DOCTOR WILLIAM WHITING.

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dependence, and his commission was one of those presented to the Province Council in 1776, for alteration by substituting the authority of "the Government and People of Massachusetts Bay" in place of that of "George the Third." During the five or more years in which the courts of Berkshire were suspended Doctor Whiting is said to have been "the only Justice of the Peace who ventured to officiate in the county." He was again commissioned a Justice of the Peace and of the Quorum after the adoption of the State Constitution, and from 1781 to 1787 was the presiding Judge of the Court of Common Pleas for the county. While acting in this capacity, he was one of the number compelled by a mob of Insurgents, in 1786, to sign a paper agreeing to hold no more courts until the state constitution should be re-formed or revised. In 1781 he represented the town in the General Court, having been the first representative elected under the new state constitution. In the disturbances occasioned by the Shay's rebellion, 1786-7, Doctor Whiting incurred the displeasure of the Government party, and was one of those against whom legal proceedings were afterwards instituted.

Doctor Whiting was a prominent member of the Episcopal church, an intelligent and skillful physician, and had a large practice in this and neighboring towns. He died December 8th, 1792, in his 62d year. The children of Doctor William Whiting were as follows:

Samuel, for several years a merchant here; he removed to Reading, Conn., where he engaged in agriculture.

Major William, who in his old age removed to New Milford. Mary Anna, who married Hon. Elijah Boardman of New Milford.

Abraham K., for many years a physician of this town, whose descendants still reside here.

Elizabeth, who resided in New Milford.

Mason, who studied law, and was admitted to the Berkshire bar in 1794, but afterwards removed to Binghamton, N. Y., and was one of the early settlers of that place.

Major Thomas Ingersoll.

Thomas Ingersoll, from Westfield, who was a brother of Deacon Jonathan Ingersoll of Stockbridge and of the elder Captain Jared Ingersoll of Pittsfield, came to

this place about the year 1774. He married February 28th 1775, Elizabeth Dewey, daughter of Israel Dewey, and in the same year bought a small piece of land, with a dwelling house-built by Daniel Rathbun—which stood near the spot on which Frederick Langsdorff now dwells. Here he settled in business as a hatter, and a few years later, having in 1782 added another small strip of land to his original purchase, erected the "old Stanley house"-the second house north of the Congregational church-now owned by Robert Girling.

Mr. Ingersoll's first appearance on the town records is as constable and tax collector in 1776; and at the consolidation of the Great Barrington militia into one company in October, 1777, he was commissioned second Lieutenant under Captain Silas Goodrich. He became Captain of the company in 1781. We find his name repeatedly in the rolls of volunteer and of detached militia which performed service in 1777-8 and 1779 ; and he also marched with forty men of his company to Stillwater, on the occasion of an alarm in that vicinity in October 1781. Mr. Ingersoll was an energetic, enterprising man; he sustained various town offices, became a Major in the militia, and held a position of influence amongst the inhabitants. In 1792 he was interested with Moses Hopkins, Esq., in building the old grist mill in Water street, but soon after removed from town. The wife, Elizabeth, of Major Ingersoll, died within a few years after their marriage, leaving a daughter Abigail six months old, who was adopted by her aunt Mrs. Daniel Nash-and brought up in her family. This daughter, eventually, married Guy Woodworth and removed to Waybridge, Vt.

Major Ingersoll was, afterwards, twice married, first to Mrs. Mercy Smith (widow of Josiah Smith) May 26, 1785, who died in May, 1789, and second to Mrs. Sarah Backus,-a daughter of Lieutenant Gamaliel Whiting, and sister of the late General John Whiting,-September 20, 1789. Some time after the close of the war, the attention of Major Ingersoll was attracted by a proclamation of the Canadian Governor Simcoe offering to persons who would settle there certain large tracts of land in Canada. He afterwards

MAJOR THOMAS INGERSOLL.

