USA > Connecticut > Fairfield County > Sherman > Historical landmarks in the town of Sherman, Connecticut > Part 1
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Gc 974.602 Sh5r 1771722
M
REYNOLDS HISTORICAL GENEALOGY COLLECTION
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY
L 3 1833 02211 8753
HISTORICAL LANDMARKS
IN THE
TOWN OF SHERMAN
CONNECTICUT
BY
RUTH ROGERS
READ AT THE EIGHTH ANNUAL MEETING OF THE QUAKER HILL CONFERENCE, SEPTEMBER THE SEVENTH, NINETEEN HUNDRED AND SIX.
PUBLISHED BY THE QUAKER HILL CONFERENCE ASSOCIATION QUAKER HILL, NEW YORK
1907
1:
Rogers, Ruth.
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F 84673 .75 Historical landmarks in the town of Sherman, Connec- tient, by Ruth Rogers ... Quaker Hill, N. Y .. Pub. by the Quaker Hill conference association, 1907.
26 p. 19em. (Quaker Hill (local history ) series. XVII)
1. Sherman, Conn .- Hist. -
8-1146
Library of Congress
F104.S55R7
4
Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2015
https://archive.org/details/historicallandma00roge_1
1771722
QUAKER HILL LOCAL HISTORY)
SERIES
XVII. Historical Landmarks
in the
Cowon of Sherman
BY
RUTH ROGERS
1
Publications
OF THE QUAKER HILL CONFERENCE ASSOCIATION
A Critical Study of the Bible, by the Rev. Newton M. Hall of Springfield, Mass.
The Relation of the Church at Home to the Church Abroad, by Rev. George William Knox, D.D., of New York.
A Tenable Theory of Biblical Inspiration, by Prof. Irving Francis Wood, Ph.D., of Northampton, Mass.
The Book Farmer, by Edward H. Jenkins, Ph.D., of New Haven, Conn.
LOCAL HISTORY SERIES
David Irish-A Memoir, by his daughter, Mrs. Phoebe T. Wanzer of Quaker Hill, N. Y.
Quaker Hill in the Eighteenth Century, by Rev. Warren H. Wilson of Brooklyn, N. Y.
Quaker Hill in the Nineteenth Century, by Rev. Warren H. Wilson of Brooklyn, N. Y. (Second Edition).
Hiram B. Jones and His School, by Rev. Edward L. Chichester of Quaker Hill, N. Y ..
Richard Osborn-A Reminiscence, by Margaret B. Mon- ahan of Quaker Hill, N. Y. (Second Edition).
Albert J. Akin-A Tribute, by Rev. Warren H. Wilson of Brooklyn, N. Y.
Ancient Homes and Early Days at Quaker Hill, by Amanda Akin Stearns of Quaker Hill, N. Y.
Thomas Taber and Edward Shove-a Reminiscence, by Rev. Benjamin Shove of New York.
Some Glimpses of the Past, by Alicia Hopkins Taber of Pawling, N. Y.
The Purchase Meeting, by James Wood of Mt. Kisco, N. Y.
In Loving Remembrance of Ann Hayes, by Mrs. Warren H. Wilson of Brooklyn, N. Y.
Washington's Headquarters at Fredericksburgh, by Lewis S. Patrick of Marinette, Wis.
Historical Landmarks in the Town of Sherman, by Ruth Rogers, Sherman, Conn.
Any one of these publications may be had by addressing the Secretary, REV. BERTRAM A. WARREN,
Quaker Hill, N. Y.
Price Ten Cents.
Twelve Cents Postpaid.
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HISTORICAL LANDMARKS IN THE TOWN OF SHERMAN.
Do you know Dr. van Dyke's picture of the valley home of Peace? It makes you think of Sherman, for in Sherman you may find just such little gardens, and many
"a sheltered nook, With outlooks brief and sweet Across the meadows and along the brook ;"
here, too are the little, quiet, glad-flowing streams, and the little fields, that bear
"a little wheat To make a portion of earth's daily bread."
In this "green and still retreat" there have been no great battles fought, nor martial trumpets blown, yet there has been much of the quieter heroism which is strong for the daily task or the rare emergency. The men who lived here in the long ago were men of strong character, pure purpose, and clean life, men in whose record their chil- dren's children rejoice. Some there were who made their impress on the outside world; merchant and missionary, soldier and statesman, professor and physician, col- lege founder and clergyman, have gone out from Sherman. Others were content to do the lowly task and "wait in patience till its slow reward is won," making history in
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their quiet daily life; and we who come after them are quite as proud of the patriot ancestors who stayed at home and milked the cows and raised the grain as of the men who made us Daughters of the Revolution.
