REVOLUTION IN THE VALLEY:
A TALE OF TWO TOWNS
By Kay Lyons
Readings
April 19, 2026 at
The Church of Saints James and Andrew in Greenfield
And
May 3, 2026 at
First Church of Deerfield
Massachusetts
Kay Lyons
208 Chapman Street
Greenfield, MA 01301
Copyright Kay Lyons 2026
CHARACTERS
DAVID WILLARD, Lawyer/Historian (1790-1855) Greenfield native, author of Willard’s History of Greenfield
AGRIPPA WELLS (1738-1809), blacksmith, militia leader, “Capt. Grip” of Greenfield
THE REVEREND ROGER NEWTON (1737-1816): Second Minister at Greenfield Meeting House.
ABIGAIL HALL NEWTON (1739-1805), wife of Rev. Roger Newton of Greenfield
EPAPHRAS HOYT (1765-1850), whose father, David Hoyt, is a Deerfield tavern keeper
THE REVEREND JONATHAN ASHLEY (1712-1780), Loyalist Minister of Deerfield
SAMUEL HINSDALE (1707-1786), Whig tavern keeper in Greenfield
SIMEON HARVEY (1743-1815), blacksmith, Whig, Committee of Safety for Deerfield
MARY PICKETT NEWTON (1724-1786), mother of Capt. Isaac Newton of Greenfield
MARY CONNABLE (1747-1821), Inventor, Teacher of Bernardston
MARY STRATTON STEBBINS (1725-1797), wife of Whig Joseph Stebbins of Deerfield
ELIHU ASHLEY (1750-1817), apprentice physician, son of the Reverend Ashley
MARY ARMS HARVEY (1747-1785), depicted in death on a stone by Solomon Ashley
GEORGE SHELDON (1818-1916), Deerfield historian and preservationist, founder of the Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association
TABITHA COLEMAN (1747-1818), great grandmother of Mary P. Wells Smith
DOROTHY WILLIAMS ASHLEY (1713-1808), wife of the Reverend Ashley
Setting: A Church; time is April,1775 as the play opens. The audience is seated in pews, as the cast comes in processing to music, taking positions around the altar and in pews, as a spoken word choir. Musicians to one side near the altar. A woman sits center stage; she has been spinning at a treadle wheel as the audience has come in. She continues through narration.
(Cast sings “Fish and Tea” walking to places, Wells solo on 3 verses, cast on chorus & final verse; file in pairs parting to sit house left & right in 3 pews; Rev. Ashley & Rev. Newton last, Ashley placed to enter later, Newton at lectern. Musicians & Dorothy Ashley at front of sanctuary. As music ends, David Willard stands & moves to center aisle.)
DAVID WILLARD
1775. A period of powerful and all absorbing interest in the history of our country had now arrived , and the people were called upon to decide, each for himself, a question of great moment and consequence. Our records are almost barren of any local incident relating to it . The population of the town was then very small . It appears however from what is known , that they were, with very few exceptions, ardently engaged in the cause . That there were not more people hesitating to engage in the coming rebellion, considering how powerful the British were, how outnumbered the residents were, the fact of their ties by blood to the British, and how wearied and vexed by their sufferings in the Indian and French wars, is surprising. Every leading and important event of this Revolution is so well known , even to the school boy , so much has been said and sung , and related even in common every day conversation , and in every 4th of July Oration narrated, that it would be worse than superfluous to deal in any lofty language, or enact any raptures on the subject.
Oh, was I using lofty language there? Sorry. I’m a lawyer. David Willard, Esquire. I didn’t want to be, you know. The profession was chosen for me by my father. Parents should not choose professions for their children. What I did enjoy about the law was telling the stories, giving an airing to each side of an argument. Each one’s story, if sincerely related, is the truth of the matter, isn’t it? As there were many perspectives, all of our voices will come into the tale. We will speak of these people and introduce them to you at a remove, as they all lived before and through the time of the Rebellion; I was born in 1790, seven years after the guns, if not the tongues, were stilled. As we spin our tale today - thank you, Mistress Elizabeth, for serving as our metaphor.
(Elizabeth stands and moves off with spinning wheel, takes a seat upstage or in the congregation)
- I hope you will see that the sides were not as clear, even to those taking them, as history has portrayed. We intend to show you that the war was fought not all on the battlefield but in every home and meeting house, on every farm field and all along the valley of the Connecticut by many people, most not in uniform. The threads that run through this valley make a beautiful and strongly woven cloth.
(Music, a march.)
