A modern history of Windham county, Connecticut : a Windham county treasure book, Volume I, Part 33

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

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A few hundred feet farther up the hill are the two institutions, materially important to the town's prosperity : on the west, Pomfret School for Boys, and on the east, The Ben Grosvenor, already described. Beyond the Ben Grosvenor Green on the east side of The Street is the Library, and, farther north, on the crest of the hill, the Episcopal Church. Opposite the church on the west side of the street, lies "The Meadows," property of the heirs of the late Hon. Thomas Skelton Harrison, formerly consul-general to Egypt, and for many years a summer resident of distinction. This property, the old Eldredge place, was purchased in the early nineties by Mr. Harrison from Mr. Goodhue, father of Bertram Goodhue, the architect, whose boyhood was passed here. The orig- inal house was "the mansion house" built by Col. Thomas Grosvenor in 1792, when a young Indian danced on the ridgepole at the festivities connected with the raising of the frame.

When Mr. Harrison came into possesison of the place he enlarged and remodeled the house into a luxurious home, which he filled with treasures col- lected during his residence abroad. Here, during the remainder of his life, until 1919, he spent his summers. Early in his residence he established and maintained a famous racing stable, but a disastrous fire in 1904, which de- stroyed stable and stock together, put an end to this.

These great estates are mentioned because they are characterizing features of The Street, which the passers-by cannot fail to note. But they are hardly more beautiful than other residences adjoining or near at hand. Of these perhaps the best type today is The Orchards, the home of Mr. Harrison's sister, Mrs. Thomas Elliot, and of Miss Rebecca Elliot. This house is especially worthy of mention because it is the one lovely example of simple Colonial house remaining on The Street. It has been modernized and improved, but with such careful adherence to type, that from a structure of forbidding harshness

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in 1893, the year of its purchase, it has developed dignity and charm in the truest tradition.

"The Maples," Dr. Overlock's home, directly at the end of The Street, at its juncture with the cross-road, is a notable example of the 1830 tavern, and is an ideal structure to crown the site at the four corners of a New England village. It has been carefully kept to its original lines, both outside and in, and holds the characteristic charm of New England architecture that is so rapidly vanishing.

A tavern antedating this by at least three-quarters of a century is the house now owned and occupied by Mr. Robert Harris and his sister, Miss Annie

"OLD POMFRET TAVERN," NOW RESIDENCE OF DR. S. B. OVERLOCK, POMFRET

Harris, who came to Pomfret for residence from Rhode Island some fifty years ago. This house is of unusual interest. Here Col. Lemuel Grosvenor and his wife, Eunice Putnam, daughter of Gen. Israel Putnam, kept tavern prior to 1789, when Washington was their guest for at least a brief time, as an extract from his diary shows :

"Sat., Nov. 7th, 1789. Left Taft's before sunrise, passing through Douglas Wood-breakfasted at one Jacob's in Thompson-12 miles distant, not a good house. Baited the horses in Pomfret w.t Col. Grosvenor's, distant 11 miles from Jacob's, and lodged at Squire Perkins in Ashford. *

* Knowing that General Putnam lived in the township of Pomfret, I had hopes of seeing him, and it was one of my inducements to come this road, but, on enquiry, I found that he lived five miles out of my road," etc.

Here on January 1, 1795, the first Pomfret postoffice was opened, with Lemuel Grosvenor postmaster, appointed by General Washington. The very cabinet of post boxes used here is now in existence at The Ben Grosvenor.

One of the loveliest of Pomfret's isolated estates is Elmwood. the home of

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Vinton Freedley, on a low hill to the northeast of Pomfret postoffice. To speak paradoxically, this place is conspicuous for its modesty. Its charm is not insistent. A low, rambling house, modified only sufficiently for comfort from its original lines, stands quite near the country road on which it is located. Behind the house and quite hidden from the public are stables, fruit and vege- table gardens and orchards, a charming old-fashioned flower garden, and, adjoining on a lower level, a swimming pool.

The two most famous of Pomfret's great estates, though not the most extensive in acreage, are Glen Elsinore and Courtlands, the homes, respectively, of Mrs. Randolph Clark and Mrs. Courtland Hoppin. They lie adjoining each other along the east side of Hamlet road, parallel to Pomfret Street to the west. Opposite is the fine, picturesque old Vinton homestead, where Mrs. Clark, daughter of Alexander Hamilton Vinton, spent her girlhood and where Miss Eleanor Vinton maintained until her death, a decade since, a school for young boys.

