GEORGE DEXTER ROBINSON.

BY FRED. W. WEBBER, A.M.

[Assistant Editor of the Boston Journal.]

His Excellency George D. Robinson,
at present the foremost citizen of Massachusetts,
by reason of his incumbency
of the highest office in the Commonwealth,
is the thirtieth in the line of
succession of the men who have held
the office of Governor under the Constitution.
In character, in ability, in
education, and in those things generally
which mark the representative citizen
of New England, he is a worthy
successor of the best men who have
been called to the Chief Magistracy.
His public career has been marked by
dignity and an untiring fidelity to duty;
his life as a private citizen has been such
as to win for him the respect and good
will of all who know him. He is a man
in whom the people who confer honor
upon him find themselves also honored.
He is a native of the Commonwealth,
of whose laws he is the chief administrator,
and comes of that sturdy stock
which wresting a new country from
savagery, fostered with patient industry
the germs of civilization it had planted,
and aided in developing into a nation
the colonies that, throwing off the
yoke of foreign tyranny, presented to
the world an example of government
founded on the equal rights of the governed
and existing by and with the consent
of the people. His ancestors
were probably of that Saxon race which
for centuries stood up against the encroachments
of Norman kings and nobles,
which was led with willingness into
the battle, the siege or the crusade that
meant the maintenance or advancement
of old England’s honor, or in the cause
of mother Church, and which was possessed
of that brave, independent spirit
that, when the old home was felt to be
too narrow an abode, sought a new-country
in which to plant and develop
its ideas of what government should be.
However this may be it is certain that
from the first settlement of the Massachusetts
Bay Colony the family was always
represented among the most honorable
of its yeomanry, and among its
members were pillars of both Church
and State. His immediate ancestors,
people of the historic town of Lexington,
were active citizens in the Revolutionary
period, and in the great struggle

members of the family were among
those who did brave and effective service
in the cause of liberty.

George Dexter Robinson was born in
Lexington, February 20, 1834. Born
on a farm, his boyhood and youth were
spent there, and his naturally strong
constitution was improved by the outdoor
exercise and labor which are part
of the life of the farmer’s boy. But the
future Governor did not intend to devote
himself to farming. With the aim
of obtaining a collegiate education he
attended the Academy in his native
town, and followed his studies there by
further preparation at the Hopkins
Classical School in Cambridge. Entering
Harvard University he was graduated
at that institution in 1856, and
receiving an appointment as Principal
of the High School in Chicopee, Massachusetts,
he accepted it, filling the position
with success during a period of
nine years. He retired from it in 1865.
Meanwhile he had devoted much
time to legal studies, which he continued
more fully during the next few
months, and in 1866 he was admitted to
the bar in Cambridge. Chicopee, the
town wherein his active career in life
had begun, he made his permanent
home, and with the various interests of
that town he identified himself closely
and pleasantly, exemplifying in many
ways the character of a true townsman,
and associating himself with every movement
for the good of his fellow citizens.
In 1873 he was elected to represent the
town the ensuing year in the State Legislature,
and as a member of the House
he was noted for the promptness and
fidelity with which he attended to his
legislative duties. Two years later he
was a member of the State Senate, and
here, as in the House, he displayed conspicuous
ability as a legislator in addition
to that fidelity to his responsibilities
which had long been characteristic of
him in any and all positions. His qualifications
for public life received still wider
recognition the year he served in the
Senate, and he was nominated by the
Republicans of the old Eleventh District
as Representative in Congress. He
was re-elected for two successive terms,
and after the re-apportionment was
elected from the new Twelfth District
in 1882, but before taking his seat was
nominated by the Republicans for the
office of Governor, to which he was
elected. He took his seat, however, in
order to assist in the organization of the
new Congress, and, after that work was
accomplished, resigned to enter upon
the duties entrusted to him by the people
of the whole Commonwealth. He
had sat in the Forty-fifth, Forty-sixth,
Forty-seventh and Forty-eighth Congresses.
Of his career in Washington it
would not be possible to give a better
summary than one given by “Webb,”
the able Washington correspondent of
the Boston Journal, which is here given
in its entirety:

Mr. Robinson took his seat in the
Forty-fifth Congress, which met in extra
session, in October, 1877. He was
prompt in his seat on the first day of
the first session. Regularity in attendance,
and constant attention to public
business, have been characteristics of
Mr. Robinson’s Congressional career.
He is in his seat when the gavel falls
in the morning; he never leaves it until
the House adjourns at night. He does
not spend his time in importuning the
departments for clerkships, but he welcomes
the civil service law. He does
not take the public time, which belongs
to his constituents, for his private practice
in the United States Supreme Court.
He is in the truest sense a representative
of the people. He is quick in
discovering, and vigorous in denouncing

an abuse. He as quickly comprehends
and as earnestly advocates a just
cause. He is a safe guardian of the
people’s money and has never cast his
vote for an extravagant expenditure;
but he does not oppose an appropriation
to gain a reputation for economy, or
aspire to secure the title of “watch dog
of the Treasury,” by resorting to the arts
of a demagogue.

When he entered Congress, he went
there with the sincerity of a student,
determined to master the intricate,
peculiar machinery of Congressional
legislation. He has become an authority
in parliamentary law, and is one of
the ablest presiding officers in Congress.

In the Congress which he first entered
the Democrats were in power in
the House. “They had come back,”
as one of their Southern leaders (Ben
Hill) said, “to their father’s house, and
come to stay.” Mr. Randall was elected
Speaker. He put Mr. Robinson on one
of the minor standing committees—that
of Expenditures in the Department
of Justice—and subsequently placed
him near the foot of the list on the
Special Committee on the Mississippi
Levees. Before the latter committee had
made much progress with its business, it
was discovered that where “McGregor
sits is the head of the table.” Mr.
Robinson, at the extra session of the
Forty-fifth Congress, took little active
part in the public proceedings. He was
a student of Congressional rules and
practice.

At the second session of the Forty-fifth
Congress he began to actively participate
in the debates, and from the
outset endeavored to secure a much
needed reform in Congressional proceedings.
He always insisted that, in
the discussion of important questions,
order should be maintained. He followed
every important bill in detail, and
the questions which he directed to those
who had these bills in charge showed
that he had made himself a master of
the subject. He took occasion to revise
upon the floor many of the calculations
of the Appropriations Committee,
and to urge the necessity of the most
rigid economy consistent with proper
administration.

It was at the third session of the
Forty-fifth Congress, January 16, 1879,
that Mr. Robinson made his first considerable
speech. It was upon the bill
relative to the improvement of the Mississippi
River. He was very deeply impressed
with the magnitude of the
problems presented by that great river,
and, while he was willing that the public
money should be wisely expended for
the improvement of the ’Father of
Waters,’ he did not wish that Congress
should be committed to any special
plan which might prove to be part of
a great job, until an official investigation
could be had. The interest with which
this first speech was listened to, and
the endless questions with which the
Southern men who favored absolutely
the levee system plied him, showed that
they understood that great weight
would be given to Mr. Robinson’s
opinion, and that they did not wish him
to declare, unconditionally, against
their cause. The speech was a broad
and liberal one, but extremely just. It
had been intimated in the course of the
debate that Eastern members, who did
not favor the improvement of the river,
refused to do so on account of a narrow
provincialism. Mr. Robinson showed
them that New England is both just
and generous, and that the country is so
united that a substantial benefit to any
portion of it cannot be an injury to
another. He made some keen thrusts
at the Southern State rights advocates,
who were so eager for the old flag and

an appropriation, and he reminded
them that whatever might be thought of
the dogma of State sovereignty, “the
great old river is regardless of State
lines, of the existence of Louisiana,
and, whenever there is a defective levee
in Arkansas, over it goes into Louisiana,
spreading devastation in its course.”
Mr. Robinson insisted that “Congress
has no right to spend $4,000,000 out of
the public treasury immediately without
investigating a theory and a plan
which proposes to render such an expenditure
wholly unnecessary,” and he
maintained that the greatest possible
safe-guards should be provided against
any extravagant expenditure on the
part of the Government. The relations
of New England to such an undertaking
he thus broadly stated:

“I am not deterred by any considerations
that when the great river is
open to commerce to an enlarged
extent more freight will go down its
bosom and be diverted perhaps from
the great cities on the Atlantic shore.
I am willing that the whole country
shall be improved and opened for
its best and most profitable occupation.
This territory, whose interests
are affected by this, is greater
than the whole of New England. I
am not afraid that whatever improvements
may be made there New England
will be left out in the cold. Whatever
conduces to the prosperity of the
West or South will benefit the East and
North. We are parts of one great
whole, and, if it is necessary under a
proper policy to spend some money
from the Treasury of the United States
to meet the wants of those States lying
along the Mississippi River, I hope it
will not be begrudged to them, but it
should not be done, and the Government
should not be committed, until the
plans, have received a careful consideration
and the indorsement of the
proper officers.”

At the third session of the Forty-fifth
Congress, Mr. Robinson, from his minor
place on the Committee on Expenditures
in the Department of Justice, introduced
a bill relative to the mileage
of United States Marshals, which proposed
an important reform.

In the Forty-sixth Congress, at the
first session, Mr. Robinson, on account
of the marked abilities which he had
shown as a lawyer and a debater, was
appointed a member of the Judiciary
Committee, a position which he held
through the Forty-sixth Congress with
honor to his district and his State. From
the outset of the Forty-sixth Congress
Mr. Robinson, to the great surprise of
many older members, who were not able
to fathom the mystery of the rules, took
front rank as a debater on points of
order, and showed that his months of
silent observation and of earnest study
had brought their fruit. His discussion
of points of order and of the rules was
always characterized by good sense.
He did not seek to befog a question by
an extensive quotation of authorities.
He endeavored to strip the rules of
their technicalities and to apply to them
the principle of common sense. Sometimes,
however, he was almost in despair,
and once in the course of an intricate
discussion he exclaimed (March
28, 1879): “If there is a standing and
clear rule that guides the Chair, I have
not yet found it.”

At the second session of the Forty-sixth
Congress, Western and Southern
Democrats united their forces in support
of an amendment to the “Culbertson
Court bill,” which was designed to limit
the jurisdiction of the United States
courts. Some of the strongest advocates
of this amendment were men who, although
living in Northern States, were

unfriendly to the Union, and who, since
the war, have been continuously aggressive
in their efforts to place limitations
upon national power. Mr. Robinson was
a member of the Judiciary Committee
and spoke upon the bill. His speech upon
this measure attracted more attention
than any speech he had delivered before
that time. It commanded the undivided
attention of the House, which was so
interested in it that, although the debate
was running in the valuable time of the
morning hour, Mr. Robinson, on motion
of a Democrat, Mr. Randolph Tucker,
after the expiration of his time, was requested
to continue. The speech was a
powerful, logical, patriotic defence of
the federal courts. A few extracts from
the general parts of this speech furnish
an excellent illustration of the abilities
of Mr. Robinson as a debater and orator,
as well as of his strong convictions. He
spoke as the son of a Jackson Democrat
would be likely to speak. He vigorously
opposed the increase in the limit from
$500 to $2,000 as proposed by the Southern
and Western Democrats.

After quoting the opinions of Chief
Justices Story and Marshall to show that
the right of Congress to establish federal
courts could not be denied without defeating
the Constitution itself, Mr. Robinson
continued: “I say, then, that those constitutional
provisions give to the citizens
of the different States their rights in the
federal courts. I say again, it is not within
the constitutional power of Congress
to make discriminations as to citizens in
this matter. It has been taken as settled
that the corporations of the States for
purposes of jurisdiction are citizens of
the States in which they are created. Can
you discriminate? Why, in the famous
Dred Scott decision, the Supreme Court
did discriminate, and said that a negro
was not a citizen within the meaning of
the Constitution, nor entitled to sue in
the Circuit Court of the United States.
The nation paused and held its breath,
and never recovered itself until after the
bloody strife of the war, when was put
into the Constitution that guaranty that
no such doctrine should ever be repeated
in this country. If Congress can exclude
the citizens of a locality, or the citizens
of one color, or the citizens of one
occupation, or the citizens of certain
classes of wealth or industry, surely it can
exclude any other citizens. If you can,
in this bill and under our Constitution,
declare that the citizens, or any portion
of them, in this country, because they
act in their corporate capacity, shall lose
their rights in the federal courts, it is
but the next step to legislate that the
man who is engaged in rolling iron, or in
the manufacture of cotton, or of woolen
goods, or is banker, or ’bloated bond-holder,’
shall not have any rights in the
federal courts. There is no step between
them. There may be a discrimination as
to subject-matter, but not as to citizens.
The distinction is very broad, and in
recognition of it my argument is made.”
In the discussion of the apportionment
at the Forty-sixth Congress, third session,
Mr. Robinson eloquently defended
the honor of Massachusetts against the
aspersions which had been cast upon
the Commonwealth by General Butler in
his brief as attorney in the Boynton-Loring
contest. In the course of the debate
Mr. Cox called attention to this
brief and suggested that if it were true
the representation of Massachusetts
should be curtailed. Mr. Robinson entered
into an explanation of the reading
and writing qualification for suffrage in
Massachusetts. As General Butler was
the assailant in this case, Mr. Robinson
said:

“I propose to show this matter was
understood before 1874. Turn to the debates
in the Congressional Globe, volume

75, and in 1869 in this House, and
within these walls. General Benjamin F.
Butler made this speech in reply to an
inquiry made by the gentleman from
New York, the Chairman of this Census
Committee. He says:

“Everybody in Massachusetts can
vote irrespective of color who can read
and write. The qualification is equal in
its justice, and an ignorant white man
cannot vote there and a learned negro
be excluded; but in the Georgia Legislature
there was a white man who could
hardly read and write, if at all, voted in
because he was white, while a negro who
spoke and read two languages was voted
out, solely because he was black. It is
well that Massachusetts requires her
citizens should read and write before
being permitted to vote. Almost everybody
votes there under that rule, certainly
every native-born person of proper age
and sex votes there, and there are hundreds
and thousands in this country who
would thank God continually on their
bended knees if it could be provided
that voters in the city of New York
should be required to read and write.
They would then believe Republican
government in form and fact far more
safe than now.”

After exposing the assertions of General
Butler, Mr. Robinson concluded
as follows:

“For twenty-three years it has been
written before the people of that State
that to entitle them to vote and hold
office they shall first learn to read and
write. Near to every man’s dwelling
stands a public free school. Education
is brought to the door of every man.
These school-houses are supported with
almost unbounded munificence. Children
have been born in that time and
have attended school at the public
expense, and the general education
of the people has been advanced.

* * * I will not take any time
in talking about the policy of the law.
There are some and many people in
the State who do not think it wise to
require the prepayment of a poll tax.
People differ about that. Some time or
other that may be changed; but for
sixty years it has been the law, and it so
remains. Looking into the Constitution
and the laws of the sister States of
Virginia and Georgia and Delaware
and Pennsylvania we find similar provisions
of the same antiquity justified
by the communities that have adopted
such legislation. And we say to all the
States we leave to you those questions
of policy, and we commend them to
your judgment and careful consideration.
Does any one claim that representation
should be reduced because of
insanity or idiocy, or because of convicts?
Does any one claim that all
laws requiring residence and registration
should be done away? And yet
they are on the same line, on the
same principle. There is not one of
these prerequsites, on which I have
commented, that it is not in the power
of the person who desires to get suffrage
to overcome and control and conquer
so that he may become a voter. But
if he be a black man he cannot put off
his color. He cannot, if he were born
a member of a particular race, strip
himself of that quality; nor can he, if
he has been in servitude; nor can he, if
he has been in rebellion, take out that
taint; nor can he, if he has been convicted
of other crimes, remove his record
of criminality. These are an inherent,
inseparable, indissoluble part of
that man. But his education, his registration,
his residence, his payment of a
portion of the burdens of the State, and
the other matters, are in his power and
his control. I find it to be in accord
with the wisdom of the people of the

country that it is the true policy to let
the States govern those matters for
themselves. The Constitution of the
United States touches those things that
are out of the man’s control.”

In the filibustering contest over the
rules in the Forty-seventh Congress,
first session, Mr. Robinson made a very
earnest speech, which commended itself
to all except the extreme filibusters.
Stripping the contest of its technical
parliamentary points, Mr. Robinson
said: “Our rules are for orderly procedure,
not for disorderly obstruction;
not for resistance.” Continuing he
said that no tyranny is one-half as
odious as that which comes from the
minority. “Our fathers,” he said, “put
our Government upon the right of the
majority to rule.” To the charge of
one of the minority that the purpose of
the majority to proceed to the consideration
of the election cases was tyranny,
Mr. Robinson said:

“Tyranny! Because the majority of
this House proposes to go forward to
action in a way that, upon their oaths,
they declare to be right and proper, and
in their judgment is to be vindicated,
you say that is tyranny! But it is not
tyranny for you in a minority forsooth
to say, unless it goes just the way we
want it, it shall not go at all. That is
to say, in the language that you have
thrown out here and have fulminated in
the caucus, you will sit here till the expiration
of this Congress rather than
you shall not have your way. I commend
to my friend some other dictionary
in which he will find a proper definition
of the word tyranny.”

To show to what logical result the
theory of the right of the minority to
prevent legislation or the consideration
of public business would lead, the following
illustration was used: “But this
very day suppose by some great calamity
the chair of the Speaker was left
vacant and we were confronted with
the necessity of electing a Speaker.
Elect him under the rules, you say.
Yes, but under the Constitution, greater
than the rule. But, say one-fifth of
this House, you shall not proceed to
elect a Speaker unless you will take a
man from our number; and we will
move to adjourn, to adjourn over, and to
take a recess. You shall never organize
this House so long as we can call the
yeas and nays. Do you believe that we
are in that pitiable plight?”

On the subject of civil service Mr.
Robinson improved one minute to express
his views in this manner:

“I am heartily in favor of this bill.
It is in the right direction. We have
read enough in the platforms of both
political parties; here is a chance to do
something.

