USA > Connecticut > New Haven County > Guilford > A yankee post office : its history and its post masters > Part 4
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
46
ROGER AVERILL
feels constrained to publish, in the light of this fact, that he gave us no opportunity to learn more, the only episode regarding his life that we possess. All we know is that he died in Guilford, yet the date is not available. A man who could have been of importance enough to be appointed Postmaster by the great Thomas Jefferson and whose name or anything about his record remaining unavailable a century and a quarter later, seems an exceedingly strange case we will never be able to solve. All we know is that an application was made to the probate court in 1806 for the settlement of his estate. Here is the first of the two records reproduced from the Probate Records of Guilford and which furnish us with the only tangible evidence that he ever existed outside the fact that the Post Office Department at Washington informs us that he was the Postmaster of Guilford.
Probate Records, Guilford, Conn.
Vol. 16, page 316.
Administration of the Estate of Mr. Roger Averill late of Guilford decd was granted to Henry Hill & Anna Averill of said Guilford on their giving Bonds according to Law for a faithfull discharge of the Trust-Bonds were given in Court accordingly and sd Admrs represented to this Court that sd Estate was like to prove Insolvent & insufficient to pay the Debts- whereupon Nathel Griffing Esqr. & Mr. George Cleve- land both of sd Guilford were appointed Commissioners with full Powers to Receive & adjust the Claims of the several Creditors to sd Estate & were orderd to give public notice of their appointment according to Law- to appraise & Inventory the Estate of said decd & to make due Returns of their doings in the premises to this Court-Six Months from this 19th day of Inst. April were allowed the sd Creditors in which to Exhibit their Claims on sd Estate to sd Commissioners.
47
A YANKEE POST OFFICE
The second document follows :
-
Vol. 16, page 367.
Mr. Henry Hill, an Admr. of the Estate of Mr. Roger Averill late of Guilford decd Exhibited the Commis- sioners Report of the Debts, due from the Estate of sd Averill deceasd which was approved in Court & orderd to be kept on file - - - the amo of Debts to be paid in full by Law is $157 71/100 Dolr & the whole amo of Debts is $1699-21/2 Cts. as on file - - - said Admr also represented to this Court that he had not been able to ascertain the whole of the Debts due to the Estate of sd Estate & Collect those Debts & moved to the Court for allowance of three Months further time in which he probably will be able to adjust sd Debts and Exhibit his acct thereof to this Court - - Whereupon said Admr. is allowed three months time from this Date, in which he is orderd to accomplish sd Business & Exhibit his acct of Debts due to sd Estate.
Whatever else he may have accomplished, the record of which we cannot unearth, he certainly did not make a financial success of his career. The above documents show that he owed $1699 and had only $157 with which to pay. That the fact that his estate was never settled is testified to by the total absence of any further records concerning his estate.
Perhaps the future may reveal the answer to this present enigma.
Addendum :
The above sketch was the result of weeks of investi- gation as stated in the preceding paragraphs. This included trips to each of the principal cemeteries of Guilford and a careful study of each gravestone of the period around 1806 to be seen in either the Riverside or the Alderbrook Cemeteries. The object, of course, was
48
ROGER AVERILL
to find, if possible, the gravestone of Roger Averill. It was not found. The article about him, as it appears above, was written on Friday, August 10, 1934. In the early afternoon of that day, having finished several thousand words of this story, the author left his home with his Airedales for a walk to Guilford Green. As he stood on the southeast corner of the old square he re- membered that in his youth there used to be some of the ancient gravestones taken from the Green in 1826 or thereabouts that had been placed under the eaves of Christ Episcopal Church. He therefore resolved, for want of something else to do, in exercising his dogs, to go to the south side of the venerable church after an absence of forty or more years, and again look over the old gravestones, representing persons who had, for all practical purposes, long since been forgotten.
On his arrival at the place where the stones were lying on the ground the first one that met his eye bore the following inscription :
In Memory of Mr Roger Averill Who Died April 5, 1806 In the 31st year of his age.
Here before him was the first tangible evidence, except the brief documents in the Guilford Land Rec- ords, that he had discovered about this man. It did not tell much, and the message was conspicuously brief, but he was none the less extremely glad to find it. What was discovered furnished no new clues about Roger Averill. But it did tell that he actually lived, or rather died, that he was buried on the Green, and that his gravestone was removed to the place where it has rested for over a century. The mystery concerning his life is as deep as ever.
