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

450 SPRINGFIELD, 1636-1886.
Colonel Ripley showed little disposition to meud the breach of good
feeling between the two factious, and when Aniadon, Foster, and
Hopkins, the committee of protesting armorers who liad been sent to
Washington, returned, they were promptly discharged. About forty
armorers were sent away in a bunch, and at one time the shops were
closed. Some one hundred and fifty men were compelled to seek
employment elsewhere. The bitter feeling was increased by the
circulation of an unproven report that Ripley asked N. P. Ames &
Co. not to employ discharged armorers, and there were many of them
at that time. Piece-workmen were immediately exchanged for time-
hands at $1.75 per day. The reason for this was simply a matter of
economy. Piece-workmen would save in a month wages for two
months, and lock the work in their drawers. They were able by this
means to be absent two weeks at a time, their names appearing on
the pa3'-rolls just the same. Under civil rule the men often worked
only from three to five hours, when they would hasten otf to their
farms or homes. When military rule was fairly established, some
men earned more money per month at twelve and one-half cents,
piece price, than they had formerly earned at thirty-three cents per
piece, because they were obliged to work stated hours.
The contest broadened out into a fight between army men and
" The officers of the
civilians generall}', and a local paper remarked :
army all over the country are banded together by a sort of Free
Mason tie, contracted at the AYest Point Academy to carry out the
schemes of their leaders."
The nomination by the whigs of Charles Stearns for one of the
Hampden senators, in 1842, may be considered evidence of the heat
of the armory disaffection, he being an implacable foe to military
superiutendencies. The county vote defeated him, however, and Asa
Lincoln and Reuben Champion were elected.
Until the appointment of Colonel Lee at the armory, it may be
said the armorers were in the main unmarried or transient men.
Colonel Lee, however, induced many to build houses for them-