History of Cummington, (Hampshire County) Massachusetts United States of America

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Biographies:

Luther Bradish, statesman, was born at Cummington, Mass., Sept. 15, 1783. He was graduated at Williams college in 1804, and studied law. He made a European tour, and upon his return to America was commissioned by the United States government to gather information concerning the commerce of the Levant, pending the establishment of diplomatic relations with the Porte. He sailed on the U. S. ship-of-war Columbus, and after executing this commission he continued his travels until 1826, when he returned to New York and settled in Franklin county, where he had a large landed interest, and represented his county in the state assembly, 1827-'30, and again 1835-'38, serving as speaker during his last term. In 1830 he was an unsuccessful candidate for representative in Congress. He was elected lieutenant-governor of the state in 1839 and served until 1843, and in 1840 was defeated in the contest for the governorship on the Whig ticket. In 1855 Williams college conferred on him the degree of LL.D. During President Fillmore's administration he was assistant United States treasurer at New York. He then retired to private life, making his home in New York city, and occupied his time in various philanthropic projects. He was president of the American Bible society for many years, and of the New York historical society from 1850 until his death, which occurred at Newport, R. I., Aug. 30, 1863.

From: Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary of Notable Americans, Johnson, Rossiter, editor

William Cullen Bryant, poet, was born in Cummington, Mass., Nov. 3, 1794; son of Peter and Sarah (Snell) Bryant; grandson of Philip and Silence (Howard) Bryant; great-grandson of Ichabod Bryant, and great-great-grandson of Stephen and Abigail (Shaw) Bryant, who came from England and settled in Plymouth, Mass., in 1632. William Cullen was the second child in a family of seven, and is described as being "puny and very delicate in body, and of a painfully delicate nervous temperament." At the age of four years he was sent to the district school, where he obtained elementary instruction until his twelfth year. He early began to rhyme, and wrote a poem in his eleventh year, which he recited at the closing of the winter school. In 1808 he was sent to Brockfield to perfect himself in Latin under the tuition of his uncle, the Rev. Thomas Snell, and in 1809 pursued the study of Greek with the Rev. Moses Hallock of Plainfield. About this time he began to read Pope's translation of the Iliad, a delightful transition from Dr. Watts' hymns, and it is not surprising that his first serious efforts were some enigmas written after the manner of this favorite poet. In 1809, he wrote, and his father had published in pamphlet form, a poem entitled, 'The Embargo, or Sketches of the Times, a Federalist satire attacking President Jefferson, then very unpopular because of the enforcement of the embargo laid upon the ports of the republic. He entered Williams college, Oct. 9, 1810, but before the close of his first year asked for an honorable dismissal, desiring to enter Yale. His father's financial position forbade the completion of a college course, and he studied law at Worthington and afterwards at Bridgewater, was admitted to the bar in 1815, began the practice of his profession at Plainfield, Mass., and had been there nearly a year when he entered into partnership with a young lawyer of Great Barrington, Mass. He purchased his partner's interest at the close of a year and continued practice alone, getting himself described as "an active, learned and rather fiery young lawyer." In 1817 the poem Thanatopsis, was published in the September number of the North American Review. It had been written six years before, shortly after Bryant left College, when he had not attained his eighteenth year; in the same number of the Review appeared also, under the title of A Fragment, what is now known as An Inscription for the Entrance to a Wood. The publication of these exquisite poems at that time was due to what might be termed an accident of fortune. In June of 1817, Willard Phillips, an old New Hampshire friend of the Bryant family, then an associate editor of the North American Review, wrote to Dr. Bryant his desire that William Cullen should contribute to the Review, then in its infancy. Dr. Bryant wrote to his son advising him to accept the offer, but chancing to look through a desk which the young poet had been in the habit of using, he found the MSS. of these incomparable poems and hastened with them to Boston. So instant was the appreciation of his muse on the publication of these lines that he was invited to become a regular contributor to the Review, to which, in 1818, he sent a paper on Early American Poetry, and the poem To a Waterfowl. The latter was inspired by an incident thus beautifully related by one of his biographers: "When he journeyed on foot over the hills to Plainfield on the 15th of December, 1816, to see what inducements it offered him to commence there the practice of the profession to Which he had just been licensed, he says in one of his letters that he felt ' very forlorn and desolate.' The world seemed to grow bigger and darker as he ascended, and his future more uncertain and desperate. The sun had already set, leaving behind it one of those brilliant seas of chrysolite and opal which often flood the New England skies, and, while pausing to contemplate the rosy splendor, with rapt admiration, a solitary bird made its winged way along the illuminated horizon. He watched the lone wanderer until it was lost in the distance. He then went on with new strength and courage. When he reached the house where he was to stop for the night he immediately sat down and wrote the lines ' To a Waterfowl.'" In 1818 he was elected one of the tithing men and town clerk of Great Barrington, holding the latter office until he left Massachusetts five years later. He was also appointed a justice of the peace. He was married June 11, 1821, to Fanny Fairchild, with whom he passed forty-five years of happy married life. In 1822 he wrote the poem The Ages, which he read before the Phi Beta Kappa society of Harvard college. He was urged to publish it, and from the suggestion resulted the first publication of a collection of Bryant's poems, a small volume, consisting of the eight poems: The Ages, To a Waterfowl, Fragment from Simonides, An Inscription for the Entrance to a Wood, The Yellow Violet, The Song, Green River, and Thanatopsis, which appeared in 1823. In 1824 he became a contributor to the United States Literary Gazette, and wrote many of his most charming poems for its pages. About this time also were written The Death of the Flowers and The Past, for each of which he asked two dollars, "with which remuneration," he wrote, he should be "abundantly satisfied." His publishers, however, made him a more generous proposition, suggesting a yearly salary of two hundred dollars for an average of one hundred