USA > Connecticut > Fairfield County > Stratford > A history of the old town of Stratford and the city of Bridgeport, Connecticut > Part 41
USA > Connecticut > Fairfield County > Bridgeport > A history of the old town of Stratford and the city of Bridgeport, Connecticut > Part 41
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It is said that he was more than a hundred times under fire.
At Stony Point he was on the forlorn hope and he was the second man to enter the fort in that famous midnight vic- tory. He was a Lieutenant and Adjutant during most of the Revolutionary war, and his son, Hon. Frederick A. Benjamin, has in his possession many volumes of Order Books in his father's handwriting. In these books, among many other interesting items is the complete plan of the attack on Stony Point, arranged with great precision and embraced in the Order for the preceding day.
Many were the incidents of the war related by this gallant actor on its battle fields; most of them have no place in History, but are preserved as sacred traditions among his descendants. After thirty years of peace this veteran of the War of Independence received a commission of Lieut. Col. and was again called into the service of his country in the War of 1812. During most of this conflict he commanded the military post of New London.
In person he was of medium stature, but commanding presence. He was a man of large humanity, of great purity of character, of iron energy, and equally unyielding integrity and honor.
He died in November, 1828, leaving a widow, four sons, and four daughters.
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History of Stratford.
Hon. Frederick A. Benjamin, residing in Stratford, on the old place of his ancestors, is the only survivor of these eight children. He was for many years a merchant in the city of New York, and after retiring from business he returned to his native state and town, making it his home. Mr. Ben- jamin was a member of the State Senate in 1862, and of the Electoral College in 1864.
Among the descendants of Col. Aaron Benjamin his mil- itary mantle has fallen upon his grandson, Col. Samuel N. Benjamin, now one of the Adjutant Generals of the U. S. army, whose brilliant record in the War of the Rebellion was worthy of his grandsire.
Jesse Olney, A. M.,20 was born at Union, Tolland County, Oct. 12, 1798. He exhibited in childhood a remarkable fond- ness for geography, as well as aptness in classical studies; was for twelve years a teacher in the Hartford Grammar School, where he was the first American teacher to introduce the method, now generally adopted, of separating geography from astronomy, and beginning the former study by familiar- izing the pupil with the description and surroundings of his own town, county and state, advancing thence to national and foreign geography.
His School Geography and Atlas, first issued in 1828, almost immediately became a standard throughout the coun- try, has had a sale of several millions of copies, and has been the model of which all subsequent school geographies have more or less been imitations.
In 1831, appears the National Preceptor, a reading man- ual far superior to any predecessor in the United States, which was followed by a series of readers and outline maps, an Arithmetic, and a School History of the United States.
Mr. Olney was also author of a small volume of poems, anonymously published at Hartford. To perfect himself in his favorite studies he visited Europe several times, residing at Paris for considerable periods.
His residence was at Southington from 1834 to 1854, and at Stratford for the remainder of his life. He served ten
20 Johnson's New Universal Cyclopædia, vol. iii. 949.
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Biographical Sketches.
terms in the Connecticut legislature, where he was an active worker in behalf of educational interests, and was elected State Comptroller of public accounts in 1867. He died at Stratford, July 30, 1872.
Rev. James Harvey Linsley, son of James and Sarah (Maltby) Linsley, was born in Hartford, Conn., May 5, 1787. His ancestors came from the town of Lindley, near London, England. His was the eighth generation of his family in this country.
He graduated at Yale College in 1817. While there, a temporary illness obliged him to postpone his preparation for the ministry, that goal of his desires, and aim of his studies.
During this period of waiting he was made principal of the Academy at New Haven, and of that at New Canaan. Later he opened a private school of his own, the object of which was to prepare young men for College ; although at this time he was offered the charge of five other academies, in as many different towns.
He came to Stratford in 1821 with his highly cultured and accomplished wife, Mrs. Sophia B. Linsley. This lady was the daughter of Col. William Lyon, of New Haven.
As an instructor Mr. Linsley was widely known and eminently successful. He dismissed his school in 1831, thus closing this portion of his life.