“In some of the States of this country
have just been inaugurated officers of
the Democratic party; and I have
noticed they have made haste, no matter
what their declarations have been in
recent platforms, to turn out well tried
public servants and put in some of their
own retainers and supporters. I want
this Congress here and now to express
itself in this bill, so that it may be in
accord with the sentiment of this
country.

“I hear some gentlemen say, ’Oh,
yes, we are for reform, but this does not
reform enough,’ I am somewhat alarmed
when I find a man who says he wants to
reform but cannot begin at all unless he
can reform all over in one minute. If
there is not enough in this bill, still let us
take it gladly, give it a cordial welcome
and support, and we will pass some
other bill some day which will go as far
as our most progressive friends want.”

The position of Mr. Robinson on the
tariff and River and Harbor bills needs

no explanation to Massachusetts readers.
He opposed the River and Harbor bill
and voted to sustain the President’s
veto.

The political campaign of 1883,
which resulted in Mr. Robinson’s election
as Governor, was an interesting and
somewhat exciting one. His Democratic
competitor for the office was
General Benjamin F. Butler, who was
then Governor, and who took the stump
in his peculiarly aggressive way, arraigning
bitterly the Republican administrations
which had preceded his own
and appealing to his own record in the
office as an argument for his re-election.
His elevation to the Governorship
the year before had been the result
of some demoralization in the Republican
party, and was the possible
cause of more, unless a candidate could
be found able to harmonize and draw
together again the inharmonious elements.
That Mr. Robinson was such
a man was indicated very clearly in the
fact that the nomination sought him, in
reality against his wish, and was accepted
in a spirit of duty. Accepting
the leadership of his party in the State
Mr. Robinson at once applied himself to
the further duty of making his candidacy
a successful one, and to that end placed
himself in the view of the people all
over the Commonwealth in a series of
addresses that were probably never
surpassed for excellence in any previous
political campaign. He is an interesting
and impressive speaker, an honest
man in the handling of facts, logical in
his arguments, choice in his language,
which is rich in Anglo-Saxon phrases,
and with the admirable tone of his utterances
combines a clear and ready wit
that, never obtruding itself, is never
missing when the place for it exists.
He made himself thoroughly acquainted
with questions at issue, and with questions
in general connected with the interests
of the Commonwealth. His addresses
commanded attention and commended
themselves to the common
sense of the people, and the result was
inevitable. He entered upon the administration
of affairs with his customary
vigor, and during his first year in
office won the respect of men of all
shades of political opinion by the ability
and impartiality with which his
duties were performed. While neglecting
none of the details of official business
Governor Robinson found time to
attend to those social requirements
that have long been imposed upon
the Chief Magistrate, dignifying by his
presence and enlivening by his timely
remarks all kinds of gatherings, the aim
of which has been to broaden social relations,
or to advance the welfare of the
community in any way. In the election
of November, 1884, he was again
the Republican candidate for Governor,
and was re-elected. In his personal appearance
Governor Robinson is what
might be termed a clean-cut man. He
is of good stature, compactly built, with
a well-shaped head and a face in which
are seen both intelligence and determination.
His temperament is very
even, and though he does not appear to
be a man who could be easily excited,
he is one who can be very earnest. His
manners are pleasant, and in meeting
him a stranger would be apt from the
first to accord him, on the strength of
what he appears to be, full respect and
confidence.

OLIVER AMES.

By JAMES W. CLARKE, A.M.

[Editor of the Boston Traveller].

The descendants of William Ames, the
Puritan, who settled in Braintree, are a
representative New England family.
Their history forms an honorable part
of the history of Massachusetts, and
fitly illustrates in its outlines the social
and material advancement of the people
from the poverty and hardships of the
early Colonial days to the wealth and
culture of the present. In the early
days of the Colony they were poor, as
were their neighbors of other names,
but they honored toil and believed in
the dignity of honest labor. Industry
was with them coupled with thrift.
They recognized their duty to the State
and gave it such service as she demanded,
whether it were honest judgment
in the jury box, the town meeting
and the General Court, or bearing arms
against the Indian marauder, and the
foreign foe. State and Church were
virtually one in these primitive times,
and such services as were delegated to
individuals by church, by school districts,
or by the town, were accepted by
the members of this family as duties to
be unostentatiously performed, rather
than as bringing with their performance
either honor or emolument. With their
thrift they coupled temperance. They
labored subduing the forests, on the
clearing and at the forge. Artisans, as
well as agriculturists, were needed; and
they became skilled artisans. Muskets
were as indispensable to these pioneers
as hoes or spades; and so they made
guns, then farming tools. They made
shovels first for their neighbors, then
for their township, then for their State
and country. As their state advanced
they kept pace with it. They found an
outlet for the products of their skill at a
neighboring seaport, and through this
and other outlets secured markets in distant
countries. Industries and enterprises
which would in time develop other
industries and enterprises became the
special objects of their encouragement.
Where avenues of prosperity and success
were lacking, they must be created;
and in recognition of this necessity this
family took the lead in making the
seemingly inaccessible, accessible, and
the far, near, by building a railway
across the Continent. In this barest
and most meagre outline of the history
of a single family may be found in miniature
an outline of the history of the
development of Massachusetts, of New
England.

In the early part of the seventeenth
century the Ames family became prominently
identified with the Puritan movement
in England. William Ames, the
divine and author, was among those
who for conscience’s sake forsook his
home, finding refuge in Holland. He
became known to fame not only as an
able writer, but as Professor in the
Franeker University. Richard Ames
was a gentleman of Bruton, Somersetshire,
England. Neither of these cast in
their fortunes with the first Puritan settlers
of Massachusetts; but it is doubtful
if the sufferings for conscience’s sake
of those who remained behind were after
all less rigorous than were the sufferings
of those who, self-exiled, sought
homes in New England. The two
branches of the family were united by
marriage and from them descended the

Honorable Oliver Ames, Lieutenant
Governor of the Commonwealth of
Massachusetts.

The Ames family commence their
genealogical tree with the first New
England ancestor, William Ames, son
of Richard Ames of Bruton, Somersetshire,
who came to this country in
1635, and settled in Braintree in 1638.
A few years later he was joined by his
brother, John Ames, who settled in
Bridgewater.

John Ames, only son of William
Ames, was born in Braintree in 1651;
married Sarah Willis, daughter of John
Willis; and in 1672 settled in Bridgewater
with his uncle, John Ames, who
was childless, and whose heir he became
in 1697. He had five sons, one of
whom was Nathaniel, the grandfather of
Fisher Ames. His estate was settled in
1723.

Thomas Ames, fourth, son of John
and Sarah (Willis) Ames, was born in
Bridgewater in 1682: married in 1706
Mary Hayward, daughter of Joseph
Hay ward.

Thomas Ames, eldest son of Thomas
and Mary (Hayward) Ames, was born
in Bridgewater in 1707; married in 1731
Keziah Howard, daughter of Jonathan
Howard; and died in 1774.

Captain John Ames, second son of
Thomas and Keziah (Howard) Ames,
was born in Bridgewater in 1738: married
in 1759 Susannah Howard, daughter
of Ephraim Howard. He was a commissioned
officer during the war of the
Revolution. A blacksmith by trade he
also rendered the patriot cause service
by the manufacture of guns. His
account book, still in existence, also
proves that he was engaged in the
manufacture of shovels in 1775.

Oliver Ames, third son of Captain
John and Susannah (Howard) Ames,
was born in West Bridgewater April 11,
1779. For a number of years he was
employed at Springfield in the manufacture
of guns by his brother, David
Ames, who was the first superintendent
of the armory, appointed by
President Washington; and as early
as 1800 was engaged in the manufacture
of shovels. In 1803 he married
Susannah Angier, a descendant of
President Urian Oakes of Harvard College,
and the same year he removed
to Easton where greater facilities were
afforded for carrying on his business.
At first his goods found an outlet to
markets at Newport, Rhode Island, and
at Boston; and a one-horse vehicle was
sufficient for the transportation of the
raw material to, and the manufactured
goods from, his factory. He was a man
who combined in himself rare executive
ability and mechanical skill, and gradually
built up a large and flourishing business.
A great impetus was given to
manufacturing during the last war with
Great Britain, and Mr. Ames availed
himself of every opportunity to enlarge
his business. The one-horse method
of transportation was soon supplanted
by six-horse teams; and when, on his
retirement from active business in 1844,
the firm of Oliver Ames and Sons was
formed, the business had grown to large
dimensions.

Honorable Oakes Ames, eldest son
of Oliver and Susannah (Angier) Ames,
was born in Easton, January 10, 1804;
married November 29, 1827, Eveline
Orville Gilmore; and entered heartily
into the enterprises inaugurated by his
father. Under his supervision the manufacture
of shovels grew into giant proportions.
A railroad, constructed to the
very doors of the factories, furnished facilities
for transporting to them yearly fifteen
hundred tons of iron, two thousand
tons of steel and five thousand tons of
coal, and for carrying away from them

more than one hundred and thirty thousand
dozen shovels, in the manufacture
of which employment had been given to
five hundred workmen. The fame of
the goods kept pace with the advance of
civilization; and on every frontier, in all
quarters of the globe, were found as instruments
of progress the Ames shovels.

It is not so much as the successful
manufacturer, however, that Oakes Ames
will be remembered, as the master mind
through whose perseverance and indomitable
energy, and in the face of seemingly
insurmountable obstacles, was
forced to completion the pioneer railway
across the Western Continent.
He gained a deserved and enduring
fame as the builder of the Union Pacific
Railroad, and that magnificent work
will ever stand as his proudest monument.
During the former part of the
war of the Rebellion he rendered important
service to the Union cause by
his shrewd and sagacious counsels in
State affairs, and a little later for ten
years represented the Second Massachusetts
District in the National House
of Representatives. He died May 8,
1873.

Honorable Oliver Ames, second
son of Oakes and Eveline O. (Gilmore)
Ames, was born in North Easton,
February 4, 1831. [See genealogical
foot note]. He received his early
education in the public schools of
his native town and at the North Attleboro,
Leicester, and Easton Academies.
Having thus laid the foundation
of a liberal education, he entered the
shovel works of his father, where he
served an apprenticeship of five years,
thus mastering the business in all the
minuteness of its details. At the age of
twenty, appreciating the value of a more
thorough scholastic training, he took a
special course at Brown University, placing
himself under the special tutelage
of President Francis Wayland. The
bent of his mind in this, his early manhood,
is perhaps best seen from his favorite
branches of study, which were
history, geology, and political economy.
Having finished his collegiate studies, he
returned to North Easton where he soon
demonstrated that he was possessed of
the same splendid business qualities by
which his father and grandfather had
fought their way to success. His natural
love of mechanical employments,
which is a marked family trait, soon displayed
itself in several inventions; and
his inventive genius, coupled with his
perfect knowledge of the business, has
brought about important changes and
improvements in the business of the firm.
During this time he served honorably
in the State militia, rising from the
rank of Lieutenant to Lieutenant Colonel.
In 1863 he was admitted a
member of the firm of Oliver Ames
and Sons, and for several years personally
superintended the various departments
of the firm’s immense establishment
at North Easton. At his father’s
death in 1873 the numerous financial
trusts held by the latter devolved on
him, and he has been, and is, President,
Director, or Trustee of a large
number of institutions and corporations,
including railroads, national banks, savings
banks, and manufacturing corporations.
In 1880 Mr. Ames was elected to
the State Senate, and was re-elected in
1881. With the exception of having
served on the School Committee of
Easton this was the first office to which
he had been called by the suffrages of
his fellow-citizens. He had, however,
taken a deep and active interest in political
matters, and had rendered efficient
political service by his connection
with the Republican Town Committee
of Easton, as Chairman and Treasurer,
since the formation of the Republican

party. As a member of the State Senate
he was diligent and painstaking in
attendance upon his Legislative duties,
and was known as one of the working
members of the body. He served during
each year of his membership on
the Committees on Railroads, and Education.
In 1882 he received the Republican
nomination for Lieutenant-Governor
upon the ticket headed by
the name of Honorable Robert R.
Bishop as the candidate for Governor.
In that tidal-wave year Mr. Bishop
was defeated by General Butler, but
Mr. Ames was elected by a handsome
plurality; and it is not too
much to say that by his courteous official
demeanor towards his Excellency,
Governor Butler, during the somewhat
phenomenal political year of 1883,
coupled with his firmness and good
judgment in opposing the more objectionable
schemes of that official, he contributed
much to the restoration of the
Republican party to power at the ensuing
State election. He was re-elected
in 1883, and again in 1884, and has
now entered upon his third term of service.
His political, like his business life,
has been characterized by a straightforward
honesty of purpose, by the strictest
integrity, and by an energetic, able, and
faithful performance of trusts accepted.
Mr. Ames is the possesor of large wealth,
but he has most conclusively proven
that such possession is in no sense a bar
to a faithful and efficient service of his
fellow citizens in positions of trust and
honor. His rare executive ability has
been of good service to the Commonwealth,
in whose affairs he has exercised
the same good judgment and marked
executive ability, as in his own.

It is, perhaps, as a financier that Oliver
Ames has won his widest reputation.
Upon the death of his father the
management of the vast enterprises
which the later had controlled, suddenly
devolved upon him. The greatness of
the man showed itself in that he found
himself equal to the emergency. The
Oakes Ames estate was, at the time he
took upon his shoulders its settlement,
not only one in which immense and
diversified interests were involved, scattered
throughout different states of the
Union, but it was also burdened with
obligations to the extent of eight millions
of dollars. The times were most
unpropitious, the country being just on
the eve of a great financial panic when
immense properties were crumbling to
pittances. He undertook the Herculean
task of rescuing at this time this estate
from threatened ruin, and of vindicating
the good name of his father from undeserved
censure. He had in this gigantic
work to meet and thwart the plots of rapacious
railroad wreckers, and schemers;
but his thorough mental discipline united
with his intensely practical business
training, and coupled with his native
energy, tact, good sense, and fertility
of resources, stood him in good stead.
He inspired capitalists with confidence,
money was forthcoming to further his
carefully matured plans, and the ship
freighted with the fortunes of his family,
was, by his steady hand, piloted securely
amidst the shoals and quicksands of
disaster, and by rocks strewn with the
wrecks of princely fortunes, to a safe
anchorage. He rescued the property
from peril, met and paid the enormous
indebtedness resting upon it, paid a million
of dollars or more of legacies, and
had still a large surplus to divide among
the heirs.

As a business man his sagacity seems
almost intuitive. As an illustration of
this, his work in developing the Central
Branch of the Union Pacific Railroad
may be instanced, a work which
at the same time gave him high rank

as a railroad manager. At the time
he connected himself with the undertaking,
only the first hundred miles
of the road were in running order. He
first made a thorough personal investigation
of the proposed line, and satisfying
himself as to its capabilities for
business, he pushed the enterprise
through to completion, building two
hundred and sixty miles of road, and
fully equipping it for operation. His
judgment, which at the time was somewhat
questioned by other experienced
railroad managers and financiers, was
fully justified by the result, which was a
complete financial success.

One of the most impressive traits in
the character of Oliver Ames is his veneration
for the memory of his distinguished
father. He fully believes that
the hastily and unjustly formed verdict
of censure pronounced upon Oakes
Ames, both by public opinion and by
the United States House of Representatives,
will ere long be reversed, and that
his memory will be honored by the country,
as it so justly deserves. Indeed he
has already had the gratification of seeing
this verdict reversed, so far as public
opinion is concerned; and it only
remains for Congress to remove its undeserved
vote of censure, for Oakes
Ames to take his appropriate and honored
place in American history. There
is little doubt that Mr. Ames will yet
see this ambition of his life realized.
As to this censure, Massachusetts, where
Oakes Ames was best known and appreciated,
has spoken through her Legislature
by the following resolution,
which unanimously passed both House
and Senate in the spring of 1883:

The beautiful Oakes Ames Memorial
Hall at North Easton, erected by his
sons, is an impressive monument of filial
devotion and respect. This village of
North Easton, the home of Mr. Ames
and other members of the Ames family,
as well as the seat of the extensive shovel
works, deserves more than a passing
notice, enriched and beautified as it has
been by this family, until it has become
one of the most charming of New England
villages, and presents a model which
deserves to be widely copied. The old
and substantial factories, built of granite,
present the neat appearance which
characterizes the buildings in some of
our oldest navy yards. The employes
have many of them grown old in the
service of the firm; and well paid, intelligent,
and satisfied, are themselves the
owners of their attractive cottage homes
and take a just pride in the welfare of the
community. The concrete walks, macadamized
roadways, and well kept yards

and lawns evince thrift. The elegant
railway station, a gift to the village from
one member of the family, is a model
of architectural beauty and convenience.
The Gothic church and parsonage
of the same style of architecture,
are befitting adjuncts of the
park-like cemetery, where rests the
dust of the blacksmith ancestor who
bravely struggled amid adverse surroundings
to found the fortunes of his
family, and build up a business which
has extended wherever civilization has
made its way. The Memorial hall, before-mentioned,
is on a commanding
cliff, overlooking the town; close by
is the elegant structure known and endowed
as the Ames Free Library; and
in another direction is the temple, dedicated
to the cause of popular education,
that emblem of New England’s
power, the school-house, all monuments
of the munificence of the Ames family,
and of the deep interest its members
take in the welfare of their native town.
In the triangle near the centre of the
village, formed by the converging of
the principal streets, is a declivity,
where art has so arranged the rough and
irregular forms of New England boulders
as to re-produce a unique scene
from some Scotch or Swiss village.
This “rockery,” as it is called, is
clothed in summer with verdure and
flowers, and from its summit one finds
an extended and charming view of
the village, with its cottages, its workshops,
and the villas of the proprietors
of the latter. These villas, each set in
extensive grounds, are models of architectural
elegance, and are surrounded
by most artistic landscape gardening.
Conspicuous among these is the residence
of the subject of this sketch, facing,
as it does, a spacious well-kept
lawn, and overlooking a lake, an exquisite
gem in its emerald setting.

