USA > Connecticut > New London County > A modern history of New London County, Connecticut, Volume I > Part 26
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Then hands were clasped, and Winthrop prayed: The life-long covenant was made; High heaven a mute attention paid; Winds, groves, and hills, with reverence lowly, Trembled around a scene so holy.
"Now Sunk-i-paug is Bridal Lake: Flow, ever flow!"-thus Winthrop spake,- 'Round hearts and homes thy journey take; Love's streamlet out of Bride Lake welling, God lead a branch to every dwelling.
Franklin .- The town of Franklin, set off in 1786 from Norwich, as were Bozrah and Lisbon the same year, was settled as early as 1710 by nearly fifty families. The people of this section of Norwich, known as "West Farms," were allowed to form their own ecclesiastical society in 1716. As settlers increased in number, other societies were formed. The original society lost in power as the others branched off, but recovered under the long and able leadership of Rev. Samuel Nott, whose remarkable service has been referred to in the general history of the county.
The population increased to 2,358 in 1860, but lost by the setting off of
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Baltic as a part of the town of Sprague, incorporated in 1861. Its most famous son is perhaps the Hon. Lafayette S. Foster, United States Senator for many years.
The following names are on the World War honor roll of the town of Franklin : Ralph A. Armstrong, Frederic K. Armstrong, Ernest C. Ayer, Ray B. Beckwith, Harold B. Capshaw, Walter N. Chappell, John Alton Cox, Charles E. Davis, Clarence Howard Davis, Harold A. Duerr, Charles W. Frink, William C. Hanson, Herbert R. Hoffman, Alfred G. Mason, Edward W. Mason, James J. McCarthy, John N. Muckensturm, Thomas F. Murphy, Louis E. Nolan, Michael O'Hearn, Frederick H. Race, John C. Rother, An- thony Wisneske, Michael Yuschalk.
Griswold .- The town of Griswold is bounded on the north by Windham county, on the east by Voluntown, on the south by North Stonington and Preston, and on the west by Preston and Lisbon. The first settler was Eleazer Jewett, from whom the borough of Jewett City (incorporated 1895) takes its name. His tombstone bears the following inscription: "In memory of Mr. Eleazer Jewett, who died Dec. 7, 1817, in the 87th year of his age. In April, 1771, he began the settlement of this village, and from his persevering industry and active benevolence it has derived its present importance. Its name will perpetuate his memory."
The town of Griswold was incorporated in 1815, being taken from the town of Preston. Starting in with a small farm, Mr. Jewett developed a grist mill and a saw mill. Other settlers came and set up mills on the Pachaug river. An oil mill, a woolen mill, a cotton mill, soon followed, and added largely to the prosperity of the town. While the town of Griswold itself is largely agricultural, its water power has developed large manufacturing establishments, which include the Slater Mill, the Aspinook Company, and the Ashland Cotton Company. Its population in 1910 was 4,233.
Groton .- Groton is bounded on the north by Ledyard, on the east by the Mystic river, which separates it from Stonington, on the south by Long Island Sound, and on the west by the Thames river. It comprised, originally, the part of New London lying between the Thames and Mystic rivers, but was lessened by the incorportaion of Ledyard in 1836. Groton was separated from New London in 1704, but the settlement was well started fully fifty years earlier. Mystic, Noank, and Groton are the main villages of the town. Its name was that of Governor Winthrop's English home in Suffolk county. Of one of its early settlers Miss Caulkins writes :
In 1694, Davie (John Davie, who afterwards became Sir John Davie), was one of the landholders to whom the assembly granted letters patent enlarging the territory of the New London settlement, or colony. The same year he took a prominent part in building the second meeting house in New London, being one of the building committee, which shows the activity of the man in public affairs. He had been previously appointed rate-collector and selectman for the East Side. He took a prominent part in the measures which resulted in the agreement to let the East Side become a separate township. by a vote passed in town meeting, February 20, 1705; and at the assembly, the same year, an act of incorporation was passed. After Mr. Davie had
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been town clerk about two years, and was one day hoeing corn in Poquonnoc plains in company with John Packer, in the midst of a strife as to which of them should prove the faster, suddenly a messenger appeared at the end of the row and inquired of the barefooted men, with their trousers rolled up, which was named Davie, and, upon being told, he congratulated Davie in these words: "I salute you, Sir John Davie," and tradition has it that the town clerk came out ahead of Packer, winning in the hoeing match, and that he did not deign to speak to the newcomer until he had won the wager. This same John Packer afterwards visited his old friend the baronet in England, and they had a good time together. . . . Sir John Davie soon went to England and to his estates in Creedy, county of Devon, where he succeeded his uncle of the same name, but he never forgot his American relatives and friends, for he not only showed his beneficent feeling toward the school, the college and the church, but through Governor Saltonstall he made gifts, while living, to his relatives in various colonies.
