USA > Connecticut > Windham County > A modern history of Windham county, Connecticut : a Windham county treasure book, Volume I > Part 94
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).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74 | Part 75 | Part 76 | Part 77 | Part 78 | Part 79 | Part 80 | Part 81 | Part 82 | Part 83 | Part 84 | Part 85 | Part 86 | Part 87 | Part 88 | Part 89 | Part 90 | Part 91 | Part 92 | Part 93 | Part 94 | Part 95 | Part 96 | Part 97 | Part 98 | Part 99 | Part 100 | Part 101 | Part 102 | Part 103 | Part 104 | Part 105 | Part 106 | Part 107 | Part 108 | Part 109 | Part 110
But the Civil war roused them from the centuries of "Staying-at-home-and- asking-their-husbands"-business. The war was so intensely real to them ;- husbands, sons, sweethearts being taken from them constantly, some never to return, that they began to think for themselves and from thinking for them- selves to act.
We all know how the faithful women on the farms labored to carry on the work at home; how they met and made bandages; how they did just what their granddaughters were doing two years ago, in order to help the boys at the front; and when it was all over and those who went away came back to their. wives, and mothers and sweethearts, they found more self-reliant, more capable women than they had left ;- women who did not have to ask their husbands what they wanted to know. In many cases they could tell the husbands what they wanted to know; so quick were they too absorb the knowledge which had come to them in the days when they were obliged to work out their own salva- tion, and incidentally help work out the salvation of the nation.
At the close of the Civil war it was a "new woman" who lived on the farms of Windham County. Before that period there were very few single women ; such an one was a rarity, and indeed was a "left over" slightingly spoken of as an "old maid" by her sisters who were more or less happily married. But now there were many single women, widows and girls whose husbands and lovers would never return to them. Naturally all could not be seamstresses, tailoresses and school-teachers, so many young women left the farms and went to the towns to work in the mills. Some women began to enter the professions; a few be- came physicians and many became nurses. A great change had taken place in the women during the sixth decade.
The women at home on the farms still worked hard. Sewing machines were coming into general use, but ready made garments were unknown. Boughten stockings were beginning to displace the home-knitted ones and women were beginning to have a little leisure. They no longer spun nor wove but they made cheese-great cakes of it-and many old houses still show on the shelves
763
HISTORY OF WINDHAM COUNTY
of the milk room, the round imprint of the great yellow cheeses, once the pride of the house keeper's heart.
They sewed rags and wove their own carpets; they pieced blocks and made their own bedquilts; they dyed their own colors, dried their own fruits, made their own butter, pickles, preserves; salted and cured their own meat; in fact did many things that the modern woman of today never even thinks of doing; so great a change has been wrought by machinery in the lives of the farm women in the last twenty years.
They were religious women. Nearly every farm community had its female prayer meeting; earnest God-fearing women who met often at each other's homes and enjoyed a season of earnest prayer together-and who shall say that their prayers have not been answered ?
There was also the sewing circle, or missionary meeting in connection with the church, where the women worked and visited together. Not the malicious gossip, which some would-be wits ascribe to women's meetings, but neighborly visiting; for they were all interested in one another; and their lives were so shut-in that these weekly or monthly meetings were about the only means they had of hearing from or seeing each other.
They were regular church attendants, these mothers and grandmothers of ours who lived from 1860 to the close of the century, and they endeavored to bring up their children to revere the House of God. Many of their sons be- came ministers or missionaries; their daughters became wives of ministers; or they taught in the Sunday school or sang in the church choir. The church meant a great deal in the lives of these women who lived on the hill tops of Windham County or. in the valleys by the swift-flowing streams. They not only believed their religion but they lived it; they were worthy descendants of the pioneer women who had reclaimed our fair county from a wilderness and who had settled here in the early part of the eighteenth century.
But their lives were not all worship or work. They had plenty of amuse- ments and social pleasures. The quilting bees when the women for miles around came to quilt for some other woman; followed by the evening when the quilting frames were put away and the young people came; the young men and maidens and the husbands of the women who had quilted; and a very jolly evening was spent in these old farmhouses, the parties not breaking up till midnight.
