NOTICE: This site is part of a network that offers FREE genealogical and historical information

Contributed for use by Patricia J. Mount
************************************************************************
These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or presentation by any other organization or persons. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material, must obtain the written consent of the contributor, or the legal representative of the submitter

(Click on image for full-size photo)

The bell in the old meeting-house on the hill pealed forth an urgent summons on that bright autumnal morning, September 29, 1819, and citizens of Amherst and adjoining towns hastened to obey the call. The need of a college in the Connecticut valley had long been recognized, and Amherst seemed, to those most interested, the best location for such an institution. The academy which, according to Professor Tyler, was the Williston seminary and Mount Holyoke seminary of that day united, for a time seemed to fill the demand.

Later, the trustees, realizing the need of students for the ministry, formed a plan to establish a professorship of languages, by the assistance of which "indigent young men" might fit themselves to preach. This plan was not received with favor, and therefore it was determined to strike out boldly and found a separate institution. Hence the imperative clangor of the old church bell, and the distinguished company of delegates from thirty-seven towns who sat with patience in the square, high-backed pews, listened to a lengthy discourse from the lips of Rev. Dr. Lyman, discussed a constitution and by-laws, and separated, to be entertained in the homes of the people, only to argue concerning the location of the college during the greater part of the night.

Amherst was determined to have the "literary institution," and would not be denied. The second day of the session the business of the town ceased, the academy took a recess, and all crowded into the church to hear the debate. Lucius Boltwood made an able plea in favor of the town. He was supported by indisputable arguments from the eloquent lawyer, Samuel Fowler Dickinson, and the day was won. The town had gained its college, and now with eager hands and generous hearts its citizens offered of their best for its building and support.

Colonel Elijah Dickinson presented ten acres of land in a suitable location. The first load of granite for the foundation was given by Wells Southworth of Pelham. The rail fence was taken away, the horse sheds removed, lime, sand, and lumber were contributed and carried to the spot by men and boys, who were glad to give their services to the good cause. August 9, 1820, the laying of the cornerstone took place, with an address by Noah Webster. Ninety days after, the roof was placed on South college. President Moore of Williams was chosen president of the "Charity Institution of this town," and September 18, 1821, the dedication of building and inauguration of the new president took place in the old church, Noah Webster being the presiding officer.

Hardly was the college full in operation when President Moore suddenly died. His courtly manners and winning address had caused him to be greatly loved. His successor was the Rev. Heman Humphrey, pastor of the church in Pittsfield. In 1824, after much difficulty, the college obtained its charter. The president and his associates returned from Boston in the stage. Their messenger, sent to communicate the good news, was carried on the shoulders of the citizens to the hotel. That night the town blazed with illuminations and there was great rejoicing.

At the first annual meeting held under the charter, Rev. Edward Hitchcock, pastor of the church in Conway, was chosen professor of chemistry and natural history, with a salary of $700. Thus did the college secure for itself the services of one who for thirty-eight years devoted all his efforts to its welfare, and in its time of great need proved, according to Professor Tyler, to be the "Joshua" who led the college into the promised land.

The founders of the Hitchcock family are supposed to have come from Wiltshire, England, where they lived at the time of William the Conqueror. Luke Hitchcock removed from New Haven to Wethersfield, where he died, after which is children came to Springfield. He was a shoemaker and very friendly with the Indians, who, tradition says, gave him a deed of the land on which is built the town of Farmington. This document would have been of value to his descendants, if his wife had not used it to cover a pie in the oven. Luke the second became a prominent citizen of Springfield, made shoes, kept a tavern, was a captain in the army and sheriff of old Hampshire county, was in the fight at Turners Falls. His son, Luke, married Martha Colton and afterward, Mrs. Hannah Day. Luke Hitchcock, fourth, married Lucy Merrick of Springfield, was a deacon in the church and member of the General Court, and fought in the Northern army against Burgoyne.

Justin, the son of this Luke Hitchcock, was born in Springfield and served as apprentice to Moses Church, the hatter. In 1774, he moved to Deerfield and married Mercy Hoyt, who was born in the historic old Indian house. Justin was a fifer in the Deerfield company of minute men and carried both gun and fife on the march to Cambridge. In 1777 he was with the militia called out to assist in the capture of Burgoyne. He was a prominent man in Deerfield, deacon in the church and leader of the choir, playing a bass viol of his own manufacture which is now on exhibition in Memorial hall. He paid for his home lot with one hundred and fifteen bushels of wheat.

Here was born his eldest daughter, Charissa, who married Dr. Jonathan Swett and went to New York State. Of her two daughters, one, Charissa, outlived four husbands, and the other, Minerva, was the mother of sixteen children. The other children of Justin Hitchcock were Henry, Charles, Emilia, and Edward. The latter was to become a scientist of world-wide reputation and venerated and beloved president of Amherst college. The old homestead descended through Justin's son, Henry, to the grandson, Nathaniel, and after one hundred and twenty-six years' ownership has recently passed out of the family.