But about that day, the 19th of April of 1775. An express rider came to Worcester, shouting as he passed through the street at full speed, “To arms! To arms! The war is begun!” His white horse bloody with spurring, and dripping with sweat, fell exhausted by the church. Bells rang out the alarm, cannons were fired, the implements of husbandry thrown by in the field, and all seized their arms. The passage of the messenger of war, mounted on a white steed and gathering the population to battle, made a vivid impression on memory. In the animated description of the aged, it seems like the representation of death on the pale horse, careering through the land with his terrific summons to the grave. The word spread far and wide, and soon followed the battle at Lexington.
And Greenfield? From the accounts of the elders - and they were there - it went as Capt. Grip - Agrippa Wells, relates:
(Willard sits. Agrippa Wells stands and turns out to speak.)
AGRIPPA WELLS
We were trained and ready for it. First of the year we’d stockpiled powder and lead, a hundredweight each, and the militia drilled in two companies with my elder brother Ebenezer and me . Our father was a soldier and trained us up right. I came to Greenfield by way of Canada, captured at a tender age in the Seven Years War. Ran the gauntlet - in a dress, for the amusement of my captors. Gave ‘em what for and they traded me off; I got sent to France, and then England, and back here where I did a little work and earned my place as a respectable man, married Mehitable and thought I’d make a living with my blacksmith shop but keep a keen eye out. I didn’t miss much from my forge in the middle of Greenfield Village. You can bet the guns were in good repair and spirits were high when the call came. Our drummer Tom Loveland played the muster roll and out they all came. Brother Ebenezer wasn’t sure this was the time for our Greenfield men to get into the fight, and Amos Allen thought it treasonous to the government, and didn’t step up to lead. But I took 50 men on the march. “Captain Grip” they called me. It suited me. You need a good grip to be a smith or a leader of soldiers. Elijah Mitchell took the name “Minute Man” to heart and got home and back to the field in minutes with gear and food for the road. We tested that eagerness. We marched over 100 miles with those 50, paid ‘em a penny a mile, and they did Greenfield proud. Home on furlough, I had a curious visit from our pastor, Mr. Newton.
(Newton, at lectern, knocks on it to shift the scene.)
AGRIPPA WELLS
Parson! Do come in. We’re just at tea.
ROGER NEWTON
Forgive me for the disruption of the family board. I - TEA, Captain Wells? I would have thought a Patriot household would be abstaining, if you don’t mind my saying so.
AGRIPPA WELLS
The tea is for my Mehitable’s condition, Parson. Medicinal. It’s allowed. I do not partake myself. I would sooner drink my children’s hearts’ blood.
ROGER NEWTON
I understand, Captain Wells. My dear Abigail has perhaps the same condition, and Dr. Elihu Ashley is kind enough to deliver a supply to us.
WELLS
Just out on a walk, Parson, or did you have business?
ROGER NEWTON
Well, Captain, seeing you back safely from battle and somewhat rested, I hope, I wanted to inquire about the state of the war.
WELLS
The war is on and we have made a good start. We were ten days at Cambridge and will be out again for a quarter of the year. But you know that. What’s on your mind?
ROGER NEWTON
There are those in our congregation who are in firm agreement with the rebellion, and I minister to them in their concern for themselves and the men they send to battle. I minister also to those who do not side with the cause of the rebellion -
WELLS
Of liberty, you mean -
ROGER NEWTON
Yes. Well, those of the Loyalist view have heard of the ill fortunes of some in Boston who have been punished by mob violence and worse, and some fear they stand to lose a great deal if the rebellion -
WELLS
The fight for liberty -
ROGER NEWTON
Is successful. In short, what do you plan to do with the Tories?
WELLS
What will we do with them? (Pounds the nearest surface or stamps his foot.) Do with ‘em? Damn ‘em, we intend to hang the devils!
ROGER NEWTON
I see. That’s - that’s very clear. Thank you. I shall leave you to your - TEA. (He steps down behind lectern, stays until next speech. Music - Revolutionary Tea)
WILLARD
Well, that’s how it’s always been told. Quite disruptive to the equilibrium of the family table, I imagine. How the teacups must have rung their little alarm when Captain Grip’s fist came down. The peaceable Reverend Newton must have been shaken as he went home to sensible Abigail. (Abigail stands, turns out. Newton stands by the lectern.)
ROGER NEWTON
My dear, I have had a most disturbing visit with the blacksmith’s family. I’m afraid our Tory neighbors are in grave danger. Why, if the likes of Capt. Wells have their way, they will hang.
