Human activity including migrations, individual people, families and the institutions they formed in Lenox. Geography, historic sites and homes in Lenox.
The Lenox Historic District was established in June 1975 by a vote at a special town meeting of 162 in favor, 20 opposed. It was one of the first Historic Districts in the area. In 1960 the state had passed legislation to encourage the formation of local historic districts (40C)
From what we can learn from existing documents and newspapers, the level of interest was high because the village had, since being re-zoned commercial, started to lose its unique character. As early as the late ’60’s planning documents identified keeping Lenox Village as a unique type of shopping area the best way to compete with ubiquitous strip malls and shopping areas.
The first report (town meeting 1976) of the Historic District Commission re-iterated its purpose:
“The By-law expects the Commission to be a watch-dog over the Historic District to prevent alteration or construction which, in its opinion will be out of keeping with the character and history of the Town. It is the right, duty and purpose of the Commission to insure the Town and all its members against such violent change as would destroy or impair its character in any significant way.”
The town website provides guidelines on the process to be followed to get the approval of the Historic District Commission and suggestions of what changes will be considered consistent with the goals of the District.
Maps of the historic property and the list of properties follow.
The town also has a Historical Commission which is charged with he Lenox Historical Commission was formed by the Select Board to preserve and protect the historical assets of Lenox; to record (through surveys) the historical assets of the Town; to assist any Town board when asked; to educate the citizens about their historical heritage through exhibits and lectures. The Historic District is encouraged to turn to the Historical Commission for information on properties in the district.
The work of the Historical Commission has included surveys of the historic properties in town. These surveys have been reproduced on this website (see “Places”).
Debt Ridden Farmers Closed the Berkshire County Courts Twice in the Fall of 1786.
The farmers of rural Massachusetts had been struggling with debt and the non-responsiveness of their representatives since before the end of the Revolutionary War. By 1786 protests were escalating. Regulators, as they called themselves, closed the Berkshire County court twice in the fall of 1786.
General Benjamin Lincoln
As many as 9,000 farmers across Massachusetts were eventually involved in protesting the debt collection of the merchants and the courts. Local militia were largely farmers themselves and sympathetic to the Regulators. The commercially oriented elite asked Henry Knox to form (and funded) an army to protect their interests and supplement the local militia. Knox demurred but Revolutionary War veteran Benjamin Lincoln took up the cause.
Aping their pre Revolutionary British predecessors, the Boston dominated legislature passed laws in the fall of 1786 that legalized severe punishment of crowds gathered to protest or riot. Finally in November 1786 they suspended habeas corpus (enabling them to apprehend and imprison protestors for an indefinite period of time without bail). It authorized the arrest and incarceration of anyone suspected of being unfriendly to the government. Further, they passed a bill preventing the spread of false reports criticizing the government.
In an attempt to break up the Shaysites, the legislature further offered an opportunity to be awarded total indemnity if they took an oath of allegiance to the government.
The threat of both force and legal action (without addressing the debt problems at the root of the protest) gained little ground with the Regulators.
From Protest to Rebellion
Many Shaysites (including key figures such as Daniel Shays, Luke Day and Reuben Dickinson) had military experience. They knew (whether government loyal militia or paid army from Boston)troops were coming to quell further action. They needed weapons. The largest weapons cache in New England was in the Springfield Armory.
Stormed Springfield Armory for Weapons in January 1787 – the Last and Only Major Military Action
In January 1787, the Shaysites attacked the Springfield Armory. It was successfully defended by Revolutionary War veteran William Shepard.
Meanwhile Benjamin Lincoln, the failed defender of Charleston during the Revolution, was hard on the heels of the rebels with an army funded and armed by Boston. The Regulators fled first to their home area – Pelham – and then north to Vermont and west to the Berkshires breaking up into smaller groups.
Meanwhile Back in Berkshire County
Major General John Paterson Must Have Come Home to Some Prosperity Building This Lovely Home in 1783. It Still Stands at7 Main St.
Major General John Paterson was the leader of the Berkshire militia and a champion of conservative interests in the Pittsfield and Lenox conventions of 1782-1786.
The Shaysites had, by the time they reached Berkshire County, dwindled to 300-400 dispersed and poorly armed men but still seemed to have engendered enough sympathy with the population and members of the militia to alarm Paterson.
“Stockbridge, January 31, 1787
To General Lincoln:
Sir: The desperation of the factions in the County against Government has induced a kind of frenzy, the effects of which have been a most industrious propagation of falsehood and misrepresentation of facts, and the consequent agitation of the minds of the deluded multitude.
Last night, by express from several parts of the County, I am informed of insurrections taking place. My only security under present circumstances will be attempting to prevent a junction o the insurgents, which probably cannot be effected without the effusion of blood; to extricate me from this disagreeable situation, therefore, I pray you, Sir, to send to my aid a sufficient free to prevent the necessity of adopting that measure.” (Egleston p. 186)
By late February, Benjamin Lincoln was in Pittsfield but he had released the militia. His force had dwindled to 30 men.
The Rebellion Had Started to Disintegrate Into Housebreaking and General Lawlessness by Late Winter 1787
In fact the “revolution” may have started to disintegrate into a general breakdown of law and order among increasingly disheartened Regulators. Several stories that have been preserved paint the picture.
Just before Benjamin Lincoln reached Pittsfield 250 rebels,under Peter Wilcox, Jr. collected at Lee to once again block the court. Paterson and 300 militia came out to oppose them. The rebels took cover on Perry Hill and got a yard beam from Mrs. Perry’s loom and rigged it to look like a canon. Paterson’s men beat a retreat.
Mum Bet Protected the Sedgwick Home in Stockbridge from Rebels
During the same 1787 winter, rebels under Captain Perez Hamlin (from Lenox but residing in New York at the time) Massachusetts and attempted to pillage, among other things, the home of leading conservative – Theodore Sedgwick. The famous Mum Bet hid the family silver and became, once again, a great heroine.
Shortly thereafter Hamlin and his men imprisoned 32 men including Elisha Williams and Henry Hopkins. With these prisoners and their booty they proceeded in to Great Barrington and then, in sleighs on towards Sheffield.
