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 21
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1
SITE OF THE OLD BELCHER FARM.
Arrow No. 1 indicates the site of the Gilbert or Belcher tavern; No. 2 indicates the site of the old stone house or fort, and No. 3 indicates residence of A. R. Yale adjoining.
from the chance traveler, to get their mail, and to exchange notes and observations on crops and live stock. No one was permitted to become an inn-keeper without the recommendation of the selectmen, and a license obtained from the county court. It was a profession of eminent respectability, even if considerable liquor was sold.
There was one tavern keeper in Meriden who was relieved of the necessity of obtaining a license, and he was the owner of the stone house and Belcher tavern 15
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CENTURY OF MERIDEN.
on Meriden Farm. John Yale, who with Jedediah Norton had bought the west- ern part of this old farm, in the division of the same with Norton, took the south- ern half which included the tavern. He ran the inn for a number of years and then gave it to his son, Nash Yale, in 1750.
Nash continued as proprietor until 1763 when he sold it to Yale Bishop, of New Haven, perhaps a relative.
In June, 1770, appears the following advertisement in the Connecticut Journal :
"To be sold or let by the Subscriber : The noted House and Homestead in the Parish of Meriden, in the Town of Wallingford where he now lives, containing about one hundred acres with a suitable Proportion of Meadow, Pasture, Plow and Wood Land. The Buildings are all convenient, and in good Repair. The house is a licensed House by the colony. Whoever Purchases the Premises will have a right to keep a House of Entertainment: it lies on the Great Road leading from Boston to New York thro' Hartford and New Haven, and is tho't by good Judges to be the best stand for a Tavernkeeper in the Colony. The Purchaser may have credit for the whole a number of years, with good Security if required, on Interest. For the Terms either of purchasing or hiring, apply to the subscriber, on the Premises, who will give a good Title. Yale Bishop."
The wife of Mr. Bishop died in 1766 and lies in the old cemetery on Meeting House hill and on her tombstone it is recorded that she "was buried with her in- fant on her arm."
There has been for many years a tradition that whoever owned the old tavern had a right to keep a place of entertainment forever, and its truth is settled by the statement in the advertisement. The right had been given by the General Court in 1662 when it granted to Mr. Gilbert the right to keep an inn. In other words the authority was above that of the county court to which every other tav- ern keeper in Meriden or the colony was obliged to apply.
On May 24, 1773, an execution on the tavern was taken by Jonathan Fitch, of New Haven, and the place soon passed into the hands of James Jauncey of New York. As Mr. Jauncey was a Tory, the farm was confiscated during the Revolu- tionary war and sold by the state to Watt Hubbard. It is probable that Mr. Hub- bard kept a tavern here for a while and then disposed of it to Seth De Wolf. It subsequently passed into the possession of Asaph Merriam, who gave it to his son, Sidney. At what date its use as a tavern ceased the writer does not know»
Mention has already been made of Josiah Robinson's tavern, which was the really important one, according to the ancient almanacs.
Aaron Lyman was given the right to keep a tavern in 1757 by the county court and the same authority conferred a like distinction on John Webb in 1752 and 1753. But the business was short lived in the case of these two gentlemen. Daniel Hough also maintained an inn for one year in 1767. Brenton Hall in 1765 and
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EARLY HISTORY.
Bezaleel Ives in 1769-1772 and 1774 did likewise. Dr. Insign Hough bought the old Central Hotel property in 1792 of the heirs of Samuel Hall, the son of Rev. Theophilus, and in it he very soon started his tavern. The writer has been unable to discover the record giving him the authority to maintain an inn. We have al- ready read the notice in the New Haven paper giving an account of the dinner at his house at which sat down Esq. Aaron Lyman and his wife, Capt. John Webb and his wife, Phinehas Hough and his wife, Noah Yale and his wife and the widow Sarah Yale, which would indiciate that they were in a public house. In the Mid- dlesex Gazette of Nov. 26, 1791, appears the following: "Lee Hall advertises an elegant two story House in Meriden ; good for merchant or tavern." Mr. Hall was executor of Samuel's estate.
Letter writing was probably not very common in Meriden in the eighteenth century, but taverns were used in lieu of post offices in small communities, and the post rider left there the mail to be delivered, and took thence letters to be sent away. We obtain a slight glimpse of the post rider in the issue of the Connecti- cut Journal under date of Feb. 2, 1770:
"Last Monday evening, the Hartford Post, having arrived at his stage in Wallingford, and but just entered the House, when his Horse and Mail were taken away: The Horse was soon found, but the Mail was missing: after search- ing for several Hours, it was found, near a Mile from the stage, broke open, tho' none of the Letters were gone. The Villain who committed this most audacious Offence has not yet been discovered."
