NORTHAMPTON MASSACHUSETTS

Northampton Massachusetts

Reproduced from a 7" x 4¾" Steel Engraving

from a Drawing by W.H. Bartlett

 Northampton Massachusetts is Print # 50 of 53 from Volume II

"AMERICAN SCENERY" or LAND,LAKE, AND RIVER

Published in 1839 by George Virtue, 26 Ivy Lane, London

This is a exact copy of the original 1839 text describing the above Print, from 
Volume II "AMERICAN SCENERY"  or Land, Lake, and River

IT is recorded of the first settlers of Northampton, that in the tenth year of their establishment in the wilderness, in 1663, they paid for the support of a clergyman one hundred and twenty pounds sterling. According to the change in the value of money, and the circumstances of the persons who formed the con­gregation, this sum was equal to at least six times the amount of the present valuation. In this one fact is to be found a leaven which has pervaded the town ever since, preserving for its inhabitants the rigid morality, the religious feeling, and almost the stern manners of the Puritan pilgrims.

The inflexible justice practised among such men had its effect on the Indians among whom they settled; and Northampton, in consequence, was one of the last towns affected by the general hostilities of Philip's war.

In their first purchases, they secured no less their own rights than the rights of the natives; and the latter were always considered as having a right to dwell and hunt in the lands they had sold. In the year 1664, they requested leave of the settlers to build themselves a fort within the town; and leave was granted on the following conditions:—

" That the Indians do not work, game, or carry burdens within the town on the Sabbath; norpowow here, or anywhere else;

" Nor get liquor, nor cider, nor get drunk;

" Nor admit Indians from without the town;

" Nor break down the fences of the inhabitants;

" Nor let cattle or swine upon their fields; but go over a stile at one place ;

" Nor admit among tkem the murderers, Calawane, Wuttowhan, and Pac-quallant;

" Nor hunt, nor kill cattle, sheep, or swine, with their dogs."

There is in these conditions an attention to the sobriety and morality of the Indians, which has been very seldom regarded in compacts with this injured race.

 The consequence was, a perpetual peace between them and the Indians of their immediate neighbourhood. On the breaking out of Philip's war, however, they became liable to incursions from other tribes, and especially from the Canadians, French, and Indians. They fortified their " meeting-house;" and in every cluster of houses, one was fortified and pierced with holes for the discharge of muskets. The whole town was then enclosed with a palisado set up in a trench, and a guard of fifty persons perpetually kept.

It is scarcely possible to convey, to a mind that has not reflected on the subject, a fair idea of the difficulties, hazards, and horrors, that beset the first adventurers for religious liberty in New England. Beside all the usual evils of pioneering— the separation from friends, the hardships, the privations, the loss of all commu­nication with the civilized world, these settlers had to encounter the most diabolical warfare recorded in history.

" The first announcement of an Indian war," says a diffuse writer on this sub* ject, " is its terrible commencement. In the hour of security and sleep, when your deadly enemies are supposed to be friends, quietly fishing and hunting—when they are believed to be far off, and thoughtless of you and yours, your sleep is suddenly broken by the war-whoop, your house and village set on fire, your family and friends butchered, and yourself escape only to be carried into captivity, and wrung with every species of torture. If you go out to the fields, you may be shot down by an unseen enemy in the woods, or return in the evening and find your house consumed to ashes, and your family carried into captivity."

During the last part of what is called Philip's war, to the Indians' treachery, cruelty, and cunning, was added the instigation, the sustenance, and the wealth of the civilized French. A price was paid for English scalps; European officers planned and assisted to execute schemes of devastation and slaughter; and, in short, nothing was wanting to develop, in its fullest ferocity, the Indian's love of blood.

It is curious to reflect how wide and immortal would have been the fame of the king of the Wampanoags, had he succeeded, (as he came very near doing,) in exter­minating the Whites, and restoring the land of his forefathers to his subjects and children. The experiment of settlement would scarcely have been soon repeated; and, perhaps, to this day, the Indian, confident in his tried strength, would have possessed and defended the lands from which he has so utterly disappeared; while the name of Philip would justly have been associated with those of Gustavus Vasa, and Alfred of England. The difference between him and these great lights of history, is, that he failed.