A modern history of Windham county, Connecticut : a Windham county treasure book, Volume I, Part 5

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 5

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

The early appointments made by the Assembly included the following : Josiah Conant, county surveyor of lands; Jabez Huntington, county sheriff and Capt. John Sabin of Pomfret, major of the County Regiment; Timothy Peirce, judge of the County Court and also of the Court of Probate. Judge Peirce was continued in these judgeships by yearly appointment until 1746 when Jonathan Trumbull, Esquire, of Lebanon, was appointed judge of the County Court and in 1747 judge of the Probate Court for the newly constituted District of Windham, which included towns in the southern part of the county, while Timothy Peirce was made judge of the Probate Court for the District of Plainfield, which included the towns in the northern part of the county. Jona- than Trumbull was continued in these judgeships by yearly appointment until

HISTORY OF WINDHAM COUNTY

he was elected deputy governor in 1766 except for three years, 1754-55-56, when Jonathan Huntington was appointed judge of the County Court.

While the controversy was waging in the General Assembly over the estab- lishment of the County of Windham from 1717 until 1726, the Probate District was established in 1719, including the towns which were afterwards included in the county. The whole territory of the county was continued as one Probate District until 1747 when the towns of Plainfield, Canterbury, Killingly, Pomfret and Voluntown were made a separate district and known as the Plainfield District, and after that the county was divided into probate districts as follows : 1752, Pomfret District was established, and included the towns of Pomfret, Woodstock, Ashford, Mortlake, Union, and part of Killingly, and these three probate districts continued for nearly eighty years. In 1830 Ashford and Kill- ingly were made a separate district. In 1831, Woodstock; 1832, Thompson ; 1833, Brooklyn; 1835, Canterbury; 1836, Hampton; 1848, Eastford; 1850, Chaplin ; 1852, Sterling, and 1856, Putnam.

In the early history of the county Jonathan Trumbull of Lebanon was the most conspicuous man in the county and for years was prominent in its official life, and later his son-in-law, William Williams, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, had great influence in the colony, state and county.

The functions of the counties of Connecticut remained practically the same for about one hundred and seventy-five years, but since that time radical changes have been made and a financial and political organization developed that has been unfortunate for the state and in many cases has built up a disgraceful system. It began with the division of the Probate districts so that instead of the county being the center Probate District, practically every town has its separate Probate Court. This has made it almost impossible to make the Pro- bate judge a salaried official and the fee system continues with its attendant evils.

While the county has no connection with the excise question, as the towns . vote whether spirituous and intoxicating liquors shall be sold within their limits, the state has handed over to this irresponsible agent the duty of administering the laws upon this subject. Then the state raises the money to support the courts and the jails, but hands it over to the county officials for expenditure.

Windham County has escaped most of the severe criticism aimed at this county system as its jail is located in a farming community and is favorable for the development of the health and well-being of the inmates. During recent years business of the jail has been admirably managed and the prisoners have contributed materially to the finances of the county. Windham County is fortu- nate to be composed of towns of about equal strength and importance.

CHAPTER II THE BEGINNINGS OF WINDHAM COUNTY : THE OLD COUNTY LIFE AND THE NEW

By Joel N. Eno, A. M.

In early New England, the local politico-ecclesiastical life was first and funda- mental ; the town being the unit of civil government, and the meeting-house the center of the town's life, and the place of the town meeting; its site being chosen with a view to its two-fold purpose, near the geographical center of the pros- pective settlement; distances being measured from it.

The term "town" was used by the first settlers in the special sense connected with the English "township," the smallest and simplest representative of the parish idea ; as seen in the authoritative legal definition of a "town" in England, contemporary with the earliest Connecticut settlements; given in the first edition of Coke's Commentaries upon Littleton, published in 1628: "It cannot be a town in law, unless it hath, or in past time hath had, a church, and celebration of divine service, sacraments and burials."

The congregations which moved bodily with their pastors, from Massachusetts to Connecticut, like those which had already moved from England to Massa- chusetts, proceeded to exercise their parochial functions and powers according to this sense of "town"; but being close students of the Bible, they adopted the New Testament idea of a church as assembly, and as soon as they could get together the means, began building the "meeting house."