On the 9th of June, 1831, he was ordained to the ministry at the Baptist State Convention of Connecticut. He had already opened a mission at the lower wharf, in Stratford, wholly at his own expense. Here he held services and preached gratuitously for about five months. In 1832 he established a Baptist Church in Milford, and in 1835, the First Baptist Church in Bridgeport. During this period he supplied for a while the pulpit in Milford, and for a longer time, that in Stratfield. He was constantly invited to the pastorate in other places, and in this last year, 1835, he received calls from five or six different churches, most of them among the first of the denomination in the State. But he declined them all. He preached his farewell to his latest charge, his people in Stratfield, on the first Sunday in 1836.
Again the loss of health caused his physicians to forbid
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him further public speaking. Brief as this part of his life was he had reached the position of one of the most prominent and influential clergymen of his denomination.
Mr. Linsley was among the earliest and most fearless pioneers in the temperance movement. In 1830 he addressed crowded houses on this theme, and he was one of the first clergymen in the State who sent on his name as a subscriber to the total abstinence pledge. He was the leader in organiz- ing the first temperance society in Stratford, of which he was made president. For his persistent and undaunted efforts in the cause of temperance, then so unpopular everywhere, he had the honor of being burnt in effigy. The parties to this transaction selected an evening when Mr. Linsley was absent from Stratford. The effigy was carried on a bier to Academy Hill, where it was consumed, with expensive but appropriate orgies. When these ended one or two of the ringleaders had become so helplessly intoxicated that the same bier conveyed them to their homes.
For the twenty-five years preceding his death Mr. Lins- ley's contributions to the press, religious, literary and scienti- fic, were too great in number for mention in this brief sketch.
But the achievements which crowned this successful life ; which gave his name the widest publicity, and which will con- tinue to illumine it in the records of history, were those won in the difficult fields of science. Many as were his attainments in other sciences, in that of the Natural History of his native State he was without a peer. His catalogues of the Zoology of Connecticut, including the five classes, Mammalia, Birds, Reptiles, Fishes and Shells, were first published in the Ameri- can Journal of Science for 1842, 1843 and 1844. Of Mammalia he discovered several more species than had been found else- where in New England, one new ; of Birds, many more than Wilson, the distinguished ornithologist had found in the United States; of Amphibia and Reptiles he detected species unseen elsewhere in New England ; and of Shells he ascer- tained more than double the number supposed by other nat- uralists to be resident in the State, and of these, many were entirely new.
The value of this great and unprecedented work on the
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Biographical Sketches.
Zoology of Connecticut can not be estimated. It was rapidly accepted by the scientific world as acknowledged authority, and such it still remains.
During the progress of these studies, which Mr. Linsley accomplished in the brief period from 1837 to 1843, he was elected to the membership of various scientific societies of the highest importance.
Numberless publications, American and European, relig- ious, literary and scientific, contain notices, sketches and biographies of this most useful and distinguished life. And the acts and opinions of one so upright and so learned, find constant mention in the diversified literature of the present time.
Mr. Linsley died at his residence in Stratford, Dec. 26, 1843, leaving a widow and two daughters.
Gideon Tomlinson was for four years from 1827 Gov- ernor of Connecticut, and six years from 1831 Senator of the United States. For special reasons the further record of his life is placed with the genealogy of the Tomlinson family.
David Plant was for four years from 1823 Lieutenant Governor of Connecticut and a very widely known and influ- ential lawyer, politician and citizen. (See genealogy of his family).
Dea. David Plant Judson, son of Daniel and Sarah (Plant) Judson, was born in Stratford, April 16, 1809; gradu- ated at Yale College in 1831, a classmate of Dr. Porter, now President of Yale College. He read law two years, but did not follow the profession.
Here in his native town the remainder of his life was passed, in the fine old house built by his father in 1803, much of it as an invalid, except a small portion passed at the South, during several successive winters, in the hope of benefiting his health and prolonging his life.
In 1853, he married Elizabeth S., daughter of Rev. Fred- erick Gridley, of East Lyme, who, together with their three children, a daughter and two sons survive him. He died May 24, 1869. He was a highly esteemed citizen. He gave considerable attention to his family genealogy.
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History of Stratford.