The End of the Insurgency and the Consequences
The Marker Noting the End of Shays Rebellion Was Installed in Sheffield About 100 Years After the Event
They were pursued by Ingersoll and Goodrich from Great Barrington, Colonel Ashley of Sheffield and later William Walker of Lenox. It seems to have been something like 100 men on each side but the records are somewhat contradictory. They skirmished across modern-day Sheffield and Egremont. The dead included Solomon Glezen who had been taken prisoner in Stockbridge and allegedly used as a human shield.
The prisoners exceeded the capacity of the Great Barrington jail and the overflow was taken to Lenox. Most were granted pardons.
Most of the Regulator leaders had fled to New York or Vermont so the Berkshire courts were somewhat hard pressed to find an appropriate number of rebels to punish. Two were broken out of the Great Barrington jail by their wives Molly Wilcox and Abigail Austin (really – smuggled saws and everything).
Two, John Bly and Charles Rose, were hung in Lenox (apparently as of Fall 1787 taking its place as the legal center of the County). Richards (p. 41) suspects they were guilty of not much more than breaking and entering in an atmosphere of lawlessness but had few connections so took a fall that many others avoided.
Judge Whiting, who had sympathized with the rebels in the 1786 protests at the Great Barrington courts, was savaged by strong Federalist Theodore Sedgwick. It is likely other sympathizers in positions of authority met the same exclusionary fate.
As everyone knows, Shays Rebellion supported the arguments of men like James Madison, George Washington, and Alexander Hamilton that the loose confederation that had won the war against Great Britain, needed to be strengthened. Needless to say, Thomas Jefferson, then Ambassador to France disagreed.
A May 1787 meeting of the Continental Congress had been called and was held before the raid on the Springfield Armory in January 1787. Many delegates decided to come after hearing of the1786-1787 uprisings in Massachusetts.
The resulting US Constitution now included provisions such as creation of a national army that could suppress revolt. Who knows what would have happened to the Constitution sent to the states in September 1787 if the state legislators had not been worried (perhaps unduly) about falling into chaos – the perceived outcome if the Regulators succeeded.
*********
The Life of John Paterson: Major General In The Revolutionary Army, by Thomas Egleston, G.P Putnam’s Sons, New York, NY, 1894
Shays’ Rebellion and the Constitution in American History, by Mary E. Hull, Onslow Publishers, Inc., Berkley Heights, NJ, 2000
Shay’s Rebellion The American Revolution’s Final Battle, by Leonard L. Richards, University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, PA, 2002
Shays’ Rebellion The Making of an Agrarian Insurrection, by David P. Szatmary, The University of Massachusetts Press, Amherst, MA, 1980
In November of 1782* the Massachusetts state Legislature appointed a committee of three men to visit Berkshire County and pick a location more centrally located than Great Barrington.
The committee recommended that Lenox become the county seat after January 1784 to give the town time to erect a suitable courthouse. It also gave Great Barrington, Stockbridge, and Pittsfield the opportunity to protest the choice. Somehow Lenox persevered and remained the center of Berkshire County legal activities until 1867.
1791 Berkshire County Courthouse, Lenox, Massachusetts. Image captured from pdf of Kevin Sweeney’s 1993 “Meetinghouses,: Changing Perceptions of Sacred and Secular Space in Southern New England, 1720-1850,” in Winterthur Portfolio vol. 28, no. 1 (Spring
In May 1786 planning for the new courthouse began and the first session of court was held in September 1787.
On September 11, 1787, the Court of Sessions appointed Azariah Egleston and Elisha Bradley to supervise building the new courthouse.
Other names that would show up frequently in the days of the Lenox early republic, John Bacon and Caleb Hyde were put to supervision of building the jail. It was to be located on Stockbridge Road near what was to become the Winthrop Estate and later the Windsor Mountain School.
The new courthouse was in use by 1791 or 1792. It was located at Walker and Main — about where the current Town Hall is located.
The first courthouse had a two story courthouse** with 12 x 24 pane windows and banked seats for spectators–quite grand for a little farm town.
George Tucker’s manuscript lists public spirited citizens who donated materials or funds. Again, names we see again and again in the early days of Lenox appear on the list: John Paterson, William Walker, Elias Willard, various members of the Nash family, John Whitlock, Lemuel Collins, etc.
Court activity was robust and by 1815 Lenox had outgrown the original court house. The handsome building on Main Street (completed in 1816) currently used as the Lenox Library was the second county court house in Lenox.
27 Housatonic St., First County Courthouse – As It Appeared in 2014
The Fate of the Original Court House
The original simple court house still stands (with later additions and alterations) on Housatonic Street. The, at one time, impressive entrance, now faces Church Street where the coffee shop is attached.
The courthouse was moved to its current location when the new Town Hall was built in 1901.
When the second court house was built, the original court house was re-purposed as a town administration building. It was rotated (using canon balls!) to face Walker Street as the Town Hall does today. It was an active center of 19th century town activity with a bank, post office, and shops.
Good Fortune for Lenox
The early proponents of Lenox as the county seat were far sighted to put money into this important town development. As the center of Berkshire County legal activity, Lenox attracted visitors, professionals and commerce beyond that of the typical 18th-19th century farm town. The presence of the court attracted educated families such as the Sedgwicks who would contribute to turning Lenox into a rural literary and educational center. The presence of the court also created non-farm jobs ranging from working in the Old Red Inn(Curtis) Hotel, renting out horses, clerking and provisioning visitors.
An editorial from the 1830’s* paints a picture of how lively the little town would have been when court was in session:
“Lenox is alive during the administration of Justice. The goddess has occupied her throne here for more than a week past, and our Village had abounded with Judges and Jurors, lawyers and litigants, prosecutors and prosecuted. To us who live in the country, the occasion is quite imposing. It presents to us a vast variety of characters: young attorneys in the bustle of new-found business, and the older ones assuming more and more dignified gravity of the bench; waiting jurymen chatting in little clusters by the wayside; worrying clients complaining of sleepless nights; witnesses of all orders and descriptions. Spectators trading horses in the street and politicians smoking over government affairs in the bar room. Our boarding houses have their long tables lined on both sides with earnest applicants, and all expect more business, more calls, more conversation and more cheerfulness. Messages are sent, and errands done between one end of the county and the other; business accounts are settled, plans laid; caucuses, conventions and singing schools agreed upon; newspapers subscribed for and distant matters in general arranged for the ensuing Winter.”
