USA > Connecticut > New Haven County > Meriden > An historic record and pictorial description of the town of Meriden, Connecticut and men who have made it > Part 13
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1 A chaise or two-wheeled gig.
2 A daughter of Nathaniel Royce who was the trusty friend of the Cole family.
3 Page 41.
4 Page 15.
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EARLY HISTORY.
makes it easy to listen, while his sentiments belong more to a future age than to the one in which he speaks." "I do not hesitate to say that if he stood in one of our pulpits to-day, he would stand there as a thoroughly popular preacher whom men would love to hear."
The Rev. Theophilus Hall published three sermons : Ist, The Righteous perish- ing, and no man laying it to Heart, Illustrated. Two Occasional Sermons [ from Isa. Ivii: 1], delivered at North Haven, June 1, 1760, soon after the Death of the Rev. Isaac Stiles.
2. The most important Question Considered and Answered: or A Saving Faith, Scripturally explained, in Two Sermons [from Acts xvi:30, 31], preached at Meriden, August 10, 1760.
3. The Ministerial Work great and important, arduous and difficult; yet pleasant, noble and honorable. A Sermon [from I Cor. i:17], Preached at the Ordination of the Rev. Mr. Matthew Merriam, to the Pastoral Office in Berwick, 25th Sept. 1765.
Matthew Merriam was the son of Captain Nathaniel and Mr. Hall fitted the young man for college and then made a journey of over 200 miles to the province of Maine to preach at his ordination.1
Mr. Hall married May 21, 1734, Hannah Avery and he died of pleurisy in Meriden on March 25, 1767, at the age of sixty, survived by his widow and seven children and universally lamented.
It is a pity that there is no portrait of Mr. Hall in existence, and that there are so few facts in his life that have come down to us. He left to his beloved church a sum of money with which to buy a "fashionable" communion cup, which the writer is under the impression is still in existence. His body lies in the ceme- tery on Meeting House Hill and the slab that covers the grave is in better condi- tion than almost any other stone in the yard.
There are a few of his descendants still living in Meriden.
1 See Dexter's Yale Biographies and Annals, Vol. I., p. 353.
Theophilus Hall
Facsimile from a receipt in possession of Wm. B. Rice.
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A CENTURY OF MERIDEN.
CHAPTER X.
Had Parson Hall occasion to go to Pilgrims' Harbor on a day in 1740 to call on his friend, John Merriam, he would have left his house on Curtis street and turned to the north up the road and perhaps stopped a few moments to chat with his parishioner, Daniel Bradley, busy at the anvil in his blacksmith shop beside the house. We can fancy Daniel hastening to the door, cap in hand, to pay his re- spects to the dominie and inquiring if the last job of horseshoeing had been sat- isfactory. Daniel had only just come to Meriden, having bought the house that was built by Lazarus Ives, son of John, who lived on Misery road. Lazarus had built the place about 1730, and lived in it quite ten years. Daniel Bradley stayed here only a few years and then sold the place to Daniel Hough, who lived in it many years ; he was the father of Dr. Insign Hough and of Mindwell, who married Benjamin Curtis, and became the mother of the fourteen children. It was owned by Isaac Lewis for a while and in it the late Isaac C. Lewis, his son, was born. A great many years ago it was bought by Samuel Curtis and in it his son, the late Captain Alfred P. Curtis lived and here were born Mrs. George A. Fay, his daughter, and Alfred W. Curtis, his son, who still lives in the old house, but has altered it so much that if Daniel Bradley were to come back to look for his for- mer home and blacksmith shop he would never dream that the dwelling, No. 160 Curtis street, was the place he was seeking.
The photograph was taken in 1868; against the fence leans George A. Fay. Mrs. Fay is just behind it and Captain Alfred is in the background at the right, and his son, Alfred W., in front, while at the extreme left stands Frank S. Fay.
Following the steps of Rev. Mr. Hall we would go up the street, past the house of Benjamin Curtis, until we reached a spot a little south of his new dwelling ; here the parson would turn to the left to follow the street leading to Pilgrims' Har- bor. At this corner, on the south side, was a house that disappeared probably nearly a hundred years ago. In it lived Captain John Webb. For many years Captain Webb was a well known figure and influential man in Meriden, and pos- sessed of considerable wealth. He came here from Wethersfield in 1729 and built his house which stood perhaps a hundred feet east of the present home of Mrs. Juliette Y. Curtis, No. 309 Broad street.
