Various - Historic Towns of New England

He will tell about the first settlers of Rutland, respectable folk from Boston and Concord and other places, and how many immigrants from Ireland there were, with their church-membership papers in their pockets. He will tell you of Judge Sewall’s farm of a thousand acres in the north part of the town, and of his gift of the sacramental vessels to the church; of the five hundred acres granted to the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company; of how the road through the village was laid out ten rods wide, and so remains unto this day; of the call to the “able, learned, orthodox minister,” Joseph Willard, in 1721, and how he was “cut off by the Indians” – shot in the field north of the meeting-house – just before the installation day, so that Thomas Frink, “an able and learned, orthodox and pious person,” was called instead. Presently there was “a coolness in affection in some of the brethren” towards Mr. Frink, because two fifths of the church-members were Presbyterians, over against the three fifths Congregationalists, and “contrary to his advice and admonition communed with the Presbyterians in other towns.” The upshot was a split, and a Presbyterian church in the west part of the town. These Rutland Presbyterians seem to have come from Ireland – they were of the same sort as those who founded Londonderry, New Hampshire just before; and some of them were so tenacious of their own ordinances that they carried their infants in their arms on horseback as far as Pelham to have them baptized in good Presbyterian form.

Rutland had her minute-men, and fifty of them were at Bunker Hill. She had some hot town-meetings between the Stamp Act time and Lexington, and passed ringing resolutions and some stiff instructions to Colonel Murray, her representative to the General Court, whom more and more she distrusted, and who, when the final pinch came, declared himself a Tory out-and-out, and fled to Nova Scotia, leaving Rutland “by a back road,” to avoid a committee of the whole, which was on its way to visit him.

To tell the truth, this Tory Colonel, John Murray, must have been the most interesting figure ever associated with old Rutland, save General Rufus Putnam himself; and, curiously enough, the Putnam place had belonged first to Murray, – the house being built by him for one of his married daughters, all of Murray’s lands and goods being confiscated, and this house falling into Putnam’s hands in 1780 or 1782, probably at a very low figure.

He was not John Murray when he came to Rutland, but John McMorrah. He came from Ireland with John and Elizabeth McClanathan, Martha Shaw and others, his mother dying on the passage. He was not only penniless when he set his foot on the American shore, but in debt for his passage. “For a short time,” says the chronicle,” he tried manual labor; but he was too lazy to work, and to beg ashamed.” He found a friend in Andrew Hendery, and began peddling; then he kept a small store, and later bought cattle for the army. Everything seemed to favor him, and he became the richest man that ever lived in Rutland. “He did not forget Elizabeth McClanathan, whom he sailed to America with, but made her his wife.” She lies, along with Lucretia Chandler, his second wife, and Deborah Brindley, the third, in the old Rutland graveyard. “He placed horizontally over their graves large handsome stones underpinned with brick, whereon were engraved appropriate inscriptions.” He had a large family, seven sons and five daughters; and the oldest son, Alexander, remained loyal to America and to Rutland when his father fled – entering the army and being wounded in the service. Murray became a large landholder and had many tenants; he was the “Squire” of the region. He grew arbitrary and haughty as he grew wealthy, but was popular, until the stormy politics came. “On Representative day,” we read, “all his friends that could ride, walk, creep or hobble were at the polls; and it was not his fault if they returned dry.” He held every office the people could give him, and represented them twenty years in the General Court. He was a large, fleshy man, and, “when dressed in his regimentals, with his gold-bound hat, etc., he made a superb appearance.” He lived in style, with black servants and white. “His high company from Boston, Worcester, etc., his office and parade, added to the popularity and splendor of the town. He promoted schools, and for several years gave twenty dollars yearly towards supporting a Latin grammar school.” He also gave a clock to the church, which was placed in front of the gallery, and proved himself a thoroughly modern man by inscribing on the clock the words, “A Gift of John Murray, Esq.”

All these things your loyal Rutland host will tell you, or read to you out of the old books, – where you can read them, and many other things. And he will take you to drive, down past the Putnam place, to the field where a large detachment of Burgoyne’s army was quartered after the surrender at Saratoga. The prisoners’ barracks stood for half a century, converted to new uses; and the well dug by the soldiers is still shown – as, until a few years ago, were the mounds which marked the graves of those who died. Three of the officers fell in love with Rutland girls, and took them back to England as their wives. Yet none of their stories is so romantic as the story of that vagrant Betsy, whose girlhood was passed in a Rutland shanty, and who, after she married in New York the wealthy Frenchman, Stephen Jumel, and was left a widow, then married Aaron Burr.

St. Edmundsbury, in old Suffolk, where Robert Browne first preached independency, has an air so bracing and salubrious that it has been called the Montpellier of England. Old Rutland might well be called the Montpellier of Massachusetts. Indeed, when a few years ago the State of Massachusetts decided to establish a special hospital for consumptives, the authorities asked the opinions of hundreds of physicians and scientific men in all parts of the State as to where was the best place for it, the most healthful and favorable point; and a vast preponderance of opinion was in behalf of Rutland. On the southern slope, therefore, of Rutland’s highest hill the fine hospital now stands; and until people outgrow the foolish notion that a State must have all its State institutions within its own borders, – until Massachusetts knows that North Carolina is a better place for consumptives than any town of her own, – there could not be a wiser choice. The town is so near to Worcester, and even to Boston, that its fine air, broad outlook and big hotel draw to it hundreds of summer visitors; and latterly it has grown enterprising, – for which one is a little sorry, – and has water-works and coaching parades.

The central town in Massachusetts, Rutland is also the highest village in the State east of the Connecticut. From the belfry of the village church, from the dooryards of the village people, the eye sweeps an almost boundless horizon, from the Blue Hills to Berkshire and from Monadnock to Connecticut, and the breezes on the summer day whisper of the White Hills and the Atlantic. It is not hard for the imagination to extend the view far beyond New England, to the town on the Muskingum which the prophetic eye of Putnam saw from here, and to the great States beyond, which rose obedient to the effort which began with him; it is not hard to catch messages borne on winds from the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific.

Just at the foot of the hill, – to the west, as is fitting, – stands the old Rufus Putnam house, the church clock telling the hours above, Wachusett looming beyond the valley, the maples rustling before the door, to the west the sough of the pines. Its oaken timbers are still as sound as when Murray put them in place before the Revolution, each clapboard still intact, the doors the same, the rooms but little altered. Could Putnam return to earth again and to Rutland, he would surely feel himself at home as he passed through the gate.