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Reminiscent Sketches 
 
 BY 
 
 AELLA GREENE, 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 
 "River, Bird and Star," ''John Peters," 
 and other works. 
 
 3 ■> J 1 
 
 33 3 5 * ^ 
 
 J 3 3 ) 3^ >3 
 
 PUBLISHED IN I9O2. 
 
^"^ ^ 
 
 
 CONQRE88« 
 
 Two Coptes Rkjkiveo 
 
 AUG. 3U 19021 
 
 CLAS^XXa Ho. 
 
 d rr 3 4, 
 
 CO^Y 8. 
 
 
 Copyright. 1902, 
 
 BY 
 
 AELLA GREENE. 
 
 C C jC c «- 
 
 t c • c 
 
 PRESS OF THE BRYANT PRINT, 
 FLORENCE, MASS. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 JosiAH Gilbert Holland. 
 Dr. N. W. Rand. 
 Edward Bates Gillett. 
 George M. Stearns. 
 Some Honest Bankers. 
 Concerning the Forty-sixth, 
 In Abolition Times. 
 Industries That Were. 
 Old Guard Republicans. 
 Some **Mrs. Partingtons.'' 
 On Boat, Box and Rail. 
 
JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND. 
 
 ALTHOUGH not a native of Spring- 
 field, and although spending 
 elsewhere his boyhood and his 
 youth, and elsewhere, also, the last ten 
 years of his life, Dr. Holland, the author 
 and magazine founder and manager, was 
 essentially a Springfield man. He had 
 intended to become a doctor and he 
 located in Springfield to practice medi- 
 cine ; but while pursuing elsewhere his 
 medical studies he had developed a talent 
 for writing ; and this talent he continued 
 to develop after locating in Springfield. 
 Mrs. Holland, who was a member of the 
 numerous family of Chapins, was a 
 Springfield woman. At Springfield 
 their children were born ; and at 
 Springfield he wrote his first article 
 that was accepted by a magazine ; there 
 
6 JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND. 
 
 he edited a literary newspaper; and from 
 there he went to the South to engage in 
 teaching. After that, he returned to 
 Springfield and soon there began a career 
 in journalism in which he continued for 
 nearly a score of years. It was early in 
 1856, one of his very busy years, that the 
 Springfield city hall was dedicated ; and 
 he delivered the address of the occasion. 
 At Springfield he wrote ten of his eight- 
 een books, including the first to give him 
 fame and some material returns, and 
 three others that extended his reputation 
 and brought him a competence. His first 
 book refused by a Springfield publisher, 
 he went forth to seek a publisher else- 
 where — went to seek and be refused 
 again and again, but still to seek, and 
 finally to succeed. Then to Springfield 
 he returned, rejoicing that he had found 
 a man to believe not only in his project 
 but in him. From Springfield when but 
 little known, he went to lecture in a 
 
JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND. 7 
 
 dozen near-by towns; but when, a few 
 years later he had achieved success as an 
 author, he was called to speak to audiences 
 all over the country. And nine years after 
 Tiis address at the dedication of the 
 Springfield city hall, he won there, in 
 the same city and in the same hall, the 
 great oratorical triumph of his life, in 
 the words that he spoke to voice the grief 
 of thousands of his fellow citizens at 
 the death of the martyred president, 
 Abraham Lincoln. At Springfield he 
 wrote his life of Mr. Lincoln, a work of 
 much merit, considering the brief time in 
 which circumstances compelled him to 
 write it, a work that for its just estimate 
 of the character of the great man and for 
 a graphic portrayal of his characteristics 
 has not been exceeded by other 
 biographers. 
 
 On High street, Springfield, is the 
 small house which the Hollands owned 
 and occupied in the author's earliest 
 
8 JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND. 
 
 hard-working" days. In the northern 
 suburbs of the city, and near the resi- 
 dence of his friend, the late George M. 
 Atwater, is the house that was his home 
 when he had won a competence and that 
 gave its name of ** Brightwood " to the 
 village which grew up in the valley 
 overlooked by the mansion. There he 
 was living when he sold his interest 
 in The Republican ; and he marked 
 the event by entertaining there, a party 
 of his journalistic acquaintances, and 
 there was his home, when, in 1867, 
 he wrote the poem '' Kathrina," which, 
 published that year, achieved a wide 
 popularity. 
 
 Dr. Holland, who had been an active 
 member of the North Congregational 
 church of Springfield, was one of the 
 leading spirits in founding, in 1865, the 
 Memorial church, the first undenomina- 
 tional church in the country. With him 
 in this enterprise were associated his 
 
JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND. 9 
 
 friend George M. Atwater, H. J. Chapin 
 and others, with D.J. Bartlett and others 
 to join soon after. And for the success 
 of this enterprise he was, through the 
 trial years of the church, a tireless and 
 hopeful worker. Before the beautiful 
 edifice at the foot of Round Hill was 
 erected that has since been the sanctuary 
 of this people, the place of their meetings 
 was in the hall of a school building of the 
 neighborhood. There Holland was choir 
 leader and superintendent of the Sunday 
 school. Heartily he sang, and with 
 cheeriness he greeted the teachers, as, 
 making the rounds of the school, he 
 stopped at one class after another, to see 
 what he could do, or suggest, to help 
 teachers or learners. And if a stranger 
 who had attended the morning service 
 lingered to see the Sunday school, 
 Holland's quick eye discovered him, and 
 genuine words of welcome made him feel 
 at home, at once, and made him wSO want 
 
lO JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND. 
 
 to come again that come again he did. 
 
 Having achieved marked success in 
 
 newspaper work and as an author and an 
 
 orator, and the church project that was 
 
 ■dear to him having been safely launched, 
 
 Dr. Holland proposed in 1868, to rest 
 
 both from his literary labors and his 
 
 church w^ork and to visit Europe with his 
 
 family for a sojourn of two years. And 
 
 on Sunday, May 26, he gave his friends 
 
 of the congregation and Sunday school a 
 
 farewell address. Every seat and every 
 
 foot of standing room in the hall was 
 
 occupied and every heart thrilled with 
 
 emotion and every eye filled with tears 
 
 as the speaker referred to the enterprise 
 
 so dear to them and to him ; and some of 
 
 them, not so led by any word of his, 
 
 thought, nevertheless, of his career in 
 
 Springfield. That career was begun in 
 
 poverty and obscurity, and was marked 
 
 with assiduous toil that brought at first 
 
 but meagre rewards, and with heroic 
 
JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND. II 
 
 struggles and alternating defeats. It 
 was crowned at last with successes, that, 
 though great, were well deserved. And 
 they had been so dearly earned they 
 would scarcely have increased the vanity 
 of one given to glorying in self ; and by 
 this man of true humility they were 
 gratefully accepted. And not only that, 
 they were regarded as an obligation on 
 him to try to do still better work. 
 
 Here are some of the utterances in his 
 farewell address: — 
 
 I shall not go with this lovely flock of children to 
 the new church, singing the Thanksgiving song, and 
 taking possession, in the name of the dear Redeemer, 
 of those sacred courts, reared by your toils and sacri- 
 fices. It is natural that I should be sorry to lose all 
 this, And all this is just as surely coming as the 
 Memorial church remains true to itself and to its 
 Master. A few months more of sacrifice and labor 
 and yonder edifice, resounding daily to the stroke of 
 the hammer and the songs of the workmen, will echo 
 to the peal of the organ, the voice of your own pastor, 
 and the busy recitations of the young throng that I 
 see before me. All this — the answer of many 
 
12 JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND. 
 
 prayers — the end of long and noble toil, I shall miss; 
 but you will witness it, and I shall be happy in your 
 
 -« r\-\7 "Jr "TC" ^ vr 'TT TT 
 
 This church and society will do well to look for 
 encouragement in all their struggles to the future. 
 Now we see only our difficulties, and are absorbed by 
 the toils and sacrifices which our enterprise demands. 
 But we are building better than we know. * * * * 
 Let us try to lift the veil. Twenty-five, fifty,, 
 seventy-five, one hundred years hence ! From year 
 to year, from generation to generation, the babe will 
 be baptized in yonder church, grow up in the Sunday 
 school, stand before the altar as bride or bridegroom, 
 and, at last, be carried away amid funeral solemni- 
 ties. What songs, what processions, what tears and 
 smiles, what ingatherings of converted men and 
 women, what feasts of Christian love, shall be in 
 those courts of the Lord, when we who had the price- 
 less privilege of building them shall be dust ! We 
 are shaping the destiny of ten thousand human souls 
 that we shall never know and carrying the force of 
 ourlives down through the centuries ! 
 
 A few days after the Sunday made 
 memorable by his parting words, Dr. 
 Holland and family left Springfield, and 
 set sail from New York for Europe. 
 Letters from him to friends in America 
 
J0SIAH GILBERT HOLLAND. 1 3 
 
 bore abundant evidence of his love for 
 liis native New England and especially 
 for the town that held his home. One of 
 them said, '' I have a great fondness for 
 old Springfield and for my many good 
 friends there. It was there that I worked 
 the work of my life. There I garnered my 
 loves, hopes and friendships. There my 
 children w^ere born and reared ; and there 
 one of them lies buried ; and there I trust 
 to lie down at last to rest." This letter 
 also said, '' I have been around in many 
 beautiful places on this side of the sea 
 and have seen many beautiful things, but 
 I have not found anything for which I 
 would exchange my own home." In this 
 letter the w^riter referred to the church 
 project at Springfield and spoke with 
 gratitude of those who had aided him in 
 forwarding the enterprise. 
 
 In 1870 Dr. Holland returned, with his 
 family, from Europe. They reoccupied 
 his Brightwood home and he reassumed 
 
14 JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND. 
 
 the superintendency of the Sunday school 
 that he had relinquished on going abroad. 
 He was again amid familiar scenes and 
 surrounded by those whom he had known 
 for years and in whose welfare he had 
 the interest of genuine friendship. By 
 some, discontent with such surroundings 
 would seem to spring only from selfish- 
 ness. Unjust indeed were a conclusion 
 like this in reference to this man. 
 Remembered are words of his to one 
 whom he could trust — words that breathed 
 a longing for more work and work in a 
 new field. And that field was soon to be 
 open to him. When abroad he met Mr. 
 Roswell Smith, a business acquaintance 
 from America, with whom, as the two 
 were standing on a bridge at Geneva, he 
 made an agreement to become, on return- 
 ing to America, partner in the enterprise 
 of publishing a- magazine of which he 
 was to be editor and Mr. Smith business 
 manager — a magazine that for years bore 
 
JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND. 1 5 
 
 the name of Scribner's, in tribute to the 
 editor's friend Charles Scribner, but 
 which has long been known as the 
 Century. 
 
 There's inspiration in recalling- the 
 scene when Holland breathed to a friend 
 the project of this magazine of which the 
 world had not then heard. The two 
 were standing near the Memorial church, 
 out from which they had just come, and 
 were under an elm down through whose 
 branches glinted the radiance of an 
 Ootober sun. Holland asked, ''Would 
 you like to see an advance copy of the 
 initial number of a magazine that I am 
 to edit?" To this question came the 
 quick response, ''I should," when Holland 
 took from an inner pocket the leaves that, 
 yet minus covers, and held together only 
 by a few stitches, had been forwarded 
 from the printers in New York for his 
 inspection. As he was turning the pages 
 and remarking on the contents, his friend 
 
l6 JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND. 
 
 said, '* and may I ask what the name is 
 to be? '* The reply, '* Scribner's '' was 
 instantly greeted with hand-clapping. 
 To this the ready response was — *' Yes; 
 and it had something to do with it '' — 
 showing that Holland knew his friend 
 understood the christening was done to 
 give expression of the gratitude of a 
 successful author to the publisher who, 
 when others had scorned, believed in 
 him and opened for him the door to 
 success. And in conducting this maga- 
 zine, bearing the name of the man who 
 had believed in him, Holland was to have 
 his new career — a career which came to 
 include, however, as it proved, much 
 other work besides that connected with 
 the magazine. 
 
 For nearly a year he continued to re- 
 side at Springfield, there doing some of 
 the editorial work of the magazine and 
 from there making trips to New York as 
 his duties in connection with that journal 
 
JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND. \J 
 
 called him; and when, to be nearer the 
 office of publication, he removed to New- 
 York, he still often visited Springfield. 
 He bought a house in Park Avenue in 
 the ''Murray hill" neighborhood of the 
 metropolis, and there had a pleasant 
 home for himself and family ; and they 
 soon established congenial relations in 
 church and society. Yet ever dear to 
 them the old town on the Connecticut. 
 
 After his removal to New York and 
 after his Brightwood residence had be- 
 come the property and the home of 
 another, Holland builded a summer 
 cottage at the Thousand Islands which 
 he named '* Bonnicastle," There he 
 took long vacations, to recuperate his 
 energies that were severely taxed by his 
 duties. These included caring for the 
 magazine of which he was editor and 
 caring also for another published in 
 conjunction with it. In this second 
 career he wrote three novels, one of 
 
1 8 JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND. 
 
 which was *' Sevenoaks," the crowning- 
 work of his life. He also wrote several 
 poems, and for years he responded to 
 numerous calls to lecture, filling, in some 
 seasons, as many as sixty engagements. 
 Finally, reminded by his physician that 
 his health would be greatly endangered 
 if he continued to speak in public, he 
 gave up lecturing; but he continued to 
 conduct the magazine. 
 
 In October, 1881, he returned from the 
 Thousand Islands much invigorated by 
 his rest there, and w4th courage resumed 
 his round of duties at the office of the 
 magazines at which he continued for 
 about a week, when came a sundown that 
 was a daybreak. On Tuesday October 1 1 
 he was writing an editorial on President 
 Garfield, who had recently died from an 
 assassin's shot. Laying down his pen mid- 
 way in the article, he went to his home in 
 Park Avenue — went home little thinking, 
 and none of his family thinking, that, his 
 
JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND. I9 
 
 earthly journey was near its close. But 
 there at early morning came the angel to 
 summon heavenward the spirit of the 
 singer and saint. Beautiful it was that 
 he should be at home when wanted by 
 the messenger, even if that home was in 
 the midst of the great city whose turmoil 
 made the metropolis to him a bedlam. 
 
 The couriers sent to convoy the good 
 to the skies are hindered not in their 
 mission by any of the material conditions 
 surrounding those whom they are to 
 escort — finding them whether they are in 
 the cottage of the simple countryside, in 
 the guarded castle of baron or king, 
 pining on the battle plain, clutching in 
 their death grasp the broken mast from 
 the shipwreck, famishing with hunger 
 in the squalor of the hovels of the poverty 
 to which wealth scorns to extend the 
 helping hand or living amid the luxuries 
 of the mansions of opulence. 
 
 In the home of this good man there 
 
20 JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND. 
 
 were the comforts that competence com- 
 mands. And thousands of those whom 
 his writings and his life had blessed would 
 have rejoiced to see the modest elegance 
 of his surroundings heightened to the 
 splendors becoming royalt}'. There in 
 that home the ans^el found him — there 
 with those endeared to him by the holiest 
 associations; there in the centre of 
 business and of the social and religious life 
 of the land that he had blessed — there, 
 ready to go to a higher life. Painful in- 
 deed must it have been to go from those he 
 loved. But the One who had raised him up 
 to do his work in the world would sustain 
 them. He had gazed with raptured 
 vision on many beautiful scenes of earth. 
 But they were as nothing to those await- 
 ing him in the Beyond that he was 
 nearing. From the beautiful places of 
 earth he was going and going, too, from 
 the places of pride and power — from the 
 towns by man made urban, towns 
 
JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND. 2 1 
 
 wherein fashion rules with her oppressive 
 conventionalities, wherein when men 
 are honoroble in competitions thei^e^s 
 torturing turmoil and wherein greed for 
 gain drives men to strifes and animosities 
 of fiendish intensity. From these he 
 was going — from what was artificial and 
 irksome to a country of lovely landscapes, 
 grand mountains, enchanting rivers and 
 the leisure of the eternities ! 
 
 Fitting it was, indeed, that the grave 
 to hold his dust should be at Springfield. 
 And there amid the October glories that 
 always enhance the splendors of the 
 scenery of his native America, his form 
 was laid to rest — there in Peabody cem- 
 etery, beautiful '' God's acre " of the city 
 which the singer loved so well, there in 
 the valley that had been the place of his 
 obscurity and poverty, the field of much 
 of his toil, and the scene of his first 
 successes — there in the valley of which 
 he had said and sung many beautiful 
 
22 JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND. 
 
 things that gave him note and enhanced 
 the fame of the region whose grandeur 
 and whose loveliness he celebrated. 
 
 Fitting that there, at Springfield, 
 should be the sepulchre of the good man ; 
 and fitting, too, that there those who had 
 known him should speak of his worth and 
 of his achievements. Words of appreci- 
 ation of the man and his work were also 
 said in churches of the metropolis, a 
 church near his '' Bonnicastle " homeasnd 
 churches elsewhere in the land. And 
 abundant mention of these memorials 
 was made by the press of the country, that 
 contained, also, its own ample chronicling 
 of the career that had closed and appre- 
 ciation of the man who had gone, "' rich 
 in a national fame and in an influence of 
 inestimable value upon the lives of his 
 fellows." His friends had indeed sus- 
 tained a great loss in his death. But the 
 fragrance of the life that had ceased on 
 earth to bloom forever above would re- 
 
JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND. 23 
 
 main below to sweeten all the succeeding 
 years. Providence had indeed given the 
 friends of Dr. Holland bitterness instead 
 of sweetness. And yet, even in their 
 ^rief, they who mourned might well 
 think as his friend Washington Gladden 
 said in an eloquent rhythmic tribute read 
 at the Springfield memorial, 
 
 '* We drink the cup and grateful find 
 The sweet within the bitter." 
 
 Yet to them, came then, and to them often 
 since has come, the thought well voiced 
 in these lines from Whittier: — 
 
 *' How strange it seems with so much gone 
 Of love and life to ^ill live on." 
 
 Josiah Gilbert Holland, journalist, 
 essayist, novelist, and poet, was the 
 eldest son of Harrison and Anna Gilbert 
 Holland, and was born July 24, 18 19, in 
 a by-corner of Belchertown, near the 
 Amherst town line. This neighborhood 
 was known for years by the name of 
 
24 JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND. 
 
 '' Dwight's," attaching to the near-by 
 flag station of a railroad running through 
 the region, which now has two railroads, 
 whose stations are each called *' Pansy 
 Park.'* Harrison Holland, whom some 
 of the cyclopedia makers mention as a 
 Belchertown farmer, had little to do with 
 Belchertown and Belchertown farms. 
 He did, indeed, have a few acres of land 
 on the borders of the township. But he 
 was a mechanic; and, with talent for 
 inventions, he was busied over his models 
 and processes, and with fulling the home- 
 made cloth of the farmers of eastern 
 Hampshire. This industry he carried on 
 in a little mill whose machinery was 
 turned by power from a small pond still 
 to be seen in the vicinity, though the 
 traces of the shop are nearly all gone. 
 The meagre house in which the fuller 
 lived remained standing long after his 
 death, and until his son, who was born 
 there, had become a man of distinction. 
 
JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND. 25 
 
 To a friend who told the author of visiting 
 the house, he replied : *' Yes, and do you 
 know, I want to buy the thing and burn 
 it to the ground/' This he said with 
 emphasis, and as he spoke sadness clouded 
 his features, — sadness that came at the 
 thought of the poverty of his boyhood, 
 and the remembrance of his father's lot, 
 looked down upon, as he was, becau^he 
 was too absorbed in inventions to make 
 money — looked down upon by those to 
 whom he was far superior in talents and 
 in moral worth. When his son was about 
 three years old, Harrison Holland gave 
 up his fulling mill enterprise and with 
 his family moved to a neighborhood of 
 Heath which in after years an admirer of 
 the author named '' Holland Dell." Here 
 the mechanic had a small house, a small 
 farm, and a small shop, in which, from 
 timber cut in the region, he made felloes 
 for the wagon-makers, who, in those 
 times, carried on their business at 
 
26 JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND. 
 
 Belchertown. The boy recalled in later 
 years a Mr. Leavitt who used to visit the 
 district school that he attended, and lay 
 a hand benignantly on his head. To his 
 experience in going to Sunday school at 
 Heath, Holland thus alluded in a speech 
 at a vSunday school occasion in Springfield : 
 
 From the age of eight years until fifteen I at- 
 tended Sunday school in a mountain town in Frank- 
 lin county ; and not the name nor the face of one of 
 the teachers can I remember. I repeat it, not the 
 name nor the face of one of the teachers can I re- 
 member. And I suppose it is because they did not 
 take pains to impress themselves on my heart. But 
 I do remember one good Mr. Chapin, whom in the 
 winter, when because of the drifted roads no Sunday 
 school was held, we boys used to see of a Saturday 
 going by our day school to the meeting-house on the 
 hill. He had a cane in his hand, and we knew that 
 he had a great bandana handkerchief in his pocket. 
 In due time we saw him coming back from the 
 meeting-house with that handkerchief filled with 
 books, slung on his cane across his shoulder. On our 
 way from the day school we called at his house and 
 got the books, carried them home and read them. 
 They were good books ; and I do remember Mr. 
 Chapin. For he did something that made us re- 
 member him. 
 
JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND. 2/ 
 
 Concerning his boyhood at Heath 
 Holland was thinking when he wrote : — 
 
 I recall a home like this long since left behind in 
 the journey of life ; and its memory floats back over 
 me with a shower of emotions and thoughts toward 
 whose precious fall my heart opens itself greedily 
 like a thirsty flower. It is a home among the mount- 
 ains, humble and homely, but priceless in its wealth 
 of associations. The waterfall sings again in my 
 ears, as it used to sing through the dreamy, myste- 
 rious nights. The rose at the gate, the patch of 
 tansy under the window, the neighboring orchard, 
 the old elm, the grand machinery of storms and 
 showers, the little smithy under the hill that flamed 
 with strange light through the dull winter evenings, 
 the wood-pile at the door, the ghostly white birches 
 on the hill, and the dim blue haze upon the retiring 
 mountains — all these come back to me with an appeal 
 which touches my heart and moistens my eyes. 
 
 When young Holland was about fifteen 
 years old, the family moved back to 
 Hampshire county, locating again in 
 Belchertown. this time, however, in the 
 eastern part of the town. After this, 
 they lived in a neighborhood near the 
 line between Granby and South Hadley. 
 
28 JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND. 
 
 In this vicinity there was a woolen mill 
 in which the boy worked for a time ; and 
 memories of his experiences there color 
 some of the scenes in the story of " Miss 
 Gilbert's Career'' and some of the scenes 
 of the story of " Sevenoaks." From most 
 of the acquaintances whom he met in 
 these years Holland grew away, especially 
 from a set of boys at a district school. 
 From these he cut entirely loose. With 
 them he had participated in a few boyish 
 pranks, mischievous, perhaps, but such 
 as their lenient elders would readily ex- 
 cuse. From these pranks it was but a 
 step to something bolder, in which the 
 others asked Holland to engage. Tradi- 
 tion does not tell exactly what this pro- 
 posed escapade was. But it was something 
 that had *'bad" in it, something against 
 which the conscience of the boy warned 
 him. His mates urged him. He hesita- 
 ted, but it was for only a moment. He 
 thought of his father, whom he loved. 
 
JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND. 29 
 
 And the question arose in his mind, 
 " Would father approve of my joining- in 
 the mischief?" "No; he would not," 
 said the voice within. And, turning to 
 his mates, the boy said, " I shall not go 
 with you." And he acted as he spoke, 
 resolutely walking away from them. At 
 home he told his father, who was ever 
 his confidant, what he had done. And 
 the father, clasping the boy to his heart, 
 looked from his blue eyes more of appro- 
 val and delight than words could tell. 
 
 After this Harrison Holland and his 
 family lived at Northampton. It was 
 concerning him there, but more especially 
 concerning him in his home at Heath and 
 in his round of tasks there that the son 
 was writing when he drew the fine picture 
 •of the old time New Englander given in 
 that piece of beautifully simple English, 
 the poem " Daniel Gray," that begins, 
 
 ^' If I should ever win a home in heaven. 
 
 For whose sweet rest I humbly hope and pray, 
 In the great company of the forgiven 
 I should be sure to find old Daniel Gray." 
 
30 JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND. 
 
 From Northampton young Holland jour- 
 neyed out to other towns and other states 
 to find classes to teach in penmanship. And 
 to a Springfield friend asking him in after 
 years about the extent of his experience 
 in keeping '' writing schools," he replied, 
 ** Well, I taught out here at Warren, up 
 at Hinsdale, N. H., and in forty other 
 places around New England." This 
 reply was made in tones which said ' ' the 
 experience was well enough ; but I am 
 glad to be beyond it." 
 
 If among the early acquaintances of 
 men who gain distinction there are those 
 who not only despise them in their youth 
 but begrudge them the honestly earned 
 fame that brightens their after life» there 
 are also some who, appreciating them from 
 the first, delight, as they have the right 
 to delight, in the successes that have 
 given them their name. Though Holland 
 worked not to gain glory, he was grateful 
 for appreciation and there were times 
 
JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND. 3 I 
 
 when he longed for it. Fully did he 
 mean the deprecation that he wrote of 
 those who oppose and malign the prophets 
 of the world until they are gone, and then 
 '* build costly monuments to their mem- 
 ory, and when the need of it is passed, 
 bestow without st?nt that which would 
 have done them great good while living ! '* 
 In his years of success, Holland had 
 friends of importance in business and 
 professional life all over the country, and 
 his name was known beyond the seas. 
 There were also those who knew him 
 when he was like them, unknown to the 
 world, and who though still in obscurity, 
 rejoiced in the fact that he had become 
 famous. One of these, a Greenfield me- 
 chanic who was a cousin of the author 
 and clearly remembered that others of 
 the kindred despised Harrison Holland, 
 and, so, his son, used to declare with 
 vigorous emphasis, '' But Josiah is ahead 
 of them now and I am glad of it.'* 
 
32 JOSIAH (GILBERT HOLLAND. 
 
 Others in humble life who took an honest 
 pride in their early acquaintance with the 
 author, were the people of Guilford, Vt., 
 where, in his youth, he went in quest of 
 a class to teach in penmanship, and where 
 he taught a district school instead. One 
 of the Guilford farmers to appreciate 
 young Holland was Henry Chase, whom 
 his townsmen had made superintending 
 committee of the district schools, and 
 who at the time of Holland's visit was 
 also, himself, teaching the school of one 
 of the districts. Calling of an evening at 
 that place of general resort '' the store,'* 
 the young man there met Mr. Chase, who 
 said to him after listening to his inquiries 
 about young men and women whom he 
 could get to join his proposed class in 
 penmanship, '' You are just the man we 
 want to teach school in one of our dis- 
 tricts. The man whom the prudential 
 committee hired knew enough but some- 
 how he couldn't govern the school and 
 
JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND. 33 
 
 the big boys put him out. But you are 
 just the man to keep the school." Holland 
 dissented, saying among other things, 
 that while he might be qualified to teach 
 some '' branches," he was deficient as far 
 as grammar was concerned. Mr. Chase 
 persisted, and at last he consented to 
 take an "■ examination." The two went 
 to Holland's lodgings at the tavern, 
 where the committeeman asked him 
 questions in the branches usually taught 
 in district schools in those days, paying 
 especial attention to grammar, and closed 
 the examination by declaring him amply 
 qualified. Holland succeeded in winning 
 the respect and love of the pupils and the 
 esteem of their parents and taught a good 
 school. He soon gave evidence that he 
 was ''master of the situation" in that 
 school room, that he could rule by sheer 
 dominance of will power if that was 
 necessary ; but, better, he had the sympa- 
 thetic nature that drew the pupils to him. ' 
 
34 JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND. 
 
 And to this day they boast that ** J. G. 
 Holland, the author, once taught school 
 right here in our own Vermont town of 
 Guilford!" They are proud to think 
 that, following the custom of the times, 
 he boarded round among the families of 
 the district and they attach special im- 
 portance to the farmhouse where he 
 ** stayed over Sunday," and take care to 
 specify which room of the house it was 
 that he occupied. 
 
 When about twenty-one years of age 
 Holland began the study of medicine. 
 Following the custom of those days for 
 the aspirant for admission to the ranks of 
 the medical fraternity, to read medical 
 works in the office of some physician of 
 established reputation, he studied for a 
 time with old Dr. Thompson of North- 
 ampton, and also took courses of lectures 
 at the old Berkshire medical school at 
 Pittsfield, from which he graduated early 
 in the 40's. 
 
JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND. 35 
 
 On his way from Pittsfield to his 
 father's at Northampton, he came to 
 Huntington (Norwich) hill, where he 
 called on Dr. S. D. Brooks, then a young 
 physician. He had recently succeeded to 
 the practice of the elder Dr. Stickney, 
 his father-in-law. And, an epidemic of 
 sickness having come upon the neighbor- 
 hood, he was in need of a professional 
 assistant. He asked Holland to help 
 him. The graduate consented, and for 
 several weeks he '* took turns " with Dr. 
 Brooks in prescribing for the afflicted of 
 '' Norridgehill." The two young doctors 
 had, from the first, a liking for each 
 other that soon grew into a warm friend- 
 ship that was lifelong. 
 
 After completing his work as assistant 
 to Dr. Brooks at'^Norridge hill," Dr. 
 Holland returned to Northampton, and 
 there had headquarters while casting 
 about for a field in which to set up in 
 practice. He finally fixed upon Spring- 
 
36 JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND. 
 
 field, and there formed a partnership 
 with Dr. Bailey. And people are still 
 living who rememberthefirm of ''Holland 
 and Bailey, physicians and surgeons, 
 Springfield, Mass." They had some 
 patronage, but Dr. Holland, who, from 
 the first, did not like the work of the pro- 
 fession which he had chosen, devoted 
 what time he could find writing literary 
 articles, one or two of which were 
 accepted and published by the Knicker- 
 bocker magazine. Then as '*a refuge 
 from uncongenial pills and the more un- 
 congenial lack of an opportunity for 
 dispensing them," he edited and was one 
 of the publishers of ' ' The Bay State 
 Weekly Courier," which was issued 
 simultaneously at Springfield and Chico- 
 pee. But this publication proving finan- 
 cially unsuccessful, the project was 
 abandoned. Dr. Bailey finally located at 
 Pittsfield, where he became well-to-do 
 and where he lived and died. Soon after 
 
JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND. 37 
 
 giving- up his experiment of the Courier, 
 Dr. Holland taught a private school at 
 Richmond, Va., and later went to Vicks- 
 burg. Miss., where, after a year of hard 
 work, he succeeded in establishing a 
 system of graded public schools somewhat 
 on the New England plan. Of these he 
 was superintendent from the first, and he 
 demonstrated not only that he could 
 organize, but could manage them. When, 
 however, he had consummated .so auspi- 
 cious an achievement in his undertaking, 
 he abandoned it, illness in his family 
 leading him to resign his position and 
 return to Springfield. Dr. Holland in- 
 sisted on discipline in the schools that he 
 managed at Vicksburg ; and in referring, 
 in the time of the civil war, to his expe- 
 riences down South, he facetiously re- 
 marked: " I may justly claim the honor 
 of having thrashed more southern rebels 
 than any other one Yankee." 
 
 Soon after returning to Springfield Dr. 
 
38 JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND. 
 
 Holland began work on The Republican. 
 The salary, which was moderate the first 
 year, was increased the second year; and 
 the third year Dr. Holland became an 
 owner of one-fourth of the paper and the 
 printing business connected with it. 
 
 In his work as a journalist Holland had 
 learned something of the history of 
 various towns of the '* river counties" 
 and Berkshire, and conceived the idea of 
 writing a history of Western Massachu- 
 setts. In collecting the data and prepar- 
 ing the copy for the proposed work he 
 was industrious and painstaking. The 
 chapters appeared serially in The Repub- 
 lican, and were issued in two volumes in 
 1855. Soon after this there appeared in 
 that paper a series of ' ' Letters from a 
 young man in the city to his sister in the 
 country," in which the correspondent, 
 ''Max Mannering," who, as it finally 
 came to be believed, was Dr. Holland, 
 ** did up " in humorous vein local people. 
 
JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND. 39 
 
 It was about this time that the colonial 
 tale, ''The Bay Path,'* was published, 
 and soon the ''Max Mannering," who 
 had stirred up things at such a lively rate 
 with his diatribes, appeared as " Timothy 
 Titcomb " in a series of ' ' Letters to young 
 people, single and married.*' The 
 epistles appeared serially in The Repub- 
 lican, and they were read with avidity by 
 people of all classes in the field of that 
 journal's constituency. 
 
 Desiring to give the "letters " to the 
 world in covers, the writer offered them 
 to one publisher after another, only to 
 be refused. One of these was a Boston 
 firm, now forgotten by all but antiquari- 
 ans. Other publishers were deaf to the 
 writer's appeals. The words used in 
 referring to the "letters" were, "All 
 very well, but — ." Then was the time 
 when he ' ' was in Broadway a unit among 
 a million." His writings refused by 
 these publishers, he was greatly dis- 
 
40 JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND. 
 
 heartened. Still, he determined not to 
 give up his quest, and, bethinking himself 
 of a brother-journalist, then a wrtter on 
 the New York Tribune, he made his way 
 to the office of that paper. This writer, 
 who was accounted a good judge of liter- 
 atture, and whose delight it was to be 
 helpful to authors, said, '' Well, let me 
 see, — there's one firm that doesn't publish 
 that kind of writing, and there's another 
 who wouldn't want the book. Derby & 
 Jackson — you have seen them? " '' Yes, 
 I have." '' Well, yes, there is one man 
 whom you might try, and I'll give you a 
 letter to him." ^^ Thank you." And 
 the Tribune man wrote: — 
 
 New York, _ 1858. 
 
 Dear Mr. Scribner: Permit me to introduce my 
 friend, Dr. J. G. Holland of Springfield, Mass. You 
 can rely upon anything that he says. 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 George Ripley. . 
 
 Armed with this note, Holland called on 
 Charles Scribner, whom he found in the 
 
JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND. 4I 
 
 back office of his store, then on Grand 
 street. The publisher, who was busy 
 with his mail, continued for a few mo- 
 ments looking at it. When he looked up 
 Holland presented his letter, which the 
 publisher read at a glance. Evidently 
 pleased with the newcomer, he said : 
 '' What can I do for you? " 
 
 ' * I have some essays — may I read one ?" 
 
 '* You may." 
 
 The writer took from his vest pocket 
 one of the *' essays" or ''letters," which 
 was in the form of a newspaper excerpt, 
 and read it. The publisher, who had 
 listened with close attention, said when 
 the reading was done, *' It's enough — I'll 
 take the book." 
 
 The author returned to Springfield, 
 and soon had the ''copy" for his pro- 
 posed book ready. On the last of several 
 trips which he made to the metropolis 
 prior to the launching of the book, he 
 met at the outer door of the Scribner 
 
42 JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND. 
 
 store a brother and junior partner of the 
 publisher, and said to him, '' How about 
 the book? " '' Well — er — we've gotten 
 it about ready to print." And this reply 
 was spoken in a tone showing a lack of 
 interest. But the author cared not for 
 that. The man of faith and of action 
 was at the head of the firm, and it was to 
 see him that the author called. As he 
 started toward his friend's office the other 
 Scribner said to him: ''My brother 
 Charles is quite enthusiastic about the 
 book. He thinks we'll sell 10,000 copies." 
 There were 30,000 copies sold in the rush 
 for the book immediatel}^ after publica- 
 tion, and since then 40,000 more have 
 been sold. 
 
 It was about this time that Holland 
 wrote the poem, ''Bittersweet," which, 
 published by the Scribner house, was 
 soon in wide demand. This, while 
 abounding in evidence that the writer 
 was gifted with poetic talent, contained 
 
JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND. 43 
 
 notions that awakened the opposition of 
 the theologians, some of whom censured 
 the writer sharply. One attack from 
 near home was by Rev. Dr. William F. 
 Warren, then minister of the Wilbraham 
 Methodist church, but now and for years 
 president of Boston University. Asked 
 to address the literary societies of Wes- 
 leyan Academy at the anniversaries in 
 1859, ^^ ^'Ook the subject of ''Sin" for 
 his theme, and paid especial attention to 
 the teaching of '' Bittersweet," accredit- 
 ing the author with talent for real poetry, 
 but vigorously opposing his theological 
 conclusions. It is but just to say that 
 when asked nineteen years later to bear 
 testimony to the healthfulness of Hol- 
 land's writings as a whole, Dr. Warren 
 responded in a happy epistle, giving his 
 high appreciation of ''Timothy Titcomb," 
 doing this ' ' all the more readily in that 
 at a former time " he found " occasion to 
 dissent from certain " of his ideas. 
 
44 JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND. 
 
 While in the time of Dr. Holland's 
 connection with The Republican, as 
 before then and afterwards, Mr. Bowles 
 dictated the policy of the paper in matters 
 political, Holland was literary editor. 
 One of the writers whose verse he printed 
 had sent her contributions signed with 
 the pen name of '' Lizzie Lincoln." After 
 several of these had appeared, Holland, 
 as he was opening his mail of a morning, 
 said to Clark W. Bryan, whose desk was 
 near his: *' Bryan, would you like to 
 hear me read something?" — and the 
 editor tried to read a manuscript which 
 he had just taken from its envelope. 
 Then he stopped a moment and tried 
 again to read, but tears filled his eyes, 
 and after waiting the second time, he 
 said, '' Here, Bryan, take it yourself 
 and read it, for I cannot." And Mr. 
 Bryan took the copy and read the piece 
 beginning: — 
 
 " Over the river they beckon to me, 
 
 Loved ones who have crossed to the further side." 
 
JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND. 45 
 
 The poem soon appeared in the paper, 
 and with it the announcement that the 
 editors must now break the silence and 
 inform the public who was the author of 
 the inspiring piece — ''Nancy Amelia 
 Woodbury Priest, a factory girl at Hins- 
 dale, N. H/' The demand for it was so 
 great that the paper soon twice reprinted 
 it ; and the musical verse has given the 
 writer lasting fame. 
 
 In his novels Dr. Holland pictured life 
 as he found it. But his object was more 
 than entertainment : it was to help hu- 
 manity to become what it ought to be. 
 If he wrote of the evil in the world, the 
 object was not to magnify it, certainly 
 not simply to portray it, but to lessen it. 
 He spoke to his fellowmen of their sor- 
 sows that he might suggest some of the 
 uses of those sorrows and some of the 
 means by which they might be lessened. 
 He recognized the difficulties in life that 
 he might speak of the power to be gained 
 
46 JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND. 
 
 by conquering those difficulties and that 
 he might aid in the struggle for mastery. 
 He thought people could be bettered 
 more surely by writings that had the 
 hopeful spirit than by those filled with 
 the idea that things are going to the bad. 
 So, while he could, and did, depict the 
 objectionable to denounce it, and to warn 
 against it, he preferred to portray things 
 as they ought to be. 
 
 Of the worth of his earlier works 
 Holland had a very modest estimate. 
 To an admirer he wrote that he thought 
 his first books no better than mere ex- 
 periments and said: ''There was a time 
 w^hen I hoped to write something differ- 
 ent. But now my youth and even my 
 middle age are passed, and the great 
 book hasn't been written. I suppose that 
 every writer feels like this ; and that even 
 hope itself may keep alive, one must 
 always see something better to do than 
 
JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND. 47 
 
 he has done. Blessed is that man of 
 whom it can truthfully be said, ' He hath 
 done what he could.' '' 
 
 It was after this that his career as 
 magazine conductor came in, with his 
 further work in novel writing. '' Seven- 
 oaks '' compelled even some of his captious 
 critics to admit his genuine power. Well 
 pictured are the backwoodsman, ** Jim" 
 Fenton, and the scenes in which he 
 figures. In these scenes he is made to 
 act with an ideal bravery and still to act 
 naturally, and his acts are made the 
 pivots on which events turn in the 
 dram.a, whose unfolding brings the in- 
 ventor, Paul Benedict, finally to the 
 possession of his dues for his inventions, 
 and brings to his doom the scoundrel, 
 Robert Belcher, who has robbed Benedict. 
 The author's father was an inventor and 
 was cheated out of the returns for his 
 inventions. It was natural that Holland 
 should set forth his excellences and 
 
48 JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND. 
 
 should also multiply features in his life 
 to make them fit the events of the story. 
 When it was suggested to the author that 
 some of the experiences of Belcher re- 
 minded the reader that the scenes of the 
 story were laid in America, and in the 
 time of such operators as ''Jim" Fisk 
 and ' ' Boss " Tweed, Holland replied, as a 
 knowing smile dawned on his face, ' 'They 
 had something to do with it.'' That 
 Holland felt more nearly satisfied with 
 his work in producing " Sevenoaks " than 
 he did with other efforts of his in novel 
 writing, is certain. A friend who had 
 written a review of the work and sent 
 him a proof, received a letter from Hol- 
 land, saying: *' It is unusually well 
 written. I am glad to see it and to thank 
 you for it." This proved Holland's last 
 letter to his friend, and bore date of 
 August, 1 88 1. 
 
 Holland was in the truest sense demo- 
 cratic; and no subsequent good fortune 
 
JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND. 49 
 
 of his elevated him above those whom 
 once he knew. He w^as just the man to 
 appreciate natures like his own, and it 
 was natural that in writing a sketch of 
 the lamented Garfield he should say, 
 *' His sympathy for the poor drew to him 
 the hearts of the world." It was as he 
 wrote this sentence that he laid down 
 his pen and went home to rest and return 
 to the task on the morrow — a plan that 
 was changed by the beckoning heaven- 
 ward that came before daybreak. Well 
 was it said that the words he wrote of the 
 martyred president, would have been 
 appropriate for his own epitaph. 
 
 In this letter bearing date at Hornells- 
 ville, N. Y., there's a picture of Holland's 
 life in one of his busiest years. 
 
 On the lecture wing, over my house, in New 
 York, the other day, I made a dive, and took up and 
 brought along with me, a package of letters, includ- 
 ing one from you. You ask for my health and my 
 interest in religious matters. I am very busy ; in 
 fact, 1 never worked harder than since taking up life 
 
50 JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND. 
 
 in the great bedlam. What with writing, lecturing, 
 and taking care of the magazines, my time is fully 
 occupied. My health is fairly good, and I remain 
 sufficiently orthodox for all practical purposes, yet 
 sufficiently heterodox to excite the interest of the 
 New York Observer. But my room is getting ':old 
 and I must not sit here writing longer. Yet cold or 
 
 warm, I am always your friend, 
 
 J. G. Holland. 
 
 To the same friend, when applying for 
 an autograph for some one who had 
 solicited it, the author wrote: '*I am 
 very busy, and have only the time to 
 send the autograph for which you ask 
 and to say that I am always your friend, 
 J. G. Holland.'* This reminds one of his 
 facetious inscription in the autograph 
 book of a Springfield high school girl, 
 years before : ' ' You ask for my name ? 
 Why, I haven't even won such a thing 
 for myself. Nevertheless, I am always 
 your truly, J. G. Holland." 
 
 It was a compliment to Dr. Holland 
 that his fellow citizens of Springfield 
 should ask him to speak at their demon- 
 
JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND 
 
 51 
 
 stration over the death of Abraham 
 Lincoln. For that was an occasion tre- 
 mendous with the awful grandeur of a 
 tragedy that had robbed Americans of their 
 greatest leader, and had smitten down that 
 champion of freedom who was at once 
 the wisest and the bravest of them all. 
 He took the helm of the ship of state at 
 the beginning of troublous times: and 
 with nothing recorded in history to give 
 hint of the right course to pursue, but 
 looking to God for guidance and resolv- 
 ing to take counsel of his own conscience 
 in matters of right and wrong, he set out 
 to sail an unknown sea. Following his 
 own intuitions in defiance of the threats 
 of those who should have been friends 
 but who persisted in being enemies, and 
 compelled also to disregard, at times, the 
 advice of those who aimed to be friendly, 
 he brought the nation's craft through the 
 rocks and shoals of waters hitherto un- 
 traversed by the navigators of earth, 
 
52 JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND. 
 
 safely over the billows of that ocean 
 when lashed into fury by the tempest of 
 a civil war, that for intensity of terror 
 was unprecedented in the annals of na- 
 tions. And, now, when, by the blessing 
 of Heaven, he had brought the ship of 
 state safely to anchor in the port of 
 peace, some of those who had failed in 
 their efforts to wreck the craft, became 
 maddened at the futility of those attempts 
 and descended to the lowest kind of cow- 
 ardice, and by assassination wreaked their 
 vengeance on the man whom they could 
 not turn from doing his duty in the cause 
 of his country and theirs. 
 
 It was to address them at their demon- 
 stration over the fate of this illustrious 
 man that the people of Springfield had 
 asked their townsman to speak, and, 
 grateful for the honor, but too sensible 
 to be vain over it, he came to the occasion 
 to do his work well. 
 
 Sharing in the indignation which 
 
JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND. 53 
 
 Springfield people in common with other 
 loyal men and women of the country felt 
 at the terrible crime that had been per- 
 petrated, he, yet, counseled to cherish 
 the spirit of forgiveness towards the 
 murderer of the nation's truest friend, 
 and, while sympathizing with the Amer- 
 ican people in their loss, pictured 
 Abraham Lincoln praying for those who 
 slew him. Here follow some of the 
 orator's words on the occasion : 
 
 O friends, O countrymen, I dare not speak the 
 imprecations that rise to my lips as I think of this 
 wanton extinction of a great and beneficent life. "^ * 
 * " For somehow I feel the presence of that kindly 
 spirit and the magnetism of those kind eyes asking 
 me to forbear. * - '-' ^ And the curse rising like 
 a bubble from the turbid waters within me breaks 
 into nothingness in the rarer atmosphere which he 
 throws around me. ^ * ^ * 
 
 Ah, that other shore ! The commander-in-chief is 
 with his armies now ! More are they who are with him 
 in victory and peace than they who tread the earth- 
 The soldiers of the republic pitch their white tents, 
 and unfold their banners, and sing their songs of 
 triumph around him now. Not his the hosts of worn 
 
54 JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND. 
 
 and wearied bodies ; not with him the riddled colors 
 and war-stained uniforms. Upon his ears breaks 
 nevermore the dissonance of booming cannon, and 
 clashing sabres, and dying groans. But youth and 
 life troop around him with a love purer than ours, and 
 a joy that more than balances our grief. 
 
DR. N. W. RAND. 
 
