F 74 .C3 W5 Copy 2 CHARLEMOIT AS A PLANTATION. AN HISTORICAL DISCOURSE CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY OF THE DEATH MOSES RICE, THE FIRST SETTLER OF THE TOWN DELIVERED AT (Ml A E L E M O NT. M A S S JUNE II, 1855. BY JOSEPH WHITE BOSTON: PRESS OF T. R. MARVIN & SON, 42 CONGRESS STREET. 1858. CHAKLEMONT AS A PLANTATION. AN HISTORICAL DISCOURSE CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY OF THE DEATH MOSES RICE, THE FIRST SETTLER OF THE TOWN, DELIVERED AT CHARLEMONT, MASS JUNE 11, 1855. BY JOSEPH WHITE. BOSTON: PRESS OF T. R. MARVIN & SON, 42 CONGRESS STREET. 1858. CckU In Town Meeting, Charleniont, April 7, 185(J, On motion, " Voted, To take measures to publish the Address delivered in Charlemont, June 11, 1855, by Joseph White. Esq., and place a copy of the same in every family in town." " Voted, To choose a Committee of three, to secure the publication of the Ad- dress, and to secure and protect as a Burial-ground, the spot where Captain like and Mr. Arms were buried." On motion, the following named persons were then appointed by the Moderator, said Committee: — Alexander P. Maxwell, Samuel Potter, and Dr. A. H. Taylor. Attest, F. W. WHITE, Town Clerk. fcwwi fe talnywm , DISCOURSE. ^ Fellow Citizens : In obedience to the call of your Committee, I stand before you to-day. I come from the cares and anxieties of active busi- ness, to call your thoughts, for a brief space, away from the busy present to the solemn past. Without farther preface or apology, I invite your attention to a simple, and, so far as my time and materials would allow, a connected statement of the origin of this town, and its history during its existence as a plantation ; together with some brief notices of the families of the first settlers. On the 27th day of June, A. D. 1735, the House of Repre- sentatives took the following action on a petition of the town of Boston, to wit : " Voted, That there be, and hereby is granted to the town of Boston, three tracts of land, each of the contents : of "six miles square ; and to be laid out in some suitable place or places in the unappropriated lands of the Province for Townships, by a surveyor and chainman on oath, and to return plans whereof to this Court for confirmation, within twelve months ; provided, the town of Boston do, within five years from the confirmation of the said plans, settle on each of the said towns, sixty families of his Majesty's good subjects, inhabitants of this Province, in as regular and defensible a manner as the lands will admit of ; each of said sixty fam- ilies to build and finish a dwelling-house on his home lot, of the following dimensions, viz : Eighteen feet square and seven feet stud at the least ; that each of the said settlers within said town bring to, and fit for improve- ment, five acres of said home lot, either by plowing or for mowing, by stocking the same with English grass, and fence the same well in, and actually live on the spot : — and, also, that they build and finish a suitable and convenient House for the public worship of God, and settle a learned, orthodox minister, in each of the said towns, and provide for their honor- able and comfortable support : — and, also, lay out three hoiise-lots in each of said towns, each of which to draw a sixty-third part of said town, in all future divisions ; one to be for the first settled minister, one for the ministry, and one for the school." On the 15th of June, 1736, agreeably to one of the provisions of the grant, a plat of ground was presented to the General Court, containing twenty -three thousand and forty acres of land, laid out by Nathaniel Kellogg, surveyor, and two chainmen under oath, and called " Number One," bounded as follows, viz : " Beginning at a hemlock tree on the southerly side of Deerfield river, about forty rods from said river, at the north end of a mountain, near the crotch of said river, thence running east nineteen degrees south, two thousand eight hundred and sixty perch ; from thence north seventeen hundred and five perch, to a stake and stones ; then west six degrees north, two thousand four hundred and fifteen perch ; then south nineteen degrees west to the aforementioned tree ; bounded on unappropriated lands of the Province on every side, except the east, which is bounded partly on the Township Number Two " ; — the survey of which was also presented to the House, at the same time, by Mr. Kellogg. This irregular plat of ground, with a southern border of about 9.93 miles, an eastern of 5.32 miles, and a northern of 7.54 miles, called Boston Township Number One, constituted the original plantation, and, afterwards, town of Charlemont. It is much to be regretted that we have no means of ascertaining from what source our goodly town received its name, or at what date the name was given. The earliest mention of it which I have been able to discover, is in the deed, hereafter mentioned, from Phineas Stevens to Othniel Taylor, dated Nov. 3, 1742, wherein it is styled, " Checkley's Town, otherwise called Charlemont." In pursuance of a vote of the freeholders and other inhabitants of Boston, at a legal meeting held on the third day of May, A. D. 1737, the Selectmen sold the Township Number One, to John Read, Esq., for One Thousand and Twenty Pounds. The convey- ance was made to him on the 14th day of July following, and bound him to comply with the conditions of the original grant to Boston. On the 14th day of December, in the same year, Read conveyed the Township to John Checkley and Gershom Keyes, with a reservation to himself of one thousand seven hundred and sixty acres in the north-west part of the tract, binding them, also, to a compliance with the terms of the original grant. Keyes and Checkley conveyed, December 17, 1737, to Thomas Hancock, " five hundred acres at least," on the east line of the tract. November 16, 1738, Keyes conveyed one quarter part of the "whole township to Benjamin Woods, after reserving six thousand acres for actual settlers, and the one thousand seven hundred and sixty acres already reserved by John Read. And in December following, Keyes received from Checkley a power of attorney to deed the six thousand acres to settlers. As such attorney, on the 23d of April, A. D. 1741, Keyes sold to Moses Rice, of Rutland, in the County of Worcester, two thousand two hundred acres of land, the west line beginning on the north bank of the Deerfield river, nearly opposite the mouth of Checkley's river — more correctly, forty-four rods below the mouth — and the east line being at a pine tree, standing in, or near, the small rivulet which crosses the road, in the farm of Rev. Joseph Field, and running north four hundred and twenty rods : also a fifty acre lot, " lying east of the common lands left by the meeting-house place, bounded south on the river, and west by lands left for commonage and meeting-house." During the same year, Keyes sold other portions of the town- ship as follows: — To Nathaniel Cunnngham, Benjamin Clark, and Ebenezer Storer, fifteen hundred and eighty-four acres, lying in the north-east corner of the town. November 18, to Phineas Stevens, of Deerfield, five hundred acres, lying south of Deerfield river, in the south-east corner of the town ; and also, as the attor- ney for Checkley, five hundred acres on the north side of the river and on the east line of the town, and running thence west two hundred rods, and north far enough to include the five hundred acres. December 16, to William Ward, one thousand acres, join- ing John Reed's land. December 29, to David Baldwin, one thousand acres, between Hancock's and Ward's. On the 3d of November, 1742, Phineas Stevens sold the two lots which he had purchased of Keyes, as before mentioned, to Othniel Taylor of Deerfield, for the sum of one thousand pounds, old tenor. During the same year Keyes made other sales as follows, viz : January 8, to William Ward, nine hundred and fifty acres. October 19, to Nathaniel Martin, five hundred and six acres, " bounded west on Moses Rice, north on common land, south on Deerfield river." 6 In November, as attorney to Checkley, five hundred acres to John Stearns, on the south side of the river, and five hundred on the north side, " bounded northerly and westerly partly on com- mon lands." On the 20th of the same month he also sold to Stearns one thou- sand one hundred and sixty-one acres, bounded south on the river, and north on Hancock's farm ; and one hundred acres to Benjamin Hayward, " bounded south on the river and north by common lands ; " and December 27, to Elisha Dyer, four hundred acres, " lying west of Othniel Taylor's farm." On the 27th of January, 1743, (N. S.) Keyes sold to William Ward all his remaining right and interest in the township, which he thus describes : " The one moiety or half part of a certain township, called Charlemont, lying on Deerfield river, in the County of Hampshire. It being the whole I purchased of John Read, as may appear by a deed of sale, bearing date the 14th day of December, 1737, and recorded at Springfield, the 30th day of the aboves d December, as will appear by the said deed, except- ing my part of all that is sold to Mr. Thomas Hancock, Captain Rice, John Stearns, and to a number of other persons, as may appear by their Deeds, Recorded at Springfield, Bounded as may appear by the aboves d Deed." Nearly eight years had now elapsed since the original grant to Boston ; and, although large portions of the territory had, as we have seen, been disposed of to numerous purchasers, yet Boston had satisfied herself with pocketing the money*, and handing over her obligations " to bring on the settlements " to John Read, her grantee. Read, following the example of Boston, had taken no other steps to further the settlement of the town than to transfer the obligations which he had assumed to Checkley and Keyes. And it appears that most of the grantees of Checkley and Keyes, had, like them, purchased for purposes of speculation, and not of settlement. This quiet valley, now so beautiful with its garniture of green, and these guardian hills, still bore up the ancient forest. But the time appointed for a wonderful change was at hand. The axe was now to be laid at the root of the giant trees ; the blue smoke was now to curl from the low cabin of the pioneer ; and the voice of industry, and the notes of prayer and praise, were now to arise ; and the long, dark reign of wild beast, and wilder man, not with- out a bitter struggle, was soon to cease forever. The first settler — the patriarch of the valley — was on his way. In the spring of 1743, if not, indeed, in the previous autumn, Moses Rice, of Hut- land, in the County of Worcester, removed with his family to the town, and settled upon the tract which he had previously pur- chased. It is impossible, at this late period, to determine precisely the day, or month even, of the first settlement. Capt. Rice, as we have seen, had made his purchase in April, 1741 ; but that he did not remove from Rutland previous to the autumn of 1742, is evident from the following record of a town meeting held in Rutland, August 9th, of that year. " Voted, That the town accept of Mr. Buckminster's contract, and join in his ordination ; and chose Eleazer Ball, Capt. Moses Rice, and Daniel Estabrook, a committee to provide for the same." That he did not remove later than the spring of 1743, is evi- dent from the following statement, which I find in a petition pre- sented by him to the General Court, on the 4th day of December, 1752, viz : " The Petition of Moses Rice, of a place called Charle- mont, in the County of Hampshire, Humbly Shews, " That it is about ten years since your petitioner went to live in said Place, and was the first family that moved there." In view of these facts, especially when we consider the severe privations and hardships to which his family must have been exposed during the first winter's residence, with no other pre- paration to meet them, than a settlement late in the season would allow, I think we may safely conclude that Capt. Rice removed his family to this place early in