The public spirit of the Ames’s finds
one of its most marked illustrations in
this model and typical New England
village; and no small share of what has
been achieved for it is due to the
warm heart and open hand of Oliver
Ames. He has ever shown himself an
ardent friend of popular education, and
justly holds that the New England common
school lies at its foundation. For
a period of twenty years he found time,
amid a multiplicity of weighty business
cares, to serve upon the School Committee
of his town and to give the benefit
of his experience, judgment, and
personal supervision to the promotion
of the efficiency of this one of the
very fundamental of American institutions,
the common school. Oakes Ames
left a fund of $50,000, the income to be
used for the benefit of the school children
of North Easton village. Through
the wise thoughtfulness of Oliver Ames
many of the privileges arising from this
fund have been extended to the other
sections of the town; and it hardly
need be said that the schools of Easton
are among the objects of the fondest
pride of its citizens.

Mr. Ames, though absorbed in the
cares pertaining to the management of
gigantic business interests, yet finds time
for the appreciative enjoyment of the
amenities and refinements of life. He
posesses a cultivated appreciation of
music, literature and the drama, and his
artistic taste is evinced by his valuable
and choice collections of paintings and
statuary. Architecture has been with him
a special study, and his magnificent
winter residence, recently completed on
Commonwealth Avenue, in our city of
Boston, is a monument of his own architectural
taste. In Europe this residence
would be called a palace, here it is simply
the home of a representative American
citizen. Peculiarly happy in his domestic

relations his home is beautified and
ennobled by the virtues of domestic life.
A generous hospitality is dispensed within
its portals, where on every hand are found
the evidences of the cultured refinement
of its occupants. A tour of a few months
in the Old World not only gave Mr.
Ames needed rest and relaxation from
business cares, but also furnished him
with opportunities for observation which
were most judiciously improved. In his
religious belief he is a Unitarian, and has
for many years been an active member
of the Unitarian Society of North
Easton.

In his native town he is unusually respected
and beloved, and with the working-men
in his factories he enjoys an
unbounded popularity. This is but natural,
since he is himself a skilled artisan,
an inventive and ingenious mechanic,
familiar through a personal experience
with every detail of the work in which
they are engaged. This, coupled with
his native kindness of heart, and his unpretentious
manners, makes him the
model employer.

The custodian of great wealth, he
uses it in a spirit of wise benevolence,
and his public and private benefactions,
while large, are made without ostentation
or affectation. Affable, approachable,
companionable, devoted and faithful in
his personal friendships, it is little wonder
that some of them now and then
impulsively speak of him as “the best
man in the world.”

In the full vigor of a robust manhood,
Mr. Ames attends to his vast private business
affairs, performs faithfully his official
and public duties, finds time for his favorite
authors, and keeps fully abreast with
current thought and the progress of the
age. His brow is yet unwrinkled and
cares rest lightly upon him. Free from
the pride of wealth, temperate, conservative,
clear-headed, and distinguished for
his strong common sense, his generous,
unsuspicious nature, and unswerving
fidelity to the interests committed to his
trust justly win for him a multitude of
friends.

Faithful in his devotion to the principles
of the Republican party, and in
his services to his native Commonwealth,
Massachusetts has reason for a
just pride in her Lieutenant Governor.
His name may yet stand the Republican
party of the State in good stead in
a political exigency not unlikely to arise
in the near future. Whatever may be
said of the causes of the defection from
the Republican ranks which took place
in the last national campaign, there is
no doubt about one of its results,—it
has driven the Republican party to seek
a closer alliance with the working-people
of the Commonwealth. The Republican
bolters were almost exclusively
drawn from the aristocratic end of the
party. It was Harvard and Beacon
Hill that revolted. To make good the
loss the Republican leaders had to appeal
for support to the same class of voters
which gave to Republican principles
their first triumphs,—the intelligent
mechanics and artisans, the laboring
men. However many or few of the
deserters of 1884 may re-join the standard
now that Mr. Blaine is defeated
it is not likely that for many years
to come, if ever, the Republican
party in Massachusetts will be able, to
lean upon the immense majorities of
former years, that ran away up to
sixty, seventy, and eighty thousand.
With a Democratic administration installed
at Washington, and the power
and prestige which that fact will imply
and apply in the local politics of the
States,—and in no State more powerfully
than in Massachusetts, where the
shifting body of Independent voters, so-called,
is largely made up of the Hessian

element that will incline to whichever
side has spoils to bestow,—the Republican
party in order to hold Massachusetts
will have to cultivate and strengthen
the alliance which it formed in the late
election with the laboring class of voters.
It will have to revert to the sympathetic
and liberal policy touching all
questions that affect labor, and the
welfare of the working people of the
State, which marked the earlier years of
its power. The Ames family is linked
in the popular mind with that policy.
And justly so, too! Oakes Ames
was a true friend to labor, as well
as one of the most practical; and the
fine instinct which guided him in making
of North Easton a model industrial
community, where the happiest
relations of mutual confidence and support
have subsisted between employer
and employed, he bequeathed to his
sons, and to Oliver in an especial and
marked degree. It has been said, and
there is no element of exaggeration in
the statement, that if all our large capitalists
and manufacturers could succeed in
establishing the same rapport between
themselves and their employes which
the Ameses have always maintained at
North Easton, the vexed problem of
capital and labor would be solved; for
there would be no more conflict between
them. Oliver Ames is held in
the same high esteem and almost affectionate
regard by the working people of
the Old Colony district, where the interests
of the Ames Manufacturing Company
are centred, in which his honored
father was held before him. As the
father so the sons! When the time
comes, and it is not far off, that the Republican
party in Massachusetts shall feel
the necessity of getting nearer to her
common people, and, in order to retain
its supremacy in the State, of offering to
their suffrages a man whose whole
life has been spent in close and friendly
relations with her working-men, it will
be strangely blind indeed, to its opportunity,
if it shall not turn to the present
popular Lieutenant Governor, and present
the name of Oliver Ames as one
well fitted to lead the revival of Republicanism
among the working-classes,
and certain, if presented to them, to be
endorsed by a splendid majority for the
first office in the popular gift.

HISTORICAL SKETCH OF PITTSFIELD.

By FRANK W. KAAN.

We were changing cars about midnight
at Rotterdam Junction, New York, for
the Fitchburg Railroad connection.
“You might know we were near Boston,”
said a passenger. “See what a
comfortable car this is.” “Yes,” remarked
a middle-aged gentleman, “I’ve
been away for three weeks, and I never
want to leave Boston for so long a time
again.” And he gave a sigh of relief.
No doubt many highly enjoyable smiles
were called forth by this innocent confession.
Yet the sentiment found an
echo in our hearts. But a North Adams
man spoke up rather sharply, “Well,
Berkshire County is good enough for
me.” The incident has a deeper meaning
than appears at first glance.

Going westward on the Boston and
Albany, a heavy up-hill grade is reached
at Chester. The rest of the way lies in
a country of hills. A pleasing prospect
meets the eye in every direction. There
is nothing sublime and majestic to inspire
the mind and exhilarate the
spirits, but the steadfast, sober hills and
the quiet valleys in nature’s soft colors
are restful alike to body and soul.

We cross a branch of the River
Housatonic, alias Ousatonac, Ausotunnoog,
Awoostenok, Asotonik, Westenhok,
and the train stops before a large,
handsome brick station, once the “best
in the State,” now restricted to “west
of Boston.” A broad street on the left
leads to the park in the centre of the
town. Here is the Berkshire Athenæum,
with its excellent public library, where

we must stay long enough to glance
through the town history, compiled by
Mr. J.E.A. Smith.

A century and a half ago an unbroken
wilderness stretched between the Hoosac
and Taconic ranges. The mountains
rose by steady degrees from the hills of
Connecticut to Mount Mansfield, in
Vermont, 4,400 feet above the level of
the sea. The valley, however, dotted
with hundreds of hills, reached its
greatest elevation, 1,100 feet, at the
foot of Greylock, fourteen miles north
of Pittsfield; thence it sloped irregularly
north and south. The forests contained
deer in plenty for fifty years
longer. A few bears, with rather more
wolves and Indians, constituted the remainder
of the larger movable objects
of the landscape. The soil was well
fitted for agriculture: numerous small
streams were ready to offer their service
to settlers.

This region remained uninhabited,
however, for many years later than would
ordinarily have been the case; not so
much from fear of hardships or Indian
troubles as on account of the uncertainty
of the land tenures which could
be acquired. Massachusetts, by reason
of the Royal Charter of 1691, claimed to
the west as far as the Province of Connecticut
extended. New York, on the
other hand, maintained that the eastern
boundary of Connecticut was meant:
moreover, that the western boundary had
been agreed upon for special reasons;
furthermore, that her own territory, as
successor to the rights granted the Duke
of York in 1674, reached from the Connecticut
River to Delaware Bay. Thereupon
Massachusetts referred to the old
Charter in force in 1674, which made
the Atlantic and Pacific her eastern and
western limits. In return, attention was
called to the
clause in that
Charter, excepting
lands
in the possession
of any
other Christian
State. Now, in
consequence of
the discovery of
the Hudson in
1608, the
Dutch had occupied
the
country as far
east as the
Connecticut,
and to their title New York succeeded.
Massachusetts then denied the fact of
settlement. Thus the controversy was
prolonged until, in 1773, a line to be run
parallel with the Hudson, at a distance
of twenty miles, was agreed upon. But
about the year 1720 it became evident
that the western boundary of Connecticut
would be established in favor of
that province. This arrangement, as
the New York representatives stated,
was a result of the boldness of settlers
in pushing westward and occupying the
district in dispute. Accordingly, Massachusetts
was encouraged to pursue a

similar course, and the first settlement
on the Housatonic was made at Sheffield
in 1725. The occasion of the
next advance appears to have arisen
from the attention paid to free education
in Boston. That town, in 1735,
because of its large expenditures for
public schools, support of poor, and

contribution to the State treasury,
petitioned the General Court for a
grant of three or four townships
within the “Hampshire wild lands.”
Three lots, each six miles square,
were given, subject to certain conditions.
Within five years, sixty
Massachusetts families must be settled,
each possessing a house (at
least eighteen feet square and seven
stud), with five acres of improved
land. A house for public worship
must be erected, and a learned
Orthodox minister be honorably
supported; lastly, a school must be
maintained.

One of these townships, Poontoosuck,
an Indian word, meaning “winter deer,”
was bought at public auction for £1,320,
by Colonel Jacob Wendell, whose descendents
have earned lasting honor for
the family name. Philip Livingston, of
Albany, and John Stoddard, through
older claims, became associated with
him as joint proprietors. The terms of
the grant were not strictly complied
with, and, after an unsuccessful attempt
to bring in Dutchmen, a company of
forty settlers from Westfield purchased
and took possession of the greater part
of the township. Difficulties with the
Indians soon drove them back. The
first permanent settlement was made in
1749, and three years later occurred
the birthday of the town.

In May, 1761, the first town meeting
was held. At this time the name was
changed to Pittsfield in honor of William
Pitt, for his vigorous conduct of
the war against France. Slaves were
owned by many of the citizens, and
stocks and a whipping-post were set up.
Saw mills and grist mills were in operation;
fulling mills held an important
position, and shortly afterwards the production
of iron became considerable.
The first meeting-house
was completed in 1770.
The most pretentious dwelling-house
was “The Long
House,” owned by Colonel
Williams. The first appropriation
for schools was twenty-two
pounds eight shillings, in 1762.

In resistance to British oppression
at the outbreak
of the Revolution, Berkshire
County required no one to lead the
way. “The popular rage,” wrote Governor
Gage, “is very high in Berkshire
and makes its way rapidly to the rest.”
In response to the Boston Port bill cattle
and money were sent to the sufferers.
Resolutions were passed to discontinue
the consumption of English
goods at whatever time the American

Congress should recommend such action.
In August, 1774, Berkshire set
the example of obstructing the King’s
Courts. In the expedition for the capture
of Ticonderoga, in the invasions of
Canada, and in Burgoyne’s campaign,
the town and the county held a place
among the foremost in efforts and sacrifices
for the cause of liberty. The
recommendations of the Continental
Congress were followed out with
promptness and zeal. A similar spirit
was displayed in the relations with the
Provincial Government, so far as they
affected the carrying on of the war. Yet,
from 1775 to the adoption of the State
Constitution in 1780, the county was
ruled in open resistance to the civil
authorities at Boston. Although representatives
were sent to the General
Court, the acts of that body were accepted
merely as advice. The judicial
and executive branches of the Government
were not recognized. It was
maintained that the new Government
should originate from the people on the
basis of a written Constitution and bill
of rights. To this end they “refused
the admission of the course of law
among them,” until their demands
should be complied with. Furthermore,
the old Courts were objectionable
as being costly and cumbersome.
They were unpopular for the hardness
exercised towards poor-debtors and
criminals convicted of trifling offences.
In the absence of the usual means of
enforcing the laws, the town Governments
took in charge the administration
of justice, acting either through
committees or in town meetings. Public
order appears to have been well preserved,
and in the condition of business
interests the want of civil courts was of
little consequence.

An opposition of a different kind
broke out after the State authority had
been re-established under the new Constitution.
The national Government was
involved in difficulties; values were unsettled
by the excessive emission of
paper money. Heavy taxes, cruel collection
laws, numerous private debts,
and frequent cases of imprisonment for
debt, caused a wide-spread feeling of
discontent. The State Constitution was
found fault with from the start, and a
clamor arose for the abolition of the
Senate, a change in the basis of representation,
and an annual grant of salaries
to all officers. This agitation, in

1786, culminated in an appeal to force
of arms, known from its leader, as Shay’s
Rebellion. It is unnecessary to repeat
the story of its suppression. The leaders
of the former opposition held aloof.
There was a desire felt by the steadier
portion of the community to make a
fair trial of the State Constitution, which
afforded a legal means, however slow,
for redressing the heavier grievances.
Pittsfield in particular was now advancing
in material prosperity, and looked
with disfavor upon any radical changes.

Rev. Thomas Allen, one of the early
ministers, was the man most actively
engaged in town affairs at this
period of its history. He was of medium
height, slender, of a mild, pleasant
countenance. Courteous, sincere
and just, he set his parishioners an example
of Christian morals. An application
of doctrines to the practical
questions of life was a favorite subject
of his sermons and private conversation.
He held small respect for any
religious faith which did not manifest

itself in outward acts, and especially
those done for the public good. Endowed
with a keen sense of right and
wrong he took his position and maintained
it with zeal. His personal participation
in several battles of the Revolution
gained for him the title of “The
Fighting Parson.” Once, when asked
whether he actually killed any man at
Bennington, he replied “that he did not
know; but, that observing a flash often
repeated from a certain bush, and that
it was generally followed by the fall of
one of Stark’s men, he fired that way
and put the flash out.”

He was a firm friend of Democracy.
During the revolution he was a radical
Whig, and later on became an ardent
supporter of Jeffersonian doctrines. In
the second period partisan feelings were
very bitter in the community. When,
therefore, he gave full freedom to his
thoughts in articles published in the
Pittsfield Sun, and, in accordance with

a practice more prevalent then than now,
mingled political subjects with his Sunday
discourses, the Federalist members
of the Congregational Church grew
restive under his pastorship. At this
time, it should be noted, Berkshire
differed in politics from the rest of the
State. Matters grew worse, until a division
of the parish was made and continued
for seven years. Thomas Allen
died in 1811, at the age of 67.

Contrary to the custom in almost
every other town of the State, and notwithstanding
the statute requirements,
public worship in 1809 ceased to be
supported by the town, and nearly an
equality of religious sects before the law
was produced. In 1817, after the re-union
of the Congregational Churches, the
parish system was revived. It should
be kept in mind that by far the larger
part of the population were members
of that denomination, identifying its
early history with that of the town.
Rev. Heman Humphrey became pastor,
a man of scholarly attainments,
and well fitted to encourage the
general longing for a complete
reconciliation.

In 1821 a great revival took
place, and to strengthen the religious
interest Mr. Humphrey
believed it to be essential that, so
far as possible, the town should
preserve a solemn quiet, and he
endeavored to substitute religious
services in place of the ordinary
manner of celebrating the Fourth
of July. This plan was, to a considerable
number of citizens, by
no means acceptable, yet the exercises
in the Church were attended
by a large and reverent
congregation. The meeting-house
stood upon the little square
where the people were wont
to collect on all anniversaries.
In consequence, there was a very annoying
disturbance from fire-crackers,
drums, fifes, and even cannon, and the
attempt to make this national holiday
quiet and serious was not repeated.
Mr. Humphrey two years later became
President of Amherst College. In 1833
the corporate connection of the Congregational
Society with the town came to
an end through the Constitutional
Amendment of that year. Two years
later business was in a state of depression,
and emigration went on at a rapid
rate. A missionary from the West
made known the need in that great
section of Christian emigrants to help
mould its character. From the Baptist
Church in one year more than a hundred
members set forth, leaving finally
but three men in the Congregation.
During the first half of the century
other sects acquired a foot-hold, and are
now supported by large Congregations,
composed of the best citizens of the
town.

To turn back again
in the narrative of
events. Of the town’s
record in the war of
1812, little must be
said, although much is
deserved. In this matter,
as previously in others,
the county, by its
warm support of the
war party, showed its independence
in thought
and action of the rest of
the State. Pittsfield was
made a place of meeting
for recruits; a cantonment
for United States
troops was established, and a depot for
prisoners of war, who numbered at times
1,500 or more. The town was most
largely represented in the Ninth and
Twenty-first Regiments. The former
won for itself the name of “The Bloody
Ninth;” the latter was that regiment,
which, under Colonel Miller at Lundy’s
Lane, gained undying fame in a gallant
struggle for the enemy’s cannon.