lines a month, expressing their regrets that they were "unable to offer a compensation more adequate." In 1824 Mr. Bryant removed to New York, and assumed the editorship of the New York Review and Athen?um Magazine. He delivered a course of lectures on English poetry before the Athen?um society, and in the same year accepted a professorship connected with the New York academy of design, where he lectured on Greek and Roman mythology. In July, 1826, the Review was amalgamated with the United States Gazette of Boston, under the title of the United States Review, Mr. Bryant being the New York and J. G. Carter the Boston editor. In 1827, '28, '29 Mr. Bryant was associated with Verplanck and Robert C. Sands in the publication of an annual entitled the Talisman, and in 1823, in conjunction with Mr. Sands, issued two volumes entitled, Tales of the Glauber Spa. In this year also was published a complete collection of his poems, which was re-published in England, and won him European reputation. In 1836 he accepted an editorial chair on the New York Evening Post, and acquired a small interest in the paper; five months later, on the death of Mr. Coleman, the editor-in-chief and proprietor, Mr. Bryant was promoted to his chair and purchased a further interest in the property. Mr. Bryant's course as a journalist was dignified and consistent; he accepted no favors from individuals or parties, and was fearless in opposing popular measures and questions when he esteemed it essential to the public interest to do so. He was at the inception of his journalistic career a Democrat in principle, but before the war became a strong Republican. The Evening Post, which had been chiefly occupied with matters of local interest, sanitary and fiscal reforms and the like, under Mr. Bryant's leadership became an advocate of free trade principles at a time when protective duties were favored by both houses of Congress and by the north generally. In 1836 he maintained in the columns of the Post the validity of trade unions; he favored international copyright, the abolition of capital punishment, supported President Jackson in his most unpopular measures, and the tariff of '46, a tariff for revenue with incidental protection; opposed slavery as "a foul and monstrous idol, a juggernaut under which thousands are crushed to death," and suggested the fullest and freest emancipation as the only fit remedy for the evil. He was conscientious and impartial in the statement of facts, and temperate in debate. Solicitous for honor as a man of letters, his carefully prepared; and finely phrased editorials and his rules imposed upon subordinates for the use of pure Saxon English, materially elevated the literary tone of journalism. In 1851 he published a short history of the Evening Post, then half a century old, and he terminated his editorial labors in 1870. George William Curtis wrote of him: "What nature said to him was plainly spoken and clearly heard and perfectly repeated. His art was exquisite. It was absolutely unsuspected, but it served its truest purpose, for it removed every obstruction to full and complete delivery of his message." From 1834 to 1867 Mr. Bryant made six visits to the old world, and in 1872 visited Cuba and the city of Mexico for the second time. In 1850 he published Letters of a Traveller, a collection of the letters he had sent to the Post during his travels abroad, and in the winter of 1869 he issued a supplementary volume [p.17] entitled, "Letters from the East." Mr. Bryant was unexcelled in the art of pronouncing eulogies, and was often called upon to perform this office. In 1872 a volume was published embodying the chief of these orations, notably those doing honor to Gulian C. Verplanck, Thomas Cole, the painter; Fenimore Cooper, Washington Irving, Fitz-Greene Halleck, and those made at the unveiling of the Shakespeare, Scott and Morse statues in Central Park. In 1866, seeking relief from the deep grief that had befallen him in the death of his wife in 1865, he began his translation of the Iliad, and the first twelve books were published in 1870. It was followed by a translation of the Odyssey, which was completed in 1871. The work had an immediate success, the sales of the Iliad up to 1888 reaching 17,000, the sales of the Odyssey 10,244 copies. Many American editions of Mr. Bryant's poems were issued. Of that known as the Red Line, 5,000 copies were sold in 1870, and the beautifully illustrated edition of 1877 met with a very cordial welcome, as did the later one of his complete works in 1884. In 1858 Mr. Bryant was elected a regent of the University of the state of New York, but declined to serve. He was very chary of accepting public honors, and refused all such as he consistently might; some few, however, he could not escape. In 1873 he was made an honorary member of the Russian academy at St. Petersburg. He was one of the founders of the Century association in New York, and his seventieth birthday was made the occasion of a festival by the club, in which the notable artists and poets of America participated with gifts of paintings and poems. The congratulatory address on this occasion was delivered by George Bancroft, the historian, and speeches were made by R. W. Emerson, R. H. Dana, Jr., and William M. Evarts. Many delightful poems were read, written for the occasion by those who revered the man and admired the poet. On his eightieth birthday, in 1876, Mr. Bryant was presented with a memorial vase of silver, the carving of which symbolized his life. This magnificent work of art was presented to the venerable poet in Chickering Hall, New York, on June 20, 1876, its permanent destination being the Metropolitan museum of art. In this his eighty-first year, Mr. Bryant wrote "The Flood of Years." "Thanatopsis" at eighteen, "The Flood of Years" at eighty-one, a lapse of years indeed but no diminution of force, no weakening of expression. Mr. Bryant's last poem, "The Twenty-second of February," was written, to commemorate the birthday of Washington, in 1878. Mr. Bryant was essentially a domestic man; home was to him a sacred place where business cares were never allowed to obtrude. His letters from abroad to the persons in charge of his country houses, "Cedarmere," at Roslyn, L. I., and the old homestead at Cummington, Mass., show that he knew every tree and stone of both places. He divided the spring, summer and autumn months between Long Island and Cummington, and spent his winters in New York. May 29, 1878, Mr. Bryant delivered the address at the unveiling of the statue of Mazzini in Central Park, and after the ceremony, upon reaching the house of a friend, he fell, and his head coming in contact with the stone step he was rendered unconscious; a few days later apoplexy ensued, and his illness proved mortal. There are many portraits of Mr. Bryant extant, of which the ones he most preferred himself were those by Inman and Durand. See William Cullen Bryant, by John Bigelow (1890); Godwin's Life of Bryant (1883); Wilson's Bryant and His Friends (1886). He died in New York city, June 12, 1878, and was buried at Roslyn, N. Y.

