Canada -- Description and travel; United States -- Description and travel
This renowned pastor was of majestic appearance, and as good a fighter
as he was a preacher. He never hesitated to lead his people in their
Indian wars, and once he is said to have got into an ambush, but the
awestruck savages, impressed by his noble bearing, hesitated to shoot
him, telling their French allies, "That is the Englishman's god." The
present stone church is the fifth built on the original site. During
nearly a quarter-century the noted Jonathan Edwards was the
Northampton pastor, but he was dismissed in 1750, because, owing to
the growing laxity of church members, he insisted upon "a higher and
purer standard of admission to the communion-table." Northampton is
famed for its educational development, the chief institution, endowed
by Sophia Smith in 1871, being Smith College for women, having a
thousand students and possessing fine buildings, with an art gallery,
music hall and gymnasium. There are various attractive public
buildings, including an Institution for Mutes and the State Lunatic
Asylum. The level land of Nonotuck raises much tobacco, the
Connecticut River winding in wide circular sweeps among the fields and
meadows, but making little progress as it goes around great curves of
miles in circuit. Upon an isthmus thus formed, with the broad river
loop stretching far to the westward, is "Old Hadley," the Connecticut
having made a five-mile circuit to accomplish barely one mile of
distance. Across the level isthmus from the river above to the river
below, stretching through the village, is the noted "Hadley Street,"
the handsomest highway in natural adornments in the Old Bay State.
Over three hundred feet wide, this street is lined by two double rows
of noble elms, with a broad expanse of greenest lawn between, and
nearly a thousand ancient trees arching their graceful branches over
it. This very quiet street has perfect greensward, for it is almost
untravelled, and its inhabitants grow tobacco and make brooms. Another
of these wayward river loops is the great "ox-bow" of the Connecticut,
where the river used to flow around a circuit of nearly four miles and
accomplished only one hundred and fifty yards of actual distance,
until an ice-freshet broke through the narrow isthmus and made a
straight channel across it, which has become the course of the river.
The abandoned channel of the "ox-bow" is now usually stored with logs
awaiting the sawmill. Hadley was the final home and burial-place of
Goffe and Whalley, the regicides, who fled there from New Haven. When
their house was pulled down, it was said the bones of Whalley, who
died in 1679, were found entombed just outside the cellar-wall. It was
the house of the pastor, and they were concealed in it fifteen years,
from 1664 to 1679, their presence known only to three persons. Once,
during the hiding, Indians attacked the town, and after a sharp fight
the people gave way, when there suddenly appeared "an ancient man with
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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