A modern history of Windham county, Connecticut : a Windham county treasure book, Volume I, Part 6

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

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The tract northward from Plainfield to the Woodward and Saffery line was made the town of Killingly May, 1708, of land unattached to any county until

HISTORY OF WINDHAM COUNTY

added to New London County in 1697; the southeast part being called Mahmun- squeeg, "the Whetstone country," because the Indians had a quarry there of stone which they used for sharpening purposes; characterized by their white successors as "hard as a Quinebaug whetstone." The Quinebaug Indians (as also the Quinebaug River) have their name from Quinebaug pond ("long pond") in southern Killingly. They paid tribute of skins, sometimes to Uncas, and sometimes to the Narragansetts, according to the pressure and danger from either side, before Philip's war; but maintaining friendly relations with the neighbor- ing whites, they escaped damage by the war; yet left their stockade at Danielson before 1701, and settled in the Whetstone country in eastern Killingly and northern Plainfield, Benjamin Trumbull calls them Plainfield Indians; and says that they showed the strongest evidences of real conversion in the "Great Awak- ening" under Whitefield's. 1741-45; and that a school of fifteen pupils was kept among them, at the expense of the Society for Propagating Christian Knowledge among the Indians. De Forest (History of the Indians of Connecticut, pages 378-381) says of the Indians of Killingly : "A large party of Indians sometimes called at a white man's house, asking hospitality; sometimes using strategy to obtain admission; in the morning new ones appeared, who had been smuggled in among the baggage and pappooses. Friendship was always preserved, how- ever, and the two races often joined in amicable sports and trials of strength. The Indians were fond of wrestling, but generally were thrown by the whites, whose muscles had been hardened by labor and regular habits." He gives Indian numbers in 1774 as thirty-eight in Woodstock, twenty-five in Plainfield, eleven in Canterbury, nineteen in Windham, twelve in Pomfret, six in Volun- town, twelve in Mansfield, two in Coventry, and twelve in Killingly ; the last in Killingly, Martha, being buried in 1840. The U. S. Census of 1900 gave 143 Indians in Connecticut, but none of pure blood. The Praying Indians of Massa- chusetts and of the tract north of Killingly took the side of Philip and were almost totally destroyed in his war. Black James, with about forty followers, survived, but sold on February 10, 1682, the whole Nipmuck country, running about thirty miles north of the present Massachusetts line, and twenty miles south into Connecticut, and about twenty miles wide; reserving a tract five miles square, partly in the present Dudley and Webster, and partly in the present Thompson. November 2, 1682, he sold fully one-half of this reservation, of which 5,000 acres were in Quinnatisset (now Thompson) to Stoughton and Dudley for £10; Stoughton sold 2,000 of the 5,000 acres to Sir Robert Thompson of Newington, England. After the settlement of the Massachusetts boundary in 1713, the land east of Woodstock which was found in Connecticut, was in 1717 annexed to New London County by the Colony ; but despite the prohibition of the governor and Council, Killingly settlers pushed in and at length formed the North Society, in Thompson parish, 1728; named from the former chief pro- prietor ; but the Assembly did not grant them town privileges until May, 1785. When Putnam was projected, the north part of Killingly was joined with the south part of Thompson to make the part east of the Quinebaug ; while the west side was taken from Pomfret; the new town being established May, 1855. Brook- lyn Society, composed of southern Pomfret and northern Canterbury was made a town May, 1786. Canada (i. e., Kennedy) parish, Second Society of Windham, formed in 1720, with the addition of 1,200 acres from Brooklyn, a generous slice of Mansfield, and a little from Canterbury and Pomfret, was made a town, Hampton, October, 1786. Chaplin Society, formed from the west side of Hamp-

HISTORY OF WINDHAM COUNTY

ton and adjoining parts of Windham and Mansfield in 1809, became a town May, 1822. Finally, the Third Society of Windham, Scotland parish, formed in 1732, became a town in May, 1857.