ABIGAIL NEWTON
Hang? Here? We know everyone here. Who would hang us?
ROGER NEWTON
Us? We never have claimed to be Loyalists. We cannot be seen to take sides. I am the pastor, the counselor, I have to be trusted. . . I have a sermon to write. That will calm me. I’ve chosen to preach on Psalm 22 - “The prudent see danger and take refuge, but the simple keep going and suffer for it.”
(Newton goes to seat behind lectern, sits.)
ABIGAIL NEWTON
My husband was the most pacific of pastors. I felt he was misunderstood. He went to tea with the Ashleys in Deerfield, so some thought him sympathetic to the Tories. Well, the Reverend Ashley was his fellow minister. Whose house would we have visited if not his? Some saw him as a fence sitter, which was closer to the truth. He did not wish conflict with anyone, ever. Some may have thought him cowardly for going about the business of the church as he did, instead of getting into the thick of the fray. I thought him the best peacemaker anyone knew. And the Ashleys and their friends in Deerfield? Well, there was no doubting where they stood. We knew about the talk at Hoyt’s tavern.
(Epaphras Hoyt stands.)
EPAPHRAS HOYT
Epaphras Hoyt here. Pardon me, Mr. Willard, but you weren’t born yet when trouble was brewing. I was just a boy when war was coming but I spent many an hour in my father’s tavern and heard the talk first hand. I remember my grandfather’s fear. The gloom which then hung over our elderly people I recall very well. They saw danger and ruin approaching, thinking the army and navy of the mother country might crush us at a blow. They thought the way to challenge encroachments on our rights and privileges was through remonstrance petitions. If that didn’t work we must submit. It seemed nothing short of insanity to plunge into a war with a powerful military nation. Independence? They couldn’t imagine it. At Hoyt’s tavern word of the battle at Lexington had a different effect from the rally to fight among the Whigs. The Reverend Ashley thought they needed correcting, and took action.
(Hoyt sits.)
WILLARD
Indeed. As was common, Mr. Ashley made an exchange with Mr. Newton, and preached at the Meeting House in Greenfield. Present were many of the leaders in the Patriot cause in town - Captains Childs and Wells (Wells stands.), Captain Isaac Newton, families named Arms, Smead, Nims, Allen, and Graves. Benjamin Hastings, and Samuel Hinsdale (Hinsdale stands). They heard Mr. Ashley’s preaching in the morning, on the subject of loyalty to the crown; he was fond of quoting Proverbs 24:21.
REV. ASHLEY
“Fear the Lord and the king, my son, and do not join with rebellious officials.” (Music - Chester)
(During music, Ashley walks to center aisle at the front of the church. Wells and Hinsdale walk up to Ashley and stand on either side of him. During the following they do as Willard narrates.)
WILLARD
Well, he was to preach in the afternoon, and was met by a committee of the above named gentlemen, who may have had a cider or two between services. As Mr. Ashley proceeded to open the meeting house door, Hinsdale gave him a jostle with his elbow. Ignoring the gesture as if it were an accident, Ashley tried again to enter, and was again pushed, a little harder but not so as to knock the man down. On its happening a third time, Jonathan Ashley exclaimed:
REV. ASHLEY
Samuel Hinsdale! You should not rebuke an elder!
SAMUEL HINSDALE
An elder! An ELDER! If you had not said you was an elder, I should have thought you was a poison sumac!
REV ASHLEY
Perhaps you ought to stick to serving at your tavern and abstain from imbibing, Hinsdale. Your occupation has made you intemperate..
SAMUEL HINSDALE
I’ve got a temper all right, and you’ve gone and touched it off. As for drinking habits, Parson, it’s pretty well known there’s more than tea in your cup.
(Ashley goes back to his pulpit, and Wells & Hinsdale go back to their seats.)
WILLARD
There was no preaching that afternoon. Soon after, at his own church in Deerfield, Mr. Ashley preached on the fate of the fallen Americans at Lexington.
REV. ASHLEY
Woe to the doomed souls who fell while in the act of rebelling against their anointed sovereign the King. It is their doom to pay a price too dear in the next world after such a betrayal of loyalty. They call theirs a Patriot cause, but there is no other country to which they have sworn allegiance, but only the British crown.
(Ashley steps down from his pulpit, makes his way to the entrance to the pulpit during Willard’s speech. .)
WILLARD
One member of the congregation, not satisfied with the discourse, during the week following, met with a blacksmith. On the following Sabbath, Mr. Ashley, on attempting to enter his pulpit, found it spiked up, which is to say, by means of spikes and long nails, the pulpit door was truly shut.
