A modern history of Windham county, Connecticut : a Windham county treasure book, Volume II, Part 12

Author: Lincoln, Allen B
Publication date: 1920
Publisher: Chicago : S. J. Clarke publ. co.
Number of Pages: 960

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The General Act of 1741 concerning militia, with slight modifications, was in force until the Revolution. "All male persons 16 to 50 years of age shall bear arms and duly attend all musters and military exercises of the respective troops and companies where they are enlisted. Every listed soldier to be pro- vided with a well-fixed firelock, barrel not less than three and one-half feet long, or other good firearms, a good sword or cutlass, a worm, primer and priming wire fit for his gun, and 12 flints." This shows the change from the matchlock to the flintlock musket; also the addition of troopers or mounted soldiers; every trooper to provide a good serviceable horse not less than fourteen hands high, covered with a good saddle with housing, bitt, bridle, and holsters; and furnished with a carbine, barrel not less than two and one-half feet long, with a belt and swivel, a case of good pistols, a sword or cutlass, a flask or cartridge box, one pound of good powder, three pounds of bullets, twenty flints, a good pair of boots and spurs. The clerk of the trainband was to take a list of all soldiers twice every year, and to attend with sword by his side, every muster or training day, to call the roll of soldiers, and take notice of their defects by

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absence or otherwise. In every full trainband were sixty-four soldiers, be- sides the following officers : captain, lieutenant, ensign, and four sergeants.

Where the town population was too small for a full trainband, there was a band of thirty-two soldiers, a lieutenant, ensign, and two sergeants ; or twenty- four soldiers with two sergeants. The clerk to give three days warning before each training day; four training days in the year, in the six months before mentioned. A regimental muster once in four years, and also upon alarm, invasion, or notice of any, either by sea or land; thie colonel, lieutenant-colonel, and major, appointed by the General Assembly, to assemble in martial array the several companies, or whole militia of the regiment under the colonel's com- mand, and being armed lead, conduct and employ them in any adjacent place in the colony, for assisting and relieving any of his Majesty's subjects, forts, towns, or places assaulted by the enemy, or in danger thereof, and by force of arms encounter, repel, pursue, kill and destroy such enemy.

This Act was passed in view of the hostile attitude of the French and their Indian allies, especially in Maine, which came to war in 1744, and the capture of Louisburg from the French. In 1773, in Pomfret, Killingly, and Wood- stock, there were twelve large militia companies of foot; but as there was no troop of horse, the towns were authorized to raise one. The number on the militia rolls of Connecticut was 26,260; reckoned between the ages of sixteen and forty-five. Trainbands were to attend four days in a year for instruction in military discipline. The eighteen regiments were to give their time, and soldiers and all householders to provide themselves with arms; with no expense to the Colony; and the number of regiments were to be increased to twenty- two; and a general muster of them appointed for the "fourth Monday of No- vember next;" the military companies or trainbands to have twelve half-day trainings from October, 1774, to May 1, 1775; a premium to each soldier who should attend all the trainings, six shillings.

This shows that while the colonies were convinced that the Revolution was unavoidable, the battle of Lexington, April 19, 1775, came considerably sooner than they had expected active war. The troops at that time were all militia of the separate colonies; each raised and paid its own, who could not be sent out of that colony, and were mostly enlisted on short terms; for they had to raise their food as well as to make war. In order to have a standing army, men were enlisted for longer terms or for the war, in a force called the Continental army, because they were liable to service in any colony, and were under direc- tion and pay of the Congress. The Americans had no set uniform, and most of them none at all; though the law of 1741 allowed each trainband to vote on the color of clothing. "The old Continentals with their ragged regimentals," whatever they found most convenient. The Jersey Blues were an exception among the colonial troops. There were no uniformed companies at the battle of Bunker Hill; but the prevailing colors were blue with buff or white facings, in the different colonies. The uniform of the Continental army prescribed Oc- tober, 1779, by the commander-in-chief was a blue coat, faced usually with white, but sometimes buff, red, or blue. Washington's uniform consisted of a blue coat faced with buff, and buff waistcoat and breeches,-the uniform of the Whig or Orange party in Great Britain. In 1821, dark blue was declared to be the national color for uniforms; and was worn by the Union soldiers in the Civil War, 1861-1865, with an overcoat of lighter blue. In 1846, the military, training-day system was virtually dead, except on the statute books; the listed

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men were called "cornstalk militia," and the annual trainings were parodies on military efficiency.

