A modern history of Windham county, Connecticut : a Windham county treasure book, Volume I, Part 107

Author: Lincoln, Allen B
Publication date: 1920
Publisher: Chicago : S. J. Clarke publ. co.
Number of Pages: 930

USA > Connecticut > Windham County > A modern history of Windham county, Connecticut : a Windham county treasure book, Volume I > Part 107

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Enough that by the moral light he saw, When liberty was only white men's law, His human chattel was no swift reproof To one whose soul had felt oppression's hoof, Since Right, to even a Mayflower refugee, Implied no negro's title to be free.

We trust the legend that John Cates was kind, As kind of heart as liberal of mind, And, after twice four years of upright deeds, And generous thoughts for Windham's future needs, When, praised for scattered blessings, he who gave The town's first dwelling filled its earliest grave, That the green threshold of his churchyard inn Was watered by the tears of black Joe Binn.

Round that first farmstead, settling one by one, New households gathered ; Windham was begun.

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HISTORY OF WINDHAM COUNTY

Along old "Nipmuck path" her street was laid, And peace built mansions where barbarians played. Survey, through Time's inverted glass again That corporation of eleven men.

One less than Israel's chiefs, the chosen few Numbered in mid-May, sixteen-ninety-two, At the same figure where, in hopeful doubt, Th' apostles stood-with Judas' name left out. They had no use for Judas in their plan, Those honest souls, united man to man. Their law of living from one book they learned, In all their seven houses altars burned. They kept the Sabbath day, they never swore, And, with the horseshoe hung o'er every door, They balked the devil, and the Salem fad That drove, that year, all Massachusetts mad. They thrived-and if with one good-natured lift "Luck in odd numbers" helped their infant thrift Their earliest parson kept the fact in mind, Who served the town, in good old Bradford kind, With olive branches, frequent, fresh and green, And never stopped until he raised thirteen ! And all that baker's dozen did so well That to this day the Whitings "wear the bell."

'Twas with a saintly vision, sorrow-free Our fathers faced th' uncertain yet-to-be, They fed their herds and tilled their virgin farms, They felled the forests with their sturdy arms, They drove to Norwich wharf their brindled teams With hay, and grain, and pine and hemlock beams, And piles of cheese, and barrelled beef and pork, And bales of home-knit stockings for New York, They counted eggs, and measured meal and milk, They weighed wool fleeces, while their wives made silk, They shared their plenty in Thanksgiving joys, They schooled and catechised their girls and boys, They met at Goodman More's to sing and pray, They praised their preacher's work-with solid pay- The Levite portion in their parted grounds, Good corn, good wood, good meat and sterling pounds, Nor ever dreamed, in simple faith secure, That calm, idyllic life would not endure.

New neighbors came; apace the hamlet grew ; O'er vacant lots the building fever flew, Till the swift orders fairly put to pain Jonathan Jennings with his saw and plane. Soon rose the meeting-house, the church was born, Soon rose the mills, for lumber and for corn.

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No prophet then saw Windham stretch her neck Up Willimantic to Naubeseteck To read her fortune in the river-gorge On the wild rocks by Daniel Badger's forge, Nor when, next century, like Elijah's cloud, John Cates' handful had become a crowd, Could the grave fathers own without a pang The noisier tune old "Southeast Quarter" sang. The psalmist's "sparrow" fretted on its perch ; Faith took new forms, each precinct had its church. Austere dissensions vexed the gospel-fold, . Debate grew hot, and piety grew cold.

