Here is an earlier source of the Nathan Torrey (proper spelling) link:

Berkshire County Eagle, February 20th, 1868, p. 2

An Old Settler - Dalton [Mass.], Feb. 19, 1868

EDITOR EAGLE:--The following newspaper clipping caught my attention recently:

"Nathan Torrey, formerly Hinsdale, read the Bible through seventy-two times by course. He was the first settler of the town, coming there at the time of the revolution, and died in 1819 at the age or 85."

There are but few perhaps who are aware that this same Nathan Torrey is the author of those celebrated lines commencing:

"On Springfield mountains there did dwell."

These lines will live as long as the Old Bay State itself, and the name of their author should be preserved and associated with them. The authorship has been claimed for a number of persons, but Rev. Dr. Stebbins in his history of Wilbraham, says "to Nathan Torrey belongs the honor of the authorship, if any reliance can be placed upon the most direct and authentic tradition upon the subject." I have looked in vain through this history to find some further mention of Mr. Torrey. It is probable that he was a native of Wilbraham but removed to Hinsdale not long after writing his Elegy on "Leftenant Merrick's Only Son" some time between 1761 and 1776.

There are persons living in this town who remember Mr. Torrey and there are doubtless those in Hinsdale who could give many interesting reminiscences of him. I believe he lived in the northen part of the town, near the present residence of Mr. Philander Booth. If I mistake not, the place of his burial is known, but no stone marks the spot. It seems to me that there are many people in Wilbraham and Hinsdale who would be pleased to see an appropriate monument erected to his memory and would gladly contribute money for that purpose. As I claim for my ancestor, one of the first settlers of old Wilbraham, Ensign Abel Bliss, whom tradition says "did carry six bushels of salt on his back all at one time," I feel an interest in whatever pertains to her history and earnestly desire to have her great poem kept fresh in the minds of the people and its author's name indissolubly connected with it. I write this hoping to draw out if possible more particulars in regard to Mr. Torrey.

When the steeple of the Congregational meeting house in Dalton was raised (about 1812) it is said that Parson Jennings called on Nathan Torrey for some poetry suitable to the occasion. Mr. T. looked up at the steeple, then around upon the minister and the people and gave utterance to the following:

"Little church, tall steeple,
Blind guide, ignorant people."

We do not learn how well the Parson and his flock relished the joke.

As I think the poem composed by Nathan Torrey should be handed down to the latest generations and therefore ought to be published often, I beg you will favor me by printing it herewith verbatim et literatim, also the inscription on the tombstone of the subject of his verse, as it is still to be seen in the old burying ground at Wilbraham.

Yours truly,
BLISS.

INSCRIPTION
Here lies ye Body of
Mr. TIMOTHY MIRICK,
Son of lieut. Thomas & Mrs. Marry Mirrick.
1 who died Aug. 7th, 1761, in ye 23rd year of his age.

He cometh forth like a
flower and is cut down
He fleeth also as a shadow
And comith not.

BITTEN BY RATTLE.SNAKE.

On Springfield mountains there did dwell
A likely youth who was known full well
Leftenant Mirick onley son
A likely youth nigh twenty-one

One friday morning he did go
in to the meadow and moe
A round or two then he did feal
A pisin sarpeat at his heal.

When he received his dedly wound
he dropt his sithe a pon the ground
And strate for home wase his intent
Calling aloude stil as he went

tho all around bid voys was hered
but none of his friends to him apiered
they thot it was some workmen called
and there poor Timothy alone must fall

So soon his careful father went
to seak his son with discontent
and there hes fond onley son he found
ded as a stone a pon the ground

And there he lay down sopose to rest
with both his hands acrost his brest
his mouth and eyes closed fast
And there poor man he slept his last

his father vieude his track with great consarn
Where he had ran across the corn
uneven tracks where he did go
did appear to stagger to and frow

The seventh of August sixty-one
this fatal axsident was done
Let this a warning be to all
to be Prepared when God does call