This is illustrated by an incident related of one of the annual musters, tak- ing place as usual on one of the broad greens. The captain having his company well under way on the march, relaxed his vigilance; and a wag, noticing that he was considerably in advance of his company, using a stick in lieu of a sword, motioned to the company to wheel and to follow him, which diversion the men were not slow to follow; and the captain, turning to give his company new orders, found them marching away in quite a different direction. But in their palmy days the trainings brought out everybody, old people, women, and chil- dren,-as spectators of the military exercises and athletic games which fol- lowed; enjoying themselves in watching the maneuvers of the soldiers, the games of cudgel, backsword, fencing, running, leaping, wrestling, stoolball, nine- pins, and quoits ; increasing the pleasure by sharing it with the crowd, by meet- ing old friends, and making acquaintance with congenial spirits, and eating training day gingerbread.

However, in the later and degenerate days, volunteer organizations had sprung up, and made possible and efficient the volunteers whose valor won the Mexican war; and by supplementing the drill and discipline taught by regu- larly educated officers, by the partial military training in volunteer militia, crowned the Civil War with success; following in the main Madison's proposi- tion, 1810, that officers and sergeants be thoroughly drilled at the expense of the general government. Yet the resourcefulness, enterprise, and spirit of the native American, were probably the greatest and determining factors in these wars, and in the World War. It is important, in view of certain industriously circulated, but misleading modern claims, to note, on the authority of Prof. B. A. Gould, that the Union Army in the Civil war had 1,523,300 native Amer- icans, or more than 75 per cent of all; Germans 8.76 per cent; Irish 7.14 per cent. Change in the range of firearms from the old smoothbore musket, which suggested the order in the Revolution, "wait till you see the whites of their eyes before you fire," to rifles, required change not only in manner of fighting, but from gay colors of uniform to inconspicuous ones; and the still greater changes in the World War, put adaptability and resourcefulness still more at a premium.

April town meeting, on Election day, was a general gathering of the men of the community, for discussing town matters and election of officers. Jef- ferson says of the towns, "They have proved themselves the wisest invention ever devised by the wit of man for the perfect exercise of self-government and for its preservation."

As in New England no one was ashamed of working, so community in toil developed mutual sympathy and helpfulness. Thus neighbors joined in "bees" at husking, apple paring, spinning matches and quiltings. Many hands made light work, and good fellowship and neighborly intercourse were promoted by these informal labor-associations. In fact few were above the necessity of work- ing; the great majority were nearly equal in social rank, and that a humble one; everyday people in everyday clothes, and in surroundings in which they felt at home and natural. The housewife's necessary labors left her little time for adorning herself or her house; the kitchen being the living-room, and bean porridge, rye and Indian bread, hasty pudding, milk, cheese and cider, being the staples of her daily food; with baked beans and pork for Sunday, and boiled

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meat and vegetables, at times between. At killing time the neighbors slaughtered in turn, and as butcher carts and markets were in rural places unknown, they lent fresh meat successively, from one killing to the next, when they received in return; it being late in the fall, the cold allowed considerable portions to be kept for a while; then the year's supply of beef and pork was salted down. The making of butter, cheese, and pickles, having slowed up, the filling of sausage skins and the dipping of candles for winter use succeeded; while the provident man of the house, having housed his fall crops, banked the under- pinning of his house to keep the frost and cold from entering the cellar or under the house floor. Meanwhile the boys had their days of nutting; and in the earlier days men and older boys had their hunting tours, to help out the year's meat supply. The moderns depend less upon finding wood dried in the tree, but get up a woodpile before winter, or better yet, in time for it to season be- fore it is needed in the fire; but in old times the fireplaces made it easy for the chopper.

