In July 1951, Gen. Douglas MacArthur, 71, visited his father's hometown for the first time and stopped to place flowers on the Chicopee Falls grave of his grandmother, who had died in 1864.
CHICOPEE — Bildad Barney Belcher started teaching in Chicopee in the year 1829, when he was 17 years old. Later, he went on to a successful business career, serving as a selectman and a School Committee member. When his father, Benjamin Belcher, died in 1833, he joined his brothers, John and Benjamin, in the family's foundry business.
When his father died, he was the wealthiest man in Chicopee Falls. In 1801, the elder Belcher had arrived here from Easton and purchased the "iron works."
By the year 1805, he owned most of the land along the river. When he died, the Belcher Iron Works employed 60 workers producing castings for agricultural equipment, including plows, cultivators, harrows, corn shellers, hay cutters and other farm tools that were being sold nationwide.
The Belchers were direct descendants of Jonathan Belcher, the colonial governor of Massachusetts in the 1730s. They were considered one of Springfield's most important families.
The most exciting member of the family was Benjamin Belcher's headstrong daughter, Aurelia. Bildad's niece was rich, spoiled and the apple of her father's eye.
While visiting New York, the then 21-year-old Miss Belcher met and fell in love with a struggling law clerk named Arthur MacArthur.
Arthur, born in Glasgow, Scotland, had immigrated to America with his widowed mother when he was 7 years old. As a young man, he retained his Scottish accent, which he later admitted thrilled the girls. He further gained their attention by recounting Scottish legends and describing his visits to the castles of his homeland.
Aurelia's father and her uncles considered MacArthur unacceptable, but, over the family's objections, she married the dashing lawyer and moved to New York City.
A year later he was admitted to the New York bar. Before he opened a law office, his wife's father suggested the young couple come to Chicopee for a family reunion.
Arthur MacArthur Jr., the "Boy Colonel of the Civil War," is shown in November 1863. The son of Aurelia Belcher MacArthur, of Chicopee, and Arthur MacArthur, he was awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions at Missionary Ridge in Chattanooga, Tenn., on Nov. 25, 1863. Kenneth Ray Young, in his book, "The General's General," wrote: "Realizing his wife missed her family, Arthur accepted the invitation. While there, Aurelia's father offered to help establish a law practice in Springfield. Aurelia, delighted, pressed her husband to accept."
He realized his wife's wealthy aristocratic family could assist him in establishing a successful law practice, so he accepted Mr. Belcher's offer. Arthur passed the Massachusetts bar in February 1842.
He and his bride moved into the Belcher homestead in Chicopee Falls. MacArthur opened a law office on Elm Street in Springfield, and, with his wife's family contacts, his practice prospered.
In 1843, according to Young, "Arthur wrote a friend that he was happy in Springfield with his 'aristocratic, black eyed Yankee wife' and was successful in his profession as a lawyer."
The only thing lacking in his life, he said, was children. But even that deficiency was cured when Aurelia gave birth to their first son, Arthur MacArthur Jr., on June 2,1845.
That morning was perhaps the happiest moment in the tragic life of Aurelia Belcher. That day in the Belcher homestead she gave birth to the legendary "Boy Colonel" of the Civil War.
Recently, on the sesquicentennial of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, PBS presented a thought-provoking documentary into the personal torment of our 16th president.
Abraham Lincoln lost two boys while he was in the White House. He accepted his responsibility for starting the war that tragically altered the lives of more than 1 million mothers, sisters, widows and orphans.
Aurelia Belcher MacArthur was a civilian casualty.
Her husband was not happy living close to the Belchers, who were displeased with his Democratic party loyalties. The Belcher brothers were all strong supporters of Daniel Webster and the Whig Party.
The Belchers' pompous pride in their heritage also annoyed Arthur MacArthur. With educational opportunities, the common man, he believed, could rise to aristocratic levels.
Hoping to get away from the Belcher family, Arthur MacArthur opened a law office in New York City.
Reluctantly, Aurelia and their 4-year-old son journeyed to New York to join her husband.
She was unhappy in New York, so he began to search for an alternative city with more opportunities for an aspiring, young Democratic party lawyer.
Some time in 1849, MacArthur moved to Milwaukee, Wisc., with his wife and their young son. The population, more than 40 percent German, numbered about 14,000, including 400 Scotsmen, and was growing rapidly.
Aurelia, frightened, depressed and nearly 2,000 miles from family in Chicopee, tried to make the best of her new home.
Arthur MacArthur became a rising star in Milwaukee politics. Representing the reform wing of the Democratic party, he was a favorite speaker at July 4 celebrations.
Aurelia MacArthur apparently never reconciled herself to the move and longed to return to her relatives in Chicopee. Sometime after the birth of her second son, Frank, Aurelia left her husband and children to visit Chicopee.
While in Chicopee, she suffered a "mental breakdown" and was committed to the Northampton Sanatorium. The illness she suffered after the birth of her second son might today be diagnosed as post-partum depression.
By 1864, Arthur MacArthur Jr. was the youngest regimental commander in the Civil War and a decorated war hero. Aurelia MacArthur's condition worsened, and Dr. Henry Fuller, the sanatorium director, recommended that Maj. MacArthur visit his mother.
She was fixated on her soldier son and was having anxiety attacks. Maj. MacArthur reached Northampton in mid-September and joined his father and his brother in visiting his mother at the sanatorium. They spent two weeks in Northampton, but Aurelia's condition did not improve. She died in the closing days of 1864 and was buried in the Belcher family plot in Chicopee Falls.
Gen. Douglas MacArthur visits Chicopee in July 1951. Here, he places flowers at the memorial to his father, Arthur MacArthur Jr., a Chicopee native. In July 1951, Gen. Douglas MacArthur, relieved of command in Korea by President Harry Truman and the center of a national debate, visited his father's hometown.
Chicopee Mayor Edward Bourbeau had a problem when the general's itinerary was released. Gen. MacArthur planned to have his motorcade stop at the Chicopee Falls Cemetery so that he could place a wreath of flowers on his grandmother's grave. Since the older portion of the cemetery had not been regularly mowed, it took some hunting to find the gravesite. A work crew cut the grass the day before the general's visit.
Arriving to cheers of more than 80,000 people lining the route from Union Station in Springfield to the center of Chicopee Falls, Gen. Douglas MacArthur, the 71-year-old World War II hero, was visiting his ancestral home for the first time. In a starkly simple graveyard, he placed flowers on his grandmother's grave and said a silent prayer in tribute to a tragic lady.
Stephen R. Jendrysik, a retired history teacher, is Chicopee city historian, a member of the Chicopee Historical Society's board of directors and president of the Edward Bellamy Memorial Association.