(Ashley turns out, searches for help and spots Simeon Harvey, speaks to him.)
REV. ASHLEY
Deacon Harvey - Simeon! How providential that we should have a blacksmith present. Would you be so kind as to fetch your hammer and undo this mischief?
(Simeon Harvey stands, faces out.)
SIMEON HARVEY
I am truly sorry to tell you, Parson, that I do not use my hammer on the Sabbath.
(Harvey sits. During Willard’s speech Ashley, exasperated, takes a seat near his pulpit.)
WILLARD
An axe was procured and the door was opened. The conspirators kept their seats, their composure, and their secret. (Music cue here.)(Wood Robin)
WILLARD
The British were up against a hearty people, not least among them, the women. They had mothers who stayed up through the night to fry nutcakes for their husbands and sons on the march, and run bullets to be used to destroy their enemies. In earlier wars these women had practiced shooting, and watched the forts and their homes with a gun on one side and a spinning wheel on the other.
The family of the Rev. Newton’s nephew, Capt. Isaac Newton, took unusual measures in support of their son and brother and by way of him, the war effort. Captain Newton would make a name for himself after the war as Greenfield’s overseer of the poor, and later in the Massachusetts Legislature, but here is how he started out, as told by his proud mother, Mary Newton.
(Mary Newton stands, turns out.)
MARY NEWTON
Our family moved up to Greenfield from Durham, Connecticut when my husband John’s brother Roger was called to the ministry here. Our son Isaac thought the sun rose and set on his uncle the pastor. Everyone did. When the war came, Isaac was one of the first to sign up for the militia right at that big muster. He proved himself very useful in the army, as it turned out, and was such an excellent leader that he was promoted to the rank of Captain. We were so poor when he was growing up, he never even had an overcoat until he was 22. The town supplied him with one second hand for the army, but it was mighty ragged after some rough wear. Well, we couldn't have him meet General Washington in that old thing. His sisters and I set about making him a proper uniform. Mary carded the wool, Rhoda spun the yarn, Sarah and I took turns at the loom, and we all did the stitching of a suit in white woolen that was said to be the finest on the field. Well, Washington’s might have been better. (She sits.)
WILLARD
Just up the Connecticut River was the home of the Connable family, which it would not be an exaggeration to say was a hive of industry. If it was a hive, Mary Connable was the queen bee.
(He sits, Mary Connable stands and faces out.)
MARY CONNABLE
All the towns got lists of what was needed to clothe the soldiers, and they had to report on quotas being filled. The reports list the men who were credited with supplying these needs. And yet, the carding, spinning, weaving, knitting, dyeing, and washing all were done by the women in every home. Tailors made coats and cobblers made shoes, but we made the blankets and the rest. We used the big walking wheel to spin the wool. You could operate it with one hand, walking back and forth to twist the wool we carded into yarn fiber. The treadle wheel was more for spinning flax for linen;; it occupied one’s attention in a meditative way.
I got training in all things mechanical from my father, right alongside my brothers. They were gifted engineers, and I became one, too. There were always pulleys and gears and machines of all kinds being worked on for the farm or the house. We had fun and we learned to like a project. There was nothing we couldn’t make. So, when it came time to practice the art of spinning flax into linen thread, I created a water wheel set up on the river that made the work much more efficient.
I taught a Dame school in my father’s house. I was already doing it before the war. Once the war got going, fewer pupils came, and the ones that did had less time for learning.. Children were needed to help run the farms with fathers away at war. I did not become a wife or a mother, but took part in raising those young ones. I was well aware that other women gave themselves to domestic duties. For some, it cost them their lives. I was lucky.
(Mary Connable sits. Willard stands.)
WILLARD
Living as a wife and mother was a blessing and a curse for Mary Stratton Stebbins in Deerfield. She married Joseph Stebbins, a solid Patriot, a veteran of the recent wars, a man of means who provided his family with a very fine house. Their union produced children. Oh, the children.
(Willard sits, Mary Stebbins stands.)
MARY STRATTON STEBBINS
The Stebbins house was never dull, you can say that for us. We had young Joe who was old enough to be a soldier, husband Joseph who was a soldier again at age 56, and Asa, too young to go to war, thank Heaven . And there was Sally. Sally had baby Clary, whose anonymous father was no one we wanted in her life. Sally went with David Dickinson, best friend with Elihu Ashley. They were the spoiled children of a generation that had fought to make the village safe for their frivolities and debauchery. They never had to defend their homes from attack. Dickinson and Ashley sat up with pretty girls until sunrise, and drank flip until all hours. And do you know what my Sally had to go through, she with child and no husband? She had to make confession before the church, which is to say before that superior windbag the Reverend Ashley, to the crime of fornication!. Fornication, she had to admit in public, in order to be restored to communion. She was charged a fine of 15 shillings to the court of Northampton. What penalty did Dickinson pay? What shame? He became a major in the Continental Army.