The children of Justin Hitchcock enjoyed the intimate companionship of an intellectual father, who, though his church passed into Unitarian hands, retained his evangelistic belief. The three sons graduated from the academy, after which Edward, not wishing to become a hatter, worked on the farm for several years, spending evenings and every spare moment in scientific studies.

The necessity of rigid economy in those early days taught the boy the value of money, and enabled him afterward to apply his rules of frugal living to the business affairs of Amherst college, and thus rescue it from the slough of debt and discouragement into which it had fallen. He was an enthusiastic student of astronomy and made himself sick calculating eclipses.

When principal of Deerfield academy, Edward Hitchcock began to study for the ministry and also to study natural history. The latter, involving out of door exercise, was very beneficial to his health. We judge that his labors in the academy were agreeable from the fact that his associate, Miss Orra White, daughter of Mr. And Mrs. Jarib White of Amherst, consented after a time to become his permanent assistant.

When the call came from the college in Amherst, the professor elect, feeling the need of some extra training in chemistry, went with his wife to New Haven, where for a year he studied with Professor Silliman, after which, having learned the secrets of success in the performance of chemical experiments, he came to Amherst and set up housekeeping in the dwelling on North Pleasant street now owned by F. S. Whipple. Soon after, desiring to live nearer the college, Professor Hitchcock exchanged his house for the one on South Pleasant street belonging to its builder, W. S. Howland, now the property of Morris B. Kingman. Here the Hitchcock family lived until the professor was elected president, and to this house he returned, after resigning the presidency, to spend the remainder of his life.

The house was a first a plain building with no wings and a small porch in front. Professor Hitchcock was the State geologist and made three collections of minerals, one for himself, one for the State, and one for the college. The State collection is now in the museum of the Agricultural college. Needing a place in which to arrange his private collection, between 1836 and 1840 he built an octagon, thirty feet away from the house and entirely separate from it, in which his treasures were displayed to the best advantage. This curious building was lined with shelves which extended to the ceiling. The visitor who desired to examine these specimens was invited to climb the stairs and walk around the gallery, which afforded access to the upper shelves. The outside of the cabinet was marked off in squares in such a manner as to appear to be made of blocks of stone.

Inside the dwelling house were large square rooms, with a spacious hall at the left, the whole hung with paper dark in color, with large figures and antique designs. The walls of the sitting room were decked with various shades of green. The kitchen, with hospitable air, seemed to invite the visitor to sit before the blazing fire upon its immense hearthstone and await the dainties sure to be produced from the great brick oven.

Professor Hitchcock was a man of tremendous energy and indomitable will. These he brought to bear upon his associates and students with marvelous results. When he came to Amherst, the problem of the college and its future awaited solution. Among the trustees with whom he was associated were Colonel Rufus Graves, whom for his enthusiasm he likened to Peter, the hermit; Nathaniel Smith of Sunderland, called by President Humphrey the "good Arimathean;" Hon. S. F. Dickinson, Hon. John Leland, treasurer for fourteen years; Lucius Boltwood, commissioner of charity fund; and Hon. Samuel Williston of Easthampton. The latter, on account of weak eyes, being unable to go to college, began covering buttons to earn money for benevolence. By means of manufactures of which this was the beginning, he secured the funds which enabled him to found Williston seminary and to make valuable gifts to Amherst college.

The affairs of the college were for the time prosperous. The townspeople were proud of their institution and its students. The latter devoutly attended morning and evening prayers in the old church, summoned at 4:45 A. M. in the summer and 5:45 A. M. in the winter by the ringing of the bell which hung in the wooden tower near the buildings. Discipline was strict in those days. The boys were fined for not keeping study hours, for firing a gun, and for playing musical instruments on the college grounds. Board was $1.25 a week, washing from twelve to twenty cents.

The students took care of their rooms, sawed wood, made fires, and each year had a "chip day" to clean the grounds. Thus did the collegians gain their exercise. The rest of the time they studied having nothing else to do. Soon the college numbered more students than Harvard.

Meanwhile Professor Hitchcock was busily at work pushing his department with might and main. His associates were Nathan W. Fiske, a man of ready wit and wonderful power of description; Samuel W. Worcester, Jacob Abbott, who after teaching five years retired to write innumerable books for the young, and Ebenezer Snell. Professor Hitchcock and Professor Snell worked together thirty-eight years. The former said of his friend: "He was a man of strict fidelity and punctuality. His example has always tended to keep the ship of Amherst steadily on her way."