the spring of 1743. Whether the entire family removed at this time, cannot now be determined. Of his seven children, his eldest son Samuel was twenty-three years of age, had been married nearly two years, and was the father of one son, born April 5, 1742; and his eldest daughter, Abigail, was married to James Heaton, of Rutland, April 11, 1743. The remaining children were minors, the youngest son, Artemas, being but nine years of age. It is quite probable that Capt. Rice and his sons had visited the place during the previous summer, and begun the work of prepa- ration ; had cleared portions of the meadow and prepared them for cultivation ; had hewn the timber, and, perhaps, erected the house which was to be his future home. This supposition receives some support from the statement of his son, Sylvanus Rice, handed down to us by his daughter, the late Mrs. Fuller, that " he had slept under the buttonwood tree," still standing by the roadside, near the dwelling of Mr. William Patch, " when there was no other white person in town." Tradition informs us that the first house was erected on, or near, the spot where the house of Mr. Patch now stands, upon the high grounds overlooking the beautiful fields at the west, which, from their being first cultivated, have, from time immemorial, been called the " Old Fields." Capt. Rice's dwelling was the outpost of civilization in north- western Massachusetts, there being none other, west of the valley of the Connecticut, excepting in Coleraine. His supplies were to be procured at Deerfield, and his corn carried thither to mill, a distance of twenty-two miles, and over a road which was little else than a bridle path. Feeblv, indeed, can we of the present generation conceive of, and, much less, adequately appreciate the difficult and exhausting labors, the privations and hardships experienced by the little band of hardy adventurers who leveled the primeval forests and turned the first furrow in these peaceful fields, which now smile, in quiet beauty, beneath our eyes. Yet, with strong hands and resolute hearts, the father and his youthful sons went to their work. The forests retreated before them ; the harvest was gathered ; comforts were multiplied ; the signs of plenty increased ; and a prosperous and smiling future seemed before them. But other scenes than these, were soon to open upon them ; another and more terrible element was to be added to the hard- ships of frontier life, — the fear of the tomahawk and scalping- knife. From the close of Sebastian Rolle's or the Jesuits' war, in 1725, the colonists had enjoyed a period, unusully protracted, of exemption from the depredations of the Indian foe. At the close of that war, great efforts had been made to cultivate relations of good-will with the Indians who yet remained in New England, or who visited the borders from the neighboring provinces and from Canada. Trading-houses had been erected at Fort Dummer, and at other points in the wilderness, on the eastern and northern fron- tiers, and well stocked with such goods as the Indians were accustomed to procure, and furnished to them in exchange for furs 9 and other products of the chase. Conferences were held with the sachems of the leading tribes, and mutual assurances given that the "covenant of peace should remain unshaken." " Nevertheless," says Gen. Hoyt, x " it was evident that the Indians still harbored dispositions not very friendly to the English, and that a war between France and England was alone Avanting to turn them once more upon the frontiers of the Colonies. As they often resorted to the exterior settlements and trading-posts for traffic, it was common for them to visit the families whom they had cruelly injured in the preceding wars, and to recount their exploits ; the cruel murders and tortures practiced upon their friends ; and, when provoked or intoxicated, to threaten a reiteration of their former cruelties, should war afford them opportunities." These opportunities were not long delayed. On the 29th of March, 1744, Great Britain declared war against France and Spain. It was proclaimed in Boston in June. " At the declaration of war," — and I again quote Gen. Hoyt, — " many Indians who had been active in the former war, resided about the frontiers on the Connecticut, as well as at the fishing stations on that river. By a friendly intercourse, many had become known to the English settlers, and a kind of attachment had been created, which it was hoped would operate as a check to their ferocity. But their ardor for plunder and carnage overcame their apparent feelings of amity ; and finding an opportunity for gratify- ing their inclinations, they suddenly left their stations and repaired to Canada, to join the hostile tribes in that quarter. Perfectly acquainted with the topography of the country on the frontiers of the Colonies, they were employed during the Avar, not only in predatory incursions of their OAvn, but as guides to other and more distant Indians." Such Avas the character of the foe Avith whom our fathers were called to contend, and Avhose predatory forays spread devastation and death throughout the feeble settlements upon our northern borders. Planning their expeditions in Canada, they passed down lake Champlain to Crown Point, or to the head of the lake, and thence up Otter Creek to the highlands in Vermont, called the half-Avay mountain. Here they separated into smaller parties, some of which followed down Wells or Black rivers, to attack 1 Antiquarian Researches, p. 228. 10 the settlements on the Connecticut ; while others passed southerly to the head-waters of the Dcerfield and its tributaries, to fall upon the feeble settlements in this quarter ; and others still followed "Wood Creek from Whitehall to the Hudson and Hoosic, and up the latter stream to the mountain, and following the " old Indian road " across the summit, fell upon settlements in the valleys of the Deerfield and Connecticut. To arrest the progress of these parties, and guard the exposed frontiers, the following scheme of defence was adopted. Fort Dummer, on the right bank of the Connecticut, in the present town of Vernon, Vermont, was repaired and suitably garrisoned, and a line of small forts was projected, to extend from Fort Dummer, westward on the highlands above the settlements, to the upper valley of the Hoosic river, in the present town of Adams. In pursuance of this plan, during the summer of 1744, Fort Shirley was erected, in the north-eastern part of Heath ; Fort Pelham, on Pelham brook, in Rowe ; and Fort Massachusetts, nearly at the northern base of Saddle mountain, in the beautiful meadow on the banks of the Hoosic river, and now owned by Clement Harrison, Esq. Fort Morrison, and two other small forts, or mounts, were also erected in Coleraine, in the following year. These were all built under the supervision of Ephraim Williams, Jr., then a young and active officer, with the commission of Cap- tain in the Hampshire regiment, under the command of Col. John Stoddard, of Northampton ; and afterwards the gallant and be- loved commander of the third Massachusetts regiment of " new levies," in the expedition of Sir William Johnson against Crown Point. His early and lamented fall in the " bloody morning scout " at Lake George, September 8, 1755, and his dying legacy, afterwards the foundation of the College which bears his name, have embalmed his memory in the hearts of the people of Western Massachusetts. These forts were built of logs, squared and matched, or of hewn plank, and surrounded with pickets — squared timber, sharp- ened and driven into the ground, so as to form a continuous fence, and tolerably secure against musketry. They were supplied with small iron guns or swivels, and garrisoned by small parties of sol- diers. Besides guarding the settlements in their vicinity, they also furnished protection and points of rendezvous to the scouting parties which were ranging from fort to fort, and often far into the 11 wilderness, to discover the trail and break up the war-parties of the Indian enemy. With his head-quarters at Fort Massachusetts, which was the most important post, Capt. Williams was intrusted with the command of the other forts, and with the defence of the entire frontier west of the Connecticut. llelying upon the defence thus afforded, Capt. Rice, remained in his exposed position, with no extra guard, except for a few months, and continued his labors in cultivating his lands. His house was situated on the direct line of travel between Deerfield and Fort Massachusetts, and was the welcome home of the colonial troops, passing to and from these points, and a grateful shelter to the small parties of scouts in their dangerous marches. His own language, taken from the petition already quoted, will best describe his position at that period. It is as follows : " That his living was of great service, as he humbly apprehends, to the public, as being the only house where people could be supplied ; and, as soldiers were often traveling that way, as well as small parties of scouts, it was very expensive to your petitioner, who often supplied them at his own costs." Thus, while the war was raging, and dangers threatened on every side, he remained unmolested till August, 1746. On the 20th day of that month, Fort Massachusetts was invested by a force of eight hundred French and Indians, under the command of M. Rigaud de Vaudreuil. After a gallant defence of twenty- eight hours, by the little garrison of twenty-two men commanded by Sergeant John Hawks, of Deerfield, they were compelled, from want of ammunition, to capitulate. During the same week, Capt. Rice removed his family to Deer- field. This timely flight proved their salvation from the horrors of an Indian massacre. For, on his return to Charlemont, a short time afterwards, to look after his property, he found that the sav- age had been there, and that the fire had done its work. His losses are best related in his own plain and simple words. He says : " That as he was not defended, he at the time drew off with his wife and family to Deerfield ; and returning in order to take care of his things, found his house was burnt, with a good stock of provisions therein, (or carried away,) by the enemy, as was all his household goods, Avith a considerable parcel of clothing ; his stock of cattle, being seven oxen and cows, together with six very good fat hogs, were all killed by the enemy ; his crop of grain, at 12 least three hundred bushels, with all his hay, husbandry, tools, and many other things, all destroyed ; his loss being at least fifteen hundred pounds, Old Tenor." ] This destruction was doubtless the work of the fifty Indians who left Vaudreuil's camp, immediately after Fort Massachusetts had capitulated, in order to surprise Deer- field, and were engaged in the " Bars fight " in that town, on Monday, the 25th of August. Finding his home desolated, and his property destroyed, Capt. Rice returned, with his family, to Rutland, where he remained about three years, till the close of the war. In the month of December following, Aaron Rice, his second son, volunteered to serve in the garrison at Fort Pelham, Avhere he was stationed more than a year. 2 While residing at Rutland, his second daughter, Dinah Rice, was married to Joseph Stevens, January 20, 1747. Upon the return of peace, Capt. Rice, Avith his family of four sons and two daughters, returned to his desolated homestead. A new dwelling was erected upon the site of the former one ; and another house was built near the river, upon the meadow now owned by Mr. Roswell Rice, for the accommodation of his son, Samuel Rice, who had now become the father of three sons — Moses, Asa and Martin. But he was no longer to carry on the work single-handed. Others began to arrive. First, probably, were Othniel Taylor and Jonathan his brother, who settled, in the year 1749 or 1750, upon the purchase already mentioned, in the eastern boundary of the township, and erected houses near to each other upon the site now occupied by the dwelling of Elias Taylor, Esq. Othniel Taylor was the grandson of John Taylor, who was one of the early settlers in Northampton, was captain of a troop of cavalry in that town, and was slain by the Indians at Easthampton, May 13, 1704, at the age of sixty-three years. He was the father of thirteen children. Two of his sons, Samuel and Thomas, removed to Deerfield, where Samuel married, as a second wife, in 1718, Mary Hitchcock, of Springfield. Othniel, their eldest son, was born April 16, 1719, and was not far from thirty years of age at the time of his removal to Charlemont. His wife's name was Martha Arms, of Deerfield. They were married June 16, 1743, and had three children before their removal. From a petition, 1 Appendix A. 2 Appendix B. 13 dated at Deerfield, and presented to the General Court, April 5, 1749/ Mr. Taylor appears to have been a resident of Deerfield, at that time. His fourth child, Enos Taylor, was born at Charlemont, February 3, 1751, and was the first child of English parents, born in the town. Mr. Taylor's removal here was, doubtless, between these dates, and probably in the summer of 1749. 