For the convenience of the traveling public which was constantly growing in numbers as the colony increased in population it was determined by the General Assembly to erect on the great thoroughfares, mile stones, which would tell the wayfarer his distance from the county town ; so, at the October session, 1767, the following resolution was passed:1
"Be it enacted by the Governor, Council, and Representatives in General Court Assembled, and by the authority of the same,
That it shall be the duty of the selectmen in the several towns on the several post roads in this Colony, at the expense of such town to erect and keep up stones, at least two feet high, near the side of the common travelling road, marked with the distances from the county town of the county where such town lyes, according to the mensuration lately made by public order."2
1 Conn. Col. Rec. Vol. XII., p. 608.
2 Alice Morse Earle in her entertaining book entitled "Home Life in Colonial Days" has this to say relative to mile stones : "Benjamin Franklin set mile stones the entire way on the post-road from Boston to Philadelphia. He rode in a chaise over the road; and a machine which he had invented was at- tached to the chaise; and it was certainly the first cyclometer that went on that road, over which so many cyclometers have passed during the last five years. It measured the miles as he traveled.
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CENTURY OF MERIDEN.
There are three of these old mile stones still to be seen in Meriden, doubtless erected in conformity with this law. One is on the east side of Colony street in front of the Swift Company building, No. 57; another in front of the residence of Junius S. Norton, No. 596, and the third a mile north, in front of the old Eli Way farm, now owned by E. H. Higginson.
There was for a short time another industry in Meriden that brought good luck to no one, except possibly to the workmen who labored underground to bring to light the hidden wealth of copper or gold that was supposed to lurk in certain localities in Meriden. A quite full account of this enterprise is given in Mr. Per- kins' Historical Sketches of Meriden. His information was gained from certain papers and documents in possession of Deacon Silas Rice : the Deacon is long since deceased but the papers are still in possession of his grandson, William B. Rice.
Copper deposits or veins were discovered in Wallingford in the year 1712, possibly through the prospecting of Gov. Jonathan Belcher or his agents. At any rate in that year articles of agreement were drawn up between William Partridge and Jonathan Belcher on the one part and a committee representing the inhabitants of Wallingford on the other. The right to dig for minerals was granted, and various acts were passed by the General Assembly to safeguard and protect the industry. The mines were dug in what is now the southeastern part of Cheshire near or on the old Bellamy farm. Other mines were established in Simsbury, in that part now set off as Granby, which later developed into the famous old Newgate prison. How much copper was mined in Wallingford there is no way of learning. We know that Jonathan Belcher and his partners expended large sums in their ven- ture and that it resulted in loss to all concerned.
As late as 1732 Mr. Belcher was still interested in the Wallingford mines, for in that year he sent a Mr. North Ingham, of Boston, with a letter of introduction to Rev. Samuel Whittlesey of Wallingford, saying that Ingham was come to view the mines and that he was a partner with Mr. Con11 Adam Winthrop, of Boston. Mr. Ingham was still living in the vicinity of the mines in 1740. Undoubtedly more copper was produced in the Granby mines than in Wallingford.
The mines in Meriden had no connection with the Wallingford operations and were sunk by an entirely different set of men. On Feb. 8, 1735-6, Edw. Burroughs, of Stratford, leased to Jeremiah Atwater, Nathaniel Merriam, Samuel Austin, and others, a tract of land containing fifty acres for digging for all manner of minerals.1 The lease specifies that the land is located just south of the Belcher farm and in the east part of the Burroughs farm. The spot where the prospecting was done
When he had ridden a mile he stopped ; from a heavy cart loaded with mile stones, which kept alongside the chaise, a stone was dropped, which was afterwards set by a gang of men." Mrs. Earle does not give the authority for this statement; but the writer does not believe Franklin was responsible for the mile stones in Meriden. The vote of the Colonial Court makes certain the pedigree of Connecticut mile stones.
1 Wallingford land records, Vol. 7, p. 476.
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EARLY HISTORY.
is on a hill east of the Hartford trunpike about a mile north of Britannia street. Beautiful specimens of clear crystal quartz have been picked up on this hill by many now living, and it was fondly hoped by our predecessors of a hundred and seventy years ago that here gold would be found. It is doubtful if anything more than a mere scratching of the surface was ever attempted by these gentlemen in their vain quest for gold. There is no evidence that actual mining operations were begun.