Came mortal sickness next, and where it swept In half the village homes some mother wept, And strong men fell, and pastors on their knees Said prayers for them, and died-then thro' the trees "A sound of going," like King David's sign To meet the midnight foes of Palestine, Stirred the unwilling souls that waited for The threatened terrors of a border war. 'Twas in that weak, unsettled, sad, half-blind, Foreboding, wishful, timorous state of mind Our fathers heard another sound, whose fame, In mirth immortal linked to Windham's name, Has laughed to health more hypochondriacs Than ever convalesced on Holmes or Saxe. O'er half the globe the very nurseries learn The swampy music of that droll nocturne. In pamphlets, scrap books from collectors' shears, In histories, cyclopedias, gazeteers, Song-books and school-books-where the English tongue Is talked or read-the tale is said or sung. We tell it gladly, smiling with the rest To think how far its fun the world has blessed, And rail at Parson Peters in our pride No more-but O, how Parson Peters lied !

In the periwig times of old Governor Fitch- Fifty-four, fifty-eight, call it either or which- In seventeen-hundred-and-something-half-way, At the close of a sweltering midsummer day, By the East Windham grist mill, a mile out of town, The flood-gate was up and the water was down; For the owner or miller-Job, Peter or Sam, Had drawn off the pond while he tinkered the dam; And the bull-frogs that peopled the mud-puddle gloom Rubbed heads in the shallows and crowded for room. Each croaker, beginning his first serenade, Felt a haul and a hitch in the music he made,

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And elbowed his fellows with croupy complaint, Till the humor of all took the quarrelsome taint, And missing the seat where he commonly sung, Every Punch had a crack in his temper and lung. "Cudderow, cudderow," grumbled little and great;

"You plug," said old Pop-eye. "You plague," said his mate; "Jug o' rum," thundered Yellow throat ; "Slum," echoed back, The meanest and wartiest sneak in the pack. The concert was broken; they tried it in vain ; The low-water tangle was symphony's bane. Once more, and once more they began it, but no; They could pitch the old notes, but the chime wouldn't go. The hole in the milldam had narrowed their brink And stinted their song when it stinted their drink, And the mischief had put the whole pond out of tune On that moonless and starless old evening in June.

So it went, till at midnight the jangle of sound Broke loose like a Bedlam shot out of the ground. Had the demon of discord who fingered the dice In the Homeric war of the frogs and the mice Whispered "rats" down the stream thro' the Windhamite fens And fooled the bog-jumpers to fight their own friends? Was it witchcraft ? Be sure had it happened before By summers and winters some three and three-score, "Twere the toss of a copper some crazy old dame Would have died for the rumpus-or shouldered the blame. No, the romantic theory patented last Brings never a broomstick a-whisk on the blast, But calls all the gods of Parnassus to say The colt of Minerva that night got away And found that just here, at the critical time, He had put "his foot in it," and started a rhyme, And stirred up the angry batrachian Mars To an uproar that frightened him back to the stars. -

Go down on the old Scotland turnpike, and guess The rage and the ramp of that web-footed mess And the blatant alarm in our forefather's ears That could echo a hundred and thirty-eight years. All the frogs in the fables ran never so mad As the tribe in that basin that went to the bad When the touch of a vagabond sprite set afire Every cold-blooded liver that grew in the mire. A thousand blind furies in bottle-green coats Fell afoul with a howl and a clutching of throats, And the battle waxed hot, and the swell of the storm Swept in every reptile that croaked in the swarm, Till the whole slimy kindred of Jack-in-the-pool Were twisted and mixed like a mackerel school

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HISTORY OF WINDHAM COUNTY

In a slippery, squirming, unspeakable hash Of lunatic frenzy to strangle and smash. There was Blunderhead crushing poor Peep like an egg, There was Drum-Billy butting young Grasshopper-leg, There were Humpback and Cottonmouth, Shiney and Stripe, Hee-haw, Wallow-swallow, Bim-bome, Little-pipe, Thorough-bass, Ganderfoot, Wapperjaw, Doubledone, And Bulldoze, and Speckle, and Son-of-a-gun, And Tom-in-the-cattails, and Crocodile-rib, And giant Swamp-cabbage, and dwarf Yellow-bib, And Longshank, and Polly-wog, White-eye, and Turk, And Dog-face, and Loafer-that-watches-the-work, Peagreen, Silver-Dude, Monkey-nose, and Dull-thud, And Bawler, and Sprawler, and Stick-in-the-mud, And fat Beetle-dragon, and slim Hammer-tongue, And Quack, and Fog-trumpet, and Chop, and Cow-lung, Go-bang, Bellows-bag, Shovel-lip, Thunder-bug, And Wheezer, and Sneezer, and Honker and Chug, And Squatter, and Squealer, and Brag, and Bow-wow, All mixed in the tussle, and booming the row,