It is well for us that we know something of our forefathers, for the burning of the early town records sends us to family and church chronicles for the beginnings of our history. From outside sources also we can glean much.
Thus the history of the Naugatuck In- dians and the annals of the Moravian Mis- sionaries reveal the story of Mauwehu, the Indian sachem who dwelt in Potatuck, now Newtown, and who claimed much land west of the Housatonic River, including what is now Quaker Hill and Sherman. In 1729 he and twelve other chiefs signed the deed granting to the colonists for the sum of sixty-five pounds the territory between Dan- bury and the Litchfield County line. Mauwehu and his people moved, about the same year, to the Indian settlement at Schaghticoke, where some of his lineal descendants still remain. Converted by the Moravian missionaries and baptized Gideon, he preached the Gospel to his own people by precept and example, and the testimony of the times bears witness to his rare wis- dom, superior intellect, and strong, fine character. Of the days of Mauwehu and his fathers some reminders still remain. Ar- rowheads found even yet in the furrow, stone pestles occasionally picked up, and mortars hollowed out of rock, tell of the
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days when the Indian hunted deer in our woodlands and his dusky squaw raised and made ready the maize for his eating. On West Street the legendary Indian Rocks are seen, carved no doubt by the rude tools and skilled fingers of the red man; while an Indian grave on Green Pond Mountain has been guarded a century or two by a monu- ment of many stones, built up, one stone at a time, by every Indian who passed by. Yet perhaps the Indian's most lasting legacy is in the musical names lingering yet upon brook and river and valley; for as long as the Wimisink and the Naromiyocknowhu- sunkatankshunk wind toward the Housa- tonic, their quaint appellations will recall the red man's trouting days, and as long as people live in the part of the town called Coburn, the name of the old Indian who once dwelt there will be upon the white man's lips. In the new Lake Mauwehu we shall have yet another reminder of the do- minion of the red man and of the splendid old chief whose title was the first to our well-loved hills and valleys.
In the records of the General Assembly holden at New Haven in 1707, we find the names of eleven men of the town of Fair- field, praying for a certain tract of land to be for a township lying north of and near to Danbury, "bounded westerly on the colonie line." Fear of the Indians or some misunderstanding about the exact terms put off the settlement for thirty years after the petition was granted, and it was not un-
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til 1736 or 1737 that a final survey and allotment of rights were made.
About the time, then, that the pilgrims from Dartmouth came riding their horses all the long way to Quaker Hill, a little company of men and women from old Fairfield on the shore journeyed up to the little New Fairfield, as yet unnamed, how- ever, lying on the westerly colonie line. The new township was fourteen miles long, and the settlers divided it into two sections, called Upper and Lower Seven Miles; in each section they speedily organized a church.
For sixty years the men of the north and the south voted together and were one township; but they found it not always con- venient, in those days of poor roads, few wagons, and no telephones, to do business with fellow citizens fourteen miles away, and in 1802 the people of the Upper Seven Miles petitioned the legislature to set off the north end as a separate town. Long was the debate over a name for the new township, until one day Representative Graves arose in the Assembly and moved that it be named for Roger Sherman, who once had his shoe shop within our borders. Immediate and unanimous approval greeted the suggestion and the little town received the name which is its pride.
Roger Sherman came as a young man to the home of his brother, William Sher- man, near the northern border line of upper New Fairfield. Here he lived for a little while and made and mended shoes, for he
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combined the shoemaker's trade with the surveyor's, and was evidently master of both. The story of his shoemaking fol- lowed him to Congress, and was used in ridicule by one of his fellow members, Ran- dolph of Virginia, whose great pride was his descent from Pocahontas. In a debate one day, Mr. Randolph, objecting to some- thing Roger Sherman had said, ironically asked :
"What has the gentleman from Con- necticut done with his leather apron?"
Whereupon Roger Sherman answered with unmoved dignity :
"Cut it up to make moccasins for the descendants of Pocahontas !"
By the way, Edward Everett Hale has apparently not heard this bit of quick- wittedness, for he seems almost to doubt the shoe-making story. "They say," he wrote not long ago, "dear Roger Sherman was a shoemaker. I do not know, but I do know that every central suggestion in the American Constitution, 'the wisest work of men's hands that was ever struck off in so short a time,' is the suggestion of this shoe- maker, Roger Sherman."
