USA > Connecticut > Hartford County > Farmington > An historical address delivered at the opening of the village library of Farmington, Conn., September 30th, 1890 > Part 12
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November, 1828, on which a six-year-old boy, afterward a gallant U. S. naval officer in the late war, made his first voyage, sailing as far south as the old South Basin. He writes me : " Long live the memory of the old ' James Hill- house,' and her jolly Captain Dickinson, who was not only a royal canal boat captain, but a famous builder, whose work still stands before you in the 'Old Red Bridge,' one of the best and most substantially built bridges of Con- necticut." On the northeast corner of the intersection of High street with the road to New Britain, long stood the house of Capt. Joseph Porter, one of the three houses on the east side of High street, with much projecting upper stories and conspicuous pendants, built about 1700. This was moved some rods up the hill when Mr. Franklin Woodford built his new house, and was burned on the evening of January 15, 1886. So there remains but one of the three houses, the one bought by Rev. Samuel Whit- man for his son, Elnathan, in 1735, and is the same house sold by John Stanley, Sen., to Capt. Ebenezer Steel in 1720. Descending to the low ground on the north and rising again, we come to the gambrel-roofed house where lived Dr. Eli Todd from 1798 until his removal to Hart- ford in 1819. Of this eminent man you will find appreci- ative notices in the two addresses of President Porter and in the article on the Connecticut Retreat for the Insane by Dr. Stearns in the Memorial History of Hartford County. He will probably be longest remembered as the first superintendent of the Connecticut Retreat for the Insane in Hartford, where his system of minimum re- straint and kind treatment opened a new era for suffering humanity. At the northern end of High street, facing the road to the river, we make our last stop at the house of Mrs. Barney, built by Capt. Judah Woodruff about 1805 for Phinehas Lewis. Between this house and the place from which we set out, there stands no house, old or
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new, to detain us longer. Thanking you for the patience with which you have endured our long walk through the village streets, I am reminded that it is time we parted company with the old worthies whom we have called up before us for the entertainment of an idle hour, remem- bering that in times gone by they were wont to hale before his Excellency the Governor such as, having assem- bled themselves together, refused to disperse until after nine of the clock.
FARMINGTON SOLDIERS IN THE COLONIAL WARS
AN
HISTORICAL ADDRESS
DELIVERED AT THE
Annual Meeting
OF
THE VILLAGE LIBRARY COMPANY OF
FARMINGTON, CONN.
September 8, 1897
By JULIUS GAY
HARTFORD, CONN. Press of The Case, Lockwood & Brainard Company IS97
FARMINGTON SOLDIERS IN THE COLONIAL WARS
AN
HISTORICAL ADDRESS
DELIVERED AT THE
Annual Meeting
OF
THE VILLAGE LIBRARY COMPANY OF
FARMINGTON, CONN.
September 8, 1897
By JULIUS GAY
HARTFORD, CONN. Press of The Case, Lockwood & Brainard Company
1897
ADDRESS.
Ladies and Gentlemen of the Village Library Company of Farmington :
I propose this evening to give some account of Farm- ington soldiers in the wars preceding the Revolution, while the colony was still under the crown. In so doing I shall consider the men of this village only, leaving out of sight the vastly more numerous residents of the ancient town, which once extended from Simsbury on the north to Cheshire on the south, and from Wethers- field westward to what is now the town of Plymouth.
The first serious conflict in which the settlers of Con- necticut were engaged was the Pequot War. This oc- curred before our village had any existence, but several of the men who afterward settled Farmington, and who here lived and died, were in the fight. That we may realize the necessity and the justifiableness of the war. let us briefly recall the situation. In the river towns of Windsor, Hartford, and Wethersfield were only about 250 adult men, and in the fort at Saybrook twenty more, under the command of Lion Gardiner. In the south- eastern corner of the colony was the powerful tribe of the Pequots, under their sachem, Sassacus; further east the Narragansetts, under Miantonimo ; and to the north the Mohegans, under the friendly Uncas; while to the west were the dreaded Mohawks. An attempt by the Pequots to unite all the tribes and wipe out the whites at one blow failed. The Narragansetts hated the Pequots more fiercely than they did the Englishmen, and Uncas was always the friend of the whites.
