeal, experience, and good judgment. The committee, therefore, called to their aid fifteen gentlemen, distinguished for those qualities, viz. : Messrs. James M. Barker,

Graham A. Root^Israel C. Weller, William H. Teeling, Thomas G. Colt, Samuel E. Nichols, William W. Whiting, Frederick A. Francis, William H. Coogan, Michael Casey, Seth W. Morton, George S. Willis, Jr., D. J. Dodge, Henry B. Brewster, and Erdman Leidhold. By this committee, the exercises of the da,j, with the exception of those on the platform, were arranged and carried out, consultation heing had with the town-committee whenever occasion arose.

The pillar having heen previously erected, the statue was raised to its place at noon, on the 23d of September, 1872, and immediately draped with the national flags belonging to the two political parties in the town, which had, for the day, been removed from the street, in order that no reminder of political differences might, by any chance, mar the harmony of the occasion.

The day fixed for the unvailing of the statue was the 24th of September, in that week of the year which is most unfailingly characterized by the most delicious of autumn days ; and never were September skies more cloudless, or September days more genial in Berkshire, than those which favored the ceremonies with which Pittsfield honored her soldiers.

The streets were brilliant with red, white, blue, green and yellow bunting ; the flags of many nations, arranged with greater regard to the effects of color, than to significant grouping. And, in this view of it, the result was excellent ; the gay colors of the banners, and of the few trees which had begun to put on their autumnal hues - mellow and rich, but not yet gaudy - contrasting finely with the verdure which the foliage had this year retained in unusual freshness.^ Nature and art combined to make a galaday, and the people of western Massachusetts did not incline to resist its attractions. On the morning of the 24th, long trains of cars, from all directions, came in, crowded to their utmost capacity, and the town was soon thronged as it never had been on any similar occasion ; not even at the reception of the Forty-ninth regiment.

The Second regiment of the Massachusetts Volunteer Militia - belonging to Berkshire, Hampden, Hampshire, and Franklin counties, was holding its annual encampment, and acted as escort for the procession, and the following gentlemen were selected as marshals :

Histoey Of Pittsfield

The procession moved in the following order - ^cheering, as it went, the appropriate mottoes at different points along its route, and receiving the plaudits of the crowds which lined the streets -

The procession reached the park - where an ajjpropriately decorated platform had heen erected - at half-past twelve o'clock; and, the assemhly having been called to order by Hon. Thomas Colt, president of the day, the exercises commenced with a prayer by Rev. Dr. Todd.

Major-General W. F. Bartlett, chairman of the sub-committee, uinder whose immediate supervision the monument was erected, then rose, and addressing Mr. Colt, delivered it to him, in a brief speech, in which, after eulogizing the services of Mrs. Fenn, and complimenting the genius of the sculptor, he concluded as follows : often hung the fate of battle ; the man on whose self-forgetting bravery and unflinching firmness the steadiness of the whole line depended; tlie man who bore the colors ; and, comrades, was there ever any flag half so well worth fighting for, half so well worth dying for, as that which we followed? As I look upon your faces that I have seen amid the smoke of battle, and remember how you closed up the gaps made by the fall of those whom we honor to-day, I am conscious that to you also belongs a share of the honor, but with this difterence: their fame was achieved and secured by dying heroic deaths; yours must yet be maintained and preserved by living blameless lives. How well the hand of genius has succeeded in carving in lasting bronze a living memorial of duty done in the past, which shall be to us and to those who shall come after us, an incentive to faithfulness, you shall now judge.

As General Bartlett closed, tlie roil of flags which had hitlierto covered the statue fell, and it was greeted by the hand with appropriate music, and by tlie people with approving shouts.

I receive this monument, - and let us all here receive it, - in trust for eucceeding generations, not alone as a monument to perpetuate the memory of those brave heroes who died fighting for their country, and who sleep in honored graves, but as an eminent and lasting evidence of the value of that country for which they laid down their lives. To the present generation this monument will be a constant reminder of sacrifices, of doubts, of dangers, and of glorious victory. To the surviving soldiers who took part in the great conflict it will be a memento of their own hardships, of deadly battles, of lost comrades and of splendid achievements. To those who in future years shall read these inscriptions, it will teach the duties they owe to a government handed down to them through the blood of martyrs shed for its preservation.

On this very spot, where the sacred stillness of the Cliristian Sabbath has been broken by the clamor of martial music and the tramp of departing soldiers, and where the voice of the patriot preacher has been raised in prayer for their safety and victory, let it stand as an enduring pledge that the devotion and the deaths commemorated on this stone have not been in vain. Let this color-bearer stand with his face to the setting sun, holding up this emblem of liberty to its last lingering rays until the last hopes of liberty shall have expired forever.