Captain Webb and his wife lived until 1799. When he died he left no children and willed the greater part of his estate to his kinsman, Benjamin Hart, whose aunt he had married. He doubtless tore down the old house and erected the present home of Mrs. Curtis on the then new turnpike.
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EARLY HISTORY.
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DANIEL HOUGH, OR ALFRED P. CURTIS HOMESTEAD.
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CENTURY OF MERIDEN.
Captain Webb's kindness of heart was so great that he left his two negro slaves, Joe and Daphy Prinn, a handsome competence, and gave them their free- dom. They afterwards lived on Paddock avenue, near the home of another ex- slave, Chatham Freeman (who had earned his freedom by serving in the Revolu- tion in place of his master, Noah Yale). His house stood on Paddock avenue, near the private driveway leading to the home of Charles Z. Murdock. The commis- sions of John Webb as lieutenant and captain hang in the Curtis Memorial library. The farm was a large one and extended westerly quite to the property of the Curtis Home, and was bounded on the north partly by the highway to be de- scribed and the farm of Rev. Theophilus Hall. This highway passed to the west from Curtis street, following the general line of New street until it reached present Elm street when it turned diagonally to the northwest until it met Olive street, and then westerly in the same direction now followed by that street to Country road or Colony street. At its junction on the south side was the home of Stephen Atwater already mentioned. Olive street, east of the junction with this old street was not in existence until many years later. This highway now described must have been the course of the parson to the house of his friend, John Merriam, standing in what is now the junction of Main and Colony streets.
If the parson had wished to visit his friend, Deacon Samuel Royce, he would have passed south down Curtis street until he came to the road that runs west and comes out on Colony street just south of the South Farms school house near Archer's corner. This road passes just south of Sacred Heart cemetery and is the only means of approach. The land in that vicinity for many acres around once belonged to the Cowles family. In houses that have long since disappeared north and south of the road lived Deacon Ebenezer Cowles and his sons, Joseph, Jr. and Ebenezer, Jr. In the house on the south side was born Elisha, the father of Major Elisha A. Cowles, the most prominent figure in Meriden in the first half of the last century. This Cowles family was not related to the Cole family that owned the large farm in the north part of Meriden, so far as we know, al- though the names were the same originally. The first of the Cowles family to live in Meriden was Joseph, who came here from Farmington, and married Abi- gail, the daughter of Samuel Royce on July 13, 1699. His father-in-law gave him a farm just south of Archer's corner in South Farms district and in the year 1701, 107 acres up the hill on the old highway down which we can fancy the good parson descending after stopping, perhaps, to chat with some of this Cowles fam- ily, who were always very prominent in church matters. It is difficult to believe that on the summit of this hill, called Ox Hill, there was once a colony of Cowleses and also Rices, for so far as the writer can discover there is not the least remnant of the depression of a cellar to mark the site of a house anywhere in the vicinity : but there is no doubt that here they lived for several generations. The highway
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EARLY HISTORY.
was laid out in 1723, following a path. It runs through from Colony street to Yale avenue,just north of the farmhouse of Levi Yale.
As has already been mentioned the South Farms district was at first called Milking Yard and later Royce's (or Rice's as we may now begin to call it; for at this date the name began to assume the modern form) Farms. But this later name embraced a much larger tract than that known as South Farms.
