"While her fingers o'er this canvas move"

"Jesus Permit the Gracious name to stand As the first efforts of an infant's hand And while her fingers oe'r this canvas move Engage her tender heart to seek thy love With thy dear children let her share a Part And write thy name thyself upon her heart"

Ten-year-old Flavia Field Stebbins stitched those words on a sampler in 1810. It was a typical young girl's stitchery practice piece, with the alphabet in script, then upper and lower case letters, then numbers, then a pious verse. The same unattributed poem appears on another sampler in the collection. It has also been found on a sampler from Hanover MA, and a cousin of Emily Dickinson used it on a sampler she made! Near the bottom, she proudly signed her work "Wrought by Flavia Field Stebbins, Long Meadow July 23rd, 1810."

Flavia was born in Longmeadow on December 23rd, 1799. Her parents were Lucy Colton Stebbins and Doctor Benjamin Stebbins. Flavia had an aunt Flavia, and her grandfather's first wife was also called Flavia. Flavia, not a common name today, was quite common then. Its origin means "golden, or blonde." I wonder if little Flavia was fair-haired? Sadly, her mother Lucy died in 1804 when Flavia was not quite five years old.

Simple samplers such as this one, called "marking samplers," were made by young girls to practice their stitchery skills as well as their letters and numbers. They were not intended to be framed or displayed like the more elaborate pieces created at girls' schools like the Misses Patten school in Hartford, or the Abby Wright school in South Hadley, MA. Nevertheless, many of these simple marking samplers were preserved as treasured mementos, and the Longmeadow Historical Society is lucky to have several in its collections. Many of these samplers contained the alphabet and letters like Flavia's, but others included family tree information or educational virtues.

Detail of Eunice Storrs' sampler showing family tree information

Eunice Storrs

Huldah Laird's sampler including educational virtues

Experts in the textile arts can often identify where a sampler is made by certain characteristics like the color of the background cloth or features such as birds, houses and animals. The verses stitched into the cloth often included some admonition for good behavior or warning about the dangers of everyday life.

Irinda Colton (private collection) "To Day We Live toMorrow I may Die"

Needlework skills were important to the young girl, as she would be expected to mark her linens, sew her clothes and perhaps even weave her own yardage.

Flavia grew up and married Russell Underwood, of Chicopee, MA, a furniture maker.

Since beginning this story, I have created a database for all of the Longmeadow samplers in the Historical Society's collection, and photographed them. More research is needed on all of the makers. Coincidentally, this project resulted in learning of a Longmeadow sampler in a museum in Oregon, and another at the Fenimore Art Museum in Cooperstown, NY. We know of others in private collections that we would like to add to the database...

if you have one, or know of one, will you share your information and a photo?

Most of these simple marking samplers were done by 10 or 11-year-olds. Could you do as well when you were that age? This author made a simple counted cross-stitch sampler in her youth. My parents proudly framed it, though I thought it was a pretty amateur effort!

Contributed by Betsy McKee, Longmeadow Historical Society Board Member

Originally published March 31, 2022

Longmeadow's Shrinking Boundaries

Over the years Longmeadow‘s boundaries have changed and its size has decreased. Beginning as a precinct of Springfield, Longmeadow’s boundary extended much further east and included current-day East Longmeadow and Wilbraham.

In 1740 the eastern portion of the precinct of Longmeadow, Wilbraham, became the fourth precinct of Springfield. In 1763, Wilbraham was incorporated as a town separate from Springfield. In 1783 Longmeadow was incorporated as a town separate from Springfield. In 1890 a portion of northwestern Longmeadow was annexed by Springfield to become Forest Park. In 1894 East Longmeadow became incorporated as a separate town, reducing the size of Longmeadow by approximately one-half. Finally, in 1914 the Franconia section was annexed to Springfield.

1831 Map indicating Longmeadow's northern border extending into present-day Springfield

A man named Everett Barney (1835-1916) was instrumental in establishing Forest Park as we know it today. This story and its effects on Longmeadow is history that should be remembered.