Several remarkable relics of the Judson family are still preserved, especially the old court cupboard and chest brought to America by William Judson, the first of the name here. It is of English oak-both dark and light shades-six feet high, five feet wide, two feet and two inches deep, highly ornamented with engraved work. The chest is also orna- mented in the same style, being four feet long, three feet four inches in height, and twenty-one inches deep, and remarkably beautiful. There is also a large chair brought to this country by the same person, which is a beautiful article.
Several articles of much interest are preserved by this family, which belonged to parson Wetmore more than one hundred years ago; his inkstand, his punch bowl and others.
Of these large court cupboards, there were three brought to Stratford by the earliest settlers : one by William Judson, one by John Welles and one by Robert Coe. The one which belonged to the Welles family has gone to ashes, but the one brought by Robert Coe is in the possession of Mrs. George A. Talbott, of Stratford, which is a particularly quaint article.
What Might have been Written.
Very much that is not recorded in this book is just as worthy to be here as anything in it, but the fact that the author could not obtain it in the time allowed for the collec- tion of material, is the only excuse or reason why such matter is not here.
It is hoped that the perusal of this book will stimulate many persons to write for preservation, general public occur- rences, and their family histories, so that future historians may have more ready access to them.
There will be found in the genealogical part of this book many brief sketches of persons and families.
BRIDGEPORT
CHAPTER XVII.
B
STRATFIELD SOCIETY.
RIDGEPORT, denominated Park City, stands on the shore of Long Island Sound, fifty-five miles from New York City. The locality, when first seen by English people, was the site of an Indian village of about one hundred and fifty wigwams, occupied by five or six hundred Indians, of the Pequonnock settlement or tribe. The south- ern part of the territory for about a mile in width was a part of a fertile plain of a sandy, and loamy soil, extending along the shore of the Sound from the mouth of the Housatonic River to Southport, a distance of twelve miles. This plain when discovered by the English was covered with forests only in part, there being intervening fields, which in places were cul- tivated by the Indians in raising corn. At a distance of about a mile from the shore, the hills begin to rise, and continue gradually northward for twelve or fifteen miles, furnishing a fine farming country, and many most picturesque localities.
The City of Bridgeport being so favorably situated, it could, if it should ever see fit, extend itself to a half million of inhabitants, with perfect safety to health, ease of access, charming picturesqueness of local parts, and unsurpassed salubrity of atmosphere from the great ocean and the hills of the country.
With these advantages in its favor, Bridgeport has be- come a city of about forty thousand inhabitants, and the story of its growth, from the first few families which sat down among the Indians about the year 1665, until it reached
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History of Stratford.
its present maturity of numbers, is to be briefly told in the succeeding pages.
Two families at first located west of the Pequonnock river within the township of Stratford. These were Henry Summers, Sen., and Samuel Gregory, and their first houses
THE LOG HOUSE OF 1665.
were probably log houses,1 located near the present junction of Park and Washington avenues. .
1 The accompanying cut of the log-house was drawn by Esquire Isaac Sher- man, as representing the kind of house some of his ancestors at Pequonnock resided in at their first settlement here.
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Bridgeport.
At that time there were no highways laid out in the vicinity. A reservation of four rods wide on the east side of the boundary line between Fairfield and Stratford, for a high- way, had been made in laying out the lots of land along that line, but the highway had not been surveyed. A well-worn Indian path, which served as a cartway, passed to the north- east over Golden Hill where now Washington avenue is located ; which was made a legal highway in 1686, and passed diagonally through the Indians' Reservation. The one hundred and more wigwams were mostly located near the springs on the southern declivity of Golden Hill.
It was in 1687, when the King's highway, now North avenue, was laid out, and still later when the Toilsome Hill road, now Park avenue, was surveyed.
The one relieving social comfort to these carliest settlers, although there were a few neighbors residing at Old Mill Green, was the fact that the Fairfield men had crowded out eastward nearly to Stratford line, for Col. John Burr's home had been established some years, when the celebrated Indian council was held under the historic oak tree in May, 16SI, which was about half a mile west from Samuel Gregory's house.
The Indians were so numerous that the children of these families were afraid to go out of their dwellings, and if they were out and saw an Indian coming they ran with great fright to get into their houses. Persons are now living who have seen those who heard others tell how dreadfully afraid they were of the Indians when they were children, and had many times run to enter their homes to escape the coming Indians ; and the Indian children, it is said, were equally afraid of the white people.