The first townships in the various New England colonies were rather town- tracts of liberal and unsurveyed extent; and a new settlement at an inconvenient distance from the mother church became a parish, usually as a preliminary stage to becoming an independent town. In fact, as the emigrating congrega- tions were mainly of that branch of the Puritans called the Independents, because they held that each congregation had the right to govern itself and to elect its own officers, New England town government was, practically, applied Independentism, or, as it was soon called, Congregationalism. We know it now by its secular name, borrowed from the Greek. As the primitive "demos" of Athens corresponded to "township," so "democracy" was governed by its "ecclesia" or town-meeting of free citizens-in New England called "freemen." Yet Connecticut Colony, unlike Massachusetts and New Haven, essentially separated church and state in government, in that it never restricted political suffrage to church members, but to persons of good moral character; though all established ecclesiastical "Societies" and parishes for religious purposes, before 1700; the whole town having abandoned voting as such, on purely church mat- ters, with few exceptions, such as Windham which so voted until 1726.

Threatened from without sometimes by hostile Indians-for example, the Pequots-and from within by disorderly conduct of individuals; and also for the purpose of strengthening themselves by mutual aid in administration of common

HISTORY OF WINDHAM COUNTY

interests, the three earliest town settlements of Connecticut Colony, namely : Windsor, Hartford and Wethersfield, as early as 1636 combined to hold what they called the General Court, for all three; they had also local juries of six or twelve men, and magistrates who exercised the functions of justices of the peace; but did not feel the need of any intermediate court until the settlements had extended to a distance inconvenient for meeting, under the very rude and primitive condi- tions of travel without real roads. After thirty years of expansion, a new plan, and intermediate courts seemed necessary ; which are described in the Public Records of the Colony of Connecticut, volume 2, pages 34-35. "At a Court of Election held at Hartford, May 10, 1666." Then follows the description of the four counties then established, namely : Hartford, New London, New Haven and Fairfield ; and the designation of the place and time of holding a county court in each. The New England "county" thus described is essentially a "judicial district"; and its resemblance to the British county or shire is limited mainly to its executive officer, the sheriff (shire-reeve). Not more does it resemble the county of the southern colonies, which is their unit of civil government. The same session which established the counties, handed over to the county courts the settlement of estates of deceased persons, and the probating of wills, which in 1639 had been assigned to the public court of the town. Marriages were the prerogative of magistrates, the wedding banns to be published three times pre- viously ; but the Court of October, 1694, "empowers ordained ministers to join in marriage such persons as are qualified for the same according to law." In 1718, the management of schools passed from towns and ecclesiastical societies as such, to school societies. The code of 1650, title "Minister's Maintenance," pro- vides that "those taught in the word being called together, every man shall volun- tarily set down what he is willing to allow, and if he refuse a just proportion, be rated by authority in some just and equal way." Congregationalism, called the "standing order" was almost the universal creed. Its "Sabbath," as they called Sunday, began in Connecticut, as the ancient Jews began their Sabbath, at sunset on the evening before, and ended at sunset of Sunday. In Massachusetts, it began at midnight Saturday, ending at midnight on Sunday. Connecticut came under Governor Andros' jurisdiction in 1686, with all New England, his laws to be in force throughout ; he established Superior courts; the first held at New Haven, April 10, 1688, for the counties of New Haven and Fairfield, and April 13th, at Hartford for the counties of Hartford and New London; the fall sessions to be held in September, 1688. There were no professional advocates or court lawyers ; the first barrister in New England, Thomas Newton, arriving in 1688.

Such was the state of things when Windham County was formed.

Only slight allusion has been made in the county histories as to the difference between the territory of the original county and the present, which has lost about twice as much on the south and west as it has gained on the north. The two are, in the main, upon territory which the Pequots, a few years before the whites came to Connecticut conquered, and which Uncas, ally of the whites in the overthrow of the Pequots in 1637, claimed as heir to his relative, the Pequot chief, Sassacus; and his claim was conceded by Connecticut, from Mohegan (now Montville) northwestward to the southern part of the great pond Moshe-nup- suck (Snipsic, meaning "at the south end of the pond") near Rockville ; and by Massachusetts northeastward to Lake Chaubunagung-amaug ("the boundary fishing-place") in Webster, close to the north line of Thompson. This lake, with

HISTORY OF WINDHAM COUNTY

Five Mile River and the Quinebaug southward was the boundary between the Nipmucknipp-amaug ("fresh-water fishing-place") Indians and the Narragan- setts of Rhode Island.

