USA > Connecticut > New Haven County > Guilford > Old Guilford including the land now constituting the towns of Guilford and Madison > Part 1
USA > Connecticut > New Haven County > Madison > Old Guilford including the land now constituting the towns of Guilford and Madison > Part 1
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حف البار
فور ميكسها
المدة
Gc 974.602 G94h 1932180
M. L.
REYNOLDS HISTORICAL GENEALOGY COLLECTION
/
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 01148 7441
Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2019
https://archive.org/details/oldguilfordinclu00hubb
OLD
GUILFORD
INCLUDING THE.LAND.NOW CONSTITUTING THE.TOWNS.OF GUILFORD.AND MADISON
DRAWINGS.TEXT AND HAND . LETTERING .BY CHARLES .D.HUBBARD
1932180
F104 . G9H83
Hubbard, Charles Daniel Old Guilford, including the land now constituting the towns of Guilford and Madison
NGS
1939 51pp
.
Derved 1976
recid. 3-12-07
berseex
ONAL GENEALOG AL
SOCIE
Y
İBRAR Y
WASHINGTON D
12 a Harry Sieltway
Grace
1
Deut in august, 1940. Returned to me for my library, in 49.
[ This book was given to me in 1939 , in Guil ford , by my Consu, Charles D. Hubbard, its author and illustrator, whose autographe is on The next page.
There is almost no mentime of The Hubbards in his book , us This was an active "feud" ging in between charles and Crisi Golu Hubbard, who occupied the 1717 Hubbard House in Broad St. Guilford. This house, among The oldest in Form , was The birthplace of my gr. gr. Grandfather , The Rev. Bela Hubbard, sector of Trinity in The Green, new Nuren. Picture of The 1717 Hubbard homestead is on page 14 of the turklet - here ttached.
grace 2. Livingatour
no. SI when D. Barbara
1
The Old Stone House 1639
1
11.7
C OPYRIGHT in 1939 by Charles D.Hubbard. All rights reserved. This book or parts thereof must not be reproduced in any form without permission.
Published in 1939by the Tercenterary Committee of Guilford,Conn. Printed by the Shore Line Times Publishing Company Incorporated Plates engraved by The Stoddard Engraving Company. Printed on Wedgwood Offset by The Champion Paper & Fibre Company
First edition
5.345
THE.MEN AND WOMEN OF THE EARLY DAYS .TO THE SEAFARING.MEN.AND.THE BUILDERS.OF.SHIPS .TO THE CRAFTSMEN WHO.IEWED THE TIMBER OR.SHAPED .THE IRON TO THE WOMEN.WHO.BORE CHILDREN.SPUN.AND.DIPPED CANDLES.TO THE.MILLERS.FARM- ERS.SOLDIERS.SCHOOLMASTERS SEERS.AND.ALL WHO .AIDED.IN BUILDING.THE.BODY.MIND.AND SOUL OF.OLD.GUILFORD .. ...
THIS.BOOKIS DEDICATED
I O-WIRMIT
CONTENTS
Y
Barns, Mr. Joseph Dudley's , Mr Daniel R. Spencer's Page .. 49
Blacksmith Shop, Mr. Harvey Leete's 26
Blacksmith Shop, outside 27
Butler, London
19
Cemetery , Bluff Head
48
Christ Church
Church, Madison Congregational 34
Church, The North 28
Church, North Guilford Congregational
42
Deacon Collins House , The
15
Dudley House, Caleb
.36
Durgin, Mr. George
41
East River
22
Field House, David Dudley 32
Foote Place, The
37
Genesee Country, The
51
Griswold House, The Old
8
Griswold, Squire George C.
10
Hotchkis House, Virgil
33
Lee Academy
9
Lot Benton House, The .16
Loper House 30
Map
.52
Meeting-house Hill 43
Mill, Loper
.31
Mill, Nortontown
.20
CONTENTS
Mill, The Town 17
Murray Homestead , The 21
Nineveh Bridge 23
Nineveh Falls 25
Norton, Deacon John William
Norton House 29
.38
Norton's , Mr. Nelson
40
North Madison
24
Old Leather Man
50
River Street .18
Robinson , Mr. Henry P.
