The railway traveller, journeying between Springfield and Hartford along
the banks of the fair Connecticut, sees from the car window, far away to
the eastward, across the broad level of intervening plains, a chain of
purple hills, whose undulating crest-line meets the bending sky and forms
the distant horizon. Just beyond the loftiest hummock of this range a
fertile valley lies concealed; and near its centre, upon the smooth summit
of a gently swelling ridge, which, extending north and south for miles,
divides the valley lengthwise, stands Belfield, the shire town of the rural
county of Hillsdale. Its fourscore white dwellings, scattered unevenly
along the shady margins of a straight and ample street, are mostly large,
substantial granges, each with its little suburb of dependencies making
a hamlet by itself. But where the broad avenue, at midway, spreads still
wider, forming a spacious square, are thickly clustered the public
buildings of the town and county,--together with the meeting-houses, the
taverns, the bank, the shops, and a few handsome dwellings, whose large
dimensions and ornate style show them to be the abodes of people of wealth
and consideration.
The greensward in the middle of this square contains two or three elms of
immemorial age, besides many thrifty trees of a later planting. The wooden
barrier by which it is enclosed was once adorned with a coat of white
paint, now nearly worn off. The topmost rails and post-heads of this fence
have been so notched and gnawed by the jackknives of whittling idlers
and the teeth of cribbing horses, that their original size and shape are
matters concerning which the present generation are informed only by
tradition.
This square was long ago named "The Green"; a pleasant title, by which, in
course of time, the village itself came to be known and called. Instead of
going "to town," the farmers of the remote school districts talk of going
"to the Green," to meeting and to market; and in all that region the
guideboards point the way "To BELFIELD GREEN." This spot was the site of
the old blockhouse and stockaded fort, within whose rude but safe defences
the early colonists of Belfield, with their wives, children, and cattle,
used to huddle at night, through all the time of King Philip's War. Here,
with much labor, the settlers dug a deep well, fed by never-failing
springs, to provide a sure supply of water, in case of siege, for all the
garrison. And now, as if it were a monument raised to commemorate those
dismal times, there stands, at a point where all the crossing footpaths
meet, a huge town-pump, near ten feet high, carved and painted, with
a great ball upon its top, and an iron ladle chained to its nose. In
the torrid summer-days, from early morning till late at night, the old
pump-handle has but little rest; for, though in a season of drought the
neighboring wells are apt to run low, the ancient pump, like a steadfast
friend, never fails at such a time of need.
Near at hand, in the centre of a foot-worn circle, a stout wooden post
stands by itself, which, in spite of its homely aspect, may well be termed
a Pillar of the State. It is one of the institutions of the Commonwealth,
established by an act of the General Assembly. Here, with torn corners
fluttering in the wind, hang weather-stained probate notices, mildewed
town-meeting warnings, and tattered placards of sheriff's sales; for no
estate can be settled, no land set off or chattel sold on execution, no
legal meeting of the voters or freemen holden, without previous notice on
the sign-post. It used to be known by another name, and marks the spot,
where, whilom, petty thieves, shiftless vagrants, and other small offenders
against the majesty of the law, were wont to suffer a shameful penalty for
their vile misdeeds.
On the western side of the square, on the summit of the grassy slope,
stands the Presbyterian meeting-house, flanked on one side by the academy,
and on the other by the court-house. There are, besides, two other places
of worship in the village; but neither is built upon the square; and when,
at Belfield, the meeting-house is mentioned, the speaker is understood to
indicate by that title the edifice which stands between the academy and
the court-house, and not the plain, square structure, with neither steeple
nor bell, in which the Baptists assemble for worship, nor the little
white Methodist chapel in the lane, with green blinds to its windows, and
a little toy of a turret, scarcely bigger than a martin-box, upon its
shingled roof.
The quaint style and old-fashioned aspect of Belfield meeting-house attest
its venerable age. For more than a hundred years its slender spire has
glowed in the ruddy beams of early dawn, and cast at sunset its lengthening
shadow across the village green. A century ago, the mellow tones of its
Sabbath bell, echoing through the valley, summoned the pious congregation
to their austere devotions. Before the worn threshold of the great
double-leaved door, in the broadside of the building, lies a platform,
which was once a solid shelf of red sandstone, but now is cracked in twain,
and hollowed by the footsteps of six generations. In the very spot where it
now lies it has lain ever since the first framed meeting-house was built
in Belfield, in the reign of good King William III. There, gathered in a
little knot, on Sundays and public days, the forefathers of the settlement
used to talk over the current news; how the first Port Royal expedition had
failed; or how New England militiamen, without aid from home, had captured
the great fortress of Louisburg, after a brief and glorious siege. There,
still later, the sons of these men rejoiced at the news of Wolfe's victory,
and sorrowfully related the sad intelligence of Braddock's shameful defeat.