Everett Barney was born in Framingham, Massachusetts in 1835. He was involved in the manufacturing of Spencer carbines during the Civil War. He resided in Connecticut, New York City, and eventually moved to Springfield, MA towards the end of the War.

Along with an old friend, John Berry, the Barney and Berry Skate Manufacturing Company was started in 1865. At the height of its operation, Barney & Berry were turning out 600,000 pairs of skates each year and employed 250 workers. John Berry retired from the company in 1869.

Map indicating site of Barney & Berry Skate Factory in Springfield

Barney and Berry's Skates

Pecousic Villa, the home of Everett Barney

Everett Barney became a wealthy man and built a beautiful estate in south Springfield in 1885. It was called Pecousic Villa and was located on Laurel Hill. This estate encompassed approximately 250 acres, some of which were set aside for his son George to build his own home. Unfortunately, George, his only child, died in 1889 at only 26 years of age from tuberculosis. As a memorial to his son, Barney built an impressive and imposing mausoleum that can still be seen in Forest Park today. In addition, in 1890 Barney donated 109 acres of his property to the city of Springfield.

Forest Park had been established on land donated by O. H. Greenleaf several years earlier. Along with land donated by Everett Barney, who donated his entire estate to Springfield upon his death in 1916, and also bequests by the Cooley and Dickinson estates, the park grew to over 400 acres. The carefully landscaped park is perhaps under-appreciated today.

A portion of the property donated however was technically located in Longmeadow.

New Boundary Created

On June 2, 1890, the governor of Massachusetts, John Quincy Adams Brackett, signed into law the annexation of this portion of Longmeadow to Springfield.

This photograph was likely taken from what was once part of Longmeadow

Pecousic Villa was torn down in the early 1960s to build I-91.

However, the carriage house and the mausoleum remain today and are familiar sites to anyone who visits this end of Forest Park today.

Barney Mausoleum

Barney Carriage House

So next time you travel beyond the intersection of Western Drive and Forest Glen Road to get onto I-91, remember this used to be Longmeadow.

Contributed by Leonard Shaker, Longmeadow Historical Society Board Member

Originally published March 24, 2022

Longmeadow's Irish

Today's History Note takes a look back at the history of the Irish in Longmeadow in honor of St. Patrick's Day.

"Irish emigrants leaving home -- the priest's blessing" (1851)

In honor of St. Patrick’s Day, that venerable feast day that celebrates the blessings of being born Irish, let’s look back at their earliest recorded years in Longmeadow. The best way to do that is by looking at the 1850 Federal Census and the 1855 Massachusetts State Census, both of which are the first to ask respondents to identify their place of birth. Through that, it is easy to see an increase in Longmeadow residents identifying Ireland as their place of birth.

In 1850, out of a town population of 1258, there were approximately 60 people who identified Ireland as their place of birth. Five years later in 1855, that number had doubled to 121 Irish-born residents. That is a huge jump for a small town. What brought them here to live in relative isolation away from their homeland and families? Those were among the most devastating years of the blight known as the Great Hunger or the Irish Potato Famine when scores of starving Irish boarded boats out of Ireland in hopes of a better chance at life abroad. Longmeadow’s Irish likely arrived in larger port cities of Boston and New York and for one reason or another made their way towards the Western part of Massachusetts.

1855 MA Census, "Michael O'Neil, 15, M, Laborer, Ireland"

What is clear to see from both the 1850 and 1855 censuses in Longmeadow, MA, is that the Irish here are young men and women of nearly equal proportion. In 1855, the average age of an Irish woman in Longmeadow was just 20 years old, and the Irish men were on average 24 years old. Mary O’Neil, who lived in the household of Daniel Burbank, was only 12 years old. James Holland, age 14, was a farm hand to Levi Eaton in the eastern part of town. Mostly the Irish lived in one’s and two’s in the households of their employers.

