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

CHAPTER XVII.
1821-1831.
The "Federal Spy" and "Hampshire Federalist." — Samuel Bowles, the First. — New
Blood in the Village. — The Characters of William B. Calhoun, John Mills, Oliver B.
Morris, and George Bliss, Jr. — Philanthropy. — The Colonization Society. — Popu-
lation. — Fourth of July Celebration. — Political Banquets. — River Traffic. — Bivcr
Steamers.— Stages.— Factories. — Postmaster Lombard.— Politics.— The Poor-House,
— Selectmen from 1822 to 1826. — Destruction of the Pynchon Fort.— Temperance
Chapman & Ashmun. — Military Com-
Society. — Jackson's Triumph. — ^lasonry . —
panies. — Ancient Trees. — Fire Department. — Lawlessness. — Death of Jonathan
Dwight. — Commerce on the River.
The " Federal Spy " had passed into the liauds of Timothy Ashley
in 1799, when he took in Henry Brewer (father of H. & J. Brewer),
who became sole proprietor in 1803, and in turn the property passed
to Lnther Baker in 1805, and Thomas Dickman in 1800, when the
paper was called " The Hampshire Federalist." A. G. Tannatt &
Co. followed Dickman in 1819, a year after the establishment of the
" Hampden Patriot " by Dr. Ira Daniels, and lingered till about 1824,
when Samuel Bowles, a Hartford printer, started the " Springfield
Republican." Mr. Bowles came from a Roxbury family of quality.
He had rare good judgment, was odd in appearance, of a scholarly
temperament, though denied a college training, and ambitious be-
yond the capabilities of a weak body. He had as an ancestor
John Eliot, the Indian missionary, while the young woman whom
he married was a descendant of Miles Standish. The early repre-
sentatives of the Bowles family were church elders, members of the
General Court, or town oHicials. and usually college educated ; the
later members of the family, on whom rested the burden of a paper
that became an institution in this country, as a rule declined positions