The history of the Berkshire Agricultural
Society may be traced back to its
origin in 1807, when Elkanah Watson,
who had recently become an inhabitant
of the town, exhibited two fine merinoes,
a ram and a ewe, on the green under
the Old Elm. Great interest was
aroused, and the importation of the best
foreign breeds of cattle and sheep was
encouraged and carried on by public-spirited
and enterprising citizens. One
farmer came into possession of a cow,
in which he felt so much pride that it
formed the subject of his conversation
at all times and places, until his friends
feared to meet him. At last it gave
birth to a calf, but minus a tail, and
the wrathful owner carried the calf, with
his axe, to the back pasture. The Society
was organized in 1811. New
features were added from time to time;
standing crops were inspected; women
were interested to compete for premiums.
The plowing match became a
part of the Pittsfield show in 1818, when
a quarter of an acre of green sward was
plowed in thirty-five minutes by the
winner. Dr. Holmes, in 1849, Chairman
of the committee, read his poem,
“The Ploughman.” Many years before,
William Cullen Bryant, then a lawyer in
Great Barrington, wrote an ode for the
cattle show. Improved agricultural implements
and better methods of cultivation
were some of the material benefits
produced by the fairs. The fame
and influence of the Society have reached
all parts of the country. In 1855, exhibition
grounds, thirty acres in extent,
were purchased in Pittsfield.

The Berkshire Jubilee of 1844 merits
at least a brief mention. It was a
gathering from far and near of those
emigrants from the county, who still
held their early home in loving memory.
Of the thousands that were present,
many were men of national reputation.
Among the exercises, a sermon of welcome
was delivered by the Rev. Mark
Hopkins, a prayer was offered by Rev.

David Dudley Field, an address was
given by Governor Briggs, and a poem
was read by Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes.

Governor Briggs had become a citizen
of Pittsfield two years before. He was
born at North Adams in 1796. When
seventeen years of age, after having spent
three years in learning the hatters’ trade,
he began the study of law with but five
dollars in his possession, which he had
earned at haying. In 1850, after seven
consecutive terms as Governor, he was
defeated by a coalition of Democrats
and Free-Soilers. He was as true a
friend of a pure civil service as any man
of the present day. Like a well-known
English writer on political economy, and
for similar reasons, he refused to furnish
money for his own election expenses,
however legitimate; thus, although unwillingly,
placing the burden upon the
shoulders of other members of his party,
a course which gave equal satisfaction
in both countries. He was distinguished
for the consistency of his life
with his religious and temperance
principles. Once, it is said, while exhorting
a friend who had already entered
the downward path of immoderate
drinking, Mr. Briggs was induced
to promise that so long as the
other would abstain from drinking, he,
himself, would give up the use of a collar;
and this agreement was kept by
both parties for life. The truth in regard
to the anecdote is rather as follows:
While County Commissioner he
was often obliged to make long drives,
so that besides the annoyance from
wearing a collar, he found great difficulty
in replacing it when soiled. From
this arose a habit of dispensing with it
altogether. Once, being rallied on the
subject by an old friend, he offered to
resume his collar if the other would
cease drinking gin, and would cut off
his cue. The gin and the cue carried
the day.

The Berkshire Medical Institute was
established in 1822, mainly through the
exertions of Dr. H.H. Childs. The
charter provided that degrees should be
conferred only by the President and
Trustees of Williams’ College, and according
to the rules in force in the
school at Cambridge. The purpose

was to secure a uniform practice throughout
the State, and to cause a degree of
confidence in the diplomas. The arrangement
continued fifteen years. The
tuition fee was fixed at forty dollars, and
board, room-rent and lodging at one
dollar and seventy-five cents a week.
In 1825 it became necessary to defray
incidental expenses, and pay the salaries
of instructors out of the proceeds from
tuition fees. These were frequently paid
in notes, many of which read “when
said student shall be able to pay,” and
having been distributed among the
members of the faculty, a large number
were found afterwards in the deserted
office of the Dean. In 1867 the compensation
of each instructor was about
one hundred and thirty dollars, hardly
enough to attract young, inexperienced
physicians. Therefore, the college came
to an end, having graduated in the course
of forty-four years over one thousand
doctors of medicine, who held rank in
their profession equal to that of those
sent out by any college in the country.

The Public Library Association was
founded in 1850, with a regulation excluding
forever all prose works of fiction,
and on the other hand,
theological writings,
unless admitted by a
unanimous vote of the
Directors. After a
few prosperous years
public interest had so
far died out that the
library consisted of a
few books and a small
room, open one
evening in the week
by the dim light of
a lantern. A timely
donation, and a liberal
construction of
the rule regarding
works of fiction, had
a favorable effect.

A Young Men’s Association was organized
in 1865, with a library, reading-room,
collection of curiosities, and provision
for amusement and exercise. It
had a very successful career for about
eight years. Meanwhile the Library
Association, its name having been
changed to the Berkshire Athenæum,
was put on a better footing by the
liberality and efforts of Thomas F.
Plunkett, who afterwards, together with
Calvin Martin and Thomas Allen, was instrumental
in forming it into a free
library. In 1874, by means of a bequest
from Phinehas Allen, and the gift
of its present building from Thomas
Allen, the Berkshire Athenæum was
placed upon a firm foundation. For
the past eleven years it has been under
the efficient management of Mr. E.C.
Hubbel, Curator and Librarian. To-day
it contains 16,000 volumes, and with an
average annual circulation of 50,000;
less than ten volumes have been lost.

The history of the public schools is
in no important respect different from
that in hundreds of other towns. They
were first carefully graded in 1874, and

have enjoyed an excellent reputation.
By far the greater proportion of the
young folks in town attend them. The
system of free text books was early
adopted. The High School, under the
care of an able scholar, Mr. Edward
H. Rice, has been steadily growing in
favor during the past few years. Graduates
yearly enter the various colleges,
and from neighboring towns a considerable
number of its pupils come and pay
the tuition required by law.

For the higher education of young
women the Pittsfield Female Academy
was incorporated in 1806, with Miss
Hinsdale as principal. It has continued
ever since, usually with a lady at the
head, and for the last few years especially
has done good work under Miss
Salisbury. The Maplewood Young
Ladies’ Institute, the most noted school
of education that has ever existed in
Pittsfield, has this year closed an existence
of forty-three years. Its loss
will be mourned by many friends in the
town and elsewhere. Among the illustrations
is given a view of the avenue
and the chapel; behind the latter stands
the meeting-house of 1793, of late years
used for a gymnasium.

About the time of Shay’s Rebellion
the first newspaper, the American Sentinel,
was published. It was printed on a
sheet ten by eighteen inches in size, and
gave the greater portion of its space to
two or three prosy essays. Three other
newspapers appeared and vanished in
turn until, in the year 1800, the Pittsfield
Sun was established by Phinehas Allen.
It remained in his hands for nearly
three-quarters of a century, and to this
day gives its support to the Democratic
party. James Harding is the editor.
The Argus was started in 1827, as a
rival, by Henry K. Strong. Four years
later it was removed to Lenox, and
united with the Berkshire Journal. In
1838 the name was changed to the
Massachusetts Eagle, and soon afterwards
it was brought back to Pittsfield.
In 1852 it was given the name, The
Berkshire County Eagle, which it
bears to-day. Both of these papers
are weeklies. The Journal is of later
date, and is issued daily. Joseph
E. See is editor. In mentioning the
educational facilities of a community
it would be an act of thoughtlessness to
omit its bookstores. There is but one
in Pittsfield. It contains a large supply
of books, selected with judgment, and is
well managed by Mr. J.B. Harrison.

Rev. John Todd became, in 1839, a
worthy pastor to the Church, over
which Thomas Allen presided many
years before. His early life had been a
struggle for an education against poverty
and ill health. It is interesting to
read his estimate of the new congregation
to which he was called after having
been for five years pastor in Philadelphia:
“It is a great, rich, proud,
enlightened, powerful people. They
move slowly, but they tread like the
elephant. They are cool, but kind,
sincere, great at hearing, but very critical.
I have never had an audience
who heard so critically. There is ten
times more intellect that is cultivated
than we have ever had before. You
would be surprised to see how much
they read. The ladies are abundant,
intelligent, refined, and kind. A wider,
better, harder, or more interesting
field no man need desire.” Dr. Todd
became one of the most public-spirited
citizens of the town, jealous of its
honor. Educational matters, especially,
received his attention and assistance.
His reputation as an author is not
confined to his town, nor to his day.
The “Student’s Manual” is the best
known of his works; the lectures delivered
on returning from a visit to California

are well worth
reading.

The first manufactories
of the town date back
to within a few years
of its settlement. Agriculture
was, of course,
the leading industry,
and was carried on according
to the wasteful
and, apparently, unwise
methods usual in a
newly-settled country.
Great attention was paid
to breeding horses and
mules, of which many
were sent to the West
Indies and other markets.
The first carding
machine was set up in
1801 by Arthur Scholfield,
an Englishman.
Soon he set about making
and improving machines,
which he sold to
manufacturers in various
parts of the country.
The industry was subsequently
helped on by the superior quality
of wool, which resulted from the new
custom of seeking better breeds of
sheep. About 100,000 yards of cloth,
worth as many dollars, were produced
in the county in 1808. After the war
which followed came a season of depression
of manufactures; the cessation of
the unusual war demand and excessive
importations from abroad were the principal
causes.

At this period, when politics were
carried into private affairs, as religion
had been some hundred years before,
each party must have its factory. Thus
the Housatonic Woolen Mill of 1810
was offset a few years later by the Pittsfield
Woolen and Cotton Company in
Federalist hands. The former enterprise
languished before long for want of
sufficient water power. The latter, by
a change of ownership, came under the
control of Lemuel and Josiah Pomeroy,
and enjoyed the benefits of the
tariffs of 1824 and following years.
Other mills went gradually into operation.
But in this instance Yankee ingenuity
and versatility found a difficult
foe to master. The proprietors were
ambitious and determined to make
their fabrics as firm and as heavy as the
best imported goods. In this they succeeded,
but by a clumsy, wasteful
process, which destroyed all profit.
Moreover, instead of making a single
class of goods, each factory attempted
to satisfy the various demands of the
market. Hence arose multiplied causes

of failures, for which remedies had to
be invented. A general business knowledge
did not immediately avail in an
industry where matters of detail were
of the greatest consequence. To-day
these mills are the principal sources of
wealth in the county. Another branch
of manufactures grew up in 1799 when
Lemuel Pomeroy came to Pittsfield,
and in addition to the ordinary labor of
a blacksmith began to make plows, wagons,
and sleighs. He bought the old
Whitney forge and extended the works
from the production of fowling pieces
to that of muskets. Large contracts
with State and National governments
brought a profitable business, until, in
1846, the percussion guns were introduced.

The independant spirit displayed by
Pittsfield, or rather by Berkshire County,
in matters of the highest importance,
was largely due to the difficulty of communication
with other sections of the
country. For the first eighty years the
Worthington turnpike, running by way
of Northampton, was the only means of
passage to the east. In 1830 the Pontoosuc
turnpike going through Westfield
was completed and transferred
traffic from the old road to the new,
which led to Springfield. A little before
this time the Erie Canal project
was successfully carried out. Thereupon
arose in Massachusetts a wide-spread
desire for engaging in a similar
enterprise. Several routes were explored
for a canal from Boston to the Hudson.
One of them passed through Pittsfield
at an altitude of 1,000 feet, and the
route recommended as feasible was 178
miles in length, and required a tunnel
of four miles under the Hoosac mountain.
One of its opponents showed
that according to the Commissioner’s
data, fifty-two years would be required
in which to finish the tunnel. At this
point came the news of successful steam
locomotion in England, and a discussion
began as to the comparative merits of
railways and canals. For several years
horse-power was proposed to be employed,
but before actual work began
the superiority of steam had been demonstrated.
In the face of indifference,
skepticism, and active opposition, which
brought about discouraging delays, the
road was built, and the first railroad
train entered Pittsfield May 4, 1841.
That week occurred the first accident.
An old man jumped off the train as it
approached his house, and was severely
injured. Thus, in 1842, chiefly through
the exertions of Lemuel Pomeroy, the
Western Railroad was completed, and
trains ran from Albany to Boston.
Several short local roads have since
been constructed, which have done
more to bind the county together, and
have contributed greatly to its wealth and
comfort. On the west the physical barriers
were less difficult to surmount, and
the advent of railroads has only diminished
the inequality. New York is still
the metropolis; the mass of travel, the
business relations, are turned in that
direction.

In 1844 what is known as the Fire
District was organized. Its territory
consists of about two square miles of
land, having the Park as a centre, and
includes most of the buildings of the
town. It originated from the unwillingness
of the outlying districts to help
support a suitable fire department,
of which they, themselves, felt little
need. Nevertheless, at its formation
the town granted land and a sum of
money. A Chief Engineer, with seven
assistants and a prudential committee
were constituted officers. Subsequently
the care of sewers, sidewalks,
water-works, and lighting of streets were
assumed by the Fire District, and the

duties were performed by commissioners.
A curious controversy, now settled,
arose with the town as to which
should look after the street crossings.
The fire department from the
start has been sustained by the zeal of
its members, and now, directed by its
Chief Engineer, George S. Willis, enjoys
an enviable reputation for efficiency.

During the civil war the State and
County are found to have acted in harmony.
The old militia system had
died out many years before; in 1860
the Pittsfield Guards of 1853 was re-organized
under the name of the Allen
Guard, and in January of the following
year declared its readiness to respond
to any call from the government. On
April 19, within twenty-four hours from
the time of receiving word, the company
was on its way and became a portion
of the Eighth regiment. Its Captain
was Henry S. Briggs, later Brigadier
General, and after the war elected State
Auditor. Then, at short intervals, until
the close of the war, the town sent men
to the front who fully maintained its
honorable reputation gained in former
wars. A Ladies’ Soldiers’ Aid Society
was organized and has received
much merited praise for its useful services.
The ideal volunteer soldier of
the war was William F. Bartlett. He
was a student at Harvard, not yet of
age when the war broke out. In April
he enlisted as a private, was appointed
Captain before going to the front, and
in his first engagement showed great
coolness, bravery and judgment. He
was a strict disciplinarian and popular
with his men. Before the close of the
war he had been brevetted Major-general.
In peace he made his influence felt in
the interests of religion and education,
and in the elevation of politics.

Immediately after the war public attention
in the town was turned towards
taking suitable action for honoring the
memory of its sons who had died
on the field of battle. The result
was a monument, one of
the most appropriate ever erected
for a similar purpose. It is
placed on the Park, a short distance
from the Athenæum. A
bronze statue of a Color-sergeant,
as if in line of battle, stands upon
a square granite pillar. He looks
earnestly into the distance. The
entire effect of the expression of
the countenance and the attitude
conveys the impression of intelligent
self-reliance, a true type of
our best volunteer soldiers. On opposite
sides of the pillar, are represented
in bronze relief the arms of
the United States and of the Commonwealth.

On the others are two shields, engraved
with the names of those in
honor of whom this memorial was
erected. The shaft bears the following
inscriptions. On the west face:

On the east face:

At the dedication the national flags
of the two political parties were removed
from the streets and with them
the statue was draped. The town was
crowded with visitors, and a long procession
marched through the streets.
A prayer by Rev. Dr. Todd, speeches
by General Bartlett and Honorable
Thomas Colt, President of the day, and
an oration by George William Curtis
accompanied the unveiling.

The four principal streets of the
town, named from the points of the
compass, meet at the Park. North
street contains the bulk of the stores
and business places. On the corner of
West street is the building of the Berkshire
Life Insurance Company, which
was incorporated in 1851, and has always
included among its Directors and
Managers the best business men in the
town and county, who naturally take
great pride in it as one of the soundest
Life Insurance Companies of the
country.

In the same building are three national
and one savings bank, besides the
town and other offices. Immediately
beyond is Mr. Atwood’s drug store,
an establishment of long standing,
which would bear favorable comparison
with any similar store as regards either
attention or knowledge of a druggist’s
duties. Farther along the same street
are Central Block and the Academy of
Music. In other parts of Pittsfield
broad streets, lined with tall elms and
shady horse-chestnut trees, invite our
footsteps. The dwelling-houses are
mostly of wood, built in the cottage
and villa styles of architecture; many
are stately edifices; many are hospitable
mansions; all show unmistakable evidence
of being comfortable homes.
Scattered over the township, each
springing up around a mill or two, are
miniature villages. Their population
is largely made up of foreigners, Irish
and Germans, whose condition appears
to be somewhat better than that of the
same class in cities. Both sexes are
represented among the operatives. The
mills, mostly small, are located with a
view to an opportunity for using water
power, yet none are without steam
power as well. In the same neighborhood
are the large farms and expensive
estates of the mill-owners, the wealthiest
class in the community. Between the
villages, in fact, upon all the roads, every
turn brings in sight pleasing views
which never repeat themselves or become
monotonous. The cemetery is itself
one of the most beautiful spots in
the neighborhood. A massive granite
gateway is being put up, the gift of the
late Thomas Allen. For a long distance
the road leads through a thick forest of
maple, pine and oak trees. A swiftly-running
brook crosses the path; a quiet
clear pond with grassy banks lies to one
side. If the visitor will remain motionless
for a short time, birds and squirrels
show themselves in all directions, and
fill his ears with the sounds of the
woods. Far away may be seen the
white houses and the church spires
of the town. No resting place for
the dead could be more peaceful,
more inspiring to meditation on the
part of those who walk in the light of

day. By the grave of General Bartlett
stands a cross all covered with graceful
hanging Southern moss. Below is a
beautiful bed of flowers, cared for with
a constant devotion, and by the same
loving hands has been added a large
natural rock, imbedded in the ground.
On it is fixed a large tablet with this
inscription:

Pittsfield, although one of the largest
towns in the country, is not ambitious
to try a city form of government. Five
years ago a charter was procured, but
no action was taken upon it. There is
no disposition on the part of those who
favor the plan to force it into notice
before public opinion is ripe on the subject
At the annual town meetings
where a majority of the voters are
present there have thus far been few
attempts at unfair management. The
best portion of the community take the
most active share in the proceedings.
Thus there exists a real Democracy, an
inestimable educator of the people possible
only among an energetic people,
who, by inheritance, have acquired a
love for the practical; in the absence
of arbitrary government have been long
accustomed to the use of political
rights, and from their character combine
in their thoughts and actions, reason
with understanding and conscience
with religious sentiment.