2 About the same period, there came from Deerfield, Gershom, Joshua, and Seth Hawks ; and, probably, Eleazer Hawks, their father. 3 They purchased and settled upon the fine tract of land in the south-west angle of the township, lying on both sides of the Deerfield, and bounded on the east by the purchase of Capt. Bice. They also erected two dwellings — one, and perhaps both, near the present house of Mr. Silas Hawks. I am not aware of any cir- cumstance which will aid in fixing the date of the settlement of the Hawks family, other than the birth of the late Lieut. Joshua Hawks, son of Joshua Hawks above named, who was said to be born in Deerfield six months before his parents removed here. He was baptized at Deerfield, July 1, 1750. These three families then, and in the order mentioned, were the first settlers of this town ; and, as we have seen, each settlement was made previous to the year 1751. Notwithstanding the township had passed into the hands of numerous proprietors, no other attempts were made at settlement for several years later, and little or none to fulfill the other condi- tions of the original grant. These families were left to struggle alone with the difficulties and hardships of their new position ; without roads or mills ; without the means of educating their children, or the privileges of public worship. Matters remained thus till the summer of 1752, when Capt. Rice was sent to Boston to petition the General Court for relief. On the 5th of June, he presented a petition to the House of Rep- resentatives, in behalf of himself and his neighbors. This peti- tion, as the first step towards the legal existence of the place as a plantation, and also the action of the Government upon it, deserve a full recital. After the usual address, it proceeds as follows : " The memorial of Moses Bice, of a place called Charlemont, in the County of Hampshire, being Boston Township Number One, for himself and ten others inhabiting said Township : " Humbly showeth that the Township was granted to the town 1 Appendix C. 2 Appendix D. n Appendix E. 14 of Boston, upon conditions of settlement as other towns were granted about that time ; and the town of Boston, by their com- mittee, made sale of the same to the highest bidder, by which means one man became the sole owner thereof ; since which it has been sold and conveyed, chiefly in large parcels, to persons who have not made any settlements or improvements on the same. And your petitioner and several others, knowing the conditions of the grant, and expecting it would be complied with, purchased a part of said township and became obliged to settle the same agreeable to the conditions of the grant, and have made consider- able improvements ; but, by reason of the negligence of the other proprietors, are brought under great and insupportable difficulties and hardships, not being able to support the ministry, build mills, or even mend the roads and make suitable bridges, (the nearest mill being twenty miles distant.) Your petitioner, therefore, in behalf of the inhabitants of said township, Humbly prays that your Honor and Honors would take their case into your wise and compassionate consideration, and grant a tax on the lands of the non-resident proprietors, in order to carry on the settlement ; or relieve the said Inhabitants in such way as your Honor and Honors shall think reasonable. And as in duty bound will ever pray." On the same day the petition was read, and an order passed that notice issue to the non-resident proprietors, to be published in some public print and posted in some public place in Springfield, and made returnable the second Friday of the next session. On the 4th of December, the petition was read the second time ; whereupon it was, " Voted, That a tax of one penny per acre, lawful money, be laid upon all the lands in the within named township, (the public lands only excepted,) for the space of three years next to come, and that the moneys so raised shall be improved for the following purposes, viz : For finishing the meet- ing-house already agreed and engaged to be set up in said Town- ship : For support of preaching, encouraging the building of mills, and for laying out and clearing highways there, and in such manner and proportion as the proprietors of the lands there shall order and determine at their meetings for such purposes called and held : And that the said Moses Rice call a meeting to be held in said Township, at some reasonable future time, (by putting up notifications of the time, place and purpose of holding the same at said Charlemont, and at Lancaster in the County of Worcester,) 15 and that the proprietors, so met, have the power to choose a clerk, treasurer, assessors, collectors, and all officers necessary for the levying and collecting said tax from time to time, and to agree upon and determine the disposition of the money raised by said tax as they shall see meet, only for the purposes aforesaid : — and to agree upon any method of calling meetings for the future — the votes always to be collected according to the majority of the interest present." On the same day, and in answer to the petition previously quoted, which sets forth the destruction of his property by the Indians, the House granted to Capt. Rice one hundred acres of land, " at the south end " of the township, " in consideration of his services for the Government, and the losses he sustained ; " to be laid out " at the cost and charge of the petitioner, by Joseph Wilder, Jr., Esq., to prevent damage being done to the province land that shall be left." Mr. Wilder was from Lancaster ; and, by virtue of two pur- chases — one made in October, from William Ward, the other No- vember 1, from John Checkley — had become sole proprietor of all those portions of the township yet remaining unsold. As the result of this purchase, another class of men were introduced, coming mostly from Lancaster, Leominster, and other towns in that vicinity, whose active exertions and hearty co-operation with the original settlers in their plans and efforts for the improvement of the place, were destined to have a most beneficent and lasting effect upon the infant community. These settled, for the most part, in the centre and northern portions of the township, in the territory now included in the town of Heath ; and not infre- quently, in the proprietary and town meetings of subsequent years, were designated by the " river men " as the " Lancaster party." Prominent among them was Jonathan White, of Leominster. He was the great grandson of Josiah White, who removed with his two sons, Josiah and Thomas, from West England, and settled in Lancaster. Jonathan was born at Lancaster, on the homestead of his ancestors, March 31, 1709. He married Esther Wilder, the daughter of Joseph Wilder, Esq., June 22, 1732, and about the same time removed to that part of the town known as the " Lan- caster New or Additional Grant," which was afterwards, in 1740, incorporated as Leominster. Here he was a prominent actor in an enterprise for the public good ; in establishing schools ; in biuld- 16 ing a house for public worship, and settling a minister ; and in organizing a church, of which he was chosen the first deacon, No- vember 14, 1743. The Hon. David Wilder, the historian of the town, says of him : " Col. Jonathan White was the greatest land- holder, the most wealthy man, the best educated person then in toAvn, and a perfect gentleman of those days." Having acquired a large interest in Charlemont, through Mr. Wilder — his brother- in-law, as I suppose — he at once engaged heartily and efficiently in all efforts for improving the infant settlement. Although not a resident of the town, till in extreme age he lived with his son, yet no man, besides the leading members of the first three families of settlers, rendered more important services to the town than Col. White. 1 But to return to our narrative. On the 9th day of December, only four days after the passage of the act which I have recited, Capt. Bice issued his warrant for the first legal meeting of the Proprietors, to be held at his house in Charlemont, on Wednes- day, the 17th day of January, 1753. At the appointed time and place, the meeting was held, and transacted the following business : Capt. Bice was chosen Modera- tor ; Joseph Wilder, Jr., was elected Proprietors' Clerk ; Othniel Taylor, Treasurer ; Eleazer Hawks, Moses Bice, and Joseph Wilder, Jr., Assessors ; and Capt. Jonathan White, of Leomin- ster, and Gershom Hawks, of Charlemont, Collectors. Dea. Israel Houghton, Capt. Jonathan White, and Joseph Wilder, Jr., were chosen a Committee to lay out highways and other roads in the north part of the township, and directed to report their doings at the next meeting ; and Messrs. Othniel Tay- lor, Gershom Hawks, and Aaron Bice, were chosen to perform a like service in the south part of the township. It was agreed that all proprietors' meetings should be held in Charlemont ; to be called whenever five of the proprietors should apply therefor, by a notification of the clerk, setting forth the time, place and purposes of the meeting, to be posted at Charle- mont, Lancaster and Worcester, at least fourteen days previously thereto. It was also voted to pay " Mr. Aaron Bice, who hath built a Corn Mill in said town, which is allowed by the proprietors to be of public use for the town, 170£ Old Tenor, in part satisfaction 1 Vide Appendix F. 17 for building said mill, and it is to be inserted in the next notifica- tion for a meeting, when the mill shall be finished, what the pro- prietors will do further ; — Provided the said Aaron Rice will give a sufficient obligation to the Propriety to keep said mill in repair, and grind at all convenient times for the proprietors, taking one- sixteenth part for toll, and no more ; and to keep said mill in repair for the space of ten years from this day." One hundred pounds, old tenor, were appropriated from the first year's tax to pay for preaching, and Eleazer Hawks, Moses Rice and Joseph Wilder, Jr., were appointed a " committee to pro- vide for the same the current year." Thus the legal organization of the place as a Plantation, or " Propriety," was completed ; and the settlement and improve- ments went forward with increased vigor. On the 20th of May, Mr. Taylor took the prescribed oath, and entered upon his duties as Treasurer, which duties he continued to perform during the existence of the proprietorship. In the same month, the second legal proprietors' meeting was held at the house of Capt. Rice. After choosing him " to govern the meeting," it was adjourned to Aaron Rice's corn mill, to view it, and consider " what further sum of money ought to be granted to him " for finishing it. " After debates on that affair," it was voted to give Mr. Rice " thirteen pounds, six shillings and eight pence, in addition to y e twenty-one pounds, thirteen shillings and four pence, granted at y e last meeting, and on the same condi- tions." On their return to the house, the proprietors also voted " to give said Aaron Rice the saw-mill irons belonging to y e pro- prietors, and to compleat the set, he engaging to build a saw mill on the brook he hath built the corn mill on, and to saw bords for the proprietors at y e same prices, and sell bords at y e same price that they are sold for at Deerfield, for y e space of ten years next ensuing." The meeting was then adjourned to the 30th instant, at the same place. Having assembled on that day, the proprietors immediately adjourned to the place where they proposed " to set the meeting- house," — " near the south line," and the " south-west corner of y e farm called Hancock's farm, as it was first laid out." Here they " viewed and marked out a place for the meeting-house to stand on : " " which place is a little south of y e south line of said Han- cock's farm, between it and y e north line of Thomas Stearne's 3 18 land." They " voted that the house should be five-and-thirty feet long, thirty feet wide and eighteen feet stud ; " and " chose Capt. Moses Rice, Capt. Thomas Stearns and Joseph Wilder, Jun., a committee to agree with Mr. Thomas Dicks to set up a frame," and to " finish said house on the outside and to lay the lower floor." They also allowed " Capt. Rice to work six pounds, thirteen shillings and eight pence, of his first year's tax laid on the lands belonging to him and his sons, in making convenient ways to the mills that his son Aaron hath built and engaged to build, for the highway he hath marked into the centre of the town, with the other services he hath done for the Propriety for which he hath had no pay." At this meeting the agreement with Aaron Rice, in regard to the corn mill and saw mill, was completed. Mr. Rice gave his bond in the penalty of £100, lawful money, for the faithful per- formance of the conditions imposed upon him, as set forth in the votes already quoted, in consideration of £40, lawful money, and a complete set of saw-mill irons voted him by the proprietors. This bond, witnessed, by Jonathan White and Joseph Wilder, Jr., and dated May 30, 1753, is still in existence. And the mill itself, continued to do a good work, at the prescribed rates, for the pro- prietors and the good people of this and the neighboring towns, until it was carried away by a flood in the year 1775. A second mill was built upon the opposite, or east bank of the stream, which gave place to a larger and more improved structure, built by Mr. David Crittenden in 1822, and which still stands. The saw mill likewise engaged to be built, continues to saw " bords " for the inhabitants to the present day. This meeting was adjourned to the first Wednesday of the next September, at the same place ; but no meeting appears to have been held till the following summer. The committee, charged with the business of " procuring preach- ing," were not remiss in their duties. From various orders, receipts and bills of account yet in existence, it appears that four different clergymen, at least, performed divine service in the town during this and the following year. We have the Rev. C. M. Smith's order, dated at Hatfield, October 24, 1753, for £40 (old tenor) worth of preaching. We have the order of the proprietors' clerk upon the treasurer, in favor of Rev. Eleazer May and Rev. Mr. Treat, who preached each four weeks. The Rev. Mr. Dickin- 19 son is also named, with those before mentioned, in an account of Capt. Rice for board and horse keeping. While upon this topic I may as well state, although running before the order of time, that in later years of the proprietorship, Rev. Simeon Strong preached in the year 17G0 ; and Rev. Eliphalet Huntington and Rev. Mr. Swan, in the years 1762 and 1763. During the latter year also, Rev. Mr. Jones, the first proprietor and inhabitant of Myrifield — now Rowe — officiated from May to October. I have been able to find no further information in regard to ministerial labors in the place previous to its incorporation. The committee, appointed for that purpose, made a contract with Mr. Dicks for building the meeting-house, and he proceeded to set up the frame the same season, the summer of 1753 ; but, for reasons which are no longer known, he did not perform his con- tract further, and the frame was never covered, although it stood for several years, as we shall hereafter see. During the same summer, Jonathan White and Benjamin Bal- lard built a dwelling-house near the meeting-house frame, on the opposite side of the road and north of the woods which are now standing, and in which the meeting-house was placed. This house was on the same spot where Deacon James White after- wards lived and died, and is believed to be the same house occupied by him, and still standing. These same persons also framed and erected another house, in the summer of 1754, at the foot of " Meeting-house hill," near the burying-ground given to the town by Capt. White. 1 On the last Wednesday, the 26th of June, 175-4, the fourth proprietors' meeting, of which we have any record, was held in the morning, at the dwelling near the frame just spoken of, and Caleb Dana was moderator. It was adjourned to meet in the afternoon, at the new house which was framing at the foot of the hill. The following business was transacted : Moses Rice, Othniel Taylor and Jonathan White, were chosen a committee " to lay out and mend the way up to the meeting- house, and to mend the public road in said town." It was " Voted, To accept the town road from the county road 1 Town Records, March -i, 1771. " Voted, To accept of the land Col. Jonathan White gave to the town for a burying-place." This burying- place, which is the oldest public one in Charlemont, has recently been inclosed anew by a substantial stone wall, by vote of the town. 20 by the river up to y e new meeting-house frame, as near the way that is now marked as may be with convenience, and that those that work at said way shall have twenty shillings — old tenor — a day ; they working ten hours in a day, which shall be accounted a day's work." It was also " Voted, That Mr. Dicks (the contractor) be notified to cover the roof of the meeting-house with boards and shingles, and board the gable ends." The meeting " accepted a hundred acres of land for a lot for the first minister that shall be settled in said town — to lay south of the lot No. 2, in Hancock's farm, and to be 200 rods long and 80 rods wide." One hundred pounds, old tenor, were also voted for preaching this year. 1 But these improvements, so auspiciously begun, were destined to receive a sudden and disastrous check. Already the war-cloud was gathering, which was soon to burst over their defenceless heads. The peace of Aix la Chapelle was but a hollow truce. Indeed, the high contracting parties themselves hardly regarded it as more than a suspension of hostilities — a postponement of the inevitable and final struggle for sole dominion on the North American conti- nent. No sooner had peace been declared in 1748, than the French began to strengthen their interest with the Indian tribes, in furtherance of their plans of future and more extensive coloniza- tion. Already in possession of the St. Lawrence and the lakes, and also of the Mexican Gulf, and having explored and learned the value of the vast regions lying north and west of the Ohio, they undertook, by the erection of a chain of fortresses, extending from their northern to their southern possessions through the In- dian country, to shut the passages of the Alleghanies and of the lakes against the English settlers, and forever to confine them to the Atlantic coast. In pursuance of this plan, and in spite of their treaty obligations, they seized upon and fortified strong positions at Crown Point, Oswego, Niagara, and at the confluence of the Monongahela and Alleghany rivers. 1 In this cass, as in that of the price of a day's work, the rough notes of the c lerk, from which I copied, give the sums in " old tenor ; " the proprietors' records, a few leaves of which have recently been discovered, give these sums in "lawful" currency,— making the 20 shillings, 2 shillings and 8 pence ; and the 100 pounds, £13 6s. 8d. ; the ratio bung 7-i to 1. 21 The English colonists were not prepared to rest satisfied with the successful issue of projects like these. They, too, had an eye upon the magnificent domains which adventurous explorers reported as lying far beyond the Alleghanies. Besides, they well understood, that the question was not simply whether they should extend their settlements beyond the mountains, but also, and more especially, whether, being confined to the Atlantic shore, they should long be suffered to remain in quiet there — nay, to exist at all on the soil which they had so long occupied. Moreover, the New England Colonists had not forgotten the bitter wars of former years, when the Indian's hate and greed of vengeance had been stimulated by the wily and ghostly professors of an opposing faith. They well knew that the conflict which was coming, would issue not only in life or death to themselves, but in the extermina- tion of the Protestant Faith, which they held dearer than life. And, as the struggle approached, they did not hesitate or waver. A century and a quarter before, then: fathers had planted in these wilds the institutions which they had inherited ; and theirs was the duty to transmit the blessed boon ; and no storm, however threatening, could drive them from the high trust. Massachusetts took early measures to put her frontiers in a state of defence, and, at the same time, to co-operate vigorously with her sister Colonies in destroying the strong holds already men- tioned — especially those at Oswego and Crown Point, the latter of which had been the source of so much annoyance in the former war. On the western frontiers, by the advice of Col. Israel Williams — since the death of Col. Stoddard, the commander of the northern Hampshire regiment — a system of defence was adopted, similar to that of the former war. Forts Dummer and Massachusetts, and the block-houses in Falltown and Coleraine, Avere repaired and their garrisons strengthened. Forts Shirley and Pelham, however, were abandoned ; and, instead, the families on the Deerfield were encouraged to build forts around their dwell- ings. The summer of 1754 was employed in this work. Messrs. Gershom, Joshua and Seth Hawks moved their two houses near to each other, and surrounded them with pickets. Capt. Rice and his sons fortified his house under the hill, and Messrs. Othniel and Jonathan Taylor enclosed their dwellings in like manner. These defences were made by themselves and at their own cost, 9.9 with the expectation that soldiers would be furnished and the expense of erection repaid by the government. From a petition presented by the Messrs. Hawks to the General Court, October 17, it appears that they had expended six pounds, and that six more were needed to complete their works. Othniel Taylor presented a like petition on the 18th, accom- panied with a rough sketch of his fort, and a statement of the items of expense, amounting in the whole to £10 4s. 4c?. His line of pickets inclosed a space one hundred feet long and eighty feet wide. 1 Although Indian depredations were frequent during this season, in various quarters, and evidences were not wanting that the enemy were lurking in the woods at Charlemont, as appears from the language of one of the petitions referred to, and from concurrent tradition, I cannot learn that any soldiers were stationed here by the government, till after the events of the eleventh of June, in the following summer. As the spring of 1755 drew on, the inhabitants lived in constant fear of attack, and were forced to use sleepless vigilance. Dogged by night and by day by an invisible foe, they went to their daily task, with muskets in their hands, and the faithful dog to scent the enemy ; while women and children could not pass the inclosures without a guard. On Wednesday morning, the eleventh day of June, 1755, Capt. Rice, his son Artemas Rice, his grandson Asa Rice — a boy nine years of age — Titus King, Phineas Arms, and others, went into