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

SPR/iVG FIELD, 10.36-1SS6. 478
aud personal property, $1,447,129, — nearly half a million increase
in a year. James Byers completed Hampden Hall (opposite the
Alden House) in 1846 ; Chauucey Shepard, architect. The Niagara
Fire 'Company opened this, the largest hall in western Massachusetts,
liy a ball, in February. Elam Stockbridge completed his block in
the rear of the Universalist church in 1846, and many private resi-
dences were going up.
At a meeting of School District No. 8, William Dwight, Eliphalet
Trask, Simon Smith, John B. Kirkham, and Benjamin Day were
appointed a building committee for a school-house on Elm street.
The average wealth of Springfield was a matter of remark ;
the largest
estate being in 1846 only $68,000, and there were but five estates
Avith a valuation of over S50,000 ; but twelve exceeded $40,000,
twenty exceeded $30,000, thirty-eight exceeded $20,000, fifty-one
exceeded $15,000, and ninety-one exceeded $10,000 ; total valuation,
$7,078,r)00, there being $5,000,000 distributed among those having
less than $10,000. There were comparatively few poor people in
Springfield.
The general condition of the town religiously was perhaps not so
good, although the ministers in those days maintained sharper lines of
demarcation and made more direct denominational appeals than at
present. There were about eighteen hundred families in 1847, divided
roughly as follows : Congregationalists, 430 families ; Methodists,
250 ; Roman Catholics, 170 ; Unitarians, 130 ; Baptists, 112 ; Episco-
palians, 90 ; Universalists, 80 ; Wesleyans, 20 ; " Come-outers," 14 ;
Lutherans, 4 ; non-church-goers, 500. Negotiations had been long
pending for the purchase of the water-power at Ireland parish and
South Hadley Falls. This culminated in 1847, and the work of
building a manufacturing city began at once. Men spoke of the
" coming city " before a stroke of work liad been done.
John Mills bought the Alden (Hampden) House, furnished, in 1846
for $26,000. He had entered upon a career as real-estate owner, and
was in the end crippled by these investments. Homer Foot bought