Tlien came the oration of George William Curtis, characterized by all its aiithor's classic and glowing eloquence, overflowing with historic allusions and illustrations, and full of the lessons taught by the Avar, <and tlie civil struggle for human rights which preceded it. He opened with a rapid sketch of the history of the the Pittsfield soldiers in the revolution, and in the civil war, and closed with the following lesion :

The educated Germans made better soldiers. The triumph of Germany was a moral victory. It was not cannon and powder and shells - it was character, human quality, that won. Eloquence, says Emerson, is that speech in which there is a man behind every word. Victorious war, says history, is that contest in which intelligence and morality serve the guns.

And how rich was our war in these personal qualities ! How profound the influence of this statue in showing us that the heroic excellence of human character which we associate with the past, and suppose to be the exclusive property of tradition and poetry, are of our own age and country as much as of any other ! We read Plutarch until our imaginations flame with the Grecian story. The trophies of Miltiades will not let us sleep. History and poetry and lieroic legend make the names of Marathon and of Salamis, of Thermopylreand Platea, names of unrivaled glory. Pericles, Themistocles, Alcibiades, Demosthenes, Timoleon, stand in our fancies proudly aloof and superior, removing the meanness of later men and the bitterness of modern times. But our own history is not less heroic. The mighty torrent of Asiatic barbarism that threatened for a time to sweeji away Grecian civilization was not more formidable than that which threatened American liberty. If the statesmen and the heroes who stayed that earlier desolation, and the fields on which their battles were fought, are renowned and precious to Americans to-day, how much more our own fields and our own brothers ! Xerxes sent a herald to Leonidas, ordering him to give up his armies. " Let him come and take them," said Leonidas, and for a whole summer day he held all Asia at bay at Thermopylae. " Surrender! Surrender 1" cried a rebel leader to the commander of a Union company in Missouri, cut off from the main body. "Not much," replied the Union captain, and he won the victory.

The war has taught us that the poetry of heroism is in the deed, not in the distance. The brave youth seems a poetic hero when we see him, three hundred years ago, called Philip Sydney, riding into the fight against the Spaniards, on a misty morning, upon the Isel. Suddenly he sees his friend Lord Willoughby surrounded and sorely pressed, and Sir Philip dashing to the rescue is shot and mortally wounded. Borne fainting upon his horse from the field, he asks for water. But as it is brought to him and he is raising it to his lips, he sees the eyes of a dying soldier fixed upon it with passionate longing. Then leaning from the saddle, the gentleman of gentlemen, the flower of English manhood, hands the cup to the soldier, and the dying hero whispers to his dying comrade, " Friend, thy necessity is yet greater than mine." History will never tire of the beautiful story. But more than three hundred years later a gunner at Gettysburg falls mortally wounded by his gun, which is sorely pressed by the enemy. The battle rages on, and tortured by thirst, the dying man says to his comrade, serving the gun alone, " Johnny, Johnny, for the love of God give me a drop of water." " Ah, Jamie," says his comrade, " there's not a drop in my canteen, and if I go to fetch it the rebs will have the gun." " No matter, then, Johnny, stick to your gun," is the answer, and when, after a desperate struggle, with a ringing shout of victory, the line moves forward, it is over Jamie's dead body. Does it need three hundred years to make that self-sacrifice as beautiful as Sidney's? Jamie is not less a hero than the Englishman, and the brave Sidney clasps his hand in paradise. The past was a good time, but the present is a better. Themistocles standing upon his galley and driving the enemy at Salamis, the image of Greek valor in the war with Persia, is not a nobler figure than Farragut lashed into the maintop of the old Hartford at Mobile, the image of American liberty in the war with slavery. When Timoleon, the patriot general of Corinth, freed Sicily, the citizens of Syracuse put even the wives and daughters of the opposing general to death. When General Grant, by his final victory secured the emancipation of a race and the perpetuity of the Union, he spared the enemy every humiliation, and would not even enter their capital, while in the same great spirit his fellow-citizens forbore to shed one drop of blood. The shadow of a political scaffold has never stained the land ; and to-day, with the exception of the ineligibility to office of some two hundred persons, - a disability which the same wise and humane policy will soon sweep away - the laws of the United States rest with perfect equality upon every part of the land.

Let us be grateful for Greece two thousand years ago, and thank God that we live in America to-day! The war scattered the glamour of the past and showed us that we, too, live among great virtues, great characters, and great men. Through these streets the culture of Greece, the heroism of Rome, the patriotism of our own revolution, have marched before your eyes. These elms, like the trees of Ardennes, have shed their tears in dew-drops over the unreturning brave. The ground upon which we stand is consecrated by the tread of feet gladly going to the noblest sacrifice. And from these throbbing drums and wailing horns, still peals the music to which they marched away. They were your sons, Pittsfield and green Berkshire! They were your comrades, Massachusetts soldiers! They were the darlings of your homes, tender hearts that hear me! And here in this fair figure of heroic youth, they stand as you will always recall them - the bloom of immortal youth upon their cheeks ; the divine hope of youth in their hearts ; the perpetual inspiration of youth to every beholder. For this is the American soldier of the Union; the messenger of liberty to the captive and of peace to the nation. This is the perpetual but silent preacher of the gospel of liberty and justice as the only sure foundation of states. " Beautiful on the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth glad tidings, that publisheth peace, that saith unto Zion, thy God reigneth!"