They kicked and they splashed and they spattered and swore, They wrestled and tumbled all over the shore : There were scrapings and scratchings without any claws, There were biters that hadn't a tooth in their jaws, There were chokings and pinchings nobody could see, And death to the undermost wretch in the spree. The mill-water smoked like a buffalo-drive, The midnight, the darkness itself seemed alive. The black hurly-burly shot horrible sounds Like the Wild Hunter's bugle and bellowing hounds, Or the Walpurgis revel that suddenly starts At the bidding of fiends in the glens of the Hartz; And the trick of the air made them gather and go To the westward, away from the valley below So high that the miller-folk, seasoned to all The dogs on the turnpike and cats on the wall, Lay still while the frogs clamored hither and yon, And let the uncouth bombilation go on, Tho' it jarred every bedstead and window and door As if a small earthquake rolled under the floor. But the roar on the east wind, that went to the town, No charm could break up and no reason sleep down. It tore thro' the heart of the mid-summer calm, And shook all the clouds over Joshua's farm. Every bird on its roost felt the rush of the rout, Every leaf on the dew-dabbled trees was a shout, Every cubical inch of the shivering mist Held an ounce of blue thunder that hit like a fist, And, alas, for the house that was shingled too thin When the dream-breaking din-devil knocked to come in !

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The first human soul in the village awake Was a poor rattled negro-the minister's Jake- Who ran thro' the streets at a hurricane pace With a budget of tidings as black as his face, And howled at the windows on Meeting-house Square "Dar's sumfin' a happenin' up in the air !" What is it? The sleepers pick open their eyes ; Every hair of their heads is a creeping surprise. The pillows are empty before the cock-crow : It has come-Windham's historic moment of woe ! In night-caps and slumber-gowns, barefoot and pale, The people stand helpless, like weeds in a gale. From the roar of the Babel which way will they fly ? They huddle, they shudder, they whisper, they cry, With hearts that stop beating, and faces that blench "Prepare for the Indians! Look out for the French ! There's a tomahawk dance, and a battle refrain ! The pow-wows are out, over on Chewink Plain!" They listen ; the clamor grows heavy and grum- The tramp of an army! the throb of the drum! Till the sound's very fury the notion destroys ; Would a foe that was "stealing a march" make a noise ? Some terror more solemn than war must be nigh : 'Twas the trump of the Judgment, the wreck of the sky!

Ah, sufferers smitten with sense of their blames! Some fancied strange voices repeating their names. Grave town-folk of local and civil repute, Plain yeomen, sharp tradesmen, stood ghastly and mute, And lawyers, and doctors, and deacons, appalled,

Wondered how came the summons, and why they were called; And loudest of all in the frightful ado

Rang up "Col. Dyer !" and "Elderkin, too!"

What said the stout Colonel now sleeps in his grave,

But the thought of poor Cuffee, his gray-headed slave, When he caught the wild note of the ending of Time, Came out like a victor-cry, quaintly sublime,

"I'm glad on't, I be! I'm glad on't, I be ! My hard work is ober-dis niggah is free !" There were wailings of children afraid of their lives, There were shriekings and swoonings of mothers and wives There were shakings of strong men, and pallors of dread, And rash words, forgotten the hour they were said, There was mounting in haste by the bravest (they say The horsemen were Elderkin, Dyer and Gray), And they rode with a watch, and they rode with a will Straight out of the village and up Mullein Hill- Then silently back, with a sting in their ears, And a smile for the women and children in tears- And the sounds in the sky grew less awful and loud

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When a curt explanation had scattered the crowd, Till the hubbub and horror died where they were born, And the scare of the midnight left shame for the morn.