Access to the fishing-places was the chief thing desired both by the Nipmucks and the Mohegans (maingan, "wolf") ; since abundance of fish was more neces- sary to most New England Indians, especially in winter, than the products of hunting; and much more than the products of planting. This is brought out by the memorial of the Mohegans to the Connecticut Assembly in 1789, which refers regretfully to the earlier "plenty of venison, raccoon, bear and fowl, fish and shell-fish, nuts and wild fruits"; and mentions that formerly they planted little corn and beans. This manner of living explains not only why the Mohe- gans like their Pequot predecessors, held onto the coast and river and lake fishing- places, but why Joshua (or Attawanhood), third son of Uncas, by his will, dated February 27, 1675, and Owaneco, second son (the oldest having died early), soon transferred the lands farther from the chief fishing-places; Joshua to Capt. John Mason and fifteen others, twelve being from Norwich; and Owaneco to Capt. (later Major) James Fitch, 1680-1684; Uncas himself being superannuated, and dying in 1682 or 1683. The result was that Windham County began with two mother colonies almost simultaneously, one on the north (Woodstock) and one (Joshua's Windham) on the south.

Joshua's grant began at Appaquag(e), a flaggy meadow in the southeastern part of the present Eastford; (appuhqui-auke, lodge-covering land, from aboh- quos, covering; flags, especially cattail blades being woven into mats for covering wigwams;) from Appaquage south eight miles along the west side of the Nip- muck path, which followed nearly the course of Little River; thence due west to the Shetucket River; then eight miles northwestward up the Shetucket and the Willimantic; thence eastward ten miles to Appaquage, the starting-point. This was the original Windham town-tract, sold by the administrators of Joshua, who died May, 1676, from injuries received in King Philip's war, to Samuel and Daniel Mason, of Stonington, Daniel Wetherall, of New London, and several Nor- wich gentlemen, in forty-eight shares, each of 1,000 acres, covering the present Windham, Mansfield, and most of Chaplin, Hampton and Scotland townships; three village sites being laid out, 1685 to May, 1686; Hither Place (Windham Green), Ponde Place (Mansfield Centre), and Willimantic.

The north line of this tract was the "Mohegan bound," beyond which was the Wabbaquasset country (abuhquosik, from abohquos, covering), which extended westward from the Quinebaug River to Lake Snipsic ; thence northward through Stafford to the Massachusetts line. Massachusetts already claimed what is now the northern tier of towns of Windham County, through the slipshod work of Nathaniel Woodward and Solomon Saffery, employed in 1642 to survey her southern boundary-required by her charter of March, 1628-9, to be within three English miles south of any part of Charles River; but started by them nearly four miles south, and slanted southwestward so that at Wrentham Plain, the first station, it was seven miles and fifty-six rods south, and crossed the Rhode Island bound of the present Thompson about midway of the east side; ran across Wood- stock to emerge near the southwest corner, crossed Eastford to West Ashford and on to the Connecticut River, crossing at John Bissell's house and the ferry, on the northern edge of Windsor, ten miles south of Charles River.

Extension of settlement at length revealed an error so gross, but as Connecti- cut could not afford an embassy and suit before authorities in England, commis-