After the exercises in the park, the procession was formed again, and marched to the corner of Wendell avenue and East Housatonic street, where dinner had been provided in a mammoth pavilion. Here the public celebration of the day closed ; Hon. Thomas Colt presiding, and addresses being made by Gov. Washburn and Lieutenant-Governor Tucker. ^

Source changes here: from The History of Pittsfield, (Berkshire County,) Massachusetts ... Comp. and Written, Under the General Direction of a Committee, by Smith, Joseph Edward Adams, published 1869; 5,838 words in this source stream.

Pittsfield City

town-affairs a more than usual number of new men began, about that,time, to become prominent ; new industries were introduced, and new interests began to develop Tihemselves.

Histouy Of Pittsfield

by the aid of a map compiled from the best authorities which we have been able to consult ; the description of travelers who visited ' the town at that time ; the vivid memories of venerable citizens ; the faithful delineations in the local and advertising columns of contemporary newspapers, and the guidance of nearly contemporary maps and plans.

Map Of Pittspield, A. D.

The road upon which the residences of Dr. Lee, Eli Bush, and Captain Fairfield are laid down is Honasada street. A forge is laid down upon the map, north of the crossing of the river by West street, but it had been removed previous to the year 1800.

The village thus mapped is described by the Duke de la Eochefoucault Liancourt, a French exile who traveled through the United States in 1796-7, as " A small but neat town, containing several large and handsome houses of joiner's work." President Dwight, in his travels, speaks of it in similar terms, and we have evidence of the excellent joiner work in a considerable number of houses which were erected previous to 1800, and are still among the better class of dwellings ; Some of them among the most luxurious mansions of the town. We will enumerate most of them.

specifying the principal changes which have been made in their exteriors, so that the reader familiar with the town as it is in 1875 may gain some idea of what it was in 1800.

The building designated as No. 6 East street, was erected by Captain John Strong, of revolutionary fame, and was kept for many years by him, and by his son of the same name, as a tavern. In the year 1800, when it was purchased by Lemuel Pomeroy, it was a two-story, gambrel-roof house, very similar in appearance to the homestead of John Chandler Williams which stood next west of it. Mr. Pomeroy substituted a third story for the gambrel-roof attic ; and his son, Mr. Eobert Pomeroy, who succeeded him, has since built a large wing on the south-east corner.

The John Chandler Williams' homestead, known to the present generation as the Edward A. Newton house, then stood on the corner of Park square and East street. It was erected by Colonel James Easton, who intended it as a residence for his son ; but, owing to his pecuniary difficulties, it was sold about the close of the revolution, and before its completion, to Mr. Williams, by whom it was finished. In order to make room for the courthouse, it has been removed a little east, to the corner of Wendell avenue ; but its external appearance has been little changed.

The square mansion, No. 5 South street, was built in 1792, by Hon. Ashbel Strong, by whose heirs it was owned until 1862, when it was purchased by George and David Campbell. It has been subjected to a few alterations, but its appearance is not essentially altered.

The Dr. John M. Brewster homestead, No. 10 East street, built by Colonel Simon Larned, previous to 1790, remains quite unchanged. The large, square house erected by Thomas Gold,^ and designated No. 8 East street, is now the residence of T. E. Plunkett ; a mansard-roof has been added to it, and a more elaborate portico takes the place of that across which " Tall poplar trees their shadows threw ; " it has otherwise been carefully protected.

1 After the death of Mr. Gold, this mansion became the summer residence of his son-in-law, Hon. Nathan Appleton. Mr. Appleton's daughter became the wife of Henry W. Longfellow, and the poet gave a new charm to her home in the ballad of " The Old Clock on the Stairs ; " the subject of which stood on the .broad landing of the staircase which ascends from the spacious entrance hall. The description of the house in the poem is literally accurate, and its story Is ec[uaUy truthful. We may add that " the old-fashioned hospitality," which " used to be," still is.

History Of Pittsfield

The meeting-liouse, wliicli faced the park, is now the gymnasium of Maplewood Institute, where it retains, externally, all its architectural features except the belfry, for which an observatory has been substituted.

Outside the district covered by our map, the large, square flat- ' roofed mansion, now the residence of J. E. Morewood, was built by Henry Van Schaack, in 1781, with extraordinary care and liberal expenditure ; and was for many years much the best-built edifice in the town. The wooden walls were lined with brick, . and the carpentry exhibits a perfection of skill which excites the admiration of modern workmen who are called upon to make alterations in it. Repairs are rarely needed. It is little changed except by the removal of the broad chimney and the old-fashioned balustrade which surrounded the roof.