But the cry of poor Cuffee, wrung out of a breast That never knew Liberty's blessing of rest, As it spoke thro' the tumult of doom in the air The pathos of triumph in spite of despair, Still lives in the lore of that wonderful fright, To challenge a world that denied him his right, And tells of the patience its burden that bore So long without hope it could dread nothing more. Could the pity of heaven, that counted his tears, Have lengthened and strengthened his life thirty years, Till the Blue-law dominion turned white in the sun That shone on her freedom when justice was done,

- The simple old slave in his happy surprise Would have known that God's angel, tho' slowly he flies, May come to the help of His mourners, and say Some great benedictions before the Last Day. But he knew it when death on his ebony brow Put his crown, and he knows it in jubilee now, While Peace o'er his ashes, in blossoming turf, Writes "king" on the ground where he toiled as a serf, And her benison falls, like a leaf from a tree, "His hard work is over, the bondman is free." When the morning was bright and the water was still The good Windham fathers went down to the mill, Where, in white-bellied ruin turned up to the day, The last that was left of the mystery lay. 'Twas a mystery still. Of the hundreds they found On the battle-field slain not a frog had a wound ! And whether they worried themselves out of breath Or were strangled and bulldozed, and bellowed to death Or squelched by the nightmare that rode in the fen, Is as much of a riddle this moment as then ; And the poets who rhyme the old story, and feign A demigod's doing where none can explain, May kill off the frogs with an epic or ode, And leave the whole question to run in the road.

The sound of a harp built a city in Greece, And Rome was once saved by the cackle of geese Great London grew rich by a grasshopper's chat,. And her longest lord mayor was made by a cat. As we come in the prime of our own ninety-two To the scene of last century's June bugaboo, Our meed to its memory measures its claim, To the worth of all trifles that bloom into fame. We'll grudge not a whit of its folly and fun

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To the legend that gave us our marvelous run, But leaving our rivals, who banter our prize, To the fate of the dealer who won't advertise, Like the church or the party that wears on its breast The nickname its enemies gave it in jest, We'll nail to our lintels the bullfrog burgee Of the Windham that was for the Windham to be.

Another century-and these pleasant fields, Still rich with all the sweets that summer yields, Asked of the streets, that made them no reply, Where were the busy throngs that once passed by. From Quinnebaug the cocks of Brooklyn crew, "Keep the old court house and we'll keep the new." And all the partridges of Pond-town beat "Old Windham is no more the county seat." The lonely mother took a last survey O'er the broad freeholds she had given away, Then saw, between her rivers narrowed down, Her suburb more a city than a town,

And swift divining, as she viewed the scene, The mammon mystery of her slighted Green, Admired the thrifty paradox that planned To swell her census while it shrank her land. Enough that Fate's decree, and Plutus' will, Emptied the farmhouse and o'erflowed the mill, Her life was like the years that marked her walls, Pure at the spring and wealthy at the Falls. Old "Center," helpless in her lean extreme, Must move, or die-or radiate up the stream. She chose the last, to please the civil whim That stints the heart to feed the biggest limb. Her churches knocked at Willimantic doors; Her offices, fire companies, and stores Went the same way; the taverns marched in rank, And last of all went Windham County Bank. (I pause to nurse a quaint remembrance here, That bank and I were born the self-same year. I mind its notes, between whose figures poked Two frogs-so lifelike that they almost croaked ; The original "greenbacks," of the native race, That long anticipated Salmon Chase, They blossomed, like pond lilies from the mud, Memento of a war that shed no blood,

And proof how frugal wit a joke can seize And turn to shrewd account the sorest tease. That bank held my first pittance in its tills ; I went through college on those bull-frog bills ; And when my next ancestral check comes in I'll get the cash from my old fiscal twin.)