And what did we do? We had a warrant sworn out for his arrest, to bring a suit for paternity. And who should carry this warrant but another Ashley, Jonathan, Esquire, if you please, brother of the libertine Elihu! And what happened then? Justice? Why, no. I received a letter from Elihu Ashley, future physician.
(Mary Stebbins sits, Elihu Ashley stands.)
ELIHU ASHLEY
“Mrs. Stebbins: I often hear how I am vilified by you and your family and what the Reason is I am not able to say, without it is because I won’t break friendship with Dickinson”. . . I went on to say that I was sorry for her family’s troubles which may or may not have been due to actions by my friend Dickinson. I said I was as sorry as anyone in town for their misfortunes. I denied the story I had heard she was telling about my laughing as her daughter passed by Dickinson’s store, remarking that she looked to be in the Hoddy Doddys, and I alluded to a few other bits of gossip of which I knew Mrs. Stebbins was guilty.
WILLARD
But that was before the war, and before young Dr. Ashley had sat at the bedside of his mentor and father-in-law to be, Dr. Thomas Williams, as he lay dying. Death was a constant companion in these times. It was always there. It might come in battle, or it might be an accident, or an ill fated pregnancy, or smallpox.
(Music cue, cello. Willard sits.)
ELIHU ASHLEY
I inherited Dr. Williams’ medical practice as war came to take away the life we knew, and plenty of life itself. Fortunately, the previous spring in Worthington, I’d had myself inoculated. Smallpox is one of many threats in times of war, and it travels quickly and fiercely. To protect against it, we had to have the stuff from an open sore in a patient put into our bodies, then go to the pest house to wait out the symptoms of the somewhat milder case that was sure to infect us. We lay on straw and had only rice or hasty pudding with skim milk for a whole month, and suffered with pustules and fevers, aching and weak as kittens, until it passed; then wore the scars on our faces. From there we went forth to do battle with disease. So ended my youth.
(Elihu sits. Rev. Newton, who has been sitting upstage, takes his place at lectern. He remains there through the Harveys’ scene.)
ROGER NEWTON
“You who have made me see many troubles and calamities will revive me again, from the depths of the earth you will bring me up again. You will increase my honor and comfort me again.”
Psalm 71.. A psalm to comfort the grieving. There is far, far too much grief.
(Cello plays, Rev. Newton bows his head as Mary Harvey stands.)
MARY HARVEY
It was early and a little snow had fallen. In the rare quiet of the morning, I noticed the baby in my belly wasn’t kicking. I’d had enough babies to know it didn’t feel right. I’d send one of the girls for the midwife after breakfast. I stirred the coals and was poking them with some kindling, when in came James and Henry at a run, racing each other for the water pail. I told Henry to carry it to the well, and James and he could bring it back full, and there was peace. I can still hear the spoons and bowls being set on the table. That would be Experience, bless her. And Emelia, sleepyhead, dreaming of Asa Stebbins, no doubt, came to when her baby brother Mark woke up yelling at the top of his three-year-old lungs.
(Simeon Harvey stands, turns out.)
SIMEON
Morning!
MARY H
Simeon, good morning. I need to tell you -
SIMEON
No time for talk, off to the barn. Cow won’t milk herself, and that snow’s going to melt before I get out to track some deer. Em, you get the porridge going. Your mother looks like she needs a hand. Let Mark bother his brothers and you stir the oats.
MARY H
That was the last I saw of dear Simeon. I was in labor with a baby that never drew breath. I would breathe my last pushing him into a world he wasn’t fit for.
SIMEON
I didn’t know. She never got to tell me. I did shoot a deer. Takes a lot of time to dress a deer, and do all the work to save the meat and hide. A long time.
MARY H
Emelia put on my riding hood, took the boys over to the Stebbinses’ and ran around to call my women to me, to help with the birthing. Experience ran for the midwife. All seemed as it should be, but I saw the faces and heard the whispered prayers.
(Mary Harvey sits.)