An interesting item in the early town records of Groton runs as follows:
Whereas, ye money ye law allows for killing wolves is found by common experience to be too little, for commonly there are employed twenty or thirty men, who often spend two or three days about it, and then sometimes swamp them and do not kill them. Such things ye inhabitants of other places have considered, and added considerable money to what the law allows.
Therefore, the inhabitants of this town are desired to add ten shillings for killing a wolf, and three shillings for swamping a wolf or wolves; but six shillings if he be killed; and three shillings for killing a grown fox or wild cat, or eighteen pence for a young one, and two pence a head for crows, and a half penny for black birds, which was voted.
In another place we have described fully the Battle of Groton Heights, from which may be seen the patriotism of its citizens. We quote from the town records an interesting proof of the town's attitude:
At a town meeting held June 20, 1774, the following action was taken : This town taking into serious consideration the dangerous situation of the British colonies in North America respecting sundry late acts of the Britsh Parliament, particularly those of shutting up the Port of Boston, the metropo- lis of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, and abridging their chartered rights, &c., which if carried into execution not only deprives us all of our privileges, but renders life and property very precarious, and as we esteem the inhabi- tants of Boston, now suffering the tyranny of said acts of Parliament, and in the common cause of America; voted, that we will join with the other towns of this Colony in such reasonable measures as shall be judged best for the general good and most likely to obtain redress of our grievances. Voted, that we esteem a General Congress of all the colonies the only probable method to adopt a uniform plan for the preservation of the whole.
Voted, that if it shall be judged best by said Congress to stop all exports to Great Britain and the West Indies, and all imports from them, we will most cheerfully acquiesce in their determinations, esteeming the benefits aris- ing therefrom mere trifles compared with the rights and privileges of America.
In the War of 1812, Groton men did noble service in several sea fights. It is an interesting fact that during Decatur's enforced idleness in the Thames his midshipmen received instruction in mathematics from a Groton school teacher who became widely known as the originator of the famous "Daboll's Almanac." The father was aided by his son, Nathan Daboll, Jr. This
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almanac has been published in New London for considerably over a century.
Groton monument, erected in 1831, marks the spot of the famous Revo- lutionary fight, and many patriotic celebrations have been held at its fort. In the Civil War, Groton took a noble part, furnishing many volunteers and making liberal provision for the support of dependent families.
In Groton is found the oldest Baptist church in Connecticut, dating from 1705. Bishop Seabury, the first bishop of the Episcopal church in the United States, was born in Groton in 1729. He was buried in New London. Over his grave was placed a tablet with this inscription :
Here lieth the body of Samuel Seabury, D.D., Bishop of Connecticut and Rhode Island, Who departed from this transitory scene, February 25, 1796, In the sixty-eighth year of his age. Ingenious without pride, learned without pedantry, good without severity, He was duly qualified to discharge the duties of the Christian and the Bishop. In the pulpit, he enforced religion; in his conduct he exemplified it. The poor he assisted with his charity; the ignorant he blessed with his instruction. The friend of man, he ever desired their good. The enemy of vice, he ever opposed it. Christian ! dost thou aspire to happiness? Seabury has shown the way that leads to it.
His remains were later removed to St. James' Church, New London.
In the town of Groton, on the east side of the Thames, and about three miles from its entrance, the United States Government established, in 1875, a navy yard, which grew to large proportions during the World War.