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Home of my sires, on thy historic clock, Since Captain Abbee out of Norwich dock Sailed the sloop Windham, with its pennon slim, Its golden-lettered streak, its snowy trim, Its green frog figurehead-and proudly bore Thy modest commerce to Manhattan's shore, Time's creeping hands have crossed the age of steam, To where the lightnings of new noonday gleam, And the town Windham, with her helm alee, Swings into port, and rigs again for sea. Fate, to this summit hour from long ago Twice round the century-dial following slow, Has left forever shining by the way Some broken sunbeams of each faded day. The light of old instruction will not fail The church that gave a president to Yale ; Old patriotism haunts the place that bred One of the signers whom John Hancock led; Old courage lives that burned in heroes' veins Who, from this village, fought in four campaigns ; Old worth and wisdom in the garden wait That raised a full-grown governor of the state; The same old Word bears witness unimpeached, Where stalwart Whiting and Devotion preached ; And if old basement thrift has climbed up stairs God bless our wealth, and save our millionaires !

Our mother! backward to thy morning star We scan the past that made us what we are. Tell us, thy debtors, tell us, nurse of men, What Windham-now can do for Windham-then. Her ancient silence grows a vision seen- There stands a cenotaph on yonder Green- Its polished tablets rich with names and dates, Its bust the ideal form of Founder Cates. Recumbent round his shaft their living sons Count his ten colleagues in eternal bronze ; Along the solid plinth, in cameo brown, Brave scenes of civic story sketch the town, While keen beholders, questioning below, Spy the bent shapes of Cuffee and poor Joe, And in one small cartouche, obscurer still, The carved facsimile of a frog bank bill.

Bucolic hamlet, if thy children say Such monuments are money thrown away, Bid them at least in sacred honor hold The lingering remnants of thy life of old. Preserve the pious hopes and pure desires That fed and fanned her morning altar-fires,

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And teach again thy first domestic lore In modern homes where hearthstones glow no more.

To thee, fair Centre, pilgrims, fain to greet Thy busy borough clamoring at thy feet, Soon tiring of its bustle and its throng, When earth is bright and summer days are long,

Escape, where nature never hears or feels The humming spindles and the roaring wheels. Thy scene of leafy calm and breezy space

To us will every year be "Hither Place" Until thy vanished saints in dream pass by And call us to the Yonder Place on high.

THERON BROWN-AN APPRECIATION

By Mrs. Annie A. Preston

As my indispensable Oliver strives to keep pace with my thought in this attempt to portray picturesque Windham County and its worthy peoples of the old stock in a true neighborly spirit, constant reminders of my brother-in- law, Rev. Theron Brown, a native of the county, reach out suggestive tendrils that lead me on to give from the rays of memory upon the reflecting surface of the past some idea, not too intimate, of this exceptionally gifted, versatile and scholarly man.

He treasured in memory and loved to recall the home and scenes of his early life as only so true and poetic a soul could, and that these vivid word pictures were not given permanence is but another illustration of present duty overshadowing future regret.

These reminiscences were pleasant episodes of many summer vacation visits at our home, but words fail to convey the gently modulated voice that carried his graceful sentences, for he talked as he wrote, always using the correct and best word.

From memory's sieve, after the chaff is blown away by the breath of dis- cretion, is recalled a cold rainy spell-o'-dog-day-weather, with several of the assembled family at the S. T. Preston home on Willington Hill, afflicted with hay fever, and with genial and hospitable "Mother Fear" (Glazier Preston) dispensing hot, freshly made, green-catnip tea, with cream and sugar, ostensibly to the children. But when neighbors from the parsonage across the green dropped in, attracted, as Pastor C. W. Potter admitted, by the fact that they were sure to find a fire, and as others laughingly averred, by the fragrance of the pungent herb tea, and begged for a cup that was quickly forthcoming, with freshly-baked ginger-snaps as an accompaniment, Mr. Brown remarked that the exhilaration of the herb tea reminded him that his grandmother called them "poverty cakes"; and one reminder followed another, to the delight of the circle, until he was reminded of an ancient game of "parlor magic" where the date of birth of each one present, written on slips of paper, was the foundation.