*Lenox Massachusetts Shire Town, by David H. Wood, published 1969 as a follow up to the Lenox bicentennial
What was a Loyalist in Lenox? It may have been something different than a loyalist in New York or New Jersey where loyalists were more prevalent and the war was more immediate, but there certainly were at least a handful who did not favor Independence.
Called Tories, Loyalists Opposed Breaking with Britain
Sometimes called Tories, loyalists opposed breaking with Britain and believed the colonists could best achieve their aims by working with Parliament and continuing to respect the laws of King and Parliament. The “Tory” name referenced the parliamentary party opposed to the Whigs who were more pro-American colonies and eventually moved to grant independence. It has been estimated as much as a third of the population during the Revolutionary War were loyalists and that another third were (at least attempted to be) neutral. Within that two thirds there were a range of motivations and behaviors-as there probably were in Lenox.
Some Groups More Predisposed to be Loyalists
The majority of loyalists were Episcopalian but the majority of Episcopalians were not loyalists. Episcopal worship was prohibited in many places since the service at the time included a prayer for the health of the King and the American clergy reported to bishops in England.
In a (humorous in retrospect) tale of over-reaction the Episcopal rector who conducted services for Lenox during the Revolutionary period was arrested in the middle of a wedding and taken to jail! In fact, some of Lenox’s great heroes were Episcopalian and were quite active in Trinity Church after the Revolutionary War including John Paterson, Azirah Eggleston and Linus Parker. Linus, it is said, led the party that captured Lenox loyalist, Gideon Smith (see below).
Men whose wealth and property were closely aligned with the mother country were sometimes – but not always – likely to be loyalists. Wealth did not equate with conservative in this instance. After all, John Hancock, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and other leaders of the Revolutionary War were wealthy property owners.
Some Fought for the King Against Their American Neighbors
Recruiting Loyalists for the British Army
At one extreme, some loyalists took up arms almost as quickly as the Patriots and were prepared to fight for and with the British and their German and Indian allies making the Revolution a true civil war. Many were formed into units made up entirely of fellow colonists. Some of these loyalist units became almost like vendetta squads operating outside of the supervision of the British command and seeking compensation for land ceased by patriots or to avenge violence visited on their loyalist friends and relatives by the patriots.
In other cases – as is likely for poor Gideon Smith – the men branded as “Tories,” may just have been trying to stay neutral.
Parliament over-estimated the willingness of colonists to take up arms against their friends and neighbors, but the loyalists were at least a source of manpower and information.
Repercussions of Being a Loyalist
After Independence was declared in 1776 the Massachusetts and other colonies encouraged towns to refuse admission to anyone who was not supportive of the patriot cause and required oaths of allegiance–sometimes (see the story of Gideon Smith below) administered with excessive zeal.
Cartoon of the Revolutionary Area of Patriots “Encouraging” Loyalists to Take the Oath
Cartoon of the Revolutionary Area of Patriots “Encouraging” Loyalists to Take the Oath
There was plenty of arbitrary violence on both sides but this was pretty close to a total war in places like Pennsylvania and New Jersey in that the armies (particularly the British) had to forage for food and fuel. If you were not contributing – manpower, money or food- to the Patriots, you were for all intents and purposes contributing to the English war effort.
As part of the peace settlement loyalists (see John Whitlock below) were given the opportunity for exile and 100,000 or more were transported to Canada when the British left the newly independent colonies.
Poignant Howard Pyle Drawing of Loyalists Being Exiled to Canada
Poignant Howard Pyle Drawing of Loyalists Being Exiled to Canada
Site of Home of John Whitlock
John Whitlock of Lenox appears to have been one of the loyalists in active civil war against his fellow colonists. This is a little confusing since records show multiple John Whitlocks. One (probably the son) built one of the earliest homes in Lenox (1771) on the site of the Village Inn on Church Street and owned much of what is now downtown Lenox. He allegedly oined the British army and ended up losing most of his property and leaving for Canada at the end of the Revolution. Another John Whitlock (probably the father) was either neutral or at least willing to take an oath of loyalty to the patriot cause as a John Whitlock donated the land for the original courthouse and was a vestrymen for Trinity Church.
Another Tory tale from Lenox involves Gideon Smith who lived at what today would be 406 New Lenox Road. The farm was part of a large parcel that had been sold by Israel Williams to David Sears and then to Gideon Smith in 1761. Perhaps it is urban legend but the story is that vigilantes hanged Gideon to choking – several times – until he agreed to the patriot loyalty oath. To avoid further roughing up from the over zealous local patriots, he supposedly hid in Tory Cave on the side of October Mountain. Apparently this is a popular local tale since the 1976 Bicentennial included a float depicted Gideon’s family bringing him food at Tory Cave.
It is easy in hind sight to look at the loyalists as the opposite of “loyal Americans” and to have been foolish to have given up life in the new United States. However, loyalists viewed themselves as the real patriots (remaining loyal to the established government–as did the Union soldiers in the Civil War). And the Revolutionary War remained a close thing that could have gone either way up to the end. The segment of the population (perhaps the majority) probably were trying to figure out where the wind was blowing for all eight years of the Revolutionary War.
See
Tories, Fighting for the King in America’s First Civil War, Thomas B. Allen, Harper Collins e-books
“The History of Tory Cave Farm,” Lenox High School Research Paper from the Lenox Historical Society, by Danielle Dragonetti, May, 2000
The Goodness That Doth Crown Our Days, A History of Trinity Parish, by John Allen Gable, Lenox, Massachusetts, 1993
Book Cover of Joseph Plumb Martin’s Tale of Being an Ordinary Soldier
We know of no eye-witness accounts of Revolutionary War service by Lenox enlisted men. However, Joseph Plumb Martin from Becket gives a fascinating and colorful picture of what life would have been like for all the brave and long suffering ordinary soldiers of the Revolution. Joseph Plumb Martin wrote of his experiences in “Ordinary Courage.”