Glen Elsinore is laid out with a beautiful sweep of lawn, stretching down through a rose garden to a broad, shrub bordered path, which follows along a ravine, wooded and beautiful, traversed by the Wappequeau Brook.

At some distance from the house and quite hidden from it is a carefully designed Italian garden, with pergolas, a guest-house, a court for bowling and other sports, and a very complete and beautiful little theater. The walls of the garden are of shining white, rose and vine covered, while rare imported wells, fountains, and sculpture beautify the paths and walks.

Adjoining is a brick-walled vegetable garden, in its practical function-also good to look upon. At the opposite end of the place, where a stream enters the grounds, a Japanese garden has been laid out. The residence is of white stucco, in fine sweeping lines, and crowns its site with dignity and significance.

Courtlands has much the same great sweep of lawn as Glen Elsinore. Con- forming to the lay of the land here, the grounds are terraced down from the house to a lower broad level, where a swimming pool is so enhanced by shrubbery and a wooded background that it becomes a feature of the landscape, as beau- tiful as it is utilitarian. The house is a brick structure, strong and satisfying in proportion, softened and beautified by its mantle of Boston ivy. Both places have noteworthy collections of rhododendron.

Splendid as these new estates are, one feels, in two older places on this side of the town, a charm and distinction which the greater magnificence fails to capture. Both are, strictly speaking, in Abington, but are too closely asso- ciated with the Pomfret group to be omitted here.

Gwyn Careg Farm, the residence of Dr. and Mrs. T. Morris Murray, is the first of these. Within a mile of Abington station, it belongs to a still beautifully wooded section of the country. Mrs. Murray, who is the daughter of Mrs. Ran- dolph Clark, and has been a resident of Pomfret all her life, enlarged and remodeled a fine old house that stood on the site, and established on the place a model farm and dairy. A vast swimming pool on the edge of the wood, with a water plant to supply it, is a justly famed feature of the place, while an old-fashioned garden adjoining the house perfects a whole whose keynote is simplicity and charm.

The Grosvenor Goodridge holdings, in this same section, cover a vast tract of land, incorporating many old and interesting houses and small farm districts. The whole of Ragged Hill, which is still heavily timbered, is included in this

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property. There is no more beautiful country in Pomfret than this. A mile above the house on the Ragged Hill road stretch is a charming waterway- Taft's Pond-and above it is the old Taft house. A broad hemlock fringed brook, The Mashmoquet, beautifies this tract of land throughout its whole extent, and crosses the home acres, giving the place its name, "Mashmoquet Meadows." Three old properties, the Randall, the Taft, and the Chandler, make up its acreage, which was purchased by Mrs. Goodridge, mother of Dr. Frederic Goodridge, the present owner, in 1893. The name of Chandler goes back to the very earliest town records; the Randalls were people of quality as early as 1780; while "Pierpont," also one of the first names, figures in the historic house of Dr. Goodridge in this wise: "Nine hundred acres, originally laid out to Thomas Mowry, descended to Miss Elizabeth Pierpont of Boston, who took personal possession after her marriage with Capt. Peter Cunningham, building a substantial dwelling house near the Mashmoquet." This is the house, built before 1800, that stands today, quadrupled in size, as the residence of Doctor Goodridge. It was one of the three early imposing houses of Pomfret. Of the other two, one was owned and occupied by Charles W. Grosvenor, who sold it to Mr. Peck for the first Pomfret School building, after which it was burned; the other is the so-called Williams Place, next to Mr. Robert Harris' property. This has fallen into disrepair and has suffered some deforming alter- ation, but was once a fine old dwelling.

The beautiful estate of Doctor Goodridge seems to have more than its share of historic distinction. The Charles P. Grosvenor place, which adjoins it and, historically, is a part of it, is one of the two old houses in Pomfert uninter- ruptedly occupied by lineal descendants. This is quite as it should be, since Doctor Goodridge is, himself, a lineal descendant of the Charles P. Grosvenor house, as it were. From it his grandfather ran away in 1814 and eventually founded the Rogers Locomotive Works, now a part of the Baltimore system.