47
Robinson House , The 46
Salt Meadows
35
Sluice,The
6
Sluice Creek
Spencer House, Mr. Daniel R.
44
Spencer Barns
. 45
Stannard, Mr. Charles Socrates -39 Stone House , The Old Frontispiece
Tavern, Medad Stone's 12
Tavern Without a Guest 13
West River
14
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FOREWORD
TO capture somewhat of the charm of this old New England town with stone chimneys and hewn overhangs, its dream- ing elms and ox teams, its salty spray drifting in over meadows, its ancient lava beds and rock shelters half hidden by hemlock and oak where memories of primitive races linger, its gray stone walls winding over hilltops where one may catch glimpses of blue distance and regions beyond Cassiopeia's chair, listen for what is in the sighing of the evening wind or attend the rising of the Pleiades ___ such are the purposes of this work.
Its pages concern themselves little with yardsticks and busy clocks but aspire to serve as a wayside entertainment for lovers of- the place called by the Indians Menunkatuck who perchance will linger occupied with affairs of the heart.
.
OLD GUILFORD
THE LAND IN 1826 DIVIDED INTO THE TOWNS OF GUILFORD AND MADISON
ith feet bathed in the waters of Long Island Sound and head far toward the north where under her great brow twinkles the one blue eye_Lake Quonnipaug- she lies. A pair of rounded hills, where herds find pasture, mark her breasts and in her lap are the rich fields.
All robed with forests sheis and the fashions thereof change from spring to summer, from summer time till the autumn comes and when the Great Bear climbs the eastern skies her vestments are all of white and they sparkle like diamonds and sapphires and rubies. At other times she wears a girdle glittering with feldspar and tourmaline her necklace the while glowing red with garnet.
Ever is a song upon her lips. Now it seems born of the great deep. Again it is as it were the chortling of little birds or when the evening star hang's low the sweet thrush
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bidding the day farewell, and all the while hovers the perfume of wild rose and pine and the salty tang of the sedge bank.
I would fain serve as guide to such as delight in back ways and woodland trails, ghosts of former days and the primeval sources of inspiration for the better times to come
From the Green then our way leads westward by the Dunk Rock Road out over Barnes's Brook which the heron haunts, past Dunk Rock itself and down Crooked Hill and crossing Cranberry Bog we presently arrive at Indian Cave, shelter for those men of the stone age as appears from occasional artifacts unearthed.
It will be well if we visit these woods of oak and beech and hemlock in early spring when the arbutus awakens under its oak leaf coverlet "and the voice of the turtle is heard in the land".
A little to the northward straggles the whimsical Marsh Road and by it we may come near to rock shelters where the granite ledges rise abruptly or overhang many feet roofing over earth never wet with rain or snow where now the fox reigns lord .
Ourjourney may well continue westward crossing Peddler's Road, over high ground with views of Totoket~Mountain and the Thimble Islands, to Towner's Swamp where we
2
may visit caverns extending under the ledges an hundred feet or more and then stroll toward the south among mossy rocks and under great hemlocks rising like the piers and vaulting shafts of vast cathedrals toward Leete's Island with its granite quarries and ultramarine waters where barnacles encrust the remains of the" Wasp"veteran of 1812. Sachem's Head and Mulberry lie in our way as we turn our faces toward home.
It is perhaps dusk as we approach the site of the old ship yard at Jones's Bridge and granted that you enjoy dwell- ing at times in the land of imagination you will see against the evening sky the masts and jib-boom of some vessel on the stocks and hear the sound of calkers as we pass up Desborough Lane toward the Green where, in the twilight, gravestones and poplars stand like specters about the old meeting-houses.