A review of the lives of these men,
who made for the town its honorable
history, brings prominently to one’s mind
the frequency of instances in which each
gained by his own exertions his influence
and reputation. It is one of the best
criterions of excellent social and political
institutions. Lemuel Pomeroy, who
in 1799 brought his anvil to Pittsfield;
George N. Briggs, who served as an
apprentice four years, working for eight
dollars a year; Thomas F. Plunkett,
who for five years travelled from town
to town in Eastern New York, carrying
on a trade with householders and
country dealers; John Todd, who
worked his way through college against
poverty and ill-health; these are names
that deserve to be handed down to following
generations, to the end that their
influence may still remain as an incitement
to honest and unwearied efforts by
successors ready to emulate, though not
to imitate, the examples set before them.

ROBERT ROGERS, THE RANGER.

By JOSEPH B. WALKER.

No man has been universally great.
Individuals who have made themselves
prominent among their fellows have
done so by achievements in special
directions only, and confined to limited
portions of their lives. Particularly
true is this remark when applied to
Major Robert Rogers, the Ranger, who,
in our last French war, greatly distinguished
himself as a partisan commander,
and gained as wide fame as
did any other soldier of equal rank and
opportunity.

I do not introduce him here as a
saint, for, as is well known, no quality
of sanctity ever entered his composition;
but rather, as the resolute commander
of resolute men, in desperate encounters
with a desperate foe; as a man
eminently fitted for the rough work given
him to do. And just here and now
I am reminded of a remark made in
his old age by the late Moody Kent, for
a long period an able member of the
New Hampshire bar, and there the associate
of Governor Plummer, George
Sullivan, and Judge Jeremiah Smith, as
well as of Jeremiah Mason, and the two
Websters, Ezekiel and Daniel, all of
whom he survived. Said Mr. Kent,
one day, evidently looking forward to
the termination of his career, “Could
Zeke Webster have been living at my
decease he would have spoken as well
of me, yes, as well of me as he could.”
If one can summon to his mind and
heart the kindly charity attributed to
Mr. Webster, he may, should he care
for it, find a comfortable hour in the
society of this famous Ranger. He was
born of Scotch-Irish parents, in the good
old Scotch-Irish town of Londonderry,
New Hampshire, in the year 1727.1 At
the time of his birth, this was a frontier
town, and its log houses were the last
civilized abodes which the traveller
passed as he went up the Merrimack
valley on his way to Canada. It was
the seed-town from which were afterwards
planted the ten or a dozen other
Scotch-Irish townships of New Hampshire.2
It was the first to introduce
and scatter abroad Presbyterian principles
and Irish potatoes over considerable
sections of this Province.

Parson McGregor and his people had
been in their new homes but four years
when they had ready for occupancy a
log school-house, sixteen feet long and
twelve feet wide. It was in this, or in
one like it, that Robert Rogers acquired
his scanty stock of “book-learning,”
as then termed. But education consists
in much besides book-learning, and
he supplemented his narrow stock of
this by a wider and more practical
knowledge, which he obtained amid the
rocks and stumps upon his father’s
farm and in the hunter’s camp.

The woods, at this day, were full of
game. The deer, the bear, the moose,
the beaver, the fox, the muskrat, and
various other wild animals existed in
great numbers. To a young man of
hardy constitution, possessed of enterprise,
energy, and a fondness for forest
sports, hunting afforded not only an
attractive, but a profitable employment.
Young Rogers had all these characteristics,
and as a hunter, tramped through
large sections of the wilderness between
the French and English settlements.

On such excursions he mingled much
with the Indians, and somewhat with the
French, obtaining by such intercourse
some knowledge of their languages, of
their modes of hunting, and their habits
of life. He also acquired a fondness
for the woods and streams, tracing the
latter well up towards their sources,
learning the portages between their
headwaters, many of the Indian trails
and the general topography of the great
area just mentioned.

During the French and Indian wars
small bodies of soldiers were often employed
to “watch and ward” the frontiers,
and protect their defenceless communities
from the barbarous assaults of
Indians, turned upon them from St.
Francis and Crown Point. Robert
Rogers had in him just the stuff required
in such a soldier. We shall not, therefore,
be surprised to find him on scouting
duty in the Merrimack Valley, under
Captain Ladd, as early as 1746, when
he was but nineteen years of age;3 and,
three years later, engaged in the same
service, under Captain Ebenezer Eastman,
of Pennycook.4 Six years afterwards,
in 1753, the muster rolls show
him to have been a member of Captain
John Goff’s company, and doing like
service.5 Such was the training of a
self-reliant mind and a hardy physique
for the ranging service, in which they
were soon to be employed.

I ought, perhaps, to mention, that in
1749, as Londonderry became filled to
overflowing with repeated immigrations
from the North of Ireland, James
Rogers, the father of Robert, a proprietor,
and one of the early settlers of
the township, removed therefrom to the
woods of Dunbarton, and settled anew
in a section named Montelony, from an
Irish place in which he had once lived.6
This was before the settlement of the
township, when its territory existed as
an unseparated part only of the public
domain. He may, quite likely, have
been attracted hither by an extensive
beaver meadow or pond, which would,
with little improvement, afford grass for
his cattle while he was engaged in clearing
the rich uplands which surrounded it.

Six years only after his removal (1755),
he was unintentionally shot by a neighbor
whom he was going to visit; the
latter mistaking him for a bear, as he
indistinctly saw him passing through the
woods. This incident was the foundation
of the story said to have been told
by his son, some years after, in a London
tavern. The version given by Farmer
and Moore is as follows, viz.:7 “It
is reported of Major Rogers, that while
in London, after the French war, being
in company with several persons, it was
agreed, that the one who told the most
improbable story, or the greatest falsehood,
should have his fare paid by the
others. When it came to his turn, he
told the company that his father was
shot in the woods of America by a person
who supposed him to be a bear;
and that his mother was followed several
miles through the snow by hunters,
who mistook her track for that of the
same animal. It was acknowledged by
the whole company that the Major had
told the greatest lie, when in fact, he
had related nothing but the truth.”8

As the largest part of Roger’s fame
rests upon his achievements in the
ranging service of our Seven Years’ War,
we must recall for a moment the condition
of things in the British Colonies
and in Canada at the beginning of this
war.

The thirteen American Colonies had,
at that time, all told, of both white and
black, a population of about one million
and a half of souls (1,425,000.)9
The French people of Canada numbered
less than one hundred thousand.10

The respective claims to the Central
part of the North American Continent
by England and France were conflicting
and irreconcilable. The former, by
right of discovery, claimed all the territory
upon the Atlantic coast from New
Foundland to Florida, and by virtue of
numerous grants the right to all west of
this to the Pacific Ocean. The latter,
by right of occupation and exploration,
claimed Canada, a portion of New England
and New York, and the basins of
the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, together
with all the territory upon the
streams tributary to these, or a large
part of the indefinite West.

To maintain her claims France had
erected a cordon of forts extending
diagonally across the continent from the
mouth of the St. Lawrence to the Gulf
of Mexico. If one will follow, in thought,
a line starting at Louisburg, and thence
running up this great river to Quebec
and Montreal, and thence up Lake
Champlain to Crown Point and Ticonderoga,
and on westward and south-westward
to Frontenac, Niagara and Detroit,
and thence down the Ohio and Mississippi
to New Orleans, he will trace the
line across which the two nations looked
in defiance at each other, and see instantaneously
that the claims of France
were inadmissable, and that another
war was inevitable. It mattered little
that of the forty-five years immediately
preceding the treaty of Aix La Chapelle,
fourteen, or one-third of the whole number,
had been years of war between these
two neighbors. They were now, after a
peace of only half a dozen years, as
ready for a fresh contest as if they were
to meet for the first time upon the battle
field. In fact, another conflict was
unavoidable; a conflict of the Teuton
with the Gaul; of medievalism with
daylight; of conservatism with progress;
of the old Church with the new; of
feudalism with democracy—a conflict
which should settle the destiny of North
America, making it English and Protestant,
or French and Roman Catholic;
a contest, too, in which the victor was
to gain more than he knew, and the
vanquished was to loose more than he
ever dreamed of.

Hostilities may be said to have been
commenced by the French, when, on
the 18th day of April, 1754, they dispossessed
the Ohio company of the fort
which they were erecting at the forks
of the Ohio River, afterwards named
Fort Du Quesne.

The plan of a Colonial Confederation,
formed at the Albany convention
in July of that year, having failed of
acceptance by the mother country and
the Colonies both, the Home government
was forced to meet the exigency
by the use of British troops, aided by
such others as the several Provinces
were willing to furnish.

The campaign of the next year
(1755) embraced:

1st. An expedition, under General
Braddock, for the capture of Fort Du
Quesne.

2d. A second, under General Shirley,
for the reduction of Fort Niagara,
which was not prosecuted.

3d. A third, under Colonel Moncton,
against the French settlements on
the Bay of Fundy, resulting in the capture
and deportation of the Acadians.

4th. A fourth, under General William
Johnson, against Crown Point, a
strong fortification, erected by the
French, in the very heart of New England
and New York, whence innumerable
bands of Indians had been dispatched
by the French to murder the
defenceless dwellers upon the English
frontiers, particularly those of New
Hampshire, to destroy their cattle and
to burn their buildings and other
property.

To the army of this latter expedition
New Hampshire contributed, in the
early part of this year, a regiment of
ten companies, the first being a company
of Rangers, whose Captain was
Robert Rogers, and whose Second
Lieutenant was John Stark. 11

But a few words just here in explanation
of the character of this ranging
branch of the English army. It was a
product of existing necessities in the
military service of that time. Most of
the country was covered with primeval
forests and military operations were
largely prosecuted in the woods or in
limited clearings. The former were
continually infested with Indians, lying
in ambush for the perpetration of any
mischief for which they might have
opportunity.

It became necessary, therefore, in
scouring the forests to drive these miscreants
back to their lairs, as well as in
making military reconnoissances, to have
a class of soldiers acquainted with Indian
life and warfare; prepared, not
only to meet the Indian upon his own
ground, but to fight him in his own
fashion. The British Regular was good
for nothing at such work. If sent into
the woods he was quite sure, either not
to return at all, or to come back without
his scalp. And the ordinary Provincial
was not very much better. From
this necessity, therefore, was evolved
the “Ranger.”

He was a man of vigorous constitution,
inured to the hardships of forest
life. He was capable of long marches,
day after day, upon scant rations, refreshed
by short intervals of sleep
while rolled in his blanket upon a pile
of boughs, with no other shelter but the
sky. He knew the trails of the Indians,
as well as their ordinary haunts and
likeliest places of ambush. He knew,
also, all the courses of the streams and
the carrying places between them. He
understood Indian wiles and warfare,
and was prepared to meet them.

Stand such a man in a pair of stout
shoes or moccasins; cover his lower
limbs with leggins and coarse small
clothes; give him a close-fitting jacket
and a warm cap; stick a small hatchet
in his belt; hang a good-sized powder-horn
by his side, and upon his back
buckle a blanket and a knapsack stuffed
with a moderate supply of bread and
raw salt pork; to these furnishings add
a good-sized hunting-knife, a trusty
musket and a small flask of spirits, and
you have an average New Hampshire
Ranger of the Seven Year’s war, ready
for skirmish or pitched battle; or, for
the more common duty of reconnoitering
the enemy’s force and movements,
of capturing his scouts and
provision trains, and getting now and
then a prisoner, from whom all information
possible would be extorted; and,
in short, for annoying the French and
Indian foe in every possible way.

If you will add three or four inches
to the average height of such a soldier,
give him consummate courage,

coolness, readiness of resource in extremities,
together with intuitive knowledge
of the enemy’s wiles, supplemented
with a passable knowledge of
French and Indian speech, you will
have a tolerable portrait of Captain
Robert Rogers at the beginning of our
Seven Year’s war.12

He received his first Captain’s commission
in the early part of 1755, and
was employed by the New Hampshire
government in building a fort at the
mouth of the Ammonoosuc River and
in guarding its Northern and Western
frontiers until July, when he was
ordered to Albany to join the army of
Major General Johnson. His first service
there was in furnishing escort, with
a company of one hundred men, to a
provision train from Albany to Fort Edward.
From this latter point he was
afterwards repeatedly despatched, with
smaller bodies of men, up the Hudson
River and down Lake George and Lake
Champlain to reconnoiter the French
forts. Some of these expeditions extended
as far north as Crown Point and
were enlivened with sharp skirmishes.
He was absent up the Hudson upon
one of these when the French were defeated
at the battle of Lake George
and Baron Dieskan was made prisoner.

The efficiency of the campaign of the
next year (1756), which contemplated
the taking of Crown Point, Niagara and
Fort Du Quesne, was seriously impaired
by the repeated changes of Commander-in-Chief;
Major General Shirley
being superceded in June by
General Abercrombie while he, about
a month later, yielded the command
to the inefficient Lord Londown.
The only occurrences of particular
note during this campaign were
the capture of our forts at Oswego by
General Montcalm and the formal declarations
of war by the two belligents.

Rogers and his men were stationed at
Fort William Henry, and made repeated
visits to Ticonderoga and Crown Point
to ascertain the power of the enemy
and to annoy him as they had opportunity.
They went down Lake George,
sometimes by land upon its shores, and
sometimes by water and in boats. In
the winter their land marches were frequently
upon snow-shoes, and their
boats were exchanged for skates. On
such occasions each Ranger was generally
his own commissary and carried his
own supplies.

In his journal for this year (1756)
Rogers notes thirteen of these expeditions
as worthy of record. The first
was down Lake George on the ice, in
January, with seventeen men, resulting
in the capture of two prisoners and two
sledges laden with provisions.

The second was made in February
with a party of fifty men to ascertain the
strength and operations of the French
at Crown Point. Having captured one
prisoner at a little village near by the
fort, they were discovered and obliged
to retire before the sallying troops of
the garrison. With very marked sang
froid he closes his account of this reconnoissance
by saying: “We employed
ourselves while we dared stay in setting
fire to the houses and barns in the village,
with which were consumed large
quantities of wheat, and other grain; we
also killed about fifty cattle and then
retired, leaving the whole village in
flames.”

There often appears a ludicrous kind
of honesty in the simple narratives of
this journal. He occasionally seized

certain stores of the enemy which a
Ranger could destroy only with regret.
He naively remarks, in narrating the capture
in June, of this same year, of two
lighters upon Lake Champlain,
manned by twelve men, four of whom
they killed: “We sunk and destroyed
their vessels and cargoes, which consisted
chiefly of wheat and flour, wine,
and brandy; some few casks of the
latter we carefully concealed.”

His commands on such occasions
varied greatly in numbers, according to
the exigency of the service, all the way
from a squad of ten men to two whole
companies; and the excursions just
mentioned afford fair specimens of the
work done by the Rangers under Rogers
this year.

Rogers possessed a ready wit and an
attractive bonhomie, which made him
agreeable to his men, notwithstanding
the necessary severity of his discipline.
A story has come down to us which
well illustrates this trait in his character.
Two British Regulars, it seems, a good
deal muddled, one night, by liberal potations,
became greatly concerned lest
their beloved country should suffer dishonor
in consequence of inability to discharge
its national debt, and their
loyal forebodings had, at length, become
painful. The good-natured Captain, encountering
them in their distress, at
once relieved them by the remark: “I
appreciate the gravity of your trouble,
my dear fellows. It is, indeed, a serious
one. But, happily, I can remove
it. I will, myself, discharge at once
one-half the debt, and a friend of mine
will shortly pay the other half.” From
this incident is said to have arisen the
expression, at one time common, “We
pay our debts as Rogers did that of the
English nation.”

But Captain Rogers had qualities of
a higher order, which commended him
to his superiors. His capacity as a
Ranger Commander had attracted the
notice of the officers on duty at Lake
George. The importance of this
branch of the service had also become
apparent, and we shall not be surprised
to learn that, in March, 1756, he was
summoned to Boston by Major General
Shirley and commissioned anew as
Captain of an independent company
of Rangers, to be paid by the King.
This company formed the nucleus of
the famous corps since known as “Roger’s
Rangers.”

In July another company was raised,
and again in December two more, thereby
increasing the Ranger corps to four
companies. To anticipate, in a little
more than a year this was farther enlarged
by the addition of five more,
and Captain Rogers was promoted to
the rank of Major of Rangers, becoming
thus the commander of the whole
corps.

The character of the service expected
of this branch of the army was
set forth in Major General Shirley’s orders
to its commander in 1756, as follows,
viz.: “From time to time, to use your
best endeavors to distress the French
and allies by sacking, burning, and destroying
their houses, barns, barracks,
canoes, and battoes, and by killing their
cattle of every kind; and at all times to
endeavour to way-lay, attack and destroy
their convoys of provisions by land
and water in any part of the country
where he could find them.”13

On the fifteenth of January of the
next year (1757) Captain Rogers, with
seventy-four Rangers, started down
Lake George to reconnoiter the
French forts; travelling now for a
time upon the ice, and by and by
donning snow-shoes and following the
land. On the twenty-first, at a point

half way between Ticonderoga and
Crown Point, they discovered a train of
provision sledges, three of which they
captured, together with six horses and
seven men. The others fled within the
walls of Ticonderoga and alarmed the
garrison. Feeling the insecurity of his
situation he commenced at once his return.
By two o’clock in the afternoon,
his party was attacked by two hundred
and fifty French and Indians, who endeavored
to surround it. A vigorous fight
was kept up until dark. Rogers was
wounded twice and lost some twenty of
his men. The French, as was subsequently
ascertained, lost one hundred
and sixteen. The proximity of Ticonderoga
rendered vain the continuance of
the contest, and he availed him of the
shelter of the night to return to Fort
William Henry.

For this exploit he was highly complimented
by General Abercrombie, and, at
a later period of this same year, was ordered
by Lord Londown to instruct and
train for the ranging service a company
of British Regulars. To these he devoted
much time and prepared for their
use the manual of instruction now found
in his journals. It is clearly drawn up
in twenty-eight sections and gives very
succinctly and lucidly the rules governing
this mode of fighting.