Returning to Pomfret Street, we are in sight of the Bradley place, on a slightly higher level to the east. Indeed, the place abuts on the street, and has here a number of cottages, but as the main grounds and the house are so far back it is hardly a feature of the thoroughfare. Mr. Bradley was one of the first and largest stcokholders in the Bell Telephone Company; having been associated with the venture from its inception. He took much delight and pride in the beautiful property which he established here, and up to 1900 it was a home of much distinction and hospitality. Mr. Bradley's death and that of their only child, preceded by several years Mrs. Bradley's decease in 1918, and the property, left to the Providence Trust Company for the founding of an institution, has recently been sold, and is being divided up into several portions, so that its life as a home interesting to old Pomfret is at an end. The house site commanded a far-reaching view to the south, east, and west.

A little lower on the slope, but overlooking the same view is the Swain property, Hoelfeld. This place, known to the countryside for many years as the hospitable home of Mr. and Mrs. Edward Swain, is now the residence of their eldest son, Leonard, and his wife. The house, built by Mrs. Swain's mother, Mrs. Martha H. Burroughs, in 1888, came to Mrs. Swain by inheritance in 1893. In 1896 Mr. Swain associated himself with Mr. Peck in the Pomfret School for Boys, with which he was connected until his resignation some five years or more before his death in 1917. After Hoelfeld became the home of Leonard Swain he added to its already beautiful and delightful grounds a

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swimming pool and bungalow. Together with his brother, Charles, whose place, "Southover," adjoins, Mr. Swain owns all of the hillside on this level, except the slope to the east which stretches away into the Bowditch Nursery, an institu- tion of interest and long standing in Pomfret, whose owner, Mr. James Bow- ditch of Boston, has been for many years frequently in residence here. Mr. Bowditch was a nephew of Charles Higginson, Esq., whose death in 1917, at the age of ninety-seven, took from Pomfret one of its most distinguished per- sonalities. The nursery property is bounded by the railroad which cuts through the hills here to the station a mile below.

Beyond the valley cut by the railroad rises another hill, whose entire summit is occupied by one family. Mrs. Marcus Kimball (Jeanie Perkins Ķimball) and the Messrs. G. Lawrence and Russell Perkins, owners of this tract, were the children of Benjamin Perkins, who, in 1887, established himself in the present Kimball place, known as Bark Meadow. The charming house that now stands there was remodeled from the dwelling already on the place. Here, after Mr. Perkins Sr.'s death, the Messrs. Lawrence and Russell Perkins lived with their sister until in 1895 they bought the adjoining ninety-one acres to the south, known as Golden Hill Farm, where they made their home when in Pomfret until 1905. They then purchased from the Hon. Fayette Wright the 105 acres to the south, known as the Samuel Williams place. Here they built, from stone quarried on the place, a splendid type of house in the English manner. This is called "Ufton," after Ufton Court in Berkshire, England, the home of the Perkins family. The Bruce place of 140 acres of the Col. Williams tract, bought in 1915, carries this delightful estate down to the Quinebaug, and creates a land holding of great beauty and dignity.

In this connection it is interesting to note a new enterprise which represents Pomfret and has been developed within the past year in the purchase of The Putnam Patriot by Lawrence Perkins and John J. Whitehead, Jr. The latter was born in Raleigh, N. C. After a conspicuously successful connection with metropolitan papers in Hartford and New York, followed by eighteen months war service in France, Mr. Whitehead determined to establish himself in Pomfret, and this partnership in the purchase and publication of The Patriot resulted.

The traditions of portions of the Perkins property are, as so frequently happens with these Pomfret homesteads, rife with interest. "Bark Meadow" figured picturesquely in the annals of the past. The valley is threaded by the Bark Meadow Brook, which furnished power for the second sawmill to be set up in Pomfret. The foundation of this mill still stands not far from Bark Meadow House. This brook flows all the way through the Perkins land (often through stretches of hemlock and pine). Near the house site the water makes a rapid descent that results in, perhaps, the prettiest bit of wild brook fall about Pomfret. The boyhood years of Judge George Holt were spent at Golden Hill Farm.

Fox-Run Farm, the home of Arthur Lapsley, and the original site of Gen. Israel Putnam's home, is near here, located just over the Brooklyn line.

So much for the great places of Pomfret. Costly estates are established features of country life everywhere; but there is a certain genuine love of the land here that identifies these elaborate properties of Pomfret with the smaller places and the farms, and makes for a communal pride in the country, and a love for it, that is all its own.