Mr. Van Schaack removing to his native place, Kinderhook, in 1807, sold his house in Pittsfield to Elkanah Watson, a gentleman of very similar tastes, and the founder of the Berkshire Agricultural Society, who occupied it until his removal to Albany in 1816. It was then purchased by Major Thomas Melville, who resided in it until 1837, and was succeeded by his son, Eobert Melville. Eor some years previous to its purchase by Mr. Morewood, in 1851, it was kept as a boarding-house, and numbered among its guests Henry W. Longfellow, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, and President John Tyler.

The Van Schaack mansion stands upon the east side of South street, a mile below the park. On the adjoining estate, upon the south-east, and about a quarter of a mile distant, stands the broadchimneyed, hospitable-looking old dwelling, built some years previous to 1800, by Captain David Bush, under whose rule, and that of his son, it was a famous inn. It faces upon Wendell street ; and now, but slightly changed in its general outline, it is the summer home of the family of the late Allan Melville. The old place had the good fortune, in 1852, to be purchased by Herman MelviUe, then in the freshness of his early fame. Mr. Melville named it Arrow-Head, from the Indian relics found on the estate, and made it a house of many stories ; writing in it, besides Moby Dick, and other romances of the sea, the Piazza tales, which took their name from a piazza built by the author upon the north end of the house, which commands a bold and striking view of Greylock and the intervening valley. " My Chimney and I," a quaintly humorous essay, of whicli the cumbersome old chimney - overhearing tyrant of the home - is the hero, was also written here, as well as "October Mountain," a sketch of mingled philosophy and word-painted landscape, which found its inspiration in the massy and brilliant autumnal tints presented by a prominent and thickly-wooded spur of the Hoosac mountains, as seen from the south-eastern windows, at Arrow-Head, on a fine day after the early frosts.-'

Of a still earlier date than Arrow-Head or Broad Hall, was the cottage erected about the year 1767, by_Woodbridge Little, Esq., and occupied by him until his death in 1813. It still stands near the crossing of the Boston and Albany railroad by Beaver street, and is little changed. It is owned by Mr. Frederic C. Peck.

In the west part still remain, almost precisely as they stood nearly a hundred years ago - save time's mellow coloring - ^four houses. That built by Captain WiUiam Erancis, and in which that influential citizen and ardent patriot lived and died, is stiU owned and occupied by his descendants. That built by Eobert Francis, is now owned by Edmund French, and that of Eev. John Francis, in which the Baptist church was re-organized, and where many of its earlier services were held. That erected by Mather Wright was long occupied by the late Linus Parker.

In the same vicinity is still another interesting and well-preserved specimen of the dwellings of the fathers ; a square, flatroofed house, the second story slightly projecting over the first. It stands on West street, south of Lake Onota, and is stiU known to the oldei residents of the town as the Jesse Goodrich tavern, although the builder, who gave it his name, has long since passed away, and the sign that used to swing before it long ago ceased to creak. Mr. Goodrich was a worthy man and a thorough builder, and his tavern is one of the best-preserved relics, being unchanged externally, and showing within the solid old-fashioned wainscoting and balusters. Even the boards which, at a much later date, divided the once-popular ball-room into smaller apartments, are of a breadth marvelous at this day.

Among the houses which have disappeared, there was, of course, a larger proportion of inferior dwellings than among those which remain; for the more nearly perfect the material and workmanship, the greater was the prohability of preservation. In 1800, however, very shabby and uncomfortable abodes were, on the main streets, extremely rare.

There was no mansion fully equal, in all respects, to Major Van Schaack's ; but some were nearly so, and many would still be called handsome and commodious, except by those who deem all the modern improvements absolutely essential to comfort.

By far the greater number of the more modest dwellings have perished, and we have neither space nor data to reconstruct them ; but we will try to recall a few of the more conspicuous.

On what is known as the " Berkshire corner " of North and West streets, was a building of considerable size, with a gambrel roof ; but it bad undergone, in parts, some alterations, precisely of what character there are different reports. It was occupied as an inn by Captain John Dickinson, Darius Lamed, Captain Joseph Merrick, and by Solomon L. Eussell and brother. In 1798, the landlord was Captain Dickinson, and his daughter, Parthenia, afterwards Mrs. Curtis T. Penn, was born in it at that date. In 1800, it was kept by Darius Lamed. In 1810, Captain Joseph Merrick, an earnest federalist, was the host and proprietor, and having, as the democrats alleged, refused to provide them a Fourth of July dinner, they determined to erect, and did erect, on the opposite side of the park, a handsome hotel of three stories, one of whose glories was a spacious hall for the accommodation of political meetings, public dinners, and dancing parties. Now, Captain Merrick's inn had also a hall, in its gambrel-roof, which had long been occupied by Mystic Lodge of Free Masons, and for various other purposes of such a room. Captain Merrick was determined not to be eclipsed in so important a point by his new rival ; but he kept his own counsel, and no one suspected his purpose' until, one fine morning, Major Butler Goodrich, with whom he had made arrangements, appeared upon the ground with a large force of men and prepared material, and so rapidly was the work done, that before rumor could gather a curious crowd to speculate and criticise, a spacious third story had taken the place of the gambrel-roof. Captain Merrick, his brother Masons, and the federal public generally, had a hall of which they were proud, and which came in excellent good play when the Washington Benevolent Society was shortly after organized.

proprietorship of the inn, it was accidentally burned in 1826, and gave place to the still more favorite Berkshire House, which they erected the next year.