Towns and societies were divided into districts for convenience of attend- ance in each neighborhood, each district maintaining its own school; the sup- port of the school being dependent upon the financial ability of the people of the district, there was considerable inequality and many schools insufficiently supported and poor in quality ; though the money was eked out by supply of wood, and the teacher boarded around the district, to avoid raising money for board. This custom did not cease until after the Civil War, in rural communi- ties ; though the Connecticut school fund being apportioned per pupil, helped large but poor families. Yet notwithstanding poverty, from one of the poorest families of a poor school district in southwestern Ashford came Eliphalet Nott, President and almost creator of Union College, Schenectady, New York; a par- allel case being Jared Sparks, President of Harvard College, and the greatest American biographer of his times. The will to learn counts more than the outward helps. A school house of Revolutionary times was described as "20 feet square; boarded, clapboarded, and shingled; door without porch or entry, at southeast corner. Loose floor of unplaned boards, and ceiling of the same. A chimney of rough stone in one corner. A long writing table across one side and end of the room; the scholars sat on both sides, facing each other. No desks or drawers. The ink froze on the pens. Reading, writing, arithmetic, sewing, and the catechism were taught."

Weddings in early colonial times were usually celebrated quietly at the home of the bride; but with increase of wealth, the banns were proclaimed in church, and an invitation was given from the pulpit to attend the ceremony. Friends and neighbors were entertained with lavish hospitality at the bride's home; those who attended, marching in procession to it. The wedding feast sometimes lasted two or three days, with much dancing. Marriages were early ; the young men hardly of age, and the girl sixteen or seventeen. Marriage was a civil contract, celebrated by the magistrate. After a long time ministers were permitted to celebrate marriages.

Funerals were also community gatherings of general interest. In the earli- est New England days, there were no religious services at a funeral, though a minister was generally present; no prayers, because of the revulsion from praying for the dead; the first known instance of prayer at a funeral was at the funeral of Pastor William Adams of Roxbury, in 1685; but the prayer grew gradually into use later. Mourning verses were fastened to the hearse

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or platform on which the coffin rested. High respect was paid to mourners; at the funeral of a husband, a person of dignity walked with the widow. There were memorial sermons, but they were seldom preached at the funeral or time of burial. An exception was the funeral of President Chauncy of Harvard College, in 1671. Rings were often given to the relatives; an old English custom ; but lavish sums were expended for gloves given to friends of the de- ceased. For many years after the first settlers, very durable slate gravestones were imported, ready carved, from North Wales to Massachusetts; but in Windham County, native flat stones were used for the humbler people most commonly at first; and Bolton flagstones after about 1750, and marble after 1812 were the fashion. The Bolton gray stone was easily cut, a fact which was utilized by relating the chief virtues and honors of the deceased, and quite commonly this biography was followed by an epitaph or sentiment.

Windham cemetery abounds with instances of both kinds; for many of these gray stones were broad and tall. The usual pattern of shape was a rounded top, sometimes with a cherub's head and a groove running down each side of the inscription. Epitaph of Captain John Fitch, died 1760. "No sooner hath ye King of Terrors Laid ye Body in ye Dust but upward mounts ye soul : Riches & Honour vanish like a Shade. "Tis Virtue only lives beyond ye Grave."

"Mrs. Hannah Dodge, Consort of Mr. Small Dodge, who chang'd a fleeting world for an lmortal Rest June ye 1st, A. D. 1783 Aetat. 40. Though Silent in Death this Body lyes, Not long it sleeps it must again Arise. The Trumpet call shall hear, at once Releas'd it starts in open air Obeys ye Signal Wafted on ye wind No attom lost is left to dwell behind. A woman compleat again is shown Limb eleav's to Limb & Bone Rejoins its Bone."

This Stone is erected to the memory of the Revd Stephen White who died Janr 9th, 1794 Aetat. 75 & 7 months. He was Pastor of the first Church and Society in Windham from the 24th day of Decr 1740 until he died.

In his historical sermon in review of his pastorate, 1790, he deplores the decline in external religious observances "for about 30 years past," wlien there were scarce any not professors of religion; few infants not baptized; no families prayerless ; and no Deists among us." Purcell says, "the British reg- ulars from barracks where were loose morals and looser free thinking, were dangerous associates for colonial militiamen," in the French and Indian war. In the Revolution, "French freethinking proved contagious, since the brave French allies won American gratitude and respect, but they were skillful prose- lyters. Freethinking and free drinking replaced Puritanical strictness. Con- gregationalism was weakened, and the Church of England all but destroyed." Army life is not proper community life. Yet there was one effect not wholly bad in Connecticut which passed in 1784 a general toleration act, under which a dissenter presenting a certificate of membership in some regular Society es- tablished by law, was excused from paying for the support of the Congrega- tional minister, though religious liberty by qualifying under the Toleration Act of William III was granted in May, 1708, without excusing from minister tax.