The campaign of 1757 contemplated
only the capture of Louisburg. To the
requisite preparations Lord Londown
directed all his energies. Having collected
all the troops which could be
spared for that purpose, he sailed for
Halifax on the twentieth of June with
six thousand soldiers, among them being
four companies of Rangers under the
command of Major Rogers. Upon arriving
at Halifax his army was augmented
by the addition of five thousand
Regulars and a powerful naval armament.
We have neither time nor inclination
to consider the conduct of Lord
Londown on this occassion farther than
to say that his cowardice and imbecility
seem wonderful. Finding that, in all
probability, Louisburg could not be
taken without some one getting hurt, he
returned to New York without striking
a blow. If about this time our heroic
commander of the Rangers used some
strong language far from sacred, it will
become us to remember “Zeke Webster”
and think as charitably of his patriotic expletives
“as we can.” He returned to
New York three weeks after the surrender
of Fort William Henry, where with his
Rangers he might have done something,
at least, to prevent the horrible massacre
which has tarnished the fair fame of
Montcalm indellibly.

England and America both were humbled
in the dust by the events of 1757
and 1758. Failure, due to the want of
sufficent resources is severe, but how utterly
insufferable when, with abundant
means, incompetency to use them brings
defeat. Still, we are under greater obligation
to Lord Londown than we are
wont to think. His imbecility helped
rouse the British nation and recall William
Pitt to power, whose vigor of purpose
animated anew the people of other
countries and promised an early termination
of French dominion in America.

Lord Londown was succeeded in the
early part of 1758 by General Abercrombie
and plans were matured for
capturing the Lake forts, Louisburg and
Fort Du Quesne. By the close of November,
the two last, with the addition
of Fort Frontenac, were ours. The
movement against Crown Point and Ticonderoga
did not succeed. In the assault
upon the latter Rogers and his
Rangers fought in the van and in the
retreat brought up the rear.

In the spring of this year (1758)
Rogers went down Lake George at the

head of about one hundred and eighty-men,
and near the foot of it had a desperate
battle with a superior body of
French and Indians. He reported on
his return one hundred and fourteen of
his party as killed or missing. Why
he was not annihilated is a wonder.
General Montcalm, in a letter dated
less than a month after the encounter,
says: “Our Indians would give no
quarter; they have brought back one
hundred and forty-six scalps.” For
his intrepidity on this occasion he was
presented by General Abercrombie with
the commission of Major of Rangers,
before alluded to.

The adroitness with which Rogers
sometimes extricated himself from extreme
peril is illustrated by his conduct
on one occasion, when pursued by an
overwhelming number of savages up
the mountain, near the south end of
Lake George, which now bears his
name. Upon reaching the summit
he advanced to the very verge of
the precipice, on the east side, which
descends 550 feet to the lake. Having
here reversed his snow shoes he fled
down the side opposite to that by
which he had come up. Arriving soon
after the Indians, upon seeing the tracks
of two men, apparently, instead of one,
and Rogers far below upon the ice,
hastening towards Fort Edward, concluded
that he had slid down the precipice
aided by the Great Spirit, and that
farther pursuit was vain.

Mr. Pitt proposed in the campaign of
1759 the entire conquest of Canada.
Bold as was the undertaking it was substantially
accomplished. Ticonderoga
and Crown Point were abandoned in
July, Fort Niagara capitulated the same
month, and Quebec was surrendered in
September.

Their violation of a flag of truce in
this last month now called attention to
the St. Francis Indians, who had been
for a century the terror of the New
England frontiers, swooping down upon
them when least expected, burning
their buildings, destroying their cattle,
mercilessly murdering their men,
women, and children, or cruelly hurrying
them away into captivity. The
time had now come for returning these
bloody visits. The proffering of this
delicate attention was assigned by
Major General Amherst to Rogers. In
his order, dated September 13, he says:
“You are this night to set out with the
detachment, as ordered yesterday, viz.,
of 200 men, which you will take under
your command and proceed to Misisquey
Bay, from whence you will march
and attack the enemy’s settlements on
the south side of the river St. Lawrence
in such a manner as you shall
judge most effectual to disgrace the
enemy, and for the success and honour
of his majesty’s arms.

* * * * *

“Take your revenge, but don’t forget
that tho’ those villains have dastardly
and promiscuously murdered the
women and children of all ages, it is
my orders that no women or children
are killed or hurt.”

In pursuance of these orders Major
Rogers started the same day at evening.
On the tenth day after he reached Missisquoi
Bay. On the twenty-third, with
one hundred and forty-two Rangers, he
came, without being discovered, to the
environs of the village of St. Francis.
The Indians had a dance the evening
following his arrival and slept heavily
afterwards. The next morning, half an
hour before sunrise, Rogers and his
men fell upon them on all sides, and
in a few minutes, ere they had time to
arouse themselves and seize their arms,
the warriors of that village were dead.
A few, attempting to escape by the

river, were shot in their canoes. The
women and children were not molested.

When light came it revealed to the
Rangers lines of scalps, mostly English,
to the number of six hundred, strung
upon poles above the door-ways. Thereupon,
every house except three containing
supplies was fired, and their destruction
brought death to a few who had
before escaped it by concealing themselves
in the cellars. Ere noon two hundred
Indian braves had perished and their
accursed village had been obliterated.

The operations of the next year
(1760) ended this long and fierce
struggle. The attempted re-capture of
Quebec by the French was their final
effort. The army of the Lakes embarked
from Crown Point for Montreal
on the sixteenth day of August. “Six
hundred Rangers and seventy Indians
in whale-boats, commanded by Major
Rogers, all in a line abreast, formed the
advance guard.” He and his men encountered
some fighting on the way
from Isle a Mot to Montreal, but no
serious obstacle retarded their progress.
The day of their arrival Monsieur de
Vaudveuil proposed to Major General
Amherst a capitulation, which soon after
terminated the French dominion in
North America.

The English troops, as will be remembered,
entered Montreal on the evening of
the eighth of September. On the morning
of the twelfth Major Rogers was ordered
by General Amherst to proceed
westward with two companies of Rangers
and take possession of the western
forts, still held by the French, which, by
the terms of the capitulation, were to
be surrendered.

He embarked about noon the next
day with some two hundred Rangers in
fifteen whale-boats, and advanced to
the west by the St. Lawrence and the
Lakes. On the seventh of November
they reached the mouth of the Cuyahoga,
where the beautiful city of Cleveland
now stands. The cross of St. George
had never penetrated the wilderness so
far before. Here they encamped and
were soon after waited upon by messengers
from the great chieftain Pontiac,
asking by what right they entered upon
his territory and the object of their visit.
Rogers informed them of the downfall
of the French in America, and that
he had been sent to take possession of
the French forts surrendered to the
English by the terms of the capitulation.
Pontiac received his message remarking
that he should stand in his path until
morning, when he would return to
him his answer.

The next morning Pontiac came to
the camp and the great chief of the
Ottawas, haughty, shrewd, politic, ambitious,
met face to face the bold, self-possessed,
clear-headed Major of the
British Rangers. It is interesting to
note how calmly the astute ally of the
French accepted the new order of things
and prepared for an alliance with his
former enemies. He and Rogers had
several interviews and in the end smoked
the pipe of peace. With dignified
courtesy the politic Indian gave to his
new friend free transit through his territory,
provisions for his journey and an
escort of Indian braves. Rogers broke
camp on the twelfth and pushed onward
towards Detroit. By messenger sent
forward in advance he apprized Monsieur
Belletre, Commandant of the fort,
of his near approach and the object of
it. The astonished officer received him
Cautiously. Soon satisfied, however, of
the truth of the unwelcome news thus
brought, he surrendered his garrison.
On the twenty-ninth of November the
British flag floated from the staff which
ever before had borne only the lillies of
France.

On the tenth of December, after
disposing of the French force found in
the fort, and having taken possession of
the forts Miamie and Gatanois, with
characteristic ardor Rogers pushed still
farther westward for Michilimackinac.
But it was a vain attempt. The season
was far advanced. Indeed, the winter
had already come, and while the ice
prevented his progress by water, the
snows rendered impracticable his advance
by land. With reluctance he relinquished
for the first time the completion
of his mission. Turning eastward,
after a tedious journey, he
reached New York on the fourteenth of
February, 1761.

From New York, there is reason to
suppose, that he went this same year as
Captain of one of the His Majesty’s Independent
Companies of Foot to South
Carolina, and there aided Colonel Grant
in subduing the Cherokees, who had for
a year or two been committing depredations
upon the Carolinian frontiers.

From this time onward for the next
two years we lose sight of Major Rogers,
but he re-appears at the siege of
Detroit in 1763. Hither he went with
twenty Rangers as part of a body of
soldiers sent from Fort Niagara under
the command of Captain Dalzell for the
re-inforcement of the beleagured fort.
He arrived on the twenty-ninth of July,
and on the thirty-first took an active
part in the fierce battle of Bloody
Bridge. His valor was as useful as it
was conspicuous on that occasion, and
but for his daring efforts the retreat of
the British troops would have been
more disastrous even than it was. Having,
for a time, in the house of the
Frenchman, Campean, held at bay a
throng of savages which surrounded it,
his escape with a few followers at one
door was hardly achieved ere these
burst in at another.

The next glimpse we get of Major
Rogers is at Rumford (now Concord)
where he had a landed estate of some
four or five hundred acres. Good old
Parson Walker, who here kept open
house, and for more than fifty years
watched with solicitude the interests of
his parish and his country, says, in his
diary for 1764, against date of February
24: “Major Rogers dined with us” and
again December 22:—”Major Rogers and
Mr. Scales, Jr., dined with me.”

It is probable that his private affairs
now occupied his attention. A year or
so after the surrender of Montreal he
was married to Elizabeth, daughter of
Rev. Arthur Brown, Rector of St. John’s
Church, in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.
He considered this town his residence,
and in papers executed this very
year (1764) sometimes designates himself
“as of Portsmouth,” and at others, as
“now residing at Portsmouth.”

For three or four years, between
1762 and 1765, he trafficked a good
deal in lands, buying and selling numerous
and some quite extensive tracts.
Some twenty-five different conveyances
to him are on record in the Recorder’s
office of Rockingham County, and half
as many from him to other parties.

Some of these lands he seems to have
purchased and some to have received
in consideration of military services.
In 1764 Benning Wentworth, as Governor
of New Hampshire, conveyed to
him as “a reduced officer” a tract of
three thousand acres, lying in the southern
part of Vermont.

One14 conveyance made by him and

bearing date December 20, 1762, arrests
our attention. By it he transferred
to his father-in-law, Rev. Arthur Brown,
before mentioned, some five hundred
acres of land in Rumford (now Concord,
New Hampshire) together with “one
negro man, named Castro Dickerson,
aged about twenty-eight; one negro
woman, named Sylvia; one negro boy
named Pomp, aged about twelve and
one Indian boy, named Billy, aged
about thirteen.” For what reason this
property was thus transferred I have no
means of knowing. If the object of
the conveyance was to secure it as a
home to his wife and children against
any liabilites he might incur in his irregular
life, the end sought was subsequently
attained, as the land descended
even to his grand-children.15

And I may as well, perhaps, just
here and now anticipate a little by saying
that Major Rogers did not prove a
good husband, and that seventeen years
after their marriage his wife felt constrained,
February 12, 1778, to petition
the General Assembly of New Hampshire
for a divorce from him on the
ground of desertion and infidelity. An
act granting the same passed the Assembly
on the twenty-eighth day of
February and the Council on the fourth
of March following.16

“Whereas, Elizabeth Rogers of Portsmouth, in the
County of Rockingham, and State aforesaid, hath petitioned
the General Assembly for said State, setting forth
that she was married to the said Robert Rogers about
seventeen years ago; for the greater part of which time
he had absented himself from and totally neglected to
support and maintain her—and had, in the most flagrant
manner, in a variety of ways, violated the marriage contract—but
especially by infidelity to her Bed; For
which reasons praying that a divorce from said Rogers, a
vinculo matrimonii, might be granted. The principal
facts contained in said petition being made to appear,
upon a full hearing thereof. Therefore,

“Be it enacted by the Council and House of Representatives
for said State in General Assembly convened,
That the Bonds of Matrimony between the said Robert
and Elizabeth be and hereby are dissolved.”—[New
Hampshire State Papers, vol. 8, p. 776.]

I may, perhaps, here venture the irrelevant
remark that “women sometimes
do strange things,” and cite the
subsequent conduct of Mrs. Rogers in
evidence of the declaration. After her
divorce she married Captain John
Roach, master of an English vessel
in the fur trade. The tradition is
that, having sailed from Quebec for
London, he most unaccountably lost
his reckoning and found himself in
Portsmouth (New Hampshire) harbor.
Here for reasons satisfactory to
himself, he sold the cargo on his own
account and quit sea life.17 After his
marriage he lived with his wife and her
son by the former marriage on the estate
in Concord, previously mentioned as
having been conveyed by Rogers to her
father. Captain Roach is said to have
been most famous for his unholy expletives
and his excessive potations.
The venerable Colonel William Kent,
now living at Concord in his nineties,
says that Captain Roach one day
brought into the store where he was a
clerk a friend who had offered to treat
him and called for spirit. Having
drawn from a barrel the usual quantity
of two drinks the clerk set the measure
containing it upon the counter, expecting
the contents to be poured into two
tumblers, as was then the custom.
Without waiting for this division the
thirsty Captain immediately seized the
gill cup and drained it. Then, gracefully
returning it to the board, he courteously
remarked to his astonished
friend that when one gentleman asks
another to take refreshment the guest
should be helped first, and should there
be found lacking a sufficiency for both,
the host should call for more.

Whether Mrs. Rogers gained by her
exchange of husbands it would be hard
to say. That in 1812 she went willing
from this to a land where “they

neither marry nor are given in marriage,”
it is easy to believe.18

In returning to Major Rogers, we
must not forget that he was an author
as well as soldier. He seems to have
been in England in 1765, and to have
there published two respectable volumes
of his writings. One is entitled “Journals
of Major Robert Rogers; containing
an account of the several excursions
he made under the Generals who
commanded upon the continent of
North America, during the late War,”
and embraces the period from September
24, 1755, to February 14, 1761. It is
doubtless quite reliable and valuable as a
contribution to the history of our Army
of the Lakes during the old French war.19

An American edition of Roger’s Journal, ably edited
by Dr. F.B. Hough, was published at Albany in 1883, by
J. Munsell’s Sons. Besides a valuable introduction, it
contains the whole text of the Journals, an appendix consisting
largely of important official papers relating to
Rogers, and a good index. It is by far the best edition
of the Journals ever published.]

The other is called “a concise view
of North America,” and contains much
interesting information relative to the
country at the time of its publication.20

It is less reliable than the former, but
is a readable book, and, when the author
keeps within the bounds of his personal
knowledge, is doubtless authentic.
Both works are a credit to Major Rogers.
To the charge that he was an illiterate
person and that these works were
written by another’s hand, it may be
urged, as to the “journals,” that the
correspondence of their matter to the
written reports of his expeditions made
to his superior officers and now preserved
in the New York State Library, convincingly
show that this work is undoubtedly
his. If revised before publication by a
should not deprive him of the credit of
their authorship.

Rogers laid no claims to fine writing,
but his own manuscript reports,
written mostly in camp and hastily,
attest his possession of a fair chirography,
a pretty good knowledge of
grammar and spelling, together with a
style of expression both lucid and simple;
in short, these are such compositions as
come naturally from a man, who, favored
in youth with but a limited common
school education, has in mature life
mingled much with superiors and been
often called upon to draft such writings
as fall to the lot of a soldier or man of
business. Mr. Parkman also attributes to
Rogers a part authorship of a tragedy
long forgotten, entitled “Ponteach, or
the Savages in America,” published in
London in 1766. It is a work of little
merit and very few copies of it have been
preserved.21

On the tenth of June, 1766, at the
King’s command, General Gage appointed
Major Rogers Captain Commandant
of the garrison of Michilimackinac.22

Sir William Johnson, then
Superintendent of Indian Affairs, when
apprized of it was filled with astonishment
and disgust. He regarded Rogers
as a vain man, spoiled by flattery,
and inordinately ambitious, dishonest,
untruthful, and incompetent to discharge
properly the duties of this office.23 But
as the appointment had been made and
could not be revoked, it was determined
to accept the inevitable and restrict
his power, thereby rendering him
as little capable of mismanagement as
possible. He was ordered by General
Gage to act in all matters pertaining to
the Indians under instructions of the
Superintendent of Indian Affairs, and to
report upon all other matters to the
Commandant at Detroit, to whom he
was made subordinate.24

Commander Rogers probably reached
Michilimackinac in August, 1766. He
soon after demonstrated his entire unfitness
for his position by clandestinely
engaging in the Indian trade,25 and by
involving the government in unnecessary
expenses, which he sought to meet
by drafts upon the Superintendent of
Indian Affairs, which that officer was
obliged to dishonor. To still further
curtail his power, a Commissary was
appointed to reside at the post and
regulate the Indian trade. To this
Rogers sullenly submitted, but quarrelled
with the officer. As time went
on matters grew worse. He engaged
in foolish speculations; got deeply into
debt to the Indian traders; chafed under
his limitations; grew first discontented,
and then desperate; entered
into treasonable correspondence with a
French officer;26 and finally conceived a
plan of seeking of the home government
an independent governorship of
Michilimackinac, and in case of failure
to rob his post and the traders thereabout,
and then desert to the French on
the lower Mississippi.27

His mismanagement and plottings
having grown insufferable he was arrested
and conveyed in irons to Montreal
in September, 1768, to be there
tried by court-martial for high treason.28
On some ground, probably a technical
one, he escaped conviction, and at
some date between May, 1769, and
February, 1770, he sailed for England.