Why and How Joseph Enlisted
Joseph, working on his grandfather’s farm, explains how he came to enlist:
“I remember the stir in the country occasioned by the Stamp Act, but I was so young that I did not understand the meaning of it; I likewise remember the disturbances that followed the repeal of the Stamp Act until the destruction of the tea at Boston and elsewhere. I was then 13 or 14 years old and began to understand something of the works going on. I used to inquire a deal about the French War, as it was called, which had not been long ended; my grandsire would talk with me about it while working in the field…” (Ch. 1)
In the same chapter he describes the sense of local tension and alarm:
“I was ploughing in the field about half a mile from home (which would have been Connecticut – where his grandfather lived), about the 21st day of April (1775) when all of a sudden the bells fell to dinning and three guns were repeatedly fired in succession down in the village….The regulars are coming in good earnest, thought I.”
At first, Joseph has no interest in enlisting but then:
“This year there were troops raised both for Boston and New York. Some from the back towns were billeted at my gransire’s; their company and conversation began to warm my courage to such a degree that I resolved at all events to ‘to a sogering'”
However, his grandfather did not give him permission to enlist (he would have been only 15) and:
“Many of my young associates were with them; my heart and soul went with them, but my mortal part must stay behind. By and by they will come swaggering back, thought I, and tell me of all their exploits….”
In July 1776 Joseph got his wish when his town was required to provide enlistees for the defense of New York. Upon being told that the British had been reinforced by 15,000 men he reports, “I never spent a thought about numbers; the Americans were invincible in my opinion….”
Joseph’s Account of the Kip’s Bay ‘Affair’ and the Retreat from New York
Joseph has a laconic story telling style that would become classic yankee. He speaks of battle as things getting “warm,” and constantly makes sarcastic comments about food (and was probably hungry almost all the time.) Although many of his stories of duty in Westchester and New Jersey tell of indifferent patriots or tories, here he paints a picture of interactions between both friends and foes while on the march:
“I found myself in company with one who was a neighbor of mine when at home and one other man belonging to our regiment; where the rest of them were I knew not. We went into a house by the highway in which were two women and some small children, all crying most bitterly. We asked the women if they had any spirits in the house; they placed a case bottle of rum upon the table and bid us help ourselves. We each of us drank a glass and bidding them good-bye betook ourselves to the highway again. We had not gond far before we saw a party of men apparently hurrying on in the same direction with ourselves. We endeavored hard to overtake them, but on approaching them we found they were not of our way of thinking; they were Hessians.” (Chap. 2)
And in this retreat he tells (as he will in all the future campaigns) of the inadequacy of rest and food:
“I still kept the sick man’s musket; I was unwilling to leave it, for it was his own property, and I knew he valued it highly, and I had a great esteem for him. I had enough to do to take care of my own concerns: it was exceeding hot weather, and I was faint, having slept but very little the preceding night, nor had I eaten a mouthful of victuals for more than 24 hours.”
And he gives a personal account of the hopes of the enslaved to be freed by serving with King George:
“The man of the house where I was quartered had a smart-looking Negro man, a great politician. I chanced one day to go into the barn where he was threshing. He quickly began to upbraid me with my opposition to the British. The king of England was a very powerful prince, he said–a very power prince; and it was a pity that the colonists had fallen out with him; but as we had, we must abide by the consequences. I had no inclination to waste the shafts of my rhetoric upon a Negro slave. I concluded he had heard his betters say so. As the old cock crows, so crows the young one; and I though, as the white cock crows, so cross the black oe. He ran away from his master before I left there and went to Long Island to assist King George; but it seems the King of Terrors was more potent than King George, for his master had certain intelligence that poor Cuff was laid flat on his back.”
(This may refer to death by small pox which was rampant — particularly among the former slaves who enlisted with the British troops.)
Why Joseph Re-Enlisted for the Duration of the War
By 1777 the rage militare of 1775 had all but disappeared. It was now apparent the war would be a prolonged affair and that the ‘sogering’ Joseph had looked forward to was more hunger and exhaustion than glory.
Nonetheless, like soldiers throughout history, Joseph re-enlisted because his friends did — and perhaps we can speculate–because he was young and wasn’t sure what else to do.
The Suffering of the Continental Army
(From Chapter 3)
“One of my mates, and my most familiar associate who had been out ever since the war commenced, and who had been with me the last campaign, had enlisted for the term of the war in the capacity of sergeant. He had enlisting orders, and was every time he saw me, which was often, harassing me with temptations to engage in the service again. At length he so far overcame my resolution as to get me into the scrape again, although it was at this time against my inclination, for I had not fully determined with myself, that if I did engage again, into what corps I should enter. But I would here just inform the reader, that that little insignificant monosyllable–No–was the hardest word in the language for me to pronounce, especially when solicited to do a thing which was in the least degree indifferent to me; I could say Yes, with half the trouble.”
And he gives us an account of the army’s war on smallpox:
“….with about 400 others of the Connecticut forces, to a set of old barracks a mile or two distant in the Highland to be inoculated with the smallpox. We arrived at and cleaned out the barracks, and after two or three days received the infection….I had the smallpox favorably as did the rest, generally.”
And he describes the growing hardship of his squad:
“Their whole time is spent in marches (especially night marches) watching, starving, and in cold weather freezing and sickness. If they get any chance to rest, it must be in the woods or fields, under the side of a fence, in an orchard or in any other place but a comfortable one, lying down on the cold and often wet ground, and perhaps, before the eyes can be closed with a moment’s sleep, alarmed and compelled to stand under arms an hour or two, or to receive an attack from the enemy; and when permitted again to endeavor to rest, called upon immediately to remove some four or five miles to seek some other place, to go through the same maneuvering as before; for it was dangerous to remain any length of time in one place for fear of being informed of by some tory inhabitant (for there were plenty of this sort of savage beast during the Revolutionary War.)…..”