The husking bees also when the men worked side by side with the girls hunt- ing for the "red ears;" the "surprise parties" too! Every winter, whenever there was a good moon, some family was sure to be "surprised" by a troop of neighbors, who brought in good things to eat and a lot of merriment, jollity, goodwill and the best of neighborhood feeling thrown in gratis.
Then there were church socials, the minister's "donation parties;" the sing- ing school in nearly every school district ; frequently a debating or dramatic club ; all of these things together with sleighing parties, coasting parties, skating parties, kept the winter months full of enjoyment for the women and girls on our Windham County farms. There was something of interest all the time, and no reason for "abandoned farms!"
Summer brought its pleasures as well as work. An annual farmer's pienie, the county fair, a church strawberry social, the usual sewing cirele meetings, and the summer was gone, with another round of winter's pleasure coming right along !
But we do not find this neighborliness now. What are the causes ? Strangers
.
764
HISTORY OF WINDHAM COUNTY
coming to our towns assert that they do not know their next door neighbors and complain of the coldness and conservatism of our people. Conditions have changed. Our lives are so full and so complex that we do not have the time for what our mothers and grandmothers enjoyed; but we have other pleasures of which they never dreamed.
The Grange began to be a power about thirty years ago and it has enrolled a very large percentage of our farm women. It meets twice every month; many neighborhoods have whist clubs which also meet twice a month. Community houses in many localities call the people together several evenings a month; all of these organizations do away with the craving for social life which made the surprise parties, sewing bees and socials popular in the last century. The telephone binds not only neighborhoods, but towns and the county together ; nearly every farm home has a telephone and without leaving her home a woman can visit with the next door neighbor or a friend miles away. Then the auto- mobile-nearly every farmer owns one, and it is but a matter of moments to get miles away from home to town, to church, to grange, to friends. Isolation has been banished, through the common use of the telephone and automobile.
Women no longer go calling as they used to do; but they are just as friendly. New comers must take the initiative; attend church, join the grange, have a telephone, and they will find our Windham County people as neighborly as the ones they have formerly known.
The farm woman of today. What is she? She is a splendid type of woman. Her sons and daughters are well educated. Her home has all modern improve- ments; electric lights, hot and cold water; steam heated; with electric labor- saving inventions. No longer does she toil in the back-breaking way her mother did. She has leisure for pleasure, and best of all leisure for health.
She is well read. The latest books, the high class magazines, are found on her tables, and she can talk, intelligently, on the subjects of the day. If she is not trained in music, her children are. Many homes have not only pianos but victrolas and the kingdom of the world's best music is hers to command. She may be a suffragist or not, but whichever way she believes, she can give you her reasons for believing so; she does not have to ask her husband.
The woman on the farm of today is as earnest and true as was her mother or grandmother in the days of the Civil war. She gave herself unsparingly in the great war. She worked, literally, day and night to fulfill the demands of the Red Cross. She gave her sons as loyally as women have ever done, and when they did not return, she bore her terrible sorrow bravely and silently, and continued her work for the boys that remained.
All honor to the women of Windham County, then and now! They may not know their own neighborhood as their ancestors did, but what is better, they know the world and its needs; and whenever duty calls, the women of Windham County will respond nobly to the call.
PROGRESSION IN FARMING
By L. E. Spaulding
The hired help question a half century ago was pretty much supplied by Irish immigrants, and at this time their descendants are holding many of the best farms of this locality.
765
HISTORY OF WINDHAM COUNTY
Albert Day, a hustling leading farmer at that time, and other farmers, trans- ported the recently freed (colored) slaves, as laborers, which practice has been continued more or less to the present time.
The Civil war took its toll of some of the best blood of our county ; other locations were more alluring and most of the boys left the farms for the city. The descendants of the American families for a generation or more have been conspicuous by their absence; therefore a woeful desolation is marking the un- tilled acres.
The gigantic enterprises, developed in recent years, take a vast army of workers that would once have been farm producers. The labor needs have developed a great array of indispensable machinery, which demand skilled op- eratives, both of which are expensive and the man power deficient.