The following inscription records a fact which should have stirred the par- ents to seek for the cause of the infant mortality; for infants have the right to a chance to live :--

"This monument is erected in memory of Nineteen Children the offspring of Nathaniel Wales, Junr. Esq. & Mrs. Mary his wife. Twelve of the number

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Sleep under this Stone; five Inter'd in Midleton & two in Norwich which ware born & Died between the Year 1745 and the year 1766. Suffer little children to some unto me for of such is the kingdom of Heaven."

Not that the other extreme childlessness to, which modern parents are oftener inclined, is guiltless. Westford Hill parish, is honored by a family tracing back on both sides to the earliest American stock, in which all the children born have lived to grow up; six sons and three daughters, all bright and cap- able people, in business and in teaching.

The rural population of New England has approximately the same propor- tion of native farmers as the country at large, or 85.3 per cent; but Connecticut has a larger proportion of foreign-born farmers than any other New England State except Massachusetts; about 34.5 per cent ; but from a wide ranging of cemeteries, I find some rural cemeteries among a foreign population who bury out of town. Who will care for these cemeteries in the future ?

The stability of our government and distinctive American institutions de- pends mainly on the farming class; which by the last published census, 1910, has only 10.5 per cent of foreign born, for the whole United States, of which Germans and Scandinavians furnish the main contingent; the Germans furnish the largest number, but the Scandinavians the largest proportion of their total immigration, 22 per cent; Germans 17 per cent. If the seven million farmers united, as the trades unite, in the American Federation of Labor, they might have as great an influence for Americanism as the Federation has for indus- trialism, but constructive and stabilizing, instead of destructive and upsetting. The farmer has a stake in the land and a love of country, because it is his perma- nent home, and its welfare is his welfare; he is not a transient laborer, chasing higher wages any and every where, with no country or home anywhere.

THE AIM OF THE TRUE PATRIOT

"I live to learn their story, who suffered for my sake, To emulate their glory, and to follow in their wake;

Bards, patriots, martyrs, sages, the noble of all ages, Whose deeds crowd history's pages, and Time's great volume make. I live for those who love me, whose hearts are kind and true,

For the Heaven that smiles above me, and awaits my spirit too; For the right that lacks assistance, for the wrong that needs resistance, For the future in the distance, and the good that I can do."

As a modern community life, while in rural communities some customs and features of the old community life survive, for the major part of the population there has been a great change, chiefly from two causes: first, the emigration of the most ambitious and enterprising, especially from southern New England westward and to a less extent northward; the chief outlets of Connecticut being first, to the lands they had visited in the French and Indian war and the Revo- lution, in Vermont and eastern New York, a few settlers entering between the two wars, but the main wave soon after the Revolution; some directly, and some, especially from Windham County, by way of Litchfield County and the Berkshire towns. The second wave of emigration reached to central New York and the Western Reserve, Ohio; whence many re-emigrations, to Michigan, Iowa, Kansas, and farther west, till now the new New England reaches across the continent. The second cause of change was the substitution of the factory