During this season of prosperity, six children, Mary, Catherine, Edward, Jane Elizabeth, Charles Henry, and Emily, were born into the Hitchcock home. The first baptism in Johnson chapel was that of little Edward, who was carried thither by his parents that he might be christened by President Humphrey. The family attended church in the chapel, but went to Sunday school in the First church meeting-house. There at a later date S. C. Carter and J. S. Adams were the superintendents and Mrs. Sweetser and tutors from the college were the teachers. The children studied little question books with stiff covers, containing lessons made out for the whole year.

The Hitchcock boys and girls at first attended a private school near by, kept by the daughters of the Baptist minister, Miss Helen and Miss Emily Nelson, and afterward they went to Amherst academy. But the best teachers of these children must have been their gifted mother and enthusiastic father. Mrs. Hitchcock was a woman of fine artistic taste and talent, which she afterwards used in making illustrations for her husband's geological reports and lectures. To her skill we are indebted for the only picture in existence of the old meetinghouse and the bell tower on College hill. Plain living and high thinking reigned within the home whose very atmosphere was weighted with wisdom.

The $700 salary of the professor did not suffice to feed and clothe six children, and buy expensive furniture, so its appointments were not elegant, but solid and substantial. The house was shaded by a row of buttonball trees which extended far up the street, of which a few aged veterans remain. The black cherry trees which the boys used to climb to eat their fill of the fruit have all disappeared.

The mother's flower garden was her delight and her taste was inherited by her daughter Mary, for whom in later years the good father built a little conservatory. The south chamber, the professor's study, was lined with bookcases. In the parlor was the old piano, now to be seen in Deerfield memorial hall, on which the daughter Emily made sweet music.

In an upper back room Mary Lyon slept during the months she spent as a member of the family while forming her plans and consulting with professor Hitchcock with regard to the establishment of Mount Holyoke seminary. The family ate from mahogany tables, sat on mahogany chairs, and slept in cold rooms on feather beds placed on high, old-fashioned bedsteads. The rooms downstairs were warm, however, for there was plenty of maple and oak wood, which Edward was obliged to bring in, much to his dislike. He also had to weed the vegetables and help pick the raspberries, of which there was an abundance. Boys of that day were useful instead of ornamental, and their labor was an important factor in the home.

Professor Hitchcock did not believe in Unitarian doctrines, but was liberal in his scientific view of the Bible, and did not think the world was made in six days. Professor Fiske, his next door neighbor, was very strict in bringing up his children. His daughter Helen and Edward Hitchcock were playmates and were always together. Helen was a young athlete, and in trials of strength came out victorious. When she ran away to Hadley, a young Edward, among others, went to search for her.

There must have been lively times in that neighborhood, for these young people were all wide awake and ready for fun or mischief, whichever offered first. They went to singing school, where to an accompaniment of bass viol, flute and violin they learned by heart the tunes in the Carmina Sacra. Then all the children attended the academy and made their record there.

Suddenly the friends' of the college realized that a crisis in its history had come. The wave of religious excitement which had swept over new England began to abate and the craze for an education in order to enter the ministry subsided. The citizens lost their interest in the students, who began to play pranks about the town, driving the cattle off the common the night after a cattle show and capsizing and destroying the old bell tower, so that the bell had to be placed in the tower of the chapel.

Expenses were higher, and the anti-slavery excitement split the college into two parties. Without one cent of endowment, and subscriptions exhausted, it seemed that the college must become merely an academy. President Humphrey resigned and the trustees appointed in his place, as the one man equal to the emergency - professor Edward Hitchcock.

The new president accepted the office with reluctance, as it interfered with his scientific work. He found that trustee and faculty meetings made his head feel as if "bound by a hoop." Finally, by taking a drive with his old sorrel horse, Tobias, every morning and a bowl of arrowroot for breakfast, he found it possible to endure the protracted sessions. The only way he could be the president of Amherst college with comfort was to live on hominy and milk, and he recommended this diet, with total abstinence from intoxicating drink, to all his successors.

President Hitchcock rented his own house to professor Haven, and moved is family to the president's house, which he considered too near the college, where the president could "see too much." Then he made a successful effort to stop the college from running debt. The professors were Warner, Fiske, Tyler, Snell, and Shepard. After deducting expenses, the income of the college was divided among the faculty. This gave the president $550 a year and professors $450.

After an unsuccessful attempt to secure funds for buildings to be used for scientific purposes, the president declared that he had made up his mind to two things: "To go back to Amherst and labor on for the college as long as he could keep soul and body together, and never to ask anybody for another dollar."

This policy produced wonderful results, and, the money that was not asked came in. Josiah B. Woods of Enfield, grandfather of Josiah B. Woods, Amherst, 'or, provided means for the Woods cabinet. In this were arranged specimens sent by missionaries, sixteen of whom were graduates of the college. Professor Fiske sent three hundred specimens from Mount Zion just before he died and was buried near the tomb of David.