The crops, as now, were corn, oats, potatoes, and grass, with some rye, buck- wheat, barley and wheat. The plowing and most of the farm work was done by oxen, hand planted and hand hoed. Now there is the milking machine, spreaders, tractors, horse hoes, mowing machines, hay forks, potato planters and diggers and many other mechanical devices for facilitating operations.
Dairying was and is the leading output. Cows were yarded and milked in the open during the warm weather. Cheese and butter were made on the farms. Then came the cooperative creamery, emancipating the wife from that drudgery, and for the last twenty years most of the milk has been sold whole to Boston and Providence. Dairy herds are much reduced in numbers. With the de- creasing labor service, the farmers have depended more and more upon the western grain and feeds, with a result of better fed animals, which respond with more spirit and productiveness, if not more remuneration. Thorough bred and high grade stock, horses, swine, sheep and poultry are more generally on every farm each year, although there was a progressive movement years ago by some. .
THE FOOD SUPPLY OF LARGE TOWNS
A Significant Paper by a Leading Merchant which Twelve Years ago Emphasized a Public Need Then Threatening and Now Acute
From an interesting "paper" read before the local Grange of Willimantic several years ago, we are permitted by the writer of the article to make liberal extracts for the pages of this History. The author was Frank Larrabee, now president of the Windham Silk Company. Bear in mind that this article was prepared more than twelve years ago. It was prophetic then; it is very timely now, although of course some conditions have changed-changed for the worse! But the need that each large community shall awaken to the vital necessity of providing for its own sustenance is greater than ever. There is today no more important "new industry" for city capital to invest in than agriculture. The Willimantic situation is fairly typical. Mr. Larrabee spoke substantially as follows :
"If Willimantic actually depended for its food supplies upon the farms in this immediate vicinity, as now conducted, we would be entitled to a place in the bread line, for, as a matter of fact, only a very small percentage of our supplies, even the more staple, are produced on nearby farms or in this state.
"To illustrate what I wish to call your attention to particularly I have made a few comparisons, showing our requirements and supplies. While I do
766
HISTORY OF WINDHAM COUNTY
not guarantee the accuracy of these figures, I do believe they are not over- estimated. When I allude to Willimantic's food supplies, I find it necessary to include, to a certain extent, this immediate vicinity. It is estimated that 25,000 bushels of potatoes are required annually to supply this market; 350,000 pounds of butter is doubtless a low estimate and 100,000 pounds of cheese is not too high for our annual consumption; 200,000 dozen eggs are doubtless used in Willimantic in a single year. Then there is the item of 5,000 bushels of beans, and the beef, pork, and poultry of which I make no estimate. Five hundred car loads, or 25,000,000 pounds, is perhaps a fair estimate of the grain used. I might continue this list almost indefinitely, such as hay, fruit, garden truck, etc., but these few seem to answer my purpose.
"Of the 25,000 bushels of potatoes required, probably not over 8,000 bushels or about one-third is supplied locally. Of the 350,000 pounds of butter, an insignificant fractional part is made by local dairymen. Of the 100,000 pounds of cheese, none. Of the 5,000 bushels of beans, practically none. Of the 200,000 dozen eggs probably three-fourths, or 150,000 dozen, are local products. The hay, fruit and garden truck demand is probably more nearly supplied locally, with perhaps the exception of fresh milk, than any of the other products mentioned. The item of fresh milk is perhaps the most notable exception of the products produced in excess of consumption-quite a large quantity being shipped to other New England markets. To offset this, too, there is a large amount of preserved, or canned milk used here. There are also a great many eggs shipped from here; how many is difficult to determine, but it is estimated that there is from thirty-five to forty-five thousand dozen Western eggs, or storage eggs, come annually to this city.
"There is, some years, a surplus of fruit and garden truck shipped from here, but only a fraction of that received from outside.
"To summarize, it is shown that Willimantic requires annually in excess of its present local food supplies, in round numbers, 17,000 bushels of potatoes, 300,000 pounds of butter, 100,000 pounds of cheese, 30,000 dozen eggs, 5,000 bushels of beans, 25,000,000 pounds of grain, etc. These figures look large, almost fabulous, and in themselves furnish food for serious reflection and serious thought, and I believe show a fairly accurate demand that must be supplied and largely by local merchants, who pay cash for it.