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system for home manufacture, beginning early in the nineteenth century, busi- ness gravitating from the hills to the valleys on the water-power streams; the factory villages drawing from the rural population bright and enterprising young people who desired the quicker returns for labor, or sought the new opportunities for merchant and artisan life; both village and country people until the period of the Mexican war being alike native Americans. Barber reports Killingly in 1836 as the greatest cotton manufacturing town in the state; and in 1840 it had the largest population of any town in Windham County, namely ; 3,685, though Thompson led in 1830 and 1850. Emigration having disposed of the overflow of population, was succeeded after 1850 by immigration ; newcomers from Ireland, aided by the introduction of railroads, entered into competition for factory wages, underbidding the natives. The first trains from Norwich to Worcester began running on Thanksgiving day, 1839; trains began running on the New York and New England a little later, and the Hartford and Providence and the New London Northern were opened in 1854. In 1860 of 31,443,321 population of the United States, 4,138,697 or 13.2 per cent were foreign born, chiefly Germans and Irish; the latter almost wholly in thickly-settled places. In 1910 natives of native parentage num- bered 395,649 or only 35.5 per cent of the whole population; Windham County, 19,889 or 41 per cent, 328,759 foreign born, or 29.5 per cent; and 374,489 of foreign or mixed parentage, and 15,174 negroes, in Connecticut. Of the foreign born, 58,457 were born in Ireland; 56,953 in Italy; 54,120 Russia (as it was in 1910, our immigration being mainly from Russian Poland) ; 31,126 in Ger- many ; 23,642 in Austria; 22,422 in England; 18,889 were French Canadians, Windham County 6,814; and 18,208 born in Sweden; a decrease since 1900 of 12,536 of Irish born, a slight decrease of French Canadian and German; in- crease of 2,046 Swedish born, increase of those born in Italy from 19,105 in 1900; increase from 19,143 born in Russia, and from 2,208 born in Austria. Here we have a startling and rapid change in the very woof and warp of Con- necticut population; in the material of the people; a change which goes to the very foundation; for heredity is dominant over environment, as proved by science and history, and racial traits endure longer than anything else human. Urgent as we find our economic problem at present, the way to its solution is clearer. In 1910, of the population of Connecticut, 999,839 persons or 89.7 per cent, Windham County 37,971 or 78.5 per cent, were urban, or lived in places of 2,500 population or more, and only 114,917 were reckoned by the census as rural; we must make allowance, however, for the fact that 2,500 as a lower limit sometimes includes rural outskirts, because our system goes by towns; not as outside of New England, by incorporated villages with well- defined limits. The key to this problem is to transfer from the urban con- sumers' class, to the rural food-producing class; for before the World war, this country was adding an average of a million a year to the consumers' class, and almost nothing to the farming class; though the great majority from Italy and Austria, and the Poles from Russian Poland, came from the farming class at home, and might have been distributed by our government to the farm-dis- tricts here, were our government a business institution, and mindful of the fact that the stability, the safety, and the very existence of a democracy de- pends upon the orderly character of its people, and their ability for self-gov- ernment and self-support.

For comparison, or perhaps rather contrast of the present urban life with

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the community life at the time Windham County was settled ;- the population then was homogeneous, or practically all of one nationality; for James Savage, the greatest authority for an accurate calculation upon this matter since he gave more than twenty years of close application and expert genealogical labor to the tracing of the first three generations of the people of New England, em- bodied in his four-volume Genealogical Dictionary, pronounces the New Eng- land population in 1775 to exceed 98 per cent English. A comparatively small addition before the Revolution was of Lowlanders from Ulster, virtually the same blood as the people on the English side of the border, with a slight sprin- kling of Highlanders; immigration ceased during the Revolution, and averaged_ only about 4,000 a year for the whole United States from 1783 to 1794, and a mean immigration little over 6,000 a year from 1790 to 1820, when the U. S. official records of arrival of passengers by ship began; and in short, up to the great Irish immigration from 1846 on, New England continued of one blood.

Yet because of a natural desire of the factory operatives to be near their work, a process of forming into detached groups had already begun, partly according to the response of the manufacturers to the demand, by erecting groups of "Company houses." On the advent of the Irish operatives, the detachment from the community life was made not merely a matter of loca- tion, but of sentiment, because of the cleavage on religion and early instilled tradition and ways of thinking and of living; the result being that the Irish all hung together, forming a "little Ireland" in the larger places, a fact of which the professional native politician took advantage; and encouraged by his success in obtaining election by the solid "Irish vote," the Irishman, who takes to politics as a duck. takes to water, soon beat the native to the goal. Like causes have produced like effects, with every successive wave of immigrants, who have the additional reason of a different language as well as a different creed, to make an island, segregated by nationality, under the powerful influ- ence of the church; so that almost the only effective factor toward real com- munity life at present is the public school.

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A modern history of Windham county, Connecticut : a Windham county treasure book, Volume II, Part 12

Author: Lincoln, Allen B Publication date: 1920 Publisher: Chicago : S. J. Clarke publ. co. Number of Pages: 960

Author: Lincoln, Allen B
Publication date: 1920
Publisher: Chicago : S. J. Clarke publ. co.
Number of Pages: 960