HISTORY OF WINDHAM COUNTY

sioners from each colony came to a compromise in 1713-that Massachusetts should continue jurisdiction over her old border towns, but should give Connecti- cut an equivalent elsewhere for the territory. The old Indian village, which the Rev. John Eliot calls Wahbuquoshish, was near the present Woodstock pond. Eliot gathered here a congregation of about thirty families of "Praying Indi- ans," who left their country during Philip's war, and joined the Mohegans, to whom they paid tribute; and their tract was conveyed by Owaneco to Major Fitch in 1684. He sold his first township to a Roxbury, Massachusetts, company of men, who having obtained by petition to the Massachusetts Assembly of Octo- ber, 1683, a tract of land seven miles square in the Nipmuck country, sent Samuel and John Ruggles, John Curtis and Edward Morris, with Indian guides in October, 1684, to locate. They chose a tract about "Wapaquasset," deserted still by its Indian inhabitants, and about April 1, 1686, thirteen young men set out as pioneers, arriving April 5th. They set up a rude barrack-like building at Plain (now Woodstock) Hill, having built a sawmill the same month. Roxbury town meeting having voted £100 to assist the settlement for the first five years, pro- vided thirty families settled within a month-that number accepted, and taking their goods on ox-carts, and driving their cattle, found some sort of road as far as Medway, twenty-five miles; but for the last thirty-five miles had only the old "Connecticut Path" from Boston, which for more than fifty years from 1636 was the line of communication between eastern Massachusetts and the Connecti- cut colony ; entering the north side of the present Thompson, and running south- westerly through Woodstock a little north of Woodstock pond, thence south of Coatney Hill and on, south of Crystal Pond, crossing the Woodward and Saffery line, and farther on, Ashford Common and Mt. Hope; thence westward to Wind- sor Ferry. On arrival, they set up housekeeping in the great company house, sur- rounded by a great forest abounding in deer and game, which supplied their food. August 26th, seven men were chosen to lay out roads from their hill; one eight rods wide to the brook at the north end of the "eastward vale" (now South Woodstock) ; and one eight rods wide from Plain Hill to the west (Coatney) hill. The meeting house and home lots were assigned to Plain Hill, and a lot chosen for the minister. Religious services were held in the open air, a large flat rock serving as a pulpit. Some houses were built that summer, and the settlement was named New Roxbury. Land was prepared; the plowing being done by oxen with a plow made of hard, tough wood, the point being of hardened steel, and the sides which came in contact with the soil, being covered with iron plates, riveted to the wood.

John Gore, employed by the settlers to survey their purchase, and not finding the Woodward and Saffery line, encroached about two miles farther south into Connecticut. Town privileges were granted in March, 1690, Judge Sewall changing the name to Woodstock on the 18th, from Woodstock in Oxfordshire, partly by association of ideas with the naming of the adjoining town of Oxford. The community was annoyed somewhat in 1691-2 by the return of the Wabba- quassets, not improved by their stay with the sottish Owaneco; but the whites put them under guardianship, and after a few years they pass out of the records and vanish. Woodstock, with the other towns (Enfield, Suffield, and Somers) wrongly included in Massachusetts by Woodward and Saffery, petitioned in 1742 to be set off to Connecticut, but the General Court of Massachusetts denied their petition ; so they petitioned to Connecticut Assembly in March and October, 1747; seceded from Massachusetts and in May, 1749, were received under Connecticut

HISTORY OF WINDHAM COUNTY

jurisdiction ; Woodstock being joined to Windham County, after being succes- sively in Suffolk, 1686-1731, and Worcester, 1731-49, counties, Massachusetts.

The oldest grave of a white man in Windham County is that in Woodstock Hill Cemetery, marked by a rude gravestone inscribed : "Here Lies Buried ye Body of Edward Morris, deceased Sept. ye 1689." He was one of the four who located the town site in 1684. Four to five acres in front of James Corbin's was. sequestered as the first burying place and training ground-still a part of Wood- stock Common. Wm. Lyon, chosen grave digger in 1712, received for digging the grave of a child five years old and under, two shillings; five to twelve years, three shillings ; above twelve years, five shillings. Woodstock more fully because it is the most comprehensive example of the experiences and transferences of a mother pioneer town; being a notable example of the traveling propensities of border towns, and emphasizing the loose nature of county limits, which necessi- tates the knowledge of the previous transfers, if one would find the earlier court. and Probate records; in this case, at Boston and Worcester.

The other towns in the Wabbaquasset country are Ashford, whose settlement. began at Mount Hope (now Warrenville) in 1710, and was made a town October, 1714; from which Eastford was set off as a Society, October, 1777, and a town, May, 1847; Pomfret, a town, May, 1713, originally Mashamoquet, from which the part of Putnam west of the Quinebaug was taken; "Union Lands" sold by a committee of the Connecticut General Assembly July, 1729, and with only nine- teen families became the town of Union in Windham County, October, 1734, transferred to Tolland County on its formation in 1785. Ashford and Pomfret were in Hartford County until Windham County was formed, and were settled mainly from Massachusetts by way of Woodstock; though New Scituate, in the southeast part of the present Ashford was settled from Scituate in Plymouth County, Massachusetts. Ashford tract was laid out as eight miles square, except where Woodstock projected in on the northeast; and the meeting house at the Common being even farther from the west bound than from the east, the inhabi- tants on the west side prayed the Assembly that they might be set off to the new town of Wellington; upon which the agent of Ashford declared his free consent. that one mile of said Ashford to run cross (i. e., along) said town on the west side thereof should be annexed to Wellington; so enacted by the Assembly, October, 1727, "so far as it relateth to parish charges," and October, 1729, the strip and its inhabitants were annexed for town purposes; and accordingly transferred to the county of Hartford, May, 1730. Yet the growth at the west was indicated, since in 1734 "a quarter acre of land was set off at ye west end of ye town for a burying place;" now part of Westford cemetery. Pomfret, after Abington was made a parish by Act of May 2, 1749, absorbed Mortlake manor, but lost in 1754 to the parish of Brooklyn then formed. Pomfret in 1714 had a meeting house and a burial ground by it; but the town voted in 1719 that the burying place be removed to a more convenient place, the present site. The first person buried in the new ground was Joseph Griffin; gravestone marked "1.G.1723."