"An old saying among farmers is this: 'An article is worth what it will bring in the market.' This still remains in force and is not far from the truth in most cases. It is true that at times the local market or any market, is glutted-that is, oversupplied for the time being with a certain product, and usually at a time when this particular product is inferior in quality-and it sometimes occurs when the quality is up to standard, but it rarely occurs when the quality is such as to be classed strictly fancy.
"To illustrate, the apple crop in this section of the state was quite abundant last fall, but how about the quality ? Is there a housekeeper present who has recently complimented the grocer for the fine quality of apples he has supplied her with? Not one bushel in a hundred of the crop of 1907 in this immediate vicinity could be classed as strictly fancy. I saw just one lot that would pass in that class and that was on the trees at the Connecticut Agricultural. College. A Boston fruit dealer recently stated that Boston was glutted with Connecticut apples that were offered at $1.50 to $2.00 per barrel, with little demand, while. the fancy Oregon apples were selling freely at $4.00 per bushel box, wholesale.
767
HISTORY OF WINDHAM COUNTY
A little hard on Connecticut, but who is at fault? We can hardly expect to raise as fancy fruit in Connecticut as they do in Oregon, where there are nearly 365 sunshiny days in each year and climatic conditions perfect. There is always a demand for fancy fruit and vegetables, the more attractive they are the more people are tempted to eat them ; especially is this true of fruit. There is a reason for this-some of the more progressive farmers in this vicinity realize this condition and have grasped their opportunity.
"I believe there is no better milk produced anywhere in the country than is brought to Willimantic daily. Butter and cream made in Windham and other near-by towns scores as high as any produced in the state. The produce from our market gardens is of a very high order. These are the conditions at the present time as I see them, fairly set forth, and how to improve them is the query.
"It is true that we cannot raise corn as cheaply as they do West, but we can raise better corn. The West cannot raise corn as cheaply as it could a few years ago. Corn at one time was one of Connecticut's principal crops and raised at a profit. Is it a progressive measure to stop raising corn because the West can produce an inferior article for less money and the farmers of New England paying them millions of dollars annually for what they can pro- duce themselves? Many farmers actually pay out nearly all the cash they get for grain and feed for their stock. Connecticut never was a wheat state, but can produce good oats, rye or buckwheat. It can raise as good potatoes as produced anywhere and if at a profit on a small scale why not on a larger one ? Our quality of hay is excellent, none better, and I think the quantity is on the increase.
"While Willimantic is quite a dairy center, owing to the great demand for fresh milk, but little butter is made and no cheese; in fact there seems to be a great scarcity of these two produces throughout the country, and prices have reached an almost unprecedented high altitude. The export demand is perhaps largely responsible for this and if continued may make them again profitable for Connecticut farmers.
"Willimantic is a good market for small fruits and pays as well or better prices than most sections of the state. It has been shown that peaches can be raised at a profit, but the crop is so uncertain that the growers become dis- couraged.
"Thirty-five and forty years ago a great many cattle and hogs were fat- tened for slaughter in this neighborhood, but very few now. In those days turkeys were especially profitable, but they tell us that they can't raise them now even at thirty to forty cents a pound on account of foxes. Are there really more foxes now than there were forty years ago? Is it possible that there are more foxes on Judge Lyman's farm in Connecticut than on that of Horace Vose in Rhode Island ?
"Sheep raising was formerly a source of considerable profit to the farmer of Connecticut, but is almost unknown today. They tell us they cannot com- pete with the West. That doubtless was true for a time, but for several years past, mutton, lamb and wool have brought prices that would warrant a profit here. They also tell us that it is impossible to raise sheep on account of the dogs. Well, who is responsible for this condition? Who has the power to legislate the abatement of this evil? The farmer legislates making it an offence to allow his neighbor's stock to run at large-horses, cattle, sheep, hogs and
768
HISTORY OF WINDHAM COUNTY
even poultry, but he permits his own dog, his neighbor's dog or any old dog that no one will own, he allows them to run the streets, invade private property, commit all sorts of nuisances, including the killing of sheep. Then whose fault is it? Let the farmers enact a law-they can do it-placing canines under the same restraint as other domestic animals, mend their fences and an avenue will immediately be opened to renew an old and profitable industry.