And there, strange as it may seem,
the stalwart, cheeky, fine-looking, wily
ex-Commandant was lionized. His acquittal
had vindicated his innocence
and established his claim to martyrdom.
His books had advertised him as a hero.
His creditors, to whom he owed considerable
amounts, supported his claims in
hopes thereby of getting their dues.
He was gazed at by the commonalty.
He was feted by the nobility. He was
received by the king and allowed to kiss
his hand. He claimed payment for arrears
of salary and other expenses previously
disallowed in England and at
home, which was made. Encouraged by
his successes he pushed boldly on and

asked to be made an English Baronet,
with £600 a year, and in addition to
that, a Major in the army.29 One is in
doubt which to wonder at the most, the
audacity of the bold adventurer, or the
stupidity of the British public. But
vaulting ambition had at length overleaped
itself. He failed of the coveted
knighthood, and sank by degrees to his
true level.

We see nothing more of Major Rogers
until July, 1775, when he again
appears in America as a Major of the
British Army retired on half pay. The
object of his visit to his native land just
at the beginning of our Revolutionary
war was not satisfactorily apparent.
Some considered him a military adventurer,
anxious to sell his services to the
highest bidder. Others regarded him
as a British spy. He wandered over
the country all the way from Pennsylvania
to New Hampshire with very
little ostensible business. His improbable
statements, his associations with persons
hostile to the American cause, his
visits to places of bad reputation, as
well as his whole general conduct, rendered
him a suspected person.

He was arrested on the twenty-second
of September following his arrival by the
Pennsylvania Committee of Safety, but
was afterwards paroled upon his solemn
declaration and promise that “on the
honor of a soldier and a gentleman he
would not bear arms against the
American United Colonies, in any
manner whatever, during the present
contest between them and Great-Britain;”30
yet, on the twenty-sixth of
the next November, he makes a tender of
his services to the British government, in
a letter addressed to General Gage, and
was encouraged to communicate more
definitely his proposals.31

On the second day of December, a
little more than a month later, in shabby
garb he calls upon President Wheelock,
at Hanover, New Hampshire. After
speaking of his absence in Europe, during
which, he said, he had fought two battles
in Algiers, under the Dey, he officiously
tendered his aid in a proposed effort to
obtain a grant of land for Dartmouth
College. The President distrusted him,
but treated him civilly. At the close of
the interview he returned to the tavern
where he passed the night, and left
the next morning without paying his
reckoning.32

Again, on the nineteenth of the
same month, at Medford, Massachusetts,
he addresses a letter to General Washington,
soliciting an interview, but his reputation
was such that the Commander-in-Chief
declined to see him.33

Even this did not discourage him.
With an effrontery truly wonderful, on
the twenty-fifth of June, 1776, after he
had been arrested in South Amboy and
brought to New York, he expressed to the
Commander-in-Chief his desire to pass
on to Philadelphia, that he might there
make a secret tender of his services to
the American Congress.34

However, by this time, his duplicity
had become so manifest that a few days
after this interview (July 2, 1776) the
New Hampshire House of Representatives
passed a formal vote recommending
his arrest,35 which was supplemented
two years later (November 19, 1778)
by a decree of proscription.

Finding hypocrisy no longer available,
sometime in August, 1776, he accepted
a commission of Lieutenant Colonel
Commandant, signed by General Howe
and empowering him to raise a battalion
of Rangers for the British Army.
To this work he now applied himself
and with success.36

On the twenty-first of October, 1776,
Rogers fought his last battle, so far as I
have been able to discover, on American
soil. His Regiment was attacked at
Mamaronec, New York, and routed by
a body of American troops. Contemporary
accounts state that he did not
display his usual valor in this action
and personally withdrew before it was
over.

The next year he returned to England,37
where, after a disreputable life of
some twenty-two or twenty-three years,
of which little is known, he is said to
have died in the year 1800.

Such are some of the more salient
points in the career of Major Robert
Rogers, the Ranger. When another
century shall have buried in oblivion
his frailties, the valor of the partizan
commander will shine in undimmed
lustre. When the historian gives place
to the novelist and the poet, his desperate
achievements portrayed by their
pens will render as romantic the borders
of Lake George, as have the daring
deeds of Rob Roy McGregor, rehearsed
by Walter Scott, made enchanting the
Shores of Lock Lomond.

ROUSED FROM DREAMS.

By ADELAIDE CILLEY WALDRON.

HISTORICAL SKETCH OF FITCHBURG

By EBENEZER BAILEY.

On the opening of the year 1764
there was in the westerly part of the
town of Lunenburg, Massachusetts, a
settlement of about forty families, consisting
of a number of farms, located
mostly on the hills surrounding a narrow
valley through which flowed the north
branch of the Nashua River, almost
screened from view by a dense forest of
pines. These people were obliged to
go four or five miles to Church and
town meeting, over narrow, uneven
roads, travelled only on horseback or
rough ox carts. Most of them were
of an independent, self-reliant type of
character, and had a mind to have a
little town and parish of their own.

Accordingly they commenced a movement
for a division of the town of Lunenburg;
and the first petition to have the
westerly part of that town set off was
presented in town meeting in 1759. At
various other town meetings a like
petition was presented and always rejected,
until January, 1764, when it was
granted, and a committee appointed to
obtain an act of incorporation from the
Legislature; and at last, on the third of
February, 1764, the Governor of the
Colony of Massachusetts Bay signed the
Act, which made Fitchburg an incorporated
town, with all the rights and privileges
usually granted, except that the
two towns of Lunenburg and Fitchburg
were to have but one representative
to the General Court.

A portion of the territory of Fitchburg
was set off a few years later to form
a part of the new town of Ashby.

The first town meeting in Fitchburg
was held in the tavern of Captain Samuel
Hunt, on the fifth of March, 1764,
when selectmen were chosen, and other
business necessary to the organization
of a town government transacted. The
next business after the necessary civil
affairs were put in order was to provide
for “Sabbath days’ preaching,” and the
Rev. Peter Whitney was hired to preach
in the house of Thomas Cowdin for a
time. It was also voted to build a meeting-house,
which was completed sufficiently
for occupancy in the autumn
of 1766, and was located between Blossom
and Mount Vernon Streets, near
Crescent Street. The land was presented
to the town by Thomas Cowdin,
a new resident, who had purchased the
tavern of Captain Samuel Hunt.

In those days the tavern keeper was
a man of great importance by virtue of
his calling, but Thomas Cowdin was in
himself a remarkable man. Energetic
and commanding by nature, his varied
experience had been of a kind to call
out his peculiar characteristics. A soldier
in the Provincial army, he served
actively in the French and Indian wars,
and rose from the ranks to the office of
captain. During the war of 1755 he
was employed in returning convalescent
soldiers to the army and in arresting
deserters. At one time he was set on
the track of a deserter, whom he found
was making his way to New York. He
followed him with characteristic celerity
and promptness, and at length found
him one Sabbath morning attending
divine service in a Dutch meeting-house.
Cowdin did not hesitate, but
entered and seized the culprit at once,
much to the surprise and consternation
of the congregation. A severe struggle
ensued, in which he barely escaped with

his life, but he finally overpowered and
secured his prisoner. He then took him
to Boston, where he received orders
to deliver him at Crown Point. So
alone through the woods for that long
distance he journeyed with his prisoner,
who well knew the fate which
awaited him; threading each day the
lonely forest, and lying down each night
to sleep by the side of the doomed
man. He delivered his prisoner safely
at Crown Point, from whence he was
taken to Montreal, and shot. For
many years Cowdin was one of the most
influential and prominent men in Fitchburg,
and enjoyed to a great degree the
confidence of his fellow citizens. He
was the first Representative to the General
Court under the new State Constitution,
and held many town offices.
A handsome monument has recently
been erected to his memory by his
grandson, Honorable John Cowdin, of
Boston.

Preaching being provided for, it was
also voted to keep two schools, and to
appropriate the sum of £8 for that purpose.
And now the town of Fitchburg
was fairly started out in life. From the
towns to the East energetic young men
began to come in with their families,
to make new homes for themselves, so
that in 1771 there were from seventy-five
to eighty families, with a total valuation
of £2,508,105. The highest tax
payer was taxed on a valuation of £121,
and the rate was over ten per cent.

There were now, from time to time,
numerous town meetings and many matters, both
grave and trivial, to discuss and
settle. Matters civil and matters ecclesiastical
were inextricably blended. There
was no separation of Church and State,
but a community firmly believing in a
personal Divine Providence, whose hand
interposed daily in all the affairs of life.
We may instance an article in the warrant
for town meeting, January, 1770,
which read as follows: “To see if the
town will relieve Widow Mary Upton
for Distress occasioned by frowns of
Divine Providence, and abate her husband’s
rates on Isaac Gibson’s and
Ebenezer Bridge’s tax lists.” The result
of the article was that Mr. Upton’s
poll tax was abated, and the frowns
of Divine Providence were doubtless
changed to smiles.

Time passed on, the town gaining in
wealth and numbers, and a comfortable,
prosperous future was the reasonable
hope of the inhabitants; but other
scenes than those of peace and quiet
were preparing; the opening scenes of
the Revolution were just at hand, and
the curtain was about to rise on the
drama of seven long years, so frought
with great results, but so wearisome,
painful, and discouraging to the actors,
from whom the future was withheld.

As early as September, 1768, the
selectmen of Fitchburg received from
the selectmen of Boston a letter requesting
them to call a town meeting to
take into consideration the critical condition
of public affairs, and to choose
an agent to meet them in Boston and
show there the “views, wishes and determinations
of the people of Fitchburg
upon the subject.” A town meeting
was accordingly called, and the Honorable
Edward Hartwell was sent jointly
by Fitchburg and Lunenburg to be
their agent in Boston.

In December, 1773 the selectmen
received another letter from the town
of Boston, requesting them to meet and
pass such resolves concerning their
rights and privileges, as they were willing
to die in maintaining, and send them
to the Committee of Correspondence.
A town meeting was held accordingly,
and a committee appointed to draft
resolutions. The report presented by

this committee at an adjourned meeting,
after expressing full sympathy in all
efforts to resist any encroachments on
the rights and liberties of the American
people, concluded as follows:

The time had now come when the
talk at the tavern, the town meeting,
the Church, and at the daily meeting
of neighbor with neighbor, was of the
rights of the colonies, and of the tyranny
of the English Government. The fires
of Liberty were already kindled from
the North to the South and from the seaports
to the frontier. Fitchburg was
not behind in preparation for the coming
storm. In the store building of
Ephraim Kimball, which was near the
corner of Main and Laurel Streets, was
the armory of the minute men, about
forty of whom were enrolled and regularly
drilled; while by vote of the town
fifty dollars was appropriated for powder,
lead and flints.

The eventful nineteenth of April, 1775,
at last arrived and found the little town
ready for action. So rapidly did the
news spread that at nine o’clock in the
morning the alarm was fired in front of
the store of Deacon Kimball. The
company had spent the previous day in
drill, and at the summons the members
promptly assembled, and being joined
by a few volunteers, about fifty men took
up their line of march for Concord, under
the command of Captain Ebenezer
Bridge, who afterwards became Colonel,
and whose regiment, in the battle of
Bunker Hill, was engaged in the fiercest
of the contest. With the minute men
was sent a large wagon loaded with
provisions, which followed them to Concord,
where they arrived in the evening,
too late to take any part in the fight.

It was now necessary to organize a
permanent army to defend the towns
around Boston; and Fitchburg and Leominster
enlisted a company of volunteers
to serve for eighteen months. At
the battle of Bunker Hill John Gibson
of Fitchburg was killed while fighting
bravely in the intrenchments.

When the Continental Congress asked
the support of the Colonies to the contemplated
Declaration of Independence,
the Massachusetts General Court sent
circulars, asking the opinion of the
several towns in regard to the measure.
The answer of Fitchburg was as follows:

In February, 1776, the warrant for
town meeting ran thus: “In his Majesty’s
name.” In May the warrant ran
as follows: “In the name of the writ to
us directed, these are in the name of
the Governor and people of Massachusetts
Bay.” After the declaration
of independence the warrant ran thus:
“In the name of the State of the
Colony of Massachusetts Bay.”

For seven long years the little town
of Fitchburg bore bravely and unflinchingly
the hardships of the war. The
burden to the inhabitants of furnishing
their quota of men, money, and provisions,
was a heavy one, the depreciation
of the currency was ruinous; and
they, in common with the rest of the

people, found themselves in serious
financial difficulties at the close of the
war. Taxes were high and money
scarce, and the efforts of the authorities
to collect the sums levied on the inhabitants
finally led to organized resistance,
which has come down to us under
the name of Shay’s Rebellion. With it
the people of Fitchburg deeply sympathized,
and in the initiatory proceedings
they took an active, though a prudent
part. In June, 1786, the town sent
Elijah Willard as a delegate to a
convention at Worcester to discuss the
grievances of the people, and voted to
defend his property if he should be
taken in person for his attendance,
“provided he behaves himself in an orderly
and peaceable manner; otherwise
he is to risk it himself.” Deeply sympathizing
with the Shayites, the people
of Fitchburg did everything in their
power to prevent the collection of taxes
by the authorities, short of armed
resistance; and the consequence was that
a military company was quartered among
them, much to their indignation; and
had they not soon been prudently withdrawn,
bloodshed might have followed.

The population of Fitchburg had not
remained stationary during the war, but
had increased from 650 to about 1,000.
At its close there was the nucleus of a
village scattered along the road near the
river, now Main Street. One might see
Cowdin’s tavern, Kimball’s saw and grist
mill, Fox’s store, a baker’s shop, and
half a dozen houses between the American
house and the upper Common.
The meeting-house upon the hill back
of Main street was a small, shabby, yellow
structure; the red store of Joseph
Fox was below, and in the rear of his
store his house with large projecting
eaves. The mill and residence of Deacon
Ephraim Kimball were near by. Up
the road, and near the present residence
of Ebenezer Torrey, was a bakery and a
dwelling-house, and beyond, towards the
west, were two or three houses and a
blacksmith shop. Pine stumps, hard-hack,
and grape vines were plentiful by
the side of the road. Such was the
village of Fitchburg in 1786.

In addition, however, to this little
centre of population there was in the
westerly part of the town, in the neighborhood
of Dean Hill, a village which
boasted a tavern, a store, and a blacksmith
shop, and boldly sat up a claim of
rivalship, and even superiority, to the little
cluster of houses in the sandy valley.
Its people petitioned to the General
Court, to be set off, with a part of
Ashburnham and Westminster, into a
new town. However, a vigorous opposition
from the inhabitants of the remainder
of the town prevented its being
granted. But, defeated in one
point, the Dean Hill people turned
to another. The time had now come
when a new Church was needed,
the little old meeting-house on the
hill being too small to accommodate
the increased population. So
they determined to have the new
Church in their vicinity, and this
determination was the beginning of a
protracted struggle to fix upon its location.
A vote was passed in town meeting
that the new Church should be located
“on the nearest convenientest
spot to the centre,” but the words
nearest, convenientest, were a cause of
furious contention. Town meeting after
town meeting was held—now victory
rested with one faction, now with the
other. Finally, after ninety-nine town
meetings, extending through a period of
ten years, the great question was settled,
and the spot was chosen near the
location of the present Unitarian
Church.

But now the leaven of heterodoxy

was creeping into New England society,
and the people, to a great extent,
turned from the theological doctrines of
their forefathers and adopted Unitarian
views. In most places there was a final
division of the original Church, and the
formation of two societies, one of the
Unitarian, and the other of Orthodox
persuasion.

Fitchburg was agitated in this way for
about twenty-four years, during which
time many ecclesiastical councils were
held, and debate and dispute were almost
continuous, both in and out of
town meeting, for neighbor was divided
against neighbor, and one member of a
household against another. The result
was the dissolution of the parochial
powers of the town, and a division into
two societies. The Unitarians remained
in the old Church, and the Orthodox
built a new building on the corner of
Main and Rollstone streets.

But while religious contention went
on, worldly growth and prosperity increased.
Quite a number of manufacturing
establishments had commenced
operations, and the value of the little
stream that furnished the power was beginning
to be appreciated.

In 1830 there were in Fitchburg 235
dwelling-houses, 2 meeting-houses, 1
academy, 12 school-houses, 1 printing
office, 2 woolen mills, 4 cotton mills, 1
scythe factory, 2 paper mills, 4 grist
mills, 10 saw mills, 3 taverns, 2 hat
manufactories, 1 bellows manufactory, 2
tanneries, 2 window blind manufactories,
and 1 chair manufactory. There
were a number of stone bridges, and a
dozen dams on the river; stages communicated
daily with Boston, Keene,
and Lowell, and left three times a week
for Worcester and Springfield, and returned
on alternate days.

Energetic, enterprising young men
were attracted to Fitchburg as a promising
place for a home, and there was
the exhilarating, hopeful atmosphere of
a new and growing town, where changes
are rapid and opportunities are many.
It was about this time that Rufus C.
Torrey wrote his history of Fitchburg,
in which work he was most substantially
aided by his friend, Nathaniel Wood,
then a public spirited young lawyer, who
had already accumulated quite an
amount of material from records and
conversations with the older residents
These two men saved from oblivion
very many valuable facts in the history
of the town.

About this time, also, the Fitchburg
High School Association was formed
and an academy built, and in 1838 the
Fitchburg Library Association was organized,
both of which institutions
were valuable educational influences.

From 1840 to 1860 the town continued
to grow steadily. New paper mills
were built in West Fitchburg, the chair
business enlarged greatly, the iron business
was introduced by the Putnam
Brothers, and grew rapidly, and various
other branches of industry were begun
and prospered. The Fitchburg Railroad
was built, followed by the Vermont
and Massachusetts, the Fitchburg and
Worcester, and the Agricultural Branch
Railroads, all centreing in Fitchburg and
bringing an increase of business.

At the breaking out of the war of the
Rebellion the town contained nearly
8,000 inhabitants, and during the war
Fitchburg did her part, answering all
calls promptly and sending her best
men to the field. Her history in that
contest is well told by Henry A. Willis,
in his history of “Fitchburg in the War
of the Rebellion.” Nine companies
were organized in the town, and 750
Fitchburg men sent into the field.

