James Parsons Lecture at Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association
10-14-1993
[edited by Pam Hodgkins 5-9-2025; Jeanne Sojka 5-30-2025]
This is a lecture by Mr. James N. Parsons on “The Lure of the Land, The Legacy of an Immigrant Broker,” one of the lectures for the sixth annual lecture series of the PVMA Association on March 14, 1993. What a privilege it is to be able to talk to a group of people who are interested in local history in a setting like historic Deerfield. It’s just magnificent.
There’s an unusual aspect also to the group we have here. No matter where you go, there’s always bound to be a difference in the group that’s listening to you. If not in the subject that’s at hand, certainly in their backgrounds.
But we have one thing in common. Every one of us, we are all immigrants or the descendants of immigrants. And that’s a very unique characteristic that can bind us together.
I’m going to be talking tonight about a man and to try to establish that I can be objective in this situation. My name is Jim Parsons. The gentleman I’ll be talking about is Charles T. Parsons. [1834-1896]
But about the time that all of this was happening, when Charles T. was performing his activities in the valley, my great-grandfather was on a fishing boat, Newfoundland hauling cod out there to send down here. So we are not directly related. Maybe if you go back far enough to England, you might find some connection there.
But I might go back, first of all, back in July of 1943. I had just turned 13. And like so many young people of that wartime era, that was the middle of World War II, as most of you know, I began working in the farms in Hatfield.
The labor shortages then were very acute. And farmers were desperate for help. And they would send buses down to Northampton and other communities to bring young people from the surrounding towns to help with their crops.
Well, the labor pool still wasn’t large enough to help the farmers as much as they needed to be. And I had the unusual experience of working in fields next to German prisoners of war from Westover Air Force Base. And those who lived in this area during that time may recall the trucks that left each morning to go to Westover and to come back with a load of these German war prisoners to work at the onions and the potatoes and the tobacco farms.
Great workers. It was an area that was of particular interest to me, and I’ve done a great deal of studying about it since. But there were other large groups that started coming in.
Other school children. High school kids from Pennsylvania, from New York City. And they were brought up here, and they spent the summer in the vacated dorms over at University of Massachusetts.
A perfect match. It was a perfect match. Something for them to do, help for the farmers, and a place to stay.
It worked out very, very well. Well, the discussion that we’re going to have today, or the discussion that we’ve listened to a great deal today, has to do with other workers that might be coming in. Replacing the group like myself were groups of Jamaican workers that came, and they’re still coming to the Valley to meet the needs of the farming community.
They talk to us, and there’s some dispute about the bringing in of Mexicans to solve our labor problems. But they will all be part of this long train of solutions to labor here on the farms in the Pioneer Valley. And it was that same shortage of labor over a hundred years ago that brought the migration of thousands of Europeans to the Pioneer Valley.
And I’m going to tell you the story of some of those, and a man who had a very large role in the coming of them from New York’s harbor here to the Pioneer Valley. I’m going to take you back, first of all, to the year 1896. That summer, like this one, was a real sizzler.
Everybody agreed that it was incredibly hot. Over in the town of Bondsville, two young boys died when they drowned, trying to get some relief from the terrific heat. In Northampton, two horses dropped dead from the terrific heat.
Well, the oppressive heat, the consequences of it, and how to cope with it were the big news in the Gazette on Wednesday, August 12th of 1896. But there was another front-page article. It was only three inches long, incredibly small, considering the topic.
It noted the passing of Charles T. Parsons, who lived on Maple Street, who was only 62 years old. I can say only 62 now, since I became 63 this summer, but he was only 62. And it said that he had been a farmer all his life, his father before him, and he had met with success.
It mentioned that his parents were Justice and Mindwell Parsons. I love that name for a wife. Mindwell.
Wonderful name. But that was the name of his mother, and they were named as were his two wives and their offspring. But not one word in that little three and a half inches or so acknowledged the fact that Charles T. Parsons was responsible for bringing over 6,000 immigrants to the Pioneer Valley in just 10 years.