It began at the town line and extended up Colony or Country road on both sides, until it embraced a large part of what is Walnut Grove cemetery to-day and it stretched over the hill to the west, for some distance, perhaps including the farm of Rev. Samuel Whittlesey, once known as Town Farm, which has already been described as bounded on the west by Town Rock, and on the south by the river ; and also the Rice farms to the north. Every member of the Rice family in Meri- den except Nathaniel, seems to have located his home farm in this territory, al- though like all the other planters they owned other tracts in various parts of the town. Robert Royce, the pioneer, came to this country about 1631 and landed in Boston just in time to get into that theological dispute which twisted the budding town into a turmoil of religious controversy and centered around Mrs. Hutchin- son and which was such a mixture of metaphysical and religious problems that it is doubtful if any one to-day knows what it was all about. Robert got away safely and went to Stratford and the next we know of him he was in New Lon- don, where he was elected a delegate to the General Court in Hartford, and was a respected and influential man. His four sons, Nehemiah, Samuel, Nathaniel and Isaac, came to Wallingford among the first planters, and all of them except Na- thaniel took the major part of their land grants at Milking Yard, although, doubt- less, having their homes in Wallingford village. These four sons were the fath- ers of numerous sons, and to many of them were given the paternal and fraternal names, with utter disregard to the trouble that was to be the lot of those of modern days who should attempt to assign to each his proper place in a genealogical tree. But out of the tangle we can, at least, extricate these facts. Samuel had a son, Robert, born in 1674, to whom he gave a large tract of land in 1706, at the south- ern end of Milking Yard, and adjoining the farm of his son-in-law, Joseph Cowles : it was north and west of it. One gift conveyed 100 acres and there were subsequent gifts and purchases. It was this Robert who made the deposition in 1748 about the Country farms and Cole's Path.1 His farm extended beyond the river on the west, and was bounded on the east by the Country road. His house stood where the Archer homestead is located. This house cannot have been built as long ago as 1706, although it is a very old one. The earliest notice of the present one was in 1740 when the highway running west from it was opened. This road avent directly across the river and did not curve towards the northwest and cross
1 See page 91. 9
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1
130
A CENTURY OF MERIDEN.
at the point where the bridge is now located. This dwelling is one of the best pre- served of the old colonial homes in Meriden.
It has been kept in fine repair and there have been many additions, notwith- standing which, the line of the lean-to can be plainly traced. The interior, perhaps, better preserves the appearance of age than the exterior. Robert, like several other members of the Rice family, was a deacon and a man of substance and in- fluence. At the end of the eighteenth century a part of the farm containing the dwelling was sold to John Nott by one of the Rice heirs and on December 5, 1801, he sold it to Caleb Wilcox. At his death about 1830, Mrs. Maria Carter, an heir of Mr. Wilcox, became the owner and in 1866 she sold it to Mrs. Harriet A. Archer, the wife of Dr. H. A. Archer. It is now owned by their daughter, Mrs. Agnes C. Butler.
Photo by R. S. Godfrey. DEACON ROBERT ROYCE, OR DR. H. A. ARCHER PLACE.
North of the Robert Rice farm was one that originally belonged to Isaac Rice but later was bought of his heirs by Dr. William Hough as early as 1730. The greater part of his farm is now included in Walnut Grove cemetery. Dr. Hough was the second physician mentioned on the Wallingford records. He was the uncle of Daniel Hough who lived on Curtis street and great uncle of Dr. Insign Hough, Daniel's son. Dr. William Hough leased a part of his farm "west from his house," to an association of Meriden men for mining copper in 1736. It ad- joined the Golden Parlor Mining Co.'s operations on the west, and as every one knows, the remains of the shafts of this latter company can still be seen in the
I3I
EARLY HISTORY.
west part of the cemetery. Dr. Hough lived here until 1740 when he moved to Cheshire and later to Haddam.
That this is the original house it is impossible to assert. But it is certainly a very old dwelling and it occupies the site of the Dr. Hough home. Age has raised havoc with the floor beams and sills in the cellar, and it has been found necessary to reinforce and strengthen them. After the doctor moved away, his son William lived here and had a blacksmith shop adjoining his house, for he was the smith of Rice's farms. About the year 1800 it was bought by Cornelius Hull who lived in it a few years. In the year 1807 Ichabod Wood, who came here from North Haven, acquired the property, and he and his son, Norman, lived here with their families many years. At his death in 1843 Ichabod owned a farm of 112 acres, which was inherited by Norman, and the old house is known to most
Photo by R. S. Godfrey.
DR. WILLIAM HOUGH, OR NORMAN B. WOOD PLACE.
Meriden people as the Norman Wood place. The house and farm were bought more than twenty years ago by the Walnut Grove Cemetery association. There is no prettier stretch of meadow in Meriden, rolling as it does in gentle slopes that open here and there with glimpses of further hills and dales, while in the distance the spires of Wallingford lend a quiet and peaceful charm to the landscape that is in harmony with the environment.