He recounts more on the lack of provisions:
“In the cold month of November without provisions, without clothing, not a scrap of either shoes or stockings to my feet or legs, and in this condition to endure a siege in such a place as that was appalling in the highest degree.”
Joseph’s suffering goes on throughout the war – and often in situations where surrounded by plenty. He rightly resents the lack of sacrifice of the civilians who claimed to be patriots.
It is interesting to note that there was no such thing as an “American” yet. Joseph refers to the Pennsylvanians as foreigners.
Peace and Prosperity – Not
When the war ended in 1783 Joseph was still only 22 years old. He had had little education and is grandfather’s farm was gone. After a brief stint teaching school among the Dutch settlers in the Hudson Highlands, he made for Maine in response to rumors that land was available on easy terms. Like most of the common soldiers of the Revolutionary War, he mustered out with little except whatever tattered clothes he had on his back.
Settling near the mouth of the Penobscot River, he married, had children and lived another 66 years. He was apparently well thought of by his fellow townsmen — elected to the board of selectmen seven times. However, he never prospered and, like many veterans of the war, received scant reward for his service. In 1797 he finally received title to 100 acres of land in the Ohio territory, but he was already in Maine and owed for the land he had settle on there. His bounty land was assigned to a land agent for whatever cash could be raised.
See:
Ordinary Courage, The Revolutionary War Adventures of Joseph Plumb Martin, Fourth Edition, Edited by James Kirby Martin, Published by Wiley-Blackwell, 2013 (e edition)
Proprietors were akin to a modern corporation in that they owned a % of the land and acted as a board of directors for the town. The money they put in would have gone initially toward purchase of Lot #8. Further payments would have gone to legal costs, surveying and any remaining costs for Indian claims. Costs for meeting house and roads generally were shared among proprietors and settlers. Proprietors might or might not be settlers (see “New England Town Development”).
Proprietors may have wanted to get cheap land and have been willing to commit to the hard work of clearing or may have been pure investors hoping to gain by the appreciation in land value to be expected as the land was cleared and roads were built. The first distribution of property was by lots with later distributions being settled based on the % each proprietor had put in. In the case of Lenox, several rounds of distribution seem to have taken place as soon as the surveying was completed. Lenox proprietors held an average of about two hundred acres.
Our information on these important early investors is frustratingly sketchy.
The George Tucker manuscript lists (from documents now at the Berkshire County Middle Registry of Deeds) the proprietors below. If other sources* listed other information about the proprietor it is added here to give some flavor of the people involved. It is clear from the limited facts available that the investors who were not planning to settle, quickly monetized their holdings. In a non-money economy such as Colonial Berkshire County, and land changed hands numerous times from town founding to 1775 and seems to have provided cash for other uses, settlement of debt, etc.
Map from Registry of Deeds
Daniel Allen
Moses Ashley
Jacob Bacon – Dismissed from committee to build meeting house for failing to do anything
Issac Brown
Jonathan Bull
Christopher Cartwright
Samuel Churchill
Titus Curtis**
Israel Dewey** – Elected to Highway Committee, Meeting House Committee; the Deweys must have been major investors in Lenox, holding a half dozen of the original lots. There are 12 Deweys buried at Church on the Hill
Israel Dewey, Jr.
Solomon Glezen – Elected to Highway Committee; dismissed from original committee to build meeting house, elected to new one; in 1771, on behalf of the town of Lenox, Israel Dewey, Eliza Willard and Amos Stanley rented Lot# 6 (School House Lot – just north of the current location of the Church on the Hill) to him for use by the town; in 1772, 100 acres of the lot was sold to Jonathan Foster of Lenox with continued yearly rent by the town of “one peppercorn.”
Charles Goodrich – dismissed from committee to build meeting house for failing to do anything
Samuel Goodrich**
Eleanor Gunn – The only female listed as a proprietor, Eleanor (the former Eleanor Ingersoll) appears to have been the widow of Capt. Stephen Gunn who died at the age of 39 in 1759 of small pox in Great Barrington. Typical of other settlers of south Berkshire County, Capt. Gunn had been born in Westfield. Given the date and his title, his death may have been related to the last French and Indian War. The Registry of Deed records show “Gunn” on two lots near the Pittsfield line but descriptive information suggests Oliver Partridge (who along with other Ingersolls had an abutting lot) and or the ubiquitous Sam Brown of Stockbridge forced the widow to sign over her land in payment of a debt. Mention is made of “having found no goods in Widow Gunn’s house.”
Jonathan Hough
John Ingersoll
Daniel Jones
Elijah Jones
Josiah Jones, Jr.
Josiah Jones
Joseph Lee
Edward Martindale
Elisha Martindale – Elected to Committee to Build Meeting House and Committee to procure preacher; the Martindales were also holders of a large number of initial lots but there are no Martingales listed among the Church on the Hill burials.
Gershom Martindale** – elected to Highway Committee
Stephen Nash-dismissed from committee to build meeting house for failing to do anything; one of the Stephen Nash’s had participated in purchasing 1/2 of lot #6 (which was to be used for the school) from Sam Brown Jr. in 1764. It looks like Sam Brown may have purchased the same property from Josiah Jones in 1763. Of course the price was higher each time the property changed hands!
Stephen Nash, Jr.
Moses Nash
Asa Noble
David Pixley
David Pixley, Jr.
Abraham Root
Abel Rowe
Ashbel Treat
Timothy Treat
Ezra Whittlesey
Earlier settlers (such as Jonathan Hinsdale) may have already been resident on the land (whether proprietor or grant land) and may have rented or made arrangements to purchase after the initial lot selection.
*George Tucker Manuscript, Berkshire County Middle Registry of Deeds, Church on the Hill 1906 Centennial History, East Street Book
What were to become the towns of Lenox and Richmond began as one tract with the catchy name of Lot #8. Lot #8 was auctioned in 1762 as part of the Massachusetts General Court’s effort to settle newly formed (1761) Berkshire County with the sale of 10 potential township lots in this thinly populated portion of the state.
