Wilbraham Massachusetts

Wesleyan Academy Baseball Game, Wilbraham Mass

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A view of a baseball game in progress at Wesleyan Academy (today Wilbraham & Monson Academy) in Wilbraham, around 1892. Image from Picturesque Hampden (1892)

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The field in 2015:

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The first photo is a rather remarkable scene showing an early baseball game.  Most 19th century baseball photos are staged studio portraits that loosely imitate in-game action (see this photo from the Library of Congress website, where the string holding the ball is clearly visible and it looks more like a magic levitating trick than anything one might encounter at a baseball game), so it is fairly rare to see real, in-game action from the 1800s.  This particular photo was taken no later than 1892, the year it was published, and no earlier than 1878, when the house on the far left was built.  Most likely though, it was probably taken shortly before publication.

By the time that the photo was taken, the game of baseball was well established as the most popular sport in the country, at both the professional and amateur levels.  For the most part, the game 125 years ago wasn’t all that different from baseball today – this scene is instantly recognizable as a baseball game.  However, there was one last major change in the rules that happened a few years after this photo was taken.  A close examination of the photo shows that the pitcher is standing on flat ground, and appears closer to home plate than in modern baseball.  Prior to 1893, the pitcher released the ball 55.5 feet from home plate, and stood on flat ground rather than a raised mound.  In 1893, the distance of 60.5 feet was established; this remains the same today, and was such a major change that many baseball historians consider 1893 to be the beginning of modern baseball.

I don’t know which team is the home team, but this was taken at what was once Wesleyan Academy, and is now Wilbraham & Monson Academy.  My great grandfather attended the academy in the late 1880s, and I don’t know whether he played baseball there, but depending on the exact date of the photo, he could easily be among the players or spectators – some of whom seem to be standing dangerously close to the batter.  Today, the campus has grown significantly since the first photo was taken, but the field is still there and is still used for sports, although baseball is now played on a different field on the other side of the campus.

Gurney’s Store, Wilbraham Mass (2)

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Another view of Gurney’s Store, at the corner of Main and Springfield Streets in Wilbraham, around 1904. Image courtesy of the Wilbraham Public Library.

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The scene in 2015:

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This scene shows the general store at the corner of Springfield and Main Streets as it appeared when Frank A. Gurney ran the store.  As mentioned in this post, the store was owned by several different people around the turn of the last century, with Gurney bring the one most commonly associated with the building.  His delivery wagon can be seen in this post, and his primary business was selling goods to farmers in the area, although he probably also saw a fair amount of business from students at nearby Wesleyan Academy.  Gurney was out of the building by 1913, and it was used as a post office and Masonic Lodge until it was demolished in 1957, and for many years afterward this was the site of the Louis & Clark drugstore.

Gurney’s Store, Wilbraham Mass (1)

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Frank A. Gurney’s Store, at the corner of Main Street and Springfield Street in Wilbraham, probably around 1900.  Image courtesy of the Wilbraham Public Library.

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The location in 2015:

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I don’t know whether Frank Gurney used the building at the time that the first photo was taken, because it was used as a general store by several different men in the early 20th century.  However, it is most commonly associated with Gurney, whose carriage can be seen directly across the street from this building in the first photo of this post (note the watering trough, which is seen both in that post and here).  The tree next to the trough was apparently used as a sort of community bulletin board, which reveals the occupation that most Wilbraham residents were involved in – farming.  The bottom handbill advertises for Berkshire Fertilizers, above it is one that exclaims “WANTED FARMS!!”, and then above that is another ad for a fertilizer company.  As for the people in the first photo, I’m guessing that they were the store employees, but the man on the far right stands out.  All of the other men are wearing a bow tie and vest or jacket, and he is wearing overalls and a work shirt.  Perhaps the others were clerks, and he was the delivery man?

Like many small towns, the building had multiple uses; aside from being a general store, the post office was also located here, and the second floor was used as the Masonic Lodge.  The post office and the Masons were here until the building was demolished in 1957, and today the site is occupied by a commercial building that for many years housed the Louis & Clark drugstore.  The watering trough for horses is long gone, although its modern equivalent, a gas station, is directly across the street from here.

Springfield Street, Wilbraham Mass

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Looking west on Springfield Street from Main Street in Wilbraham, around 1903.  Courtesy of the Wilbraham Public Library.

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Springfield Street in 2015:

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Here in New England, we just finished up a snowy winter, so the 1903 scene here is hardly an unfamiliar sight.  However, in many ways snowstorms like this one were actually less of an inconvenience than they are today.  Today, a major snowstorm means traffic is limited until the roads can be plowed, salted, and sanded, but in the days before automobiles deep snow just meant hitching up the horses to the sleigh instead of the wagon.  Given the poor condition of roads, particularly in New England, this would often be an improvement, since sleigh runners on snow offer a lot less friction than cart wheels on muddy, bumpy roads.

Interestingly, my great-great-great-grandmother lived on this road, a few houses down from the intersection on the left (not visible in these photos), and she died in 1895, less than 10 years before this photo was taken.  Since then, the road really hasn’t changed a whole lot – there are a few newer houses, a sidewalk, and a paved road, but otherwise it retains its small town, residential appearance over 110 years later.

Timothy Merrick House, Wilbraham Mass

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The Timothy Merrick House on Main Street in Wilbraham, probably sometime in the late 1800s. Photo courtesy of the Wilbraham Public Library.