On the opposite corner, formed by South and "West streets, was the two-story, gambrel-roof building - a mate, when it was built, to the inn - which was occupied^ in 1800, as a dwelling-house by James D. Colt, Jr. One or two years afterwards, Mr. Colt erected the residence south of his store, now owned and occupied by George W. Campbell, and was succeeded in his previous home by Hon. John W. Hulbert.

No. 3 East street, assigned on the map to Allen's printingoffice, was a gambrel-roof cottage, whiph had been built by Eev. Thomas Allen, as a store for his son Jonathan, who commenced his business life in it. It had been the printing-office of three newspapers previous to the Sun. In 1809, it was removed to North street. It will often re-appear in our story. Next south of it, the parsonage of which a description and view were given in our first volume, was still the home of the village pastor.

On Honasada street, the Long House, built by Colonel William Williams, and which has been previously described,^ continued in good preservation, and it was owned and occupied by Joseph Shearer, a thrifty citizen, who had thriftily married the colonel's widow.

Of the same model was the Ingersoll tavern, famous as a barrack and a depot for prisoners in the Shays rebellion. This noted hostelry stood in the rear of the present south corner of North and Depot streets, facing east, with an ample court-yard in front. In much later years, when it had been abandoned by the Ingersoll family, it was known popularly as "Fort Necessity," partly from the tradition of its warlike uses, and partly because families removing to Pitts field, in days when there were no superfluous dwellings, were compelled to pass their novitiate in this crazy edifice until a better home could be built or provided for them. The well, whose water is sadly deteriorated by impure surroundings, is still known as the " Fort WeU."

Dr. Timothy Childs, in 1800, lived in the square flat-roof dwelling, which stUl stands, on the hill opposite the present Boston and Albany railroad depot, a part of the ministry-lot bought

History Of Pittspield

In the year 1800, the dwelling-houses of Pittsfileld were divided in about equal proportions between the gambrel, angular, and flat-roofed. Of those which first succeeded to the log huts of the earliest s.ettlers, the greater number had the gambrel-roof, and were of one story, although the meeting-house, the school-house, the parsonage, the "Long House " of Colonel Williams, the residence of Colonel Oliver Eoot on West street, and some others were angular.

The flat-roofs began to come in fashion about the close of the revolution, and in 1800 were still the modern style. They were often surrounded by a railing of ornamental balusters, the posts of which were surmounted by urns or globes. Fences of a similar style enclosed the ample court-yards of the square mansions which generally sustained this class of roof. About the date of the incoming of this style of domestic architecture, Henry Van Schaack brought from Hartford, in his saddle-bags, the slips from which grew the Lombardy poplars introduced into Berkshire county ; and this soon became a favorite shade-tree, - if a bundle of twigs, so stiff, so straight} so tall and slender, and so little umbrageous, could properly be styled a shade-tree. The Lombardy poplar is inseparably associated with our ideal of the statelier homesteads in the era we are endeavoring to depict. Before the year 1800, they had found a place in many of the court-yards of Pittsfleld, and we may safely introduce them, in all their youthful freshness, keeping guard, like so many grenadiers, over the residences of Henry Van Schaack, Rev. Mr. Allen, John Chandler Williams, Dr. Timothy Childs, Ezekiel Eoot, and the first James D. Colt, as well as, doubtless, over many other hopaes which have kept no memory of their faithful service.

They had, however, - especially around the tasteful homes of Thomas Gold and Henry Van Schaack - their newly-planted rivals, in the more broad-leaved and generous button-woods, destined, not like the poplar to outlive the popular favor, but to perish of premature blight when their venerable and ample shade was most dearly prized.

A taste for the cultivation of flowers and ornamental shrubs had already manifested itself, although far from universally or even commonly. In the very first interval of rest after the

French and Indian wars, we found the garden of Colonel "William Williams adorned with, at least, the pink, the carnation and the gilly-flower. In 1800, the flower-beds of Pittsfield, which were generally placed conspicuously in the front court-yards, exhibited, in addition to the noble old favorites of Colonel Williams's garden, the hollyhock, the sun-flower, the morning-glory, the sweet pea, the marigold, and others upon whose petals there still linger, in many memories, the roseate glow, the balmy aroma, and the dewy freshness of life's morning ; and which are, therefore, held in the heart's esteem above all the wealth of the conservatory.