49
CHAPTER VIII
Reuben Elliott March 1, 1815, to June 15, 1829 February 26, 1833, to May 25, 1841
Presidents: Monroe, J. Q. Adams, Jackson, Van Buren, W. H. Harrison.
Postmaster Generals: Return J. Meigs, Ohio; James McLean, Ohio; William T. Barry, Kentucky ; Amos Kendall, Kentucky ; J. M. Niles, Connecticut; Francis Granger, New York.
Appointed by President James Monroe in 1815 Reuben Elliott served as the town's Postmaster for twenty-two years and was probably the best known man of his day and generation. He lived on Boston Street in the house now identified by the cellar on the property of Hull's Garage. He was born in Guilford July 11, 1770, the son of Wyllys and Abigail Hull Elliott, and was a member of one of the foremost families of the ancient town. He lived to be seventy-six years old and, during his long and extremely fruitful life, he held various offices of trust and high honor, and was in all ways the ideal village counselor and official. He was a man of dependable character, high ideals, much beloved by his fellowmen; and this resulted naturally in his being given many offices. He married early in life, Grace Fairchild. He first received his appointment as Post- master in 1815, and at that time he lived, as he always did, in the ancient house recently destroyed. On the east side of the house, during the author's boyhood, there was an annex jutting out into the yard. In this
50
REUBEN ELLIOTT
small room was the Guilford Post Office for a period of twenty-two years. In it reigned the village Postmaster. It was one of the most important places in the town. Steiner names Judge Elliott as Guilford's first recorded Postmaster. But it has previously been shown that two men occupied the office previous to Elliott's incumbency. The house was occupied, during the author's childhood, by Judge Elliott's daughter, Miss Cornelia Elliott, and he well remembers her death which took place in the early nineties. In that little room on the east side was a sort of counter or table and behind it was a large square board. On this board was a goodly quantity of red tape of the old-fashioned variety, zig-zagged across the board diagonally. Large, brass-headed tacks held this tape in position. When the Postmaster received the bag of mail which came to Guilford not more than three times a week from New Haven, he plunged his hand into the large bag, which sheltered all the mail between New Haven and Saybrook, and he took out the letters and the papers marked for Guilford. Then he tucked each Guilford letter behind the red tape with the address displayed in such a manner that residents entering the room could, if their eyesight was sufficiently good, soon learn whether or not there was mail awaiting them. Postmaster Elliott was not only postmaster but he was the clerk and the assistant postmaster as well. He was, in fact, the "whole works." When a man saw a letter for him behind the red tape it was the usual custom to take it and to walk out. After the Postmaster had selected what mail belonged to Guilford the waiting stage driver stowed the bag away in the coach and headed towards New London. It was all a very simple
51
A YANKEE POST OFFICE
and a very happy way of doing business in those good old days provided no mistakes were made in the receipt of letters. There were few regulations, postage was high, few letters were received, and the Postmaster had plenty of time on his hands to play checkers or to pursue other better-paying occupations or jobs. There is no reason to believe that the system in vogue during the twenty-two years of Reuben Elliott's administration differed greatly from that obtaining during the time of Medad Stone and his successor Roger Averill, whoever he was. It con- tinued long after Mr. Elliott left the job. In fact it was a fairly unimportant affair until within the recent past.
Mr. Elliott having "made good" in the post office job, others of more or less importance were bestowed upon him as they were on other very capable men during the years of Guilford's history. Probably the most impor- tant local position in Guilford in those days and for a great many years after was that of Judge of Probate. To this office Mr. Elliott was first chosen on July 20 in 1820, and he held the position the first time for fourteen years-until July, 1834. Then he was for some unknown reason, reinstated late in that year, 1834, to the judge- ship of the court; and he held it the last time until 1838. He was a very prominent man in a political way, and in 1831 he was one of the few State Senators which Guilford has had in the State Legislature during its almost 300 years of history.