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The same location in 2015:

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Massachusetts is home to only two species of venomous snakes: the timber rattlesnake and the northern copperhead.  Both are exceedingly rare in the state, but they must have been more common in Wilbraham in the past, as they make several appearances into town lore. This house was built around 1761 for Timothy Merrick, the only son of my 6th great grandfather, Thomas Merrick.  Merrick was engaged to Sarah Lamb, and they were to live in this house after their marriage.  However, according to the records of the town clerk, Samuel Warner (who was also my 6th great grandfather, from a different branch of the family):

Timothy, son of Thomas Mirick and Mary Mirick, was Bit By a Ratel Snake one Aug. the 7th, 1761, and Dyed within about two or three ours he being twenty two years two months and three Days old and vary near the point of marridge.

Merrick’s death is believed to be the last recorded fatal snake bite in Massachusetts history, but even if not it is certainly the most famous.  Because of the tragic nature of the story, this event formed the basis for one of the earliest American ballads, “On Springfield Mountain.”  It was written in the late 1700s or early 1800s, and there are many different versions of this song, some of which include a number of embellishments beyond what Warner wrote in the town records.  One such version, recorded in the 1964 History of Wilbraham book, is asserted to be the original Merrick family version:

On Springfield Mountain there did dwell
A likely youth was known full well
Lieutenant Mirick’s only son
A likely youth nigh twenty one

One Friday morning he did go
Into the medow for to mow
A round or two and he did feel
A pisin sarpent at his heel

When he received his deadly wound
he dropt his sithe apon the ground
And strate for home was his intent
calling aloude still as he went

O Molly Molly Molly dear
come see this pesky sarpent here
Tho all around his voice was heered
none of his friends to him apiered

So soon his carful father went
to seek his son with discontent
And there his onley son he found
ded as a stone apon the ground

His father vieude his track with consarn
where he had rund across the corn
Uneven tracks where he did go
appeared to stagger to and fro

And there he lay suppose to rest
with both his hands acrost his brest
His mouth and eyes were closed fast
and there poor man he slept his last

The seventh of August sixty one
this fatal axsident was done
let this a warning be to all
to be prepared when God doth call.

Today, as seen in the second photo, Timothy Merrick’s house is gone; it burned in 1955 was was replaced soon after with a modern house.  The location of the snake bite has not been conclusively identified, but it was across Main Street and a little to the south of the house, which would place it right along the present-day Hampden-Wilbraham border.  This area is now a suburban residential development, and the History of Wilbraham book places the location at around the spot where Oakland Street crosses a small stream.  Although both the house and the farmland that Merrick was once mowing are now gone, there are still a few reminders around town.  Behind the location of the Merrick house is the Pesky Sarpent Conservation Area, and further up the hill is a rocky outcropping called Rattlesnake Peak.  Timothy Merrick’s gravestone can also still be seen, in the Adams Cemetery on Tinkham Road.  There is no direct mention of the rattlesnake on the stone, but the epitaph, taken from Job 14:2, seems appropriate for the sudden, tragic death of a young man: “He cometh forth like a flower and is cut down.  He fleeth also as a Shadow and continueth not.”

Randolph Beebe House, Wilbraham Mass

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The Randolph Beebe House on Beebe Road in Wilbraham, around 1913. Photo from The History of Wilbraham, Massachusetts (1913).

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The house in 2015:

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This house on Beebe Road in Wilbraham was built around 1785-1790 and was originally occupied by Daniel Chappel, although he didn’t live here for long.  The next family, Nathan and Mary Mack, lived here from around 1790 to 1810, and their daughter earned a place in local folklore in this house.  According to the account given in The History of Wilbraham Massachusetts in 1913, Mary discovered that her young daughter was playing with a rattlesnake in her lap.  She rescued her daughter from the snake and covered it with a tub until Nathan returned home.  He then killed the snake, cut off the rattles, and gave them to his daughter, who kept them in the family for several generations as an odd family heirloom.

By the time the 1913 photo was taken, the house was owned by Randolph Beebe, whose father in law, Thomas Gilligan, had previously owned it since around 1860.  Randolph died in 1923, and the house was apparently vacant for some time, although it was during this time that the house made a rather unexpected contribution to American literature.  In the summer of 1928, horror/science fiction writer H.P. Lovecraft was touring parts of New England, and this included an eight-day stay at the home of Evanore Beebe in Wilbraham, just a short distance from this house, on Monson Road.  Later in 1928, he wrote one of his most famous short stories, “The Dunwich Horror,” which according to Lovecraft himself, “is based on several old New England legends — one of which I heard only last month during my sojourn in Wilbraham.”  One of these legends is about whippoorwill birds being an omen of death, and that they can capture departing souls.  Lovecraft heard this story while he was staying at Evanore Beebe’s house, but it was actually this house, formerly owned by Randolph Beebe, that provided the legend.  According to what Lovecraft wrote in 1934, “I saw the ruinous, deserted old Randolph Beebe house where the whippoorwills cluster abnormally,” and from that he learned about the legend that provided part of the basis of his famous short story.

I don’t know how long the house was vacant after Lovecraft’s visit, but it was occupied again by the 1950s.  In the century since the first photo was taken, the house has substantially increased in size with several additions in the back, but the original 1780s part of the house still retains its appearance from over 200 years ago.