Of the flowering shrubs, the principal were the rose and purple lilac; of flowering climbers, now and then, a honeysuckle; of non-flowering climbers, the woodbine and the native grape.

As yet, native shade-trees received little attention from the gardener, and wild flowers none a£ all ; but, as nature planted them, they served well the place of all others with the mass of the people. Few, if any of the hundred-acre home-lots, which stretched across the center of the township, from east to west, were, as yet, entirely denuded of their groves. On many, considerable relics of the original forests still flourished. Within a few rods of the park, on West and South streets, were thicklywooded hemlock-swamps.^

Beyond the settling-lots, a large, perhaps the greater, portion of the " squares " into which the " commons " were divided in 1759-60, were still uncleared. With the elms, oak, pine, maples, chestnut, and other trees of these woods, were thickly intermingled the sweet-brier, the azalea, the mountain-ash, the sumach, the wild cherry, the moose-wood, and the white thorn, so close to every house that although their beauty must have often held the rapt gazer in charmed admiration, none thought of transplanting them.

iMrs. C. T. Tenn remembers, when a young girl, parting often with a favorite companion - the latter being compelled to pass through the "swamproad," on South street, on her way home - that she waited, calling to her by way of encouragement, until she reached the opening on the other side, now the head of Church street. Report located wolves in the wooded recesses, afterwards the garden of Ilev. Dr. Todd, from which ftarful cries were heard at night. A tangled swamp extended from near the west side of South street to the present line of the Housatouic railroad, and from West street nearly to the present West Housatonic street.

History Of Pittsfield

of her charms, all those who thought it but a vain labor to bring together exotics from the ends of the earth, when not only the fair, wild, flowering shrubs, which we have named, were scattered in profusion close around their homes, but the gorgeous laurel, with its glossy foliage, the trailing arbutus, luxuriously delicate of hue and fragrance, the fairy-tinted and quaintly-shaped lady's slipper, the columbine in her harlequin garb of red and yellow, the gentian with her fringed ruff of deepest blue, the asters, white, blue, purple and orange, the violets and houstonia cerulea clouding the earth, the clustering anemone, the addSr's-tongue, the wate-robin, the wild pink, and other forms of flora,l loveliness, peeped from every thicket and spangled every field ; when the myriad plumes of the purple orchis, and the pickerel-weed, invaded the waters of every stream ; and, higher up their banks, the scarlet splendor of the cardinal-flower dazzled the eye ; and, most beautiful of all, on the bosom of every lake floated the pure white lily of the waters.

In painting the homes of the fathers, we must surround them with a thousand forms of native grace and beauty which have withdrawn from our own; and it would be a libel upon .the blood we inherit, to declare that they in whose veins it ran seventyfive years ago, because they did not seek to augment the charms with which untutored nature sought to delight them, were therefore insensible to their influence. No less would it be a libel upon history, when we remember how the early discoverers exhausted hyperbole in their description of the new world's glories, to say that the children of these same men, when they came to dwell among these same glories, were struck with an inane blindness which prevented their enjoyment of them. Not even the privations, unintermitted toil, and frequent suffering of pioneer life could have effected that transformation.

No, we may depend upon it, that the descendants of the generation to which belonged Drake and Ealeigh, Hudson, the Cabots and the other voyagers of glowing story; and the ancestors of the race who claim Bryant and Longfellow and Lowell, did, with tender and true appreciation, enjoy the splendors of field and forest which the voyagers who went before them, and the poets who came after, celebrated with like- fervor. And that appreciation was none the less genuine because it was casual, unstudied, and not often eloquently expressed; the golden thread interwoven by nature with a life otherwise of somewhat rude and somher texture, not that inwrought by culture with warp and woof of silken leisure.

In making these natural flower-gardens and their sheltering grove thus prominent in our picture, we do not, then, unduly magnify what the men and women of 1800 regarded lightly ; but give its just place to a feature which went far to satisfy their craving for the beautiful, and contributed much to relieve the barren aspect of a town of generally-unshaded streets, and courtyards for the most part unadorned by shrub, or vine, or flower ; even if, as was most likely to happen, they were not deformed by unsightly objects.

Nor must we forget another source which brought its aid to the same end; the apple orchards, which, planted near almost every house, afforded, all summer, a fair and cheerful sight ; but in the season of blossoming, thick flecked the scene with clouds of splendor rivaling the most fleecy that float in the skies of June. Such, and with such surroundings of trees, shrubbery and flowers, were the abodes of the people of Pittsfleld, about the beginning of the nineteenth century. Their places of mercantile business were few and unpretending, but respectable, and such as were usually found in flourishing market-villages.

On East street, at the corner of Second, was the two-story gambrel-roof store of Colonel Joshua Danforth; its gable-end facing East street. A little below was a similar store but of only one story, occupied by Graves & Eoot.

