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

CHAPTER XX.
1852-1860.
The New City. — Ansel Phelps, Jr. — New Buildings upon Main Street. — The Growth
of Holyoke. — Labor Troubles. — The Boston & Albany Railroad. — Kossuth.—Philos
B. Tyler. — Retirement of Dr. Osgood. — Gen. Whitney. — Know-nothingism. —
Mayor Trask. — Dedication of the City Hall. — The Fremont Campaign. — The
City Libraiy. — The Home Exhibition of 1853. — Death of Daniel Lombard. — Panic
of 1857. — Failure of the "Western Bank. — George Bliss and Benjamin Butler.
— Politics. — Dr. Chaffee. — Free-soil Excitement. — John Brown. — The Club. —
The Dred Scott Decision and Springfield. — More Politics. — John Brown's Letter
to Chapman.
One fine evening in May there was a great concourse of people in
Howard street, where Caleb Rice lived. He had beaten William B.
Calhoun by four votes iu the contest for the honor of being Spring-
field's first mayor. The crowd called for a speech, and got one.
Ansel Phelps, Jr., spoke for the crowd, and the new mayor's residence
was thrown open to the public. There was no party ticket put up at
this election. They were picked men. The first city government
was as follows —
:
Mayor, Caleb Rice; clerk and treasurer, .Joseph Ingraham ; aldermen, — S. S.
Day, Elijjhalet Trask, E. D. Beach, George Dwight, Albert ]Morgan, Charles G.
Rice, Oliver B. Baunon. and F. A. Barton; common council, — J. B. M. Stebbins,
Eleazer Ripley, John V. Jones, Warner C. Sturtevant, Francis Bates, Henry
Fuller, Jr., Charles Merriam, AVillis Phelps, Cicero Simons, Henry Morris,
Alexander H. Avery, Benjamin F. Warner, William Hitchcock, H. Q. Sander-
son, Nathaniel Gate, Henry Adams, Ezra Kimberly, and Rodney Holt; school
committee, — Josiah Hooker, C. A. Winchester, A. S. McClean, George Walker,
William P. Bagg, Henry Adams, Marcellus Pinney, and Frederick Holt.
This government was inaugurated on the two hundred and sixteenth
anniversary of the settlement of the town. iNIr. Calhoun, chairman