Quite a different aspect of the country will be seen if we journey toward the eastward. The deeply indented coast line, reenforced by unyielding rock, occasionally alternating with meadows traversed by meandering creeks with here and there a beach, gives way along the Madison shore to long unbroken stretches of sand while incredible Tuxis Island , outpost of the upland, continues incessant warfare with old Ocean.
Passing inland we come upon the Post Road where
3
until this day stand homes of the fathers, beautiful and distinctive and above all the fine old meeting-house keep ing watch like a bishop of the flock .
Should we wander northward over rolling farm lands pausing now and then to profit by the beauty of Duck Holes on some interesting bit at Horse Pond or Wood's District we should find ourselves among the North Madison hills, those softly rounded eminences_ High Hill, Walnut Hill Cranberry Hill, the highest of them all with shaggy bush pastures, open fields and its delightful outlooks, and Race Hill with its farms and its western slope drained by the Iron Stream. Here even now may be seen stone founda- tions, piles of slag and now and then a fragment of- machinery long since obsolete where once was the stir of industry and the arrival of ox teams with ore for the smelting.
Returning to the western half of this goodly land we find that particularly toward the north its surface is varied by numerous hills, each with its distinctive characteristics. A little northward from the Green rises Prospect Hill and then Hungy Hill with name suggestive of that long ago tragedy, perhaps affords the most satisfying view. In North Guilford East and West SugarLoaf rise still higher and then mount- ing abruptly from the lake shore stands Quonnipaug Mountain, at intervals playfully rolling stones down the
4
steep slopes as if for the amusement of starting the wide water rings.
Finally we view, standing above them all, Bluff Head; lonely, austere, majestic, its precipitous walls rising over the pleasant lands below ; it reigns supreme.
The rocks underlying the greater part of Old Guilford are crystalline of extreme antiquity, only those westward and northward of Quonnipaug are sedimentary, alternating with others of igneous origin and are of much later date.
Yes,it is a land fair tobehold ; its feet in the salt sea, access- ible to mermaids and it may be visited by the Flying Dutchman, its head in the clouds and sunshine affording regions from which one may view the pageantry of New England-pasture lots with stone walls, white farm- houses and whiter church spires, lakes filled with sweet waters, woods, mile beyond mile, distant hills like golden patterns in the tapestry of the purple haze .
There are higher hills and mightierrivers and forests more vast. There are not any more beautiful.
The brook flows on. The thrush sings. The forest brands in its dim solitude. The rocky height presents its lichen spattered sides to the vaulted infinitude of heaven.
The oratorio of creation is uninterrupted.
5
1
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The Sluice
A"1 Il about are drying seines, lobster pots and heaps of whitefish. A two-masted schooner is tied up to the wharf with skiff's and sharpies afloat or hauled out There is talk of bluefish down at the Gut or the biggest blackfish of the season taken off Goose Island.
Up the creek come the oyster boats orit may be the sea- fog drifts in and shuts all out -shuts out today , and through the mist one floats back into yesterday ; old windjammers, odors of China and the Barbados, hogs- heads of rum, pieces of eight, British men-o-war, Captain Kidd ; yes, in the salty air at the sluice is a place where it is good to dream or good to be awake.
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The Old Griswold House
\X That a happy faculty the old people had for choosing a distinctive site. On the Boston Post Road, at the edge of a wood, upon a little knoll where grew a huge elm and the great gray ledges rise, at a bend in the road, on the corner of whimsical Lover's Lane it stands, beautiful and distinguished _ the old Griswold house.
8
')
Lee Academy
This much traveled school-house seems to hold a place that is permanent in the hearts of Madison people Does its ancient bell taken from the revenue cutter talk in seaman's jargon on gusty nights of Captain Lee, of Samuel Robinson and the Bushnells ?
9
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George C.Griswold Esquire
Afe few of us recall the days when there lived "Gentlemen of the old school", "Silk hat men"a fellow townsman has called them and difficult it would be to name a more satisfying representative of this class than Mr. Griswold I think that never king could hold sceptre with more con- sumate dignity than Squire Griswold could flourish a cart whip. It was a unique experience to listen to his discourses on husbandry and better than all books on history to hear his recollections of the early days.