6,000. Incredible. I’m going to be talking about the circumstances in the valley which would permit the absorbing of such a huge wave of immigrants.
We wonder what drew them to this corner of New England. What brought them here? And under what terms did they come here, and how did they orchestrate this whole business? How do you get that many people here? How is it all done? And equally intriguing is the question why Charles T. Parsons, the entrepreneur who perfected the system, could pass on without one word of acknowledgement of his role in this tremendous influx of immigrants. Well, here at the end of July in 1888, the Congress was holding a committee, an investigating committee in New York City, dealing with the subject of immigration.
Their first witness was from the Hamburg packet line, and he testified that they had carried 300,000 persons, one line, most in steerage, and two-thirds of these people had their passages prepaid. Well, three-fourths of those passengers went to the West, usually Wisconsin or Michigan and states between. Germans as a rule headed West, Hungarians to Pennsylvania, and according to this man from the packet line, the Poles stayed in New York and the general area.
And that’s where agents like Charles T. Parsons and others met them. Many of the Polanders, and I’m going to be using that term, Polanders they were referred to, regardless of the nationality, you were still referred to as a Polander. One comment was interesting.
They were talking about an interview with one of the Polish people in Northampton. He says, they call us all Polanders, but he says, I know a fellow named Antonio. That doesn’t sound very Polish to me.
So they all were given that particular label. Well, he testified that he had obtained places on farms for $6,000 in the previous ten years. He also told the committee that it was impossible to get boys and girls to help in his district as they were going off to cities, and that is one of the big items that I’ll be talking about, going off to the cities.
He felt he had done this section of Massachusetts a good service, and he said that they stayed under his supervision for two or three years. And for his service, he obtained $10 by the party for whom he obtained the wealth, and $2,000, excuse me, $2 or $3 from the person placed. So in terms of the return to Charles T. Parsons, we’re talking $10 to $13 if things worked out.
Well, the majority of the contracts that were established were for a year. And if you were a green farmer, someone who just got off the boat, could not speak the language, the chances are you would be paid in the neighborhood of $100 to $120 a year. And if he stayed the full year, the $10 that he was obligated to pay wasn’t deducted from his pay.
But if he left before the contracts end, he forfeited that $10. Now, one of the welcome bits of news, according to Charles T. Parsons when he was testifying, was that there was not any increase of pauperism. No increase of pauperism on account of the immigrants he had secured for the farmers.
He said if a person becomes unable or unwilling to take care of himself, he, Parsons, would take them back to New York and pay his fare back to the old country. Well, as fate would have it, it was in applying that guarantee that Charles Parsons made the mistake of forever altering his place in the history of the Valley.
And that event was only a few months in the future, back in 1888. Another witness testified there was never so little demand for farms, and that farm properties had depreciated that year, and those years preceding it, 20%. 20% in 1887 alone.
Farms were available for $1,200 to $1,500. And from 1875 to 1885, the population of Hatfield and all the little communities in the area was declining, while Northampton’s was expanding. And during this period lost the meadows of Northampton, the finest land, and some still feel it is, the finest meadowland in the world, at least as good as any.
This was going begging. There were 500 acres in the meadows. 100 of them were up for sale, and there wasn’t a single bid for any of that land.
So I’m trying to give you some of the setting that was there, some of the factors which were found by the new arrivals. So their timing couldn’t have been better. But let me tell you a little bit more about what was going on in the general area, and how it was so opportune for the, quote, Polanders who were arriving at our shores.
At one time, if you were living in Northampton, it was said that you couldn’t go to heaven. You couldn’t be sure of going to heaven unless you had a pew in the First Church, a bunch of meadowland, and you were a subscriber to the Daily Hampshire Gazette. Well, I’m sure that all those boys would still feel the same way about at least the third part of that.
But what happened? Here we had a circumstance now where there’s 100 of them going begging, where farms are literally abandoned. If you were a farmer, and suddenly there was an opportunity, because of what was happening in the explosion of industry, an opportunity to work only 10 hours, or from dawn to dusk, you would think that was pretty wonderful, if you had been working as they did here in the valley from dawn to dark, with never any relief. That partially accounted for the exodus to the cities.