We left the Reverend Theophilus coming down Ox Hill and by this time he has doubtless had his little chat with Deacon Robert Rice and is now well up the road towards Doctor Hough's, so we will join him and continue on his course,
32
A CENTURY OF MERIDEN.
topping a moment while he steps to the door of Daniel Holt's to see that all is ell within. The site of this house is now occupied by a modern dwelling, a quare, flat-roofed structure opposite the north entrance to the cemetery. The oad now running east a few hundred feet north of this house is an old one and was laid out in 1723 and we call it Holt's Hill road. It ran also west from Colony road until it joined the road that was laid out in 1744 to mark Vallingford north bounds. Much of the west highway is still in existence, al- hough the entrance to it on Colony street is now almost a cliff owing to the cut hat has been made in this latter road. The parson passes on this road to the west,
EZEKIEL, OR OLIVER RICE PLACE.
ordered by fields and meadows belonging now to Daniel Holt and now to Sam- el Rice, in an inextricable confusion that only the original owners could disen- angle ; no house meets his view for a long distance until he descends the hill and rosses Pilgrim:' Harbor brook. Here in the meadow, south of the road, was e home of his faithful friend, Deacon Samuel Rice, the son of the original Sam- el who came to Wallingford at the birth of the town in 1670. This house dis- ppeared many years ago and it is doubtful if now the remains of the cellar could e discovered. Deacon Samuel and his uncle, Nathaniel, the trusty friend of the ole family, were frequently deputies to the General Court and were prominent
I33
EARLY HISTORY.
in every way. In the old house lived Samuel1 and it was afterwards owned by his son, Ezekiel, who was a soldier in the French and Indian wars and rejoiced in the title of Esquire. His son, Ezekiel, Jr., who was a soldier in the Revolutionary war, built the house now standing, on land given him by his father, in 1781.
It is a style different from any other ancient dwelling in Meriden in that it has two chimneys, one at either end, and through the middle runs a hallway. The house is so sheltered by fine old trees and the ground is so graded to meet the style of dwelling that there seems to be a sort of mutual adaptability, the ef- fect of which is heightened by the small picket fence in front. Altogether the house has the appearance of belonging there because it grew there, and about it is a quaintness and quiet charm that is very pleasing and restful. The broad acres of the farm extend in all directions in pastoral beauty, and the effect of the homestead is so striking that it is only necessary to call it the Oliver Rice place to identify it in every one's mind who has lived in Meriden long enough to become familiar with the country round about. In their ancestral home still live Miss Anna C. and William T. Rice with their mother, the widow of the late Oliver Rice, while another daughter, the wife of Dr. E. W. Smith, lives in a house not far away, built by her husband on a part of the home farm.
Among the first planters of Wallingford appears the name of Samuel Andrews, son of William, who signed the Fundamental Agreement of New Ha- ven in 1639, and was one of the twelve appointed to choose among themselves the men who were to be the pillars of the new church, and built the first meeting house there. Altogether this William was an important man in New Haven colony. Samuel, the grandson of Samuel the first of Wallingford, bought several tracts of land in Meriden parish during the decade from 1720 in the western part of the town that aggregated 200 to 300 acres. It may be roughly stated as bound- .d by the Merriam farm on the north or West Main street, the Stephen Atwater farm on the east, or Cook avenue ; it ran south to Harbor brook and perhaps some- what beyond, certainly including Hemlock grove, and on the west it ran over nearly to Allen avenue.
It is impossible to give thoroughly accurate bounds of any of these old farms, for the planters were constantly buying and selling land, and in proportion to the inhabitants the number of transfers were vastly greater than they are to-day. Land and cattle were about all they had to sell, and the old records fairly groan under the number of entries, and the position of town clerk was no sinecure.
The Andrews family, like most of the others, was numerous and their position in the community was always an eminently respectable one, although their early alliance with the Church of England seems to have prevented their holding many town offices. The house of Samuel Andrews stood in the rear and slightly to
1 He had a family of 16 children.
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A CENTURY OF MERIDEN.
the east of the old house at No. 412 West Main street. It probably was built as early as 1727 but disappeared many years ago. In it were born all his family. One son, Laban, who lived in Wallingford village, until late in life, was se- iectman during, or a good part of, the Revolution, while another, Samuel the youngest son, was minister of the Episcopal church there and had a not very pleas- ant experience during the same war. One of the sons, Moses, built a dwelling,
MOSES ANDREWS PLACE.
probably about the year 1760, that is still in existence and stands on West Main street, at No. 424, a large, comfortable old colonial house that is still in good re- pair. When St. Andrew's Society was formed in 1789, the organization took place in this house and here for several years the Sunday services were held, Moses Andrews frequently acting as lay reader.
For many years this family was the mainstay of the Episcopal church in Meriden.
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EARLY HISTORY.