The fifteen towns of the present Windham County stand in order of forma- tion as follows: Woodstock, March, 1690; Windham, May, 1692; Plainfield, October, 1700; Canterbury, October, 1703; Killingly, May, 1708; Pomfret, May, 1713; Ashford, October, 1714; Thompson, May, 1785; Brooklyn, May, 1786; Hampton, October, 1786; Sterling, May, 1794; Chaplin, May, 1822; Eastford, May, 1847; Putnam, May, 1855; Scotland, May, 1857.

These dates are important as marking the successive steps of progress in colonization and population, including the added towns on the north. The economic foundation of the old county life was farming; and at the outset, the south part of the county had the advantage of large meadows and valleys free from forest, with healthful slopes here, as at Windham Green, attracting a high class of settlers. Wealth and influence had much to do with the choice of Wind- ham as county town, though it was in the southwest part of the county. Addi- tions and growth in the northern towns at so inconvenient a distance from the county seat and courts, made them ready in 1786 to petition for a county seat nearer ; and later for a new county, with Pomfret as county town; both of which projects the southern towns defeated. But a new era and a new county life was at hand-founded on machine or factory production. The English colonies had become the United States, and no longer imported from England, but relied upon themselves for manufactured goods. Congress passed the first act for the encouragement of manufactures in 1789. In 1790 Samuel Slater set up the first cotton-spinning factory in America, in Rhode Island. In 1794, Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin; and John Scholfield, Jr., set up the first wool-carding machine in Jewett City in 1804; and C. Brewster in 1806 advertises in the Wind- ham Herald his carding machine just set up at Willimantic Falls, which had only a sawmill, gristmill and tannery. But Thompson and Killingly leaped to the front, when Wilkinson, Slater's father-in-law, April 1, 1807, set in operation the first cotton factory in Windham County, and James Danielson in August followed with one at Danielsonville. The northern towns, aided by the influx of factory population, native American, carried their point with the Assembly whose committee reported December, 1817, in favor of Brooklyn as county seat; and at the May session, 1818, it was so enacted.

We are still living in this new era, and it is illuminating to compare it with old. In the old era, the household was its own manufactory of yarn and cloth by the spinning wheel and the hand-loom. The great forest eras were unfavorable to sheep, for they harbored wolves; Ashford paid its last wolf-bounty as late as 1735. Connecticut in 1670, to encourage sheep-grazing, ordered every person to work one day in each year to clear away undergrowth for pasturage; but even in Connecticut valley in 1700 there were not enough sheep to afford to herd, and not enough sheep-fences to keep them without herding. The situation is not much better for sheep than of old; sheep-killing dogs taking the place formerly held by wolves. At the time of the Revolution, however, farmers raised their own wool and flax, and their wives and daughters spun the yarn and linen thread and wove them, separately, or into linsey-woolsey, a stout mixture of both, used for work-clothes for men, and petticoats for women; tow was also used for cheap breeches.

By 1690, wild turkeys were rare in New England, but cattle and swine

HISTORY OF WINDHAM COUNTY

plenty and cheap. The old county raised its own food; rye, Indian corn, and some oats; wheat being found an uncertain crop; for vegetables, peas, beans, turnips, carrots, and after Windham County was formed, an increasing planting of the so-called "Irish" potato, because introduced by the Ulster immigrants, who began to come in 1718 to New England. The early settlers having been very assiduous in planting the apple, apples and cider were common after a few years in a new settlement ; but in 1639 a fine of twelve shillings on each health drinker; a half-pint limit on wine.