Out in Westampton, in 1866, they had what they called a return of the natives. Westampton went through a process which was typical of what was going on in a lot of communities. From 1830 to 1860, in a period of just 30 years, their population went from 900 down to 600.
Eventually, it went as low as 300. So in 1866, the year after the Civil War, they decided they were going to welcome everybody back who had formerly lived in Westampton, and moved on, were responsible for all of these abandoned farms. Well, 1,200 took part in the festivities that September, on beautiful days that they were blessed with, and 300 of them were former residents of the town.
Now, a gentleman named Clack made this long speech. They still love long speeches, and you’ll be pleased to know I’m not one of those who subscribes to that. But he said, “Quite too often you may be called a weak, as you look upon dilapidated dwellings, desertion, waste, which may remind you of the prophecy that Westampton will yet become a sheep pasture.”
Well, it didn’t, obviously. If you drive out there and try to buy the land in Westampton today, you’ll find out that it’s anything but, judging by the value ascribed to it. Another incident of just 100 years ago, you may have seen it in Jim Bridgman’s 100 Years Ago in the Gazette column.
It mentioned that a large group of French Canadians had returned to Canada because of hard times. And what were they returning to? Well, the jobs were drying up in our factories, so they were returning to farms they had either abandoned or other people had abandoned, and there were enough for all of them. The fellow commented, You can drive in one day and pass 50 or more empty farms and farm buildings.
So, again, a little more of this setting. There was another incident that took place. Over in Conway was one of my favorite people, a man named Caleb Sherman.
Back in the early days of TV, you’ll remember Rawhide. And during those days, Rowdy Yates was Clint Eastwood. That’s when Clint Eastwood was poor.
Well, Rowdy Yates was a great cowboy, so was Clint Eastwood and all of his spaghetti westerns. But boy, Caleb Sherman, he certainly didn’t take second place to anybody. Between the years 1797 and 1842, Caleb Sherman made over 500 trips to Boston as a cattle driver.
And to show what a man he was, in 1813, when he was still a younger man, they were going over the bridge in Montague. It caved in, and he lost his leg. He was back on the road again just a few months later, and he continued that until circumstances made the business no longer profitable.
In Northampton, and in a number of communities, including Conway, the factoring of cattle for the Boston city markets was a big one. They started opening the government lands to the west, and the railroads came to town, and the combination drove these people out of that business. More land becoming available because of circumstances beyond the control of those individuals.
Well, to bring all these people to Northampton, the valley, they were lucky at that time that the railroads had arrived. While the railroad carloads of immigrants were coming into the valley, were alleviating the problem of labor, but they weren’t perceived as a welcome group by other Europeans who had preceded them. On October 16, 1888, the Gazette reported, the Connecticut River Railroad Company now has to give a whole car to the parties of immigrants whom Charles T. Parsons brings to the city.
Considering the numbers that Parsons was bringing, that would have been news that whole cars were reserved for the use. It shouldn’t come as a surprise, but the rest of the article was a surprise because it reported a quartet of hostile reactions that persist to this day. If we talked about bringing migrant workers in here, if other groups come to our communities as immigrant workers, we’re having similar reactions, but this is what happened then.
Only the nationalities have changed. The doors of the railroad cars which were assigned to Charles Parsons and his group were locked. They were locked.
Why were they locked? Not to keep these people in because they didn’t want to leave. It was to protect them from, quote, working men who objected to their coming and they feared physical attack upon them, and Charles Parsons learned that they had great allies. And some of the newspapers in the area, and he was to suffer for that.
And the term that was used, the expression used, is rather an interesting one. These working men, according to the Gazette, objectors to immigration, have not long preceded the newcomers to this land of freedom, and certainly not long enough to learn that the nation does not settle its public concerns by violence. Well, that threat of violence failed to put an end to the plight of immigrants, but a month later, Charles T. Parsons gave the labor organizations and their supporters great cause for celebration.
