As the Cock Crows: Longmeadow's Rooster

Have you ever wondered about the rooster on the top of First Church’s steeple? Did you think that it was a simple weathervane, helping Longmeadow’s people to tell which way the wind blows? You might be surprised to learn that our shiny gilt rooster is not a weathervane at all—it has no directionals! There are no east-west-north-south pointing letters. This author was recently researching the history of the rooster perched high above Longmeadow’s green in order to learn how it became the logo for the Historical Society. What came first, the chicken or the egg, you might say!

First off, a little history, since we are the Historical Society. I dug into the history of roosters as weathervanes (or directionals). The rooster had profound historical and religious significance. Readers may recall the biblical story of the disciple Peter’s betrayal: “...Verily I say unto thee, that this night, before cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice.” (Matthew 26:34). Circa 590 A.D., Pope Gregory I declared that the rooster was “the most suitable emblem of Christianity.” In the 9th century, Pope Nicholas I even decreed that a rooster be placed at the top of every church. Others may interpret the rooster as a more ancient pagan symbol of sacrifice, and still others may simply think of the rooster as the harbinger of the dawn. And if you think that our rooster is unique, think again—West Springfield, Storrowton, Springfield, Westfield, and Deerfield all have rooster weathervanes, just to name a few.

A deep dive into our archives was the next step. From a publication dating 1872 Annals of our Meeting-house; “The whole edifice has been thoroughly painted again and again, and re-shingled, and the weather-cock has not been left uncared for in his solitary watch on the steeple. But years ago, a rifle ball was shot by some irreverent marksman straight through his breast, and yet to this day he tells faithfully which way the wind blows, Sundays and week-days, at midnight and at noon.” As we now know, this is not strictly accurate, as our rooster has no directionals (and what’s that bit about midnight and noon?). From the archival records at the Storrs House Museum, it seems that the rooster was imported from England about 1795 and is made of copper and covered in gold leaf. Though it appears small up there on the steeple, it is actually four feet high and 42” from beak to tail.

The rooster has taken flight at least 3 times; in the “Great Gale of 1821” (probably a hurricane) the steeple was blown down and the weathervane was blown from its perch. By the following May, it had been repaired.It also came down in 1945 and 1996 for painting of the steeple.

The rooster has been an inspiration for many people over the years, including Mary Ann Booth, who composed these lines:

“How dear to our hearts is the old First Church Rooster,

When near or when far he’s presented to view,

For years he has stood there with never a murmur,

And never a whisper of tales that he knew.

How much he has seen from the top of the steeple,

So true to his post the seer of church,

The bright shining Rooster, the patient old Rooster,

The dear faithful old Rooster that ne’er leaves his perch.”

How the rooster became the logo of the Longmeadow Historical Society is a little more mysterious. In the early days of the organization (founded in 1899) there was no logo at all. Starting in the 1970s the logo on the “Meadow Crier”, an early newsletter, was an outline of the Storrs House. The first time we see the rooster used as a logo was in the 1980 Long Meddowe Days booklet, with the note, “cover design done by Mrs. Edward B. Sullivan (Dotty).” In the 2002, Vol. 2 edition of “The Town Crier” newsletter, Peter Santos reminisces about the choice of a rooster for the event, “I wanted to have some kind of symbol to distinguish the day so I called on artist and publicity chairperson, Dotty Sullivan for ideas. From that conversation came the ‘Rooster’ that we now proudly display on all our ads and stationery. Dotty later copyrighted Rooster logo to the Historical Society for our continued use.”

From there, the bird roosted firmly as the official logo of the Longmeadow Historical Society. You may have also noticed that the rooster is also featured on the Town Seal—and every street sign in town—but he faces the other way! The significance of the direction of his gaze is a story for another day!

Sources: various Longmeadow Historical Society newsletters and other archival materials, First Church of Christ of Longmeadow, the Springfield Union.

William C. Pease

I found these photographs in the Emerson file on Digital Commonwealth and it stirred my curiosity to learn more about the subject. The Emerson photographs document life in Longmeadow in the early 1900s. The subject of these pictures is Longmeadow resident William C. Pease and they were taken by amateur photographer Paesiello Emerson in 1910.

William Collins Pease was born in Feeding Hills on November 30, 1830, and raised in Somers, Connecticut. He was the oldest of nine children. Pease moved to Philadelphia for a time in 1855 and worked as a tobacco merchant. He married Cornelia Skinner Coomes, of Longmeadow in 1857. She was one of five daughters. The Peases moved to Longmeadow in 1867 after the death of Cornelia’s father. A mention in the local paper noted, “Wm. C. Pease of Philadelphia purchased the farm and residence of the late Samuel Skinner Coomes of Longmeadow, including utensils, stock & etc, for $9000.” This is equivalent to $180,000 today. In the 1860 census, the farm had 2 horses, 2 milch (sic) cows, 7 other cattle, 14 bushels of rye, 100 bushels of corn, and 2000 lbs of tobacco. The home is located at 857 Longmeadow Street.

Mr. Pease carried on in farming, apparently specializing in hay, and later owned considerable acreage down in the meadows.

"Two men hunting - William Pease" c.1910

Emerson Photo Collection

Longmeadow Historical Society

In 1869 William Pease helped in organizing the first May breakfast, which became a longstanding Longmeadow tradition. He became the first town park commissioner and was a member of the Longmeadow Historical Society. William C. Pease was very active in the community, playing a key role in facilitating the division of Longmeadow and East Longmeadow in 1894. He served on the first board of selectmen after the division.