When the new sister-in-law gave hers as October 18, 1840, the poet, editor, minister and entertainer was delightfully reminded as he left his seat and crossed the room to her side: "My father, Eliphalet Brown, was born in old Windham, Windham County, Conn., October 18, 1801, thirty-nine years before my sister-in-law was born in Windham County, Vt." In this remote coinci-

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dence he was pleased to discover a poetical significance, and out of it wove a whimsical web of suggestion and fact. His father married Ermina Preston, daughter of Soloman of the line of Roger; he, Theron, had married Helen Mar Preston of the line of Darius and Roger; that Annie A., of the line of Lemuel of the Lexington alarm, and also of Roger, had married Charles Taylor Preston of the line of Darius and Roger, showing a remarkable consanguineous attrac- tion, proving beyond doubt that marriages, that were to be, were "made in Heaven !"

Another proof of this congenital attraction was that as exchange editor of the Youth's Companion, he had, while she was yet a stranger, clipped from the contributions of his sister-in-law in the Springfield Republican, and they had appeared with his introduction and comment in the Boston paper.

Memory is clear as to the fact that Eliphalet, a farmer's son in Old Wind- ham, active and industrious and fond of books, availed himself of every oppor- tunity for study until, as a matter of course almost, in those days, he became a successful winter-term schoolmaster; having married Ermina Preston, who was born August 16, 1801 (August 16th being the birthday of his sister-in-law's only sister, Emma Gertrude Preston), added another thread to his fanciful genealogical fabrication.

For a year or two after the marriage of Eliphalet and Ermina, the couple lived on an Ashford farm, but returned to Willimantic, where two sons, John Albert and Theron, were born, and where the father sickened and died in 1824, and was buried in a cemetery on the Coventry road near Willimantic, where Theron made many a pious, solitary pilgrimage.

With her two small sons the young mother returned to the home of her parents, a farm located in the northwest corner of Ashford, on a corner where a road leading from Willington to Westford crossed one of the ancient turn- pikes running east and west.

The destruction by fire of the dwelling hallowed by so many memories was sentimentally deplored by the gifted man, who had, as the years passed, har- bored a mental possibility of restoration and improvement that would create an ideal summer retreat. No vacation was complete without a visit to the home- stead where old landmarks were relocated and old memories revived, the pleas- ant little homey incidents of the family life being as charming and varied as the view of sunset from the rock seat under the mulberry trees in the old-time garden.

One long-ago summer day it was my privilege to make one of a family party who drove to the colonial Walker homestead located in the immediate neighbor- hood.

This house stood on the west side of the highway, and the Preston-Brown home on the east, but both stood high-up, back from the road ; and instead of an iron fence had a substantial stone wharfing representing much time and labor, as well as a regard for hygienic drainage. About both places were lilac, rose, flowering almond and the rose-acacia, with currents, gooseberry, cherry and plum trees-especially plum, a pound-for-pound, jelly-like preserve making a delicious addition to our picnic lunch, in which the large family participated. The long table was a feature of the kitchen, and this kitchen ran the entire length of the low frame house, with wide north and south doors, and a plank floor ; all so arranged that in winter a yoke of steers could be driven through the room dragging a huge back-log for the fireplace that yawned midway of the

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A modern history of Windham county, Connecticut : a Windham county treasure book, Volume I, Part 107

Author: Lincoln, Allen B Publication date: 1920 Publisher: Chicago : S. J. Clarke publ. co. Number of Pages: 930

Author: Lincoln, Allen B
Publication date: 1920
Publisher: Chicago : S. J. Clarke publ. co.
Number of Pages: 930