On the hill in the western part of Walnut Grove cemetery are the remains of an ancient working known as Golden Parlor Mine. There are two adjoining shafts still to be seen which were excavated to a depth of twelve or fifteen feet. From the shafts, galleries or drifts led to the west a good many feet. The farms of Dr. William Hough and Timothy Roys were adjoining and ran from the Coun- try road to the river on the west. That of Timothy's was wholly west of Dr. Hough's and the common boundary was somewhere on the hill or crest where the mines were dug. The Hough farm and quite a portion of the Roys holdings were during the greater part of the last century in the possession of the Wood family, and the writer has been told by Norman S. Wood and his nephew, Charles H., that when they lived on the farm it was possible to penetrate quite a distance into the old drifts. In one of the shafts the present superintendent of the ceme- tery, Fred F. Bowen, found quite a nugget of copper and also the remains of one of the ancient iron hammers, probably used by the workmen in the olden days. It is not positive that the present shafts, were those of the Golden Parlor mine on the Roys lease or were made by those who were digging for copper on the Hough farm. The mines were not far apart.
On the Wallingford land records under date of Feb. 2, 1735-6, appears a sale of the right to mine copper on the farm of Dr. Hough by Thomas Foster to Nathaniel Bacon and Josiah Wetmore, of Middletown, for £20.1 On Feb. 20, 1735-6, Dr. Hough executed a new lease of the property to Samuel Dwight, Seth Wetmore, Nathaniel Bacon, Josiah Wetmore and Edward Higbee of Middletown, and Jonathan and Robert Collins of Meriden : the consideration being "one-fifth part of all dug out upon said land at the end of every month."2
On March 13, 1736-7, Timothy Roys leased the right to mine copper on his side of the line, which perhaps subsequently grew into the Golden Parlor Mine.3 The lessees divided up the property in the following proportions : Edward Higbee, I-3 part ; Thomas Thomas, 1-6 part ; Walter Henderson, 1-6 part ; John Way, I-30 part ; Arthur Rexford, I-15 part ; Benjamin Roys, I-15 part ; Samuel Andrews, I-15 part ; Daniel Higbee, I-30 part, and unassigned I-15 part.
Mr. Perkins copied4 the documents relating to this mine, in the possession of Deacon Silas Rice, and they are here reproduced :
1 Wallingford land records, Vol. VII., p. 401.
2 idem, p. 436.
3 idem, p. 428.
4 Historical Sketches of Meriden, p. 78. et seq.
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A CENTURY OF MERIDEN.
"Articles of Agreement made and concluded upon this twenty Seventh day of April Anno Domini 1737 Between Edward Higbee of Middletown and Walter Henderson of Hartford, both of ye county of Hartford, and Thomas Thomas of New York, Arthur Rexford, Sam" Andrews, Benj Royse, all of Wallingford, in ye county of Newhaven, and Colony of Connecticut, and Daniel Higbay of Mid- dletown in ye county of Hartford afores'd, and Josiah Griswold, Thomas Goodwin, Benjamin Stillman, John Pierce, all of Wethersfield in ye county aforesaid, Pro- prietors and Joint owners of a certain piece of land or mines in said Wallingford, as leased out to them by Timothy Royce of sd Wallingford, as will appear by said Lease, reference there unto being had to carry on the work in said Mines, Wit- nesseth that we the s'd partys do covenant and agree to, and with each other, and do hereby oblidge and bind our Selves to Stand to, and perform the following articles viz :
I. That the name of sd Mine, shall be Golden Parlour.
2. That the Work to be done in said Mines shall be ordered by a vote of ye Majority of ye owners, and ye costs and charge arising on ye work in said mines shall be paid according to ye proportions of each owner's part.
3.
That each owners vote shall be in proportion to what part he owns.
4. That if any owner or owners cannot attend ye meeting or meetings ap- pointed by ye Majority of ye owners in order to manage ye affairs of said mine, they shall have liberty to appoint any of ye owners to vote or act in his or their behalf, and said owner so appointed shall vote or act therein, shall be Esteemed as good and valid as if the owner appointing was himself present.
5. That Mr. Benj. Royce be a Clark to Enter and keep ye votes that may from time to time be passed by the owners or the majority of said owners untill ye said owners shall chuse another in his room in which case ye said Royce is to deliver all ye votes he has Entered and kept in ye Hands of said owners.
