PEOPLE AND POLITICS

I

SPRINGFIELD IN THE SEVENTIES

SPRINGFIELD in 1872 was a homogeneous municipality of the best New England sort, having a population of about thirty thousand. The Federal census of two years before gave it 26,703. In July of that year a boy, then nearing twenty years of age, born in Williamstown, Berkshire County, Massachusetts, first saw the attractive little city. He came down from the hills by way of Pittsfield, and from the Boston and Albany train of which Stephen Chapin was conductor first beheld the "winding and willow-fringed Connecticut", as Doctor J. G. Holland had characterized the river in his recently published "Kathrina", much read by college boys. The stream was impressive and beautiful in its great sweep. Not so the big, barnlike shed into which the train rolled after crossing the river, the departed old railroad station on the west side of Main Street, so long despised and execrated, but destined ere its life was ended to impart many memories to this youth entering a city of fine character that was destined to have a splendid future.

At that time railroad tracks passed over Main Street at grade, and so the north half of Springfield was cut off from the south half when trains moved east and west through the city over the Boston and Albany Railroad. The people bore with that handicap on their free movement as they did with rain, or any other accepted inevitability, for railroad crossings at grade were a commonplace of that time, and regarded as an inescapable part of the progress which the age of steam had brought.

Into that railroad "depot" - for so it was almost universally called - came also the tracks of the Connecticut River Railroad, from the north; and those of the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad, from the south. People went out of town and returned "by the cars." The effect of this focusing of railroad facilities was to concentrate important business interests on the west side of Main Street. People passing to and from the old railroad station walked on that side of the street, and merchants wished to appeal to them going and coming. The east side of Main Street was for this reason considered less desirable for business purposes.

Circuses no longer exhibited as of old on the Barnes lot, but not for many years was that open stretch of land to be built upon and take its important place in the business heart of the city, and the east side of Main Street to be considered the equal, or superior, of the west side.

The Barnes lot originally extended on Main Street from Bridge Street to Harrison Avenue, and swept eastward to Chestnut Street. At this time Dwight

Street was continued from Harrison Avenue to Lyman Street, and Hillman Street was laid out. The First Baptist Church stood on Main Street, on the northerly corner of Harrison Avenue, the site now occupied by the Republican building of my day. From the steeple of the church an irritatingly sharp bell pierced the Sunday morning calm. Harry Keene, a Republican reporter, and brother of James R. Keene, Wall Street magnate of the time, used to say that the bell always awakened him and said, "Go to hell! Go to hell!" Ever after, when the Baptist bell rang, one could hear that irreverent message, and no other. From the church northward to Bridge Street there were only a few insignificant buildings, and a large photographer's car was not out of place in their company.

Soon the town brook was to be diverted in North Main Street and led into the Connecticut River. It had hitherto carried the drainage of Ferry and other streets, but now more sewers were to be provided. Houses were being numbered in a systematic way. The year 1872 saw some two hundred new buildings erected, but the demand remained greater than the supply. The old toll bridge across the Connecticut River to West Springfield had just been made free. All of which suggests how long village ways lingered behind the city's growth. The elm trees of old days had not entirely departed from Main Street. Nor were they so decadent on Court Square as to call for the planting of pin oaks.

Turning north on leaving the railroad station, one came to the "Granite Building", well known as the

headquarters of the Boston and Albany Railroad, whose president, Chester W. Chapin, graduate from the ancient stagecoach, lived in Springfield. That now lightly esteemed office building was planned by Henry H. Richardson, of New York, the architect who blessed Springfield with the beauty of the Church of the Unity, and later designed the Hampden County Courthouse and the present North Church. Across Main Street from the Boston and Albany building were Cooley's Hotel and the headquarters office of the Connecticut River Railroad. Its president, Daniel L. Harris, also lived in Springfield. He had been a successful bridge builder before making railroading his absorbing business. Here and beyond lay Ward One, of more or less blessed memory in local politics.

And so past the Memorial Church and Round Hill, the north end extended until the Chicopee line was reached. Near that line, on a height, were the estate and house of Doctor J. G. Holland, which he had named Brightwood, and so calling it, builded better than he knew, for the name was later applied to the important manufacturing district which grew up below in sight of what had been the Holland house, by the side of the railroad and nearer the Connecticut River. Doctor Holland made his literary reputation on the Republican from 1848 to 1866. In 1870 he joined with Roswell Smith in establishing Scribner's Monthly, afterwards the Century.

But we are outrunning the knowledge then possessed by the young traveler. He turned to the south and proceeded across Railroad Row to the

Massassoit House, Springfield's best known hotel, which had long before won national fame for its cuisine in general, and its matchless waffles in particular. It was a rambling building, or rather buildings, built of brick, and painted a light color, with a respectable but not imposing front. On the Main Street corner was a narrow iron balcony opening from the first floor above the street, wherefrom guests of the hotel, persons often of national or international fame, looked down upon the railroad crossing and street scenes of very limited reach. Ethan S. and Marvin Chapin were masters of the Massassoit House, austere and highly regarded citizens, intelligent and informed beyond hotel keeping, with homes in a desirable residential quarter of the city. The Chapin farm, near where the Springfield Hospital buildings now are, was conducted by a relative, and sent its products to the hotel.

A good many blocks to the southward, past the old wooden North Church on the west side of Main Street, was the Haynes Hotel, conducted with more of the hustle of the time by its creator, Tilly Haynes, one of Springfield's forceful citizens. He managed its only playhouse, and to his hotel actors and commercial men were especially drawn. P. T. Barnum once sought an alliance with Mr. Haynes, and no doubt such a union of aggressive forces would have proved mutually advantageous, had the Springfield man then consented to leave the city he loved. To ride into the circus ring behind six beautiful horses, sitting beside the great showman, was a memorable experience yet to come. Nor does one forget how