10
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173;
...
1
Christ Church
(tones of Christ Church, warm with the summer sunshine, cool in the falling shadows of great elms or fading in the darkness as the lancet windows glow on Christmas Eve and the sweet hymns ascend; we salute you. Again we see the faces of past days shine in the dim minster light. Forever stand, stones of Christ Church
11
Medad Stone's Tavern
Sometimes, at just the witching hour of night-I am sure it must happen- there is a rumble of wheels over the bridge that was never built and presently the stage draws up before the hospitable porch. The guests with carpet bags or bandboxes alight while Medad himself bids welcome The loggerhead is Quenched in the hissing flip; the windows beneath the great gambrel roofs glow with candle light and then all again is still.
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197
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West River
uonnipaug gives it birth, and then gurgling a farewell to lake, woodland and pasture it winds through mea- dows down past Fote's landing. past the bones of the Taliatha and Hannah long ago stripped by river pirates, pausing to mirror Caffinge's Island and then on to sweeten the seven seas.
14
1
The Deacon Collins House
Soon the name of Deacon Collins will,perchance, become half fabulous, a character in New England mythology. His stories have been handed down to us_of the stick so crooked that it couldn't lie still or of the cow whose mother never had a calf and many more, but the happy, wholesome personality none will recall. His dwelling on the lonely road between the Sugarloaf Hills has vanished like himself He left behind him a happier world than that which he found. We are grateful that he passed this way.
15
The Lot Benton House
Almost at the jumping off place where, South Lane ends and the romance of the Seven Seas begins still linger pleasant memories of Captain Jerry Rackett .
16
1
5
The Town Mill
Just behind the gristmill is the mill pond all white and gold with lilies or blue with pickerel weed. Within is the dusty miller and bags of warm meal and flour while pervading all sounds the friendly thunder of the mill Stones and all the buzz and excitement of an important social center.
17
The cider mill
River Street
Ne ever could I walk rapidly along River Street. Just north of the Chittenden home is the grassy slope to Mr.Leverett Stone's barn and its cellar where tradition tells us the regicides were concealed. There was the cider mill and across the way the sedgy river bank with boats hauled out and beyond the salt meadows all shining with perigee tides were the distant woods half hiding the ancient tavern without a guest.
Then came two or three houses occupied by negros and just before reaching the home of Mr. Amos Hotchkiss was the town pound close by a little brook.
And what kindred souls one might meet on River Street; Uncle John Hubbard driving home the cows, Henry Pynchon Robinson out for a stroll and here comes London Butler with cheerful ebony face all lighted up with another of his stories born of that ever active imagination. There is only one River Street.
18
One of the Chittendens married a Hubbard. See " ',000 yrs. of Hubbard History"
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London Butler & Town Pound
1 .:
19
Nortontown Mill
The Saw mill
1:
The Grist mill
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20
The Murray Homestead
To all that camp on shores of lakes, on breezy points, on banks of rivers, by sandy beaches, on slopes of mountains, and under green trees anywhere, I, an old camper, a wood lover, an aboriginal veneered with civiliz ation, send greetings. I thank God for the multitude of you; for the strength and beauty of you ; for the healthiness of your tastes and the naturalness of your natures. I eat and drink with you; I hunt and fish with you; I boat and bathe with you; and with you by day and night enjoy the gifts of the good world."
Rev. W. H.H.Murray
21
1
East River
"The draw bridge down East River opens and slowly up. stream moves a schooner drawnby oxen traveling the salty tow-path.
Children whohave been visiting the barge already made fast to the dock log leave off shrieking an accompaniment to the braying of the skippers donkey to rush through the ship-
22
yard and greet the two-master now nearing the wharf. Son teams arrive from Clapboard Hill of The Quarters"and the tackle creaks as the winter's supply of coal is hoisted from the hold; or, it may be, wood ashes from Canada to fertilize the near by fields. Farmers bring produce for the return cargo to NewYork , the lines are cast off and down with the tide floats the coaster.