Offshoots and transfers were also the lot of the southern end of Windham County ; so Windham, granted to be a township May, 1692, by town vote was in Hartford County until Windham County was formed in 1726; its daughter Mans- field also, from its birth in October, 1702, until 1726 ; then remained in Windham County until transferred to Tolland County May, 1827. Coventry, apparently an Owaneco grant, was in Hartford County from its birth May, 1712, until 1726;

HISTORY OF WINDHAM COUNTY

was named in the act for forming Tolland County in 1785, but remained in Windham County until 1786.

Contemporaneously with the growth northward and westward, New London County was contributing growth on the south and east. Lebanon, on which Joshua had a claim, yet was granted by Owaneco, became a town in New London County in 1700, remaining until its transfer to Windham County in 1726; then in Windham County until 1824, when it was returned to New London County ; Columbia having been set off from its north part in May, 1804, and added to Tolland County in 1827. Volun (teers') town, claimed by the Mohegans and by the Quinebaugs, was divided between Connecticut and Rhode Island, and granted to the volunteers in the Narragansett fight of King Philip's war. Rhode Island took so large a share that Connecticut granted the Sterling tract additional in 1719. Voluntown was a part of Windham County from its birth, May, 1721, until 1881, when the original tract, which projected into New London County, was annexed to that county ; Sterling having been set off as an independent town in 1794.

The first purchase in Windham County territory, however (though not the first settlement), was by John Winthrop of New London, afterward Governor of Connecticut, from Allumps (or James), sachem of the Quinebaugs; the deed being dated November 2, 1653, and confirmed by Massashowitt and Aguntus, chief men of the tribe, on the 25th ; of land from the Indian planting-ground near James Fort at Acquiunk (now Danielson) toward Shautuxett (Shetucket) "on both sides of the river so farr as the right of James doth reach, with all the swamps of cedar, pine, spruce or any other timber or wood." The tract called the "Quinebaug country" reached from the mouth of Five Mile River six miles eastward, thence southward to Pachaug River, and on the west side of the Quine- baug River, west to Little River; and from the Norwich line north to the Wab- baquasset country ; but the Connecticut General Court admitted James' right as against the Mohegans, only to what is now Plainfield and Canterbury ; and this was the only sale by Nipmucks before King Philip's war; and ventured then only on account of the backing by the Narragansetts. This tract and all the land between the Quinebaug and Rhode Island was claimed after Uncas' death by Owaneco ; though not in Uncas' deed to the governor and council in 1640, nor in his lands reserved ; but only in a late claim ; and as most of the earlier settlers in what is now Plainfield held deeds from Governor Winthrop's sons, FitzJohn and Wait, there was a long dispute with Major Fitch, Owaneco's agent or guardian, who settled at "Peagscomsuck" (now in Canterbury), in 1697; finally settled by making the Quinebaug the general division line ; the Winthrop party receiving the east side, except a strip in southwestern Plainfield on the Quine- baug; the north end to extend one-fourth mile east of the river, thence south, passing near Packerville, to the southern bound of Plainfield; in order to offset the poorness of the Canterbury land by a share of the fertile bottom on the Plainfield side. The whole tract had been made a town, named Plainfield, from its rich plain, in May, 1699. The plan of compromise was settled at a meeting of all the interested parties May 21, 1701; but not all the details were settled until 1706; though Canterbury was set off as a town October, 1703. Both towns remained in New London County until included in Windham County at its formation in 1726.

Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.

A modern history of Windham county, Connecticut : a Windham county treasure book, Volume I, Part 5

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