Initial Lot 8 Meeting
An Aid to Your Imagination for the Initial Lot #8 Meeting – Probably Would Not Have Been Quite so Well Dressed!
The area had been called Mt. Ephraim (now Richmond) and Yokuntown (now Lenox) in honor of the two Indian chiefs (Ephraim and Yokun)* who were the first claimants. They and their descendants had sold to the General Court and to the Brown proprietor group.
The first meeting was held April 17, 1764 at the house of Mr. John Chamberlin in Mt. Ephraim and, among other things, voted to build two meeting houses because the mountain range dividing the proprietorship made it difficult for settlers to attend worship in just one place. On July 6, 1766 Yokuntown and Mt. Ephraim petitioned the General Court for an official division.
Gov. Bernard OK’d Richmond/Lenox Split of Lot #8
On Feb. 26, 1767, Gov. Francis Bernard signed a bill to incorporate the easterly part of the town of Richmond into the district of Lenox. As a district, Lenox was allowed to unite with Richmond each year in choosing a representative to the General Court. Apparently early Richmond and Lenox settler had better things to do than make the arduous journey to Boston as the records show them being assessed a fine in 1770 and 1771 for failing to send a representative.
Proprietorships were required to demonstrate certain conditions such as having sixty households, each having cleared seven acres. We know the Hinsdale, Post and other families were already settled in Lenox and perhaps many of the conditions for settlement had been met for Lot #8. The records we have found are not clear on whether both entities in Lot #8 had met the conditions.
Lenox and Richmond Town Names
Charles Lennox,, 3rd Duke of Richmond (1735-1806)
Richmond was named in honor of the Duke of Richmond and Lenox in honor of his family name, Charles Lennox (the second “n” was lost somewhere in transcription).
The Duke was apparently so honored because of his favorable views toward the colonies. During the American Revolution he would be shown to be a full bore supporter by initiating debate to withdraw British troops from the rebelling colonies in 1778. It’s not clear from readily available resources what he had done in the 1760’s to receive such an honor (although with the state of transportation in those days it might have been quite a while before he knew two towns had been named in his honor!). He is known to have been a Whig and a supporter of Parliamentary Reform – in other words part of the political party favoring the colonies. He also had the honor of being intensely disliked by George III (the enemy of my enemy….)
The seat of the Duke of Richmond (Goodwood House) is in Weshampnett — part of Chichester, Sussex, England. Many of the Pilgrims came from that part of England and during World War II, Americans would have flown out of the nearby airbase.
Lenox Town Officers Chosen
According to Field’s 1829 “History of Berkshire County, ”
“The first town officers were chosen March 5, 1767,” and that date (or the 3rd) is generally celebrated as the birth date of the Town of Lenox.
The Birchwood Inn (Hubbard St. and Main) is at the Site of Israel Dewey’s Home and Tavern
The proprietor’s minutes are spotty but the first Lenox Proprietor’s meeting (remember they were the owners and governing body) on August 3, 1768.*
Israel Dewey was one of the proprietors and the owner of the land now occupied by The Birchwood Inn. It was a tavern site in the 1760’s and the first meetings were alleged to have occurred at the then standing home and tavern.
This was an experienced and no-nonsense group that immediately moved to seek a minister, build a meeting house (in the location of the 1806 Church on the Hill that still stands today), levy taxes and build roads.
Given the primitive transportation available, housing for the earliest settlers would have been limited to raw materials readily at hand: logs, stone, and clay. Initial houses would have been rudimentary, perhaps with only one room initially with a fire place that would have to double for light, heat and cooking. There may have been a loft for sleeping and generally a dirt floor. Windows, if any, would have been wooden – closing with pegs or rope, or, at best, covered by oil cloth or hides.
House Meeting Settlement Guidelines Re-creation in Williamstown, MA
As the children and grandchildren of early settlers of Westfield, Sheffield and western Connecticut, the Lenox settlers would have known what they had to do to make corn meal, hunt for game, find wild berries and herbs, and slaughter and smoke their meat. Their parents or grandparents would have created similar shelters for the first phase of their housing. They probably would have had a treasured metal pot and metal crane for cooking, melting ice, etc.
Mission House Stockbridge – Far Finer Than the Average Colonial Home
Settlers would upgrade housing, crops and livestock . Settlers would have upgraded to frame houses with stone foundations as soon as quickly as money or more readily available resources permitted. However, the original log house would stand into the 19th century. We can only speculate, but in the increasingly secular and commercial Colonial era, ambitious families were probably as anxious to display their wealth in their homes as they are today.
Wealthier settlers could have accelerated the timing of upgrading (or skipped over the rudimentary shelter phase completely) with the ability to pay for transportation of materials and servants to accelerate the labor of clearing, hauling in goods from the outside and building. The skills to build what we think of as a colonial house would have been readily available and some of Lenox’s proprietors lived in nearby towns where they might have stayed until their new Lenox frame houses were available. Upgrading also would have involved creating shelter for animals and, in many cases, a workshop for the artisan work performed on many farms.
From the Bidwell House Collection – Items that Might Have Been Brought in From Urban Centers in Colonial Days
Panelling, cabinets and tables could have been built locally. Pewter, tin and iron housewares (pots, hooks, pitchers, mugs) could have been manufactured by nearby artisans.
The Bidwell House Dining Room – Not the Furnishings of the Average Farmer!
Poorer families would have used more wood and clay for utensils and housewares. However, the glassware, windows, china, chairs, bedclothes and tableware we associate with historic Colonial houses would have to have been imported from urban areas and transported in.
More Food Options Had Started to become Available
Textiles and Clothing
The average housewife would have learned how to make linen (from flax) and wool thread and might have bartered to get it woven in a nearby homestead with access to a loom.
Wealthier households could buy textiles including imported materials such as cotton and silk as well as manufactured items such as metal buttons and buckles. Nearby hatters and tanners could have supplied the average household with jerkins, hats and belts. Dress would have become more elaborate than in the 17th century(although still quite simple by modern standards) and more differentiated by class. The larger landowners, the lawyers and the minister might have sported clothing with manufactured buttons and belt clasps and have worn wigs.