Building was rough; and though sawmills, boards and planks were early in use, large timbers were usually hewed by the broad axe. Shingles were "rived" from blocks sawed off at the desired length, then afterward smoothed with the drawing-knife; these would far outlast sawed shingles. Frame houses with a . long roof or leanto on the rear early replaced the first log houses. Later gambrel or hip-roofed houses were common; until modern times, houses were usually un- painted. The floors were made of thick boards, fastened down with wooden pins; the sides of the rooms plastered, but the joists and the floor overhead exposed to view. The chimney, ten feet square at the base, occupied the center of the house, usually one-story, with two "square" rooms on the front side, and a great oblong kitchen in the rear; all heated by fireplaces, but that of the kitchen, which was the living room, sometimes eight feet in front, so that all could share the heat, and also that knotty logs might be utilized with economy of labor. A stone hearth protected from stray coals rolling out in front. An iron crane, proportioned in length and strength to the size of the fireplace and the size of the kettles sometimes hung on it, projected at one side over the fire, having an upright part reaching down alongside the side wall of the fireplace, with a shouldered end at top and bottom, turning in the eyelets of strong iron spikes fastened securely in the aforesaid side wall; for this crane had to bear the weight of the great cast-iron kettles of twelve to sixteen gallons capacity, used for heating water for washing-day, and for making soft soap. A brick oven was usually built into the chimney on one side of the fireplace. Since one's own home furnished his chief society, hearth and home came to be almost synonymous for the hearth was the gathering place during the "old-fashioned" severe win -. ters, not only for the large family, but for neighbors, not unfrequently dropping in to enliven the long evenings by friendly chat and exchanges of experiences and news. Home life was the main part of weekday life; Sunday was the time especially consecrated to the feeding of the mind and soul with the bread of the life of eternity. Two sermons, with an hour in the Sabba'day house between.

The first result of factory production of woolens was to bring down the price, and so to discourage home production greatly; from buying the product of neighboring factories the people proceeded to buying quantities of imported English woolens. Protective tariff on American manufactures became a prom- inent article of the political creed in manufacturing regions. The immediate effect on population was increase in manufacturing towns; Thompson from 1790; Killingly, Plainfield and Windham, from 1810 to the present; Putnam from its beginning in 1855. But the final result of the general adoption of factory pro- duction on a large scale has been here, as in other countries, urbanization ; the official definition of which is, collection of population in places of 2,500 or more, virtually, in cities; and from the rural districts; result, rural depopulation. With unchanged territory, Ashford, which had 1295 in 1850, has steadily declined, reaching 668 in 1910; Canterbury, steady decline from 1820; Eastford,

HISTORY OF WINDHAM COUNTY

from 1850; Woodstock, from 1850; Chaplin, from 1830. More than three-fourths of the farmers are of old American stock, preserving traces and traditions of the old-fashioned life. Most of them own their farms, with substantial and roomy houses ; but marry later, and have smaller families than the old folks did ; hence many are compelled to "one man" farming ; the immigrant especially, clinging to urban life. The whole State of Connecticut in 1910 had 19,841 Americans managing farms; 1,538 Germans; 1,164 Irish; 676 from the Russian Empire, mainly from Poland; 675 Swedes; 551 English; 544 from Austria, largely Bo- hemians and Slavic; Canadians 396; Italians 316; and Hungarians 191; yet our factory population after the Civil war was mainly Irish, who were more recently superseded by Canadians.

But the concentration of wealth in the large village is the basis of many material attractions to urban life; quicker returns for labor ; nearness to churches, stores, banks, places of amusement, railroad and trolley lines; more convenient and artistic houses, though with the drawback of high rents and crowded condi- tions ; cleavage into rich quarter and poor quarter, not only in location but in spirit; class feeling ; though the poor benefit by the institutions furnished at the expense of the rich ; such as better educational facilities, paved streets, public lighting, sewers, sidewalks, public charities. What is needed is cooperation and community spirit, banishing the pride of the rich, and the jealousy and envy from the poorer. What is more important than the production of wealth in city or in country is the production of first-class and nobler men and women.

"God give us men! A time like this demands

Strong minds, great hearts, true faith, and ready hands; Men whom the lust of office does not kill ;

Men whom the spoils of office cannot buy ;

Men who possess opinions and a will ; Men who have honor, men who will not lie; Men who can stand before a demagogue And damn his treacherous flatteries without winking;

Tall men, sun-crowned, who live above the fog,

In public duty and in private thinking For while the rabble, with their thumb-worn creeds, 1 Their large professions and their little deeds,

Mingle in selfish strife-lo! Freedom weeps,

Wrong rules the land, and waiting Justice sleeps."

CHAPTER III COMMUNITY LIFE, 1850-60

BUSY NEW ENGLAND AND ITS WATER POWER-MANY LOCAL INDUSTRIES-COMING OF THE IRISH AND FRENCH-CANADIANS-QUIET SUNDAYS-OCCUPATIONAL DRESS- AMUSEMENTS-PEDESTRIAN TRAVEL POPULAR-SOLID READING-POLITICAL DISCUS- SION-THE RAILROADS-OUTBREAK OF THE CIVIL WAR, ETC.