From: Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary of Notable Americans, Johnson, Rossiter, editor

Henry Laurens Dawes, senator, was born in Cummington, Mass., Oct 30, 1816; son of Michael and Mercy (Burgess) Dawes, and grandson of Samuel Dawes of Cummington, and of Dr. Benjamin Burgess of Goshen, Mass. He was graduated at Yale in 1839, engaged in teaching, and in 1840 became editor of the Greenfield Gazette and later of the North Adams Transcript. He meanwhile studied law, was admitted to the bar in 1842 and began practice in North Adams. He represented his district in the state legislature, 1848 and 1849; was a state senator in 1850; a member of the state constitutional convention of 1853; and district attorney for the western district of Massachusetts, 1853-57. He was a representative in the 35th-43d congresses, 1857-75. In 1875 he was elected a U.S. senator to succeed W. B. Washburn, appointed to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Charles Sumner. He was re-elected in 1881 and again in 1887. In the U.S. house of representatives he served as chairman of the committees on ways and means and on appropriations, and for ten years as chairman of the committee on elections. He carried through the first appropriations for the fish commission and for the weather bureau, having originated these bureaus. While a member of the house he was twice offered but declined the appointment of judge of the supreme judicial court of Massachusetts. In the U.S. senate he served on the committee on public buildings and grounds, which while he was a member initiated and carried out the completion of the Washington monument. He also served on the committee on appropriations, civil service, fisheries, Revolutionary claims, naval affairs, and Indian affairs. He reported and carried through the first appropriation from the treasury for Indian education, and the "severalty act," giving to every Indian sufficiently civilized a homestead of 160 acres, and citizenship, and extending over them the laws of the United States. He voluntarily retired from public life at the expiration of his third senatorial term, March 4, 1893. He was for four years lecturer at Dartmouth college on "United States history during the last fifty years." In 1895 he visited Indian Territory as the head of a commission appointed by congress to secure the voluntary assent of the Indians to abandon tribal relations. His report stated the failure of the commission as due to the influence of the men "who profit by the continuance of the present status," and suggested continued effort to remedy the evil. On March 21, 1896, the senate committee on Indian affairs reported favorably on the recommendation of the Dawes commission. He received from Yale College the degree of A.M. in 1849. He married a daughter of Chester Sanderson, of Ashfield, Mass., and died in Pittsfield, Mass., Feb. 5, 1903.

From: Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary of Notable Americans, Johnson, Rossiter, editor