The highway leading from the Oliver Rice farm, which originally came up to West Main street about in the line of Capitol avenue, was opened in the year 1780. This is the highway that runs on the west side of the William Bradley place now used by the Meriden Golf Club for their links. If we re- turn by this highway to the road running by the Oliver Rice place we can follow it on its old course eastward and when we come to Colony road we still keep on in the same direction up Holt's Hill. To the south was the farm of Daniel Holt, as already noted; on the north was that of Arthur Rexford, who came here about the year 1737 to run the Golden Parlor mine on the Dr. Hough farm. Rex-
ABEL ROYCE, OR WILLIAM W. PLUMB PLACE.
ford's1 farm ran from Colony road well up the hill ; bounded south by Holt's Hill road ; it extended north nearly as far as the Curtis Home property and although the Rexfords did not stay here many years it was known by their name for a long time. During the time of the Revolution it was the property of a man named Jauncy, who joined the enemy, and consequently the farm was confiscated by the colonial or state government and sold as a Tory farm. Jauncy never lived here. His home was in New York and he was a rich man. When we reach the top of the hill we come to the Plumb farm. This house, standing on the south of the road
1 He bought his farm of Daniel Holt and Abel Royce.
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A CENTURY OF MERIDEN.
near the junction of Gale avenue, was once probably the home of Abel Rice. At least, his house was on this site and the present one is apparently a very old dwelling.
Abel Rice was the son of Samuel and was born in 1700 and this land came into his possession in 1722, a gift from his father. He appears to have been living on this farm as early as 1733. The house is certainly a very ancient one ; although it has lost some of its original features, it still preserves sufficient to show that it was built in the days when the great massive beams in the ceilings of kitchen and parlor showed their strength by boldly crossing from the great chimney to the outside walls without being concealed. The great chimney has disappeared and there have been several additions built.
JAMES HOUGH, OR JAMES BALDWIN HOMESTEAD.
The house continued in the Rice family until the last years of the eighteenth century when Solomon died and his widow married Israel Hall. It was then known by this latter name. Finally William Yale bought it and at his death in 1833 it was left to his daughter Mary, the wife of Francis A. Gale, and has con- tinued in that family since. It is now the home of her daughter, the widow1 of William W. Plumb. The photograph was taken about thirteen years ago, before some of the present additions had been built.
1 Deceased since this was written.
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EARLY HISTORY.
There were two other ancient farms of which no mention has been made. The first was the Hough farm in the northeast part of the town. It was located on what is known as the Westfield road, and included a large tract of land. Samuel Hough, the immediate progenitor of the Meriden family, owned a tract of land that is at present known as the Joseph Hough farm; it is south of the old Yale farm, just over in the Wallingford line, and it includes the Spruce Glen or Gutter district, where Samuel apparently owned and worked a sawmill at an early date. He was the father of Dr. William Hough, whose home has been described, and also of James Hough, who in the year 1730 bought of the Way family two acres of land in the bend of the Harbor ; sufficient as the deed says for a sawmill to stand on. In the early days that part of Harbor brook was always called the "bend." The pond was then constructed and the mill site we now know as Bald- win's ; but it continued to be known as Hough's until 1796 when James Baldwin bought an interest. He was the ancestor of several of the Baldwin families in Mer- iden, notably Moses (whose son, Nathan S.,1 still has his home in the northeast dis- trict) and Ransom, who was the father of Mrs. Russell Hall and Mrs. Benjamin Kennard, of this city. The old James Hough homestead was built probably as early as 1740.
As may readily be perceived, it is a very ancient building, and when the pho- tograph was taken it still preserved its stone chimney. It was acquired by James Baldwin after he bought the mill property and it is now the home of Gardner W. Reynolds. It stands on the north side of the road, several hundred feet east of the mill. East of it stood until a few years ago an old house known as the Phineas Hough dwelling, built by a son of James. North and east of the Hough property was the large farm of James Scovill. He came to Meriden as early as 1721 from Middletown, and for several generations the Scovill family was prominent and well known in Meriden, but the name has become extinct in this vicinity. The late Henry S. Wilcox and his son, Albert H.,2 are descendants of this family. The Scovill houses have all disappeared, one or two of them by fire.
The highway leading to these Hough and Scovill farms, known now as Bri- tannia street and Westfield road, was laid out in 1739. Wall street, which was also laid out in the same year, led from Liberty street to Hough's or Baldwin's Mill ; both roads when laid out or adopted by the selectmen followed ancient paths.
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