USA > Connecticut > New Haven County > New Haven > A modern history of New Haven and eastern New Haven County, Vol. I > Part 47
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courtly bow to his quondam friend of the "mill dam," but the other returned no sign. The next day they met again as horsemen, whereupon the sport pulled up and spoke thus to the elergyman : "See here, you and I meet out here, have our friendly brushes and are good fellows together. That's all right. But when I am walking on Tremont Street with a lady I've got to be particular whom I know, and you needn't bother to bow to me; see?" And the joke was so good that Murray wouldn't spoil the effeet by telling the fellow who he was.
The friends of his early and his later years, the associates and admirers of the man in his time of triumph, some time since lost the magnetic human touch, the inspiring friendship, the cheering optimism, of the living man. They are memories only, but he is not dead. In the words which he set down for men he lives still-lives to move to alternate laughter and tears all with eyes to read and souls to appreciate his writings. Next to the privilege of having known the man is that of touching him through his books. None save a man inspired could have thought such thoughts as his, or clothed them with such words of lasting life. He dwelt above the mists of the practical and commonplace, and from his mountain tops saw visions which are revealed only to the few. For him who has never explored the treasures of these writings of "Adirondack" Murray there is the blessing of a lifetime in store. These are more than "Adirondack Tales." more than "Adventures in the Wilderness." These simple stories, as they seem at first, run the whole gamut of human emotions. There is description that thrills, the most delicate and effective humor, pathos that moves to tears, philosophy that makes one ponder. reverence that uplifts the soul. No one who reads these books understandingly is ever the same again. Henceforth there dwells within him a deeper appreciation of all things noble and true, a keener eye for the sublime and the ridiculous, a reverent love for nature and its Creator. These books voice the eternal truths of life and love, and he who wrote them had been touched with high inspiration.
Nor should their rank as literature be as neglected as it seems to have been. Our time has seen few better exponents of the possibilities of the English language than he was at his best. It was one of his highest aims to be such. As he put it: "I regard the English language as the most facile and noblest medium of expressing human thought and feeling ever used on earth. ITe who knows how to write and speak the English language in purity, with correctness and finished forcefulness, must be admitted to be a scholar of the highest rank. And he who cannot do this, no matter to what other knowledge he has come, lacks the cultivation of finished scholarship." In the light of these words, read this example of how Murray could use the "noble medium" at his best, and judge of how its author should be rated :
"O memory! Thou tuneful bell that ringeth on forever, friend at our feasts and friend, too, let us call thee, at our burial, what musie ean equal thine? For in thy mystie globe all tunes abide-the birthday note for kings, the marriage
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peal, the funeral knell, the gleeful jingle of merry mirth, and those sweet chimes that float our thoughts, like fragrant ships upon a fragrant sea, toward heaven-all are thine! Ring on, thou tuneful bell; ring on, while these glad ears may drink thy melody ; and when thy chimes are heard by me no more, ring loud and clear above my grave that peal that echoes to the heavens, and tells the world of immortality, that those who come to mourn may check their tears and say, 'Why do we weep ? . He liveth still.' "
Those tales of the woods, for the great bulk of Murray's writing has the sur- roundings of primitive nature for its setting, voice the philosophy of the man. No one can read aright "The Story the Keg Told Me" without being impressed by its depth of truth, truth seldom told as impressively. Then there is the deep pathos of "The Man Who Didn't Know Much." and a vein of mystery as well. This latter weird force shows in many of the Adirondack tales, such as that which tells of the phantom of the lake. One story, almost his latest, stands by itself in merit and magnificence. "Mamelons" is more than a story. it is a prose poem. Mr. Murray said that he spent eight years of work on this book, and the investment was a wise one. Let him who would study the rare possibilities, the delicate shades, of this wonderful language of ours read "Mamelons" and its companion story "Ungava."
