A MASSACHUSETTS MILL STREAM.
The early Springfield settlers had few of the articles which we consider the commonest comforts of life.
Hon. John Worthington, "One of the Gods of the Connecticut Valley," owned the first umbrella in Springfield. He never profaned the article by carrying it in the rain, but used it as a sun-shade only.
In 1753 there was but one clock in Springfield. It was considered a great curiosity, and people used to stop to hear it strike.
As early as about 1774 that wonderful innovation, a cooking-stove, made its appearance in Springfield. The stove was made in Philadelphia, and weighed eight or nine hundred pounds.
It was 1810 when David Ames brought the first piano into the little settlement.
We are furnished with a description of Springfield in 1789 by the journal of the Great Washington. Under the date of October twenty-first he wrote, "There is a great equality in the people of this State. Few or no opulent men, and no poor. Great similitude in their buildings, the general fashion of which is a chimney—always of brick or stone—and a door in the middle, with a staircase fronting the latter, and running up by the side of the former; two flush stories, with a very good show of sash and glass windows; the size generally from thirty to fifty feet in length, and from twenty to thirty in width, exclusive of a back shed, which seems to be added as the family increases."
Much later in our national history, Springfield became one of the most important stations of the "Underground Railroad."