Layers were the order of the day with a ubiquitous undershirt with various levels of outer garments, hats, scarves, collars or ruffles depending on the temperature, the sex and the class. Children would have been dressed as miniature adults.
Colonial Era Economy
As soon as they were able, households would generally have at least one cow, sheep, a pig and some geese or chickens. If farmers didn’t have a team of oxen they would trade services to use a neighbor’s team. Some farmers would have a cart or a horse – but horses were still somewhat of a luxury.
Households without servants to help with the planting, clearing and household work would have sought help from immediate family, gather extended kin or barter for help from neighbors. Either through exchange or cash from market days, any surplus of cheese from cows, eggs from hens, or smoked meat might have been exchanged for help in plowing and harvesting or for tools, tin mugs, woven homespun wool and linen, shoes, cured hides, nails or andirons – etc. – items that other farmers might be making at home for exchange.
Most homes would acquire the ability to make tallow candles and spins yarn. Money as we know it would still have been in short supply and to the degree it could be obtained would have been used to buy land, pay taxes, or purchase goods manufactured or harvested elsewhere including glass, fabric, guns, books, paper, salt, tobacco or tea.
The Farmer’s Wife Would Have a Garden for Her Home and for Market If Possible
Food choices would have expanded from early days but still would have been primarily what could be grown and preserved locally. Nearby mills would have been used to grind corn into meal (later wheat). Apple trees would have been widely planted and, in addition, to eating and baking, apples would have been widely used for cider and vinegar.
Honey and maple syrup would have been the primary sweeteners – sugar being an imported luxury. Rum and other distilled spirits my not have been made locally at first but were widely available in the region. Tobacco, tea, coffee and cocoa would have been popular but an imported luxury. A key to lifting the family above subsistence level would have been developing goods to barter or sell — a surplus difficult to come by in the hardscrabble growing conditions of the Berkshires.
A more popular way to have access to manufactured or imported items would be to have a side trade – often practiced in the farmhouse or in a side shed that could be sold for cash. Examples might have included: tin work, shoe making, leather smith, or blacksmithing. Many homes would have acquired a spinning wheel but not all would have looms to weave yarn into cloth. Work on these side trades probably would have been concentrated during times when the farmer didn’t have to be out planting or harvesting.
There would have been a handful of what we would, today, call “professionals” – the minister, a lawyer (who would probably have been kept very busy with property changing hands constantly!) and a doctor. The doctor may have been more like an apothecary. It’s highly likely there also would have been a woman accepted as the best at helping in delivery of babies – the midwife.
Social Life
In addition to Church, there would have been social occasions (probably accompanied by locally distilled malt ale or hard cider) for wedding feasts (not weddings if the Puritan tradition still held), roof raising, market days or militia drill. We have evidence of considerable interaction with other Berkshire communities in the protests culminating in the Revolution–meetings in Pittsfield, Sheffield and correspondence with counterparts in the Connecticut River Valley and Boston. Also, Lenox residents would have had many kinship ties in other Berkshire, Connecticut River and Housatonic River Valley towns. Certainly, with a growing population and improved transportation, Lenox would have been rapidly leaving its isolated frontier status behind by 1775.
Daily Life in Colonial New England, Claudia Durst Johnson, Greenwood Press, Daily Life History SeriesDaily Life in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, George Francis Dow, Arno Press, A New York Times Company, New York, 1977Early Life in Sheffield Berkshire County, Massachusetts, A Portrait of Its Ordinary People from Settlement to 1860, James R. Miller, Sheffield Historical Society 2002The History of Pittsfield 1734-1800, J.E.A. Smith, Lee and Shepherd, 1869History of Lenox, George Tucker ManuscriptEast Street Book, Lenox Historical Society – 1987
Although the French and Indian Wars would not officially end until 1763, things had turned sufficiently favorable for the English that, by June 1762, the Royal government in Boston was anxious to get the wild new county of Berkshire settled. In June 1762 the General Court put Lot #8 (which would later be split into Richmond and Lenox) up for sale. It was not destined to be a smooth or easy process.
First Bidder Josiah Dean
A response came quickly from Josiah Dean* of Canaan (unfortunately the records currently available don’t say if that was Canaan, NY or CT.) bid 2350 pounds as of June 11, 1762 and paid a 20 pound bond to assure performance of all requirements. (A Josiah Dean of Canaan, NY went on to become a leader in the Revolutionary War.)
* With Asa Douglas, Timothy Holobeard, John Ashley, Ellijah Williams, Aaron Sheldon, and John Chadwick
Negotiations with the Indians
Meanwhile, the Indians complained that the 1000 pounds they had already received from the General Court did not represent appropriate compensation for their property. The General Court took the amount up first to 1500 pounds then to 1700 pounds. Another 650 pounds was to be delivered on actually relinquishing the land. The record is a bit unclear on this point, but the extra 650 may have been thrown in by Samuel Brown, Jr. to tip the deal in his direction.
Samuel Brown, Jr. of Stockbridge lead a bid (as agent for a group**) against the Dean bid and offered a bond of 650 pounds (not sure if same or different than the 650 referenced above) toward purchase as of Feb. 17, 1763. Among other things, Samuel Brown, Jr. claimed his group had already paid the Indians for the property. Samuel Brown, Jr. was the son of one of the English families allowed to settle in Stockbridge. His father had been among the English of Stockbridge involved in one of many fast stepping land deals that reduced the Indian holdings. Father and son had both occupied many town offices in Stockbridge and Samuel Brown, Jr. appears in numerous other land and proprietor records.
