This news was that the week
before, an armed mob of several hundred had stopped the courts at
their meeting in Worcester and forced an adjournment for two months;
that the entire state, except the district close around Boston, was in
a ferment; that the people were everywhere arming and drilling and
fully determined that no more courts should sit till the distresses of
the times had been remedied. As yet the state authorities had taken no
action looking toward the suppression of the insurrection, in which,
indeed, the great majority of the population appeared actively or
sympathetically engaged. The messenger reported that in the lower
counties a sprig of hemlock in the hat, had been adopted as the badge
of the insurgents, and that the towns through which he had ridden
seemed to have fairly turned green, so universally did men, women and
children wear the hemlock. The news had not been an hour in
Stockbridge before every person on the streets had a bit of hemlock in
their hat or hair. I say every person upon the street, for those who
belonged to the anti-popular or court party, took good care to keep
within doors that morning.
"I'm glad to see the hemlock, agin," said Israel Goodrich.
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