On November 27th, [1888] a lengthy Gazette story told how Charles T. Parsons had been arrested for the assault and illegal imprisonment of one of his men. That story goes like this. Vincent Zabrienojtis, that’s the way his name was reported in the papers, and spelled in a variety of different ways, and obviously doesn’t sound very Polish or Lithuanian, but Vincent Zabrienojtis was a 20-year-old Pole, and again, all of these keep minor with quotes around them, who ran away from a farm up in the Barre Plains after only a few weeks of working there.
Well, he made his way down to Northampton, because Northampton was the big town. And when he got to Northampton, according to the jailkeeper, he was loafing around the streets, hanging around the saloons and begging. And Luke Day, who was the jailkeeper, testified that he acted very queerly, and he agreed with an interpreter in the judgment of two physicians that the young man was insane.
Well, the young immigrant was now the problem of the man who brought him to the area, Charles Parsons, because he guaranteed that he would resolve any problems that took place with any of his assignees. Well, Parsons’ son was taking a load of hay down to Holyoke, so Charles P. said, well, this is a good opportunity. We’ll have Vincent sit on top of the hay load, and when we get down to Holyoke, we’ll put him on the train and send him back to New York, and his brother will take care of him there and get him either in line or, number two, back on the ship to Europe.
Well, unfortunately, when they got to Smith’s Ferry, which is, of course, so close by, the young man slipped off the top of the hay line and was back in Northampton in a matter of a very short time. And once again, hey, Charlie, he’s back, so he had to pick him up. But think of this.
What did he do with him when he got back? He brought him to his house, which is, the house is still on Conz Street, Northampton, the brick house where he lived. He brought him to his house and kept him there. He often kept the people that he had with him, with him for a short time until they reached their assignment.
Well, to prevent the young man from running again the next morning, Parsons paid the blunder that would harm him from that moment on. He chained the reluctant Zabrienojtis to his [unintelligible]. What happened was this.
They stopped in Hampden Street in Holyoke while Parsons was conducting business. But before he put him into his buggy that morning, he took a buffalo robe, wrapped it around his legs, put blankets over his shoulders, but then put manacles on him attached to the vehicle. Well, when they stopped in Holyoke, bystanders noticed that the fellow sitting there shivering out in this particularly cold November 21st.
It was only 18 degrees. So they went and got the police, and they got the head almoner of the town of Holyoke. So when Parsons returned from his work, what did he find? All this irate crowd, the police chief, and the almoner of the city of Holyoke, and he immediately released Zabrienojtis, and he in turn was brought in and put into a cell for a short period of time and now brought up to trial on the charges of illegal imprisonment.
Well, the trial and charges were set for late December, and the Springfield Superior Courtroom was packed for both days of the trial. The basic facts of the case were indisputable. I mean, he had done it.
Everybody saw what he had done. But Parsons had no right to chain the man regardless of the likelihood he might try to run up again. The only question to be decided was the extent of his punishment.
All of Parsons’ troubles could have been avoided by one simple action. The Northampton authorities knew full well the story of Zabrienojtis and his propensity for taking blood bail. Parsons could have asked a jailkeeper or the constable to place the restraint on his charge and authorize him to transport the Polander down to the train at Springfield.
It was an uncharacteristic and costly lapse of judgment by Charles T. Parsons. Well, the sensational press, and that’s the way they refer to it in the accounts of the day, the sensational press of Springfield and Holyoke had always been stern critics of Parsons. And his immigration business, so his arrest gave them fresh fire.
One Holyoke Transcript to show you the way they covered the inflammatory coverage that they had at the time. The Holyoke Transcript report printed this story, that soon after Parsons’ arrest, the interpreter, Jake Feingold, had brought the Polander to the police station, pleaded that he had, quote, had tried to find work for the white slave, but without success, end quote. Feingold pleaded to be relieved of taking care of Zabrienojtis, as he was a poor man, Feingold was, even though he spoke the language.