 HE was a lofty soul, gifted with great 
 capacity for seeing and for express- 
 ing spiritual truth. Nature spoke 
 to him with her many voices, and he under- 
 stood those voices, and in heeding them 
 made his life beautiful. With awe he 
 gazed upon the grandeur of the mountains, 
 and the beauty of the lovely landscapes 
 delighted him. The splendors of the 
 morning gave him joy, and to him they 
 were the glories of the heavenly country. 
 Serene as the glow of sunsets that he 
 loved, his spirit deepened its calm as he 
 drank the loveliness of their colors. He 
 knew something of the science of music, 
 and he was acquainted with the spirit of 
 song and understood and appreciated the 
 harmonies of its sweetest and its grandest 
 numbers. The chanting of the winds 
 
56 DR. N. W. RAND. 
 
 inspired him, bird songs were his en- 
 trancement, and many is the brook of the 
 hill country where he lived 
 
 The music of whose liquid lip 
 Had been to him companionship. 
 
 Dr. Nehemiah Wheeler Rand was son 
 of Thomas Prentice and Lydia Wheeler 
 Rand of Francestown, N. H., and was 
 born in that town September 14, 1853. 
 There he passed the years of his boyhood, 
 attending the district school in the neigh- 
 borhood of his birthplace, working on his 
 father's farm, and going to meeting in 
 the country meeting-house. He studied 
 at Francestown academy and taught 
 district school a few terms, and is recalled 
 as an active boy, healthy and strong, 
 with a bright mind and gentle manners. 
 He was always truthful and always re- 
 spectful to his superiors and to people of 
 age. Quick to learn, he yet did not have 
 the vanity of some boys of ready minds. 
 
DR. N. W. RAND. S7 
 
 nor was he inclined to boast of his aptness 
 before boys and girls of dull intellect; 
 nor did he taunt them with their igno- 
 rance. He also resisted the temptation 
 to ''idle away time/' which comes to 
 talented boys, from their knowing that in 
 an hour of application they can master 
 the lessons set for them to learn, — lessons- 
 which their classmates would be com- 
 pelled to study for a day and then not 
 see into the subjects as far as they could 
 penetrate at the first glance. 
 
 Young Rand's experience in keeping 
 district school proved that he had capacity 
 to control boys and girls, and inspire 
 them to learn. The people of a district 
 in which he taught remember that 
 when he kept it their school was winner 
 of one of the prizes offered for the best 
 two schools in the district of half a dozen 
 towns in their section of New Hampshire. 
 The committee of award adjudged Rand's 
 school the second best, and the prize won 
 
58 DR. N. W, RAND. 
 
 was an encyclopedia for the use of the 
 pupils of the school. Young Rand is 
 also remembered for the interest which 
 he, with other students at the academy, 
 took in the Ivceum debates that were 
 maintained in term time, debates managed 
 by the teachers and students of the 
 institution, but participated in to some 
 'extent by men and women of the town. 
 It was at some time in these years that 
 Rand's attention was turned toward the 
 medical profession, though exactly what 
 led him in that direction is not known. 
 If the fact that two of his father's kindred 
 were doctors determined him to try to be 
 a doctor, too, that fact does not account 
 for his choosing the homeopathic school, 
 for they were of the other sort. He at- 
 tended courses at Dartmouth, the Boston 
 university and the New York homeopathic 
 college, studying also with Dr. Gallinger. 
 who is known to the country at large for 
 his political career. After a brief and 
 
DR. N. W. RAND. 59 
 
 "professionally successful experience with 
 Dr. Warren of Palmer, the young man 
 started for himself in Monson, in 1879, 
 when twenty-six years of age. His sound 
 health, his ardent interest in his work, 
 his native courtesy and the other virtues 
 of a good physician made him notably 
 popular. Here also he found his wife. 
 Four years after making his home in 
 Monson he married Miss Jenny Peck, a 
 native of the town and a teacher in the 
 academy. They made a wedding tour of 
 several months in Europe, and gave 
 especial study to the German language 
 and the German people. During this 
 sojourn abroad Dr. Rand's practice was 
 taken by his brother, Dr. John P. Rand, 
 who had completed his professional 
 studies, and who remained associated 
 with him several years after his return 
 from Europe, afterward going to 
 Worcester. The brothers were always 
 closely conjoined. The ties of consan- 
 
6o DR. N. W. RAND. 
 
 guinity counted much with the Rands, 
 and this affection of the brothers for 
 each other was but in keeping with their 
 love for their sivSters, and the veneration 
 of all for their father and mother. 
 
 The married life of Dr. Rand proved a 
 happy one. Yet it was but brief. Three 
 years after their return from Europe his 
 wife died, leaving him with two young 
 children, the youngest born but a few 
 days before her death. ''A Sheaf of 
 Memories," which Dr. Rand compiled 
 for his children, tells how Mrs. Jenny 
 Peck Rand was prized by her pupils and 
 friends ; and in his home he placed her 
 portrait with the inscription beneath it 
 from Whittier: — 
 
 Sacred to thee am I henceforth, 
 Thou in heayen and I on earth, 
 
 lines that expressed the vow of his soul, 
 a vow that he kept most faithfully during 
 the twelve years that he remained on 
 
DR. N. W. RAND. 6l 
 
 earth. His exit was in 1898. And the 
 grave which holds his dust is by that of 
 his wife in the beautiful ''God's acre'' 
 overlooking the lovely village where 
 they had lived, where they were prized 
 and where their names will long be 
 cherished. 
 
EDWARD BATES GILLETT. 
 
 THIS talented man had, and deserved, 
 the name of being the most eloquent 
 advocate of the Hampden bar. 
 There were h\it few in the state to equal 
 his capacity for graceful speech and only 
 a few in the whole country to exceed him 
 in that qualification for the legal pro- 
 fession. He understood not only the 
 law but the principles of justice on which 
 all right law is founded. He was for 
 years prosecuting attorney for his judicial 
 district and proved himself eminently 
 fitted for the functions of that position. 
 An accomplished jurist, he deserved 
 elevation to the bench of the supreme 
 court and would have graced the high 
 office of chief justice. An able lawyer 
 and an eloquent speaker, it was natural 
 that he should be sent to the state senate. 
 
EDWARD BATES GILLETT. 63 
 
 There he gave evidence of possessing the 
 high talent for legislation that fitted him 
 not only for a career as congressman but 
 for a place in the senate of the United 
 States. 
 
 Born in 1817, at South Hadley Falls, 
 educated in the schools of that village, 
 the old Woodbridge school at South 
 Hadley centre, Hopkins academy at 
 Hadley and at Amherst college, Mr. 
 Gillett next studied law and located in 
 practice at Westfield. Naturally public 
 spirited, he took a genuine interest in 
 things making for the welfare of the town 
 of his adoption. iVnd he was welcomed 
 by her people to participation in matters 
 of importance and , was also invited to 
 leadership therein. A religious man, 
 Mr. Gillett identified himself with the 
 First church of the town. Ever working 
 for the general welfare of that historic 
 parish, he was still more concerned in 
 the religious life of her people, especially 
 
64 EDWARD BATES GILLETT. 
 
 in the spiritual well being and moral 
 development of her young men. And 
 his interest was manifested in unselfish 
 labors for their good and in words that 
 spoke the genuine friendship of a chival- 
 rous man. 
 
 Gifted with true eloquence, Mr. Gillett 
 was in demand to speak on important 
 civic occasions. He had come to the full 
 of his capacity for speech before the 
 Fourth of July celebration had gone out 
 of fashion, with its processions, its 
 feasting and its oration concerning the 
 deeds of Revolutionary heroes warring 
 against the oppression of King George. 
 And fortunate did that people think 
 themselves who could secure Mr. Gillett 
 to voice their emotions on the great day. 
 There are those who remember his speak- 
 ing at a celebration held in a grove near 
 the mountain hamlet of North Blanford. 
 From hillside homes for miles in every 
 direction came the farmers and their sons 
 
EDWARD BATES GILLETT. 65 
 
 to hear the eloquent man, and they 
 listened with interest as he portrayed the 
 scenes when the yeomanry hastened from 
 their farms to Lexington, Concord and 
 Bunker Hill to resist British tyranny in 
 arms. Though this speech was not an 
 address on the theme of the preservation 
 of the national union, the love of country 
 apostropnized by the speaker awakened 
 emotions of patriotism that kept at full 
 tide until, at the breaking out of the 
 rebellion, they carried some of the orator's 
 listeners into the union army, to fight for 
 the preservation of the nation whose in- 
 dependence was gained by the forefathers 
 he had eulogized. 
 
 Fitting Mr. Gillett's greeting to the 
 home comers at the Westfield bicentennial 
 — "fathers with hair of molten silver, 
 mothers with names dearer and holier 
 than all other earthly names, young men 
 with vigor crowned, and maidens * fairer 
 than the light ' — one and all welcome ! 
 
66 EDWARD BATES GILLETT. 
 
 a thousand times welcome ! ' " Inspiring, 
 too, the invitation — '' Let ns build here 
 three tabernacles — to the Past, the 
 Present and the Future! " 
 
 The lustre of Mr. Gillett's life as a 
 man. a citizen, and a friend outshone even 
 his talent as an orator. And if in the 
 fulfillment of the prophecy which there 
 was in his qualifications for statesman- 
 ship, he had entered the senate of his 
 country, though, in keeping with the 
 modesty and the feelings of awe natural 
 to the man, he would there have walked 
 with reverent tread, so much of a man 
 was he that he would not have suffered 
 in comparison with any of his prede- 
 cessors. His votes would have been 
 for the right and his words in support 
 of them would have been such that he 
 would not have needed to tremble in the 
 halls made memorable with the elaborate 
 oratory of an Everett and the stately 
 speech of a Sumner. He could have 
 
EDWARD BATES GILLETT. 67 
 
 Stood unabashed even in the halls reso- 
 nant forever with the massive eloquence 
 of a Webster. Those utterances that 
 would have been comparable with the 
 efforts of the giants who have given 
 America its forensic fame, would still 
 have had a chief feature of their signifi- 
 cance in the fact that they reflected the 
 qualities of so excellent a man as Edward 
 Bates Gillett. 
 
 Among those who appreciated Mr. 
 Gillett's qualities and enjoyed his friend- 
 ship are his former partner Judge Stevens 
 of Westfield and Judge W. P. Strickland 
 of Northampton, Senator Dawes, R. O. 
 Morris, Henry W. Taft and others of 
 the legal fraternity, who are still living. 
 Among the ministers wiio appreciated 
 him were the ancient Dr. Davis of the 
 Westfield old church, Rev. Joel S. 
 Bingham of the new Second church, the 
 accomplished and faithful Rev. J. H. 
 Lockwood of the old church of to-day. 
 
68 EDWARD BATES GILLETT. 
 
 Other clerofv atnonof Mr. Gillett's friends 
 and admirers were the late and the 
 saintly Rev. Dr. S. G. Buckingham of 
 Springfield, and Rev. Dr. Richard Salter 
 Storrs who have gone and the eminent 
 Bishop Frederic Dan Huntington. 
 
 Mr. Gillett once had an ambition to go 
 to congress, but he magnanimously stood 
 aside, to give his friend, Mr. Dawes 
 opportunity for a congressional career; 
 and he continued term after term to hold 
 his ambition in abeyance. He was so 
 genuine about this that everybody said 
 that to him certainly belonged the nomi- 
 nation of his party to take Mr. Dawes's 
 place, when the latter retired or was pro- 
 moted to the national senate. And some 
 thought Mr. Gillett ought to have been 
 sent to the senate without the intervening 
 experience of a term in the lower house. 
 All other aspirants for the congressional 
 nomination as Mr. Dawes's successor 
 were fully willing to wait for Mr. Gillett 
 
EDWARD BATES GILLETT. 60 
 
 to have his honors first. But, come to 
 the case in hand, he decided not to accept 
 a nomination. This decision took all his 
 friends by surprise, and the reason for 
 his coming to this conclusion, then a 
 mystery, remains unexplained to this 
 day. To him the delights of home were 
 more to be desired than the splendors 
 and excitements of social life at Wash- 
 ington, and the income from his profession 
 equaled if not exceeded the salary of a 
 congressman. Still, to refuse the nomi- 
 nation for the place for which he had 
 long cherished hopes seems strange 
 indeed, especially when a nomination 
 meant an election by a large majority. 
 
 Some time after this, when driving to 
 Springfield to attend court, Mr. Gillett 
 had the misfortune to be thrown from 
 his carriage and to receive injuries which 
 resulted in what proved a permanent 
 impairment of his nervous system. Yet 
 so strong was his constitution and so free 
 
70 EDWARD BATES GILLETT. 
 
 from excesses had his life been that it 
 was thought he would thoroughly recover 
 his health. And he had made such 
 progress towards the summit of the hill 
 he was climbing that he thought it safe to 
 venture to participate in one of the trials 
 of the Northampton bank burglars. This 
 trial, held in an over crowded court room, 
 came upon a very hot day. And the 
 effort of the pleader proved too much for 
 him, and he slid down the hill again and 
 never recovered his health so as to be 
 able to take any part in a trial. He bore 
 with a brave serenity the deprivation of 
 living in retiracy from the active work of 
 his profession, and in 1899 died, leaving 
 to his family the priceless legacy of a 
 name lustrous with the glory of a chiv- 
 alrous life. 
 
GEORGE M. STEARNS. 
 
 IN some of his qualifications the late 
 George M. Stearns of the Hampden bar 
 equaled all his contemporaries. In 
 other qualifications some of them exceeded 
 him. The late Judge David Aiken could 
 be as severe in satire. Mr. Stearns's former 
 partner, Judge M. P. Knowlton,has as 
 ample knowledge of the law as he pos- 
 sessed. Judge William P. Strickland 
 and others still living as well understand 
 the principles of justice as did he. So, 
 too, did Edward B. Gillett, Judge Justin 
 Dewey and others who have gone, while 
 Mr. Gillett, with his great capacity for 
 fine speech, exceeded Mr. Stearns in 
 genuine eloquence, and he also was the 
 more cogent and convincing reasoner. 
 But for a peculiar quality of humor Mr. 
 Stearns had no equal in the Hampden 
 
72 GEORGE M. STEARNS. 
 
 bar or in western ^lassachusetts, and 
 few, if any, superiors in the state or 
 throughout the country. This humor 
 marked the illustrations which he used 
 to enforce his reasonings. While these 
 illustrations were striking enough to be 
 understood by the dullest mind among 
 the chance hangers-on at the courts 
 where he practiced, and homely enough 
 to appeal to the humblest farmers who 
 sat to hear the cases argued by him and 
 his opponents, they were always pat and 
 ingenious enough to interest the members 
 of the bar, and appropriate enough to be 
 allowed by the judges. 
 
 Mr. Stearns was able to make himself 
 understood by men of all kinds. The 
 average man was sure to be on every 
 panel, and every jury was likely to con- 
 tain men of more intellect, more learning 
 and higher social standing. Mr. Stearns 
 talked in terms which the commoners 
 understood, and yet there was that in his 
 
GEORGE M. STEARNS. 73 
 
 speech to awaken the interest and hold 
 the attention of men of more culture and 
 more consequence. ' Ca:me the jurors 
 from the hill farms of Worthington and 
 Windsor, or from the flat lands and quiet 
 old families of old Hadley, or from the 
 ** huckleberry " pastures of Pelham and 
 Prescott, or from the wilds around the 
 Otis ponds, or from the mill towns of 
 Adams and Holyoke, or from the whip 
 shops of Westfield, or from among the 
 grangers of Granby or Greenwich, or 
 from the highlands of Hawley or Heath, 
 or from the mines of Chester or Rowe — 
 were the jurors commoners, coming from 
 any of the coasts, corners or crowded 
 marts of the wide bailiwick of the courts 
 where Mr. Stearns practiced, they all 
 understood what he meant when he 
 spoke. 
 
 Numerous and varied were the elements 
 of the court constituency of Mr. Stearns — 
 a constituency comprising truly *' all 
 
74 GBORGE M. STEARNS. 
 
 sorts and conditions of men," and he had 
 the talent and the experience enabling 
 him to acquit himself creditably before 
 -them all. He had wit; but, better than 
 that, he was discerning enough to see 
 when wit was in order and when logic — 
 and he had the capacity for logic. Mr. 
 Stearns must have been well acquainted 
 with the scriptures, for he readily quoted 
 from them, and the '' sacred text " whfch 
 he employed was generally applicable to 
 to the subject under discussion. His 
 accomplishments must have included, 
 also, an acquaintance with hymnology, 
 for he often and happily turned a point 
 in his speech with a couplet from an 
 ancient hymn. He had no special favor- 
 ites among the hymn writers, but he 
 drew from Watts, Wesley, Doddridge or 
 others the lines that best suited the occa- 
 sion. Doubtless those ascended psalmists 
 were not disturbed in their serene rest on 
 high, nor diverted from participating in 
 
GEORGE M. STEARNS. 75 
 
 the minstrelsy above by Mr. Stearns using 
 their numbers in his talk to a jury on 
 earth, since even his vigorous voice could 
 not reach them there. It must be con- 
 fessed that it did not always seem in 
 approved meeting-house taste to take the 
 sacred psalmody of those old singers to 
 use in an argument in a litigation over a 
 disputed line fence or in the trial arising 
 on some action of tort ; yet the quotations 
 were used with effect. Mr. Stearns also 
 drew on the novelists and historians to 
 enrich his addresses to the juries. What 
 delightful humor there was in his mock 
 heroic comparison of the narration of 
 some conceited fellow on the witness- 
 stand to the tales of the great story-tellers. 
 He was clever in managing a contuma- 
 cious witness; and those who tried to 
 deceive him he not only outwitted, but 
 annihilated, with the ease of a giant 
 slaying pigmies. So watchful, too, was 
 Mr. Stearns, that the little men on the 
 
76 GEORGE M. STEARNS. 
 
 Stand and among the lawyers could not 
 entangle him in the meshes of any net of 
 legal technicalities, to remind him thus 
 of the Lilliputians who bound the great 
 Gulliver in the story. It often required 
 but one or two questions to nonplus the 
 boldest dissembler, and send him in con- 
 fusion from the stand. These interroga- 
 tions came with a tone of irony which, 
 once heard, was never forgotten. It 
 pierced to the ' ' dividing asunder of the 
 joints'* of the most fearless falsifier. If 
 anything more was needed to complete 
 the discomfiture of the dissembler, a 
 withering look from the attorney was 
 enough. Yet, having that '* touch of 
 nature which makes the whole world kin,'* 
 and so prompts a man to the manliness of 
 acknowledging his equal when he meets 
 him, if Mr, Stearns was beaten by a 
 witness in a fair and open encounter, he 
 could with the grace of frankness acknowl- 
 edge the success of the victor and send 
 
GEORGE M. STEARNS. 7/ 
 
 him off the stand rejoicing in the tribute 
 of the attorney to his repartee. A news- 
 paper man, who was called in at the 
 second trial of a case to testify about 
 something which he heard one of the 
 contestants say at the former trial, was 
 cross-questioned by Mr. Stearns, who, in 
 tones of irony, asked, ''Do you, sir, 
 remember everything that you hear in 
 the courts where you go to report? " 
 Then followed more words of the lawyer, 
 who tried to belittle the business of the 
 newspaper man. The witness responded, 
 *' Mr. Stearns, I can remember and repeat 
 some of your speeches made at trials." 
 ''That will do," responded the attorney 
 in the most kindly tones possible. And 
 he motioned to the witness to leave the 
 stand. Taking the hint, the man, amid 
 the laughter of the court-house audience, 
 walked to his seat. Before coming to 
 the court he had rehearsed to himself 
 several utterances of the lawyer, so that 
 
78 GEORGE M. STEARNS. 
 
 if the latter had put him to the test he 
 could have met it on the spot. Some of 
 those utterances appear in this sketch. 
 
 Mr. Stearns hated a hypocrite, and if 
 the evidence adduced in the trial of a 
 case in which he was engaged disclosed 
 an instance of hypocrisy he was quick to 
 see the sham ; and the sarcasm of his 
 invective in denouncing it was crushing 
 indeed. He not -only had the capacity 
 for humor, but he was pathetic as well ; 
 and no man was quicker than he to see 
 when humor was in order and when 
 pathos. Nor could any one be handier 
 than he was in alternating from one mood 
 to the other. Quick to discover the 
 humorous phase of a case in w^hich he 
 was engaged, he at once made the most 
 of that phase, and seeing, then, the more 
 serious aspects of the case, he made the 
 most of them. He brought those aspects 
 home to the minds of the jurors whom he 
 addressed, and then with the pathos of 
 
GEORGE M. STEARNS. 79 
 
 genuine emotion, he appealed to their 
 hearts, and in closing his speech he left 
 them so spell-bound by his eloquence that 
 not even the words of any other magician 
 of the law who might be matched against 
 him could dispel the effect. With the 
 art of a master and with * ' the artlessness 
 of art," he could alternate ''from grave 
 to gay, from lively to severe," affording 
 bar, bench and jury high entertainment 
 with his humor and his vigor, and keeping 
 ever in view the success of the cause 
 which he represented — always giving his 
 opponents abundant reason to be vigilant, 
 and ample opportunity to exercise their 
 skill and their might in warding off his 
 attacks. They enjoyed these encounters, 
 however. 
 
 One thing that made his thrusts enjoy- 
 able was the fact that, vigorous though 
 they were, they were still good-humored. 
 Sharp though the blade that smote, it 
 was not poisoned. And while Mr. 
 
80 GEORGE M. STEARNS. 
 
 Stearns's denunciations were often se- 
 vere, they were generally deserved. 
 There was a charming naturalness in his 
 voice and manner when he referred to 
 his '*good and saintly Brother Gillett/' 
 or to the fondness of his '' veteran friend, 
 Judge Aiken," for fast driving, and his 
 liking for * * putting a witness through 
 the inquisitorial rack of a cross-examina- 
 tion." In a litigation arising over a piece 
 of land connected with the John Clarke 
 estate at Northampton, Stearns, who was 
 counsel, was opposed by Charles Delano. 
 The latter owned a farm on which he 
 kept thoroughbred cattle. Delano's 
 clients, Mr. Stearns thought, were seek- 
 ing land which did not belong to them. 
 To show the possible extent of their 
 aggression he exclaimed, *' Why, if they 
 keep on in this way they'll absorb even 
 the acres where my Brother Delano's 
 fine Jerseys carol and cavort over the 
 ofreensward ! " 
 
GEORGE M. STEARNS. 8 1 
 
 Mr. Stearns's humorous illustrations 
 and his severities of satire were not only- 
 allowed by those judges who cared little 
 for the rules of court decorum, but by 
 those who cherished those rules as sacred 
 and strenuously insisted on their observ- 
 ance by bench and bar. This, which by 
 some would have been called leniency, 
 those judges accorded the unique advocate 
 as something that was his due. It came 
 to him not merely as their recognition 
 that he was a man of talent. It was that, 
 but it was more than that. It was evi- 
 dence that an unw^ritten law had long 
 obtained in the courts of the western 
 counties that Mr. Stearns must be allowed 
 full freedom of speech. So, also, thought 
 the most of the older and more experi- 
 enced of the magistrates, who, though 
 residing elsewhere in the commonwealth, 
 came to preside in the courts of the 
 western counties. One of them, the late 
 and veteran Judge Ezra Wilkinson, — 
 
82 GEORGE M. STEARNS. 
 
 who, by the way, was as different in his 
 tastes as a man from those of Mr. Stearns 
 as it was possible for a man to be, — was 
 thought by some to be especially fond of 
 the Chicopee attorney. Even some of 
 the judges of the Boston bailiwick who 
 came to hold court in the western counties 
 gave Mr. Stearns ''full swing." They 
 were discerning enough to see that he 
 was thought to be ''a power" in this 
 region, and that he was here allowed 
 swing that would not be accorded to any 
 other pleader, and was given that liberty 
 because he was deemed worthy of it. 
 