Lebanon .- The town of Lebanon is bounded on the north by Columbia, a town of Tolland county, and by Windham, of Windham county ; on the east by Franklin and Bozrah; on the south by Bozrah and Colchester; on the west by Columbia, Hebron and Colchester. The town was originally some- what larger, including a part of Columbia and other territory. The back- ground of its history is laid in the settlement of the General Assembly, first with Uncas, then with his son, Owaneco, who sold to various proprietors a tract called the "Five-mile purchase," which, with several other tracts pur- chased from Indian chiefs, constituted the original territory of the town. The standard history of the earlier years is a historical address delivered by Rev. Orlo D. Hine, July 4, 1876. We quote freely from this address :
The four proprietors-Mason, Stanton, Brewster and Birchard-evidently designed that the "Five-mile purchase" and "Mason & Fitche's mile" should form the main part of a plantation, and that this street, since called Town street, should be the center, and under their direction the street was laid out, and the land adjoining it allotted. Having in view the earliest establishment and most efficient maintenance of the worship of God and the means of education, the land along the street was divided into home-lots of forty-two acres each, and there were second and third lots lying back of these, and in other parts of the town. Every one taking a home-lot was entitled to a lot of the other divisions. In this they seem to have had in view this ridge, and the possession of meadow-land in the valleys. The second and third divisions,
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taken from unoccupied land in other parts of the town, were assigned by lot. and hence were literally lots.
This broad street and open common, which became so marked a feature of the place, seems to have been formed in this way : Originally it was a dense alder-swamp. When the settlers came to build their houses they would, of course, set them on the dryer ground of the edge of the slopes, extending back on each side. Thus between the lines of dwellings there was left some thirty rods of this swampy space. Of course it was owned by the original fifty-one proprietors of the "Five-mile purchase."
They were organized, had their officers, meetings, and records. They performed acts of ownership of the land in this street, as of other common undivided land in the purchase; and in 1808 (by William Williams and the second Governor Trumbull, as their representatives) gave to Deacon Sam- uel Buckingham a deed of a portion of the common in front of his premises, and received of him forty dollars as the price. They had meetings at a still later date.
The actual settlement of the plantation began in 1695, and its increase appears to have been rapid, the number of grants and allotments bearing date November that year being more than fifty. The "Five-mile purchase" evi- dently came then to be fully open for occupancy, and settlers rushed in. They came from different quarters, some from Norwich, others from Northampton, still others from other places in this colony and in that of Massachusetts.
Lebanon has been spoken of as originally a dependence of Norwich. No part of its territory was ever embraced in the Nine-mile square, which con- stituted the territory of Norwich, or was ever under the jurisdiction of Nor- wich ; and there is no evidence that a majority of the early settlers came from that town-the Clarks, the Deweys, the Trumbulls, the Strongs, came from other places.
The inhabitants held a meeting in 1698, and the earliest record of the town or settlement, as it was properly called, was then made. The year 1707, Lebanon stands £5,179, and 135 taxable persons. For a few years the settle- ment of the town appears not to have been rapid. Privations and hardships must have been endured by those who came here; their dwellings must have been log houses among the trees and bushes. with here and there a clearing, and all uncertainty as to the bounds and titles of lands had not ceased to perplex and embarrass.
That there was a great amount of danger or annoyance from the Indians does not appear, the Indians of this section being friendly to the English, in league with them, and very much dependent on them. There is a tradition that some Indians of a tribe at war with the Mohegans-perhaps from a remnant of the Pequots, possibly from the Narraganestts, still farther east in Rhode Island-took a Mohegan child from the house of Mr. Brewster, who lived on the Brewster place, near where Hon. Edwin M. Dolbeare now resides, and killed it, dashing its head against the garden fence. This tradition comes reliably from one who lived near the time of the alleged event, and who spoke of it as a fact well known. There is also a tradition that the Abel house, which stood where Mr. Robert Peckham's house now stands, was a sort of fort (stockaded, I conclude), to which the inhabitants fled in times of danger.
