Springfield 1636-1886, History of Town and City, by Mason A. Green ...

CHAPTER XIIT.
1761-1783.
Col. John Worthington. — Josiali Dwiglit. — Benjamin Day. — Prorainent Doctors.—
Tlie Small-pox. — Hanging of Shaw. — The Wait Monument. — Parish Matters.
Jedediah Bliss. — Springfield Mountains. — Stony Hill. — West Springfield attempts
to rule the Town. — Is set ofT as a Separate Town. — John Worthington's Tory Senti-
ment. — Other Springfield Tories. — Town Officers for 1775. — Lexington. — Spring-
field Minute-Men. — Letter from a Spi'iugfield Soldier. — Revolutionary Soldiers from
Springfield. — Moses Bliss. — The Py nchon Family again. — Town Acts and Resolves.
— The TSIarcli to Ticonderoga. — More Revolutionary Soldiers. — The State Constitu-
tion. — John Worthington in Growing Favor, — Financial Distress. —-Depreciation of
Currency. — An Inter-State Convention at Springfield. — Fluctuations in Values.
Warrants of Distress.
The period opens with John Worthington and Josiah Dwight in the
General Conrt, and AVorthington, Capt. Ebenezer Hitchcock, Maj.
Benjamin Day, Aaron Colton, and Edward Pynchon, selectmen of
the town. Major Da}^ was the most prominent man on the west side
of the river.
Before the Revolntion Phineas Lyman, of Suffield, was the brightest
light of the Hampshire bar so long as he remained a practitioner
here. But his name conies down to us as the law instructor of two
notable men, — Joseph Hawley, of Northampton, the Otis of western
Massachusetts, and Col. John Worthington, of Springfield. These
two attorneys rose to be about equal sharers of the law practice of
the county. One was conscientious, slow, profound ; the other
lighter in temperament and quicker in mental processes, but b}' no
means equal to that kind of agility of thought that can surrender
the traditions of the fathers when the opportunity for a righteous
revolution offers itself. Worthington was a good deal of a social
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