 '' Convulsed court and jury with laugh- 
 ter " is a phrase so often used by the 
 reporters of trials at law that it has 
 become hackneyed. It is also an extrav- 
 agance, when used in the estimate of the 
 effect of the speeches of most pleaders at 
 the bar. But its full meaning was never 
 in excess of the fact of impression created 
 by '' the inimitable Stearns." If, when 
 
GEORGE M. STEARNS. 83 
 
 he spoke, Chief Justice Lincoln F. 
 Brigham was presiding, there rippled 
 even on that placid sea of composure, 
 the face of the solid and urbane magis- 
 trate, occasional waves of laughter. 
 Well-suppressed were they, indeed, and 
 not at all tumultuous and foaming, but 
 merry ebullitions, nevertheless. The 
 courteous Judge John P. Putnam, who 
 was so much in favor with the legal cult 
 of Boston, liked to come to the western 
 counties, where he could hear Mr. 
 Stearns's wit. Judge Gardner, who pre- 
 sided in a trial when Mr. Stearns 
 defended a client who had been slandered, 
 looked serenely and approvingly on as 
 the indignant attorney, exceeding all his 
 former feats of terrible denunciation, 
 hurled back the venom of the calumnia- 
 tors, and, fairly boiling with wrath, lik- 
 ened them to infuriated wolves, and even 
 to fiends of darkness, and calling them 
 then too cowardly to be classed with high- 
 
84 GEORGE M. STEARNS. 
 
 way robbers, left them smarting under 
 the caustic description of liars and chief 
 hypocrites of the century. Judge Gard- 
 ner's charge to the jury showed that he 
 did not think the invectives of Mr. 
 Stearns unwarrantably severe, and the 
 accused was triumphantly acquitted. 
 
 But it occasionally chanced that a 
 lawyer from Suffolk or vicinity, newly 
 elevated to judicial honors, did not appre- 
 ciate Stearns. Realizing to the full the 
 significance of the fact that he bore a 
 commission, given him ''by his excellency 
 the governor, by and with the advice and 
 consent of the council," one of these new 
 magistrates comes to Springfield to hold 
 his first ''court in the country." To 
 your genuine Bostonian Springfield was, 
 in Mr. Stearns's day, nothing but a 
 country village. Filled with the idea of 
 the importance of the ermine and of the 
 dignity of decorum appropriate for judges, 
 and of the reverence due them from the 
 
GEORGE M. STEARNS. 85 
 
 members of the bar, he sets forth from 
 his hotel, accompanied by the sheriff, 
 and, thus escorted enters the temple of 
 the law. That morning a man of stocky 
 stature and clad in unpretending garb of 
 brown, goes forth from a roomy, but 
 modest and homelike, house in Chicopee 
 for an hour's drive. He has a horse 
 which his man ** Maurice" has carefully 
 groomed and brought to him, hitched to 
 a plain buggy, and is accompanied by a 
 plainly attired and bright-looking woman 
 and their daughter. When the roadster 
 has measured the distance well out on 
 the plains toward Ludlow, the driver 
 calls out ''Whoa!" at the top of his 
 voice, repeating the vociferation, as if 
 enjoying thus to exercise his vocal organs. 
 Returning, the party reach their home at 
 8.30 o'clock, when the man sets forth for 
 another drive. With him goes his ven- 
 erable mother. As, on reiurning, he 
 assists the veteran to alight, he remarks 
 
86 GEORGE M. STEARNS. 
 
 to the other woman, who has come to the 
 door, ** Good-bye, Em — Fve a case that's 
 to be called at ten o'clock, and a new 
 fellow is coming up from Boston to show 
 off before us country lawyers. " He hears, 
 as he drives away, *' Til risk you, George/* 
 and as he goes he soliloquizes, '' Just like 
 the girl — she's a treasure, true as steel 
 and good as gold." He halts a moment 
 before the savings bank, to the door of 
 w^hich comes a small man with keen eyes, 
 who has just written '* Henry H. Harris, 
 treasurer," on a report to be read at an 
 approaching meeting of trustees. The 
 two men chat in good-humored banter 
 over the '' size and style " of a '' stepper " 
 which the banker has just bought ; and, 
 saying, '' Harris, I'll bet on you every 
 time," the man in the buggy is soon 
 whirling away toward Springfield. Turn- 
 ing from Main street, he drives toward a 
 livery stable, where the horse stops 
 without hint by word or rein from the 
 
GEORGE M. STEARNS. 87 
 
 driver, who alights and shakes hands 
 with the stable-keeper. Pausing to have 
 a word or two with '' Billy" Collins or 
 Waldo R. Forrester about horse training 
 and ** matching pairs," and give '*Bill" 
 Pynchon a bit of advice about '* winter 
 boarding" of horses, he turns to a hard- 
 viwSaged habitue of the stable office and 
 jokes him about his resemblance to a 
 judge, and then goes to the barn to pat 
 his horse and to give the stable-boy a 
 quarter. He now sets forth for the 
 court-house and enters the court-room as 
 the case is about to be called in which he 
 is engaged, and which, until he arrives, is. 
 in the hands of a younger lawyer. This 
 man, who is proud to have the other as 
 senior counsel, notes his coming, and 
 approaches the chair where he is seated. 
 One foot rests on the round of the chair 
 in front of him, where the other is soon 
 placed. Without intending any disre- 
 spect to the court, he remains in that 
 
88 GEORGE M. STEARNS. 
 
 position for several minutes, despite the 
 fact that his honor, the new judge," is 
 glowering at him. He does not even 
 think that the frowning is intended as a 
 rebuke to him for not coming to court 
 clad in a Prince Albert coat, or to chide 
 him for the picturesque disposition of his 
 feet. With the completest absence of 
 concern in his manner, and entirely una- 
 bashed in the presence of a martinet of 
 the law from Boston, he rises in his place 
 as his case is called, which is an action of 
 tort, and speaking in a conversational 
 
 tone says, ''Your honor, Mr. and 
 
 myself appear for the plaintiffs, and we 
 are ready for the trial to begin." Oppos- 
 ing counsel are not ready, and after a 
 few moments of consultation between 
 lawyers and the court the case goes over 
 to a specified later day of the term. The 
 man from Chicopee asks for something 
 to be granted him and his associate before 
 the beginning of the trial of the case. 
 
GEORGE M. STEARNS. 89 
 
 This the judge, who has '* taken a mifif " 
 at the lawyer, refuses to grant. And he 
 attempts still further to place the straight- 
 jacket of *' perfect propriety" on the 
 lawyer. Looking up with that inimitable- 
 face of scorn which was native with him, 
 the pleader says, '* Then, your honor," 
 and proceeds to quote from Shaw andx 
 other legal authorities in substantiation 
 of his request, till the judge, stopping 
 him, remarks, '' On the whole, Mr. 
 Stearns, I think I'll grant your request." 
 
 At the noon recess the judge asks the 
 clerk, '' Mr. Morris, what kind of a man- 
 is your Mr. Stearns? " 
 
 *'He? — why, he, your honor, is one 
 who knows what's what. He not only 
 knows the law, but he knows how to 
 apply it. And he can read human nature 
 like a book. And everybody likes him, 
 unless it is some ninny who is audacious 
 enough to try to measure swords with 
 him, some knave whose ravScality he has 
 
90 GEORGE M. STEARNS. 
 
 unearthed, or some hypocrite whose 
 hollowness he has discovered and held 
 up to ridicule — that's who he is, your 
 honor." 
 
 '* I see, I see." 
 
 ^* Your honor, most folks that don't 
 see at first soon find out. But, woe to 
 the fellow that don't." 
 
 Just so, Mr. Morris, just so," — and the 
 magistrate starts for his hotel. 
 
 Mr. Stearns, for the hearing of the 
 rest of whose cases dates have been 
 assigned, now starts for home. Crossing 
 Court square, he meets that typical 
 Yankee, 'Squire Newton, from Monson, 
 who, as will be remembered, resembled 
 him in build and in his walk, and who 
 thus addresses the lawyer : ' ' Mr. Stearns, 
 the last time I was crossing the square 
 here a man overtook me, who said as he 
 laid a hand gently on my shoulder, 
 * Hello, George.' That being my name, 
 I responded by turning around, when he 
 
GEORGE M. STEARNS. 9I 
 
 said, * Excuse me — I thought you was 
 Mr. Stearns.'" ^*Did you kick him?" 
 quickly rejoins Mr. Stearns. 
 
 It goes almost without saying that Mr. 
 Stearns wins in the trial of the case of 
 tort. Several exceptions are asked to be 
 sent up to the supreme court ; but they 
 are nearly all ruled out. One or two 
 that are allowed to go up are in due time 
 returned, and a rescript is handed down, 
 wherein the writer of the ''opinion of 
 the court " '' fails to find reason to inter- 
 fere with the ruling of the court below." 
 
 The new judge one day chances to 
 meet at his hotel here a lawyer of the 
 Suffolk bar, who was a college chum of his, 
 and to whom he says at dinner: '' Tom, 
 they've a regular trump here in the 
 Hampden bar. I was never so taken 
 back by a man in my life. Thinking 
 him a nobody whom some strange mis- 
 chance had brought to a place in the bar, 
 my bearing toward him was in keeping 
 
92 GEORGE M. STEARNS. 
 
 with that idea of the man. But I soon 
 found him to be an advocate with great 
 ability, a powerful pleader and a man 
 well versed in the law. By the way, 
 Tom, that case in which you are retained 
 at Boston, with the overbearing though 
 talented Johnson pitted against you, and 
 aided by an able associate — your clients 
 will allow you to have senior counsel. 
 Say, Tom, how*ll it do to get Stearns? 
 It would be worth a fat retainer to see 
 him * do up ' the snob who opposes you. 
 There would not be any pieces left for 
 the undertaker to gather up/' 
 
 '' All right; secure your man for me^ 
 if you can/' 
 
 But when solicited, Stearns replies, 
 '* Judge, I'd be glad to give your friend 
 a lift. But if I have the strength to do 
 any more work I shall not have the time. 
 Cases at Northampton and Greenfield to 
 be heard before the session here closes, 
 to say nothing of a few matters to be 
 
GEORGE M. STEARNS. 93 
 
 heard by the county commissioners, both 
 in Hampden and Hampshire — these are 
 my excuses. Sorry, judge, but I shall 
 have to decline, much as I should like to 
 meet some of your Boston braves/* 
 
 If other lawyers of his day did not 
 dare to take the liberty that was freely 
 accorded him, venturesome indeed must 
 be the lawyer of to-day, who would pre- 
 sume to take anything like the liberty 
 that was given him. Imagine a lawyer 
 with a reputable citizen under cross- 
 examination who should tell him to his 
 face, ''You're the champion liar of 
 Hampden county! " What fierce magis- 
 terial wrath would fl.ame from the face of 
 the judge ! And it would be followed by 
 rebuke and a fine for contempt of court. 
 Yet Mr. Stearns when cross-questioning 
 a well-known merchant perpetrated just 
 that audacity, and did it unchallenged. 
 The case in the trial of which this bold- 
 ness was exhibited was brought by 
 
94 GEORGE M. STEARNS. 
 
 some creditors of an insolvent firm, to 
 compel the merchant and his partners to 
 share the assets of the insolvents pro rata 
 with the other creditors. In violation of 
 the law and in violation of a written 
 agreement of the merchant, which bound 
 himself and partners, their firm had 
 *' absorbed" all the assets of the bank- 
 rupts, leaving the other creditors without 
 a cent. Evidence previously adduced 
 had shown these facts. And in spite of 
 this, the merchant had related a plausible 
 story, to justify the action of his firm. 
 Mr. Stearns had listened, without express- 
 ing by words, tone, or look any dissent, 
 and the man was stepping from the stand 
 when Mr. Stearns, slowly rising, said in 
 tones of composure and still of irony: — 
 
 *' One moment, if you please — just one 
 moment. You are Mr. So and So, of the 
 firm of So and Thus, I believe? doing 
 business on Such and Such street? " 
 
 ''Yes, I am," responded the witness. 
 
GEORGE M. STEARNS. 95 
 
 Mr. Stearns then said: '*Y-e-s — and 
 the greatest liar in Hampden county — and 
 I have evidence to prove it, gentlemen of 
 the jury, the champion liar of Hampden 
 county! '' 
 
 Then the lawyer waited as if to give 
 opposing counsel opportunity to demand 
 the proof. But nothing was said; and 
 Stearns, looking to the witness resumed: 
 '' That will do, Mr. So and So, — you may 
 take your seat/' The case was here sub- 
 mitted to the jury for consideration and 
 they returned a verdict for Mr. Stearns's 
 clients. 
 
 Mr. Stearns was at his best when 
 speaking in the trials of two will cases 
 at Northampton. One of these was the 
 case brought by the nephews of the late 
 Cooley Dickinson of Hatfield, who were 
 not remembered in his will. By that 
 testament he bequeathed a handsome 
 sum to Northampton for a hospital ; and 
 the plaintiffs, who were children of the 
 
96 GEORGE M. STEARNS. 
 
 testator's brother, wanted some of their 
 uncle's fortune. The}' thought to prove 
 that he was not of '' sound and disposing 
 mind." In trying to do this they sought 
 to emphasize an idiosyncrasy of his. 
 Though he was peculiarly shy of women, 
 he had a habit of wearing a hat that so 
 closely resembled a woman's hat that it 
 was noticed by everybody and was counted 
 by all an extreme oddity. The claim of 
 the plaintiffs was that this oddity was so 
 extreme that it was evidence tending to 
 prove him insane. And if this unsound- 
 ness of mind was fully established at 
 the hearing it would be in place for the 
 court to order the will broken so as to 
 give them slices of the property. At the 
 trial the hat was in the keeping of Dea. 
 George W. Hubbard of Hatfield, who 
 was interested in the will. Mr. Stearns, 
 in making his argument in the case, thus 
 '' did up " the hat and its keeper and the 
 counsel who were pitted against him : 
 
GEORGE M. STEARNS. 97 
 
 '' At the opening of the court in the 
 morning m)- learned friend, Brother Bond, 
 has come in, followed by my distinguished 
 friend. Judge Hoar, with good Deacon 
 Hubbard in the rear bearing a mysterious- 
 looking box. In like manner the trio 
 have left the court-house at the close of 
 the morning session, and in like manner 
 they have returned in the afternoon. 
 And they have continued in the same due 
 order of procession day after day, till we 
 naturally began to wonder what that box 
 contained. And we came to the conclu- 
 sion that there was dynamite in it ; and 
 that, at the proper point in these pro- 
 ceedings it would explode and good 
 Deacon Hubbard would sing as he went 
 through the ceiling, ' Sic itur ad astra! ' '' 
 The other will case tried at Northamp- 
 ton in which Mr. Stearns was counsel and 
 was in his usual humor, was that wherein 
 one set of grandchildren of a matron, 
 who had not been remembered with a 
 
98 GEORGE M. STEARNS. 
 
 bequest from her, while another set had 
 been remembered, sought to break the 
 will. The mamma and friends of the 
 favored set of grandchildren were arrayed 
 for the will, and the mamma and friends 
 of the other set were arrayed against it 
 and had Mr. Bond for counsel, while 
 Mr. Stearns represented the will. In 
 seeking to prove that the testator was 
 not of '* sound and disposing mind" the 
 contestants introduced among their wit- 
 nesses those who could not remember 
 what the old lady said when they called 
 on her. In commenting on this evidence, 
 Mr. Stearns said : 
 
 '' What — if she had prated like an idiot 
 or babbled like a fool they would have 
 surely remembered it. They have 
 proved too much for their own case. 
 The regulation sayings of polite conver- 
 sation on the occasion of a call are seldom 
 remembered. Why, get my Brother 
 Bond right up here, now, and ask him 
 
GEORGE M. STEARNS. 99 
 
 what was said the last time that he put 
 on his claw hammer coat and with Mrs. 
 Bond went out to make a call, and he 
 can*t tell you what was said. They claim, 
 too, that the testator's tastes had changed, 
 and that, therefore, she was not of sound 
 mind, and could not make a will. Why, 
 my tastes have changed. So have my 
 Brother Bond's tastes changed. When 
 I first knew him twenty-five years ago, 
 he liked nothing better than to dance all 
 night, till four o*clock in the morning. 
 And if he didn't like that, I did ! But 
 now I had as soon take hold of the handle 
 of a pump as to take the hand of a pretty 
 maiden and dance down the middle. 
 Yes, my tastes have changed. But can't 
 I make a will? They claim, too, that 
 because the doctor whom my clients se- 
 cured to testify as to the testator's sound- 
 ness is a homeopathic physician, therefore 
 his testimony is to be discredited. Why, 
 gentlemen of the jury, right here in 
 
 L.ofC. 
 
lOO GEORGE M. STEARNS. 
 
 Northampton, where Jonathan Edwards 
 preached his rigorous orthodoxy, they 
 are beginning to take their religion in 
 homeopathic doses. And when my 
 Brother Bond and I hunt around in our 
 pockets for a stray half-dollar we begin to 
 think the people are taking their law in 
 homeopathic doses. And shouldn't we 
 have a homeopathic doctor to testify in 
 this case? " 
 
 Another case heard at Northampton, 
 in which Mr. Stearns was counsel and 
 was in his characteristic mood of humor, 
 was that which arose on freeing the 
 wSunderland bridge ; or, rather, it was the 
 case of the apportioning of the cost of 
 the bridge on the county of Franklin and 
 the towns whose inhabitants most used 
 the bridge. The franchise of the bridgie 
 corporation had expired by limitation. 
 The case was heard by a commission duly 
 appointed by the courts. And the hear- 
 ing was named for Northampton, as that 
 
GEORGE M. STEARNS. 10 1 
 
 would be out of the county in which the 
 property in question was located, and it 
 was also a place easy of access to all 
 parties concerned. The testimony ad- 
 duced showed that while each one of 
 several towns in the county wanted the 
 others to pay most of the expense, and 
 so were opposed to the others, they were 
 each and all united as opposed to the 
 bridge corporation, and demanded that 
 the price awarded that corporation should 
 be as small as possible. The bridge 
 owners were represented by Mr. Stearns, 
 who in this position was pitted against 
 seven other lawyers. The day for which 
 the hearing was booked was preceded, as 
 it proved, by the great burglary of the 
 *^ old bank." And there were just seven 
 cracksmen engaged in that job, a fact of 
 which Mr. Stearns made good use in 
 showing up the efforts of the seven 
 counsel opposed to him in the bridge 
 case. After remarking on the fact that 
 
I02 GEORGE M. STEARNS. 
 
 appeared at the hearings on the freeing 
 of other bridges over the river, the fact 
 that they were noticeably all just about 
 to topple down, but somehow had not 
 fallen, Mr. Stearns predicted that '*ten 
 years from now, when my Brother Aiken 
 is going through the country airing his 
 fast nag, which is never as fast as he 
 wants to have it, and comes to that 
 bridge, he will find it strong enough to 
 carry him over. And," continued the 
 humorist, '' if this bridge franchise wasn't 
 worth anything, why didn't the corpora- 
 tors go down to the legislature year after, 
 and, in the language of good old Dr. 
 Doddridge, pray. 
 
 Now let us drop our burdens at your feet 
 And bear a song away ? 
 
 Instead of that, they have repaired the 
 bridge when it was broken, and have re- 
 builded it when it was swept away. And 
 just now, when they are ready to make 
 something from their property, you seven 
 
GEORGE M. STEARNS. 103 
 
 lawyers come here, and with the rapacity 
 of the seven men that robbed the bank 
 propose to take our bridge away from us 
 without paying for it ! In the first place, 
 my learned friend, Judge Conant, repre- 
 senting the town of Greenfield, comes 
 down here, and in the voice in which 
 you might imagine he would sing * Come 
 where my love lies dreaming,' says we 
 should have about $18, 000 for the bridge . ' ' 
 In this passage Mr. Stearns held his 
 voice at a falsetto key, and the effect of 
 his diatribe on the Franklin county jurist 
 was amusing in the extreme. '' And my 
 veteran friend. Judge Aiken, representing 
 the county of Franklin, comes down here 
 with his war paint on, and, brandishing 
 his tomahawk, leaps into the ring, and 
 not only kills the victim, but scalps the 
 corpse, and says we shouldn't have a cent 
 for the bridge ! " 
 
 In reviewing the evidence of the defense 
 in a suit which he brought against the 
 
104 GEORGE M. STEARNS. 
 
 town of Conway for a citizen of Whately, 
 Mr. Stearns was thus facetious: ** And 
 now we come to the testimony of Mr. 
 Clark Rowland, selectman of Conway. 
 He is thrust forward here as the Hume, 
 the Gibbon and the Thomas Babington 
 Macauley of this case." Of this sally by 
 Mr. Stearns, Howland*s friends reminded 
 him for a long time afterward. In a 
 highway damage suit against the town of 
 Hawley, Mr. Stearns, who represented 
 the town, was in his happiest vein, and 
 said: *' Don't I know all about mountain 
 roads in Franklin county? Didn't I 
 learn it when I carried the mail from 
 Rowe to Florida on the back of a bob- 
 tailed gray horse, for fifty cents a week? 
 And the hills were so steep that when I 
 sat up straight on that horse's back his 
 tail would knock off my hat. And I re- 
 member what I did with the money. I 
 spent it for candy to give to a girl that 
 wore a red flannel gown ! Those were 
 
GEORGE M. STEARNS. 105 
 
 happy days ! • ' Mr. Stearns once referred 
 to the fact of stopping by the way to dig 
 angleworms and to fish from a stream 
 abounding in trout, from which he pulled 
 speckled beauties weighing half a pound, 
 carrying them off with exultation He 
 spoke of the feelings of awe that came 
 over him when a thunder storm swept 
 the mountainous region which he trav- 
 ersed. "With the great echoing hills, 
 about me, a peal of thunder would seem^ 
 to go reverberating around the earth. 
 And I thought myself surrounded by the 
 illimitable bellowings of eternity! " In 
 reference to theological beliefs, Mr 
 Stearns was a liberal, yet was tolerant 
 of other ideas. He once said, " I have 
 my own notions about those things 
 but I wouldn't hurt another man's belief."' 
 At this time he also said, " When I am 
 m church I am reckoned a good listener- 
 but It's ten chances to one I am thinking 
 about some case in court." 
 
I06 GEORGE M. STEARNS. 
 