6. That the last Wednesday of July, October, January and April, be days, Stated for ye meeting of said owners at Meriden, to make up the acc'tts of said mine, and also to pay what Charge or Cost may arise between each Meeting to ye Satisfaction of ye undertaker, and if ye majority of ye owners shall think fitt to order a meeting on any other time or times besides those herein Stated ye meetings so ordered and ye affairs managed therein shall be good and valid.
7. That these articles be committed into ye Hands of ye Clark for ye time be- ing, and if any of ye owners desire a Copy hereof, ye said Clark shall give it him at- tested under his Hand, he or they satisfying him therefor.
In confirmation of ye above mentioned articles, we the subscribers, have here- unto Sett our Hands and Seals in Meriden, the Day and Date above mentioned
Edward Higbee L. S. Samuel Andrus L. S. Thomas Goodwin L. S. Josiah Griswold L. S. John Pierce L. S. Benjamin Roys L. S. Arthur Rexford L. S. Thomas Thomas L. S. B. Stilman L. S.
23I
EARLY HISTORY.
In Presence of
Amos hall
Moses Parse Jr Wm Hough"
Truly, the above is very much like a modern business document.
"A Record kept by Benjamin Roys, Clark of the proprietors of the mines in the land of Timothy Roys in wollingford
February ye II 1736-7. Then the owners of the mines in the land of Timothy Roys in Wallingford, being Regularly met together at the hous of John Way in Wallingford, did then make up their Acounts of the Charge expended in the mines from 8 of November 1736 Which Charg did amount to the Sum of 86 £ 4s 2d.
At a meeting of the proprietors of the mines in the land of Timothy Roys in Wallingford, February ye II 1736-7. The said oneers did make A fair agree- ment with Arther Rexford, one of the owners, to Dig ten foot in the north Shaft of said mines keeping the Smoth wals east and west and about five foot wide find- ing himself Tools and materials for the Same to be done. in five months, for which work the said proprietors did unanimously agree to give Said Rexford the Sum of eighty-one pounds-81 £-o-o.
At a meeting of the Proprietors of ye Mine in Meriden on ye 27th day of April I737.
Voted, that mr. Griswold Shold be moderator for Said meeting.
That Thomas Thomas be an undertaker to carry on the work in Said Mine for ye Space of three months next ensuing.
That ye s'd Thos. Thomas be allowed at the rate of fifteen pounds per month, for so much time as he spends in said service, the time of pay to begin when the Hands begin to work in said mine.
That Arthur Rexford having desired to be released from a bargain he made to sink a shaft of ten feet deep in s'd mine that he be released.
At a meeting of ye proprietors of ye Mine in Meriden on ye 27th day of July, I737.
Voted That Mr Grizwold be Moderator for s'd Meeting. Also Voted by a full Vote the majority of ye owners, that ye owners according to their proportionable parts, pay to Georg Bell the Sum of fourty pounds, upon his finishing a job of work he had undertaken to do in the Golden Parler, viz: to sink twelve feet in the deeper Shaft nerest to docter houghs and to leave the bottom of the Shaft nere the wedth and length that it now is, to find him Self with all materials &c. necisary and Sutable to cary on and finish Said work.
And at s'd meeting, July ye 27 1737, the s'd owners made up their acounts which did amount to the sum of 132 € 13s Id."
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A CENTURY OF MERIDEN.
These records comprise all the knowledge we have of the doings of the Golden Parlor Mine association. There is a tradition that a cargo of ore was shipped to England and the vessel was lost at sea and the owners were so discouraged by this misfortune that the mines were abandoned.
But Dr. Hough was at work at the mines on his side of the hill 18 years later. At this time he was living in Haddam and the farm was the homestead of his son, William Hough, Jr., the blacksmith. On March 21, 1755, the son mortgaged the farm to his father and this clause occurs in the deed: "The condition of the above obligation is such that if the above William Hough shall allow his said father free liberty at the mines on the west end of his home lot to dig for ore as he shall see fit, and shall have liberty to cut timber for the use of the mines or digging drains or whatever shall be needful for carrying on the work, and shall have liberty to pass to said mines, on the south side of his home lot, from the highway, to the mines for carting,"1 etc., etc.
These records make it very doubtful to the writer whether the remains of the shafts in the western part of Walnut Grove cemetery were those made by the Golden Parlor Mine Company or by Dr. William Hough and his lessees.