Nineveh Bridge
1
2
23
North Madison
A white meeting-house, a little store, a schoolhouse,hills huckleberries and wonderful Nineveh; this is North Madison
24
1
h Nineveh Falls : cool, dank retreat from Summer's glare; black hemlocks and torn white waters; Quiet wodland depths and the roar of a mad stream; ancient rocks and sounds of the first notes of nestlings; memories 'of a scant half dozen houses, grist-mill, tannery and a tiny millinery shop and the remnant of the primeval forces of creation ; dwelling-place of the poets'muse: - Temple of God !
25
'S
Mr. Harrey Leete's Blacksmith Shop
1 he ring of its anvil sounds even now, and the explosions of mirth from the select coterie who frequentedits smoke blue shades ; Parkers, Stones, Chittendens, Hubbards, Spencers pretty much all of Guilford's firstfamilies. Across the way stad the Robinson house while behind the shop was the well kept garden and bee hives with a scrap of bog meadow.
Once a hatter's shop at the south east corner of the green,for ninety years a smithy and now vanished like a friend of ofher days
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ושותלחו סך
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א.172
לחות, המה
צבי ון
بوالت :
The North Church
28
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0
DEACON OF THE FIRST CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH FROM 1877 UNTIL 1925
Deacon John William Norton
It was my custom to call on him during his last days and once,whenhe was nothing but a voice,he said to me The giff of song was never mine but more glorious than any Hallelujah chorus seem to me the words Are they not all ministering spirits?" And that I think was his ambition for the future life ; indeed I suspect that its substance had been his guiding principle through- out all of his sojourn here and may we not believe that now standing. with the great cloud of witnesses he is to us a ministering spirit ? Eternally dwells John William Norton among that ever increasing company" whom wehave loved long since and lost awhile."
29
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The Home of "The Blind Miller", mentioned in
the poem by his nephew, S.Ward Loper? Edward Loper,who was blind lived with his sister Rebecca and his brother Samuel Loper.
30
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David Dudley Field
House
32
Virgil Hotchkis House
A spirit will, I think, emerge from the weathered doorway and proffer passports to the shadowy wood beyond with its savage swamps, its indian memories,its dim fox dens.
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Madison Nh, .
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1932180
The Salt Meadows
35
Caleb Dudley House West front chamber
Front hall 36
The Foote Place
It meets the salt tide near a little round knoll. Once I overheard the stream talking to the knoll, but what Stream could refrain from talking ? And the great white oaks stand on the little round knoll and about the pasture lot and talk back to the stream and they speak to the white pine and they speak to the tall locusts and they speak to the pale dim stones in the little graveyard on the little round knoll. The stream talks and the oaks talk and the stones talk of the quiet valley_ and of Beechers and of Footes and of all those who once journeyed this way to meet the great tide from other shores.
37
The Old Norton House on the Stage Road
It is as though the builder had labored with the intention of being different from all New England and yet was himself so much of a New Englander that this odd creation fairly breaths the land of Whitfield and Mather from every crack ..
Isee the whimsical personality of its designer in each stone and clapboard. Would he had stayed.
38
Mr. Charles S. Stannard
Ch harles S. Stannard, equine undertaker, petry furnished for all occasions" so ran his advertisement in a local publication and it was all true and more. How shall we forget his appearance at the Guilford Cattle Show and Fair; his presence on the highways and byways at all times of the day or night ?
Surely the sky of Guilford overvaults a landscape less picturesque since our old friend "Sock Stannard passed.
39
Mr. Nelson Norton's
Between the bridges over West River stands the Nelson Norton house. Once the home of Samuel Collins whose daughter Cynthia sold candy in one of its rooms, it has always held great attraction for children.