If the Indians did not seriously trouble the settlers the wild animals did. So late as 1730 the town offered a bounty of ten pounds for every full-grown wolf that should be killed. Col. James Clark, of Bunker Hill celebrity, who died December 29, 1826, ninety-six years of age, used to relate to his grand- children, who are now living, that in his boyhood, as, coming from Norwich in the evening, he reached the low ground near where Mr. Jeremiah Mason now lives, he drew his feet up upon the saddle to protect them from the wolves, which he often heard barking and howling in the thickets on each
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side of the road. Deer and wild turkeys were abundant. The first settlers had common corn-lots, which they joined in clearing, fencing, and guarding. I have queried whether they had the fever and ague, and I am sure they had, and must have shaken soundly with it, but probably it did not frighten people away. for it must have prevailed in all the new settlements.
After about 1707 the number of taxable persons ceased to be given in the public records, and only the property list is noted. The list continued steadily to increase, and to gain on the lists of other towns in the colony. In 1730 it was £19,972; 1733,f23,803 and was in amount the eighth in the colony. In 1740 it was £31,709, and was the fifth among the forty-eight towns in the list, and more than that of Hartford or New London ; in 1748, £35,570. From 1730 to 1760 Lebanon must have gained rapidly in population and wealth. The colony of Connecticut had greatly prospered. In 1730 the number of inhabitants, according to a census then taken, was 38,000, and about 700 Indian and negro slaves and 1,600 Indians. In 1756, twenty-six years later, the population of the colony, consisting of seventy-nine towns and settlements, was 130,612, an increase of 90,312, and Lebanon then had a popu- lation of whites, 3,171, and blacks, 103; total, 3,274. Only five towns in the colony had a larger population, viz. : Middletown. the largest, 5,664; Norwich, 5,540; New Haven, 5,085; Fairfield, 4,455; and Farmington, 3,707; Hartford had only 3,027. In 1774, the year before the battle of Lexington, there were but seventy-six towns and settlements in the colony, some of the smaller settlements having been given up; the population of the colony had increased to 198,010. The population of this town was then, whites, 3,841 ; blacks, 119; total, 3,960, the largest population the town has ever had. Only six towns in the colony then had a larger. In 1784 the population of the State had grown to 208,800, and Lebanon had, whites, 3,827, 4 less than ten years before; blacks, 94, 25 less than sixty years before ; total loss, 29. Only eight towns then had a larger population, New Haven having the largest, 7,960. In 1775 only eight towns had a larger grand list than this town, it being then £41,600, equal to $130,300, the pound then being $3.33 1/3. The grand list in 1876 was $1,185,047. Though the population has diminished, the grand list has largely increased. The population of the town in 1870 was 2,211, an increase on that of the two preceding decades ; in 1804, Columbia, with a popu- lation of about 600, was set off from this town; it now has a population of 891 ; add this to the present population of the town, and the total is 3,162, showing a total diminution of 798 since 1774 within the territory then con- stituting Lebanon.
As we have said, the thirty-five or forty years previous to 1774 were a period of great prosperity to the town. Men of character and enterprise came in and grew up here. Capt. Joseph Trumbull came here from Suffield about 1,704, evidently without any considerable means, for when he bought the place which had been occupied by Rev. Joesph Parsons he mortgaged it for the sum of three hundred and forty pounds. He had vigorous traits, became a planter and trader, and at length had a ship which carried cargoes of his own, or belonging to his family.
A fact which comes to us on good authority illustrates the temper of the man. His business often called him to Boston, and sometimes he went as a drover, and he would meet Rev. Mr. Wells, who had been pastor here, whose parishioner he had been, and who now lived in Boston. Mr. Wells was a little shv of him, and evidently avoided him now and then, in his plain and perhaps dusty attire, as not quite in trim to be familiarly recognized by a Boston gentleman. When Mr. Wells came here, where he still owned property, and (meeting Mr. Trumbull) accosted him as an old acquaintance, the latter refused to shake hands with him, and turned away, saying, "If you don't know me in Boston, I don't know you in Lebanon."
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Trumbull's son, the future governor, after being graduated at Harvard College in 1727, went into business with his father and became a merchant, and engaged extensively in commerce, the War Office, now standing, being his store. He and the firms to which he belonged owned ships which traded with London and Bristol, England, Hamburg, Germany, and the West Indies, and took in their caroges at New London and Stonington, and at Haddam, on the Connecticut river. All the trades were carried on here, and it became an important business center. Cloth, leather, boots and shoes, saddles and harness, axes, scythes, and barrels were made here. Among the town officers appointed every year was an inspector of leather.