the meadow which lies south of the present village road, having Mill-brook on the east and Rice's brook on the west, for the purpose of hoeing corn. Capt. Rice was ploughing and the boy riding the horse ; the others were engaged in hoeing, except one who acted as sentinel — passing through the field, from brook to brook, with musket in hand — while the lire -arms of the others were placed against a pile of logs near the western brook. This, instead of flowing in a direct line to the river, as at present, entered the field at some distance below where the road now runs, and passed in a south-easterly direction nearly to the mouth of Mill- brook. Meanwhile a party of six Indians, as tradition informs us, having carefully observed their victims from the neighboring hill, stole cautiously down the western brook ; and, concealed by the 1 Appendix G. 23 thick brush-wood upon its banks, watched till the working party were near to Mill-brook and farthest from their fire-arms, when they suddenly fired and rushed upon the defenceless party. Arms fell dead in the corn-field ; Capt. Rice received a severe wound in the thigh and was taken prisoner, together with the lad Asa upon the horse, and Titus King, a young man, and a relation of Capt. Rice. Artemas Rice escaped, after a hot pursuit, and reached Taylor's fort at noon. The inmates of the house in the adjoining field, hearing the firing, fled to the fort. 1 The Indians, however, made no farther attack, but withdrew with their three captives to the high plain in rear of the present public house. Here the aged and wounded man was left alone, with a single savage, to meet his fate. After a fearful struggle, he fell beneath the tomahawk, and was left, scalped and bleeding, to die. Late in the day he was found yet alive, and brought to his son's house, where he expired in the evening. The other prisoners were led to Crown Point, and thence to Canada. The lad was ransomed after a captivity of six years. " King was carried to France, thence to England, whence he at length returned to Northampton, his native place." 2 On receiving the alarm, Mr. Taylor hastened to Deerfield for succor, and returned the same night with twenty-five men. They proceeded up the river in the morning to Rice's fort, but only to witness the desolations of the preceding day, and to render their kind offices to the stricken family in the burial of the dead. Sad, indeed, was this the first burial day in Charlemont ; sad, when sons and daughters, and their little ones, looked for the last time into the mangled face of the aged sire, and buried him in silence and gloom beneath his own soil. His grave was made upon the slope of the hill near his dwelling ; and here also, by his side, they buried the young man, Phineas Arms, who had fallen with him in the field. Their graves remain with us to-day. And here shall I not be pardoned for asking if the time has not come, when the descend- ants of the venerable man, and the citizens of the town which he first settled, will see to it that the sacred spot, set apart by him as 1 It was in this flight that Dinah Rice made those marvelous, if not fabulous "jumps," of sixteen or eighteen feet each, with which tradition has made us familiar. 2 Hoyt's Antiquarian Researches. 24 a burial-place forever, and the hallowed depository of his mortal remains and those of his children's children, shall be guarded by an appropriate inclosure, from the intrusive ploughshare, and the unhallowed feet of cattle and swine ? l Of Phineas Arms, we know but little. He was the son of William and Rebecca Arms, and was born at Deerfield, October 4, 1731. He was admitted to the church in that town, on the 4th of May, five weeks before his untimely death. Capt. Rice was the ninth of the eleven children of John Rice and Tabitha Stone, his wife, and was born at Sudbury, October 27, 1694 ; and was in the sixty-first year of his age at the time of his death. He was the great grandson of Edmund Rice, who emigrated from Berkhampstead, in Hertfordshire, England, and settled in Sudbury, in the year 1638 or 9, in that part of the town now called Wayland. He was an intelligent, energetic, and greatly useful man in his town. He was for many years a " commissioner to end small causes," and frequently chosen as a deputy to the General Court. He died at an advanced age, leaving a large fam- ily. His posterity are numerous, and widely scattered over the land. Capt. Rice married Sarah King, at Sudbury, November 16, 1719, where his first child, Samuel, was born August 10, 1720. Soon afterwards he removed to Worcester, and kept a tavern upon the ground since occupied by the United States Hotel. Here his remaining children, six in number, were born. While at Wor- cester, he was captain of a company of cavalry. In 1724, he was posted with others at Rutland, in a garrison commanded by Capt. Samuel Wright. The date of his removal to Rutland is not known. He had two brothers, who lived in Rutland, where many of their descendants are still to be found ; — Edward, an older brother, born in 1689, and Aaron, who com- manded a company in the French war, in 1658, and died that year, at Crown Point. Capt. Rice's subsequent history has already been detailed, so far as it is now known. Of his character, we know little more than what is revealed in the acts of his life. Doubtless it was of that strong cast, which our early New England institutions and the 1 I am happy to say, that the town has instructed the Committee appointed to publish this Address, to inclose this oldest of its burial-places with a substantial fence. 25 perilous times in which he lived were so well calculated to pro- duce. Early and thoroughly instructed in the great doctrines of the Bible ; fearing God and revering law, whether administered in the family, the church, or the state ; intelligent, industrious, hardy and fearless ; our Fathers were fit men to lay broad and deep the foundations of a mighty empire. 1 After the death of Capt. Rice, the people of Charlemont suf- fered no further Indian depredations. The forces, raised for the reduction of Crown Point, were already on their march ; and the contest besran to be transferred from the border settlements to Lake Champlain and Canada. Hereafter, the French and their Indian allies found work enough in defending their own territories, and less time for plunder and bloodshed in New England. During the summer of 1755, twenty-five men were stationed at Charlemont, but none of them at Rice's fort, on account, doubt- less, of its exposed position under the hill which commanded it. Having received from the General Court the promise to furnish eight soldiers for a new garrison, Samuel Rice and his brothers removed the fort from their father's house, and built a new one around the house in the meadow. 2 In the spring of 1757, he was allowed to enlist six soldiers to be stationed at the new fort, who were " to receive the same pay, and be discharged at the same time as the other soldiers stationed in the town." The petition of Mr. Rice for this object, presented in April, 1757, makes among others, the following statements : " That there is scarce any improvements (as is known to members of this Court) but what is made by your petitioners ; that they annually raise a considerable amount of grain and other provisions, having now near twenty acres of winter corn in the ground, and mow more grass and keep more cattle than the whole place, and are the own- ers of the only corn-mill in that part of the county." " Your petitioner also begs leave to say that Charlemont was granted on certain conditions of settlement, which, had they been complied with, the place would have been a fine, flourishing town." 3 From the fall of 1754 till the spring of 1762, while the war was raging, the country was so absorbed in the momentous contest, that little or no progress was made in the settlement of the town. The meeting-house frame still stood uncovered ; of the three years' tax, granted in 1752, only the tax of two years had 1 Appendix H. 2 Appendix I. 3 Appendix J. ."V been assessed ; and no general proprietors' meeting was held in the town during that period. A single meeting of the non- resident proprietors — described in the notification as the " propri- etors of the common and undivided lands " — was held in Boston, at the house of Capt. Nathaniel Richardson, August 26, 1761, of which Col. Jonathan White was moderator. Caleb Dana, Esq., and Col. White, were appointed a committee " to see that the frame set up in said town, be covered and inclosed, and also to lay the lower floor." Mr. White was likewise directed " to clear the way from the river to the meeting-house, and to make it fit for waggons to pass." The year wore away, however, and nothing appears to have been done ; for we have a brief record of another meeting, " legally notified " and held at the house of Mr. Taylor, in Charlemont, on "y e 2dThirdsday" of April, 1762, to choose a committee "to finish the meeting-house and give them their instruction; " but with no results — the meeting being adjourned, after choosing Silas White moderator, to the 15th of April — " at which time," says the clerk, " there was no meeting." Still another meeting of the " proprietors and inhabitants " was duly called and held at Mr. Taylor's house, May 27, 1762. At this meeting, Col. Jonathan White and Aaron Rice were chosen assessors in the place of Moses Rice, deceased, and Eleazer Hawks, who declined serving longer on account of old age. Col. White, Joseph Wilder and Aaron Rice, were chosen a committee to settle with the treasurer for the two years' tax ; and " to see to covering the meeting-house, or, if the former frame will not do, to set up a new frame and cover it." The certificate of the committee, dated May 31, shows that the treasurer had received and disbursed £122 19s. 10d., and that there remained of the two years' tax uncollected, £60 3s. 4d. The committee decided that the " former frame would not do," and on the 27th of June following, made a contract with Thomas Dick, to build a new meeting-house, which is in these words : " Know all men by these presents, that I, Thomas Dick, of Pel- ham, in the County of Hampshire, Innholder, For and in considera- tion of a former obligation I gave to Mr. Othniel Taylor, Treasurer of Charlemont, to build a meeting-house in Charlemont, do by these presents covenant and engage to set up a frame in said town, in the place where the old frame now stands, it being 35 feet 27 by 30, and 18 feet post, to cover the outside with chamferred boards and the roof with boards and shingles, and to put up weather boards, to lay the lower floor with boards on sleepers or joice well supported, and to complete the same, workmanlike, by the last day of September next. Otherwise, on failure thereof, to pay said Treasurer 26 pounds for the use of said proprietors. " Thomas Dick. " N. B. The proprietors are to find boards, nails and shingles, and rum for the raising." The parties, I believe, performed their contract, and the house was erected upon the site of the old frame ; but it was never finished ; nor can I learn that it was ever occupied for public wor- ship. The inhabitants were few in number, and for the most part of small means ; the penny tax on the proprietors' lands came in slowly ; besides, the situation of the house was most inconvenient for the " river people ; " and hence its completion was not likely to call forth any special efforts from them. Its removal soon became the subject of discussion : and one of the objects of the last proprietors' meeting of which we have any account, held June 5, 1765, was " to see if the proprietors will agree to move the meeting-house to a more convenient place." It was not removed, however, but continued to stand till the year 1769, when it was sold to the late Col. Asaph White, who remodeled the frame and erected it upon his premises as a dwelling-house. It was occupied as such by himself and his son, Lieut. David White, for more than half a century. Two proprietors' meetings were held in 1763 ; both at the house of Othniel Taylor. At the first, June 17th, it was " Voted, To discontinue the road laid out from the river so far as Col. White's house, and order it laid out east and west from said White's house to the county road, as near where it is now r trod as may be with convenience." From the accounts allowed, I give the following as showing how the meeting-house was " set up," and preaching supplied at that time : — £ s. d. Joseph Wilder for underpinning the meeting-house, . . 