40
C2
Mr. George Durgin
What That a flavor of the old days hung about George Durgin ! What reminiscences of those times when the salt meadows were unprofaned by clattering machinery while the artist of the scythe snath held sway. I remember his description of old costumes Why the young men wore collars so high you had to jump up to spit over one" "I think they must have been in the way" ventured I "Oh no, there aint nothin' in the way that's in style" was his reply.
41
North Guilford Meeting-house
When this structure was being framed the war of 1812 was in progress and workmen on the timbers could see British men-of war on the distant Sound.
Shem SerF&f
ME Simeon
Chittenden Efo"
died June 6
AIT94:
Aged 65
From somewhere over toward Sugar Loaf comes the tinkle of a cow bell. The air around us vibrates with the hum of insects and from the old white meeting house the holy hymns ever echo as they did when in 1814 the worshipers first assembled within.
And still the voice of praise rises and still the bird notes float out from the maples and the grass between the fantastic old grave stones is even now richly colorful with daisies and St Johnswort on Meeting-house Hill the spot savoring more of New England than any in all the town of Guilford.
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North Guilford
43
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Shades of Currier and Ives! What buttonballs! Such barns with corn crib and yard, with white horns tossing over the wall! What a clamor of geese! Then Spencer's Creek and the nearby woods! He who has seen the Spencer place has seen New England.
44
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An interesting old barn out at Mr. Daniel R. Spencer's.
45
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The Robinson House
= 1 I t stood next to West Side store;presided over by Miss Fannie and there was about it the scent of Old World roses, for had not Mr. Henry P. Robinson and his sister Miss Mary Gay arrived again with tales of Naples and London and the North Cape; and the sea- faring brother, was not his sandal wood chest in the attic? And there were books and bedsteads with tall posts and highboys and old china and silver candlesticks and more books and perhaps __ a ghost !
Back in 1750 they framed its great timbers on the old Thomas Standish lot, ministerial residence,boarding school, expression of the New England that was.
46
1
No
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West Side store Robinson house
Henry P. Robinson
47
Bluff Head Cemeter
Sweetly hang's the purple haze over the grim mountain and it veils the shimmering lake and softens the sha- dows under the great pine tree, ever green memorial in the little cemetery at the Bluff. The violets come. The golden rod and asters pass. Snowflakes drive down the mountain side The twilight deepens as the crickets chirp, and still they sleep -"Until the day break, and the shadows flee away."
48
The æolian music breathing through the cracks, the scent of the hay and the cattle.
=
49
The Old Leather Man
he old leather man's goin' by" and what a stampede of eight year olds across the school yard out Boston street sometime in the eighteen eighties!
Shy,solitary, silent he completed his rounds, Dressed complete ly in patches of leather_ surely no tailor was the ninth part of this mysterious traveler. Did outrageous fortune deal hard with him? Did unrequited love pour for him some bitter drauglt? The pitcher is now broken at the fountain and he it may be,treads happier trails_who knows?
50
V.
The Genesee Country
Wer Je mark the door stone of the little school-house and catch the scent of lilacs around the ancient cellar walls in flickering wodland where once were farm fields, the sounds of spinning, the tinkle of the china on the white cloth and the muffled noise of lovers parting at the gate up in that little part of Madison known as the"Genesee Country."
And winds that wander through the brittle branches of decrepit apple trees sing broken songs of Noah Hill from Killing worth and of his start for the Genesee-then the West-and of his breakdown here and how he, waiting for repairs, saw how he might fight the winters through and see the springs come in and here he and all his, lived and died.
Buthow can we enough admire the wisdom of those early settlers bound for distant parts and finding a promised land next door. Perhaps- perhaps our Genesee lies close at hand Heaven,I think, begins somewhere in OLD GUILFORD.
51
8
SKETCH MAP OF OLD GUILFORD
Intended to show the approximate location of places mentioned in this book and to preserve some of the older names of roads, often bandoned and difficult to trace, as well as the names of hills, ponds and other features of the landscape.
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