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

SPRINGFIELD, 1636-1S86. 457
Irausfonned into a caiiip-ground of delegations from a hundred towns,
and it was said that no less than twenty thousand people were in
sight from the canvas-covered grand stand when the eloquent George
Ashmun sounded the whig bugle, and Robert C. Winthrop, Rufus
Choate, Daniel Webster, Horace Greeley, Daniel P. Tyler, William E.
Robinson, Joseph Hoxie, and others marshalled the whig forces in
telling addresses. Springfield probably had never witnessed such
a day before.
The democrats responded in a mass meeting at Cabotville the
next week ;
A. W. StockAveil, Arthur McArthur, and others woke the
echoes, and party feeling ran high. A series of meetings was held
in the town-hall, and heated debates conducted between David L.
Child and George Bradburn on the question whether the local aboli-
tionists should follow Child's advice and support Clay.
The result of the elections was locally close. Polk carried Hamp-
den count}^, and so did (ieorge Bancroft, who ran against Briggs for
governor. But Springfield went whig in both cases. George
Ashmun made a fine showing, he scoring a plurality of five hundred
and more against Chester W. Chapin and others for congressman.
Edmund Freeman, whig, was elected to the Legislature ; but there
were four vacancies. Chester W. Chapin was subsequently elected.
There was no election in the State Senate contest, — J. Abbott and
Charles Stearns, whigs, and Forward and Beach, democrats. The
Legislature elected Abbott and Stearns.
The loco focos had held the town offices since 1841, and the
whigs now made an assault upon them in good earnest. The town
meeting of April, 1845, resulted in the choice of William Dwight as
moderator, and Austin Chapin, Jr., Allen Bangs, Henry Morris,
Titus Amadou, and Adolphus G. Parker, all whigs, were elected
selectmen. The selectmen were agahi instructed not to "approbate"
any one to sell liquor. A curious episode in party feeling was re-
ported at this time in West Springfield, when about one hundred and
forty men and women signed a paper pledging themselves to do all