The Duke of Stockbridge

The Duke of Stockbridge

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Title: The Duke of Stockbridge
Author: Edward Bellamy
Release Date: February, 2005 [EBook #7472] [Yes, we are more than
one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on May 6, 2003]
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Language: English
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THE DUKE OF STOCKBRIDGE A ROMANCE OF SHAYS'
REBELLION
BY EDWARD BELLAMY

CHAPTER FIRST
THE MARCH OF THE MINUTE MEN
The first beams of the sun of August 17, 1777, were glancing down the
long valley, which opening to the East, lets in the early rays of morning,
upon the village of Stockbridge. Then, as now, the Housatonic crept
still and darkling around the beetling base of Fisher's Nest, and in the
meadows laughed above its pebbly shoals, embracing the verdant fields
with many a loving curve. Then, as now, the mountains cradled the
valley in their eternal arms, all round, from the Hill of the Wolves, on
the north, to the peaks that guard the Ice Glen, away to the far
south-east. Then, as now, many a lake and pond gemmed the landscape,
and many a brook hung like a burnished silver chain upon the verdant
slopes. But save for this changeless frame of nature, there was very
little, in the village, which the modern dweller in Stockbridge would
recognize.
The main settlement is along a street lying east and west, across the
plain which extends from the Housatonic, northerly some distance, to
the foot of a hill. The village green or "smooth" lies rather at the
western end of the village than at the center. At this point the main

street intersects with the county road, leading north and south, and with
divers other paths and lanes, leading in crooked, rambling lines to
several points of the compass; sometimes ending at a single dwelling,
sometimes at clusters of several buildings. On the hill, to the north,
somewhat separated from the settlement on the plain, are quite a
number of houses, erected there during the recent French and Indian
wars, for the sake of being near the fort, which is now used as a
parsonage by Reverend Stephen West, the young minister. The streets
are all very wide and grassy, wholly without shade trees, and bordered
generally by rail fences or stone walls. The houses, usually separated
by wide intervals of meadow, are rarely over a story and a half in
height. When painted, the color is usually red, brown, or yellow, the
effect of which is a certain picturesqueness wholly outside any design
on the part of the practical minded inhabitants.
Interspersed among the houses, and occurring more thickly in the south
and west parts of the village, are curious huts, as much like wigwams
as houses. These are the dwellings of the Christianized and civilized
Stockbridge Indians, the original possessors of the soil, who live
intermingled with the whites on terms of the most utter comity, fully
sharing the offices of church and town, and fighting the battles of the
Commonwealth side by side with the white militia.
Around the green stand the public buildings of the place. Here is the
tavern, a low two-story building, without porch or piazza, and entered
by a door in the middle of the longest side. Over the door swings a sign,
on which a former likeness of King George has, by a metamorphosis
common at this period, been transformed into a soldier of the
revolution, in Continental uniform of buff and blue. But just at this time
its contemplation does not afford the patriotic tipler as much
complacency as formerly, for Burgoyne is thundering at the passes of
the Hoosacs, only fifty miles away, and