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

24 SPRINGFIELD, 2630-1886.
eral Court eveu l)eing omitted. The followini>' vote at Hartford, it
may be presumed, was taken after ^Ir. Pyuclion's messenger arrived
there : —
Whereas, it ^vas ordered octo die (March) Lust tliat there should l)e a re-
strauite of tradmge for Come in regarde of some .... Avith Mr. Pincheou to
supply the plantacons. uppou consideracon of Mr. Pincheous that hee is some-
wliat feareful of supplying the plantacons, and vrjiereas there is a Clause in case
of necessity ?> magistrates may dispence with the order. It is therefore ordered
that Mr. Ludlowe and Captaine Mason or either of them, taking likewise such
with them as shalbe meete. shall trade to supply tlieire owne necessities and the
necessities of some other that are ui wante.
This order may haA^e been dated March 1"), 1638. At any rate,
Captain Mason called upon William Pynchon at his Agawam home,
jMarch 21. He had with him some armed troopers and a Nonotuck
(Northampton) Indian. The meeting of these two notable men is
nowhere spoken of in the histories, l)ut it is impossible to understand
the events that followed without knowing" what happened at that
time. Captain Mason's exploits in the Peqnot war were heralded
abroad, and this reputation must have been a source of personal
gratification to him as a military commander. He had l)een an Eng-
lish soldier in the Netherlands, and may have known l^ynchon at
Dorchester, where they both had first settled in New England. Mason
from the start had had a contempt of the Indian as a fighting
animal.
William Pynchon, upon the other hand, was a student and law-
yer, and a man who believed that only through a primitive code of
ethics could amical)le relations subsist between the English and the
red man. We do not need the testimony of dingy manuscripts to be
told that Mason and Pynchon cottld not agree about the Indian.
When Captain Mason had entered Mr. Pynchon's house, — the
small one that gave way twenty- two years later to the famous
—^ Pynchon garrison-house, the soldier from Hartford said: —