William and Cornelia were said to be an “unusually devoted couple.” They lost their only son in infancy, a daughter in young adulthood, and a grandson in his youth. Mr. Pease died at 83 years of age on January 20, 1914, and Cornelia died at 87 years of age on March 18, 1922. The couple is buried in the Longmeadow Cemetery.

I find it so enjoyable to learn about a captivating image, such as William Pease's, and the investigative effort is always so informative.

-Contributed by Lenny Shaker, Longmeadow Historical Society Board Member

Sources: Digital Commonwealth, Emerson Photo Collection Springfield Republican Massachusetts Spy Ancestry.com

Fridays with Zoe- Documenting Early Black Lives in Longmeadow (updated, 2023)

Editor's Note: This article first ran in August 2021. Since then our work on this important topic has continued. Zoe Cheek is now employed as an Archivist at the Lyman and Merrie Wood Museum of Springfield History and is still a great resource for us.

The program "Say Their Names" being offered at the Storrs Library on August 30th at 6:30 pm is a result of the work we did for Documenting Early Black Lives Project with PVHN and UMass Amherst.

During the summer of 2021, the Longmeadow Historical Society participated in a project called “Documenting the Early History of Black Lives in the Connecticut River Valley” organized by the Pioneer Valley History Network (PVHN), the UMass Public History Program, and the UMass Amherst W.E.B. Du Bois Library, with support from Mass Humanities and the UMass Amherst Public Service Endowment Grant.

Most Fridays over those few months, I had the privilege of meeting with UMass Amherst Public History student, Zoe Cheek, as we continued the important work of uncovering the names and stories of free and enslaved black residents of early Longmeadow. Zoe had been inputting names, dates, details, and links to sources into a new database generated by the program which collected similar information from other participating organizations all over the Pioneer Valley. One of the goals of this project was to build a broader and more complete view of the role people of color have played in building the communities in which they lived and worked.

As part of our work, Zoe and I pored over the diaries of Longmeadow’s first minister, Stephen Williams, for details of the community, his household, and the people he was known to enslave. Williams’ diaries, which cover the years 1716-1782, have been transcribed and studied before, and names and some details of enslaved people have been known for well over a century. It has never been a secret that Williams, like many ministers in colonial New England, was an enslaver. We also know that Rev. Williams was not the only enslaver in 18th-century Longmeadow. Now it was time to gather what we knew and look at it in the larger context of what was happening in the region and hopefully be able to connect names and places and come to a more complete understanding of the racial and class complexities of the Connecticut River Valley in early America.

We went through all ten volumes of the diaries of Stephen Williams, all of which are available for the public to view in their handwritten and transcript forms on both the Storrs Library and Longmeadow Historical Society’s websites. There is nothing linear about this work. One mention of a name or set of initials sent us cross-referencing with available town and church records. In addition to that, we also compared what was transcribed to its 18th-century handwritten counterpart. One small error in transcription could lead to a new understanding. We crossed borders between towns, counties, and into Connecticut. Mentions of Stephen Williams visiting a “poor negro” in prison several times in 1732 led Zoe on a journey through newspapers of that year and a further hunt for court records about a case involving parties from Windsor and Suffield that was tried in Springfield.

We know that Williams owned an enslaved boy named Nicholas from 1719-1720 before selling him to someone in Deerfield. By entering Nicholas’ name and the few details we were able to ascertain about him into the project’s database, we hoped it would be possible to trace his movements in another household after 1720? Sadly, all traces of Nicholas were lost after he was sold.

There is a mention in a Williams diary entry on July 30, 1734 that someone called "S.W. Esq. B" “Bought me a servant.” Who is S.W. Esq. B.? By servant, does he mean slave? The two terms were interchangeable at the time. This diary entry also mentions the city of Boston. Does the “B” stand for “of Boston” meaning the “servant” came from Boston? Was that the seaport through which this person entered? Or had he or she come from another household? This query sent our board president, Al McKee, to begin searching what he describes as a mammoth Boston directory called, "Boston, MA: Inhabitants and Estates of the Town of Boston 1630 -1822.” He began at the "Ws": “working my way from Wackum thru the end of the Ws.” We hoped to find a clue as to the identity of this S.W. Esq. B to see what further information about the slave trade in Massachusetts we could learn as it related to our community and region.

Our search for details about the lives of the free and enslaved people of early Longmeadow is a winding one, sending us into wills, probates, tax records, vital records, merchant account books, church records, and all manner of town records. It is work we are eager to take on. It is time to bring the names of some of Longmeadow’s earliest residents to light and acknowledge their legacies - people like Nicholas, Robin, Phillis, Scipio, Zickrie, Peter, Stamford, Caesar, Tom, Patte, Tobiah, Cato, Joseph, Betty, Jack, Pomp, Pero, Richard, Andrew, Prince, Guy Gordon, Azuba (Guy’s mother), Susannah Freedom, Ceasar Avery, Prince Starkweather, and countless other souls who lived and toiled here. For more information on the project "Documenting the Early History of Black Lives in the Connecticut River Valley" visit their website at https://blogs.umass.edu/pvhn-blackhistory/

To Register for the August 30th "Say Their Names" event visit visit the Storrs Library Event Link

-Contributed by Melissa M. Cybulski, Longmeadow Historical Society Board Member

Image of an unidentified woman by Alice Willard, courtesy of Longmeadow Historical Society Collection