Anyone with Irish roots will find the names of those recent immigrants familiar. There are Ellens and Marys and Margarets and Catherines and Bridgets for the ladies; there were Johns and Thomas’ and Michaels and Patricks and Martins for the men. They came with the kind of last names that make genealogical research nearly impossible because they are so common: Quinn, Ryan, Burk, Connolly, O’Connell, and Carroll among them. Ever tried finding a John Ryan on Ancestry? You could get lost among them!

Unless they were working for the button factory in town or in the quarry in the eastern part of Longmeadow, they generally did not live with any other Irish-born soul. Instead, they were farm hands or house servants in the households bearing the names of Longmeadow’s oldest families like the Coltons, Fields, Cooleys, and Blisses.

1855 MA Census "Mary Connell, 18?, F, Ireland" "Martin Coleman, 16, M, Button Maker, Ireland"

A large number of the names disappear on the 1860 census, and while the number of Irish in town grows again, it is not a doubling as seen between 1850-55. In 1860, 136 people identified Ireland as the place they were born. A few do seem to remain and make a life for themselves in Longmeadow - Morris Manning and Patrick Davis, among them. In 1855, Manning was a 19-year-old laborer on the farm of Calvin Burt. Davis was 20, already married to another Irish immigrant, 20-year-old Bridget, and they lived and worked for farmer Alford Cooley. Civil War draft registration forms exist for both men, though it seems only Patrick Davis enlisted.

Per later censuses that included a literacy question, neither man could read or write. Perhaps they came from parts of Ireland where Irish was the first language, or perhaps they never received the kind of schooling in Ireland they needed to achieve literacy. Considering the number of phonetically spelled last names on the census (ex. Mary Neland in 1855 appears as Mary “Kneeland” in 1860, and the last name Donovan appears as both “Donevan” and “Donivan” for two separate people) perhaps many of the newly arrived Irish were also unable to read and write. By the time the 1900 census appeared, though, both Patrick Davis and his wife, Bridget, were able to answer “Yes” to “Can Read” though they still answered “No” for “Can Write.”

Patrick Davis House, 1909. Bliss Road Emerson Photo Collection

Davis lived in one house in Longmeadow for so long that it became known as “the Patrick Davis” house. Today the house still exists, having moved from Bliss Road to Fairfield Terrace, and it bears another name, “the Johnny Appleseed house.” Davis owned the home, along with sixteen acres of land around it, and he and his family lived there from 1875-1913.

St. Mary's Roman Catholic Church Williams Street location

By 1868, the “Roman Catholic Church of St. Mary” was formed by a committee of five Irish men in town: Michael Quinn, Martin Hartigan, John Waters, Patrick Connors, and Peter Ward, all of whom appear on the 1855 census in Longmeadow as young laborers. They must have found enough community and success to choose to stay. They raised money to purchase an old school building and move it to a site on Williams Street across from the cemetery. The parishioners of the newly formed St. Mary’s contributed their own labor in preparing the land and renovating the building to suit them. It was dedicated in October 1870 and served the Catholic community of Longmeadow until the current St. Mary’s church opened in 1931.

Longmeadow Historical Society board member, Beth Hoff, has spent a lot of time compiling data on census records in Longmeadow, and between 1850-1910, Ireland was by far the most commonly cited country as a place of birth outside of America. A very distant second was Canada, with a few Swedes, Swiss, German, British, and Bohemians among the mix.

March 17th may be the designated day on the calendar to celebrate the Irish, but anyone with Irish in their bones will tell you any day is a fine day to be Irish.

Patrick Davis Obituary

Springfield Republican, March 11, 1915

Morris Manning Obituary Springfield Republican, Feb. 17, 1902

Contributed by Melissa McCrosson Cybulski (who descends from strong McCrosson/ Ryan/ Enright/ Fay (Fahy) ancestors) Special thanks to Beth Hoff for her work on the Longmeadow census data from 1790-1910

Originally published March 17, 2022