The Bay State Monthly. Volume 2, No. 4, January, 1885

"In view of his unflinching truthfulness and honesty, which refused to suppress, in his own or any other interest, any fact, and so made him the victim of an intense and misdirected public excitement and subjected him to a vote of censure by the Forty-second Congress at the close of its session;

"And in view of the later deliberate public sentiment, which, upon a review of all the facts, holds him in an esteem irreconciliable with his condemnation, and which, throughout the whole country recognizes the value and patriotism of his achievement and his innocence of corrupt motive or conduct;

"Therefore, the Legislature of Massachusetts hereby expresses its gratitude for his work and its faith in his integrity of purpose and character, and asks for like recognition thereof on the part of the National Congress."

The beautiful Oakes Ames Memorial Hall at North Easton, erected by his sons, is an impressive monument of filial devotion and respect. This village of North Easton, the home of Mr. Ames and other members of the Ames family, as well as the seat of the extensive shovel works, deserves more than a passing notice, enriched and beautified as it has been by this family, until it has become one of the most charming of New England villages, and presents a model which deserves to be widely copied. The old and substantial factories, built of granite, present the neat appearance which characterizes the buildings in some of our oldest navy yards. The employes have many of them grown old in the service of the firm; and well paid, intelligent, and satisfied, are themselves the owners of their attractive cottage homes and take a just pride in the welfare of the community. The concrete walks, macadamized roadways, and well kept yards and lawns evince thrift. The elegant railway station, a gift to the village from one member of the family, is a model of architectural beauty and convenience. The Gothic church and parsonage of the same style of architecture, are befitting adjuncts of the park-like cemetery, where rests the dust of the blacksmith ancestor who bravely struggled amid adverse surroundings to found the fortunes of his family, and build up a business which has extended wherever civilization has made its way. The Memorial hall, before-mentioned, is on a commanding cliff, overlooking the town; close by is the elegant structure known and endowed as the Ames Free Library; and in another direction is the temple, dedicated to the cause of popular education, that emblem of New England’s power, the school-house, all monuments of the munificence of the Ames family, and of the deep interest its members take in the welfare of their native town. In the triangle near the centre of the village, formed by the converging of the principal streets, is a declivity, where art has so arranged the rough and irregular forms of New England boulders as to re-produce a unique scene from some Scotch or Swiss village. This "rockery," as it is called, is clothed in summer with verdure and flowers, and from its summit one finds an extended and charming view of the village, with its cottages, its workshops, and the villas of the proprietors of the latter. These villas, each set in extensive grounds, are models of architectural elegance, and are surrounded by most artistic landscape gardening. Conspicuous among these is the residence of the subject of this sketch, facing, as it does, a spacious well-kept lawn, and overlooking a lake, an exquisite gem in its emerald setting.

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

Mr. Ames, though absorbed in the cares pertaining to the management of gigantic business interests, yet finds time for the appreciative enjoyment of the amenities and refinements of life. He posesses a cultivated appreciation of music, literature and the drama, and his artistic taste is evinced by his valuable and choice collections of paintings and statuary. Architecture has been with him a special study, and his magnificent winter residence, recently completed on Commonwealth Avenue, in our city of Boston, is a monument of his own architectural taste. In Europe this residence would be called a palace, here it is simply the home of a representative American citizen. Peculiarly happy in his domestic relations his home is beautified and ennobled by the virtues of domestic life. A generous hospitality is dispensed within its portals, where on every hand are found the evidences of the cultured refinement of its occupants. A tour of a few months in the Old World not only gave Mr. Ames needed rest and relaxation from business cares, but also furnished him with opportunities for observation which were most judiciously improved. In his religious belief he is a Unitarian, and has for many years been an active member of the Unitarian Society of North Easton.