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met the celebrated Indian chieftain, Captain Joseph Brant, who gave him information respecting the lands offered, and proposed whenever Major Ingersoll might visit Canada, to point out to him the most desirable section for settlement. Major Ingersoll went to Canada and presented to the Canadian Council the petition of himself, the Rev. Gideon Bostwick and three others for the grant of a township. This petition was granted March 23, 1793, partly "in consideration of the well known loyalty and suffering of the Rev. Gideon Bostwick," who, as stated in the grant, comes precisely under the description of persons who ought to be encouraged to settle in the Province." Major Ingersoll then called upon Captain Brant and reminded him of his promise. This chief sent six of his young men to pilot Major Ingersoll through the woods to the river La Tranche-now the Thames-where they showed him the land best adapted for a settlement. Here Major Ingersoll, with his own hands, felled the first tree; and erected a log house to which he afterwards removed his family. The death of Mr. Bostwick, occurring within three months after the grant was made, prevented his participation in the proposed settlement. By the terms of the grant Major Ingersoll was required to furnish forty settlers, each to have a farm of 100 or 200 acres on payment to the government of a fee of six pence per acre, and the remainder of the 66,000 acres in the township was to be held by Major Ingersoll for the benefit of himself and his associates.

In process of time Major Ingersoll succeeded in obtaining the requisite number of settlers, to each of whom a patent was issued for the land settled on; but in doing this, in the building of roads and in making improvements, he expended all his resources. He had also, with a view to other settlements, made arrangements for the sale of several thousand acres of land at fifty cents per acre. But at about this time-not far from 1806-"some busy body" had communication with the British government, representing that the course of Governor Simcoe in granting lands was likely to do much harm. In consequence of this an order

was sent from England annulling the grant of the township. Major Ingersoll, disheartened by this act of injustice which deprived him of his property, and discouraged at the failure of an enterprise to which he had devoted years of toil and all his means, abandoned the settlement and retired to the vicinity of Toronto, where he died at the age of 63, in 1812. The site of Major Ingersoll's improvements is now the thriving town of Ingersoll, in Oxford county, with a population of five or six thousand inhabitants. By his third marriage Major Ingersoll had eight children, one only of whom is now living, to wit: James Ingersoll, Esq., of Woodstock, Oxford county, Canada, who was born September 10, 1801, in the log house we have mentioned, erected by his father, and who was the first white child born in Ingersoll. In addition to many positions of honor and trust which he has filled, he he has been for forty-five years past the Registrar of Oxford county; and from him we have derived most of the information relating to his father's experiences in Canada, contained in this article. Colonel Charles Ingersoll, another son of Major Thomas Ingersoll, was an officer in the British (Canadian) army throughout the war of 1812, and afterwards held various public offices. He was a member of the Canadian Parliament in 1824, '29, '30 and '32, and died of the cholera in August, 1832.

CHAPTER XIX.

GREAT BARRINGTON THE SHIRE TOWN OF THE

COUNTY.

1761-1787.

The county of Berkshire was taken from the old county of Hampshire, of which it originally formed a part, and erected into a separate county in April, 1761. At the time of its formation there were but four incorporated towns within its limits, to wit: Sheffield, (then including Great Barrington), Stockbridge, Egremont, and New Marlboro. To these Pittsfield was, a few days after, added; and Great Barrington was separated from Sheffield and incorporated as a town in the month of June following. There were also some incorporated districts and plantations, but the whole population of the county did not much-if any -exceed 4,000, and much the larger proportion of this was in the south part of the county. In the bill, incorporating the county, it was enacted that Sheffield for the present be the shire town, that the office of Register of Deeds be kept in the North Parish of Sheffield, and that a court of General Sessions of the Peace, and an Inferior Court of Common Pleas be held and kept at the North Parish of Sheffield on the last Tuesday of April and first Tuesday of September in each year, and at Pontoosuck, (Pittsfield) on the first Tuesday of December and the first Tuesday of March.

In June following, the North Parish of Sheffield was incorporated into a town with the name of Great Barrington; and it was enacted "that the town of Great Barrington for the present shall be the shire