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In 1633 two traders of Virginia, Stone and Norton, with six other men, were murdered in their vessel as they were sailing up the river to the Dutch fort at Hartford. Three years later occurred the murder of John Oldham at Block Island, and the ill-advised attempt of Endicott from the Bay Colony to chastise without destroying the offenders called out the indignant protest of Gardiner : "You come hither to raise these wasps about my ears, and then you take wing and flee away." After the kill- ing and torture of numerous men at Saybrook, and the roasting alive of a Wethersfield man, the savages pro- ceeded to the latter place, killed seven men, a woman, · and child, and carried away two girls. This was bring- ing the war too near home, and so, in May, 1637, the Gen- eral Court at Hartford " ordered that there shall be an offensive war against the Pequot." A levy of ninety men was ordered, to be under the command of Capt. John Mason, who had learned the art of war with Fair- fax in the Netherlands. For the captain, the minister, and the sick were to be provided one hogshead of good beer, three or four gallons of strong water, and two gal- lons of sack, and for the army a vast supply of stores. On the 10th of May, 1637, the expedition sailed down the river in three vessels, with their friend Uncas and seventy of his men. The graphic account of the expedition written by Capt. Mason is quite as entertaining as any commentary of Cæsar, but we have time only to recall what every school boy has read -- the burning of the Pe- quot fort and the destruction of their power. Mason says: "Thus in little more than one hour's space was this impregnable fort, with themselves, utterly destroyed, to the number of six or seven hundred." Whatever we may think of this style of warfare, the Indians surely had no right to complain of any barbarity. No half-way measures were possible. One nation or the other must
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be exterminated. The valiant Capt. Mason closed his account with the pious exhortation : "Let us, therefore, praise the Lord for His goodness and His wonderful works to the children of men." And then, by way of postscript, says: "I shall add a word or two by way of comment. Our commons were very short.
We had but one pint of strong liquors among us in our whole march. (the bottle of liquor being in my hand), and when it was empty, the very smelling to the bottle would presently recover such as fainted away, which happened by the extremity of the heat. . I shall mention two or three special providences that God was pleased to vouchsafe to particular men. John Dier and Thomas Steel were both of them shot in the knots of their handkerchiefs, being about their necks, and received no hurt. Lieutenant Seely was shot in the eyebrow with a flat-headed arrow, the point turning downward ; I pulled it out myself. Lieutenant Bull [an- cestor of our Deacon Bull] had an arrow shot into a hard picce of cheese, having no other defense; which may verify the old saying, 'A little armor would serve if a man knew where to place it.'" On their return the sol- diers from Hartford were granted a lot known as the Sol- dier's Field, and it is largely from the record of this land that we learn the names of the soldiers in the fight. One of those who soon helped settle Farmington was Thomas Barnes, whose house stood on the east side of the main street on land now occupied by the old burying-ground, or possibly just south of it. Another Pequot soldier was John Bronson, whose house stood near what is sometimes called Diamond Glen Brook, having the mountain to the south, and highways on all other sides. A third was Deacon Stephen Hart, a man of note in all public mat- ters, whether pertaining to the town or the church. His house was on the west side of the main street, opposite
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the meeting-house. The fourth, and, so far as I know, the only remaining soldier, was John Warner, who lived in a house nearly opposite the savings bank, which he sold about 1665 to Matthew Woodruff, and bought an- other of Reinold Marvin on the west side of the main street, near the house of T. H. and L. C. Root. To Thomas Barnes and John Warner each, the General Court in October, 1671, granted fifty acres of land for their services as Pequot soldiers.