There stood their grandsons, a flushed, excited throng of hardy yeomen,
clinching their fists unconsciously, and breathing hard and fast, as they
listened to the tidings of the fight at Concord Bridge. Here, during the
war that followed, when troops were mustered before marching off to camp,
the roll used to be called upon this very stone. No town of its size in all
New England contributed a larger number to the ranks of the Continental
army than did Belfield. One hot summer, all the unwonted toils and
unbefitting cares of haying and harvest fell upon the little boys and women
and a few old gray-haired men, whose aged limbs had long before earned the
right to rest. In all Belfield there was not a male able to bear arms who
was not gone to camp. Some war-worn veterans lived to return; and many a
Sunday noon, in later years, sitting here, upon the broad doorstone of
the meeting-house, they used to tell over the stories of their battles
and campaigns, until the sound from the belfry overhead, and the sight of
the minister approaching from the parsonage, with stately pace and solemn
aspect, would check the flowing current of their talk, and recall their
thoughts to subjects more in keeping with the holy Sabbath-day. But some
of the friends and comrades of these brave men never came home; their
bones lie mouldering beneath the turf at White Plains, at Saratoga, at
Brandywine, and at Princeton. Some perished with cold and hunger at Valley
Forge; some died of fever in the horrible Old Sugar-house; some rotted
alive in the Jersey prison-hulk; some lie buried under the gloomy walls of
Dartmoor; and some there were whose fate was never known.
It was the custom, formerly, to hold all meetings for the transaction
of public business in the sanctuary. None, not even the most piously
fastidious parson or deacon, ever thought of being shocked at what in these
degenerate times would seem like a gross desecration of the house of God.
There were fewer Pharisees in Belfield a hundred years ago than now. To
the Puritans, and to all their descendants, until of late, their places
of worship were not churches, but meeting-houses merely; and by the
stout-hearted men who used to dwell in New England it would have been
deemed a heresy near akin to idolatry itself, or at least savoring strongly
of the damnable errors of the Romish Church, to hold that wood and stones,
carved and fashioned by the hand of man, could be hallowed by an empty rite
of consecration.
On these week-day occasions, therefore, no part of the house was kept
sacred from the world. Even the pulpit itself would have been given up to
secular uses, but that, being so lofty, it was found to be an inconvenient
position for the moderator's chair. So this important functionary was
accustomed, from time immemorial, to take his place in the deacons'
seat, below, with the warning of the meeting, the statute-book, and the
ballot-boxes arranged before him on the communion-table, which in course of
time became so banged and battered, by dint of lusty gavel-strokes, that
there was scarcely a place big enough to put one's finger upon which was
not bruised and dented. For, in the days of the fierce conflict between the
Federalists and Democrats, the meetings were often noisy and disorderly;
and once, even, at the memorable election of 1818, two hot-headed partisans
from sharp words fell to blows, and others joining in the fray, the
skirmish became at length a general engagement. The recurrence of a scene
like this, upon the same stage, is never to be expected. The meeting-house
has been set apart for religious uses exclusively, since its interior was
thoroughly altered and remodelled, the tall pulpit replaced by one of
modern style, the sounding-board removed, the aisles carpeted, and the
square, old-fashioned pews changed for cushioned slips.
In the rear, a little way off, is a row of ugly sheds, yawning towards the
street, where, on Sundays, the farmers who come from a distance tie their
beasts, each in his separate stall. In hot days, in the summer time, when
all the doors and windows of the meeting-house are set wide open, the
hollow sound of horses' stamping mingles with the preacher's drowsy tones,
and sometimes the congregation is startled from repose by the shrill squeal
of some unlucky brute, complaining of the torture inflicted by the sharp
teeth of its ill-natured mate or vicious neighbor; or, perhaps, the flutter
of fans is suspended at the obstreperous neigh by which some anxious dam
recalls the silly foal that has strayed from her side; or the dissonant
creaking of a cramped wheel makes doleful interludes between the verses of
the hymn. Here naughty boys, escaped from the confinement of the sanctuary,
are wont to lounge in the wagons during prayer and sermon time, munching
green pears and apples, devouring huge bunches of fennel, dill, and
caraway, comparing and swapping jackknives, or striving, by means of
cautious hems and whispers, and other sly signals, to attract the notice of
their more decent fellows sitting near the open gallery-windows.
When the black doors of the little dingy building not far from the south
end of the horse-sheds are seen standing open, it is a pretty sure sign
that somebody lies dead in the parish. In this gloomy place the sexton
keeps his dismal apparatus,--the hearse, with its curtains of rusty sable,
the bier, the spades and shovels for digging graves; and in a corner lies
a coil of soiled ropes, whose rasping sound, as they slipped through the
coffin-handles, while the bearers lowered the corpse into the earth, has
grated harshly on many a shuddering mourner's ear. The leaves of the
hearse-house door are fastened together by a hasp and pin, so that any one
may enter at will. But there is no need of bolts and bars. The boys, at
play, in the evening, at "I spy" or "hide and seek," never go there for
concealment, although their smothered whoops may be heard issuing from
every other dark corner in the neighborhood.