But of all the agents which give these stories human interest the greatest is John Norton the Trapper. The neighborhood in which Murray was born con- tained so many Nortons that it was called Nortontown. Norton, a name familiar to the writer from earliest association, was ever a favorite with him. It is a good name. for as he says, "who does not know that the ancestors of the Nortons came over in the Mayflower." Perhaps John Norton is a portrait of some real person, but more likely he is an ideal. for certainly no writer or painter ever drew a nobler picture of God's masterpiece, an unspoiled man. In the mouth of John Norton the writer has put his richest pathos, his most delicious humor. his deepest philosophy-often a combination of all three in one passage. The reader learns to love the old man as a friend, to long to meet him and feel the cordial grip of his hand, to know the hospitality of his eamp fire. And when the trapper, alone in his silent cabin after a day of good deeds, has twined wreaths of evergreen about the pictures of his loved and lost. reminders of the romanee and the tragedy of his life, and standing before them sighs, "1 miss them so!" one longs to reach out to the man the hand of sympathy, and mingle tears with his. Dear old John Norton! Your homely wisdom and noble passions speak best the character of the man who pictured yon, tell hest how true to the ideal was his human heart. May you live long and travel far to proclaim to men and women the great truths of life, to teach them the beautiful ways of God and nature.
The mortal part of this man of vision rests beneath an old tree near the homestead in Nortontown where he was born and where he died. His rare spirit
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lives on in a grander existence, where they understand and appreciate. For us who linger in the paths he trod his living message, the message of a. true humanity, rings on across the years: "As years go on and heads get gray- how fast the guests do go! Touch hands, touch hands with those that stay. Strong hands to weak, old hands to young. The false forget, the foe forgive; for every guest will go and every fire burn low and cabin empty stand. Forget, forgive! Touch hands."
CHAPTER XLIV
MADISON
EAST GUILFORD AND NORTHI BRISTOL BEFORE THEIR SEPARATION FROM GUILFORD, THEIR DEVELOPMENT AND HISTORY AS DIVIDED PARTS OF AN UNUSUAL CONNEC- TICUT TOWN
A strip of land containing over forty square miles, tapering from two miles wide at its northern boundary, widening to scarce four miles midway of its length, then narrowing and again widening at its foot to almost six miles: a strip stretching nearly fifteen long miles from Hammonasset Point to its north- western corner-that, physically, is the town of Madison. It is a characteristic bit of New England, topographically. No mountains star its surface; its highest point is Cranberry Hill, 400 feet, a little west of the center of North Madison, though High Hill, more conspicuous because unwooded, is only four feet short of that. Chestnut Hill and Walnut Hill, also halfway up its length, rise each above 300 feet. All the way from Durham to the sea the Hammonasset River's tortuous course is its eastern boundary, the limit of New Haven County in that dircetion. From the Hammonasset at the north branch off westward Foster's Brook and Oil Mill Brook, and in the southwestern corner East River and Neck River are interesting, though less useful streams of water.
These streams, at least those on the east side, have considerable water power possibilities, and for grist mills and saw mills have been much used in their time. Madison has had the familiar small industries history of other Connecticut towns, though in lesser degree. Now' these have almost entirely disappeared, and Madison remains, as it has mainly been from the beginning, an agricultural town. Its soil is light, where it is not heavy with roeks, except along the river bottoms. There are many favorable farming areas. But the far northern part, in fact for a fourth of the way down from its northern point, is still wooded, though several growths of the wood have been cleared off, and its ledges and hills offer little inducement to the farmer.
The farmer does not need the room especially. In these forty miles dwell only 1,534 people. There were 1,809 when the town was set off from Guilford in 1826. The greatest number any census has found was 1,865 in 1860. Prob- ably a thousand of them live within two miles of the long shore. The village of East River, which has a railroad station and post office, Madison Center and Hammonasset are along the coast, the former almost cityfied, with its trolley
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and electric lights and city water, to whose shore come in the summer time a thousand or two of the summer pleasure seekers of this and many states. Woods District, "the Woods, " as it used to be, is two and a half miles up from the shore. Over four miles above that is the center of North Madison, with its church and schoolhouse and scattering farms. And then the traveler, as ever since the day the white man came, plunges northward into wilderness. Above North Madison are five miles of weary distances, where the houses are few and the woods, except where the charcoal burner has stripped them, thick, where dark deeds have been done, a region which the average resident of civilized Madison, in the former days if not now, regarded as wilderness morally as well as physically.