2 13 4 Aaron Rice, boards for the same 5 Paid for " nales " for same, 1 10 Sam'l Rice's acc't for the Raising, 3 16 6 Artemas Rice's acc't for provision for the raising, &c. ..304 28 [Whether the word " provision " included the important item in the contract with Mr. Dick, of " rum for the raising," does not appear.] £ s. d. Also Col. White's acc't for money paid in, May and October, 1702, for Mr. Huntington, 5 6 8 Same for "Keeping" Mr. Swan, 2 2 Paid Mr. Swan for preaching 6 days, 8 3 It was also " Voted, To allow ten pound of the money yet to be gathered for preaching ; and that ' Mr. Taylor and Mr. Aaron Bice be desired to provide a preacher.' " At the second meeting, held October 20th, Messrs. White, Dana and Wilder, were chosen a committee to petition the General Court for a new penny tax, for three years, on all the lands in the township, " Except the lands of the Honorable Thomas Hancock, Esq., Captain David Baldwin, and the heirs of Mr. Kinnicome," (Cunningham,) " who have generously given away one half of their lands to settlers ;" and also " for a grant of lands to be laid out in the unappropriated lands of the Province, in lieu of the land taken of Charlemont by Coldreane." In pursuance of this vote, on the 6th of June, 1764, Mr. Wilder presented a petition to the House, reciting the circum- stances under which the place had been settled, and asking for the proposed tax, expended " for finishing the meeting-house, support of the gospel, and clearing the roads in the said place." The house received the petition favorably, and granted an order of notice to the proprietors to show cause at the next session. This order was not concurred in by the Council. At the next session, however, the matter was revived by the Council, and the petition, with the remonstrance of William Read, Esq., referred, January 30, 1765, to a joint committee of the Council and House. But I do not find that any further proceedings were had upon the petition. Meanwhile, the period of the proprietorship was drawing to a close. The last meeting of the " proprietary " was held at the house of David White, June 5, 1765, when it was agreed " to set apart lot number one, of four hundred acres, east of Mr. Rice's farm ; lot number — , of about five hundred acres, at the falls ; ! and the remainder in lot number three, for the public lots." 1 This lot, whose number is illegible, was situated, I suppose, on the left bank of the Deeifield, at Shelburne Falls, and is the site of the village. 29 A committee, consisting of Col. White, Othniel Taylor and Aaron Rice, was chosen to make application to the General Court for a tax of one penny an acre on all except public lands, and also for an act of incorporation. In answer to the second branch of their petition for the pur- poses aforesaid, an act of incorporation was granted, June 21, 1765 ; and " Thomas Williams, Esq., was empowered to issue his warrant" to call the first town meeting. The application for the tax did not receive the immediate action of the General Court. Nevertheless, the act of incorporation embraced a provision, looking to favorable action in the future, " That all taxes that are, or are to be raised for settling a minister, for building a meeting-house, clearing and repairing roads, be levied on the several proprietors of said Plantation, according to their interests, until the further order of this Court," &c. At the following winter session, on the 4th of February, the petition for the tax was sent down from the Council to the House, and there " read and revived," and the non-resident proprietors ordered "to be notified to show cause on the second Wednesday of next May Session." Further proceedings on this petition were superseded by the subsequent action of the town. On the 6th day of January, 1766, in obedience to the warrant of Thomas Williams, Esq., the inhabitants of Charlemont assem- bled in its first legal " town meeting," at the house of David White, and completed the organization of the place by the election of town officers. At a subsequent meeting, on the 31st of March, Aaron Rice was chosen as the agent of the town to petition the General Court for the long delayed tax upon the lands. Mr. Rice entered upon the work with his accustomed energy and zeal. He presented to the General Court, June 4th, a petition detailing, more fully than the previous petitions had done, the past history and the present condition of the town. Among other things, he says that the "grantees have so conducted their affairs, as to have at this time, (after thirty years,) only thirty families settled ;" notwithstanding the tax previously granted and raised " for building meeting-house, mills, and the support of public worship," that the " meeting-house is only raised and covered, and they have no minister settled ; and that one-half of the inhabitants are in low circumstances, whereby they are unable to do those things for themselves ;" and he prays " that the non-resident 30 proprietors may be obliged to fulfill the conditions of settle- ment, so far as belongs to them," and for the grant of the three years' tax beforementioned. The petition was read, and an order passed by both Houses, " that the non-resident proprietors be notified to show cause why the tax should not be granted, and why they had not complied with the conditions of the grant." February 6, 1767, Mr. Rice's petition was read again in the Council, and, with the answer of William Read, Esq., referred to a joint committee of both Houses. The committee reported on the 17th, the following order, which was agreed to, and approved by the Governor the next day. " Ordered, That there be a tax of one penny per acre, yearly, granted for three years, upon all the lands in the town of Charle- mont, (public lands excepted,) and that the money thereby arising be applied as follows, viz : fifty pounds, part of said money, towards finishing the meeting-house already set up in said town, and that the remainder of it be applied to pay for preaching the gospel and settling and supporting a minister ; and that said tax be final, so far as respects those proprietors who have settled a proportion- able number of families in said town. The petitioners to enter an account of their doings in the Town Books." The acts of incorporation and the penny tax now granted, bring us to the close of the administration of affairs by the proprietors. And here let us pause for a moment, and review the ground we have traversed. We have seen, thirty years before, the grant of the territory to the town of Boston, coupled with certain strict conditions with regard to its settlement, and the establishment of the institutions of religion and of education therein ; we have seen it sold at auction, to a single purchaser, and by him aliened in large tracts, to others, with little reference to the performance of these conditions ; we have beheld the pioneer settler wending his way with his family up the Deerfield — the Pocumtuck of the Indian — and erecting his cabin on the banks of the " sweet rolling river," 1 and, after a few years of successful labor, fleeing before the savage foe, and his dwelling burnt, and his improvements de- stroyed ; and, as peace returned, we have seen him return and build again ; and, after him, other adventurers taking their places beside him on the " river " and on the " hill ;" we have seen the 1 This is said to be the interpretation of the Indian word, "Pocumtuck." 31 " Place called Cherley Mount " assume the organization of a plan- tation, and the evidences of improvement and the means of comfort multiplying ; and, as the wilderness began to smile, we have seen the cloud, black with terror and death, bursting upon the infant settlement, and the patriarch of the valley laid in his bloody grave, and all improvements stopped, and the cleared lands beyond the protection of the forts, abandoned and growing up again to a wil- derness ; and finally, when the dreary contest had closed, and the savage enemy had been driven from their borders forever, we have beheld the returning settlers clearing their fields and struggling hard to lay the foundations of a prosperous community, to secure for themselves and their children the privileges which you and I have so richly enjoyed. And now we behold them, a little band of "thirty families," incorporated and organized as the town of Charlemont. As yet, however, the blessings which our New England Fathers ever prized the highest, and struggled the hardest to secure — the church and the school — had no existence among them. True, we have seen, for the second time, the meeting-house " set up and covered," but it still stood unfinished and unoccupied by worship- ers. Occasional religious services had, indeed, been held by various preachers, but no pastor had been settled, to " go in and out " before the people, with his daily and weekly ministrations. Hitherto the pioneer families on the river had looked to Deerfield for special religious privileges. The leading members of these families united themselves with the church in that place, and fox- many years frequently resorted thither for the enjoyment of those privileges ; especially for the celebration of the Lord's supper, and the baptism of their children. Nor does it appear that any attempts had been made to provide public school instruction for their children. The children of that troubled day had no other school than tjie fireside. But here they were not neglected. With the English Bible as the text-book, and father and mother as instructors and exemplars, they drank in those principles and acquired those traits of character which well stood them, instead of the more varied acquirements of the schools, and amply qualified them to act nobly their parts in the stirring scenes of danger and of triumph so soon to open before them. It has not been my purpose to attempt to give a connected his- tory of the town after its incorporation ; still, I should fail to do 32 justice to the early Colonists, without giving some notices of their further and finally successful efforts in establishing the institutions of religion and of education, and also of their patriotic labors and sacrifices in support of the American Revolution. No sooner was the penny tax for the support of preaching granted, than they commenced the work of providing a pastor for the town. On the 16th of March, David White was sent to Wal- pole, to invite the Rev. Jonathan Leavitt to preach as a candidate. And on the 24th of July following, it was " voted and agreed," in town meeting, " to settle a minister as soon as may be ; " and, in accordance with the advice of the " neighboring ministers," the town " proceeded to choose and call the Rev. Mr. Jonathan Leavitt to the work of the ministry among us." In case of his acceptance, it was furthermore voted to give him " One hundred pounds settlement " — sixty pounds the first year, and forty pounds the second ; and also an annual salary as follows : " Fifty pounds the first year, and to rise two pounds a year for five years, and there to continue until there are sixty families in town, and to rise one pound upon each family that shall be added above sixty, until it comes to eighty pounds a year, and there to remain during his continuance with us in the work of the ministry ; and likewise to find him his wood." In town meeting, August 8th, held at the meeting-house, " Voted, To build another meeting-house, half way from the one already built to Mr. David White's dwelling-house, or the nearest convenient place thereto, 45 feet long, 35 feet wide, and 20 feet posts ;" and Aaron Rice, Jonathan Taylor and Jonathan Hastings, were made a committee " to settle the place." At a subsequent meeting, held September 1, "at David White's house," Mr. Leavitt's answer to the " proposals " of the town was presented and accepted, and a committee chosen to provide for his installation ; Aaron Rice, v Othniel Taylor and Gershom Hawks, the committee. It was also " agreed to build Mr. Leavitt a house, the description of which may be found in the old book." The house was built on the lot of one hundred acres, which had been set apart for the first minister, as already described. The installation, preceded by a solemn fast, and closed with feasting and rejoicing, according to the custom of the fathers, was duly celebrated, probably in the month of September. The committee " settled the place " for the new meeting-house ; and another committee disposed of the old edifice and built the new one, upon the brow of the mountain, south from the " min- ister's lot," overlooking the Deerfield, and since known as the " Meeting-House Hill." The house was finished in the summer and fall of 1769. Meanwhile a chinch had been organized, with Aaron Rice and Gershom Hawks as deacons. The records of this church (if indeed it kept any) are lost ; and with them the means of ascer- taining the date of its organization. 