We may easily conclude that Judge Elliott was a busy man most of his life in his various political occupations. That he was an able administrator is easily attested to by the fact that his terms of office in the principal positions extended over a long course of years. That he
52
REUBEN ELLIOTT
was also a farmer of more or less consequence is con- cluded from the fact that, in 1837, nine years before his death, he, in conjunction with Samuel Elliott, a kins- man, sold to Walter Johnson the famous old Saw Pit farm of many acres, which had been in the Elliott family since 1772, when he was two years old-a period of sixty-two years.
A glance at the Guilford Probate Court records to-day will show the observer the meticulous care with which Judge Elliott recorded the testamentary history of the town during his administration of the office. He died October 18, 1846, after a life of great usefulness, leaving a record of high efficiency and ably and sincerely administering the offices he held.
53
CHAPTER IX
Amos Seward June 15, 1829, to February 26, 1833
President: Andrew Jackson.
Postmaster General: William T. Barry of Kentucky.
Amos Seward's career in Guilford was of such a char- acter that he was talked about and well remembered for his good work long after he was dead. He was one of a small coterie of men that their fellow townsmen chose to administer public office. He was a member of one of the distinguished old families of Guilford. Born here on November 13, 1786, the son of Timothy Seward and Rebecca Lee, he married early in life Sarah Hubbard, and he lived to a ripe old age, dying on Octo- ber 16, 1881. He lived, during his life, in the ancient old house immediately north of the Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company's store on the west side of Guilford Green. In that home, for almost a century, he saw the life of Guilford march by. Almost across the street from his home was the First Congregational Church and the graves of departed citizens he had known, as well as the town's whipping post, and at certain times of the year a more or less ugly looking pond. Mr. Seward was the great-grandfather of the famous historian and biog- rapher, Dr. Bernard C. Steiner. In the latter's History of Guilford, Dr. Steiner says that Mr. Seward was the last of the more or less large company of Guilford men who, in the late years of the eighteenth century and the
54
AMOS SEWARD
first portion of the last century engaged in the so-called West Indian trade.
How much he "engaged in it" Dr. Steiner fails to tell us. No mention is made of the particular part he played in that West Indian business. As has been stated before by this author, "engaging" in the so-called "West Indian trade" in the good old days connoted some acquaintance with the business of rum. That was the principal business carried on with the West Indies. There was not much else. There were several first class citizens of the town who engaged in the business of sell- ing rum. This included the famous Nathaniel Griffing, the town's leading man. Somebody had to help import it from those glamorous islands of the Caribbean, and it looks from his great-grandson's statement that Amos Seward was one of them. Dr. Steiner asserts in his history that great dangers were encountered by those engaging in this "business" and that his ancestor was once captured by the British. He lived to tell the story, however, and for many years occupied positions of great trust and conspicuous importance in the community.
During the years he was the Postmaster of Guilford he kept the office in the little addition on the north side of his home. That annex to-day is the home of the Thrift Shop. But in the days of the author's boyhood it was the workshop of two famous old cobblers, Deacon Julius Augustus Dowd and Major Hall,-famous not only as a cobbler but a town drummer. Deacon Dowd was the last surviving member of the famous company of shoe- makers that yearly exported from the town shoes that had been made by hand by some of the town's well- known citizens. It was more than a century ago the
55
A YANKEE POST OFFICE
town's leading industry next to farming. In that old room from 1829 to 1833 was the Post Office, and on the walls was the same old red tape system as Reuben Elliott maintained in Boston Street. There was nothing of importance happened during the four years Mr. Seward held the office.
In June, 1697, there was established in Guilford what was known as "The Proprietors of The Common and the Undivided Lands." This was a more or less active organization for a great many years. We see frequent references to it in the town meetings of the eighteenth century, and from all that can be gathered from their history their activities seem to have had very indefinite limits. Meetings of the organization were held irregu- larly, and as the land in question was disposed of less and less reason existed for their continuance. The last meet- ing of the "proprietors" was held in 1826 and the last entry in their journal of proceedings was made on June 14, 1831.
