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Senate Chamber where it is yet a far as I can tell at
at lest I see it Twenty years after After we had completed
our business & received our pay we shaped our course for
home where he arrived both in good health & money in our Pockets
thus ended the first year after the close of the War-
about the 3d of January 1785 (which was the next year) I was
Married and after that I turned my whole attention to
Farming and after the spring opened I believe I may
say I was as seriously engaged in the business and some time
in June I went to Housekeeping & followed the Framing business
about 54 years It may not be improper in the place to
relate some transaction which took place during that Time more
than simply Farming and in the first I shall observe that I
was choosen Captain in the Militia which I mus confess did
exactly correspond with my feelings as I had sustained that rank
in the Continental Army however at the earnest solicitation
of my Old acquaintance I accepted the appointment and was
commissioned accordingly I should not have mentioned this circumstance
were it not that I took an active part in the Shays rebellion
which took place soon afterwards - I should be guilty of
the greatest Ingratitude to my Old Friends & Townsmen if
I omitted to acknowledge the Friendship and kindness
they shewed towards me in every possible way after my return
from the Army - I was generally choosen Town Clerk, Selectman,
assessor & whilst I tarried in Town, two years I represented the Town in the Genl Court
- as I have had ocation to mention the Shay Rebellion it may not be impropper for me
to indeavour to explain the cause which gave rise to this verry
unfortunate affair but this will be a difficult Task fully to & clearly
to explain for there were more causes than one but the main
cause may be said to arrise from a Sudden Flow of hard
Money and an uncommon large importation of Forreign Goods

(c) Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association, Deerfield MA. All rights reserved.
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Captain Park Holland wrote this reminiscence account of Shays' Rebellion in 1834. Captain Holland fought on the side of the government, in Benjamin Lincoln's army. He was not in Springfield on January 25, but relates the movements of Lincoln's army as it pursued the Regulators. Holland is generally sympathetic to the Regulators in his account. He understood what the lack of hard currency was doing to his fellow citizens and what caused men to act to close the courts. He also identified with many of the men who were fighting because they were veterans of the revolution, as was he. In fact, one of the Regulators who were killed at the Arsenal, had served in the same regiment as Holland.

 

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Excerpts from Remembrance of Captain Park Holland and his participation in Shays' Rebellion

author   Capt. Park Holland (1752-1844)
date   1834
location   Maine
height   12.0"
width   7.5"
process/materials   manuscript, paper, ink
item type   Personal Documents/Journal
accession #   #L07.053


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See Also...

Journal of Sarah Howe on Shays' Rebellion

"The History of the Insurrections in Massachusetts in the year seventeen hundred and eighty six and the Rebellion"

Excerpt of Willard letter to E. B. Wilson on Shays' Insurrection of 1786


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