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

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

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

Faithful in his devotion to the principles of the Republican party, and in his services to his native Commonwealth, Massachusetts has reason for a just pride in her Lieutenant Governor. His name may yet stand the Republican party of the State in good stead in a political exigency not unlikely to arise in the near future. Whatever may be said of the causes of the defection from the Republican ranks which took place in the last national campaign, there is no doubt about one of its results,—it has driven the Republican party to seek a closer alliance with the working-people of the Commonwealth. The Republican bolters were almost exclusively drawn from the aristocratic end of the party. It was Harvard and Beacon Hill that revolted. To make good the loss the Republican leaders had to appeal for support to the same class of voters which gave to Republican principles their first triumphs,—the intelligent mechanics and artisans, the laboring men. However many or few of the deserters of 1884 may re-join the standard now that Mr. Blaine is defeated it is not likely that for many years to come, if ever, the Republican party in Massachusetts will be able, to lean upon the immense majorities of former years, that ran away up to sixty, seventy, and eighty thousand. With a Democratic administration installed at Washington, and the power and prestige which that fact will imply and apply in the local politics of the States,—and in no State more powerfully than in Massachusetts, where the shifting body of Independent voters, so-called, is largely made up of the Hessian element that will incline to whichever side has spoils to bestow,—the Republican party in order to hold Massachusetts will have to cultivate and strengthen the alliance which it formed in the late election with the laboring class of voters. It will have to revert to the sympathetic and liberal policy touching all questions that affect labor, and the welfare of the working people of the State, which marked the earlier years of its power. The Ames family is linked in the popular mind with that policy. And justly so, too! Oakes Ames was a true friend to labor, as well as one of the most practical; and the fine instinct which guided him in making of North Easton a model industrial community, where the happiest relations of mutual confidence and support have subsisted between employer and employed, he bequeathed to his sons, and to Oliver in an especial and marked degree. It has been said, and there is no element of exaggeration in the statement, that if all our large capitalists and manufacturers could succeed in establishing the same rapport between themselves and their employes which the Ameses have always maintained at North Easton, the vexed problem of capital and labor would be solved; for there would be no more conflict between them. Oliver Ames is held in the same high esteem and almost affectionate regard by the working people of the Old Colony district, where the interests of the Ames Manufacturing Company are centred, in which his honored father was held before him. As the father so the sons! When the time comes, and it is not far off, that the Republican party in Massachusetts shall feel the necessity of getting nearer to her common people, and, in order to retain its supremacy in the State, of offering to their suffrages a man whose whole life has been spent in close and friendly relations with her working-men, it will be strangely blind indeed, to its opportunity, if it shall not turn to the present popular Lieutenant Governor, and present the name of Oliver Ames as one well fitted to lead the revival of Republicanism among the working-classes, and certain, if presented to them, to be endorsed by a splendid majority for the first office in the popular gift.

[NOTE.

GENEALOGY

RICHARD AMES of Somersetshire, England.

I. William, who came to America and settled in Braintree, Massachusetts.

II. JOHN AMES, born in 1651; son of William Ames, married Sarah Willis (daughter of John Willis of Duxbury, whose will was proved in 1693). In 1672 he settled in Bridgewater with his uncle, and became his heir in 1697.

III. THOMAS AMES, born in 1682; lived in Bridgewater and married in 1706 Mary Hayward (daughter of Deacon Joseph and Sarah [Mitchell] Hayward, and granddaughter of Thomas Hayward and of Ephraim Mitchell, the latter of whom came to America in the third ship, arriving at Plymouth in 1623)

IV. THOMAS AMES, born in 1707; married in 1731 Keziah Howard (daughter of Jonathan and Sarah [Dean] Howard, and granddaughter of John and Martha [Haywood] Howard of Duxbury).

V. CAPTAIN JOHN AMES, born 1738; died July 17, 1805; married in 1759 Susannah Howard (born in 1735: died January 11, 1821). She was the daughter of Ephraim and Mary (Keith) Howard; great granddaughter of John Howard of Duxbury and Rev. James Keith.

VI. OLIVER AMES, born April 11, 1779; died September 11, 1863; married in April, 1803, Susannah Angier (born March, 1783; died March 27, 1847). Dr. William Ames, the Franeker Professor, had a daughter (2), Ruth, who came to America in 1637, and married Edmund Angier of Cambridge, whose son (3), Rev. Samuel Angier, married Hannah, daughter of President Urian Oakes of Harvard College. Their son (4), Rev. John Angier, married Mary Bourne, granddaughter of Governor Hinckley. Their son (5), Oakes Angier, a law student of President John Adams, was the father of (6) Susannah Angier. Children:

1. Oakes, born January 10, 1804; died May 8, 1873.

2. Horatio, b. November 18, 1805; d. Jan. 28, 1844.

3. Oliver, Jr., b. November 5, 1807; d. March 9, 1877.

4. Angier, b. February 19, 1810; d. July 27, 1811.

5. William L., b. July 9, 1812; died in St. Paul, Minn.

6. Sarah A., b. September 9, 1814; married October 10, 1836, Nathaniel Witherell, Jr.

7. John, 2d, b. April 18, 1817; d. May 14, 1844.

8. Harriett, b. September 12, 1819; m. March 27 1839, Asa Mitchell.

VII. HONORABLE OAKES AMES, born January 10, 1804; died May 8, 1873; married November 29, 1827, Eveline Orville Gilmore (born June 14, 1809; died July 20, 1882). Children:

1. Oakes Angier, born April 15, 1829.

2. Oliver, b. February 4, 1831.

3. Frank Morton, b. August 14, 1833.

4. Henry G., b. April 10, 1839; died September, 1841.

5. Susan Eveline, b. May 14, 1842; married Henry W. French.

VIII. HONORABLE OLIVER AMES, born February 4, 1831; married March 14, 1860, Anna C. Ray (born January 16, 1840, in Nantucket). Children:

1. William Hadwen, born March 1, 1861.

2. Evelyn Orville, b. April 4, 1863.

3. Anna Lee, b. September 6, 1864.

5. Lillian, b. January 4, 1870.

6. Oakes, b. September 26, 1874.

EDITOR.]