Dissolution of the organization with so many years of history behind it was easily foreseen. The termination came on October 1, 1822, when the town appointed Amos Seward to meet the "Proprietors" and "Common Lands" to make arrangements for the closing up of the business which took place later. In February, 1828, Mr. Seward was named on a committee consisting of Nathaniel Griffing, William Todd, Daniel Loper, and George Landon to inquire into the matter of erecting a new meetinghouse to take the place of the venerable structure which had stood across the street from Mr. Seward's home, on Guilford Green, facing the western sky since 1713. This committee, which, by the way, was
56
AMOS SEWARD
composed of probably five of the ablest men in Guilford at that period, reported the estimated cost to be $7,500.
Mr. Seward was clerk of the Borough of Guilford, in- corporated in 1815, during the years from 1826 to 1832, and he was the master of St. Albans Lodge, A. F. & A. M., from 1820 to 1827. An important event in this man's life took place in 1837 when his daughter, Rachel Stone Seward, married Ralph Dunning Smith who had recently come to town from Southbury and set up practice here as a lawyer. He became, in after years, one of the dis- tinguished lawyers of the state, judge of probate for the district, one of the incorporators and creators of the present New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad Company, a historian of rare accomplishments, left be- hind him when he died a mass of historical work of great value, and is still remembered as probably the outstand- ing figure in Guilford's business and cultural life for a generation. Rachel Smith's grandson was the late gifted, nationally known historian and biographer, Dr. Bernard Christian Steiner, who, in 1898, published the first com- pleted history of Guilford and Madison.
Amos Seward's ashes are in Alderbrook Cemetery, and the late Henry P. Robinson in his "Guilford Por- traits," writes of this grand old man and his Post Office activities as follows :
"Found master of the Post, primeval quite, Himself; a single letter gave delight; Red ribbons, loosely looped upon the wall, Held that one letter for a call;
Read out aloud one day to waiting crowd around, Hoping for them that letter would be found.
Before us all he dwelt in peaceful calm, And showed to youthful life old age's charm."
57
CHAPTER X
Albert Boardman Wildman
May 25, 1841, to January 29, 1845 June 8, 1849, to May 5, 1853
Presidents: John Tyler and Zachary Taylor. Postmaster Generals: Francis Granger, New York; Jacob Colla- mer of Vermont.
For much more than a generation the name of Albert Boardman Wildman was the common synonym of all that was public spirited, progressive, or courteous, and the personification of a standard of fine citizenship. He was one of the kind of men that have made New England an honored section. Although this man has been dead for fifty-six years he is still spoken of in Guilford, and is remembered as one of the town's most worthy and ideal citzens. The family to whom he gave distinction, as did his son afterwards, came to Guilford many years before from the town of Danbury. For at least three generations they played an important rôle in the life of this town.
Albert Boardman Wildman was born on June 2, 1810, the son of Agur Wildman, a man of sterling, rugged character, and one of the early merchants of the last century. He established a sort of traveling business between this town and Durham, and he used to drive back and forth selling goods along the route. Later he established the business which was carried on for a great many years by his son. Albert Wildman entered busi- ness early in his life, and he also married when he was
58
ALBERT BOARDMAN WILDMAN
twenty-eight years of age, Abigail Graves Benton who survived him for many years, dying in 1900. In early life he became associated with his father in mercantile pursuits and for a great many years conducted a busi- ness in a building he owned at the south end of Guilford Green now the property of Ernest White. When he established the store and started the business the ground where Butler's store now stands was an open lot, the property of William Griffing who lived in the house on the corner, now owned by Mrs. George Davis. The store was the leading one in the town, although there were several others, but none of them so important as the Wildman establishment. He not only took a promi- nent position among the business men of the community but he was also looked upon throughout his life as one of the town's choicest citizens. Whenever a man of sterling character and rare qualities of mind and of body was needed in public life he was invariably, like Amos Seward or Reuben Elliott, of an earlier genera- tion, chosen for the task at hand. Most of his fruitful life was spent in conducting the prosperous business he carried on at the south end of Guilford Green. He always took a leading part in the political life of the town. A prominent member of the old Whig party he naturally became a republican in 1856 and voted for John C. Fremont. When thirty-one years of age he was appointed postmaster of Guilford, probably by John Tyler, as President William Henry Harrison had died only a few weeks before. There were two postmaster generals during his incumbency. He established the office in the store which he conducted, and for eight years his well-known store housed the postal headquarters of
59
A YANKEE POST OFFICE
the town. There is no reason to believe that there was any change made in the general system obtaining in handling the mail than that followed by previous Post- masters. There is, of course, now no way of ascertaining this fact, but it is perfectly safe to assume that the tri- weekly visit of the "one horse waggon" from New Haven operated the same as it did in previous adminis- trations of the Post Office. The store naturally became not only the leading trading center of the community but the focal center of the industrial and the business life of the town. There are no outstanding facts con- cerning the office of Postmaster under Mr. Wildman that I have been able to secure except that the business was conducted in a highly satisfactory manner. From my grandfather who was thirty-six years old when Mr. Wildman became the Postmaster of Guilford, I used to often hear words of praise spoken about the latter's work and his standing in the town.