The town appointed Jonathan Trumbull to obtain from the General Assembly leave to hold and regulate fairs and market-days, and they were held twice a year. These streets, now so quiet, were a place of concourse and bustle, of exhibition and traffic, which the people of surrounding towns frequented, and to which traders came from a distance, Trumbull being en- gaged in wide commerce and large business.
After 1743 there was a renowned school here, which Trumbull was an active man in establishing, and it was controlled by twelve proprietors, and which was kept for thirty-seven years by Master Nathan Tisdale. It became so widely known that it had scholars from the West Indies, from North Carolina and South Carolina and Georgia, as well as from the more northern colonies. At one time it had students from nine of the thirteen colonies. Tisdale was a genius in his profession, and carried the school to the highest stage of prosperity which it ever reached. This helped the intelligence and high character, the activity and pecuniary thrift of the place. As a result of this and other agencies, this town had for many years some of its sons in courses of liberal education, and one hundred and twenty-two are known to have received college degrees. The strong interest in education which long prevailed here accounts for the fact that so many of its sons and daughters have risen to eminence.
And from the first, Lebanon has been active in military enterprises. While this town was never directly menaced by the Indians, the frontier towns of this colony and of the Colony of Massachusetts were, and this town was required to aid in the common defense. As early as 1709, Mr. Jedediah Strong, one of the original settlers, and an ancestor of the Strong family, which remained and still has representatives here, was killed in an expedition against the Indians near Albany. This colony sent troops to the defense of the county of Hampshire, Massachusetts, in which in 1704 the Deerfield massacre occurred, and which was exposed to the incursions of the French and Indians. In 1709, in an expedition against Canada, in Queen Ann's War, the proportion of troops from this colony was one hundred and forty-seven, and the quota of Lebanon eleven.
In the wars in which the Mother Country was engaged at this period, the colonies were involved-in the Spanish War of 1739; in King George's War; a war with France in 1744 in which Louisburg, in Cape Breton, a very strong place, termed the Gibraltar of America, was taken; in the French and Indian War, which began in 1755 and ended in 1763 with the conquest of the whole of Canada. During these wars the seas were infested with hostile ships, and the colonists were exposed on every side. The colonies learned how to raise troops, to equip and supply them, and to tax themselves in order to pay them, and thus were in most important training for the crisis now just before them. The drums used at Bunker Hill were the same which had been used at the capture of Louisburg.
Lebanon, as a town, was among the foremost in this colony in the part it bore in these enterprises and testings. In 1739, Jonathan Trumbull, then
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young, was commissioned lieutenant-colonel of a regiment raised for an expe- dition against Canada ; he was afterwards colonel, and early had experience in recruiting, furnishing, and moving troops. The people of the town were patriotic and spirited. On the surrender of Quebec, in 1759, they observed the general thanksgiving, and Dr. Solomon Williams' jubilant sermon on the occasion of this was published. He says, "For more than seventy years our enemies have been designing our ruin, and formed and projected a settled design to encompass us, unobserved, with a string of forts from Canada to the Bay of Mexico." He regards "the conquest of Quebec, the capital of Canada, as of more importance than has ever been made by the English since England was a nation." He states his reasons, and calls upon the people triumphantly to praise Him who has given such success.
Of course a people thus trained, in such a temper, and having such leaders as there were here in Jonathan Trumbull, William Williams, and others, were all ready, when the Mother Country began to encroach on the liberties of the colonies, to resist them and to maintain their rights. When, in October, 1765, Governor Fitch proposed to take the required oath to enforce the Stamp Act, and called upon his "assistants" to administer it to him, Trum- bull was among those who resisted and remonstrated. The governor urged that their allegiance to the king, the oath of their office, the safety of the charter of the colony, and their personal safety, demanded that they administer the oath and aid in the execution of the act. Trumbull was ready with the reply that the act was in derogation of the rights of the colony, in violation of the common privileges of English subjects, and that they had also sworn "to promote the public good and peace of Connecticut, and to maintain all its lawful privileges," and these they would treacherously sacrifice by submitting to the demand now made upon them.
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