the point of breaking out. We know what use France made of the Indians in those wars. As the historian of Pittsfield says, "Taught by the sad experience of former years that the first intimation of their actual existence might come from the war-whoop of Canadian savages surrounding their clearing at midnight, the pioneers abandoned their labors," not to resume them till the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, in 1748, brought peace.
In 1753 the General Court incorporated the community under the name of "The Proprietors of the Settling-lots in the Township of Pontoosuck." The proprietors held their first meeting at the house of Elias Willard. They voted to assess a tax of three shillings on each lot "for the support of preaching among us," and to raise in lawful money £40 for building a meeting-house; and they appointed a committee of five "to manage the whole affair of the meeting-house." But this was easier voted than done. Seventeen years passed before the first simple structure built for the worship of God was completed, and this was not according to the contracts made or the expectations entertained. In 1754 two of the building committee had tendered their resignations, but they were not accepted. The meeting at this time got so far as to settle the size of the building, which was to he thirty feet long and thirty-five wide; and the same meeting voted to call a certain Mr. Smith to preach as a candidate, — "probationer" was the word they used.
Then follows an agitated interval, when hostile Indians again spread terror through the region. Pontoosuc was still a frontier military post, and it was all the settlers could do to keep their farm holdings from deteriorating; but at the first glimmer of peace the proprietors resumed their care lest their souls should starve, and in 1759 appointed a perpetual committee "to hire some man from time to time to preach among us."
In 1761 the town of Pittsfield was incorporated in place of the plantation of Pontoosuc,— the Provincial governor, Bernard, conferring the name, probably at the suggestion of Col. Williams, an ardent admirer of the great William Pitt, "who had already made himself the idol of New England by his vigorous conduct of the war against the French"; but it was expressly stipulated "that no inhabitant or proprietor, excepting the original sixty settling proprietors, or those holding under them, should be obliged to pay any part of the charges towards building a meeting-house or settling the first minister."
Union of Church and State was so ingrained as to seem perfectly natural. These men were essentially Englishmen, full of English conservatism, that trembles to cut loose from ancient practices. The great quickening of thought that resulted from the Revolution, and the radical position of "no taxation without representation," were destined to extend its influence. But the difficulties that beset the building of the church in Pittsfield were not doctrinal or spiritual; they were "of the earth, earthy." Most of the actual settlers were poor; they lived in log-houses, and could not be expected to vote for a meeting-house spacious beyond the present needs, while non-resident proprietors who lived in Hatfield or Northamption, far enough away from the agitation to get a just per-