1 Other hands have sketched the history of this church, with ample notices of its able pastor. I shall, therefore, content myself with adding, that Mr. Leavitt continued for fourteen years to minister acceptably to the united church and town in this house " set on a hill." And it was a goodly sight, to behold the men, women and children of that day, from the most distant parts of the town — from the east end and the west end and across the Deerfield — for the most part on foot, save here and there a man on horseback, with his wife on a pillion behind him, wending their way on each returning Sab- bath, up the steep mountain's side, to worship the God of their fathers on its summit. At length, dissensions having arisen, Mr. Leavitt's dismission was voted by the town, and the meeting-house was closed against him, August 19, 1781. As these acts were not ratified by an ecclesiastical council, he continued to be the legal pastor, and to preach in the school-house on the Hill, to his friends who chiefly resided in that quarter of the town, till the formation of the church in Heath, April 15, 1785, when they withdrew, and the first church in Charlemont ceased to exist. Their meeting- house was taken down and removed to Heath Centre in 1789, where it was occupied as a house of worship until 1833. Mr. Leavitt resided, during his life, on the minister's lot already described, which, till within a short time, has remained in the possession of his descendants. He died in 1801. The first appropriation for public schools of which I find any record, was at the March meeting, 1770 ; when nine pounds were voted, and divided between the three districts — the upper and the lower end and the hill — in nearly equal parts. For some suc- ceeding years, the sum of fifteen pounds was raised yearly, and divided, £5 10s. to the "hill," £4 10s. to the "lower end," and 1 After much inquiry, I have been unable to ascertain the precise date of Mr. Leavitt's installation. Doubtless the church was organized at the same time. 5 34 £5 to the " upper end." The system thus established, has con- tinued with varied success to the present day. A military company was organized in 1773, and Othniel Taylor was chosen captain. His commission bears date January 18, of that year. From the incorporation to the Revolution, a period of ten years, the town steadily increased in numbers and wealth. Settlers of an excellent character came in from various quarters, and became worthy coadjutors with the fathers of the town, in advancing its prosperity. Prominent among these are the familiar names of Avery, Bingham, Brooks, Fales, Hartwell, Gould, Maxwell, Nich- ols, Parker, Pierce, Temple, Thayer, White and Upton. We have no means of ascertaining the number of inhabitants, accurately, previous to the Revolution. The ratable polls, in 1773, were sixty-three, and in 1775, eighty-one. The valuation, in 1770, was, personal estate, £354 5s. Od. ; real estate, " reckoned at six years' income," £1,008 8s. Od. The province tax was £2 10s. The three highest tax-payers were, Othniel Taylor, taxed for £98 8s. real, and £21 lis. personal estate; Aaron Rice, for £84 0s. real, and £21 lis. personal ; and Daniel Kingsley, for £72 0s. real, and £15 14s. personal. The Revolutionary History of Charlemont well deserves an ampler recital than I am able to give. She may safely challenge any sister town to show the record of a heartier devotion to the patriotic cause, or a more numerous catalogue of hardy soldiers and able officers, in proportion to her population. In answer to the letters of the " Committee of Correspondence" at Boston, the " inhabitants and freeholders," on the 25th of Octo- ber, 1773, unanimously adopted, and ordered to be recorded, the report of their committee, — which, after expressing the " warmest sentiments of loyalty to, and the highest respect for, the sacred person, crown and dignity of our right and lawful Sovereign, King George, the Third," proceeds to set forth, in strong terms, their burdens and grievances, and then says : " That the Inhabitants of this town hold sacred our excellent constitution, so dearly pur- chased by our forefathers ; that we also hold dear our possessions, so dearly purchased by ourselves, when, to settle this town and make it more advantageous to his Majesty, and profitable to our- selves and posterity, we have been alarmed by the yells of savages 35 about our ears, and been shocked with scenes of our dearest friends and nearest relatives butchered, scalped and captivated before our eyes, — we, our wives and children, forced to fly to garrison for safety ; therefore we must hold the man in the greatest scorn and contempt, who shall endeavor to rob us either of liberty or prop- erty/' The town was represented in the Provincial Congress of 1774, by Lt. Hugh Maxwell, and in that of 1775, by Samuel Taylor. Their accounts for expenses were duly allowed and paid. A company of minute men was early formed. This company, with eighteen men from Myrifield, now Eo-we, under Oliver Avery as Captain, and Hugh Maxwell as Lieutenant, marched to Cam- bridge, immediately after the engagements at Concord and Lexing- ton. When the various bands of volunteer troops were organized into a regular army, many of the Charlemont company enrolled themselves, and formed the second company, fifty-two in number, in Col. Prescott's regiment. Hugh Maxwell was commissioned as Captain, and Joseph Stebbins as Lieutenant, May 26. Capt. Avery, and a portion of his men, dissatisfied with this arrangement, returned home. Others still, who did not enlist per- manently, remained for some time as volunteers, and were engaged with the company in the battle of Bunker's Hill. Of this number was Josiah Pierce, lately deceased at an advanced age, who fired at the enemy forty-seven bullets, with an unerring aim which was proverbial in his time. Ebenezer Fales was killed in the battle, and Capt. Maxwell dangerously wounded. The company and its commander served through the war. Capt. Maxwell had already performed hard service in the French and Indian war. He was in the battle of Lake George, when Williams fell, and Dieskau was defeated and made prisoner ; and, two years later, at the capture of Fort William Henry, and barely escaped the massacre in which so many of his comrades fell. He was present at Trenton and Princeton, at Stillwater and Saratoga ; and endured the horrors of the encampment at Valley Forge. He enjoyed the confidence of Washington, and was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. He was a brave and skillful officer, and a most valuable citizen. He died at sea, October 1799, in the 67th year of his age. His brother, Benjamin Maxwell, was Lieutenant in the company of minute men. He also had served in the French and Indian 36 war. He was one of Maj. Rogers's rangers in the campaign of 1758 ; and was in the engagement between the provincials under Putnam and Rogers and the Indians, in which Putnam was taken prisoner. From the families of the " first settlers," there were many actively engaged in the service. Sylvanus Rice, son of Capt. Moses, as Captain of the " minute men," was frequently employed in short terms of service. He led his company, at one time, to New London ; mortgaging his farm in order to raise the necessary means of equipment. Luther Rice, son of Capt. Sylvanus, was several years in the army, and died in the service at West Point, 1782. Moses and Samuel Rice, sons of Samuel, senior, were also in the continental service, probably each three years. Samuel was present on the northern frontier, when Ethan Allen's detachment joined the troops under Arnold, and witnessed the characteristic quarrel between these two officers in regard to the command of the united body. On the morning of the Battle of Bennington, Mr. Rice and others of the " minute men " started from Charlemont for that place. " Riding and tying " as they went through the wilderness, they made such haste, as to reach the field of action just as the second body of Hessians, under Breyman, were giving way, and joined in the final pursuit. Late in the following fall, he was sent from Bennington with three or four others — one of whom was Lemuel Roberts, also from Charlemont — to examine the ice on Lake George. While on their route through the deep snow in the roads, the party was overtaken and captured by a company of Canadians, and taken, first to Montreal, and afterwards to Que- bec. Their sufferings, from rigorous confinement and from the extreme cold, were intense. They contrived to escape from Quebec and made for the woods in the plain in the rear of the city. Here, being discovered by some woodmen) they were retaken and placed under a guard in one of the small islands in the St. Lawrence. When the ice left the river in the following spring, Mr. Rice, eluding the guard, seized a small canoe which was left unlocked, and made his way to the southern bank of the river ; with the scanty store of provisions which he had saved from his daily rations, in anticipation of flight, he started on his lonely journey through the deep woods between the Canadian and American 37 settlements ; concealing himself by day at first, and traveling at night by the guidance of the stars, he reached his home, after enduring almost incredible hardships, early in the summer. Martin Rice, the older brother of Samuel, and but recently deceased, was one of the volunteers with the Charlemont company at Bunker Hill. Eleazer Hawks, the son of Joshua, senior, was engaged in the battle of Bennington. He had removed to that town just previ- ous to the war. Ephraim Hawks, son of Dea. Gershom, was a continental soldier, it is believed, through the war. Tertius and Othniel Taylor, sons of Othniel, senior, were both in the continental service during the war. Tertius, who held a lieutenant's commission, was in most of the important battles in the middle and northern States ; at White Plains and Kingsbridge, at Stillwater and Saratoga. He was one of " Mad " Anthony Wayne's storming party at Stoney Point. Othniel held a captain's commission, probably in the same regi- ment with his brother, and, like him, was engaged in most of the important northern battles. He led his company at Stillwater and Saratoga. Many others, either as levies or as volunteers, performed service for longer or shorter periods. The records of the town show numerous votes of supplies to the families of soldiers who were serving their country in the field. In closing this meagre sketch of the revolutionary efforts of the town, I cannot but give expression to the hope, that its very scan- tiness will lead to the production of some ampler and more satisfactory record of this portion of our history, while so many traditions of the times yet linger amongst us. I have thus brought to a close, what I