Roger Sherman moved from upper New Fairfield to New Milford and afterward to New Haven. He was the only man who helped to draft the four great documents of our national history-the Declaration of Rights, Declaration of Independence, Ar- ticles of Confederation, and the Constitu- tion. In the Constitutional Convention at the close of the Revolution, when the As-
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sembly seemed on the point of going to pieces in a storm of controversy, Roger Sherman and his fellow members from Con- necticut came forward with the proposition known as the Connecticut Compromise, which saved the Constitution and made pos- sible a federal government. Of Roger Sherman, Thomas Jefferson said: "There is a man who never said a foolish thing." The building on the Jonathan Giddings homestead, by the Wimisink brook, which is said to have been Roger Sherman's shoe shop, is typical of the rest of our land- marks, standing not so much for hours of dazzling triumph as for days of simple duty rightly done.
Between the granting and the settling of the New Fairfield township, the strip of land known as the Oblong, which was in- cluded in the original grant, had been ceded to New York State in exchange for the seacoast land called Horseneck, and Con- necticut lost her claim to Quaker Hill. Yet something more than mere propinquity en- tered into the bond between Quaker Hill and Sherman in the years that followed. There was easy and natural communication between the two places, connected as they were by the old turnpike to Poughkeepsie. To the store on the Hill, kept in Revolu- tionary days by Daniel Merritt, and after- ward by James Craft, Sherman people came for groceries. Especially at the Thanksgiving season, so many customers mounted the hill that the storekeeper knew beyond a doubt the Yankees were going to
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keep Thanksgiving. "Sugar and spice and all things nice," they carried home with them, particularly tea, for Quaker Hill tea had a high reputation.
Moreover, there were excellent families just over the Yankee border line who paid no military tax, used the plain speech, and wore the quiet colors. To the old Meeting House on meeting days they turned their faces, and in the burial plot yonder some of them were laid to rest.
In at least one of these households over the line lingers a happy childhood memory of bright August days and the
"Cavalcade as of pilgrims,
Men and women, wending their way to the quar- terly meeting
In the neighboring town."
Here were friends and relatives among the pilgrims, and the people stopped as at the house of Elizabeth in Longfellow's poem, for rest and refreshment. The com- ing of the aunts and uncles and cousins, and the festal preparations for dinner after meeting was over, must have made the Quaker Quarterly almost equivalent to the Puritan Thanksgiving, in the households nearest the meeting house.
It is also a family over the line, which was, like most of the Quaker Hill families, of Dartmouth descent, that preserves the tradition of the first pair of boots on Quaker Hill. The boots, being a proof of particular prosperity, were borrowed in turn by every man who went back to Dart-
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mouth to visit. The owner of the boots is not positively remembered, but is believed, rather mistily, to have been Peter Akin. Peter Akin must have had large and gen- erous feet, or else the Quaker Hill pioneers must all have worn the same size of foot- wear. At least he had a large and generous heart, for few men would have been willing to lend thus freely their cherished treas- ures. Generosity and goodwill belong to the Quaker, however, in nothing more evi- dent than in his gracious, tender treatment of friend and family. Very sweet is the beautiful care of the Quaker for his beloved wife, so apparent in copies of the last will and testament that have come down to us. From large things to little, the same loving thoughtfulness is manifest, whether it is the legacy of bank stock, the good cow, the "beast of horse kind and sadle and bridle," "the youse of the pleaser carage during her nateral life," or the careful provision for the accommodation of her friends when they come to visit her, for the son's "assisting his mother to and from meeting and to go visiting," even for the furnishing of wood cut and fitted for her fire.
A house still to be seen in Leach Hollow brings back the picturesque story of one of these Yankee Quakers of Revolutionary days, John Leach. His doctrine of non- resistance was misunderstood, and attempts were made to arrest him as a Tory. It was going hard with Connecticut Tories in those days, and John Leach, not caring to risk an interview with the authorities, disap-
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peared. It is believed that he was concealed in a nearby cave and that his wife, known as Aunt Molly, carried him food in the night-time. When the searchers came, though they held their pistols at her head, the plucky wife refused to give up her secret, and her husband escaped into Can- ada, where he stayed till the war was over. Skill and strength and sweetness shine from the pictures of Aunt Molly that still remain to us-Aunt Molly at her loom, weaving enough each day to pay the men employed by her husband to tunnel through Green Pond Mountain; Aunt Molly grown al- most blind, yet knitting by night stockings for her grandchildren; and Aunt Molly, cooking day after day through the season a kettle of corn in the fireplace, to give a treat to the children in the nearby school- house.