Mr. Wildman took a prominent part in the activities attending the Civil War so far as its connection with Guilford was concerned. When Lincoln's call for 75,000 men was made in April, 1860, the first thing that was done was to circulate a petition for a town meeting to meet the emergency in the old New England manner. The petition was probably prepared by Dr. Alvan Talcott, Guilford's well-known physician and genealog- ical authority, for it is in his handwriting. This petition, non-partisan in character, offers us an excellent oppor- tunity to see the list of the then apparent outstanding citizens of Guilford. In this interesting list appears the names of Albert Boardman Wildman, James M. Hunt, Beverly Monroe, George Kimberley, James Mon-
60
ALBERT BOARDMAN WILDMAN
roe, Deacon John Graves, Cornelius Wildman and Henry Hale. In this epochal town meeting of 1860 a resolution was adopted which provided for the town to make the necessary appropriation of money to procure arms and to furnish clothing for the volunteers who were in a great many cases to give their lives on Southern battlefields. This committee appointed to carry out the provisions of this work was composed of seven citizens, one of whom was Mr. Wildman. Steiner, in his History of Guilford, writes concerning this period of our town's history that F. A. Drake, a wealthy but devoted patriot who had come here from another town, declared that "that there were other men who were glad to give as well as I," such as "Judge Edward R. Landon, famous in Guilford's history, A. B. Wildman, John Hale, Calvin M. Leete, John R. Stanton, Dr. Alvan Talcott and others."
In the session of the General Assembly held in 1858, when the newly-formed republican party was only two years old, Mr. Wildman represented the town of Guil- ford. He died at sixty-eight, on May 2, 1878, but his life was filled with wide activity of various types and he is remembered to-day among the older inhabitants as a man of sterling worth and outstanding character. His son, Joel Tuttle Wildman, long one of the foremost, cul- tured citizens of Guilford, was postmaster much more than half a century after his father relinquished the office. Henry P. Robinson in his "Guilford Portraits," pays this tribute to the memory of Mr. Wildman :
"He stood uprightly tall and manly fair, And wore on his smooth face the higher air Of honor and proved probity, unswerving.
61
A YANKEE POST OFFICE
He was a merchant of an older time, When six pence passed by candle light for dime.
Tuttle he knew and loved, and linked the name With his; merchants of good report and fame, Successful through their dealing days and lives.
Then through the war he served, by son and pence His manner frank and fair and mild and genial, As fellow man, well would treat a menial. A father of the town, he walked our ways And then from life retreated, full of praise."
62
CHAPTER XI
George Hart January 29, 1845, to July 29, 1845
President: James Knox Polk. Postmaster General: Cave Johnson, Tenn.
George Hart was the second Postmaster serving Guil- ford, the facts about whose life have been extraordi- narily hard to obtain. I have, however, secured more information about this man than I could concerning Roger Averill. But the facts are precious few none the less. His life, also, with a very few exceptions, was shrouded more or less with a blankness that would not be expected to attend a Postmaster in a town like Guilford.
He was a member of a sterling family of the town, who for generations filled an important place in Guil- ford and its history. Its most conspicuous member, probably, was the late Professor Samuel Hart, long professor of the Romance languages, mathematics and Latin at Trinity College in Hartford, and afterwards dean of the Berkeley Divinity School at Middletown. He was secretary of the House of Bishops of the United States for many years and Custodian for years of the Standard Prayer Book of the Episcopal Church in the United States. This vastly distinguished churchman and historian was a cousin of Postmaster Hart of Guilford.
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.