SIMEON
She was gone when I got back. They both were. Emelia was holding Mark on her lap, and Experience was on the floor with the other boys, and there was Mary, with the stillborn baby in her left arm. That’s how I had Solomon Ashley carve the stone. Mary in her coffin with our last child.
(Simeon Harvey sits.)
REV. NEWTON
“The Lord is near to the broken hearted and saves the crushed in spirit.” 34:18 (Cello)
(Elihu Ashley stands, turns out.)
ELIHU ASHLEY
Many died in the war, some died of the way it took apart the world we knew. I believe that was the case with my father. My brother Jonathan claimed I was the only one who pleased the good Reverend. Well, every parent is pleased to have a doctor as a son, and anyway, Jonathan was his favorite. I think it pleased him to have a family and a congregation he could shepherd through this world of pain. He saw his duty as leading his flock, and one day he looked behind him and they weren’t there. He didn’t understand. He was sick at heart. No bleeding or physick of any kind could cure the heartsickness. It was how he felt at the deaths of three infant sons. “Our all seems to be taken away with them; our very souls seem to be torn to pieces,” he said in a sermon. That congregation he so loved to lead took away his fortune, too, by holding back his salary and the firewood, they were that displeased. He didn’t see his part in the rift in our village, in our very country. He didn’t live to see the end of the war. The executors of my father’s estate made sure our mother received the back salary and the firewood, and rental on the property. To me, even with his faults, Dada was, as it says on his gravestone, “a shining light in the station where God had placed him.”
(Elihu sits, George Sheldon stands and turns out.)
GEORGE SHELDON
Elihu was a devoted son. He did not share his father’s views as a Loyalist, but he was loyal to his father and his family. We do not have any surviving commentary by Elihu about the practice of slavery in his own home. I wrote an Essay on Negro Slavery, seeing that the practice of enslavement was a fact in 18th century New England and seeing no reason we should not face the facts relating to it. Jonathan Ashley actually said the following words in a sermon given to a group of people then sometimes called “servants for life.”
REV. ASHLEY
Servants who are at the dispose and command of others, who it may be are despised in the world, may be the Lord’s freemen, and heirs of glory. You must be content with your state and condition in the world, and not murmur and complain of what God orders for you. You must be faithful in the places God puts you and not be eye servants - in vain to think to be Christ’s freemen and slothful servants. If you are Christ’s freemen, you may contentedly be servants in the world. If you are not Christ’s freemen, you will be slaves of the Devil.
(Rev. Ashley exits the scene, sits out of sight.)
GEORGE SHELDON
Like so many in his day, including other clergy, Pastor Ashley believed that slavery was part of the natural order on Earth ordained by God. Jin or Jenny Cole served the Ashley household for 70 years, continuing long after the Reverend’s death, and even after judges declared slavery unconstitutional under the Massachusetts constitution of 1780. She cared for Dorothy Ashley through her pregnancies, helped raise Dorothy’s surviving children, including Elihu, and even Elihu’s own children until her death in 1808 when she was 85. Jin was only 12 when she was taken from her family in Africa, and arrived in Deerfield at age 15 with her infant son, Cato, who also spent his life in the Ashleys’ service. Jin shared many times that her father was a king in their homeland, and how she was cruelly kidnapped while playing with other children by a well. She fully expected, at death or before, to be transported back to Guinea, and all her long life she gathered, as treasures to take back to her mother land, all kinds of odds and ends, colored rags, bits of finery, worn out candlesticks, fragments of crockery or glassware, peculiar shaped stones, shells, buttons, beads, cones - anything she could string. Nothing came amiss to her store. Cato, like his mother, created his own collection. Jin often mourned, “We never see our mothers any more.”
(Cello, There Is a Balm in Gilead” Willard stands.)
WILLARD
The war of the Revolution closed in 1782, the Treaty of Paris in ‘83. The end of the war brought freedom, with homecoming and celebration for the soldiers. But the relief of peace was replaced with the struggle to recover. The cost of the war was staggering, and those who had fought it were expected to pay with taxes. No one in our local towns had money, and they were losing their farms and homes to pay overwhelming debt. Captain Agrippa Wells was doing all right. He came home a hero and resumed his life with Mehitable.
(Willard sits, Wells stands and turns out. He will stay standing and will move to the aisle where noted.)