By H. V. Arnold

The writer will begin this sketch with some reference to Windham County life as it was experienced back in the '50s of the last century. The life of that decade, more simple, less strenuous than in present times, was projected well along into the Civil war period before any very marked change became apparent. The occupations and employment of the masses of the people, of course, had an important bearing upon life as commonly experienced before the Civil war burst upon the nation. Some reference, therefore, to the industrial establishments of those days will not come amiss.

It was said before the war that in busy New England not even a brook was permitted to run to the sea without contributing its power to some industry. During several preceding decades of the century there had come into use innu- merable small industrial establishments operated either by steam or by water power. There were cotton and woolen mills, iron foundries, shops that manu- factured adjuncts to mill machinery, carding-mills, whetstone shops, reed shops, wood working establishments, grist mills and saw mills and others, the last two mentioned preceding in point of time all of the others that have been mentioned. These establishments, generally, had been built by energetic men of limited capital, either singly or by combining their means with others of similar char- acter. Even the earlier cotton factories may be classed with the other small establishments, since, generally, they measured 74 by 32 feet, though some were more extended in length. Commonly they had two full stories with an attic story above these and a basement beneath them. The first four cotton mills in Kill- ingly were stockholders' enterprises and cost with their machinery about $300,000.

In the early '50s the great stone or brick cotton mills had begun to come into existence. They were rendered possible by railroad construction, increase of wealth and population, and by the gold that was flowing to the East from Cali- fornia. Previous to railroad construction, the cotton team and teamsters' wagons had sufficed for transportation purposes, but these would have been inadequate for the large mills. Though perhaps hardly realized at first, the centralizing of industries in large establishments constituted a menace to the continued existence of the small shops and mills. The introduction of the new does not all at once cause a disuse of what is old; rather the latter is gradually crowded out of existence. On that principle the new and the old co-existed together during the '50s and well along into the Civil war period.

At the time in question the employes of the shops and mills were preponderat-

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HISTORY OF WINDHAM COUNTY

ingly of the native American stock, many of them having been reared on the farms of the county. The French-Canadian element might already be found by families residing in mill tenements, but they were by no means numerous. Mainly they were cotton mill workers. The Irish were perhaps just a little more in number and took to various common employments. There were no other foreign elements present in Windham County that were aggregated into families, except a limited number of Lancashire English, and the heads of these families were usually overseers and second-hands in the mills. Any other foreigners were more like scattered individuals rather than present as families of such persons. A few negroes also were present.

In the cotton mills the hours of labor were long, amounting to about sixty- nine hours per week. In the fall, when the length of daylight was declining, the mills continued operation by lamplight and ceased lighting on the 20th of March. Fish oil was used in the lamps, for kerosene was as yet unknown. On Saturdays the mill help were rung out at about 3:30 P. M., and during the long summer days this gave the men some hours to till the garden patches assigned to each family by the mill company. The mill help resided in two-family tenements and in tenement blocks, their domestic life being much the same as now.

Sundays were quiet days in Windham County, since influences born of former times still tinctured the lives of the people. There were but few families in these days in need of charitable assistance, and even in such cases liquor was the usual cause. There was some wretchedness in individual cases, but on the whole, the masses of the people had little to disturb the tenor of their lives. There were prevalent at least three social grades of people, but the majority were of the great middle class. None were then very rich, as wealth is now under- stood, and the manners of all classes tended toward the natural to the exclusion of the artificial.

There were scarcely any fraternal orders then working besides Masons and Odd Fellows. Of societies, benevolent or others, there were very few even in the larger communities. Among individuals the period produced many odd and peculiar characters of various kinds, some of whom were harmlessly demented. 'The common village tradesmen were not particular in regard to their week-day dress. Grocery men went about the streets in what would now be considered indifferent clothing, dusted with flour. But the dry goods merchants, lawyers, ministers and other professional classes aimed to appear respectably attired. The churches were well attended in those days by the heads of families, their wives and by the young people along in their 'teens. Sunday school libraries were maintained and in regard to class lessons small question books were used for various portions of the Scriptures, adapted to the ages of the classes. The keystone of them all was the men's Bible class. The preaching from the pulpit was largely of a doctrinal character. There were few sectarian churches in evi- dence, and in the factory towns the Roman Catholics were accorded the use of the village halls in cases, where, as yet, they had not erected church buildings.