 Mr. Stearns is remembered to have 
 said in reply to the question of a friend, 
 ** If I am asked about a law question that 
 is new, and I don't know what the law is 
 bearing on that point, I try to think what 
 the law should be in such a case between 
 man and man, and usually that's right." 
 When asked to accept a place on the 
 bench of the supreme court of the state, 
 he said he would appreciate the honor, 
 but he didn't think he ''would like to 
 behave himself well enough to stay 
 there." On being asked to bring a suit 
 against a newspaper, he exclaimed, ''O, 
 I'd as soon sue the devil as a newspaper !" 
 The would-be client instantly responded, 
 '' I wouldn't hesitate to sue the devil if I 
 had you for counsel." One who over- 
 heard this colloquy and who had seen 
 much of Mr. Stearns in conversation with 
 men in his office and at court, declares, 
 ' ' That was the only time when I found 
 him without a fit reply ready." Another 
 
GEORGE M. STEARNS. lO/ 
 
 Specimen of the advocate's wit was in the 
 following conversation which was heard 
 by a brother lawyer. The two attorneys 
 were walking along a street of '' Cabot- 
 ville " one morning, when a citizen with 
 whom they were each on friendly terms 
 came up and said, '' Well, seeing two 
 lawyers together, I suppose the innocent 
 and the virtuous will have to suffer 
 to-day." To this Mr. Stearns quickly 
 retorted, ''Well — that lets you out, 
 doesn't it?" 
 
 One of the memorable trials in which 
 Mr. Stearns was counsel was that wherein 
 he defended a well-known business man 
 whose name had been associated unpleas- 
 antly with that of a young woman whom 
 he had befriended. The sharp cross- 
 questioning of the witnesses of the 
 prosecution by Mr. Stearns revealed the 
 fact that there had been a system of 
 -Spying on the defendant. Men and 
 women had secreted themselves in the 
 
Io8 GEORGE M. STEARNS. 
 
 attic of his house, where, through a scuttle 
 opening in the ceiling, they watched for 
 evidence against him. 
 
 One of the watchers, who testified for 
 the prosecution, had been a paper-hanger, 
 a fact of which Mr. Stearns made good 
 use in cross-questioning him. ''You 
 show a great deal of interest in the 
 defendant's wife ; are you related to her?" 
 questioned the attorney. ''Only as a 
 brother-member in the church." "You 
 a church member — hey? " And the tone 
 in which this question was asked was 
 withering in its bitterness. " And what 
 were you paid for what you did? " "I 
 wouldn't go through it again for three 
 times what I received." " Yes, you 
 would, too. You would crawl into a 
 dung-hill and curl up and stay a month 
 for half that amount." This witness had 
 testified to making, in a pass-book, mem- 
 oranda of what he had seen when he was 
 spying. ' ' In what kind of a book were 
 
GEORGE M. STEARNS. 
 
 109 
 
 those memoranda made?" asked Mr. 
 Stearns. O, a blank-book, a sort of 
 yellow- covered book." This answer the 
 counsel carefully led the witness to repeat 
 twice, so as to fix it well in the minds of 
 the jury that it was a "yellow-covered 
 book," which the witness meant. Then 
 the lawyer pulled from his own pocket a 
 book which had pink covers, and, holding 
 it up to the witness's face, showed him 
 the entries made therein, and questioned, 
 "That's the book, isn't it? and that is 
 your handwriting there ? " " Yes — and 
 my wife always said I was color-blind." 
 ^'You color-blind and a paper-hanger, 
 ley?" There were other witnesses, 
 among those who testified to the locality 
 of the wrong-doing with which the de- 
 fendant was accused, one locating it in 
 one place, another in another, and still 
 another elsewhere. This fact of varying 
 the location Mr. Stearns ridiculed in 
 referring to the crime as "This itinerant, 
 
no GEORGE M. STEARNS. 
 
 peripatetic, peregrinating adultery.*' 
 Sometimes just a word set out the witness 
 completely, as for instance this: ''They 
 wanted some one to be an expert at 
 spying. So they imported this man from 
 * Algerie ' — ' Algerie,' Algiers ! always 
 the port of pirates ! There he is now " — 
 and Mr. Stearns stopped in his remarks 
 and pointed his finger directly at the man 
 and continued: ''there he is now, that 
 cross between a skunk and a hedgehog! 
 There he sits licking his chops like a 
 wild boar! " This man had secreted 
 himself in the attic, and with him there 
 vas a woman some of the time. And 
 there were others to watch. " But the 
 spies,'* said Stearns, "wanted some one 
 to engineer matters, some one to have 
 charge of the work. And they found 
 their man. He needed little urging to 
 get him to undertake the job. The 
 marvelous meanness of the business cap- 
 tivated him at once, and he became 
 
GEORGE M. STEARNS. Ill 
 
 captain of the scuttle-hole gang of 
 peekers, and sneakers and smellers. In 
 that town they don't need to be told his 
 name/' The argument closed with a 
 masterful appeal to the jury for a verdict 
 of acquittal, which was rendered. And 
 this verdict was the beginning of the end 
 of one of the most fiercely waged wars of 
 scandal that ever tore a country town. 
 
 A Philadelphia publisher had occasion 
 to remember Mr. Stearns's capacity to 
 address a jury. . The Philadelphian's 
 agents had secured subscribers to a ^* His- 
 tory of the Connecticut Valley." The 
 book proved unsatisfactory to some of the 
 subscribers, and they refused to take the 
 copies ordered. The publisher brought 
 suit to recover, and the defendants secured 
 Mr. Stearns to represent them. In his 
 plea to the jury, he entertained them with 
 lively antithises of the inconsistencies of 
 the work. ^'Why," said he, ^^right here 
 in Springfield, John Goodrich, who owns 
 
112 GEORGE M. STEARNS. 
 
 a block and who used to break colts and 
 who put cayenne pepper under their tails 
 to make them step lively, is remarked 
 about extensively and is given a picture in 
 the book. But they scarcely allude to Chief 
 Justice Chapman and Rev Dr Osgood. 
 And over in Westfield, Brother Whitney 
 is given a page and they do up Brother 
 Gillett in three lines." Mr. Stearns won 
 a verdict. 
 
 A characteristic utterance of Mr. Stearns 
 was his reply to a newspaper man who in- 
 formed him of the election of ex-Gov. W. 
 B. Washburn, as a compromise candidate 
 for United States senator. This election 
 terminated a sharp contest between can- 
 didates, the friends of each of whom had 
 worked long and hard for the prize, 
 which, in this unexpected turn of the 
 struggle, went to one for whom no effort 
 had been made by himself or his friends. 
 The vote of the legislators choosing Gov. 
 Washburn was telegraphed all over the 
 
GEORGE M. STEARNS, 
 
 113 
 
 State and was known at Northampton 
 soon after the voting at Boston. Mr. 
 Stearns, who had been at work in the 
 Hampshire court-house, was on his way 
 down Strong avenue toward the old pas- 
 senger station of the whilom " River 
 road, " to take a train for Chicopee. He was- 
 overtaken in the avenue by the newspaper 
 man, who remarked, "Well, Mr. Stearns, 
 we have a United States senator at last." 
 " Yes, yes, " responded the lawyer; "an- 
 other instance of Gov Washburn's pleas- 
 ant, Sunday-school luck!" 
 
 Representatives of one class of healers 
 who would be prohibited practicing, if a 
 bill was passed which was pendingbefore 
 the legislature, secured Mr. Stearns to 
 speak before the committee, against the 
 bill. And some of his remarks had the 
 vigor of the man. Wishing to impress 
 the committee with the fact that the truths 
 now accepted in science were once thought 
 to be vagaries, and their advocates were 
 
114 GEORGE M. STEARNS. 
 
 denounced as fanatics, he said: ''In his 
 day Napoleon Bonaparte was called a 
 quack. And last week I read that the 
 campaigns of Gen. Grant were devoid of 
 military science, and that he would have 
 been kicked from the staff of Von Moltke, 
 and jeered at Magenta and Sedan. Yet 
 what did he do? He controled and con- 
 ducted larger armies than his critics ever 
 saw, conquered the great rebellion and 
 restored the Union. The Puritans were 
 thought to be the greatest quacks the 
 world ever saw ; and they came from the 
 old country because there they were 
 denied the privilege of expressing their 
 thought, by those who had established 
 exclusive standards, by which all persons 
 were to be gauged. And when the Puri- 
 tans landed here, they became the regu- 
 lars, and William Ellery Channing and 
 Theodore Parker took their places as 
 quacks. Sumner and Garrison and 
 Phillips and Beecher were called quacks. 
 
GEORGE M. STEARNS. 1 15 
 
 Thus it has ever been. Those who were 
 dissenters and quacks are really those 
 by whom human progress has been borne 
 along the centuries and on whose efforts 
 have depended the hopes of the world!" 
 Counsel opposing Mr. Stearns in a trial 
 were sometimes treated to a surprise by 
 his admitting the truth of the thrusts 
 which they made at him to influence the 
 jury to favor their side; and as likely as 
 not this surprise would be followed by 
 another in the shape of a verdict in favor 
 of Mr. Stearns's side of the case, his 
 frankness having tended to increase the 
 liking of the juors for him. One of the 
 lawyers for the defendant in a well- 
 remembered -dog case" from Westfield 
 had learned that Stearns, who was coun-' 
 sel for the plaintiff, had a dread of, and 
 a hatred for, a dog, equal, perhaps, to his 
 well-known liking for a horse, and used 
 the fact in a personal sally at the expense 
 of the Chicopee man, saying that had he 
 
Il6 GEORGE M. STEARNS. 
 
 been a member of the family in Noah's 
 ark he would have seen to it, at the dis- 
 embarking after the flood, that the ele- 
 phant had trodden on the dogs and killed 
 them, so that the canine race would have 
 become extinct. To this retort Stearns 
 retorted by admitting the gharge and say- 
 ing that had he been one of those making 
 that memorable voyage, when the great 
 boat had got well under way he would 
 have raised a window and thrown the dogs 
 out — they would never have been allowed 
 to come to Ararat. Stearns won his case. 
 The plaintiff in this suit was a boy who 
 had been bitten by a dog owned by a 
 well-to-do man of Westfield, and the 
 mulcting which the defendant received 
 at the hands of the jurors, came near 
 financially ruining the dog-owner. 
 
 Like every town of its size, Chicopee 
 had its prigs who could not abide the 
 ways of Mr. Stearns, but most of his 
 townsmen had a genuine liking for the 
 
GEORGE M. STEARNS, 
 
 117 
 
 manliness of the man, and saw in him 
 much that they could respect themselves 
 for liking. No man lived who could 
 exceed Mr. Stearns in his hate of hypoc- 
 risy and in his appreciation of genuine 
 goodness, and no man could exceed him 
 in appreciating ^^the gentleness that 
 maketh great." He was one of the 
 speakers at the bar memorial meeting 
 held in honor of the late Judge Henry 
 Vose, who died in 1869, and a young 
 lawyer and a young newspaper man have 
 remembered and delighted to remember 
 through all the succeeding years the best 
 thing in the beautiful tribute paid to the 
 memory of the departed jurist by Mr. 
 Stearns, who in closing said that through- 
 out his life — 
 
 . . he bore without abuse 
 The grand old name of gentleman." 
 
 The attorney, Robert O. Morris, who has 
 remembered this tribute, lived, in Judge 
 
Il8 GEORGE M. STEARNS. 
 
 Vose's day, close neighbor to him ; and 
 he declares that there never was a fitter 
 tribute paid to a man than Mr. Stearns 
 gave the judge in applying to him this 
 sentiment from Tennyson. 
 
 Mr. Stearns, who was a native of 
 Stoughton was the son of a Unitarian 
 minister who preached at Rowe in the 
 years of the son's boyhood. Young 
 Stearns attended school for a time at the 
 old Shelburne Falls academy. He studied 
 law with Judge John Wells of Chicopee, 
 and made his home there during his 
 professional life of more that forty years. 
 
SOME HONEST BANKERS. 
 
 FOUR bankers best liked in the Mass- 
 achusetts section of the Connecticut 
 valley in the last half century were 
 Henry S. Lee and Charles Marsh of 
 Springfield, Henry Hooker of Westfield, 
 and Henry H. Harris of Chicopee. Alike 
 in the fact that they were each honest and 
 efficient as bankers, they had traits that 
 contrasted; or, Mr. Harris had a fondness 
 that the others did not have, and they 
 had likings for that in which he had no 
 special interest. He dearly liked horses. 
 And neither of the others had any special 
 fondness for them, but, outside of their 
 business, were interested in church and 
 mission work, in which he did not care to 
 engage. Mr Harris liked a '^roader, " 
 and he also liked a horse that could acquit 
 himself well on the track. He would 
 
120 SOME HONEST BANKERS. 
 
 also venture a modest amount on the 
 result of a *' trial of speed *' in which his 
 '' stepper " was to participate. But he 
 never risked in a race a dollar that was 
 not his own. Mr. Harris had also quite 
 a passion for *' swopping hosses. " A 
 pow^erful pleader to get the party of the 
 second part to ''swop even, " or at least 
 to '' split the difference, '' if his argument 
 proved unavailing and he did not have 
 the " boot money " necessary to ''strike 
 the deal, " he did not borrow it from the 
 bank, and contented himself with some 
 emphatic objurgations on the obduracy 
 of the other fellow. 
 
 Henry Howard Harris was a native of 
 Springfield, where we was born in 1830. 
 He attended such schools as were afforded 
 by the village of Springfield 60 years ago, 
 and also attended a private school kept by 
 Mr. Eaton. After this, he studied at the 
 Deerfield academy. Then he was clerk 
 in a Springfield crockery store, and later 
 
SOME HONEST BANKERS. 12 1 
 
 a clerk in the Agawam bank under 
 Cashier F. S. Bailey. After a brief 
 banking experience at Chicago, which 
 city he did not like, Harris returned to 
 New England and became teller in the 
 Phoenix bank of Hartford, Ct., which 
 place had been offered him before his. 
 going west. 
 
 It had been Mr. Harris's good fortune- 
 to become acquainted with Miss Mary A. 
 Church, daughter of Springfield's old- 
 time humanitarian and active abolitionist,. 
 Dr. Jefferson Church, and inheritor of 
 his excellences, including his anti-slavery 
 principles. Mr. Harris and Miss Church 
 were married in 1851, and in Hartford 
 they began their beautiful home life, that 
 ended only with his death forty-nine 
 years after. He remained teller at Hart- 
 ford two years, when he received and 
 accepted the offer to become cashier of 
 the old Cabot bank of Chicopee. The 
 following year, 1 8 54, the Chicopee savings 
 
122 SOME HONEST BANKERS. 
 
 bank was established, and Mr. Harris was 
 made treasurer ; and for several years he 
 managed the affairs of both institutions, 
 and of the savings bank he continued treas- 
 urer for the unprecedented term of forty- 
 six years, dying in office in 1900. Mr. 
 Harris's only extravagance was a horse. 
 Beyond what *' bosses" cost him, his 
 personal expenses were very small indeed. 
 Both he and Mrs. Harris lived very 
 simply. While their home on Gaylord 
 street had the comforts of life, it was not 
 a showy house ; and they had no ambi- 
 tions for luxurious furniture. 
 
 Her friends admired Mrs. Harris for 
 her unvarying simplicity in dress ; and 
 everybody knew that *' Hen " Harris 
 never squandered money for diamonds, 
 swell suits, or even '' biled shirts. " His 
 intimates declare that even when, as 
 mayor, he attended an occasion to which 
 society called him, he appeared clad in 
 neglige clothes. The bank clerks who 
 
SOME HONEST BANKERS. I23 
 
 indulge in peculations to get money for 
 gay garb in which to gear themselves to 
 appear at the social functions of the smart 
 sets, could well take lessons in honesty 
 of this banker of *' Cabotville. " One of 
 his special friends was George M. Stearns. 
 And he named the banker executor of his 
 will, and requested the court to allow him 
 to serve without bonds. 
 
 Springfield's banker, Charles Marsh, 
 was a native of Hartford, Ct., and was 
 the son of Michael and Catherine Allyn 
 Marsh of that city, where Mr. Marsh was 
 a merchant and whence the family re- 
 moved in 1840 to West Springfield. 
 There Mr. Marsh set up again in store- 
 keeping. The Marshes, who were 
 Methodists, finding no sanctuary of their 
 order in the old town, builded, with a 
 few others, a small meeting house and 
 did much towards supporting services of 
 the New Light sort therein. There 
 young Marsh was well trained in the 
 
124 SOME HONEST BANKERS, 
 
 gospel according to Wesley. Neverthe- 
 less, influenced by preaching of the 
 ancient Rev Dr. W. B. Sprague of the 
 Mount Orthodox meeting house, by the 
 life of the ancient Rev Dr. Emerson 
 Davis of Westfield where he fitted for 
 Williams college, and especially by the 
 life of that school master. President Mark 
 Hopkins, the young man became a 
 Congregationalist, and, on locating in 
 Springfield joined the South church 
 where one of his friends \vas Henry S. 
 Lee. The two were beloved by each 
 other, by their minister. Rev Dr. Buck- 
 ingham, and by everybody else in that 
 fold. The mission work of these two 
 and of William Kirkham and others, ''on 
 the hill,*' in Springfield, a work resulting 
 in the flourishing Hope Congregational 
 church of to-day, was indeed ''a thing 
 of beauty " in the garden of the Lord, 
 and will remain '' a joy forever.*' For a 
 brief time Mr. Marsh was treasurer of 
 
SOME HONEST BANKERS. 12$ 
 
 the savings bank of which, now, for 
 years, the treasurer has been his brother, 
 Lieut. D. J. Marsh. In 1866 Mr. Marsh 
 was made cashier of the Pynchon national 
 bank, filling the place with credit till '89, 
 when, on the death of H. N. Case, he 
 was made president. This position he 
 ably filled till his death in '91. 
 
 If all the bankers of Springfield were 
 asked to name the man gifted with the 
 greatest capacity for inspiring bank 
 clerks with an ambition to be honest, 
 every one would say the honor belonged 
 to the late Henry S. Lee. There was 
 something about the personality of Mr. 
 Lee by which young men were drawn 
 towards him and led to the thought that 
 his friendship was more to be desired 
 than any material good — the thought 
 that they had rather have his smnle of 
 approval than all the delights of luxuries 
 bought with money that they had not 
 earned. Every clerk in the great savings 
 
126 SOME HONEST BANKERS. 
 
 bank managed by him had a wish to keep 
 the name of the institution for honorable 
 dealing untarnished. And this was due 
 largely to the price which they set on 
 Mr. Lee's friendship. Each one said to- 
 himself, ''He is our friend — this is his 
 bank — we can't afford to be crooked here 
 — stealings won*t make up for the loss of 
 his friendship." Mr. Lee also had the 
 capacity for inspiring men with the spirit 
 of content in their toil, even if that 
 labor was in a lowly sphere. There 
 was never but one man in Springfield 
 who exceeded Mr. Lee in this respect. 
 And that one man was Dr. Holland, the 
 author, whose presence, to those who 
 understood his fine poetic nature, made 
 earth seem heaven. Another poet sang 
 that *' to be living is sublime." Holland 
 inspired men to believe the sentiment 
 really true of life in a world wherein 
 they could have him to live with them. 
 His presence there invested with impor- 
 
SOME HONEST BANKERS. 12/ 
 
 tance work in the humblest calling. Mr. 
 Lee had something of this capacity, but 
 was exceeded in that respect by the 
 author. 
 
 Mr. Lee, who was a generous man, 
 made his benefactions to people with the 
 view of awakening in the recipients the 
 ambition to do something for themselves. 
 And in his gifts to causes that he favored 
 there was no evidence of a wish to gain 
 fame by the donations. His death, 
 which came in March, 1902, was the 
 outcome of a shock which came to him 
 while in a lodge room with his Masonic 
 brethren. Under the effects of this he 
 lingered for about three weeks. The 
 same month another banker in the Con- 
 necticut valley was suddenly called from 
 earth. This was Gen. Julius J. Estey of 
 Brattleboro, Vt., the leading citizen of 
 his town and known throughout New 
 England and the country by a great 
 industry of which he was the head, while 
 
128 SOME HONEST BANKERS. 
 
 for years president of a Brattleboro bank. 
 From that town's schools and banks also 
 graduated J. W. Stevens, so well esteemed 
 at Greenfield, while from a banking ex- 
 perience with Mr. Lee came H. K. 
 Simons, who, in spite of all the cruel 
 slanders once fulminated against him, 
 proved himself a better man than his 
 calumniators. Another young banker, 
 mention of whose correct life is fitting 
 here, is Arthur Clark, once and for years 
 the polite and faithful teller of a North- 
 ampton bank — that he left on account of 
 failing health. Another banker of cred- 
 itable life is Charles E. Williams, for 
 years cashier of the Easthampton bank. 
 Henry Hooker, the Westfield banker, 
 was a descendant of Thomas Hooker, the 
 founder of Hartford, Ct., and began his 
 banking experience in that capital city. 
 Following this, came a brief experience 
 at Great Barrington. Then Mr. Hooker 
 began at Westfield what proved to be his 
 
SOME HONEST BANKERS. I2g 
 
 life work. This was as cashier of the old 
 Westfield state bank, reorganized in 1865 
 tinder the national banking law, a position 
 which he filled with credit for thirty 
 years. During much of this time the pres- 
 ident was Cutler Laflin, the old time 
 paper maker of Westfield, and to the two 
 is attributable the success of the institu- 
 tion they managed. Mr. Hooker offered 
 his resignation in August, '95, to take 
 effect in October, and he died the next 
 year. Under the schooling of Mr. 
 Hooker young bankers were trained who 
 •gave good accounts of themselves in after 
 life. One of them is John G. Root, who 
 came to be bank president at Hartford 
 and mayor of that city. Another is H. 
 H. Thayer, now an efficient official of a 
 Minneapolis bank. Still another is Cash- 
 ier Loring P. Lane, Mr. Hooker's succes- 
 sor at Westfield. All these men had to 
 begin at the beginning and work their 
 way up. They swept out the banking 
 
130 SOME HONEST BANKERS. 
 
 rooms, dusted the counters, washed the 
 windows and made the fires ; and it is safe 
 to say that they earned each promotion 
 to which they were advanced. 
 
 i 
 
CONCERNING THE FORTY-SIXTH 
 
 THE war was on. The flag of the 
 nation had been attacked by armed 
 insurgents. In response to the 
 call' of the president the loyal people of 
 New England, the Middle states and the 
 West had sent hundreds of regiments to 
 defend that flag. Of these regiments the 
 Bay State had furnished her full quota. 
 Came again the call for soldiers — a sum- 
 mons that all through the loyal states 
 met the response, voiced by the song of 
 the times, '' We're coming, Father Ab- 
 raham, three hundred thousand more.'* 
 Those who sang and those who could not 
 sing expressed their belief in the senti- 
 ment by enlisting in the country's cause. 
 From Massachusetts, as from all the loyal 
 states, went forth new regiments, besidcvS 
 recruits for the ranks of battalions deci- 
 
132 CO^XERNING THE FORTY-SIXTH. 
 
 mated in battle, or by disease. The four 
 western counties that had already fur- 
 nished four full regiments, were to fur- 
 nish three more — the forty-ninth from 
 Berkshire, the fifty-second from Franklin 
 and Hampshire, and the forty-sixth from 
 Hampden, the latter to have also a dele- 
 gation from western Hampshire. 
 
 *' War meetings" were held, to keep 
 alive the enthusiasm of the patriotic peo- 
 ple, or, rather, to give it vent. Far, 
 though many of them had lost their broth- 
 ers and sons at the front, their ^earnest- 
 ness of loyalty increased rather than 
 abated. One thought ruled the hour, and 
 filled every heart. Among those to speak 
 at these meetings in the territory of the 
 forty-sixth was Russell H. Conwell, a 
 native of South Worthington, who in his 
 * 'teens" had studied at Wesleyan academy, 
 Wilbraham, and had taught district school 
 in the Beech hill neighborhood of Gran- 
 ville and Blandford, and who, scarcely 
 
CONCERNING THE FORTY^SIXTH. I33 
 
 attained to his majority, eloquently spoke 
 in the country's cause, backing up his 
 appeals by himself enlisting. 
 