AGRIPPA WELLS
After the war I moved the family to Leyden. Every year there we had a baby, and every year in Greenfield I led a muster, keeping up the military spirit, staying sharp. No invasions from outside this time, just trying to keep the peace we had. In ‘87, in the winter, Regulators, so called, took up arms against the government over all the trouble with the money the people owed. These Regulators were closing down the courts so they couldn’t take people’s farms. Well, who does the government call to guard the courts? Me. I was with the “Friends of Government” defending the freedom we just won. They had me muster militia men to go to Springfield and protect the Supreme Judicial Court. Well, on the march with Leyden, Bernardston, and mostly Colrain men, I got to know what was on their minds, and it wasn’t protecting the damn government. We joined up with those Regulators and got that court to adjourn and do no business. A fella named Dan Shays was the leader of this bunch and he was fearless.
(Roger Newton says the following at lectern, stays standing through the scene.)
ROGER NEWTON
“Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.” Proverbs 16:18.
(Epaphras Hoyt stands. As Hoyt mentions men, all men stand as if witnessing or going to battle.)
EPAPHRAS HOYT
It was bad enough they mobbed the courts, but then they got the idea to attack the Arsenal in Springfield. Captain Shays convinced Capt. Grip and the rest of his followers to take on the government guards. Neither side was well armed until Colonel Stevens at the Arsenal brought in cannon and howitzers. Elihu Ashley, my brother David Hoyt, and Joseph Stebbins were on the government side. Tory or Whig before, we were all one now, and here came friends we knew, spoiling for a fight. It was chaos. And it was January! (President’s March)
(With all men standing, Agrippa Wells tells the story, moving out into the aisle.)
AGRIPPA WELLS
Four feet of snow we had, and the top layer hard crust. Men, horses, and sleighs had to cut through that mess. We were cold to our bones and our shins were cut up, but we marched. I marched to Canada in the snow. I fought the British at Ticonderoga. I saw Burgoyne surrender. Who were these people? We could take ‘em. So they had cannons. They knew we had a few muskets but mostly clubs and swords. The cannons had to be for show. And that Stevens was a Colrain man. He knew who we were.
ELIHU ASHLEY
But Colonel Stevens gave the order and the cannon ball - a warning shot over the heads of the mob - went out. Another, and then, when the Regulators failed to retreat, we heard the order to aim at waist height, and the howitzers were fired. Down went three men, dead, and more clearly wounded, and the Regulators turned and ran. (All men but Agrippa Wells sit.) All but one we could see. And one familiar bellowing voice came over the snow.
AGRIPPA WELLS
HALT!! HALT, YOU COWARDS! WE’RE ALMOST THERE! CHARGE! TURN ABOUT AND CHARGE, I SAY!
(Music - Chester)
EPAPHRAS HOYT
We don’t know how long he stood there before the hero Agrippa Wells made his retreat. We know they all headed for the Pelham hills, and from there to Petersham, and later over the border to Vermont or New Hampshire. Capt. Grip eventually surrendered his weapon to Joseph Stebbins. The rebels were required to make an oath of allegiance to the government. As far as anyone knows, Agrippa never did, but as he both voted and held office in later years, surely he was forgiven.
(Wells sits, Epaphras Hoyt sits. Roger Newton speaks from the lectern.)
ROGER NEWTON
About the same time as the Shays Rebellion, I found myself in a dispute about the amount of firewood I was to be allowed. That was one small way our town struggled after the war. I would relinquish some of my salary if it would ease the way for others less well off. I knew sorrow of my own and the sorrows of my flock; but nothing prepared me for the sorrow of losing my son Roger. He was at Yale and took sick, and we lost him at age 26. Then I knew sorrow. Well, I kept a journal and put some of my feelings there. It was useful for sorting out my own and others’ problems.
I recorded what verses I might use in a sermon. There was my favorite, “Wisdom is the principal thing: Therefore get wisdom. And in all your getting, get understanding.” Proverbs chapter 4 verse 7. Simple. Direct. Useful.
(Music. Something light and comic on recorder)
“It is an honor for a man to keep aloof from strife, but every fool will be quarreling.” This one brings to mind the matter of the Colemans and the Allens on Colrain Road. This is how it was presented: Deacon Ebenezer Graves came to me with a complaint lodged against Tabitha, the wife of Elijah Coleman, saying she had walked disorderly and violated the rules of the Gospel in a capital offensive manner, particularly in two things: in showing a bitter, revengeful, and quarrelsome mind toward the family of Lt. Allen; and in absenting needlessly on many sabbaths from the public worship of God in this place.
(Tabitha Coleman stands and turns out.)
TABITHA COLEMAN
This complaint was read to the church, and they decided to summon me to address the matter. I was summoned and sent back the message that I was prevented from attendance by reason of a bodily indisposition.