There was but little in the way of public sports during the '50s. Much that is now in vogue was unknown to that generation, and it is not too much to say that the people in general then cared little for sports of any kind. The public interest that now attaches to such matters had not then been evolved. There was not much during any year in the way of public entertainments in the village halls. There were stereopticon shows with motionless pictures in colors projected «on the screen ; an occasional magician's performance; minstrel and concert enter-

HISTORY OF WINDHAM COUNTY

tainments and at long intervals plays gotten up by home talent, and little of anything other than what is here enumerated, besides socials. Yet what was to be had, seemed to satisfy that generation. Aside from all this, the town-meeting, militia musters, camp-meetings and the Fourth of July furnished some further attractions. There were only four week days in the year that the factory com- panies recognized as holidays and these were Fast day in April, the Fourth of July, Thanksgiving and Christmas.

The three principal manufacturing towns in the county were Putnam, Danielsonville and Willimantic. Outside of these and, in fact, all over the county, there were numerous farmsteads, though considerable tracts of the old primeval forests still remained with their full-grown trees, besides groves of second-growth timber. The houses and barns on many of the farms were then already old, but comfortable within, and these places had their orchards of full- grown trees. The great majority of farmers were of the native American stock and in some cases the farm properties had descended from father to son during several generations. In the early days the occupants of the farms often raised large families ; of these the elder sons took to the growing cities, or more likely, joined the ever-moving throng of those who were annually emigrating to what is now the great middle West. The grown-up daughters were more apt to seek positions in the increasing number of cotton factories. Usually the farmer kept a horse and buggy, besides his cows and oxen, with which to make trips to the nearest large towns, and on the Sabbath to attend the church of which he and wife were usually members.

As a part of what did or did not influence the conditions of life in Windham County in those days, it may not come amiss to refer to some things that are commonplace now, but with which people were then unfamiliar, also in respect to their limitations of general knowledge. Of things in an electrical way, they knew nothing by observation of anything besides the telegraph, and it might be, some simple electrical apparatus to experiment with. All that has been developed since, along electrical lines, was unknown to them. The automobile, tractors, the bicycle, telephone, phonograph, all forms of navigating the air except the balloon ; the moving picture show and many other devices common now, were not included in the life of that time. Of some of these, the people generally had no conception. So rapid had been the development of machinery and labor-saving devices dur- ing the preceding thirty years that the period under consideration was spoken of as the "age of invention." That it would continue to develop was taken for granted by some, though others doubted whether or not mechanical progress might be nearing a supposed limit. For traveling distances, within a mile or two, the pedestrian habit was much in vogue.

There was probably more of the solid literature read in proportion to the population than is the case now. The illustrated newspaper was hardly in evi- dence until toward the end of the decade. But many of the people, even of the shops and mills, had a thirst for useful knowledge in relation to history, philos- ophy, physical subjects and others. The acquisition of scientific knowledge had been facilitated since the year 1830, but many of its problems were still under investigation and unsettled. Hence that and the preceding decade had been and was prolific of conflicting theories. For every known effect, the origin of which was in doubt or not known, theory stepped in and endeavored to supply an explanation. The sources of the Nile were still unknown and there were geo- graphical myths current in the school geographies, such as the "Great American

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HISTORY OF WINDHAM COUNTY

Desert." Daily papers did not circulate widely outside of the cities, but the larger country manufacturing towns published excellent weeklies, filled, not so much with local news and personal mention, as with general miscellany which crowded individual advertising into small spaces, one object of the editors being the making of their publications family educators. The large towns had small libraries, filled not so much with fiction as with the general literature of the time, and here the needs of young people of school ages were neglected or overlooked. On the whole, the opportunities of the people for acquiring a knowledge of many subjects were far under what almost anyone may attain now.

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A modern history of Windham county, Connecticut : a Windham county treasure book, Volume I, Part 6

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