Such a town of contrasts is Madison, component part of the Guilford of the 1639 foundation, inhabited by descendants of the Bishops and the Chittendens and the Nortons and the others who signed the Whitfield covenant. Its founda- tions are the foundations of Guilford, its spirit and pride and ancestry the same. Yet Madison has from the first had its own individuality. Why should it not, since its settlement, at points, goes back within two years of the "Old Stone House?" Most of its territory was acquired from a second purchase of the Whitfield party, jointly from the sachem "pious Weekwash" and the famous Uncas of the Mohegans. As to this East Guilford part, running from the East or Kuttawoo River to the "Athammonassnek"-by simplified spelling Ham- monasset -- we have the interesting information that this 26,000 acres eost "four coates, two kettles, four fathom of wampum, four hatchetts and three hoes."
It was an Indian paradise. All over it have been the marks of the aborigine, and two score years ago the plowboy who kept his eyes open for Indian arrows would not go unrewarded. They were good Indians for the most part, though they did not die young. Old people of fifty years ago remembered some of them, or thought they did. There was tradition if not remembranee of Hannah Punk and Tunis, of "Old Ann" and "Young Ann," of Walkee at North Bristol, of Jim Soebuck, Sne Nonesuch and Milly Coheague, all of whom were kept in good hmmor with the whites by fair treatment, a little dickering-and now and then a drink of cider.
The first settlement, probably, was an overflowing from the west side of East River. There were not so many of the settlers, but they were adventurous. So some of them worked west across Clapboard Hill, and found the East River. Then they waded across to see what was on the other side, and remained. So what is the village of East River was formed. Perhaps the nature of its forma- tion accounts for the fact that it was always nearer to Guilford, in spirit, than to Madison. But there was a jump clear across the town, soon after the pur- chase bounded by the Hammonasset, to the very mouth of that river. We find John Meigs there as early as 1654-and many Meigses have been there ever sinee. John Bayley settled somewhat to the northwest of there, and from him Bayley's Creek and many Bayleys, or Baileys, were named. Still further north, in the
BOSTON STREET, LOOKING EAST, MADISON
BOSTON POST ROAD, LOOKING WEST, MADISON
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region of the "Horsepond," Christopher Foster, who came direct from Long Island, settled in 1740. One of the early points of settlement was the region sinee known as "Scotland," its name accounted for, perhaps, by the fact that one of the settlers was a Murray, and Hills and Bishops and Coes and Dowds soon after abounded there and around "Short Rocks." These spots are only a little south of the "Duckholes" where the old mill stood by the Hammonasset.
From these beginnings the progress was rapid. Though the number of planters did not greatly increase by immigration for a while after the first settlement, that was the day when the solitary had large families-ten children was no unheard of number-and the plantation's second generation was a marked advance. Of course what is now the center of the town was early found, though the oldest house now standing there does not date earlier than 1700. But East Guilford was not strong enough to think of standing by itself until 1783. Then it applied for establishment as a separate parish. There seems to have been little opposition from the mother town. There was favorable action in town meeting, but for reasons not revealed to us at this present, the thing went no further at that time. The East Guilford which would have been created a separate town under that plan, included only the south society. That would have made the new town a small one, and left North Bristol in outer darkness, a notch on the territory of Guilford. This would have pleased the south society people well enough, no doubt, for there never was the most fraternal feeling between the two parts of the town. "All creation and part of North Bristol" nsed to be a favorite smart saying in the town, whose implication is plain enough. So if it could have been arranged to make an East Guilford minus North Bristol-and perhaps, for that matter, minus East River-a good many of the people would have been content.