Thus began the home of the white man, where now sits the queen of the realm-the city of Bridgeport, with her towering spires, fine public buildings, elegant residences and beautiful parks. Then there were only two families, now there are ten thousand, nearly. But it was so long ago ! two hundred and fifteen years. The first hundred years produced only a farming community, with beautiful fields, comely resi- dences and a numerous, toiling, happy people, with now and
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History of Stratford.
then a vessel sailing out of the harbor. The next fifty-nine years gave the embryo city, and the life of that city for sixty- one years gives the aggregate of nearly forty thousand living
THE BURR HOUSE AND THE HISTORIC OAK TREE. (See page 49.)
Bridgeport. 469
souls. Then there were two log houses and a hundred wig- wams; now the blazing sunlight is dazzled by its own re- flected rays, from ten thousand roofs, spires, minarets, castles and domes lifted towards the king of day by skilled, artistic hands. Then the weary ox dragged slowly the jolting cart along the stumpy highway as if an age were too short for the journey of a day, now the flying monster engine drives along upon the polished steel as if a day were too long for the journey of an age, and the blazing electric fires dispel the midnight darkness that of yore was far too long for the sleep of man. The farmer in his manly frock of tow plowed the smooth fields and gathered in his abundant harvest from year to year with increasing pleasure and gain ; while his womanly wife spun the tow to make the frock and provided the frugal, healthful repast, by the strength of which the harvests were gathered and the homes made comfortable, cheerful and attractive to kindred and friends far and near. But the charming old country homes have long since departed to give place to their burnished city successors.
Such was the ordinary life eighty and a hundred years ago, where now the streets are thronged with rich costumes of silks and satins, and gay, brilliantly ornamented equipages, the product of a marvelous growth of industrial and com- mercial enterprises, such as is not frequent in New England.
Here grew up on these farms a multitude of strong, enter- prising young men, who, fortunately, are not all yet departed to the land of rest, by the strength of their paternal, physical and intellectual inheritances, have made a fame of honor at home and abroad, for their native place, such as to challenge the rivalry of all neighboring regions or countries ; and with these young men grew up also, beautiful, intelligent and finely cultivated young ladies, the equal in every respect to their accomplished brothers and successful men of the community.
But in order to a full understanding of the great changes which have taken place in this locality, and the success which has marked the enterprising efforts of the people, it is neces- sary to review the history of two hundred and twenty years, or from 1665 to 1885, by an abbreviated account of the various stages through which the citizens of this locality have passed.
31
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History of Stratford.
The third and fourth settlers in this place were appar- ently Capt. John Beardsley, near Samuel Gregory's home, on now Park avenue, and his brother Samuel Beardsley, east of the site of the present Bridgeport jail, or as one of the deeds says, " west of Ireland's brook and north of the Fair- field road."
Not long after, Samuel Wells, son of the first John, estab- lished his home in what is now the southern part of Bridge- port, east side of Park avenue, and there dwelt until his decease and his descendants after him for about one hundred years.
Then soon came other settlers in the northern part of Bridgeport, a Hawley family, a Booth family and Sherman family, and others, pushing the settlement several miles back into the woods. There came also a number of families from Fairfield, and one, Samuel French, from Derby. Although the progress was slow they continued to grow in numbers and wealth. At the end of twenty-two years they petitioned for church privileges, but did not succeed until twenty-five years had passed.
The Stratfield Ecclesiastical Society.
The movement began by the organization of a school, which is described by Maj. Wm. B. Hincks in his " Historical Notes," as follows :2
" The oldest document signed by the inhabitants of the plantation as such, that I have been able to find any account of, is a petition to the General Court dated May, 1678, sub- scribed by Isaac Wheeler, John Odell, Sr., and Matthew Sher- wood, in behalf of the people of the place. The distance of nearly four miles that separates them from Fairfield Centre is too great, they say, to be easily traversed by the children, especially the younger ones, and therefore they had set up a school of their own, and employed an experienced teacher. Forty-seven children were already in attendance. The ex-
2 Historical Notes, 32.
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Bridgeport.