On the corner of North street and Park place with the gableend and entrance facing on the latter was the store built by Jonathan Allen, in 1798 ; a plain, neat building with an angular roof. Next north, on the site of the Allen block was the small onestory steep-roofed " medicine-shop," built in 1796, by Dr. Timothy Childs. On South street, facing the west end of Bank row, was built about this time by J. D. & S. D. Colt a handsome wooden store, large for its time, of two stories with an angular roof. It still stands, having been removed to West Housatonic street. Opposite the Colt store on the corner of Bank row and South street, was a similar store which was built by Hon. Ashbel Strong, and occupied by his brother-in-law, John Stoddard.^

1 Major Israel Stoddard, the noted loyalist of Pittsfleld revolutionary story, and son of Colonel John Stoddard, the Northampton " great New Englander,"

Histoey Of Pittspield

From the foregoing hints ahd outlines the reader, with a little aid from imagination, will perhaps be able to gain a tolerably correct idea of the village of Pittsfleld, in the year 1800.

In examining the map, it will be noticed that dwellings are much more thickly scattered along the streets running east and west than upon those intersecting them at right angles ; and the same difference would be observed if it had been extended to embrace the whole of the original settling-lots. There were two causes for this. . First, the great highway between Boston and Albany ran through East and "West streets. But secondly, and chiefly, it arose from the mode in which the lots were originally laid out. There were, it will be recollected, three tiers of hundredacre farms, lying side by side and extending from the east to the through the center of the township. One of these tiers reached the whole length of the town, while that north of it fell a mile and a half short of the Dalton border, and that upon the south something more than two miles short of the Hancock line; the three ranges being separated from each other by roads seven rods wide. They were also intersected by a road,seven rods wide, running nearly through the center of the township from north to south, and now known as North and South streets, and in the east and west parts by other roads. The extreme width of these joint proprietor with Colonel Wendell, and Edward Livingstone, of Pooutoosuc, died in 3872, of consumption, aged forty-one. He lies buried with his widow and several of his children on the eastern slope of Pontoosuc Hill in the Pitts - field cemetery; where his grave is marked by a large old-fashioned tombstone, bearing this exceedingly-apposite epitaph :

*' In life, uninfluenced by the breath of fame^ The great, the true, the just, thy constant aim ; Praised or not praised, in death affects thee not. By whom remembered or by whom forgot. A heap of dust is all remains of thee ; 'Tis all thou art, and all that we shall be."

His daughter Mary, the grand-daughter and namesake of the "Honored Madam May,"^' of provincial polite society, and a. lady equally worthy of honor, was married in 1792, to Hon. Ashbel Strong. And in this connection there comes to us a traditional anecdote, which, at once, illustrates the decline in the reverence which the people had bestowed upon the wealthy and magisterial classes, and introduces a character now rarely met, but which, seventy years ago, made merriment in the streets of almost every New En- tiers of settling-lots at the point where they were intersected by North and South streets, and where the tiers were complete, was only ahout six hundred rods. The length of the central tier which lay south of East and "West streets, was something over six miles ; that of the others ahout four miles. "Now, the lots had a frontage from east to west of eighty rods, while their depth was two hundred rods. It will be seen that only three of these lots could lie upon each side of North and South streets, while one occupied each eighty rods of each side of the six miles of East and West streets, and the four miles of Honasada street.

The terms of the grant required a house to be built upon., each of these sixty-three lots within a brief period after the first settlement; and, although the terms were not strictly complied with, and sometimes two lots were consolidate^, yet it was not many years before there was an average of one house to every eighty rods on the last named streets; making an unusually-compact agricultural settlement. On the other hand, the "commons," or the territory outside the settling-lots, retained by the original proprietors, embraced a strip one and a half miles wide on the south side of the town, and another two and a half miles wide on the north ; and were with a trifling exception not open to occupation until 1760, and, even then, instead of being offered in oblong parcels of moderate size, suited to the means of the young farmers and leading by their form and arrangement, as well as by positive gland town, the village rhymesters, who, with coarse and often caustic, wit, played the part of court-jesters to the " Sovereign people." Generally they were somewhat weak or disordered in intellect ; but, whether so or not, they were always licensed.

Mr. Strong was fourteen years older than his wife, and in his days of courtship, one day meeting one of this witless-witty class, he challenged a , display of his powers. The response was the following doggerel :

Plain, and rather irre veren tial, "Molly," observe, and no longer "Honored Madam." But the Honorable suitor is said to have "stubbed along" without further parley. The curt record of the marriage styles the bride Mrs. Polly Stoddard. John Stoddard, who kept a store on Bank row, was a brother of Mrs. Strong, and was born in I773.

History Of Pittsfield

agreement, to the erection of farm-houses somewhat after the order of a village street - the " commons-lands " were divided into squares of from two hundred and thirty to three hundred acres each ; some of which long remained the property of those to whom they fell hy the partition of 1760.