**Proprietors as of first and second round of grants – the Brown Group (according to Colonial Registry of Deeds)
Daniel Allen, Moses Ashley, Jacob Bacon, Issac Brown, Jonathan Bull, Christopher Cartwright, Samuel Churchill, Titus Curtis, Israel Dewey, Israel Dewey, Jr., Solomon Glezen, Charles Goodrich, Samuel Goodrich, Eleanor Gunn, Jonathan Hough, Timothy Treat, Ashbel Treat, John Ingersoll, Daniel Jones, Elijah Jones, Josiah Jones, Josiah Jones, Jr., Joseph Lee, Edward Martindale, Elisha Martindale, Gershom Martindale, Stephen Nash, Stephen Nash, Jr. Moses Nash, Asa Noble, David Pixley, David Pixley, Jr. Abraham Root, Abel Rowe, Ezra Whittlesey
Samuel Brown Group Won Bidding for Lot 8
But the award of the bid to Brown may have been partly due to second thoughts on the part of the Dean group. Perhaps after making the bid, Dean and some of his party came to Lot# 8 to check out their woody, hilly purchase and found another problem. According to the report in the Registry of Deeds,
“Asa Douglas of Canaan, agent of Josiah Dean, some of the grantees began improvement and brought action of trespass against the Indians for refusing to move. ‘divers persons in possession of the township lying between Stockbridge and Pittsfield under a pretended title from the Stockbridge Indians and as the affair of their removal at this present time may be attended with difficulty and inasmuch as the said Josiah Dean hath agreed to release into the Province the sale of the said township.'”
Dean was given 2000 acres elsewhere – and got his 20 pound deposit back.
Lot 8 Split Into Mt. Ephraim and Yokuntown
On February 26, 1767, the proprietors of Mt. Ephraim and Yokuntown were given permission to split the town along the mountains that made it difficult to administer Lot 8 as one town. The easterly part was given the name Lenox. It was supposed to be “Lennox” in honor of the Duke of Richmond but somewhere along the line a spelling error became permanent and it has been Lenox ever since.
George Tucker Manuscript, History of Lenox
Colonial Records and Proprietary Plans, Berkshire Middle District Registry of Deeds
Lenox Massachusetts Shire Town, by David Wood, Published by the Town, 1969
Many of the grants made prior to the formation of Berkshire County were in what would become Lenox.
The land that would comprise Lenox and Richmond was auctioned as Lot 8 by the Royal Colony General Court in 1762. But, the land that was being auctioned for what would become Lenox was only about half the total acerage – the rest had already been bought or distributed as grants. The Indians believed themselves to be holders of most of the rest. Here is a brief description of the situation at the time of the Lot 8 auction.
1. The Ministers Grant (~4,000 acres)* –
Mohegan Sachem Konkaput had given a Dutch interpreter quite a few acres of meadowland along the river in Stockbridge. Then the interpreter fell into debt, and borrowed 100 pounds from John Sergeant (the Stockbridge Minister) with land as security. The Dutchman then sold, for 450 pounds, to a group that offered to trade (finalized in 1741-1742) 280 acres of this land for 4,000 acres of woodland to the north east (Lenox). The group consisted of: Ephraim Williams – 900 acres plus a 130 acre pond, Nehemiah Bull 700 acres; and the remainder to Stephen Williams, Samuel Hopkins, John Sergeant, Timothy Woodbridge, Jonathan Edwards (John Stoddard’s nephew) and Peter Reynolds.
In my opinion a group of pretty sharp operators.
By the time Lenox was officially established, a number of these grants had been passed to heirs.
2. Grants from the Royal Colony in Recognition of Service to the State (~2500 Acres)
The Quincy Grant – In 1737 Edmund Quincy was appointed to a commission to resolve the Massachusetts border with New Hampshire and he traveled to London on this mission where he contracted smallpox and died. In return for his service his family was, in 1739, awarded 1,000 acres in what would become Lenox.
The Larrabee Grant – 500 acres in 1739 to Capt . John Larrabee for service and expense of managing Fort William (Boston Harbor.) The grant comprises much of what would become Lenox Furnace/ Lenox Dale.
The Stevens Grant – 250 acres in 1756 for the support of the widow and children of Capt. Phineas Stevens. Capt. Stevens had, with 30 militia men, held off put to 700 French and Indians during King George’s War, at Fort Number 4 – the northernmost British outpost on the Connecticut River in modern day Charleston, NH, on the border with modern day Vermont.
The Lawrence Grant – 353 acres granted in 1758 to compensate for land given to New Hampshire when the new border was drawn.
The Woodbridge Grant – In 1759, some of the Stockbridge Indians, lead by Jehoiakim Yokun, granted Timothy Woodbridge 350 acres in gratitude for his services as schoolmaster.
3. Indian Claims on the remaining land – estimate roughly 6,000-7,000 additional acres – The King viewed all unclaimed land as his to dispense or sell, but the Royal Colony had accepted the appropriateness of treating the land as a “purchase” from the Indians for the sake of peace. Purchase is in quotes here because, in most cases, the purchase price was heavily discounted to ceremonial. In the case of Lenox, the Indian land claims were actively defended. Perhaps the Indians realized values were going up as the land was cleared and settled. In the early days of the Stockbridge reservation (1739-1745) Jehoiakim Yokun and another Indian bought all the unsold land between Stockbridge and Pittsfield from fellow tribesmen for 12 pounds. He and other principal families claimed land throughout western Massachusetts (p. 52)* . It is not know This may be the man for whom “Yokuntown” (Lenox) was originally named.
The Indians had clearly learned a thing or two from their sharp dealing English allies since, by 1761, it took three escalating offers, to get the Indians to sell the lands they held in Lenox.
Net: The buyers of Lot 8 weren’t dealing with untouched territory. Clarifying existing property lines, establishing titles and dealing with households that may have settled without title would have been complicated and expensive. It’s not completely clear whether these costs would have been bourne by the buyers (the proprietors) or the sellers (the Royal Colony government.) Undoubtedly, as in modern real estate transactions, there would have been a need for individuals wit the contacts and expertise to work the government angle, the property law angle and negotiate with sellers ranging from Indians to competitive English landowners. Probably the successful fixers were well connected and good at skating on the edge of what would be considered ethical by modern standards.
*The Mohicans of Stockbridge, Patrick Frazier, University of Nebraska Press, 1992
Also see:
George Tucker Manuscript: A History of Lenox
Middle County Berkshire Registry of Deeds, Colonial Records