proposed to say with regard to the early history of Charlemont. I am well aware how far short it falls of a satisfactory chronicle. Most deeply do we deplore the loss, excepting a few leaves, of the Proprietors' Book of Records, which would have been an invaluable storehouse of materials for the early history of our town. In the absence of this, I have relied, as you have seen, upon such documents as have been preserved by the descendants of Capt. Othniel Taylor, the Proprietors' Treasurer ; also upon various memorials and petitions 38 of the early settlers to the General Court, with the action of the government upon them ; and, in addition to these, upon the tradi- tions which fell upon my ear in boyhood, or have been gathered in later years. Imperfect as these sketches are, if, however, they shall prove the means of exciting a more active inquiry into our earlv annals, and also induce a more careful preservation of the recoi'ds of current events for the benefit of those who come after us ; if, especially, they shall succeed in exciting a deeper reverence for the persons and the principles of our fathers, then they will not have been wholly in vain. We are descended from men of no common mould. They were worthy sons of the men who first landed on these shores. These fathers of our fathers, were indeed a peculiar people. They were the seed-wheat, sifted by the winds of persecution from the chaff of the old world, and wafted across the sea, to be sown broadcast on the virgin soil of the new world. They were edu- cated men. From the university, and the parochial school, they brought hither the garnered science and liberal learning of their times. Above all, they had drunk deeply of purer streams — of the living waters of truth. They feared God, and bore true fealty to the obligations of justice and truth. They lived not for them- selves alone. They acknowledged the claims of the future, and manfully strove to pay the debt. And, as were the fathers, so also were the sons whom we this day commemorate. Born in the wilderness, and reared amid dangers and hardships, if they had less of liberal culture, they exhibited in no less degree the higher and sterner virtues which their times demanded. True, also, to the future, they sowed that we might reap ; they labored, that we might enter into their labors ; they purchased with blood, that we might inherit in peace. May ours be the high privilege, as it is the solemn duty, to transmit this rich inheritance, unimpaired, to the generations yet to come. So shall we best honor the memory of the Fathers. APPENDIX. APPENDIX A. page 12. The petition of Capt. Rice, from which I have quoted in the text, together with the action of the General Court thereon, is as follows : Province of the Massachusetts Bay. To the Hon'ble Spencer Phipps, Esq., Lieut. Governor and Commander in Chief in and over said Province, the Hon'ble His Majesty's Council and House of Representatives, in General Court assembled, at Cambridge, Nov. 22d, 1752. The Petition of Moses Rice of a Place called Charlemont, in the County of Hampshire, Humbly Shews : That it is about Ten years since your Petitioner went to Live in said Place, and was the first Family that moved there, and hath remained there Constantly untill this Time (saving three years in the heat of the lateWarr,) nor did your Petitioner remove till the very week Hoosuck Fort was taken by the Enemy. That your Petitioner has undergone great and uncomon Hardships, by Settleing in so distant a Place, being obliged to go to Deerfield to get his corn ground, which is about Twenty-Two miles, as the Road goes. That his living was of great service as he humbly apprehends, to the Publick, as being the only House where People could be Supplied. And as Soldiers were often Travailing that way, as well as small Partys on Scouts, it was very Expensive to your Petitioner, who often Supply'd them at his own cost. That your Petitioner was solely at the cost of Building his House in a Defensible manner, nor was there any Soldiers allowed there (tho' so Expos'd a Place) Excepting a few months. That as he was not defended he, at the Time aforesaid, drew off, and carryed his wife and Family to Deerfield. And returning in order to take Care of his Things, found his House was burnt, with a good Stock of Pro- vision therein, (or cary'd away,) by the Enemy, as was all his Household Goods, with a Considerable parcel of Clothing, his Stock of Cattle being Seven oxen and Cows, together with Six very good fatt Hoggs, were all killed by the enemy, — his Crop of Grain, at Least Three Hundred Bushell, with all his Hay, Husbandy Tools, and many other things all destroyed — his Loss being at Least Fifteen Hundred Pounds, old Tenor. That as he was ready, at great Cost and Charge, in defending himself while he Tarry'd in said Plantation, " and his Losses are Trully repre- sented " — he Therefore Humbly Prays he may obtain a Grant of Land in the County of Hampshire, under such Restrictions and Limitations as may be consistant with your Honor and Honor's Known Wisdom and Goodness, " or otherwise 40 Releave your poor Petitioner as your Honors shall think fit." And as in Duty bound shall ever pray. Moses Rice. In House of Reps., Dec. 4, 1752. Read and in answer to this Pe'tn, Ordered that there be granted to the Pe'tr his Heirs and Assigns forever, One hundred Acres of the Unappropri- ated Lands in the County of Hampshire, at the South End of Boston Town- ship Number One, in consideration of his services for the Government ; and the Losses He sustained, as sett forth in His Petition. And that the said Land be laid out at the Cost and Charge of the Petitioner, by Joseph Wilder, Junr., Esq., to prevent Damage being done to the Province Land that shall be left. The following statement of Capt. Rice before a Committee of the House of Representatives, throws further light upon the condition of things at the time spoken of in the text. April 8th, 1748. "The account of Moses Rice, late of Chislev Mount, as near as I Can, of Cer- tificates givin in to the Gen'l Court before the Town House was Burnt. By Col. Williams, Capt. Stevens and Levt Mitchal, For Pas- turage of Horses and Cattel on my Farm at Charleymount, the Summer past, ........ £24. 0. 0. And for damage done to my flax on s'd farm by s'd horses and Cattel, 30. 0. 0. Also by Capt. Pattridge for Horse keeping, when he went to bury the Dead, at Fort Massachusetts, after the s'd Fort was taken, 10. 0. 0. old Tenour, £64. 0. 0. Moses Rice. It appearing to ye Committee that Petition of s'd Rice and vouchers to ye above accounts were burnt with ye town House, and having now particularly Exam'd s'd Rice upon ye several articles, it appears to ye Com'tee reason- able he be allowed the above acc't amounting to sixteen pounds last Emission. Per order, O. B. Partridge. APPENDIX B. page 12. Province of Massachusetts Bay. To His Excellency Wm. Shirley, Esq,, Capt. Gen'll and Gov'r in and over said province, &c. The petition of Moses Rice, of Rutland, County of Worcester, most humbly shows : That in July, 1746, one Benf. Shaw of Middleboro,' was Impressed and sent to Fort Pelham, from Col. Warren's Regiment — That in December following, one of your petitioner's sons (upon being assured that in July following he should be dismissed,) took said shaw's place; — That tho' the first year has expired, and more than two mo. of a second year, yet your petitioner cant't get his son released, without your Excellency, of your great goodness, will please to interpose with your authority. Your petitioner therefore, most humbly prays your Excellency will Compassionate ye circum- stances of your petitioner's son, Avhose name is Aaron Rice, and order him to be released from ye service, and if it may be consistent with your Excel- 41 lency's wisdom and pleasure, to direct Col. Warren to Impress another man, to relieve your petitioner's son, or in such other way and manner grant relief, as to your Excellency, in your great wisdom, shall seem meet. And as in duty bound will ever pray. Moses Rice. Indorsed.—" Moses Rice's petition to the Governor, 1748." APPENDIX C. page 13. To his Excellency William Shirley, Esqr., Captain Generall and Govern- our in Chief in and over his Majesty's Province of the Massachusetts Bay, in New England, &c, To the Honourable his Majesty's Council, and the Hon'ble House of Representatives, in General Court assembled, April 5, 1749. The Petition of Othniel Taylor, Humbly Sheweth : That your petitioner, by Order of his Officer, pursued the Indian Enemy on the 25 of Aug'st, 1746, with such vehemence that he killed an Horse, which Cost him Forty pounds, Old Tenor. Wherefore your Petitioner prays your Excellency and Honors to take his Case into Consideration, and allow him the money his Horse Cost him, and as in Duty Bound Shall ever Pray, &c. Othniel Taylor. APPENDIX D. page 13. I insert here such further notices of Mr. Taylor's family as I have been able to obtain. His children born in Deerfield were Samuel, b. Sept. 21, 1744, m. Esther White, of Leominster. Intentions posted Nov. 28, 1769. Mary, b. June 23, 1746. Lemuel, b. Feb. 11, 1748, m. Abigail White of Leominster. Intentions posted Dec. 8, 1772. These two sons lived and died in that part of Charlemont, south of the Deerfield, which is now Buckland. The children born in Charlemont were Enos, b. Feb. 3, 1751. Othniel, b. Jan'y 10, 1753 ; Tertius, b. July 25, 1754 ; Martha, Dec. 21, 1756; William, b. Jan'y 27, 1758; Lydia, b. March 16, 1760 ; Rufus, b. Ap. 3, 1763 : Lucinda, b. Nov. 26, 1765 ; Tirzah, b. Jan'y 2, 1769 ; Dolly, b. Dec. 12, 1772, — "in all thirteen, every one of whom lived to old age, the youngest dying at 6G, and the oldest at 92. Their average age was 77 years, and their aggregate ages 1,000 years ! " Mr. Taylor, as will appear in the narrative, was one of the most intelli- gent, enterprising and public spirited men of the town. He kept a public house for many years, and was also a trader. The account book of Capt. Taylor still exists, and some names have a frightful array of charges against them for " Rhum," "Flip," "Toddy," "Sider," &c. In 1762 there is a 6 42 charge of tavern expenses to Capt. Samuel Robinson and family, on their way from Hardwick, to settle in Bennington, Vermont, (Vide Rev. Mr. Fos- ter's Hist, of C. in Holland's Hist, of West. Mass.) Mr. Taylor died Dec. 27, 1778. APPENDIX E. page 13. Eleazer Hawks, the father, was the son of Dea. Eleazer and Judith Hawks, and was born at Deerfield, Dec. 26, 1693. He was an older brother of Col. John Hawks, (born Dec. 5, 1707,) a brave and distinguished officer, who, as we have seen, commanded at Fort Massachusetts, when it was besieged and taken in 1746. His wife's name was Abigail. Their children were,— I. Gershom, born Feb. 23, 1716, married Thankful Corse, of Deerfield, May 9, 1744. He was stationed for some time at Fort Massachusetts, and was wounded in a skirmish with the Indians near the fort, July, 1746. Fur- ther notices of him are found in the narrative. He died at Charlemont, Dec. 28, 1799. His wife died Dec. 6, 1800. Mr. Hawks was for many years one of the most active and influential inhabitants of the infant settle- ment. Their children were, — Gershom, baptized at Deerfield, May 10, 1744 ; Jonathan, b. at Charlemont, March 9, 1755, d. Ap. 25, 1831 ; Elihu, b. Sept. 3, 1756, d. Dec. 26, 1813 ; Elihu, bap. Oct. 23, 1757 ; Israel, Rufus, Ephraim and Reuben. II. Eleazer, born Nov. 13, 1717, and killed at the " Bars Fight," Aug. 25, 1746. III. Joshua, b. Jan'y 25, 1722, and married March, 1744, to Abigail Hast- ings, of Deerfield. Their children born previous to their removal here, were Abigail, b. Jan'y 31, 1745 ; Eleazer, b. Feb. 29, 1747. He lived many years, and died at Bennington, Vt. Joshua, mentioned in the narrative. There is a tradition in the family that he was born at Fort Pelham. Jared, born at Charlemont, March 17, 1752 — the second child born there— bap. at Deerfield, Oct. 8 ; d. Dec. 14, 1828. Asa, bap. May 9, 1757 ; Ichabod, posthumus, b. Sept. 13, 1761 ; d. 1837. Joshua, the father, died in the beginning of 1761.