Had John Leach lived on Quaker Hill, he would have had no such romantic experi- ence. Most of his fellow citizens, however, belonged to the same stock as Putnam and Hale and Jonathan Trumbull, and believed as honestly in the duty of defence as John Leach in the evils of rebellion. A goodly number of men went out from the little town in answer to the nation's call. Jona- than Giddings, who lived on the northern border line of the township, was an officer in the army, valiant and resourceful. Sent into the enemy's country at the head of a scouting party, he was for nine days with- out any food save roots and herbs. No doubt he could have had plenty of game for
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the shooting, but the firing of a gun would have betrayed him to the enemy. Jona- than's cousin and neighbor, William Gid- dings, who was a captain in the Revolution- ary army, received his commission from General Washington. A commissary in the army, Stephen Barnes, who lived on what is now the Alexander Barlow place, was intrusted with colonial funds and had a mil- lion dollars of continental currency in his possession when it was discredited by the government. He was once captured by the British and taken into camp, where the sol- diers proceeded to pump him for informa- tion about the colonial forces. When he re- fused to answer, they began pricking him with their bayonets, but Stephen Barnes unflinchingly kept silence. If the Britons thought the bayonet could weaken the loy- alty of these "yeoman soldiers," they knew not yet the men they were dealing with.
Not all the patriotic service was given on the battlefield. According to the records of Connecticut during the Revolution, Alex- ander Stewart, of the north parish of New Fairfield, was for several terms chairman of the Committee of Safety and Correspond- nece; this committee was "to collect and care for certain stores and munitions of war and to deliver them at certain points as directed by the Governor and his coun- cil." Alexander Stewart himself had charge of some of the stores, and kept them in the garret of his house, a large two-story man- sion with much carving, said to be the most pretentious in the district. This house was
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torn down within the last century, and an- other, where Mr. George Barnum now lives, was built over the same cellar. It is be- lieved that some of the lead stored in the old attic came from the leaden statue of King George the Third on Bowling Green, which was torn down after the signing of the Declaration of Independence, moved to Litchfield, Connecticut, by woodpath and byway, perhaps through New Fairfield or over Quaker Hill, and made into colonial bullets.
About the Stewart house at night used to prowl spies from the old Tory Hole at Webatuck, for there was more or less sus- picion of the location of the stores. Under the sloping attic roof, however, the barrels of powder and bars of lead were safe from all but the mischievous ten-year-old of the family, little Tom, whose delight it was to appropriate slivers of lead for sinkers and grains of powder for his horn. Brigadier General Henry S. Turrill, who is authority for most of these facts about Alexander Stewart, tells also a legend of the boy's in- ventiveness, which stopped effectively the meddling with the stores. The father, go- ing away from home one day, left the boys to split wood, promising them that they might go fishing when the task was done. It was hard to split logs with those magni- ficent trout waiting for them up in the "Wintergreen Woods," and little Tom sug- gested to the other boys that the powder in the garret' would bring a speedy release. By knocking up a hoop on one of the bar-
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rels, and making a small hole in the side, a piece of wire could be pushed in, and a tiny stream of powder forced out. After the hoop was knocked down, no one was the wiser for the leaking of the powder. The little lads overdid the matter, however, and so heavily did they charge the first log that the woodpile was scattered all over the yard and three lengths of new fence were utterly destroyed.
The most stirring period of the Revolu- tion to the towns of western Connecticut was the time of the burning of Danbury. In Danbury was stored a large share of Connecticut's ammunition, and to destroy this General Tryon came with two thousand men from New York and fired the town, marching back to the shore with such plunder and burning and massacre that General Howe declared the raid disgraceful to the name of Briton. With the invasion of Danbury, mounted messengers were sent post haste to the towns roundabout, asking for help, and a special despatch to Alex- ander Stewart ordered the removal of the stores in his charge to the patriot camp at Peekskill. The summons was not in vain, for with the very spirit of "Old Put," men and boys were ready to leave their plows in the balmy April weather if their country needed them. Alexander Stewart's eldest son, a boy of twenty, went with the rest, leaving at home his fair young bride of four months. Any but a man of resources would have been in despair over the Peekskill de- spatch, for all of the men and most of the
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horses available had gone to the defense of Danbury. Alexander Stewart, however, was equal to the occasion, and mustering all the oxcarts he could find, he loaded them with ammunition. In the soft hush of the April twilight, the sleepy twitter of the birds and the fragrant peacefulness of the springtime at strange variance with the tragic rumors from Danbury, the little pro- cession moved slowly up the north road, past William Henry Taber's, and across Quaker Hill, toward the Peekskill camp, where the stores were safely delivered.