HISTORICAL SKETCH OF PITTSFIELD

By FRANK W. KAAN

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

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

We cross a branch of the River Housatonic, alias Ousatonac, Ausotunnoog, Awoostenok, Asotonik, Westenhok, and the train stops before a large, handsome brick station, once the "best in the State," now restricted to "west of Boston." A broad street on the left leads to the park in the centre of the town. Here is the Berkshire Athenæum, with its excellent public library, where we must stay long enough to glance through the town history, compiled by Mr. J.E.A. Smith.

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

This region remained uninhabited, however, for many years later than would ordinarily have been the case; not so much from fear of hardships or Indian troubles as on account of the uncertainty of the land tenures which could be acquired. Massachusetts, by reason of the Royal Charter of 1691, claimed to the west as far as the Province of Connecticut extended. New York, on the other hand, maintained that the eastern boundary of Connecticut was meant: moreover, that the western boundary had been agreed upon for special reasons; furthermore, that her own territory, as successor to the rights granted the Duke of York in 1674, reached from the Connecticut River to Delaware Bay. Thereupon Massachusetts referred to the old Charter in force in 1674, which made the Atlantic and Pacific her eastern and western limits. In return, attention was called to the clause in that Charter, excepting lands in the possession of any other Christian State. Now, in consequence of the discovery of the Hudson in 1608, the Dutch had occupied the country as far east as the Connecticut, and to their title New York succeeded. Massachusetts then denied the fact of settlement. Thus the controversy was prolonged until, in 1773, a line to be run parallel with the Hudson, at a distance of twenty miles, was agreed upon. But about the year 1720 it became evident that the western boundary of Connecticut would be established in favor of that province. This arrangement, as the New York representatives stated, was a result of the boldness of settlers in pushing westward and occupying the district in dispute. Accordingly, Massachusetts was encouraged to pursue a similar course, and the first settlement on the Housatonic was made at Sheffield in 1725. The occasion of the next advance appears to have arisen from the attention paid to free education in Boston. That town, in 1735, because of its large expenditures for public schools, support of poor, and contribution to the State treasury, petitioned the General Court for a grant of three or four townships within the "Hampshire wild lands." Three lots, each six miles square, were given, subject to certain conditions. Within five years, sixty Massachusetts families must be settled, each possessing a house (at least eighteen feet square and seven stud), with five acres of improved land. A house for public worship must be erected, and a learned Orthodox minister be honorably supported; lastly, a school must be maintained.

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

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

In resistance to British oppression at the outbreak of the Revolution, Berkshire County required no one to lead the way. "The popular rage," wrote Governor Gage, "is very high in Berkshire and makes its way rapidly to the rest." In response to the Boston Port bill cattle and money were sent to the sufferers. Resolutions were passed to discontinue the consumption of English goods at whatever time the American Congress should recommend such action. In August, 1774, Berkshire set the example of obstructing the King’s Courts. In the expedition for the capture of Ticonderoga, in the invasions of Canada, and in Burgoyne’s campaign, the town and the county held a place among the foremost in efforts and sacrifices for the cause of liberty. The recommendations of the Continental Congress were followed out with promptness and zeal. A similar spirit was displayed in the relations with the Provincial Government, so far as they affected the carrying on of the war. Yet, from 1775 to the adoption of the State Constitution in 1780, the county was ruled in open resistance to the civil authorities at Boston. Although representatives were sent to the General Court, the acts of that body were accepted merely as advice. The judicial and executive branches of the Government were not recognized. It was maintained that the new Government should originate from the people on the basis of a written Constitution and bill of rights. To this end they "refused the admission of the course of law among them," until their demands should be complied with. Furthermore, the old Courts were objectionable as being costly and cumbersome. They were unpopular for the hardness exercised towards poor-debtors and criminals convicted of trifling offences. In the absence of the usual means of enforcing the laws, the town Governments took in charge the administration of justice, acting either through committees or in town meetings. Public order appears to have been well preserved, and in the condition of business interests the want of civil courts was of little consequence.