It is a singular fact that in 1754 the mining fever should have found a victim in one of Wallingford's fair damsels. That distinguished divine, Rev. Samuel Whittlesey, for many years pastor of the church in Wallingford, and one of the most popular clergymen in the colony, had a daughter, Katharine, who married on May 8, 1759, the Rev. James Dana, successor in the pastorate to the Rev. Samuel. On Nov. 29th, 17542 Katharine bought of the heirs of Timothy Roys all right to the mines and minerals that had formerly been leased to the Golden Parlor Mining Co., and on December 4th3 following she bought of Timothy, Jr., 18 acres, which contained the mines in question. What she did with the property there is no record left to tell us.
Mr. Perkins says that nearly one hundred and fifty years ago Dan Johnson bought large tracts of land in the Hanging Hills district in the hope of finding minerals in sufficient quantities to make the venture pay and mentions "Within the 'Notch' is an elevation called 'Mining Hill,' which is said by those acquainted with Geology to abound in indications of valuable minerals." Many will remem- ber the obstacle encountered by the city authorities when it was first proposed to locate the new water works or reservoir in the valley where "Mining Hill" is located. It was suddenly discovered or at least announced that the hill contained valuable deposits of gold and a large price was demanded. The hill is now a thickly wooded island at the south end of Merimere.
From what has been here recorded, it can readily be seen that Meriden had
1 Wallingford land records, Vol. XV., p. 587.
2 Idem, Vol. XIII., p. 231.
3 Idem p. 230.
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EARLY HISTORY.
quite a mining craze for a number of years and much money must have been lost in the ventures, for no Calumet and Hecla plum ever dropped into the pockets of Meriden's homespun coats and trousers. .
A curious inference relative to the name Hanover may be drawn from the cop- per mining industry on Milking Yard Hill, now a part of Walnut Grove cemetery. This name was adopted for the village of Falls Plain, now South Meriden, in the year 1832. Dr. Davis says in his History of Wallingford and Meriden1 that the name was decided on by the proprietors of the augur factory, and the result was announced to the people by Dr. Isaac I. Hough, on June 6, 1832. This is doubtless so ; but perhaps the name has an older pedigree than one might be led to believe by this statement. It is a fact that the workmen engaged in the copper mining industry in this colony were mostly Germans. This was the case in the Belcher mines in Wallingford and also in Simsbury, now Granby. In Phelps History of Simsbury, Granby and Canton2 the names of three of these Germans are preserved viz: John Sydervelt, Caspar Hoofman and John Christian Müller. Very close to the mines in that town were the smelting works where the ore was crushed, refined and smelted and the locality was called Hanover, because these Germans lived there, and the name of a large German city was used to describe the settlement just as to-day we frequently employ the name Dublin to designate a colony of Irishmen.
The copper mining industry in Meriden was located on the hill just east of Falls Plain and it does not take a large share of imagination to fancy that while Hanover was formally adopted in 1832 to describe the new village, it may really have been in use for a long time previously and applied to a locality in the imme- diate vicinity, just as the name Meriden, which belonged originally to the large farm in the northern part of this town, was formally adopted in 1729 for the whole parish.
PHYSICIANS.
While the practice of medicine cannot perhaps be called an industry, but rather a science and a profesion, still it is always an important part of the daily life of every community, and the proper place to treat of the early medical practitioners of Meriden would naturally seem to fall into that chapter devoted to the home life. industrial pursuits and avocations of the people.
Incidentally two or three early physicians have been mentioned. The pioneer Dr. Ebenezer Cooper, is first heard of in Meriden in 1724 when, in partnership with a Samuel Butler, he bought of John Cole, the Boston schoolmaster, a tract of 350 acres on the west side of the Country road north of the farm of Bartholomew Foster.3 This land they sold to Robert Collins, of Middletown, on May 30. 1727.
1 Page 162.
2 Page 117.
3 Wallingford land records, Vol. V, p. 15.
1 1
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A CENTURY OF MERIDEN.
Dr. Cooper must have lived on this farm for his name occurs in a list of Meriden petitioners in 1725.1 He next bought a small tract in the southeastern part of the town and the house of Wm. B. Rice, corner of Paddock and Miller avenues, occu- pies the site of the homestead of Dr. Cooper. He died in 1742 and was survived by his widow, Thankful. She was appointed administratrix of his estate at a pro- bate court held on May 8, 1742, in New Haven, and an inventory was then filed which included the following items :
House and lot : a great Bible : an old Bible : 5 books of sermons : a testament and psalter : I sermon, 7 paper books, a book of authors and a dictionary ; sundry bottles : phials and apothecary things : a lignum-vitae mortar & pestle : I pr small scales, box and weights : 3 seives : 3 Lances and 2 glasses.
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