The Pequot war ended, the settlers were able to culti- vate in security the rich lands bought by them of Sequas- son, the sachem of the Indians of Hartford and vicinity. In 1650 they obtained a new deed from the Indians of Tunxis Sepus with new agreements " to settle peace in a way of truth and righteousness betwixt the English and them." For fourteen years they lived in much peace and contentment undisturbed by the distant wars of savage tribes. At length the Commissioners of the United Col- onies resolved to assist the Long Island Indians in a war against the Narragansetts. Twenty men were to go from Connecticut, of whom Farmington was to send one man. The expedition was under the command of Major Willard of Massachusetts, who found the Indians had deserted their village and taken refuge in a swamp fifteen miles away. Leaving them unmolested, he marched home again and disbanded his forces. The next General Court at Hartford voted the soldiers six- pence a day for their valuable services, and thus ended the Narragansett war. Who the one soldier was from Farmington does not appear.
Leaving unconsidered the constant warfare of hostile tribes and the complex diplomacy by which the colonies sought to keep the peace, we must confine ourselves to what especially concerns our village. On the 9th of April, 1657, the General Court takes cognizance of " a
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most horrid murder committed by some Indians at Farm- ington." Fourteen days afterward John Hull of Boston records in his diary : "We also heard, that at a town called Farmington, near Hartford, an Indian was so bold as to kill an English woman great with child, and like- wise her maid, and also sorely wounded a little child - all within their house,- and then fired the house, which also fired some other barns or houses. The Indians, being apprehended, delivered up the murderer, who was brought to Hartford, and (after he had his right hand cut off ) was with an axe knocked on the head by the execu- tioner. The Lord teach us what such sad providences speak unto us all!" I speak more particularly of this occurrence because careless writers persist in confound- ing this affair with the burning of the house of Sergeant John Hart in 1666, with which the Indians had nothing whatever to do.
The situation was becoming so serious that the com- missioners in September forbade Indians traveling armed from village to village. Here is an examination, by the magistrates, of a body of Deerfield Indians who came through Farmington in a threatening manner on April 28th of the following year. The combined shrewdness and insolence of the Indian replies are interesting.
Q. Whence come you ?
A. We are Pocumtocooks.
Q. Why come you so many of you armed with guns?
A. Why may one not carry guns as well as the Mo- hegans or other Indians. And why do you carry arms ?
Q. What did you do at Hockanum?
A. We were on our way.
Q. What did you do at the English houses?
A. Nothing.
Q. We asked whether they were at Robert [illegible]
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house yesterday and whether they did not take away a basket of corn and a pewter bottle.
A. They returned and asked us whether we came to look after an old Indian basket, and thereupon heaved unto us an old Indian basket and a bunch of flax. This they did with laughter and derision.
Q. We asked whither they were going.
A. They told us that we are here. The chief of this company was one Wonoepekum to whom we directed our speech and desired them that they would give us a reason why they came through the English plantations in such manner contrary to the law made by the commis- sioners last September Anno 1657. Unto this they made us no return.