North Bristol (it was so named from Bezaleel Bristol, an early and respected settler) was settled about 1725, when it was indeed wilderness. Some of the first names found there were Turner, Dudley. Bishop, Munger, Johnson, Dowd and Hopson. The Hills and the Nortons came later. and must have prevailed. judging from their abundance there now. There is a marked break between the two settlements now; it must have been extreme then. They grew up, but they did not grow together. The worst friction came over the matter of town meet- ings. The North Bristolites thought it hard to travel six miles to meet with the south society. and the south society people thought it even harder to climb up to the hills of North Bristol, good as the view was when they got there. At first they alternated with their town meetings. Then the south enders, as of course their majority enabled them, voted to give the north a third of the meetings. This being unsatisfactory. they created two voting distriets in 1871. with the pro- vision that all the town meetings be in South Madison. But this was discon- tinued in 1879, and since then all the political functions of the town have been at the south end-in the basement of the Congregational church. the only town hall Madison had until 1899, since then in the Memorial Hall.
That delayed separation from Guilford took place in 1826, and the town
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became Madison from James Madison, fourth president of the United States. That, of course, was the conversion of "North Bristol" to North Madison.
For the first fifty years or so of that scattered settlement in East River, Hammonasset, Scotland and around the green, the church problem must have been a vexed one. Guilford, which had encouraged the Hammonasset settle- ment, also encouraged the people there to affiliate themselves with Pastor and President Pierson's church in Killingworth across the river. A bridge had been built aeross East River as early as 1649, and the people there were taken care of in the mother town. Some of them show a tendency to keep up the affiliation to this day. But toward the close of the century there was a goodly company of people in the vicinity of the green, and some of them showed uneasiness to get their own church. They began earnestly to agitate for one in 1694 or sooner. They got it in 1707. They had, as a guarantee of good faith and works, erected a building two years earlier. Thus began the Congregational church of Madison, now as in the beginning the church of Madison.
In the first 186 years of that church's history it had six pastors, all of them men of distinction out of proportion to the church's apparent size. Rev. John Hart, the first, who served for twenty-four years until 1731, was a strong preaeher and leader. Rev. Jonathan Todd followed him with the remarkable pastorate of fifty-eight years from 1733 to 1791. The next pastor was Rev. John Elliott, son of the Rev. Joseph Eliot, who was pastor of the first church of Guilford following 1664, a descendant of the apostle to the Indians. He began his pastorate in 1791 and closed it in 1824. For twenty-eight years after that Rev. Samuel N. Shepard was the pastor, a man who threw himself into town as well as church leadership in a positive and welcome way, a man of deeided power. In 1857 the church ealled Rev. Samuel Fisk, who brought it more delight and fame, perhaps, than any of its previous pastors. Like many of the preachers of our time, he responded to the Civil war's great need for spiritual leaders in the army. He went out as a regimental chaplain and was killed while with his regiment in the battle of the Wilderness. He was widely known as a newspaper and war correspondent under the name of "Dunne Browne." and wrote with that fine vein of humor which made him so beloved in his church. Rev. James A. Gallup, in his time reekoned the ablest preaeher on the shore between New Haven and New London, was pastor for the twenty- eight years between 1865 and 1893. He grew into his community, and it honored and followed him. He was a man of fine scholarship, of true humanity, the mark of whose greatness of spirit still rests upon the town in which he took such pride and delight.
The church's period since then has been of somewhat different character, not marked by long pastorates. In the last quarter century there have been four of them. Rev. William T. Brown followed Mr. Gallup. He was zealous for what was then beginning to be known as the higher eritieism, and he gave the conservative old church a shoek. Some of its members brought about his trial for heresy in 1896, but they were, in a way, laughed out of court. The
CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH, MADISON
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effect was not salutary, however, and Mr. Brown, a man of the best intentions, left a divided church in 1898. He was followed by Rev. George A. Bushee, who for nine years gave the church wise leadership, leaving to take up teaching in 1907. Rev. Arthur II. Hope was pastor for the following six years, until called to Springfield in 1914. Since then the Rev. A. T. Steele has been pastor. leading the church somewhat after the manner of its former regime.