pense of the school they propose to bear themselves, but ask to be freed from taxation for the benefit of the one in Fair- field. Rev. Samuel Wakeman, minister at Fairfield, adds a favorable indorsement to the petition, though most of his parishioners were opposed to granting it. The General Court referred the matter to the Fairfield county Court, with power to act, and recommended that body to make an allow- ance to the petitioners, equal to or greater than their annual school-tax."3
This action of the General Assembly applied only to the inhabitants of Fairfield, residing at Pequonnock, for the in- habitants of Pequonnock, in Stratford township, had a school on the east side of the line very early, at least soon after the organization of the Fairfield Village Society ; and it is prob- able that before that they attended school at Stratford village.
Whether the people of Pequonnock held services before the year 1690, may be a question, since Mr. Chauncey gave a receipt, as follows, except a little part of it which is torn from the page of the record book.
said inhabitants to me the said - the year sixteen hundred eyghtey and eight to the year sixteen hundred ninetey and foure exclusively, that I doe fully and freely-as above said inhabitants and their heirs forever from - as above said from me or my heirs, &c .: I doe -- of Decem- ber, seventeen hundred
Subscribed, CHARLES CHAUNCEY."
This indicates that he had served the people as a minister from 1688 to 1694, but had given no receipt for the salary they were obligated to pay him, and hence the receipt was given in 1700.
The first page of the earliest Society's book contains the following record :
"The Records of the Acts of the Society of Fairfield Village, began in the year 1693.
It was then voted pr. the said Society that Mr. Charles Chauncey for his encouragement in the ministry in this place shall have sixty pounds in good provisions for the year ensu-
3 Col. Rec., iii. S.
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History of Stratford.
ing to be paid him by way of Rate, each man according to the list of his estate given in.
" March 19, 1694. At a meeting of the Society of this place it was voted that Mr. Charles Chauncey should have for his encouragement in the ministry sixty pounds in good provisions pay, for the year ensuing, to be raised by way of Rate according to custom."
The proprietors of undivided lands in Stratford, having given certain lands to other societies in the town, gave to this, in 1719, several acres of land, and afterward added to the number. " Granted to our neighbors of Stratfield parish that belong to Stratford fifteen acres of pasture land . . . for and towards the support of a Presbyterian minister amongst them forever, for the only benefit of our neighbors belonging to Stratford."
" 170§, Mr. Jos. Bennitt of Stratfield, having payd full satisfaction majority of merchants in Stratfield for his trading in said place-Merchant : the said society do acknowl- edge the same and authorize it to be entered on the record of Stratfield, Joseph Bennit, Merchant. Voted as above.
SAMUEL HUBBELL, Clerk."
This shows that a merchant was established in the place by the vote of the society.
Twelve years later another petition was sent to the Gen- eral Assembly, signed by forty-six tax-payers for ecclesias- tical privileges, which furnishes, probably, nearly a complete list of the householders in the settlement in the year 1690.4
4 STATE PAPERS, ECCLESIASTICAL, I, 105. COPY FURNISHED TO MAJ. WM. B. HINCKS, BY THE COURTESY OF MR. C. J. HOADLY, STATE LIBRARIAN.
Petition for Ecclesiastical Privileges.
" To the Gen !! Court of Connecticut (whom we honor), in their next session at Hartford.
We, the inhabitants and persons of Poquannock, do in all humility address and apply ourselves unto you in mannr method and form following :
Manifesting unto this honord respected representative body that this vicinity of Poquonnock aforesd appertaineth part to the town of Fairfield, and part to the town of Stratford, unto which two townships it hath been fully responsible accord- ing to obligations, for meeting house and school dues, rates and assessments ; we, the dwellers there, have to the towns we have been engaged to, ever punct-
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Bridgeport.
At that time, Fairfield opposed the request of the petitioners, and it was not granted, but in May, 1694, they renewed their request, and no opposition being offered, liberty was granted to organize a society. The acquiescence of the Fairfield and Stratford churches was perhaps due to the influence of the Rev. Israel Chauncey, who had interested himself in their behalf.
Of the forty-six names attached to the petition of 1790, thirteen of them, and perhaps others, were inhabitants of Stratford, residing west of the Pequonnock river.
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