No more serious disturbances with the Indians oc- curred until in 1675, Philip's War called a new generation of soldiers to the field. Massasoit, sachem of the Poka- nokets, was dead. His oldest son, Wamsutta, did not long survive him, and Metacomet, his second son, known as Philip, became chief sachem of the tribe. You have all read of this savage hero, whose proud nature could not endure the arrogance of the Plymouth people, and who for two years devastated the country with fire and slaughter. The war, beginning in June, 1675, at Swansea, spread northward through Massachusetts, destroying the towns on the Connecticut River, and came as near to us as Simsbury, which was burned on the 26th of March, 1676. On the 6th of August, two days after the attack on Brookfield, Massachusetts, the Council at Hartford or- dered one hundred dragoons raised, fifteen from Farm- ington. Again, September 2d, Farmington was ordered to furnish seven of the 100 soldiers who marched under Major Treat and rescued the survivors of the Bloody Brook fight at Deerfield on the ISth. Again, November 25th, the Council ordered fifteen soldiers from Farming-
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ton which were probably in the great Narragansett Swamp Fight of December 19th. On the 4th of January following seven more were called for, and on the 21st of February ten more. Driven from Rhode Island, the sav- ages assaulted the Massachusetts towns, Lancaster, Med- ford, Northampton, Rehoboth, and Sudbury, and on March 26th burned Simsbury in this colony. On May Ist Sergeant Anthony Howkins of this town was ordered to raise as many volunteers as possible. Twenty days later, "upon the intelligence of the last engagement up the river," five more were ordered from this village. The engagement referred to was the famous "Falls Fight" on the morning of May 19th at Turner's Falls above Greenfield, where Jobanna Smith of this town was killed and Roger Orvis wounded. Philip now returned to his old haunts at Pokanoket, and finally, with a few remain- ing followers, was driven into a swamp and killed. The General Court ordered the first day of November, 1676, to be solemnly kept a day of public thanksgiving, and Rev. Samuel Hooker of the Farmington church, preach- ing the next election sermon, lamented " how many vil- lages are already forsaken of their inhabitants, their highways unoccupied, how many chosen young men are fallen upon the high places of the field, how many wid- ows left solitary among us, with tears on their cheeks, how many mothers in Israel weeping for their children, and refuse to be comforted because they are not."
Peace having returned, the town granted land called "soldier lots" to those who fought in the war, and from the record of these we learn the names of some of the soldiers. Care, however, must be used not to confound the names of the subsequent purchasers with those of the soldiers, the original record having been worn out and lost, and only a portion of the grants having been tran- seribed into the " new book." so called, which opens with
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the year 1682. I will give a brief account of twenty sol- diers, being all I can positively identify.
Joseph Andrews, son of John, was born in 1651, and removed, after the war, to that part of Wethersfield now known as Newington, where he died in 1706. Benjamin Barnes, son of Thomas, the Pequot soldier, was born in 1653, and removed to Waterbury, where he became a townsman - that is, selectman, and a grave-digger. There he died in 1712. Joseph Barnes, brother of Ben- jamin, was born in 1655, married Abigail Gibbs, and died in 1741. His house was next south of the old burying- ground. Samuel Gridley was a constable, and for five years a selectman. His house was on the west side of the main street, on or near the site of the house of the late Egbert Cowles, Esq. Anthony Howkins was one of the patentees named in the charter of Charles II, and an assistant in the years 1666 to 1673, inclusive. He was or- dered to raise a company of soldiers at Farmington, and march them to Hadley in May, 1676. His house was on the east side of the road to Hartford, nearly opposite where the North schoolhouse now stands. John Judd, son of Deacon Thomas, was a son-in-law of Anthony How- kins, was a deputy to the General Court many times, and held the offices of ensign and lieutenant. His house was on the west side of the main street, where Major Hooker afterward lived, and after him the late Deacon William Gay. Samuel Judd, brother of the last-named soldier, married after the war, and removed to Northampton. where he lived and died. William Lewis was the son of Capt. William Lewis, and grandson of William the immi- grant. He was selectman in 1696 and 1713. He owned several houses, one of which was fortified by the town very likely the one on the site of the Elm Tree Inn. John and Thomas Newell, sons of Thomas the immi- grant, were born in a house which stood on or near the