The years immediately following the
war were years of prosperity and rapid

growth. March 8, 1872, Fitchburg was
incorporated as a city. The infant
township of 108 years before had
grown to a city of 12,000 inhabitants.
The little stream which then turned the
wheel of the one solitary saw and grist
mill had since been harnessed to the
work of many mills and manufactories,
and on either side were the homes
of hundreds, dependent on its power
for their daily bread. Railroads carried
the products of these establishments to
the limits of our own and to foreign
countries, and brought to the busy city
from the East and from the West all
the necessaries and all the luxuries of
life. Can it be that the dead of past
generations, who sleep on the hillside
which overlooks the valley, have seen
this transformation, and if so, will they
behold all the changes of the future?
Then may this and the coming generations
prove themselves worthy of those
who, during the years that have passed,
have been its bone and sinew and life
blood.

SUNDAY TRAVEL AND THE LAW.

By CHESTER F. SANGER.

The Legislature of 1884 has placed
an act upon our statute book which
rounds out and completes an act looking
in the same direction passed by the
Legislature of 1877. Chapter 37 of the
Acts of 1884 provides that “The provisions
of chapter ninety-eight of the
Public Statutes relating to the observance
of the Lord’s day shall not constitute
a defence to an action for a tort or
injury suffered by a person on that day.”

Chapter 232 of the Acts of 1877
provided that common carriers of passengers
should no longer escape liability
for their negligence in case of accidents
to passengers, by reason of the injury
being received on Sunday. This act
marked a long step forward in the policy
of this Commonwealth, and made it no
longer possible for a corporation openly
violating the law to escape the consequences
of its illegal acts by saying to
the injured passenger, “You were
breaking the law yourself, and therefore
you have no redress against us.”

This was a condition of things which
worked a confusion of relations, and
lent “doubtful aid to morality;” resting
on “no principle of justice” or law, and
creating a “species of judicial outlawry
which ignored alike the principles of
humanity and the analogies of the law.”

The provisions more particularly referred
to in these Acts are those relating
to travelling on the Lord’s day,
found in the Statutes as follows:—

“Whoever travels on the Lord’s day,
except from necessity or charity, shall
be punished by fine not exceeding ten
dollars for each offence.”—Pub. Stat.,
Chap. 98, sect. 2. It is an interesting
and curious study to follow the changes
made in the Sunday law, so called, with
the accompanying judicial decisions, as
one by one the hindrances to the attainment
of simple justice by travellers injured
on the Lord’s day have been swept
away.

The Pilgrims brought many strange
ideas with them to their new home, as

we all well know, and we find these reflected
in their statute books in the
form of many “blue laws,” some of
which may yet be found in changed
garb in the form of constantly disregarded
“dead letter” laws in our own
Public Statutes. Interesting as a general
discussion of this subject is, as
showing the character and purposes of
the founders of the Republic, we can
follow but one division of the Sunday
law in its various forms since it was first
framed by our “Puritan ancestors, who
intended that the day should be not
merely a day of rest from labor, but
also a day devoted to public and private
worship and to religious meditation and
repose, undisturbed by secular cares or
amusements,” and among whom were
found some who thought death the only
fit punishment for those who, as they
considered it, “prophaned” the Lord’s
day.

As early as 1636 it was enacted by
the Court of the Plymouth Colony that,
“Whereas, complaint is made of
great abuses in sundry places of this
Government of prophaning the Lord’s
day by travellers, both horse and foot,
by bearing of burdens, carrying of packs,
etc., upon the Lord’s day to the great
offence of the Godly welafected
among us. It is, therefore, enacted by
the Court and the authoritie thereof
that if any person or persons shall be
found transgressing in any of the precincts
of any township within this Government,
he or they shall be forthwith
apprehended by the Constable of such
a town and fined twenty shillings, to the
Collonie’s use, or else shall sit in the
stocks four hours, except they can give
a sufficient reason for theire soe doeing;
but they that ’soe transgresse’ must be
apprehended on the Lord’s day and
’paye theire fine or sitt in the stockes
as aforesaide’ on the second day thereafter.”
It seems, however, that in
spite of the pious sentiments of the
framers of the law it was not, or could
not be enforced, for in 1662 it was further
enacted that “This Court doth desire
that the transgression of the foregoing
order may be carefully looked
into and p’r’vented if by any due
course it may be.”

But even now it seems that the energies
of the law-makers were of no avail
in preventing prophanation of the Holy
day by “foraignors and others,” so that
twenty years later, in 1683, we find that
“To prevent prophanation of the Lord’s
day by foraignors or any others unessesary
travelling through our Townes on
that day. It is enacted by the Court that
a fitt man in each Towne be chosen,
unto whom whosever hath nessessity of
travell on the Lord’s day in case of
danger of death, or such necessitous
occations shall repaire, and makeing out
such occations satisfyingly to him shall
receive a Tickett from him to pas on
about such like occations;” but, “if he
attende not to this,” or “if it shall appeare
that his plea was falce,” the hand
of the law was likely to fall upon him
while he contributed twenty shillings
“to the use of the Collonie.”

In the Massachusetts Bay Province
it was early enacted that “no traveller
… shall travel on the Lord’s day …
except by some adversity they are belated
and forced to lodge in the woods,
wilderness, or highways the night before,
and then only to the next inn,” under a
penalty of twenty shillings.

In 1727 it was found that notwithstanding
the many good and wholesome
laws made to prevent the “prophanation
of the Lord’s day,” this same
“prophanation” was on the increase,
and so it was enacted that the penalty
for the first offense should be thirty
shillings, and for the second, three

pounds, while the offender, presumably
a “foraignor,” was to be put under a
bond to observe the Sabbath day and
keep it holy according to the ideas of
the straight-laced Puritans.

Even this did not put an end to the
good fathers’ troubles, for in 1760,
“whereas, by reason of different constructions
of the several laws now in force
relating to the observation of the Lord’s
day or Christain Sabbath, the said laws
have not been duly executed, and notwithstanding
the pious intention of the
legislators, the Lord’s Day hath been
greatly and frequently prophaned” all the
laws relating to the observance thereof
were repealed and a new chapter enacted,
one section of which, and the
only one in which we are now interested,
was the same as the law of 1727, above
quoted.

Thirty-one years later all these laws
were again erased from the statute book
and a new attempt was made to frame a
law which should leave no loop-holes
for foraignors or others, as follows:
“Whereas the observance of the Lord’s
day is highly promotive of the welfare of
a community by affording necessary seasons
for relaxation from labor and the
cares of business; for moral reflections
and conversation on the duties of life,
and the frequent errors of human conduct;
for public and private worship of
the Maker, Governor, and Judge of the
world; and for those acts of charity
which support and adorn a Christian
society. Be it enacted that no person
shall travel on the Lord’s day except
from necessity or charity, upon penalty
of a sum not exceeding twenty shillings
and not less than ten.” Notice
what an interesting and moral tone
is given to the otherwise dry statute
book by these sermonizing preambles
which reflect so well the motives and
aims of the men who moulded and
formed the statute laws of the Commonwealth.

In this act appears for the first time
that “charity” which since then has
truly “covered a multitude of sins,”
while it has as often been a strong tower
of defence to corporations clearly shown
to have been careless of their obligations
to the public. One of the first cases
to arise in which these words “necessity
or charity” must be judicially construed
was Commonwealth vs. James Knox, 6
Mass., 76.

One Josiah Paine had contracted
with the Post Master General of the
United States to carry the public mail
between Portland and Boston on each
day of the week for two years from October
1, 1808, and Knox, his servant,
was indicted for unlawfully travelling
while carrying the mail with a stage
carriage through the town of Newburyport
on November 20, 1808, the same
being Sabbath or Lord’s day, and the
said travelling not being from necessity or
charity. Chief Justice Parsons in delivering
the opinion of the Supreme Court,
after showing the authority of Congress
under the Constitution to establish post-offices
and post-roads, and the consequent
legality of Paine’s contract, the
statutue of his State notwithstanding,
says that “necessity … cannot be understood
as a physical necessity …
and when this travelling is necessary to
execute a lawful contract it cannot be
considered as unnecessary travelling,
against the prohibition of the Statute.”
But fearing that this decision may open
too wide the gate to Sabbath breakers
the Chief Justice hastens to add: “But
let it be remembered that our opinion
does not protect travellers in the stage
coach, or the carrier of the mail in driving
about any town to discharge or to
receive passengers; and much less in
blowing his horn to the disturbance of

serious people either at public worship
or in their own houses. The carrier may
proceed with the mail on the Lord’s
day to the post-office; he may go to
any public house to refresh himself and
his horses; and he may take the mail
from the post-office and proceed on his
route. Any other liberties on the Lord’s
day our opinion does not warrant.”

The report naively says, that after this
opinion the Attorney General entered
a nolle proscqui.

In Pearce vs. Atwood, 13 Mass., 324,
a case which arose in 1816 and which
attracted a great deal of notice at the
time, Chief Justice Parker says: “It is
not necessary to resort to the laws promulgated
by Moses, in order to prove
that the Christian Sabbath ought to be
observed by Christians, as a day of holy
rest and religious worship; and if it were
it would be difficult to make out the point
contended for from that source;” and
then goes into a long disquisition upon
the Mosaic law and the precepts of the
Saviour and finally says that “cases often
arise in which it will be both innocent
and laudable for the most exemplary
citizen to travel on Sunday. Suppose
him suddenly called to visit a child, or
other near relative, in a distant town
laboring under a dangerous illness; or
suppose him to be a physician; or suppose
a man’s whole fortune and the
future comfort of his family to depend
upon his being at a remote place early on
Monday morning, he not having known
the necessity until Saturday evening;
these are all cases which would generally
be considered as justifying the act
of travelling.” Certainly a somewhat
broader view than that taken by the
Court seven years earlier.

The law remained thus and was re-enacted
in the Revised Statutes of 1836,
the penalty being raised, however, to ten
dollars. In civil cases arising out of
damages sustained by travellers upon the
Lord’s day, corporations defendant were
quick to take advantage of the law and
to rely upon the illegality of the plaintiff’s
act of travelling, as a good defence
to his action.

In 1843 arose the case of Bosworth
vs. Inhabitants of Swansey, 10 Metcalf,
363. Bosworth was travelling on the
eleventh of June of that year, being
Sunday, from Warren, Rhode Island, to
Fall River on business connected with a
suit in the United States Court, and was
injured by reason of a defect in a highway
in Swansey.

The defendant town admitted that it
was by law required to keep the highway
in repair. And plaintiffs counsel
argued that as the statute provided a
penalty of ten dollars for travelling on
Sunday it could not be further maintained
that there was the additional penalty
that a man could have no legal redress
for damages suffered by reason of
the neglect or refusal of defendants to
do that which the law required them to
do. But the court ruled, Chief Justice
Shaw delivering the opinion, “that the
plaintiff was plainly violating the law
and that since he could recover from the
town only, if free from all just imputation
of negligence or fault,” in this case
he could recover nothing. In deciding
this case, however, the Court was not
called upon to construe the terms “necessity
or charity,” as affecting the liability
of corporations plainly shown to be negligent
in the performance of their duties
to others; but many such cases soon
arose.

In Commonwealth vs. Sampson, Judge
Hoar said, “the definition which has
been given of the phrase necessity or
charity … that it comprehends all
acts which it is morally fit and proper
should be done on the Sabbath may itself
require some explanation. To

save life, or prevent or relieve suffering;
to prepare useful food for man and
beast, to save property, as in case of fire,
flood, or tempest … unquestionably fall
within the exception … But if fish in the
bay, or birds on the shore, happened to
be uncommonly abundant on the Lord’s
day, it is equally clear that it would furnish
no excuse for fishing or shooting on
that day. How it would be if a whale
happened to be stranded on the shore
we need not determine.” It is needless
to remark that this was a decision
affecting the interests of a town upon
the coast.

In Feital vs. Middlesex R.R. Co.,
109 Mass., 398, plaintiff was injured
while returning from a Spiritualist meeting
in Malden, and counsel for defendant
maintained that the meeting was
attended for idolatry and jugglery,
and while it might be the right of the
plaintiff to be an idolater and to attend
shows, yet she could not do so in violation
of the Statute, which was intended
to protect the conscience of the majority
of the people from being offended
upon the Lord’s day. But the Court
ruled that it could not be said as matter
of law that travelling for such a purpose
was not within the exception, and that
it must be left to the jury to say if the
plaintiff was in attendance in good faith
for devotional exercise as matter of conscience.

In How vs. Meakin, 115 Mass., 326,
the court held that it was not a violation
of the law to hire a horse and
drive to a neighboring town to attend
the funeral of plaintiff’s brother.

But it was held in a later case that
plaintiff, who had been to a funeral on
the Lord’s day and was returning therefrom
by a somewhat circuitous route
for the purpose of calling upon a relative,
was not entitled to recover for damages
sustained by reason of a defect in
the highway. This was the opinion of a
divided court as has been the case in
several decisions where the question of
“necessity or charity” has been a close
one.

Such are a few of the interesting
cases which have arisen in our Courts
involving discussion of the law originally
framed in 1636, and which still
makes it a criminal offence punishable
by a fine of ten dollars to walk or ride
upon the Lord’s day, save from necessity
or charity, while our cities furnish free
concerts and license all sorts of performances
in places of public amusement
under the guise of “sacred” concerts,
upon the day which our fathers thought
and meant should be set apart for
moral reflection … on the duties of life
… and for public and private worship
of the Maker, Governor, and Judge of
the world.

ELIZABETH.

A ROMANCE OF COLONIAL DAYS.

BY FRANCES C. SPARHAWK, Author of “A Lazy Man’s Work.”

GOVERNOR CLEVELAND AND THE ROMAN CATHOLIC
PROTECTORY.

BY CHARLES COWLEY, LL.D.

It is not often that a Governor’s objections
to a measure, which his veto
has defeated, become, even indirectly,
the subject of judicial consideration.
Such, however, has been the experience
of Governor Cleveland in connection
with his veto of the appropriation, which
was made in 1883, to the Roman Catholic
Protectory of the City of New York.
And it must be gratifying to him as a
constitutional lawyer, to see the principles
of that veto entirely approved by
all the judges of the Court of Appeals,
as well as by all the judges by whom
those principles were considered, before
the case, in which they were involved,
reached that august tribunal, the highest
in the judicial system of that State.

By an amendment to the Constitution
of New York, adopted in 1874, it is provided
that, “Neither the credit nor the
money of the State shall be given, or
loaned to, or in aid of, any association,
corporation, or private undertaking.”

It would hardly seem possible to mistake
the meaning of a prohibition like
this; but this prohibition is accompanied
by the following modification: “This

section shall not, however, prevent the
Legislature from making such provision
for the education and support of the
blind, the deaf and dumb, and juvenile
delinquents, as to it may seem proper;
nor shall it apply to any fund or property,
now held by the State for educational
purposes.”

The question, how far this qualifying
clause limits the proceeding prohibition,
arose first in the Court of Common
Pleas, and afterwards in the Court of
Appeals, in the case of the Shepherd’s
Fold of the Protestant Episcopal Church
vs. The Mayor, Aldermen and Commonalty
of the City of New York.38 The
Attorney-General of the State had given
an official opinion, tending to the conclusion
that the prohibition is almost entirely
neutralized by the modification.
The Judges of the Court of Common
Pleas, and the lawyers who argued this
case in either court, differed widely upon
the question, whether money raised by
local taxation by the City of New York,
under the authority of the State law,
for the maintainance of the children of
the Shepherd’s Fold, was, or was not,
“money of the State,” and therefore included
in the terms of this prohibition;
and when one sees how much is done in
the discussions of the able counsel before
the Court of final resort, and by
the learned opinion of Judge Rapello,
to reconcile these differences, one can not
but wish that the Old Bay State had
a similar Court of Appeals, to revise
and clarify the decisions of her Supreme
Court. About twenty-five per
cent, of all the decisions of the General
Terms of the Supreme Court, Superior
Court, and Court of Common
Pleas, which are carried to the Court of
Appeals, are there reversed; and can
any lawyer doubt that, at least, as large
a proportion of the decisions of our
Supreme Judicial Court ought also to be
revised and reversed?

The Court of Appeals says: “It
seems to us that that section [to wit,
the prohibition above quoted] had reference
to money raised by general taxation
throughout the State, or revenues of
the State, or money otherwise belonging
to the State treasury, or payable out
of it.”

The money claimed by the Shepherd’s
Fold being raised by local taxation for a
local purpose in the city of New York,
and not “by general taxation throughout
the State,” the Court of Appeals
holds that it is not within the terms of
the Constitutional prohibition, and therefore
reverses the decision of the Court of
Common Pleas on that particular point,
while agreeing with it on the main question.

As the money, appropriated to the
Roman Catholic Protectory, was unquestionably
money of the State, “being
raised by general taxation throughout the
State,” that appropriation was unquestionably
in conflict with the prohibition
of the Constitution, which the Governor
was sworn to support.

Of the courage and independence
displayed by Governor Cleveland in
thus vetoing a measure in which so large
a number of his political supporters
might be supposed to feel so deep an
interest, this is not the place to speak.
But it is creditable to him as a lawyer
that alone without a single precedent to
guide him, relying upon his own judicial
sense, and rejecting the opinion of a
former Attorney-General, he challenged
“the validity of this appropriation under
that section of the Constitution.” The
Protectory, he says, “appears to be local
in its purposes and operations.” And
being a sectarian charity, he adds, “Public
funds should not be contributed to
its support. A violation of this principle
in this case would tend to subject
the state treasury to demands in behalf
of all sorts of sectarian institutions,
which a due care for the money of the
State, and a just economy, could not
concede.”

In the higher and broader field of
public service—”the grandest throne on
earth”—as the Presidency which he is
about to enter, has been grandiloquently
called, let us hope that he will display
the same honesty, capability, and fidelity
to the Constitution. We shall then
be assured that the interests of the Republic
will suffer no detriment at his
hands.