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

SPRINGFIELD, 1636-1SS6. 315
great a number of Justices giving their attendance at tlie general Sessions of the
peace as before express^! but tlris you will consider as a mere suggestion not as
a ijositive instruction.
A louo; list of deleo-ates to the Hadlev convention of November 7
declined to serve, except Joseph Ferre. On what class of men, it
may be asked, did the burdens rest the heaviest? Let us take specimen
cases. In 1783 Noah Cople}', of Westfield, allows his note for
£4 17.S. M. to John Worthington to go to protest, and the latter se-
cures judgment with £1 9s. 2d. in costs. That is to say, to use round
numbers, a man owing S24 had to pay S7 for the privilege of having
the sheriff sell $24 worth of his goods. There were hundreds of such
cases in the Court of Common Pleas. At the February (1784) session
of that court, one Daniel Shays, of Pelham, " Gent'"," was defendant
in a suit brought b}' John Johnson ''yoeman," for the enforcement
of a promissory note for £12. Shays did not appear, and judgment
and costs were recorded against him.
Shays was a hired man at Brookfield at the opening of the Revolu-
tion. He entered the army as a sergeant, being under Washington
near New York. He received one of the swords which Lafayette dis-
tributed to American olticers. It is said, with what truth we know
not, that he was for a time ostracized by his associate officers, be-
cause he sold this sword, and continued to use his old one. Shays
eventually became captain in the 5th Massachusetts regiment, com-
manded by Rufus Putnam, and his record at Bunker Hill, Stony
Point, and Saratoga was creditable. Being a judgment debtor, and
naturally a reckless character, he did not allow the sales of property
under judgments in Pelham to pass without protest. The sale of the
bedding of a sick w^oman gave him a good text for tavern harangues.
The Conkey tavern at Pelham was made vocal with these "results"
to self-government ; so was the Clapp tavern in East Amherst, as
well as the West Springfield tavern, Avhere Luke Day — legislator-
at-large and captain in the 7th Massachusetts regiment — talked by
the hour.