Through the north part of the township, called in early days New Dilloway, runs perhaps the most historic bit of road in town. By its side stood Roger Sherman's shoe shop, where this boy of twenty made and mended shoes in quiet preparation for the glorious work before him. Stretching from the the New York State line to the Wimisink brook, it passed the homes of Captain Joseph Giddings of the French and Indian war, of Captain William Giddings, and of the valiant scout, Jonathan Giddings. As it lay in the sunshine it must have been a silent witness to the farewells of these gallant soldiers as they went away to fight their country's battles. The proudest day ... the road ever knew, however, was the brac- ing October afternoon in 1778, when Wash- ington and his army came marching down from Quaker Hill on their way to Boston town. Their day's march was almost done and a mile or so farther on, just over the line in Gaylordsville, they halted for the
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night, Washington and his officers in the tavern kept by Deacon Benjamin Gaylord, and the body of the army in the fields near- by. It is believed they encamped there sev- eral days. Jonathan Giddings's wife Mary could show her patriotism as effectively at home as Jonathan on the field, by baking bread for the army. With six vigorous young children, the eldest twelve and the youngest two, this sweet Revolutionary dame must have found those days in early November all too short for the tasks to be accomplished in them. If those were Jona- than's scouting days, no doubt the young wife sighed as she despatched the fresh brown loaves to the encampment over the river and vainly longed that some of them might find their way to her hungry soldier far in the enemy's country.
In the Gaylord Tavern, Lafayette and Rochambeau are also said to have been en- tertained. About one minute's walk south of this building, which is still wonderfully well preserved, stands a magnificent oak tree, where, according to tradition, Wash- ington halted on his line of march, to ad- mire no doubt its wondrous symmetry and "patient strength," its "gnarled stretch," and“ depth of shade." Never did he fail to appreciate the glory and grandeur of. beautiful trees.
Aside from Revolutionary reminders, there are other quieter landmarks which stand for the beginnings of a New England town. One of these is the old tavern at the center, now Mr. Henry Briggs's house,
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which was both postoffice and hotel, the center of information in the little town. Here were posted notices of all kinds, here the stage stopped for refreshment on its weekly trip between New Milford and Poughkeepsie, and here the people gathered to get the weekly newspaper and rare let- ters and to hear the news that stage and traveler brought. Here also came traveling showmen, exhibiting occasionally in the great ballroom. Mrs. Laura Stuart Sher- wood remembers going to this tavern to see a display of waxworks, walking the mile from home alone at the mature age of five. The day was memorable for the new pair of green morocco shoes she wore and the new plaid linen dress, home spun, home woven, and home made, from home raised flax. Ranged on all sides of the ballroom the wax figures went through their mar- velous representations of the Sleeping Beauty, Captain Cook devoured by the Can- nibals, Pocahontas Saving the Life of John Smith, and above all, the Witch of Endor raising Samuel from the Dead. The life- like images of the awful-looking witch and the gray-bearded patriarch made this scene of Old Testament history more real than any other to the eyes of the five-year-old child.
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Of the days of tavern, turnpike and toll- gate, Sherman has a lasting reminder in the pass at the foot of Briggs Hill, known as the Narrows, a precipice of rock on each side of a narrow road, where all travelers paid their toll. No wonder the visitor from
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New York State said that Yankees knew where to put a tollgate, for one could neither run past this nor go by it, and could never get out of paying his sixpence per horse every time he went over the road. The first stage-driver on the Poughkeepsie turnpike was Captain Elihu Stuart, whose typical old-time coach was modeled after Washington's, well braced in front and rear, and swung on each side with stout, swaying straps of leather. Four horses he drove, the leaders, a brown and a bay, named Morris and old Jack, and the other two a team of grays named Trotter foot and Charlie. In the days of the last stage- driver, Isaiah Mckibbin, the trip was tri- weekly, McKibbin leaving Poughkeepsie every other morning and returning the next night, spending the night between in New Milford. This man of the sturdy Scotch name had all the indomitable pluck of his sturdy Scotch blood. Through drifts and storms that would subdue anyone else he could break his way, and in a term of many years he is said to have missed but one trip. He is still remembered as a notable stage-driver of the olden type, large of fig- ure, florid of face, and ready of tongue, with a fund of stories to tell. Can any- thing be more picturesque than an old-time journey in a swaying, four-horse coach, through fresh country air sweet with cinna- mon roses and clove pinks, over the hills and valleys we know so well, with a jolly, gossipy driver to beguile the long miles by fascinating stories, and at the end of the
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