The narrow space between the hearse-house and the sheds forms a short lane
or passage-way, through which all the funeral processions pass from the
street into the burying-ground, lying behind the sheds, on the western
slope of the ridge upon which the village stands. This ancient cemetery
was laid out by the early settlers, when they made the first allotments
of land. It is a square area of two acres in extent, inclosed by a mossy
picket paling, so rickety that the neighbors' sheep sometimes leap through
the gaps from the adjacent pastures, and feed among the graves upon the
long grass and nettles.
The lower portion of the graveyard is set apart as a sort of
potter's-field, where negroes, Indians, and stranger-paupers are buried.
This region is bordered by a little jungle of poke-berry and elder-bushes,
sumachs and brambles, so dense and thrifty that they overtop and hide the
fence; and there is a tradition among the school-boys, that somewhere in
the copse there is a black-snake hole, the abode of an enormous monster,
upon whom no one, however, has ever happened to set eyes. Here, with but
few exceptions, the graves are marked only by low mounds of turf, overrun
with matted wild-blackberry vines, where the lightest footstep, crushing
through the crumbling sod, destroys the labors of whole colonies of ants.
But farther up the hillside, headstones and monuments stand so close
together, that, at a distance, there seems to be scarcely room for another
grave.
Near the summit lie the early settlers of the town; and in a conspicuous
place upon the brow of the acclivity stands a row of tombstones several
rods in length. These mark the graves of an ancient and honorable family
of townsfolk. At one end, a thick slab of red sandstone, of uncouth shape
and rude appearance, leans aslant, partly buried in the mellow soil. The
moss and lichens, with which its roughly cut back and edges are overgrown,
have been removed from its face, and the quaint inscription is distinctly
legible, whereby the curious idler is informed that "Here lies, in y'e Hope
of a Joyfull Resurrecion, y'e Body of Maj'r Iohn Bugbee, an Assistant of
y'e Colony & A Iustice of y'e Peace. Born at Austerfield, in y'e County
of Lincoln, England. Dyed Feb. y'e 9 AD. 1699 Æ. 72." Close by the side
of this venerable grave is another, which the stone at its head announces
to be the resting-place of "Mistress Mindwell Bugbee--Consort of Maj'r
Iohn Bugbee and youngest Daut: of Sir Roger Braxley, of Braxley Hall,
Lincolnshire, England." Then follow, in order of time, the headstones
which mark the graves of successive generations descended from this worthy
couple. Some of these are so defaced and weather-worn, that in aspect they
seem even more venerable than the monuments of the founders of the race.
Nearly all of those erected before the beginning of the present century
bear quaint devices,--some of cherubs, all wings, and blank, staring faces;
some of hour-glasses, some of masonic emblems, and upon one of two are
rudely carved, ugly death's heads and crossbones. Two thirds of the way
down the line stands the first marble headstone. It is taller than its
neighbors, and, though spotted with weather stains, it bears a deeply
graven inscription, which seems as legible as the day it was cut, full
forty years ago. In the grave at the foot of this stone lies buried another
Major Bugbee, the great-great-grandson of the first Major. The commission
of this gentleman, signed by John Hancock, President of the Continental
Congress, still hangs in a frame against the wainscot, over the mantel,
in the parlor of the great gambrel-roofed house, whose front-yard fence
and garden palings form, for almost half the way, the eastern side of
the village square. The late master of this dwelling, Doctor Bugbee, who
was the eldest son of the Continental major, lies at the end of the long
platoon of dead, in the newest grave of all the range, over which a marble
obelisk has been erected, in memory of the name and many virtues of the
deceased, who departed this life, as the inscription attests, on the 7th
day of September, 1843, in the fifty-seventh year of his age.
Near by this spot, with its drooping boughs shading the monument I have
just described, grows a weeping-willow tree, of such great size, that its
top, from half way up, can be plainly discerned from almost every corner
of the village green; and it is, withal, of such perfect symmetry of
form, that on a moonlight night it resembles a fountain, as its leaves,
fluttering in the breezy air, and turning their silver linings to the
moonbeams, seem to sparkle like spray and drops of falling water. Behind
this tree is placed a rustic bench, where, on a pleasant day in June, one
may sit and look forth upon as pretty a landscape as can be seen in all
Hillsdale County, or, for that matter, in all the State as well. Before you
lies the declivity of the hill upon which the village stands. At its foot
begins a verdant plain of interval meadows, dotted here and there with
graceful elms and stately hickories, each standing alone in its ring of
shadow, the turf everywhere bespangled with dandelions and buttercups, and
changing its hue from shade to shade of vivid green, as the wind sweeps
over the thick growing verdure. Through these meadows flows a sluggish
brook, in broad meandering curves, crossed at each turn by rustic
farm-bridges, with clumps of trees fringing the deeper pools. The plain
is skirted by a country road, bordered with majestic trees, and with
farm-houses standing all along its winding course. Beyond, the land rises,
and the slope is checkered, to the foot of the hills, with arable fields.