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More distinguished, perhaps, than any of these notable estates are the two places occupied today by lineal descendants of their original owners of long ago. One of these, already mentioned, is the home of Mrs. C. P. Grosvenor and her daughter, bordering the Mashamoquet Meadows. The other is the Sabin House. Here Esther Grosvenor, the second settler of whom we have any definite knowl- edge (after having built two earlier houses), lived and here she died in 1738; here, uninterruptedly from that day to this, her descendants have lived. The members of the family now in this old homestead are two brothers, Ralph and Horatio, and two sisters, Emily and Harriet.

Such are the personal and individual elements of Pomfret's social devel- opment. If industries are now literally conspicuous for their absence, this does not signify retrogression. It simply means that our remoteness from trans- portation facilities, which is, itself, essential to our best residential interests, makes competition in the modern industrial world impossible. And if Pom- fret's claims to renown must be vested in her social development rather than in material achievement, she feels no misgiving; she confidently expects to justify her existence as she has done for over two hundred years.

The town has withdrawn itself from the onrushing, industrial world; it has entrenched itself in the hills; but, in its remoteness, it is the least rural of communities. Not only have cosmopolitan influences penetrated it, they are indigenous to the soil. On the one hand much wealth and magnificence is represented here in large estates, making for great tracts of country beau- tifully maintained, and in the activities and interests of such residents as would so establish themselves: on the other, the rank and file of the population is made up, happily, of farmers, trades people, artisans,-those involved in pro- ductive labor. Everywhere, in all classes, there is a community spirit of mutual interest, or cooperative welfare, of a democratic identity of purpose and plan. This is as rare as it is essential to constructive life, and makes for an unwavering love of the place on the part of all who dwell here. It is as though the noble beauty of the country stamped itself upon its possessors de- manding their highest endeavor, and their broadest outlook.

As to the town's social organizations, first in importance are the churches. As must always be the case in New England, the Congregational Church of Pomfret is the original one. The First Congregational Church of Pomfret celebrated in 1915, under the pastorate of Rev. Harry Beadle, its bi-centennial. Its history will be found elsewhere in this volume. It has given its spirit and life to the formation of churches in the towns of Brooklyn, Putnam, Abington and Pomfret, Vt., and has maintained a cordial interest in the welfare of the different religious organizations that have been established at home. The parish is at this time under the guidance of Rev. J. Spencer Voorhees. The church edifice is in the process of restoration to its original lines, and Pomfret · Green will henceforth be beautified by one of the old New England churches too rapidly disappearing.

Until 1828, the Episcopalians of Pomfret worshiped in the "Malbone" church in what is now Brooklyn. It is said by the older inhabitants that until 1850 it was considered almost sacriligious for anyone to go into an Episcopal church or to make any note of Christmas. In 1828 Christ Church Parish was organized and a church building was erected in Pomfret. In 1843, Rev. Ros- well Park assumed the sole charge of this church. His name is still one of memory and affection in Pomfret, though he left nine years later to go to

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Racine, Wis., where he had been appointed president of Racine College. He was a distinguished man, as was his son, the late Dr. Roswell Park of Buffalo. Following Doctor Park, the Rev. Mr. Morton and the Rev. Mr. Miller were rectors of the church.

In 1828 (on the site of the old building), "Christ Memorial Church" was erected to Alexander Hamilton Vinton, D. D., and Eleanor Stockbridge Vinton, by their daughters, Mrs. Mary Vinton Clark and Miss Eleanor Vinton. From 1883 to 1889 Rev. Frederic Burgess presided over the church, when he was succeeded by Rev. Lucius Martin Hardy, who died in residence in 1908. Rev. Phillip Sidney Irwin of Ireland, who succeeded Mr. Hardy in 1909, was in turn succeeded in 1917 by Rev. Frank H. Bigelow, the present rector.

In the early days there was a Baptist Church in Pomfret, on the lot now owned by Mr. Robert Harris; and also a Quaker Meeting House, north and west of the present "Centre" or "South" School House, on a short bit of road still known as the "Quaker Meetin' House" road.

The Roman Catholic Parish under the Rev. Father Elty has a very large and active membership. Previous to the erection of Holy Trinity Church, at the north end of the town, which was dedicated in 1887, mass had been said for some years in Pomfret Hall, and previous to that in Putnam.