The church's first building was on the green, without steeple or bell, and having no galleries until 1715. The people rebuilt in 1753, doing better as to architecture. This church had two stories, with two tiers of windows. It had also the quaint high pulpit. It was adorned with a steeple, and was one of the interesting buildings of that period. When the people built for the third time in 1838, they had the common struggle to break away from the green. There was a strong party that favored building on Deacon Hart's lot north of the green, but so resolute was the minority that forty-seven members actually with- drew from the church in 1841, because of the change. The commanding site north of the green was chosen, and it and the building placed thereon have over since been the pride of the people of Madison, the delight of all who visit the town. It is a building of notable architecture, acknowledged by all good judges to be one of the finest country churches of its type in New England. A hand- some modern chapel was added to its equipment, on a plot just east of the green, in 1881.
North Madison, whose beginnings were in 1725, did not have its own church until after a society was incorporated in 1753. It had erected a sort of church building, small and very primitive, in 1737. and Rev. John Rundle commenced to preach to the people. Since his day there have been many pastorates, most of them short ones, one of the more notable of recent times being that of Rev. William E. B. Moore from 1885 to 1895. The present fine church building was ereeted in 1837, in the pastorate of Rev. Stephen Hayes. It is in design and size a eredit to the community. The present pastor of the church is Rev. Theodore Bacheler.
Madison has had two Methodist churches, but since its size in population, as we have seen, tends to diminish rather than increase; the newer denomination has a struggle for existence. The church in South Madison was founded in 1839, and has been served by many able men, the first being Rev. James H. Perry in 1840. Rev. William F. Markwiek was one of the most popular of its pastors, and for several years before his death Rev. Otis .T. Range ministered to this church jointly with the one in Guilford. The church owes much to some of the devoted men in its denomination, notably the Miners, Charles M. and William C. Members of the Congregational church also have been liberal in their attendance and support. The other church was in Rockland, in the far regions above North Madison, and was started as early as 1800. It has had many pastors, but gained a somewhat unenviable notoriety in 1877 on ae- count of the Mary Stannard murder scandal, which wrecked the reputation of Vol. 1-26
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Rev. II. II. Hayden, then its pastor, not to speak of that of some of the lawyers of New Haven County. In recent years the church has been closed.
Madison is distinetly an agricultural community. Hardly a trace is found in these days of any other industry. Yet there have been the early outcroppings of the Yankee disposition to make things which we have seen in other towns, and some important features of that activity, even in recent years. There were grist mills on many of its sturdy streams, notably that at Duckholes. Henry Hull had another at Nortontown. There were several sawmills in the upper portions of the town. In the eastern part of "the Woods," William F. Whedon and his son Webster D. Whedon had for some years previous to 1900 a mill for the turning of small handles and other wooden specialties. Earlier than that, there were iron works in a small way, and in the days when the catching of whitefish, or menhaden was at its height, such of the fish as were not sold to the farmers for fertilizer were tried up for oil. The building up of the shore with valuable summer cottages convinced Madison that the seashore was more important than the oil industry. Another manufacturing effort, highly inter- esting while it lasted. was the attempt in the 'seventies of Dennis Tuttle. who acquired a portion of a deep swamp in the southern part of the town near the railroad station, to manufacture peat there on a large seale. But that was in the days of cheap fuel and high cost of transportation. The venture failed.
Madison had two wharves, the East and the West, built and maintained at some expense, as the town has no sufficient breakwater or natural harbor. They were sturdily kept up as long as the town's coasting trade continued, and that was an important one at one time. This was also responsible for a substantial shipbuilding industry, the most important feature of which was the yard at the East Wharf condueted for years by Charles M. Miner and his son William C. Miner. In 1889 a partly built vessel was destroyed by fire on the ways, and this practically terminated the industry, which before that had prodneed some of the important vessels for the coasting trade in Connecticut and nearby states.
There was a time when the Madison shore and the creeks which met it seemed a natural ground for oyster growing. Neck River's mouth was deemed a favorable spot. except for the fresh water which poured down into it. So in 1828 the Madison Channel Company was formed, which dng a canal from a point in the river a mile and a half up from its mouth straight to the Sound. The fresh water coming down was to be diverted into this, while the mouth of the river, flooded with salt water, was to be an oyster breeding ground. The canal worked well enough, but the oysters refused to grow profitably. The oyster experiment lapsed. and the canal remained, an expensive and useless ditch.
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