"That the unsolved labor problem is largely responsible for the present condition in New England farming goes without saying. It is in reality the chief stumbling-block of progressive agricultural pursuits and certainly a great obstacle. The young men will not stay on the farm even though their chances are greater than in the city. But even this condition is not confined to the farmer, not by any means, for every industry in the country is up against it. But this will adjust itself in time. I know not when, but at the rate the country is increasing in population it naturally follows that it must come. The time will come when the people will be crowded out of the cities and will be compelled to seek the country. China, the oldest of all nations, was the first country to take this course, followed centuries later by England and France. In these countries every available foot of soil is developed to the highest possi- bility of cultivation.
"The farm is the beginning and the end. The sun rises and sets on the farmer. Nation's rise and fall as the farmer decrees. The farmer is the real producer ; we are dependent upon him for our very existence. The farmer is a necessity, first, last and all the time.
"Almost every line of business is directly or indirectly dependent on the farmer. Had it not been for the farmer you would never have heard of a grocer. The old saying that the 'World owes us a living,' is literally true and it is up to the farmer to see that we get it. Can you conceive of a world with- out a farmer ? Don't try ! All other art and trade can be eliminated, the farmer never."
CHAPTER XXV BENCH AND BAR
LIFE OF GOVERNOR CLEVELAND-SEARLS' REMINISCENCES-SKETCHES OF CLEVELAND, PENROSE AND PHILLIPS-WILLIMANTIC LAWYERS.
Most of the leading Windham County lawyers of the present day are included in the sketches of the first or Biographical Volume of this work. Following are sketches and reminiscences of some of the leaders of an earlier day :
CHAUNCEY F. CLEVELAND
The outstanding figure of the last century in Windham County public was of course Chauncey F. Cleveland, of Hampton, often spoken of as Windham County's only governor. They who make that statement, however, forget the names of Samuel Huntington and Jonathan Trumbull. Huntington was born in Windham in 1731 and lived there until 1760, when he removed to Norwich. He often visited in Scotland while governor. Trumbull was of Lebanon, but Lebanon was in his day a part of Windham County and in 1746 he was appointed judge of the County Court.
But to Chauncey Fitch Cleveland belongs the distinction of being Windham County's only governor since the present county lines were defined. He was a native of Hampton, born February 16, 1799, son of Silas Cleveland, and of English descent. He served as chief executive in 1842 and '43. Among his private effects several years after his decease, were found fragmentary notes for an autobiography he had evidently dictated to members of his family, and which were carefully preserved by his widow until she passed away in 1917, when members of the family loaned these notes to the author, through his life-long friend, Allen Jewett of Clark's Corner, for the specific purpose of having it incorporated in this volume. These notes, together with others made after the death of the governor, constitute the greater part of the following memoir of him whose memory should ever be kept fresh in the minds and hearts of the citizens of Connecticut.
The date of April, 1814, he commenced to teach school and before he had reached his majority he had taught six terms of school. At the age of seventeen years he commenced to study law, and during the August term of court, 1819, upon an examination, he was admitted to the bar and commenced practice in his home town. He was really a self-made man, having only common school educa- tional advantages, but by determination and energy he became a well-versed gentleman and was also of a practical turn of mind, making his knowledge count for the most in life.
For more than twenty years he was connected in one capacity or another with the military affairs of Connecticut, beginning at the lowest round and end- ing in holding the highest office in the state-a major-general.
Vol. 1-49
769
770
HISTORY OF WINDHAM COUNTY
In 1826 he was elected member of the Connecticut House of Representatives and was re-elected in 1827-28-29 and again in 1832-35, when he was made speaker of the House, holding that office two years and in 1836, after the adjourn- ment of the regular session, Congress having set apart over one million dollars to this state in surplus revenue, an extra session of the Connecticut Legislature was called for the purpose of determining what should be done with so large a fund. Much difference of opinion existed as to where this money be placed. Mr. Cleveland, as speaker, vacated his chair and took the floor where by his logic and forceful presentation of the case, secured a greater portion of this fund for the support of the common schools.'
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.