Next to the churches in importance of social organization come the schools. In the early days the first requirements of incorporation of the town were public :schools and a minister. This was true all over New England. When a new settlement was able to support a minister and had made provisions for schools, it applied for articles of incorporation. Pomfret was divided into three equal districts, the lines running east and west. There were no other schools than public schools until after 1800, since which time Pomfret has seldom, if ever, been without private schools. The first private school was the Baptist Sem- inary on the road west of the old Lyons farm, now owned by Stanton Wicks. The second was the Quaker School on the north side of the road on the land now ¿ owned by Mrs. Courtland Hoppin. A young ladies' seminary in the old house now owned by Mr. Robert Harris followed. The Rev. Roswell Park organized a private school for girls and boys, putting up a building north of the present Episcopal Church. In this school many of the older generation now living had their first training. Here Louise Chandler Moulton went to school, and .also the great Whistler. Even at that tender age the former lisped in num- bers, and was wont to favor her intimates with the recital of her verse. Those were proud moments for the favored ones.

The late Miss Amaryllis Mathewson recalled an instance in which she had played the role of admiring public to the poet destined to recognition at home and abroad. The only lines she could recall from the youthful poet's effusion were, "Her lips were rosebuds set with pearl!" This the enraptured listener found too beautiful to be forgotten. When asked if she recalled anything spe- cial about Whistler, Miss Mathewson said, "The only thing I remember about Jimmie Whistler is that the teacher never got the better of him." Surely the autocratic genius would have relished that memory. This school building, con- verted into a residence, stood until the fall of 1913 on the lot owned by Doctor Overlock, at the rear of his residence. It was torn down with much regret to - make place for the house built in 1913 on this site by Miss Beatrice Stevens.

The Misses Gertrude and Elizabeth Vinton conducted a school for girls "at their home, ""'Four Acres," some twenty years ago. A school for little boys,

TWO OF THE FOUR DORMITORIES AT POMFRET SCHOOL

.... .

MAIN BUILDING, POMFRET SCHOOL

Vel. 1-18

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supplementary to Pomfret School for Boys, was carried on by Miss Eleanor Vinton at Hamlet Lodge, the charming old Vinton homestead. At Miss Vin- ton's death this school was taken over by Mrs. John Wiggins, who carried it on until 1910.

Pomfret School for Boys, established by the late Edward Peck in 1896, and since 1897 under the directorship of the Rev. William Beach Olmsted, D. D., is well known as one of the finest preparatory schools in the country. It ranks high at Harvard, Yale and other eastern colleges, where it places annually its full quota of boys. The personnel of the faculty has been exceptionally con- stant, some of the masters having been in residence for twenty years. Athletics are splendidly developed. Football, baseball, water events and winter sports are unexcelled. The school showed a splendid and a tragic war record, both in the alumni and the undergraduate body. The beautiful and dignified cam- pus is a cherished asset of Pomfret Street. Notable architectural features are the sun dial, replica of a famous shaft at Oxford, England, and a chapel of gray stone, both memorials from grateful parents.

HOSPITAL BUILDING, POMFRET SCHOOL

A new school opened its doors in Pomfret, October 1, 1920, under the direc- tion of Mr. Stanley Kelley of New York, who for the past five years has con- ducted a summer camp at Eastford. This is an all the year home school for younger boys, and is established at "Four Acres," the same building in which the Misses Vinton's school for girls was carried on. There are no vacations in this comprehensive institution. In the spring the school is taken for two weeks to its "Romany Farm" at Black Pond, ten miles distant, and later, after a two weeks' hike, camp is broken at Crystal Pond, a beautiful retired sheet of water above Eastford. Though typically American and not absorbing any foreign ideals, this school is modeled after certain modern European in- stitutions, of which "Abbotsholme" is a notable example. It strives for char- acter building through expression. Its method is to teach, by induction, the

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hand, the head, and the heart. Its aim is education for life, and its law is the Law of Utility.

A third influence in the development of a community is the library. The United English Library for the Propagation of Christian and Useful Knowl- edge was formed in Pomfret on September 25, 1739. It included in its mem- bership the townships of Pomfret, Mortlake, Killingly, and a part of Thomp- son. The first expenditure of this historic association was about four hundred and eighteen pounds. A remnant of the original sheepskin volumes, many of them tomes of great size, are in the present library building.

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A modern history of Windham county, Connecticut : a Windham county treasure book, Volume I, Part 33

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