Justin Perkins, missionary to Persia, secured a collection from the top of Mount Ararat and thereabouts, which for want of cases he sent to Amherst packed in several extra pairs of pantaloons. Lawrence observatory, Appleton cabinet, Nineveh gallery, all were built during President Hitchcock's administration. In three years the college was prospering, and the tide of public opinion had changed. In spite of his hominy and milk and rides with old Tobias, the president found himself in failing health and desired to go back to his former professorship and old home. This the college would not allow, but gave him leave of absence to go to Europe.

This journey was a wonderful experience, and in spite of continual illness was greatly enjoyed. He examined agricultural schools, studied the geology of England, and for his reports presented to the government received nearly enough money to pay the expenses of the trip. When President and Mrs. Hitchcock returned, they were met by a delegation of students at the foot of the hill, who escorted them to the house, where the president of the class made an address of welcome. The town and college buildings were illuminated and joy was manifested on every side.

Time passed swiftly on. A revival in the senior class took place each year. The president, anxious lest this might not continue, urged that the vital doctrines should be preached, and that the desire to excel in piety rather than in scholarship should be encouraged. With strenuous effort he had for twenty years kept the temperance flag flying in the college. He said, "Let those who come after me see to it that it be not torn down and trampled in the dust."

President Hitchcock had not only been active in his efforts for the college, but he had also been a loyal citizen of the town. Town meeting found him ready to preside or vote as the case might be. In the cattle show he was at the head of the procession, at the right of the speaker at dinner, always ready with a smile and pleasant word and a new scheme to help the world along. His son Edward went with to cattle shows, and on the expeditions to name the points of interest up and down the valley. Nine mountains have kept the names he gave them, but Toby positively refused to be rechristened Mettawompe.

During these years he was collecting the fossil footmarks which have made his name famous the world over. Many a time the enthusiastic scientist might have been seen driving into town mounted on a load of the stones which contained the mysterious records of creatures which lived in prehistoric ages, and carefully depositing the same, lest any should be injured by careless handling. One stone containing these tracks he placed before his own front door. This same slab may be seen to-day behind the Kingman house.

In 1853, the president donated his collection of "bird tracks" to the college. The next year, after ten years of service as president, he resigned, and moved with his family back to the old homestead which they had been so loth to leave. The bookcases were placed in the sourtheast room below, which saved him from climbing the stairs. The octagon was connected with the house as it is seen to-day. After this was done, Deacon Peckham of Westminster painted the picture called "The Return," now in the possession of Dr. Edward Hitchcock. The stage coach, the costume of the returning father, the cap and 'kerchief of the mother, all are true to the fashions of that day.

Inside the parlor window grandmother White peeps out and she too wears a cap. The solemn rabbit in the corner and the stiff quadruped at the master's heels are members of the family whose existence has been forgotten. The blue umbrella with which the president was wont to shield his frail form on a windy day does not appear, but is doubtless somewhere near.

During these last years his sons, Edward and Charles, had been of great assistance to their father, accompanying him on his expeditions in search of footprints and sympathizing with him in his work. Edward, Jr., graduated from college in 1849 and Charles in 1856. in their day candles had been exchanged for whale oil lamps, by the light of which at early dawn they began their daily tasks.

For exercise the students played wicket ball and shinny. The Hitchcock boys seemed to follow in their father's footsteps in their fondness for scientific pursuits. Charles Hitchcock on graduation was appointed lecturer on zoology and curator of the museum, and as his father's health declined, acted as his assistant.

In 1861, Edward Hitchcock, Jr., M. D., was elected professor of physical education and to his skill and tact in dealing with students the college owes its success in a department which almost everywhere else has proved a failure.

President Hitchcock had been connected with the college during its entire existence as a corporate institution, and had heard the recitations of 1520 pupils. Though always in ill health, he had never allowed sickness or absence to prevent him from giving his assigned course, and the last years of his life were most active and fruitful. Broken down by the loss of his wife, who died in 1863, and having long lectured to his classes from his sick room, that same year he resigned his professorship, and at once commenced to write those "Reminiscences" which have been invaluable to those interested in the history of the college. He died in the old home February 27, 1864, aged seventy-one. A great congregation assembled in old College hall to attend his funeral and follow his body to West cemetery. There a granite stone which marks the spot bears this inscription:

Edward Hitchcock,
Pastor in Conway,
President and professor in Amherst
College.
A Leader in Science.
A Lover of man.
A Friend of God.
Ever Illustrating
The Cross in Nature
And Nature in the Cross.

Return to Historic Homes Index

Return to Hampshire County Index

Return to Massachusetts Home