 Another speaker was Rev Joel S. Bing- 
 ham, first minister of the newly organ- 
 ized Second church of Westfield, brother 
 of Brattleboro's long-time high school 
 principal, B. F. Bingham, and father of 
 Capt Samuel R. Bingham, who, when 
 but a sergeant, proved his ability for 
 regimental command. Rev Mr. Bing- 
 ham appealed to the people of his town on 
 behalf of those enlisting, and cultimated 
 his earnestness by quoting Dean Swift, 
 and declaring '* if you want these men to 
 enlist, you must down with the dust! " 
 
 Still another orator at the war meetings 
 was Rev George Bowler, minister of the 
 Westfield Methodist church, who, at a 
 Sunday service of his people, gave an 
 eloquent appeal from the text, ''He that 
 hath no sword let him sell his garment 
 and buy one, " — a discourse that had the 
 
134 CONCERNING THE FORTY-SIXTH. 
 
 desired effect in arousing the congrega- 
 tion to do their most for the union cause. 
 At one of the meetings addressed by Mr. 
 Bowler there were men who thought to 
 ask him to practice his preaching, and 
 who agreed among themselves to enlist 
 if he would. One of their number was 
 spokesman ; and arising in his place at 
 the close of Mr. Bowler's address, he in- 
 formed the speaker of his errand. Accept- 
 ing the challenge, Mr. Bowler, amid the 
 cheers of the audience, wrote his name on 
 an enlistment roll on the spot. And the 
 challengers followed his example. This 
 happening was the incident that begun 
 the movement to make Mr. Bowler col- 
 onel of the proposed new regiment. 
 
 One of the companies was thus started ; 
 and the ranks were soon full, when, with 
 officers elected, the command went to 
 Camp Banks, where companies from other 
 towns were arriving. One of these, 
 Company A from Springfield, Samuel B. 
 
CONCERNING THE FORTY-SIXTH. 1 35 
 
 Spooner captain, was assigned to the 
 right of the regiment. Company C from 
 Westfield was given the right center, and 
 a second company made up of men from 
 that town, Montgomery and Chester, 
 with one man from Becket, arrived later. 
 From Blandford, Plainfield, South Worth- 
 ington, Chester and Huntington, came 
 the men of another company, who, at 
 Huntington, had chosen young Conwell 
 for captain. From Granville, South wick 
 and West Springfield came a lot of farmers 
 and mechanics who had chosen for cap- 
 tain James M. Justin, a soldier sent home 
 wounded from a regiment a-field. Lud- 
 low, Wilbraham, Agawam and Long- 
 meadow sent another company with a 
 Methodist preacher for captain and an 
 Agawam deacon for first lieutenant. Pal- 
 mer and Belchertown were in the game 
 with their quota and F. C. Cook for cap- 
 tain. So were Monson and Brimfield, 
 with men who learned to like the great. 
 
136 CONCERNING THE FORTY-SIXTH. 
 
 honest voice of Captain F. D. Lincoln, as 
 it is still remembered by all the survivors 
 of the regiment, sounding forth in the 
 order, '* Company G, front!*' Then, 
 there was Holyoke's Company B, with 
 the sturdy Captain Kingsbury, whose 
 magisterial looking form and face may 
 have been the reasons why he was selected 
 by the colonel to preside in regimental 
 courts martial, to hear evidence as to the 
 fellows caught " running the guard, " or 
 under the *'infloounce" of too strong 
 ** coffee, " — to hear evidence and assign 
 fellows to extra duty for their discrepan- 
 cies. But what a voice had that Captain 
 Grimes of Chicopee's quota, who, when 
 he brought his men '' to line, " on the 
 parade ground, called out, ** Company D, 
 halt !" — with the *^a" as fiat as the ^ 'a" 
 in '' mat" or '' tallow! " 
 
 In Captain Spooner's Springfield 
 company there were two gentlemanly 
 lieutenants, William S. vShurtleff and 
 
CONCERNING THE FORTY-SIXTH. 1 37 
 
 Lewis A. Tifft. Sliurtleff had a musical 
 voice and a fine, soldierly form and 
 bearing; and those who knew him best 
 were glad to hear of the movement that 
 was soon started among the line officers; 
 to make him lieutenant colonel of the 
 regiment. This done, the second lieu- 
 tenant of Company A was made first 
 lieutenant, and Sergeant D. J. Marsh 
 second lieutenant. It was ** given out " 
 early in the time of the rendezvous of 
 the forty-sixth at Camp Banks, that the 
 major as well as the colonel was to come, 
 from Westfield, and was to be Lucius, 
 B. Walkley, who had already had military 
 experience, A native of Westfield, he 
 served in the regular army in the early 
 40's, which included the time of the 
 Seminole war. And, his term of service 
 expiring in 1845, he returned to West- 
 field, where he learned the mason's trade 
 of W. A. Johnson, afterward a builder of 
 church organs. His apprenticeship 
 
138 CONCERNING THE FORTY-SIXTH. 
 
 served, young Walkley began the busi- 
 ness of builder and constructed some of 
 the most substantial buildings in his 
 town. Liking military life, he joined 
 the militia of the state and held important 
 rank in one of the regiments. In '61 he 
 xaised a company for the tenth regiment 
 oi Massachusetts volunteers, and with 
 his men he went from the camp on 
 Hampden park in June. When he was 
 superintending the construction of winter 
 quarters of the regiment at Camp Bright- 
 wood, near Washington, a roof fell upon 
 him, inflicting injuries for which he was 
 discharged from the service. Returning 
 home, he recovered by summer so as to 
 be able to reenter the service with the 
 forty-sixth, of which he was made major, 
 and of which he was the most of a mili- 
 tary man. Thus officered, and with the 
 soldierly Lieut James G. Smith for 
 adjutant, Lieut H. M. Morehouse for 
 quartermaster, Rev George W. Gorham 
 
CONCERNING THE FORTY-SIXTH. 1 39 
 
 for chaplain, and Lieut Thomas Gilfallin 
 for assistant surgeon, the forty-sixth 
 regiment, after being mustered into 
 service September 25th, remained for 
 some time at Camp Banks for drill, leav- 
 ing that post late in October, to sail from 
 Boston for North Carolina. For four 
 ** storm-rocked days," the battalion, on 
 board the old and nasty transports, 
 '' Merrimac " and '' Mississippi," was 
 tossed on the waves of Boston harbor in 
 the midst of a pelting snow storm. And, 
 for what? No one knew. The situation 
 was becoming unbearable, even by men 
 with patience and patriotism. Both field 
 and line officers saw that something ought 
 to be done. 
 
 Lieutenant Colonel Shurtleff was awake 
 to the needs of the command ; and, se- 
 curing permission from Colonel Bowler, 
 he visited the state-house, to see why the 
 delay in the harbor, and especially why 
 the unfit quarters of those old transports. 
 
140 CONXERNING THE FORTY-SIXTH. 
 
 Admitted to the presence of the governor, 
 the young officer stated his errand and 
 asked for better accommodations for his 
 men. But, the young lawyer from 
 Springfield and the Methodist minister 
 from Westfield, whom he represented, — 
 these, with their thousand soil-tillers, 
 mechanics, and country store-keepers 
 from the farms and hamlets of ''the 
 simple country side," — who were these 
 twain — this Methodist preacher, if he 
 was eloquent, and this young lawyer, if 
 he was happily born and well-bred, as 
 his bearing gave proof, if he was well 
 educated as his speech gave evidence, and 
 if, as could have been ascertained, he had 
 married a daughter of one of the oldest 
 families in the Connecticut valley, — who 
 were these officers and their regiment, 
 when there were Boston colonels await- 
 ing transportation for their regiments ! 
 And it was a negative answer that the 
 
CONCERNING THE FORTY-SIXTH. I4I 
 
 governor returned to young Shurtleff, as 
 having stated his mission, he stood, hat 
 in hand. 
 
 **Then, your excellency," replied the 
 officer, his dark eyes glowing with earn- 
 estness and his voice increasing in firm- 
 ness, but still keeping the tones of 
 respect, * ' if we get no better accommo- 
 dations for those men, I shall telegraph 
 to Washington for an inspection of those 
 ships! " 
 
 As he said this, the officer turned on 
 his heels to go. But the * ' war governor '* 
 of Massachusetts, though aristocratic, 
 was an aristocrat in the highest sense of 
 the word. The definition of ^'aristos, — 
 the best,*' found its peculiar illustration 
 in the make-up and acts of John A. 
 Andrew. The interest of the officer in 
 his men touched him ; and as Shurtleff 
 neared the door, the governor called 
 to him saying, ''Colonel, Til do what I 
 can for your regiment." 
 
142 CONCERNING THE FORTY-SIXTH. 
 
 Thanking the governor, the officer left 
 the state-house — and the next day 
 which was Sunday, the steamer '' Nantas- 
 kef appeared alongside the *'Merrimac'* 
 and the *' Mississippi " and, taking the 
 forty-sixth on board, brought them back 
 to Boston. They were given quarters 
 and a bountiful collation in Faneuil halh 
 There, in the ''cradle of liberty" they 
 partook of Boston hospitality and filled 
 the hours of Sunday evening, and Mon- 
 day's early morning hours, as well, with 
 patriotic songs. From the repast of the 
 evening enough baskets full of fragments 
 were left for breakfast and dinner. In 
 the afternoon of Monday, seven companies 
 went on board the comfortable boat, the 
 *' Saxon " and at four o'clock stood out to 
 sea, the other three companies going on 
 other boats. 
 
 Landing at Morehead, N. C, the regi- 
 ment, that had been assigned to the 
 eighteenth army corps, proceeded to 
 
CONCERNING THE FORTY-SIXTH. I43 
 
 Newberne, N. C. and began perfecting 
 themselves in drill. The campaigning 
 of the regiment included participation by 
 eight companies in the Goldsboro expe- 
 dition that was marked by battles there 
 and at Kingston and Whitehall. Mean- 
 while two companies held an important 
 picket station at Newport barracks. 
 Later, two companies did picket duty at 
 Batchelder's creek and participated in an 
 important demonstration against '' Little 
 Washington," while eight companies, 
 in conjunction with the twenty-fifth and 
 a delegation of the twenty-seventh held 
 Plymouth, N. C, where two forts were 
 builded and other intrenchments made 
 and a forest felled in hurricane style, to 
 protect the place from cavalry raids of 
 the enemy from inland and to give a 
 better view up the Roanoke river, down 
 which it was feared the rebel ram '' Albe- 
 marle," then building, w^ould descend. 
 Later eight companies of the forty-sixth 
 
144 CONCERNING THE FORTY-SIXTH. 
 
 participated in the dislodgement and 
 capture of a considerable force of the 
 enemy from Kingston, who were wSta- 
 tioned on the railroad at a place called 
 ** Gum Swamp." There was brave work 
 on this expedition. The regiment 
 proved their loyalty, when on their way 
 north, by volunteering to serve at Mary- 
 land heights for a fortnight after their 
 term of service had expired — this in the 
 attempt to prevent General Lee from 
 escaping southward from Gettysburg. 
 Most of the regiment arrived at Spring- 
 field early in July, though a few came 
 later; and the command was mustered 
 out of service, on Hampden park, July 
 29 — making a term of ten months since 
 the date of muster in. And many of the 
 regiment had been in camp for a month 
 before the muster in — which gave them 
 a term of eleven months. 
 
 The history of the forty-sixth since the 
 home coming has been such as to reflect 
 
CONCERNING THE FORTY-SIXTH. I45 
 
 credit on the officers and men of the 
 command, and their achievements in 
 some of the callings of life have been 
 those to which they and their friends can 
 revert with satisfaction. A considerable 
 number of the veterans have served their 
 respective towns in official capacity and 
 have made good records for their districts 
 in the legislature. William R. Sessions, 
 who was in Company I, did well as state 
 senator, and as secretary of the state 
 board of agriculture. Myron Barton and 
 Alvertus Morse of Belchertown, and of 
 Company H, were each, in turn, represen- 
 tatives and town officials, while Stephen 
 Hayward of Company F, had a legis- 
 lative experience. Capt James M. Justin 
 was for several years a valued town 
 official of West Springfield, and Captain 
 Campbell of Westfield was several times 
 in the legislature from his district. 
 Thomas Little of that town has supple- 
 mented his soldier life by a creditable 
 
146 CONXERNING THE FORTY-SIXTH. 
 
 business career. So, too, did John C- 
 Schmidt, of Mr. Little's own Company K, 
 while Frank Snow, a Westfield member 
 of the forty-sixth, has served faithfully 
 as adjutant of the local Grand Army post. 
 Cassius H. Darling of Company K did 
 well after the war as a railroad man, as 
 Y. M. C. A. secretary and as a Methodist 
 minister ; Newcomb Dyer, who was from 
 Plainfield, became a large farmer in 
 Missouri; C. B. Hayden contented him- 
 self with farming on the Blandford hills; 
 James Starkweather is at Westfield. 
 His comrade Dwight Prentice has acres 
 in Worthington and E. L. Higgins 
 near Huntington. Drummer Moody is 
 a machinist at Hartford. W. H. 
 Aldrich is a tradesman at Westfield. 
 W. D. Hayden became officer in a muni- 
 cipal court ; the late Alfred Kilbourne 
 was a town official at Worthington ; Ezra 
 M. Brackett has been for years a merchant's 
 trusted salesman; Melzar H. Mossman 
 
CONCERNINCx THE FORTY-SIXTH. I47 
 
 has proved that he has talent to design 
 statues of soldiers; the late Eleazar 
 Bryant was a skilled cabinet maker ; L. Z. 
 Cutler and E. C. Rogers are Springfield 
 business men and the late Andrew J. 
 Wright, by faithfulness, worked his way 
 from book-keeper in the office of the 
 Springfield fire and marine insurance 
 company to be president of the company. 
 R. B. Currier, A. N. Mayo and N. W. 
 Fisk other successful Springfield business 
 men served in the forty-sixth. Lieutenant 
 Julius M. Lyon of Company G, who served 
 a second term in the army, was, there- 
 after, a town official at Wales, and a 
 member of the legislature. Of the 
 company in which was Lyon's second 
 term the leader was his townsman, Capt 
 George M. Stewart, who, after the war 
 was a successful lawyer at St. Louis for 
 years — until failing health compelled 
 him to give up his practice and return to 
 the East. Captain Stewart exhibited 
 
148 CONCERNING THE FORTY-SIXTH. 
 
 both as lieutenant and as captain the 
 qualities of the real soldier. One of 
 the brightest lawyers in Connecticut, 
 Mr. Arthur P. Eggleston of Hartford, 
 who honors the position of state attorney, 
 was a member of Company I; and N. 
 S. Cooley, a lieutenant in Company 
 I, has long filled with efiiciency a position 
 with a manufacturing company at Wind- 
 sor Locks. He was on the signal corps 
 in the army. The correct man of details 
 vSergeant-major Field has long had a 
 position with a Hartford insurance com- 
 pany. He reenlisted from the forty-sixth 
 into the artillery service and his place 
 in the old regiment was filled by Andrew 
 S. Bryant, who won a medal from con- 
 gress for bravery, and who, since the 
 war, has been an honest cashier of a 
 railroad. One of the best ^soldiers of the 
 regiment was William S. Loomis, who, in 
 the army earned a lieutenantcy, and who 
 since the war has been town clerk of 
 
CONCERNING THE FORTY-SIXTH. 1 49 
 
 Holyoke, a successful journalist and a 
 capable manager of the Holyoke electric 
 road with its lofty attraction of Mount 
 Tom. Springfield's longtime and efficient 
 city clerk, Elijah A. Newell, was in the 
 forty-sixth. Harvey Porter, who went 
 to war from Huntington hill, has written 
 text books in foreign tongues and has 
 been a professor in a missionary college. 
 Oliver Walker, who was of Company H 
 and from Belchertown, has been a long 
 time in business at Northampton. 
 
 One of the best soldiers of the forty- 
 sixth was Embury P. Clark, who, since 
 the war, served Holyoke as water regis- 
 trar and as school committee and who 
 has abundantly proved his fitness for the 
 position of sheriff of Hampden county. 
 He has been in the state militia continu- 
 ously since the war and has filled with 
 credit nearly every place in the Second 
 Massachusetts, from that of sergeant to 
 the colonelcy of the regiment. And he 
 
150 CONCERNING THE FORTY-SIXTH. 
 
 was colonel of the Second Massachusetts 
 volunteers that made a creditable record 
 in the Cuban campaign. Lieut D. J. 
 Marsh, who had a staff appointment in 
 the army, has for years been a faithful 
 treasurer of a savings bank. The singer 
 Edward Morris, who is also author of 
 the humorous *'Philetus Ash" letters, 
 was in the forty-sixth. So was every- 
 body's friend Thomas F. Cordis of 
 Longmeadow and F. S. Graves a faithful 
 bookkeeper. Lieut J. G. Noble is 
 respected as a business man at Westfield, 
 and the late Joseph Sheldon filled every 
 position of the Huntington Grand Army 
 post from janitor to commander. 
 
 Colonel Bowler, whom severe illness 
 compelled to resign early in his cam- 
 paigning, and whose place was filled by 
 the promotion of Lieutenant Colonel 
 Shurtleff, finally recovered so as to resume 
 preaching, in which he exhibited his old 
 time eloquence. He was pastor at Fall 
 River; also at Nashua, N. H. There 
 
CONCERNING THE FORTY-SIXTH. 151 
 
 liis activity told on him and he died in '69. 
 Lieut Col Walkley, who had been in the 
 regular army, served there to the warm 
 approval of an officer who, afterwards, 
 attained a high place in the volunteer 
 service and who would have been glad to 
 have helped his former comrade to the 
 position he deserved. But this good 
 soldier was as modest as he was brave 
 and sought not the place for which his 
 talents fitted him. So thought officers 
 and men of the forty-sixth. And com- 
 porting with the estimate of his comrades- 
 in-arms is the thought of his fellow-citi- 
 zens, that, had he been as self-assertive as 
 was warranted by his talent for the pro- 
 fession of arms, he who contented him- 
 self to wear the insignia of the silver leaf 
 would have w^on the stars of military 
 authority ; and the people that are 
 proud of General William Shepard of 
 Revolutionary fame, would have had the 
 opportunity to write by his name that of 
 
152 CONCERNING THE FORTY-SIXTH. 
 
 a hero of equal valor and greater military 
 talent, Lucius B. Walkley, major-general 
 commanding in the armies of the Union 
 in the war of the second revolution. 
 
 Soon after returning from the war Col 
 W. S. Shurtleff was appointed judge of 
 the Hampden probate court. And with 
 what great efficiency he filled the place 
 members of the bar and patrons of the 
 court gave abundant testimony through 
 all his career. He died suddenly at his 
 home in Longmeadow, in 1896. Judge 
 Shurtleff was a man of fine culture, and 
 his addresses on civic occasions and at 
 gatherings of veterans of the war had 
 passages of real eloquence. Among his 
 literary friends were E. C. Stedman, R. H. 
 Stoddard and A. P. Burbank. He was a 
 Mason of high degree. During his 
 judicial career the faithful register of 
 the court was his comrade. Major S. B. 
 Spooner, who, elected by all political 
 parties, still fills the position.. 
 
CONCERNING THE FORTY-SIXTH. 1 53 
 
 The success of Rev Dr. Russell H. 
 Conwell in organizing the great Baptist 
 church in Philadelphia of which he has- 
 been head minister for years is proof 
 that the boy captain of the forty-sixth 
 had executive ability,, while his eloquence 
 has made him in demand to lecture again 
 and again all over the country, from his 
 native New England to the Mississippi 
 valley and to the Pacific coast. 
 
 Adjutant Smith, Quartermaster More- 
 house, Captains Kingsbury, Lincoln, 
 Tifft, Cook and Grimes, Lieutenants 
 DeWitt, Spear, Fay, Plummer, Turner, 
 Wells and others of the line and staff 
 officers have died since returning home. 
 Lieutenant Gilfallin of the staff still 
 lives, so does Captain Avery, the veteran 
 of the line. To those who knew the 
 soldierly Adjutant Smith it seemed in- 
 deed a cruel fate that he should be shock- 
 ingly mangled in a railroad accident and 
 suddenly torn from earth. 
 
J 54 CONCERNING THE FORTY-SIXTH. 
 
 Creditable in the army were the lives of 
 most of the oflficers of the forty-sixth, and 
 creditable, too, have been their records 
 since then, and, in some instances, re- 
 markable. Creditable, too, in and out of 
 the army the lives of most of the men 
 whom they led ; and if, among officers or 
 men were, those who varied from right 
 :standards, let not their names be men- 
 tioned to mar the record. Equal to their 
 leaders in mental make-up, personal 
 bravery and other elements of worth were 
 many of the men in the ranks and qualified 
 to take the places of those leaders. Thus 
 it was all through the army — the leader 
 of every regiment had in his command 
 men fitted to take his place, and he and 
 they were warring to protect the life of a 
 country wherein the rights of the humblest 
 were sacred to the highest. 
 
IN ABOLITION TIMES. 
 
 THERE were brave men and women 
 among the old time abolitionists — 
 those who did what they could to 
 aid fugitive wslaves on their way towards 
 the north and freedom — those who ren- 
 dered this aid when the laws allowed a 
 slave owner to capture his slaves in 
 whatever free state of the Union he found 
 them and, proving before a magistrate 
 there, his ownership of the *' property*' 
 in question, take them back to servitude 
 in the state from which they had escaped. 
 And when, later, congress passed the 
 ** fugitive slave law " itself, a law which 
 not only gave the slave owner the right 
 to capture the runaways wherever they 
 were to be found, but made it the duty 
 of United States marshals and their 
 deputies to watch for runaway slaves, 
 
156 IN ABOLITION TIMES. 
 
 apprehend them and take them before 
 the judge of a United States court to 
 remand back to slavery and also made it 
 a crime for any one to aid fugitive slaves 
 on their journey — then, with heightening 
 courage, these abolitionists rose to meet 
 the situation. And, law-abiding citizens 
 though they all were, they declared, 
 '' Now let us do our duty to our fellow 
 men, even in defiance of the law of the 
 land. Conscience antedates congress, 
 the sermon on the mount is older than 
 the fugitive slave law, the teachings of 
 Jesus are superior even to those of any 
 judge whose rulings contravene them.'* 
 And when Chief Justice Roger B. Taney 
 issued his infamous findings, including 
 the utterance that ' * a black man has na 
 rights that a white man is bound to 
 respect," intenser grew the earnestness 
 of the abolitionists and they redoubled 
 their efforts to aid the fugitives. And 
 even one of the marshals charged with 
 
IN ABOLITION TIMES. 1^7 
 
 the business of arresting runaway slaves 
 purposely failed to do his duty, and that, 
 too, when he knew he was thus aiding 
 the fugitives. This officer was Isaac O. 
 Barnes, marshal for the district of Massa- 
 chusetts. Notified that runaways of 
 such and such size and age and so and so 
 clad, had escaped and probably would try 
 to cross his territory on their way north, 
 he immediately sought out some of the 
 Springfield abolitionists and told them of 
 the information received, saying, **If I 
 find those fellows hanging about here I 
 shall have to arrest them." With a 
 knowing smile in response to Dr. Church 
 or Rufus Elmer, who said, '*Yes, Mr. 
 Barnes, I see — of course you'll have to do 
 your duty," the marshal left, to look after 
 matters elsewhere in his district, well 
 knowing the abolitionists would not 
 inform on him. And those darkies, well 
 fed and being furnished a change of garb 
 to contradict the description given of 
 them, were sent on north. 
 