And he said that no Polanders were interested in this man, their fellow countrymen, on anything to do with it. Well, after the finding by the jury that he was guilty, Judge Parker stated no one could deny that Parsons had overstepped his authority by chaining the man to his wagon. But it seemed to him that it was taken as a precaution, and not simply as evidence of abusive or cruel treatment.
Well, the full penalty could have been a fine of $1,000, a lot of money in those days, and 10 years in state prison. Instead, the judge imposed a fine of $500 and $60 for a cause. Parsons stated that he was through with the business after his conviction, but it was great cause for celebration for the working class critics of immigration in Springfield and Holyoke, but their victory was short lived.
One person I have not made mention of lived up here in Deerfield, South Deerfield to be precise, named Francis Clapp. He was Parsons’ associate, and he continued the operation and brought thousands more to the Valley in the following years. Parsons’ treatment of the press prompted at least two letters, which were printed in the Gazette.
On March 5th, the headline said,” A Word for Parsons by a Belchertown Farmer.” And while the writer didn’t condone the actions which resulted in his arrest, he praised Parsons and the workers he supplied and questioned what could account for the bitter, abusive remarks that have appeared in many of the leading papers of the state. He closed by writing that, quote, A fair-minded public had no sympathy with those who not in the interest of justice, but to gratify their own selfish aims have done so much to poison the public mind against an erring brother.
Next came a letter from Denmark, of all places. A week later, a man named Hanson, who was a bookkeeper at the city engineer’s office in Odense, Denmark, directed a letter to the Holyoke Transcript. He told what Parsons had helped him while he was here in the States and how kind he had been to him and responsible for his success.
He wrote, I thank the Lord for the day I met Parsons, and I think, Mr. Editor, that you and I and everybody else who knew him esteem him as one of the best and noblest men the earth has ever borne. Well, Charlie Parsons must have taken a lot of comfort in such testimonials, but his health was already shattered, and he continued to deteriorate until his death of brain fever in 1896. Two years later, and I’ll get away from Charles for a while, what happened to these folks that have arrived? Two years later, the Gazette ran a story about Polanders growing colony in and around Northampton, and it explained that Italians, Russians, and Lithuanians were all Polanders, regardless of their nationality.
The article praised the immigrants for their bank accounts, their general industry, their dependability, their flourishing sick benefit society, their acquisition of their own farms, and devotion to their religion. Think of that. They had created their own health insurance fraternity. At that time. Very interesting and very effective.
Another article had this headliner, Polander peril. Polander peril. But the subheading put it into perspective.
It said the invaders are buying up our farms and showing the old settlers how to work them. So they were really showing the old Yankees a thing or two about thrift and about the Puritan ethic, even though I’m sure they had never heard of that term. The article continued that it was the love of liberty and freedom, the hope of advancement and gain, which brought the Poles to the country, that they are founders of strong families for the future of the future of New England, none who study them can be in doubt.
Well, if you had any question about what was going to happen to them, any diehard doubts about their permanency or their prosperity, it certainly should have been put to rest in 1904 when the Polish community in Northampton bought the Bowers Mansion, the finest home possibly ever in Western Mass., certainly in Northampton. It even had appeared in architectural magazines and books in London of that time. They bought this building.
W.P. Cowles of Amherst managed to make a few dollars out of it, by the way. He bought what was then called the Blodgett Mansion at foreclosure for $10,500, and two weeks later he sold it to the Polish for $14,000. This house, let me just give you an idea of what it was like.
This house reminded me, most of all, of the Custis Lee Mansion overlooking Kennedy’s grave in Arlington. It was an absolutely beautiful mansion. To give you an idea of its size, this is what the architect came up with.
By removing partitions and the floor of the second story, leaving only enough around the edge for a gallery, they were able to sit 470 people. Now that’s a pretty substantial building. They took the altar.
The altar was built from the marble that came from the various fireplaces in the building. All this polished marble. It was dedicated in 1905.