The view is bounded by the craggy sides of the great hills which separate
this quiet vale from the broad valley of the Connecticut. Here, all is soft
and tranquil beauty. But just beyond the rugged barrier of those western
hills lies a grander landscape, of wide extent, through which flows New
England's greatest river, and crossed from end to end by New England's
busiest thoroughfares, dusty with the tread of commerce, and bordered with
growing cities and thrifty, bustling towns. Here, reclining on this rustic
bench, in the shadow of the willow branches, among the tombstones of the
silent dead, you may dream away the sultry afternoon, and hear no sounds
but drowsy noises that dispose to rest and quiet; the whispering of the
wind in the treetops, the droning pipe of grasshoppers and locusts,
the distant cries of teamsters to their cattle, the shouts of children
loitering home from school or gathering berries in the sunny fields, the
whetting of a scythe in a far-off meadow, or the music of the blacksmith's
hammer upon his ringing anvil.
Four times a year, during the brief terms of court, the usual stillness
that pervades the sober village is enlivened by the presence of a scanty
crowd. Then, for a week, judges, jurors, suitors, and witnesses flock
together; and sometimes, in the winter season, when farm work is not
pressing, the neighbors throng by scores into the court-house, to hear
the wordy harangues of the lawyers in some notable cause. Likewise on
town-meeting days, the stores and tavern bar-rooms about the square are
filled with a concourse of the sovereign people from the more rural
districts; and at the annual cattle show and fair all Hillsdale comes up to
Belfield. Then, I warrant you, if it chance to be a pleasant Indian-summer
day, there is indeed a crowd, and for a while the little capital contains
a greater number of living souls than all the county besides. From early
twilight till sunset blazes on the western hills the square and street
are densely thronged. A Babel of strange noises fills the dusty air: the
lowing of cows and oxen; the bellowing of frightened calves; the plaintive
bleating of bewildered lambs; the fierce neighing of excited horses; the
yelping of curs; the crowing of imprisoned cocks, responding to each
other's defiant notes; the sing-song clamor of itinerant auctioneers,
standing on their wagons and displaying their tempting wares to the little
knots around them; the din and hubbub of the busy, moving, talking,
jostling multitude,--shouts, laughs, cries, murmurs, all mingled together,
till confusion harmonizes; and above all, the constant clanking of the iron
handle of the old town-pump, which never ceases all the livelong day. At
nightfall the uproar lessens, and as the evening wanes, the unaccustomed
sounds diminish, though till midnight, ever and anon, the tired and sleepy
citizens are startled from their dreams by whoops, hurrahs, snatches of
songs, and outbursts of rude laughter ringing through the frosty air and
mingling with the clattering of horses' feet and the whirring rumble of
swift-revolving wheels, as some party of roystering blades, excited by deep
potations, drive shouting homewards from the village inns.
Excepting on these unfrequent occasions, Belfield Green is as free from
bustle as if it were a hamlet whose name was never seen upon a map. The
time has been, however, when it was a busy little mart, the centre of trade
for an extensive district. In yonder low-roofed store that stands upon the
square, near by the great gambrel-roofed house of which mention has already
been made, the second Major Bugbee increased a handsome patrimony till it
grew to be a great estate; the share of which that fell to his two eldest
sons, the Doctor and his younger brother, James, they in time, by gainful
traffic in the same old place, made more than equal to the entire estate,
of which a quarter only came to them. Thousands and tens of thousands of
tons of golden butter and cheese, hundreds of thousands of bushels of rye,
oats, flaxseed, buckwheat, and corn, millions of eggs and skeins of linen
and woollen yarn have been bartered at Belfield Green by the country folks,
in exchange for rum, molasses, tea, coffee, salt, and codfish, enough to
freight the royal navy. Time was when folks came twenty miles to Belfield
post-office, and when a dusty miller and his men, at the old red mill
standing on the brook at the foot of the valley, took toll from half the
grists in Hillsdale County. But that was long ago, when people who lived
twenty miles away from Hartford went to the city scarcely twice in a dozen
years,--in the good old days of turnpikes, stage-coaches, and wayside
taverns, before railroads were built to carry all the trade to great,
overgrown towns and cities. Now-a-days, as I have said, it is hard to find
a village of its size and rank in all the land, which is more quiet, at
ordinary times, than Belfield Green.