158 IN ABOLITION TIMES. 
 
 What brave people President and Mrs. 
 Coffin must have been who began even 
 down in North Carolina their work of 
 operating the ** underground railroad*' 
 for runaway slaves. Later they moved 
 farther north and there increased their 
 activities in the cause. And what daring 
 men and women there were in the old 
 Vine street Congregationalist church of 
 Cincinnati. There, as soon as ever the 
 fugitives had ''crossed the tide" from 
 Kentucky, they were hid in a secret 
 chamber, back of the church organ — hid 
 there in the very sanctuary of the Lord ! 
 and, at night time, by some unseen and 
 daring angels of deliverance they were 
 spirited across country to Canada and 
 liberty. 
 
 Some of the fugitives took a more 
 westerly route northward, and, aided by 
 Hurds and Lovejoys and their associates, 
 went on their way. Allan Pinkerton, 
 the famous detective, gave the operators 
 
IN ABOLITION TIMES. I 59 
 
 of the underground railroad hints how to 
 evade the fugitive slave law, which he 
 regarded as iniquitous. Fugitives also 
 took easterly routes towards the north 
 and, aided by such men as Isaac T. Hopper 
 of the Quaker sort of haters of slavery, 
 found themselves in New York, where, 
 perhaps, others were landed by some 
 bluff Yankee '*cap'n," who, when his 
 craft of the coasting trade was searched 
 for stow-away ** niggers'' hoodwinked 
 the officers of the law. By one means or 
 another a great many of these escaping 
 ebons found themselves in Gotham and 
 thence traveled by the '* shore line" to 
 New Haven. Thence by two diverging 
 routes they went onward. One route ran 
 through Westfield, where Hulls were 
 active abolitionists, the other went 
 through Springfield and thence through 
 Chicopee street, whence the titanic Titus 
 Chapin in his farm wagon carried the 
 fugitives '* bright and early" on their 
 
l6o IN ABOLITION TIMES. 
 
 way towards Northampton, where con- 
 verged the routes that diverged at New 
 Haven. 
 
 One of the most active of the abolition- 
 ists of his time was J. P. Williston of 
 Northampton, whose barn, in King street 
 that was then an aristocratic street of 
 *'the fine old town," harbored many of 
 the fugitives from slavery. From his 
 table they were fed and he gave them 
 money to further aid them on their jour- 
 ney. The pro-slavery people and the 
 ** rum element " — for Mr. Williston was 
 a temperance man — joined hands against 
 him and burned his barn. But, nothing 
 daunted, he kept on with his efforts for 
 temperance and for the anti-slavery cause. 
 As additional proof of his wish to aid the 
 so called ''inferior race," he took a 
 colored boy to live in his house and eat 
 from his table. He gave him a chance 
 to learn the printer's trade, so as to be 
 self supporting. This protege had musi- 
 
IN ABOLITION TIMES. l6l 
 
 cal talent, and Mr. Williston, who was a 
 leading member of the Old church of 
 Northampton, insisted that he be allowed 
 to sing in the choir — and he was. He 
 still lives in Pennsylvania, where he has 
 given a good account of himself. 
 
 Aided by Mr. Williston and other 
 abolitionists in Massachusetts and by men 
 of like faith and works in southern Ver- 
 mont, the fugitives reached Mount Holly, 
 where Bjxbys and others aided them. 
 Further north there were other stations 
 of the underground road. And as the 
 farers neared Canada, they naturally 
 grew more hopeful. But if they appeared 
 too much elated the agents of the under- 
 ground road warned them not to be off 
 their guard, for they were not yet out of 
 danger. They were reminded that even 
 if they were within sight of the Canadian 
 border, they were still liable to arrest by 
 national officers, and that there were even 
 in northern Vermont magistrates who 
 
l62 IN ABOLITION TIMES. 
 
 would, when besought by slave hunters, 
 issue papers of rendition, armed with 
 which the hunters could take them back 
 to their old servitude. Then to reinspire 
 the pilgrims with courage the station 
 keepers told them the story of the Ver- 
 mont magistrate, who, when a slave 
 hunter sought for papers of rendition for 
 a negro whom he brought before his 
 honor, replied: ''No, sir — you cannot 
 have this man to take back to slavery, 
 unless you present a bill of sale from 
 God Almighty!" Heartened by the 
 assurance that such sentiments actuated 
 some of the justices of Vermont, the 
 fugitives fared on and finally crossed the 
 border into their long-sought Canaan of 
 Canada ! 
 
INDUSTRIES THAT WERE. 
 
 MANY of the industries that were 
 carried on in New England 
 seventy-five years ago and even 
 fifty years ago, have vanished. And in 
 no section is this fact more noticeable 
 than in western Massachusetts and vicin- 
 ity. Take, for instance, the wagon 
 making once done by ten concerns at 
 Belchertown — they are all gone. And 
 with them have faded like industries 
 fiom Clark street, West Springfield, the 
 ^^ Crooked Lane" nook of Suffield, Ct., 
 and from many other localities. Rakes 
 are no longer made by the Brogasof Otis, 
 nor axes by the Hannums of Huntington 
 that was Chester village, nor planes by 
 that typical New Englander Deacon 
 Melvin Copeland of '*the village." Nor 
 is home made cloth fulled at '' Norridge 
 
164 INDUSTRIES THAT WERE. 
 
 bridge/' nor in half a hundred other 
 places where once it was, nor scythes 
 made by the Blanchards that named 
 '' Blanchardville " east of Palmer depot, 
 nor Venetian blinds by Mr. Adams or 
 anybody else at Becket centre that was, 
 nor wooden combs by ** Uncle *' Timothy 
 Fay or others at Chester Factories or 
 elsewhere, nor bedsteads and coffins by 
 William Fay or others at ' ' the Factories. " 
 In some places several industries have 
 vanished. Five have gone of the half 
 dozen that once thrived in the ' ' Beaver 
 Dam" district of Blandford, leaving but 
 one of the original six. To make up in 
 part for the loss, one new industry has 
 come in. One of the industries that went 
 was bedstead making, another making 
 wooden bowls, another making '■' straw- 
 board " wrapping paper, another tanning 
 and yet another making woolen cloth. A 
 tannery at Blandford centre went down ; 
 so did one at Russell, one at Otis and one 
 
INDUSTRIES THAT WERE. 165 
 
 at Sandisfield. The '' Littleville " neio-h- 
 borhood of Chester had a tannery once ; 
 and one at ^nhe Factories " that remained 
 after many others had died down, finally 
 went out of business. Strange as it may 
 now seem, there was once a tannery over 
 in one of the hollows of Middlefield — for 
 Middlefield has its hollows as well as its 
 hills. This decadence of the tanneries 
 has extended throughout New England. 
 There was once a tannery right in the 
 village of Hinsdale, N. H., where now 
 there is none. '' Uncle " Parley Starr, 
 who was a bank president at Brattleboro, 
 Vt., was previously a tanner in a neigh- 
 boring town. Readsboro, Vt., had its 
 tannery, so did Wilmington farther up 
 the Deerfield valley. And of course 
 Maine had its tanneries, hundreds of 
 them. It was a mile from the village of 
 Winchester, N. H., where the Jewells 
 did tanning — the Jewells some of whom 
 came to prominence in political life, as 
 
l66 INDUSTRIES THAT WERE. 
 
 also did a Massachusetts tanner. This 
 was Gov William Claflin. The promi- 
 nence of these men was along in the 
 years when one who had done tanning 
 with his father and brother at Galena, 
 111., engaged in tanning enterprises on a 
 larger scale and of a different sort at Fort 
 Donelson, Vicksburg, Shiloh, the Wilder- 
 ness and Appomattox, enterprises that 
 gave him national prominence and made 
 the name of Grant known the world over. 
 There was no tannery in New England 
 that did a more thriving business nor one 
 that was a better industry for the place 
 where located than the one carried on for 
 years, at Becket, by Gov William Claflin 
 of Boston and his partner J. W. Wheeler, 
 who lived at Becket and had immediate 
 oversight of the works, which included, 
 besides the tannery proper, a currier 
 shop. The concern employed good help 
 whom they gave steady employment at 
 good wages; and for those without 
 
INDUSTRIES THAT WERE. 167 
 
 families of their own, they furnished a 
 home that was well managed by Mr. and 
 Mrs. Taylor, people who, besides caring 
 for the tanners, added to their own lives 
 that significance coming from the genuine 
 neighborliness that was appreciated by the 
 best of the villagers. One of the tanners 
 was a German, still well remembered at 
 Becket for his talent for invention. This 
 was *' Uncle" John Mueller, who occu- 
 pied the house since kept as a summer 
 inn. And, to quote from the German, 
 himself when telling where he did his 
 studying — *' in that front chamber there 
 I tinks an' tinks! '* And for the result 
 of his '' tinking," a process for tanning, 
 he received seven thousand dollars. The 
 Claflin and Wheeler tanning at Becket 
 and one which they subsequently ran in 
 York state have followed in the way of 
 other enterprises of the kind and died 
 out. And industries of how many other 
 sorts were carried on in New England, in 
 
l68 INDUSTRIES THAT WERE. 
 
 the old days, that have gone. How many 
 shops have ceased running wherein once 
 chair stuff was turned, or whip butts, or 
 hoe handles, scythe snaths, lather boxes, 
 or sleigh thills, or wagon felloes. How 
 many hat shops have stopped business. 
 A few of those who carried on some of 
 these industries survive and are elsewhere 
 engaged in other business, like for in- 
 stance, the veteran Mr. Hitchcock, once 
 a wagon maker at Belchertown but in 
 later years in mercantile life at Ware. 
 The Belcher and Taylor plow and 
 tedder business has long aided Chicopee 
 Falls. So has the Maynard hoe business 
 helped Northampton. The Prentisses 
 of Holyoke, who long ago established a 
 wire drawing enterprise there, have well 
 proved the possibility of conducting 
 business so as to give good workmen 
 good wages. How to do this the 
 late C. J. Amidon of Hinsdale, N. H. 
 proved, as have the Hailes of the same 
 
 i 
 
INDUSTRIES THAT WERE. 169 
 
 place, and the Robertsons, father and 
 sons, while as much is true of the Fisk 
 paper making industry. If the survey 
 be extended ^* down east,'^ there could be 
 found those who have done their best to 
 maintain an industry '' for the benefit of 
 the town " and for the help employed. 
 To specify, one of these was W. C. 
 Fernald, for years a manufacturer at 
 Wilton, Me., and there were many others 
 with similar ambitions. Some of the old 
 industries have remained. One of these, 
 the manufacturing, formerly conducted by 
 L. B. Williams at Chester village, re- 
 moved to Northampton and increased to 
 greater proportions, is well managed there 
 by the kindred of the former proprietor. 
 The drum making at Granville helps the 
 place ; so does the organ making done at 
 Brattleboro, Vt. help its town. 
 
 There are industries in Massachusetts 
 and elsewhere in New England that, 
 started years ago, have not died out and 
 
I/O INDUSTRIES THAT WERE. 
 
 have not been removed to other localities, 
 but " still stand strong" and, full of their 
 former vigor, are flourishing * ' on the 
 very spot of their origin/' One of the 
 most notable of these is that of the paper- 
 making begun at Dalton in 1800 by Zenas 
 Crane, and by him and his descendants 
 carried on there throughout the century. 
 It is said that one of the facts that influ- 
 enced this pioneer paper-maker to locate 
 his industry where he did was the purity 
 of the water to be had there for washing 
 the stock to be used in making paper. 
 But, important as that fact was, essential 
 as pure water is for washing stock for 
 fine paper, there has been something 
 more conducive to the success of the 
 Dalton enterprise, — more conducive than 
 that or than improved machinery which 
 has been from time to time adopted or 
 than a ready market, and that something 
 has been the uniform loyalty of the 
 workmen employed to the interests of 
 
INDUSTRIES THAT WERE. I/I 
 
 the employers — a loyalty possible only 
 under treatment marked by justice and 
 considerateness. Some of the paper 
 makers contemporaneous with the second 
 generation of Cranes and who were just 
 in their treatment of their help were the 
 Smiths of Lee, the Southworths, the 
 Jessups and the Laflins. Some of the 
 descendants of these are the successors of 
 their ancestors in business and carry out 
 their ideas in the conduct thereof. 
 
OLD GUARD REPUBLICANS. 
 
 WHAT men there were in the '' old 
 guard " of the republicans of 
 western Massachusetts. They 
 were men conscious that the party, organ- 
 ized for objects making for the best 
 interests of the country at large and for 
 the promotion of that which was for the 
 welfare of humanity the world over, had 
 not drifted from the course in which the 
 career was begun. Among them were 
 those to whom certain features of the 
 party creed seemed more important than 
 they did to others. To some the anti- 
 slavery sentiment that had found its 
 high culmination in the emancipation of 
 the slaves was still the all important 
 doctrine and whatever made for the 
 advancement of the freedmen was the 
 chief mission of party. To others the 
 
OLD GUARD REPUBLICANS. 1/3 
 
 great work of the party was maintaining 
 a tariff on imported goods that would 
 protect home industries. And there were 
 other questions to which greater or less 
 interest was attached, according to the 
 point of view taken by different ones of 
 these republicans. But, while cherishing 
 each their own ideas of the questions 
 before the country, the old guard were, 
 with few exceptions, loyal to the party. 
 There were eloquent men among them. 
 One of these was Judge James T. Robin- 
 son of the Berkshire probate court, who, 
 on the platform and in his newspaper, 
 said things fervently and gracefully for 
 the cause of the republicans. Another 
 was Westfield's man of classic speech, 
 Edward B. Gillett. And the party man- 
 agers of the region — what men they 
 were. One of these was Edward R. 
 Tinker of North Adams, whose white 
 hat, and hair that was white many years 
 ago, gave him the look of a veteran even 
 
174 OLD GUARD REPUBLICANS. 
 
 then, while his frank heartiness of greet- 
 ing drew men to him, and they were 
 somehow led to think him gifted with 
 sagacity for political management. This 
 idea they came to find to be true. Ta 
 their delight was it true if they were on 
 his side of the game, and to their sorrow, 
 if they were opposed. One of Mr. 
 Tinker's contemporaries was Sylvander 
 Johnson, the man whose manner of 
 address was in contrast to that of his 
 associate. Mr. Johnson always spoke in 
 a voice almost down to a whisper, as if he 
 was making a special confidant of the one 
 with whom he was conversing. The 
 *' soldier element" among the North 
 Adams coterie of the old guard was 
 represented by Capt W. F. Darby, once 
 postmaster, and by others. The temper- 
 ance element and church interest were 
 recognized, for wasn't Edwin Rogers 
 postmaster; and, later along, the Metho- 
 dist element was cared for in the selection 
 
OLD GUARD REPUBLICANS. 1 75 
 
 of the excellent Ashley B. Wright for 
 councilor and then for congressman. 
 Loyal to the party in the state and the 
 country, Mr. Tinker was loyal to Berk- 
 shire, too ; and when that county, that had 
 its United States senator and other officials , 
 was in the congressional district with 
 Hampden that didn't have one man in 
 office, Mr. Tinker planned for further 
 conquests, and, with his Berkshire cohorts 
 well trained *'came down to Hampden 
 county to claim new honors and to win 
 them." And at the convention they 
 named Francis Rockwell of Berkshire, 
 who was sent to congress again and again. 
 And for some of the time, Pittsfield — 
 Berkshire's Pittsfield — had the United 
 States senator, the congressman, the 
 district attorney and the attorney general 
 and Hampden county didn't have a man I 
 Speaking of Pittsfield, reminds one of that 
 old timer of the republicans, Charles N. 
 Emerson. The story is told that once. 
 
176 OLD GUARD REPUBLICANS. 
 
 when a delegate to the state convention 
 at Worcester, he rose to address the 
 assembly, the chairman failing to recog- 
 nize him, asked, **Will the gentleman 
 give his name that the chair may announce 
 it to the delegates? " And he responded, 
 ''Mr. Emerson, sir, from the grand old 
 hills of Berkshire/* There was some- 
 thing in the circumstances of the case that 
 made the response especially relished ; 
 and it was long treasured to flavor remi- 
 niscences of scenes in Mechanics* hall. 
 Speaking of Berkshire in the old days, 
 who could omit the name of Gen W. C. 
 Plunkett of Adams, once lieutenant gov- 
 ernor — General Plunkett, who by his 
 character gave solidarity to the party. 
 And if Captain Darby represented the 
 soldier element of the party at North 
 Adams, that element was represented 
 by Lieut Col Joseph Tucker of Pittsfield 
 and Captain Weston of Dalton, each, in 
 
OLD GUARD REPUBLICANS. 177 
 
 turn, lieutenant governor; and Pittsfield 
 had also her '' Cap " Weller and '' Cap '* 
 Smith. 
 
 No list of old time Berkshire republi- 
 cans would be complete that did not 
 include the name of Prentice Chaffee 
 Baird of Lee, once state senator and for 
 along time a *' power" with the party 
 managers. ' ' Print " was a son of Kendall 
 Baird, the long time keeper of the stage 
 tavern at West Becket, known as 
 **Baird's." Who that knew this inn- 
 keeper will forget his long whiskers and 
 his bluff heartiness of manner. A politi- 
 cian who had some influence was 
 ** Print's" cousin, James C. Chaffee, once 
 postmaster of Lee. Down farther south 
 there was John M. Seeley of Housatonic, 
 '' Uncle Mark," whom the boys all liked 
 and who was representative and senator. 
 And Parley A. Russell and A. L. Hubbell 
 of Great Barrington had to be consulted, 
 to have things go right. So did the 
 
178 OLD GUARD REPUBLICANS. 
 
 Littles of Sheffield, and Henry Burch, 
 who was a long time town clerk there 
 and a member of the legislature. Out 
 at Egremont there was Farmer Rowley 
 with whom the politicians had to confer; 
 and on the heights of Mount Washington 
 Neighbor Whitbeck had to be '*seen," 
 even if his town didn't have a post office 
 and was at one time minus a meeting 
 house. And at Lenox Thomas Post had 
 a following. 
 
 Too wise to be at odds with those with 
 whom he was called to operate, Mr. 
 Tinker, if he was loyal to Berkshire, kept 
 on good terms with the Hampden county 
 magnates and with those in Hampshire 
 as well. In fact, he was known all 
 through the state and prized for his 
 sagacity. And it is no doubt true that 
 in his day he influenced votes for his 
 friend Mr. Dawes not only in the old 
 congressional district of Berkshire and 
 Hampden, but votes for him* when he 
 
OLD GUARD REPUBLICANS. 1 79 
 
 was before the legislature of the state 
 as candidate for the senate. But to say, 
 as some have done, that Mr. Dawes owed 
 his long tenure in office solely to this fact 
 would be unjust to the statesman, whose 
 tireless industry in the national legislature 
 was alone enough to earn him a life lease 
 of a place there. 
 
 Among those in Hampden county with 
 whom Mr. Tinker always conferred were 
 included, of course, Thomas Kniel of 
 Westfield and often H. J. Bush of that 
 town and E. B. Smith, an ex-soldier, W. 
 H. Foote and L. F. Thayer, while even 
 in Southwick there was Edwin Gilbert 
 and R. W. Kellogg. And why forget 
 Nelson D. Parks of Russell and W. M. 
 Lewis of Blandford? At Springfield Mr. 
 Tinker and Henry Alexander had long 
 conferences in **Alek's" bank; and to 
 men who remember those days it needs 
 not to be said that * *slates" made up by the 
 two were generally '* carried in conven- 
 
l80 OLD GUARD REPUBLICANS. 
 
 tion." Of course the two managers 
 were sagacious enough to recognize all 
 the '' elements/' The urbane Albert D. 
 Briggs, when mayor and when ex-mayor, 
 was sure to be on the list of delegates 
 and with him his friend, the young Mr. 
 F. H. Harris, also likely as not the 
 gallant Major Spooner just home from 
 the wars, or Gen Horace C. Lee. E. H. 
 Patch represented the ''horse fanciers'* 
 and the South church as well and L. C. 
 Smith the horse fanciers and the Metho- 
 dist church, which latter order w^ere 
 further represented by Henry W. Hallett 
 and Lewis H. Taylor. Likely enough 
 John Anderson represented the North 
 church while C. L. Covill was also a 
 delegate. Palmer was not forgotten, for 
 Gordon M. Fisk was consulted; nor was 
 Monson left out, for the managers con- 
 ferred with W. N. Flint and perhaps a 
 Norcross, a Holmes, a Lyon or that 
 Yankee squire, George H. Newton. 
 