Some of the original owners, such as Colonel Wendell, Major Israel Stoddard, Captain Charles Goodrich, Israel Dickinson and the Partridges, reserved large farms for their own use. But, with these exceptions, the owners of the squares were generally well inclined to sell their lands in lots convenient for the purchaser, with no more restrictions than prudence dictated for the prevention of awkward and unsalable remainders. And probably the majority of the farms sold were of very moderate dimensions. Some contained no more than fifty acres. But the new-comers - not restricted, like the sixty pioneers to a confined section, not like them compelled to take the poor lands with the good, and no longer attracted to a defensible vicinage by the fear of lurking savages - selected their homes wherever the fertility of the soil, convenient water-power, neighborly associationsj the course of the highways, the state of their purse, and an infinitude of other considerations, led them.

But to return to the system of roads, in Pittsfield, which was distinguished for its regularity. The road from Lenox to Lanesboro, of which North and South streets were a part, extended through Pittsfield nearly in a straight line, passing through the present site of the high-school house, and over the hill north of Maplewood Institute, and that west of Pontoosuc Lake. East and West streets, as now, extended from a point half a mile east of the park, in a straight line to the Hancock borders. Owing to the swamp east of that point, the highway diverged thence south-east, through Water and Elm streets. These intersecting roads, practically only two, may be considered the trunk, or base, of the whole system. From North street, about half a mile north of Maplewood, a street turned a little to the north-west and passing near the present entrance of the cemetery, joined and continued through Otaneaque street; forming the avenue by which the people of the North woods, and several of the forge neighborhoods, reached the central village. Wahconah street was not yet opened. Farther north a road, crossing the outlet of Pontoosuc lake, wound along its west side. From South street, Honasada street - one of the originally-reserved roads - was actually opened eastward to the Dal ton line. Westward, there continued to be an unmade portion until the line reached a point near Oceola village, whence it was completed to the foot of the mountain. Beyond the river. South Mountain street wound along the base of the hill from which it takes its name. From Otaneaque street, to the western extension of Honasada street, three roads ran north and south crossing. West street. From West street, also ran Onota street, north to Seymour's iron forge. On West street again, east of the river, Mill street led south to Luce's mill. From Honasada street. Shearer's lane ran south along the east side of the farm which had heen owned by Colonel Williams ; and from the same street a road ran south and south-west, to " Eock mountain ;" now known as the Sikes district, famous for its very hard and peculiarly-stratified granular quartz.

Northward from Elm street, extended Dickinson street, or the east road to Lanesboro. There were some other roads in various parts of the town ; but the lack of recognizable landmarks would render an attempt to describe them unintelligible to most readers.

The roads by which the people of Pittsfield reach the great market-towns which they were accustomed to visit, have undergone material alterations. Travel towards Boston was through East and Elm streets, and thence by a street now partly discontinued, past the Woodbridge Little place, to the Dalton hne, where it met the Worthington turnpike to Northampton. The road to Albany ran as at present through New Lebanon. The road to Hudson wound through South street, and South Mountain street, and thence by Barkersville, Richmond, and West Stockbridge. It is many years since the Pittsfield portion of this route has been used commonly as a thoroughfare. In 1800, however - Kinderhook and Hudson being the market-towns most convenient for Pittsfield trade and the landings where Berkshire merchandise, coming up or going down the Hudson, was generally transhipped, and where Berkshire travelers took sloop to New York city - a greater amount of mercantile travel passed over the Eichmond i^oad than over any other in Pittsfield. This road could also he reached from the west part, by any of the streets leading from West to West Honasada street. But how slowly pre-eminence was gained by, or accorded to, the present business center of the town is shown by the fact that the great convenience and reduc- tion of distance afforded to it by the opening of West Housatonic street was not obtained until 1825, nor in its best form until 1827 ; long struggles in town-meetings being required to accomplish it.

Tbe earliest communication with the towns in southern Berkshire, and in Hampshire county, and with Hartford and other Connecticut towns, was through Wendell street. The majority of the first settlers probably entered Pittsfield by this road ; those from Hampshire county, coming by the road from Blandford to New Marlboro. But in 1800 the most direct road was through South street, and the travel upon it was probably greater than upon any other except the Richmond road.

These avenues of communication were imperfectly constructed and often out of repair. Frequently, for considerable distances, they passed through dreary patches of wood. Corduroy roads were not yet dispensed with in crossing swamps. The vigorous traveler, therefore, preferred to make even long journeys in the saddle ; and it needed that wagons should be stoutly built in order to encounter the rudeness of the highway. The trials of the teamster's patience and muscle were severe ; but luckily, at brief distances, substantial taverns offered refreshment for man and beast. Nevertheless, the best relief was offered by the season of winter with its gliding roa'ds; and it was enjoyed to the full.