ROGER NEWTON
I judged we ought to wait until Mrs. Coleman was in better health; the complaint was delivered again.
TABITHA
The complaint was nonspecific. How could I address what I did not understand? The articles in the complaint were not sufficiently explicit.
ROGER NEWTON
Upon discussing the matter with witnesses, Deacon Graves amended the complaint to begin as before and adding: First in allowing malicious and menacing expressions, especially against Lt. Amos Allen & his family, saying that she would willingly kill any one of them and that War being begun Mischief & Death would soon be heard of and the sooner the better, or to this purpose, also in Actions of Violence & ill will, particularly in taking a loaded Gun and attempting to fire it for the purpose of killing or wounding members of the Allen family, whenever they should approach Mr. Coleman’s buildings in such a manner as they had done.
TABITHA
That is quite specific. But that isn't the whole story. No one ever heard my side. Here is my side. To begin with, the Allens are not without blame. There was wheat and corn missing from our barn in the fall two years ago and I know it was the Allens who stole it. For that alone I’d kill them as quick as I’d kill a snake. Then there’s the mischief to our dye house. I heard noises, noises in the night, and I could see the chimney on the dye house was all taken down and I could hear voices out there, so I got Elijah to get his gun. He took a shot, but the gun misfired, and I was sorry it had. Well, I got my gun charged with a brace of balls and set it behind the door. My friend Rosanna Smead said I’d better not use it, for I’d be hanged. I said if that should be the case then I should have died in a just cause. I should not have Greenfield for my judge. Lucretia Denio tried to talk me out of keeping the loaded gun. She said if I shed blood then mine would be shed, too. Anyway, the Allens are a plague on the earth and with an Allen gone that’s one plague gone off the earth. The battle is begun and there’s no way to settle it but by powder, ball, and bayonet.
ROGER NEWTON
In order to obtain testimony on the facts, we had interviewed Church members Joseph Wells, Rosanna Smead, and Lucretia Denio, neighbors on Colrain Road. Said witnesses were in agreement that the Colemans and the Allens both were of a high strung temperament. The church finally voted that the said Tabitha merits the censure of God’s people and is an improper subject of their Christian fellowship. When the Church sent Deacon Graves to deliver the letter containing the action of the church, Mr. Coleman refused to deliver it to his wife.
To this narrative I would add another proverb: “A merry heart doeth good like a medicine; but a broken spirit drieth the bones.” (Repeat light tune)
DAVID WILLARD
History, the mirror of the past, reflects, with painful fidelity, the dark as well as the bright objects from departed years. The departed Dorothy Ashley, widow of the Reverend Jonathan Ashley, reflects on the inscription on her headstone.
(Reverent music, a hymn. She traces with her finger the inscription on her headstone.)
DOROTHY ASHLEY
“In memory of the widow Dorothy Ashley,
Relict of the Rev. Jonathan Ashley,
An agreeable companion,
An affectionate mother,
And the Christian’s friend,
Who died September 20, 1808, age 95.”
(To the audience)
That epitaph must have been ordered by Elihu.
An agreeable companion? I certainly think so, but that would be for others to say. I don’t believe my late husband ever said it. Did he feel it? I think he did.
“An affectionate mother.” I gave the children attention when they were young, when I could. I had my sad times, maybe more than other women. I did lose three little boys when they were just babies. Wouldn’t that make anyone sad?
We had the best of everything material. The best house, the finest furnishings, and a magnificent collection of tea things, Lord knows, although it was a struggle to offer the hospitality everyone expects of a minister and his family when the town refused to increase my husband’s salary even though prices kept going going up and up.
I never would have guessed the significance of tea in politics. Why must everything, always be about tea and politics? I enjoyed hosting people in our home. It’s the duty of a minister’s wife, and I was inclined to do it, duty or not. And then, when the rebellion came, a gracious tea party wasn’t supposed to be allowed. Not allowed. Imagine. I’m a Williams. We are a fortunate family and I only wanted to share our fortune and practice good hospitality.
“The Christian’s friend.” Why, yes, of course. I was even friends of a sort with our servant Jenny. After my husband passed away especially, we often passed the time together with sewing. The last thing we did was some sewing on a lovely piece of linen. It ended up being her shroud. She fell downstairs and broke her neck, poor soul. She had a collection of trinkets on a string, and now she’s wrapped in a real treasure. May she rest in peace. May we all have peace and rest in the Lord.
ALL
Amen.
(Recessional played - reprise of the hymn or something brighter? Chester? And the cast exits in pairs following from last row where they’re seated until the pastors follow last.)