OLD GUARD REPUBLICANS. l8l 
 
 The slate for Hampshire county was 
 never completed without a good deal of 
 thought. For the county had besides 
 Gen Luke Lyman, who was a power in 
 his day, such dignified officials as Sheriff 
 Longley, the veteran sheriff of the whole 
 country, and Esquire Elisha H. Brewster, 
 senator and county commissioner and 
 councilor, men looking always for the 
 best interests of the people. And then, 
 before the days of the prominence of 
 Alvan Barrus of Goshen there were those 
 two Cummington men, Lysander J. 
 Orcutt and Richmond Kingman of Cum- 
 mington, each men of influence, while 
 such men as Nelson Campbell of Plain- 
 field were worth consulting. And, again, 
 over at Ware — Ware always a smart 
 town — there was the unpretentious 
 but influential Charles A. Stevens the 
 manufacturer, to say nothing of Granby's 
 S. M. Cook. And several Belchertown 
 men were of some importance beyond 
 
l82 OLD GUARD REPUBLICANS. 
 
 the fact that they were of the town of the 
 fairs where politicians were always in 
 attendance to greet the dear people and 
 of course to show their interest in agri- 
 culture, which the Father of his country 
 so felicitously termed '' the most ancient, 
 the most useful and the most honorable 
 employment of man." And other fairs 
 were visited by the old timers of the 
 republicans. They were at the ''Hill- 
 side " show at Cummington, and the one 
 at Charlemont. Some of them climbed 
 the heights of Middlefield and talked 
 with descendants of the Macks, the Roots, 
 the Smiths and the Churches. Others 
 went up to Blandford and there greeted 
 descendants of the Gibbses, Knoxes, 
 Boises, Lloyds, Nyes, Burdicks, Herricks 
 and Lewises; and, of course the Berkshire 
 fair at Pittsfield, oldest fair in Massachu- 
 setts, was visited. To greet the incomers 
 from other towns Ensign H. Kellogg of 
 Pittsfield was on hand. He always could 
 
OLD GUARD REPUBLICANS. 183 
 
 fitly officiate to introduce gentlemen to 
 the soil tillers. There has always been 
 attached to the ancient Berkshire agricul- 
 tural society a good deal of dignity. 
 Nevertheless, '* fair week'* brought to 
 Pittsfield some picturesqueness. One 
 feature of this sort was the impromptu 
 meeting of **hoss swoppers" dickerers 
 in '*waggins," whips and ''dorgs/* a meet- 
 ing held in an open lot near the old 
 town hall. And if this meeting fell on 
 a sunny day many were the on-lookers — 
 among them the urbane Sheriff Root 
 **just to preserve order " and Mr. Kellogg, 
 whom the traders liked to see ; while, to 
 heighten the cheeriness of the occasion, 
 beamed the rosy face of the still well 
 remembered **Gen'' Foster of Cheshire, 
 who knew more about the '' whipping in'* 
 business of active politics than any other 
 man in a dozen towns, if not the whole 
 country through. And the ** general's " 
 field was not only at fairs and the meet- 
 
184 OLD GUARD REPUBLICANS. 
 
 ings of the ''hoss men/' but he was 
 always in demand at caucuses and was 
 frequently a member of the ' ' third 
 house '' of the Massachusetts legislature. 
 There were two of the early republicans 
 of western Hampshire county who held 
 the office of lieutenant governor. One of 
 these was Joel Hayden, who founded the 
 village of Haydenville and established 
 the principal industry of the place. In 
 this there were skilled workmen, one of 
 whom was the fine old German citizen 
 Jacob Hills, whose talent was well proven 
 in an invention for making brass goods, 
 one that was so valuable that business 
 men tried to rob him of it. But he had 
 prowess enough left after perfecting his 
 invention to fight them off and to get it 
 patented ; and he had the revenue from 
 it for years. He was also made inspector 
 of the product of the Haydenville works, 
 and in the changes that time wrought, 
 two of his sons came to manage the 
 works. ^ 
 
OLD GUARD REPUBLICANS. 1 85 
 
 The other lieutenant governor from 
 western Hampshire was Horatio G. 
 Knight, one of the associates of Samuel 
 Williston in founding the industries that 
 have given Easthampton its name in the 
 business world. He was a trustee, named 
 in Mr. Williston's will, of the seminary 
 at Easthampton bearing the name of the 
 founder. Mr. Knight was a man of such 
 eminent business ability that he was given 
 by the governor the chairmanship of im- 
 portant committees of the gubernatorial 
 council. And he was often charged with 
 the duty of auditing the accounts of those 
 expending the state's millions on the 
 building of the Hoosac Tunnel. So 
 honorable a business man was he that 
 when the corporation of which he was a 
 manager was crippled for business,, 
 through others than himself, and was 
 obliged to close the factory, men whose 
 names he had forgotten volunteered the 
 money necessary to put the company on 
 
l86 OLD GUARD REPUBLICANS. 
 
 its feet again ; and they made him pres- 
 ident and treasurer of the company and 
 manager of the factory at Easthampton 
 and the sales house in New York. And 
 the works were only closed three weeks, 
 before the wheels were again moving with 
 Mr. Knight in charge. A public spirited 
 •citizen and a man whose generous im- 
 pulses led him to be helpful to the poor, 
 he naturally came to be popular, and he 
 had many friends who wanted to send 
 him to congress. But there were those 
 even among his own townsmen who were 
 jealous of Mr Knight and did their best 
 to defeat him in the convention where a 
 nomination that was equal to an election 
 was his due. In this they were success- 
 ful. Then a few precious prigs, by schem- 
 ing, brought about a church trial of the 
 man. But they were not only defeated but 
 so routed as to ' * make abundant sport to 
 after days." A native of Easthampton, he 
 
OLD GUARD REPUBLICANS. 1 8/ 
 
 lived to see and to help it grow to a place 
 of great importance. And there he died 
 at a good old age. 
 
 Some of the old republicans remain to 
 review the scenes of the political contests 
 in which they participated years ago. 
 And at times they thrill with almost their 
 former interest over battles fought and 
 victories won. Others of their number 
 have gone to a country from whence have 
 come as yet no reports that the inhabi- 
 tants participate in political campaigns. 
 
 Before the active days of the old repub- 
 licans were over the labor reformers 
 appeared — an ''element'* with questions to 
 be answered similar to those propounded 
 by the socialists of today. If some of 
 these radicals are like other beginners in 
 causes, crude in their ideas, narrow 
 in their views, picturesque in their ear- 
 nestness, and evidently more bent on 
 breaking than on building, there are 
 others who, like C. C. Hitchcock of Ware 
 
l88 OLD GUARD REPUBLICANS. 
 
 are sensible as well as earnest, and who 
 give their peculiar creed the benefit of 
 their public spirit as citizens and their 
 honorable career as business men. 
 
 An interested observer of the old guard 
 republicans of western Massachusetts in 
 their active days, was one who, only a boy 
 at the time, has since then at the call of 
 the people of all sections of the state, 
 taken part in managing its affairs, one who 
 has done his work so wisely and so well 
 as to satisfy the best citizens of all parties 
 and to win for the name of Governor 
 Crane national distinction. 
 
SOME "MRS. PARTINGTONS." 
 
 THE late Mr. Shillaber would have 
 been surprised to have learned how 
 many ''Mrs. Partingtons " there 
 were in real life. And how many there 
 are still — how many people there are 
 who, in their vanity wishing to use words 
 that shall make them appear especially 
 learned, vault to the use of words whose 
 meanings are laughably different from 
 that at which they aim. To begin the 
 enumeration of these blunderers at 
 Springfield, Mass. — there's a business 
 man there who gears himself in dress 
 shirts, flaunts diamonds and pretends to 
 be correct, in dress and speech, who, 
 when speaking of one party to a proposed 
 business transaction making advances 
 or offers for the other to consider and, 
 who when evidently wanting to say 
 
IQO SOME **MRS. PARTINGTONS. 
 
 > » 
 
 ** overture/* which would be allowable, 
 though rather stilted for a proposition 
 about a contract for a plumber's job, gets 
 himself into the scene of a public demon- 
 stration over a popular hero and tells 
 about the contractor in question ' ' making 
 an ovation" to the party of the second 
 part in the proposed contract. The same 
 man tells about a dog always ' ' mimicking 
 his master," which would be declaring 
 that a dog copies his master in ridicule, 
 as a dog never does. Evidently the man 
 means to say that the dog copies or imi- 
 tates his master. 
 
 In spite of the fact that seriousness and 
 reverence are due in a church prayer 
 meeting, when, as in a Springfield church, 
 the leader of the meeting reverts a dozen 
 times in succession to God's ' ' gui-di-ance" 
 of the children of Israel on their journey, 
 the blunder tends to awaken amusement — 
 especially when the man caps the climax 
 by speaking of the '^subsidary" matters 
 of the journey. 
 
SOME '' MRS. PARTINGTONS." I9I 
 
 There's a business man in '' shop row/* 
 Northampton, Mass., who is an industri- 
 ous Mrs. Partington ; and a Fitchburg 
 railroad conductor who is a very faithful 
 man at his work persistently uses the 
 word ' ' dififuculty " for difficulty. But 
 perhaps Huntington can claim the palm 
 for having had the most of a Mrs. Par- 
 tington. And to give the town still more 
 significance in this direction, there were 
 two of these blunderers, a man and his 
 wife. They lived a short distance west 
 of -'the green." It is recalled that the 
 man, in answer to an inquiry in reference 
 to his hand trembling as he signed a pay- 
 roll at one of the shops where he worked, 
 remarked that '' it is a sort of inheritance 
 that has come down to me from my 
 posterity." To a minister some of his 
 parishioners presented, to give him a 
 specimen of the product of one of the 
 industries of the village, one of the 
 Hannum axes so well known of yore in 
 
192 SOME *'MRS. PARTINGTONS. 
 
 > ♦ 
 
 country stores in western Massachusetts 
 and among the farmers and wood-choppers 
 of that region. The handle of the ax was 
 also made in one of the Huntington shops, 
 and the Mrs. Partington man was the 
 spokesman for the donors. His wife 
 afterward remarked, in giving an account 
 of the happening, that he had ''placed 
 the utensils of his name on the handle!'' 
 In remarking to a neighbor about the 
 absence from town of several official 
 members of the ''sewing society,'* she 
 declared that " all the duties of the man- 
 agement of its affairs revolved upon her." 
 In after years these Huntington Parting- 
 tons lived elsewhere. One of their 
 whilom neighbors at Huntington had 
 gone thence to reside at Northampton. 
 There the Mrs. Partington woman called 
 on her acquaintance, whose son, at his 
 mother's request, took the visitor out to 
 drive, and, "just for the notion of it," 
 hitched one of his span of horses ahead 
 
SOME **MRS. PARTINGTONS/' I93 
 
 of the other. In giving an account of 
 her visit she declared that she actually 
 ** rode after a tantrum team!" Now 
 comes a Westfield lady, resident in these 
 days in a coast town near Boston, and 
 attempts to rob Huntington of its Par- 
 tington fame and eclipse the glory of 
 '^Falley's cross roads" and the fame of 
 ^* Chester village." The Westfielder 
 tells of an acquaintance of hers whose 
 wife, on being questioned in reference to 
 the kind of a sewing machine which she 
 had bought, said that it was a **dome 
 stick." And with that single speci- 
 men of Partington speech this Woronoco 
 woman supposes the Huntington pair are 
 relegated to oblivion as comparatively 
 inconsequential. Not a bit of it I 
 *' Falley's cross roads " still to the front! 
 And any one still living who was 
 acquainted at ''the village" of yore will 
 recall the names of these champion claim- 
 ants for the honor of having been the 
 
194 SOME '*MRS. PARTINGTONS 
 
 » » 
 
 originals of Mr. Shillaber's portrait. If 
 these two people of '*the village*' itself 
 are not enough to substantiate the claim 
 of that place, the case of a fellow from 
 near there who went to war as a member 
 of the forty-sixth Massachusetts regiment 
 may be taken. The comrades of his 
 company were annoyed by his ill timed 
 and cow like marching, that, as he being 
 of medium height was midway in the 
 company, would throw them out of step, 
 whether they were in company or regi- 
 mental drill, and were marching by the 
 '' right flank " or ''left flank." And again 
 like every ignoramus he thought he knew 
 everything. These facts were doubtless 
 reasons that aided them in appreciating 
 his speech. In referring to infantry 
 regiments going on an expedition sup- 
 ported by mounted soldiers he spoke of 
 the horsemen as ''hoss calvary'' and of 
 the command '' bivowking " in a cornfield. 
 To him the steamer named for the well- 
 
SOME *'MRS. PARTINGTONS/' I95 
 
 known organist, Dudley Buck, and in 
 war days used in transporting troops in 
 the Carolina waters, was the '* Deadly 
 Buck!" 
 
 Meriden, Ct., too, puts in a claim for a 
 case of Mrs. Partington. But Meriden 
 that is smart knows enough to be reason- 
 able and not attempt to claim honors not 
 her own. The story goes that a woman 
 in that city whose husband had made a 
 neat sum selling beef to '' nutmeggers " — 
 and how *'cluss he had figgered " it 
 wouldn't do to tell — and had done well 
 speculating therewith in Kansas lands, 
 remarked concerning his successful vent- 
 ure: '* If Joseph keeps on in this way 
 he'll become a milliner before long!" 
 Verily, the satire of Mr. Shillaber was 
 appropriate and fitted to many a Yankee 
 neighborhood. 
 
ON BOAT, BOX AND RAIL 
 
 OTHER things being equal, men of 
 old New England were appreciated 
 in the various callings according 
 to the individuality they possessed and 
 exhibited. Those were the times for the 
 development of individuality. The life 
 of those days furnished the atmosphere 
 in which the men of individuality could 
 breathe and thrive, those days of simpler 
 life — those days of less regime than now 
 there is, less of method — method that 
 manacles, system that belittles — regime, 
 and method and system that reduce the 
 men regulated by them, from men to mere 
 automatons. In the old days of simpler 
 life and of more individuality, workmen 
 had ambition to be efficient and their 
 efficiency was appreciated. Fostered by 
 this appreciation, the workmen came to 
 
ON BOAT, BOX AND RAIL. 1 97 
 
 take pride in doing their work well. 
 Hence the good results of their efforts — - 
 results not the product of the toil of 
 human machines, but the results of the 
 work of men of intelligence and individu- 
 ality ambitious to do their best. And 
 one of the results of these efforts was the 
 personal development gained by the 
 workers in their work, the increase of 
 facility for doing the work and the in- 
 crease of ambition to do it well. But 
 whatever the efficiency for his work 
 which any workman gained from that 
 work, more important still his growth in 
 his characteristics as a man. One of the 
 truths taught by preachers and teachers 
 was that a principal object, if not the 
 chief object, of working was the develop- 
 ment that work gave the worker. And 
 yet the longer the workman kept at that 
 work the more apparent was the fact of 
 that work being his calling, — or it be- 
 came evident that he was out of his 
 
198 ON BOAT, BOK AND RAIL. 
 
 sphere. And, generally, the man who 
 had missed his calling had the good 
 sense to see the fact. With the excep- 
 tions of these mistaken ones aside, work- 
 men were fit for the calling in which 
 they labored. They showed their indi- 
 viduality in their work and had charac- 
 teristics as men beyond their skill as 
 workmen. This was true of farmers, 
 store keepers, blacksmiths, wagon- 
 makers, shoe-makers in their shops and 
 journeymen cobblers going from house 
 to house to mend shoes, school masters, 
 preachers, doctors, printers at the case, 
 editors of the family papers, tavern 
 keepers, stage drivers, river boat men — 
 in short, men of every calling. To the 
 most casual observer it was evident that 
 the workman was fit for his calling and 
 that more important than that fitness 
 were his characteristics as a man. And 
 these characteristics made him the better 
 workman and made him better known in 
 his calling. 
 
ON BOAT, BOX AND RAIL. I99 
 
 Wno, for instance, that saw the old 
 time river boat *'cap'n" either on his craft 
 on the Connecticut, or ashore at Middle- 
 town, or '*'Arford," or Springfield, or 
 South Hadley Falls — beg pardon shades 
 of departed tars — or at *'the canal," or 
 ^' Hamp or Hocky," or at '' Cheapside" — 
 who that ever saw him on board his 
 boat or off duty, but could see he was 
 '' cap'n ''? And so, too, of his crew. 
 
 And as to those whips of the stage 
 coach days, — couldn't any man ** with 
 half an eye '' and a half mile off, tell that 
 Oscar J. Brown of Claremont, N. H. was 
 a stage driver? And when, years after 
 he had gone out of business or had come 
 down from driving on a route of eighty 
 miles to running on one of two miles, 
 who but could see that in his day he was a 
 prince among the * 'whips," and, see, too, 
 that his day hadn't yet gone by? Why, 
 there was something even in the way 
 he held "the leathers" to keep his 
 
200 ON BOAT, BOX AND RAIL. 
 
 f otir-in-hand down to a walk that revealed 
 him as the finished driver. And the way, 
 thereafter, he snapped those lines to let 
 the horses know they were then wanted 
 to do their best — that was art itself. 
 And didn't Ginery Twitchell of the old 
 '*Barre route" understand horses and 
 human nature ? And from understandings 
 horses that he drove and men and women 
 that were his passengers, he came natur- 
 ally to the study of politics and easily 
 learned how to win votes and get to 
 congress. If there was an old timer that 
 didn't know before seeing him that 
 Horatio Sargent of Springfield was a 
 stage driver, it didn't take long after a 
 glance at the man to divine the fact that 
 *' old Sarge " was a *' whip." A partner 
 of his was Chester W. Chapin, who, like 
 their contemporary Twitchell became 
 railroad manager and a member of 
 congress. 'Tis said that ' ' Uncle " Chester 
 always had a thought for ** Sarge" and 
 
ON BOAT, BOX AND RAIL. 201 
 
 for the sake of '' auld lang syne " always 
 had a job on his road for *'Sarge's" 
 friends. Known to '*Sarge," '^Ginery*' 
 and *' Uncle Chester" was the well re- 
 membered and jovial ''Major" Frank 
 Morgan of Palmer, acquaintance between 
 whom and Chapin dated back to staging 
 times. James Parker, another staging 
 day acquaintance, always had a good job 
 on Chapin's road. Verily the fraternity 
 of the '' whips " counted for much. It is 
 said, by the way, that a well known 
 Springfield livery stable keeper started 
 the movement to make *' Uncle Chester " 
 congressman, taking for his strategy the 
 opportune time when the republicans, 
 diwSappointed by their favorite refusing to 
 run, had nominated a man who, though 
 a good manager for others was likely to 
 prove a poor man to win votes for him- 
 self. A stage driver of note in his day, 
 but who is forgotten by all but a few, was 
 '* Uncle Armor" Hamilton, who drove 
 
202 ON BOAT, BOX AND RAIL. 
 
 on the route from Springfield through 
 Westfield over the hill-top town of 
 Blandford where he lived, and west- 
 ward from there. Mr. Hamilton was a 
 Methodist and was grandfather of that 
 unique man of talent of later years. Elder 
 H. L. Hastings. Mrs. Johnston, a 
 daughter of Mr. Hamilton, was well 
 known in other days at Middletown, Ct., 
 where her husband was for years profes- 
 sor in the university. One of the Holyoke 
 Congregational churches in later years 
 had a deacon whose abundant fund of 
 knowledge of men and things with which 
 he enlivened his prayer meeting talks 
 was largely gained from observation of 
 people and happenings on his stage route 
 from northern Worcester across country 
 to Springfield. 
 
 And what men of individuality were 
 some of the hack drivers? One of these 
 was Eno Burt of Chicopee, who was well 
 known half a century ago as driver of a 
 
ON BOAT, BOX AND RAIL. 203 
 
 public coach about the village of ' * Cabot- 
 ville," as Chicopee centre was then called. 
 Never to be forgotten the readiness of 
 this driver to take passengers who were 
 in a hurry. And how well he tried to 
 get them to their destination on the time 
 promised. And never to be forgotten 
 that pet ejaculation of his to his horses, 
 *'Come, now, pulverize here — pulverize !** 
 Exactly what there was in the meaning 
 of the word used to suggest speed to this 
 ' * whip*' no one knew. But when he uttered 
 it, especially if he spoke it the second 
 time, his horses knew they were expected 
 to be swift of foot — and they were. And 
 the driver came to be called by the word 
 he used. Known was ''Old Pulverize" 
 to all the ancient dwellers at * ' Cabotville" 
 and at '' Skip" that was such a rival to 
 ''Cabot, "and known, too, was he at 
 Springfield as well. Dame Rumor, the 
 gossip, has it that this "whip" who really 
 deserved to spend his last days in peace 
 
204 ON BOAT, BOX AND RAIL. 
 
 and comfort finally came to want and 
 died '* by strangers mourned," if not ''by 
 strangers honored." 
 
 As the boatmen and the '' whips " of 
 the old days were men of individuality, so 
 were the men '' on the iron " in the early 
 days of railroading. And by the indi- 
 viduality shown in their work they came 
 to be known. For instance, who that 
 saw forty years ago — or was it forty-five 
 or more since he went from his home in 
 West Orange to get a job railroading? — 
 who that saw Samuel N. Holden running 
 as brakeman on the old ''Vermont and 
 Massachusetts" road, but could have 
 predicted that he would grow in fitness 
 for the business, till, very tall though 
 he was, he became a railroad man every 
 inch of his towering height. And, 
 first as brakeman and now for a third of 
 a century and more as conductor, and 
 working in that time for three companies, 
 a faithful man he has been, ever ready 
 
ON EOAT, BOX AND RAIL. 205 
 
 "for his duties and efficient in their per- 
 formance. And, a well preserved veteran, 
 he is at it still. And glad, by the way, 
 is he that the *'B. &M.*' management 
 doesn't seek to repress all the individual- 
 ity of their men as do other great com- 
 panies. And how many of his early 
 comrades in work he has outlived — Jacob 
 H. Bangs, *' Jake " that everybody knew 
 and liked; Horatio Miller who ran the 
 first train through the Hoosac Tunnel; 
 the keen-eyed Kingsbury whose *'orbs"al- 
 ways twinkled with intelligence and who 
 did his work well; and George Bonner, 
 quick in motion though he was very short 
 and chubby, Bonner who in statute con- 
 trasted with Mr. Holden as a hazel tree 
 with the lofty elm, though in amplitude 
 in other directions measuring up nearly to 
 the aldermanic Cone of the Tunnel line. 
 One of the best of the engineers on the 
 wrhilom *' Western road'* and later day 
 '' Boston and Albany," that has now also 
 
206 ON BOAT, BOX AND RAIL. 
 
 come to be a thing of the past, was Otis 
 S. Taylor, who still lives. And of his 
 experiences ''on the iron'* he naturally 
 takes now and then a retrospect. A 
 native of North Chester, he came from 
 there when but a boy, and soon, by his 
 evident trustworthiness and willingness 
 to work, secured a job as fireman. He 
 oiled and ''fed'* the '* machines" run 
 between Springfield and Worcester by 
 Cyrus Nichols, James Baker, Luther 
 Stearns, John Mulligan (afterward 
 "super" on the "River road") and 
 Isaac Wadleigh — " Ike " Wadleigh, the 
 daring, yet ever careful man. 
 
 Later Taylor was engineer between. 
 Springfield and Pittsfield. And of an 
 experience of his on this section of the 
 road, an experience in which he behaved 
 with great presence of mind, let the 
 account be in the words of an acquaintance 
 of his: " Ote Taylor, I'm right glad to 
 see you! How many times I've thought 
 over, since reading the story in a Spring- 
 
ON BOAT, BOX AND RAIL. 20/ 
 
 field paper, that bridge burnin' an' car 
 burnin' accident at Russell, away back — 
 let me see, let me see, — if 'twasn't thirty 
 years ago — that time when the bridge 
 back of you was a-goin' down — the back 
 end of the bridge off the 'butment, the 
 bridge with your engine an' tender on it, 
 all at an angle o' forty-five, an' a-goin' back 
 into the chasm sure. Then you thought 
 an' acted, throwin' on all the power o' 
 the machine ter once, breakin' the 
 shackle between the tender an' train quick 
 aslightnin' and shootin' engine an' tender 
 up the grade of the bridge an' along the 
 iron. So you an' the fireman an' engine 
 were saved. One of the cars in the 
 wreck was an oil car that somehow took 
 fire. So's 'twas not only a smash-up, 
 T3nt a burn-up. That's the time that 
 Arthur Bills w^as burned up — poor fellow 
 — just afore the car took fire he was 
 heard ter call out, ' Are any of the boys 
 hurt?' An' all the time he was in the 
 worst trouble of any of 'em." 
 
208 ON BOAT, BOX AND RAIL. 
 
 One of Taylor*s associates running 
 over the mountain section was ''Steve" 
 Cornell, who still survives and who, 
 when not thinking of the old days, and. of 
 the '* old boys" on ''the iron," delights 
 himself with essays on nature. Another 
 associate of " Ote " was " Cy " Worthy, 
 who has gone. He was of gigantic size ; 
 and contrasting with him was another of 
 Taylor's fellows, who, years ago, ran his 
 last trip. This was Lewis Sherts, the 
 Pennsylvanian, who came up to run on a 
 Yankee road, and who, tiny man though 
 he was, managed a great locomotive 
 skillfully. Still another who has gone 
 was " Ike " Davee, " Ike " Davee as bold 
 and as careful as was " Ike " Wadleigh. 
 There was " Cale " Briggs, too, that 
 dearly loved hens and "Jack" Roach, 
 who ran the wrecking train and who 
 could ejaculate to his gang. Of these 
 and others of their departed comrades 
 Taylor and " Steve" think often, and, of 
 course, kindly. 
 
Ai in Q 
 
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AUG 30 1902 
 
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