They stayed there for eight years until 1913 when their own church on Hawley Street in Northampton was opened. Another story, the great success story in this area, we’re all familiar with the name. In August of 1915, the Gazette ran a Lincoln story about one of the Valley’s most successful immigrants, Roman R. Skibiski of Sunderland.
Skibiski told how he had arrived penniless in this country. He told how when he got here, he had a choice as he was being met. Would you like to go to the mines of Pennsylvania or do you want to come and farm out in Western Massachusetts? He chose Western Massachusetts.
Well, he was assigned to a family, apparently of whom he thought a great deal, because he went on to mention they were very concerned about his religion. Now, these were all [unintelligible]. Very concerned about his religion, they said, Roman, there’s a man here in town, Mr. Ahearn, who goes to the Catholic Church.
And Sunday, he’s going to come and take you down so you can go to your own church. Well, Sunday came and Mr. Ahearn didn’t show up for whatever reason. So Roman decided he’d walk down.
And he walked down to the center of town and went to church and he was really struck by it. He never saw anything like this. He’d gone to the Congregational Church.
Well, the following week, that was cleared up and he went out with Mr. Ahearn. And he was one of the most successful people and it’s interesting to read what he had to say. Because the things that Roman Skibiski was saying, they reported them in a paper in his broken English of the time, are the same characteristics that anybody coming to this country today must have in order to succeed.
I have two young friends that came from Cambodia and they’ve been here since 1986. I met them when they were in high school. They came not knowing a word of English.
And those young people came to me looking for additional work and I was able to help them find jobs. And they never had jobs that paid very much money. Two summers ago, they came to me after graduating from high school and said, Mr. Parsons, we’d like to buy a house.
I was absolutely flabbergasted. I said, well, have you any idea how much money? Well, they really knew more about what was required than I did. But they also had more than $30,000 in cash.
These are young people. How did they do it? The young fellow said, you know, he was working two jobs. At the factory where I’m working, the young boys there go out and they buy themselves this four-wheel drive.
And then they take it, they run it through the woods and they beat it all up. They get mud all over it. And when their pay comes each month or each week, the first thing they have to do is put almost all of it into car insurance and into the payment.
Now, what was he driving? He had a little piece of junk. You wouldn’t believe how it got on the road. He could have gone out and bought any car that he wanted to.
He and his sister worked together. At any rate, I took him under my wing, and he and his sister, and along with another friend, we guided them. They do own a very lovely home now.
They’re still working double jobs, any jobs that come along. Their goal is to get their mother and father here. That’s their goal.
Get the citizenship. Save the money. Bring mom and dad over here.
We’ve got a house for them now, and we’re willing to do all we need to do. What did Roman Skibiski say? He said, American boys buy chewing gum. I take my nickels and dimes, and I put them away.
Pretty soon, I got $10. Then I have $100, and I only need $1,000, and I can buy a farm. And there’s people around here who will lend me money if I want to invest in an onion crop, or if I want to invest in speculating on the growth of one product or another.
He didn’t say it in those terms, but it came back. He had great admiration for the successful Yankee farmers because, he said, they worked hard, just as he did, and that has not changed one bit. Well, the Polanders, every nationality under that mislabeled umbrella, came to this country at the right time.
And they were employed by farmers and others who respected their industry, respected their frugality, respected their commitment to their country, to their families, and to their church. But when their full story is told, a kind word should also be reserved for that errant brother, Charles T. Parsons, who met them at the ship and brought them to this blessed land of ours of Pioneer Valley. Thank you.
It was a long train, and it came up and stopped in Springfield and suddenly they say, who are these people? Where are they going? Nobody spoke Polish. Nobody spoke Polish. What are we going to do? What do we do with this train load? What happened was this.
A priest from Chicopee came on board that train to help out, and while they couldn’t understand him, they recognized him as a member of the clergy, and he brought them, took that whole group, and put them up in Chicopee, and that’s where the majority of them stayed. Now isn’t that, is that pretty much in accord with your story? Yes, I got the big dog. Yes.
Many of them did live in these places, that’s correct, and they’re very special. Just one more question. Anybody else? Yes.