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site of that of Mrs. Dr. Brown, opposite the Catholic Church. They removed to Waterbury. James and Na- thaniel North, sons of John the immigrant, who lived near where now stands the house of the late Dr. Asahel Thomson, were born in Farmington in 1647 and 1656, re- spectively, and removed from the town soon after the war. Roger Orvis, son of George the immigrant, was in the party which marched from Hadley for the relief of Hatfield, May 20, 1676, and was wounded. His house was at "ye southerly end of the town plat," near where the late James W. Cowles lived. Dr. Daniel Porter was a son of the first Dr. Daniel, who lived on the west side of the main street, not far from the South schoolhouse, and who was paid a salary of twelve pounds by the General Court for setting all the broken bones in the colony, and was allowed six shillings extra for traveling expenses for each journey to the river towns. Dr. Daniel, the younger, who assumed the practice of surgery on the death of his father, removed to Waterbury, and was the second of five generations of Drs. Daniel Porter -father, son. grandson, great-grandson, and nephew of great-grandson. His medical library consisted of "a bone set book," ap- praised at two shillings. Thomas Porter, son of the first Robert, was the great-grandfather of Dr. Noah Porter. Jobanna Smith was born at Wethersfield before his father removed to this town, in or about the year 1656. He was killed May 30, 1676, in the expedition for the relief of Hatfield. His soldier lot was laid out to his heirs, " a top of ye mountain against Rocke Chayr." This singular rock formation, or what is left of it, stands on the north side of the road to Hartford, a little west of the stone crusher. With an attempt to emphasize the unusual, it was long known as the Devil's Rocking Chair. Deacon John Stanley received a grant of a soldier lot from the town, and was pretty certainly a soldier in King Philip's
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War, rather than his father, Captain John, to whom has sometimes been ascribed that honor. He removed to Waterbury, but subsequently returned to Farmington. Much interesting information about him can be found in the recent history of Waterbury. Timothy Stanly, brother of John, also removed to Waterbury, and was a prominent man. John Woodruff, son of the first Matthew, filled a number of town offices -- townsman, fence-viewer, chimney-viewer, etc. Simon Wrotham, the last on the list, was known as Mr., but I have been unable to learn the source of a title then accorded only to ministers and men high in official position. He was certainly conspicu- ous in the church, which excommunicated him. Before a council he fared no better, whereupon he appealed to the General Court to cite both the church and council before them, which body declined "to give the church or council any trouble to appear before them but advised said Wrothum to a serious consideration of his former ways." His house stood near the site of the resi- dence of Mr. H. H. Mason.
In addition to these, six Farmington friendly Indians went up to Springfield on the 6th of October, 1675. Trusting you will excuse any error in my pronunciation of Algonquin which you may detect, I give you the names of the warriors as recorded. Nesehegan, Wanaw- messe, Woewassa, Sepoose, Uckchepassun, and Unckco- wott.
But we must hurry on. There is still much fighting before us. With the death of Philip the scene of strife was removed to the Province of Maine, and Connecticut had rest until England, on the accession of William and Mary, declared war with France in May, 1689. Then began a new series of fiendish massacres, planned no longer by the savage .Philip, but by the polite French rulers of Quebec, and continued until the Peace of Rys-
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wick in September, 1697. Connecticut repeatedly sent soldiers to Albany, a force under Winthrop in the expe- dition of Sir William Phipps against Montreal in 1690, and in 1695 to the river towns of Massachusetts. The peace was of short duration. After a rest of five years Queen Anne declared war against France and Spain, and the savages, led by French generals, recommenced their midnight massacres. In 1704, seven houses in Farming- ton were ordered fortified, viz., those of Thomas Orton, William Lewis, Howkins Hart, James Wadsworth, John Hart, John Wadsworth, and Samuel Wadsworth. In the expedition against Quebec under Nicholson in 1709, which failed for want of the promised assistance of Eng- lish ships, Farmington furnished eleven men. How many of the 300 Connecticut soldiers who went under Col. Whiting in the successful Port Royal Expedition of 1710, is not recorded, or of the 360 who marched under Whiting the next year against Quebec and failed, owing to the utter incompetency of the English Admiral Walker. The peace of Utrecht was signed March, 1713, and the colony had rest. The only Farmington soldier in the Canada Expedition of 1711, whose name I find recorded, was John Scott. Capt. John Hart marched a company in February, 1712, into the county of Hamp- shire, Massachusetts, but the names of his soldiers have not been preserved on any known record. From the peace of Utrecht in 1713, to the declaration of war against Spain in 1739, the colony had peace broken only by fears of invasion from Canada, which did not take place, but which kept the colony in constant alarm. On the destruction of Rutland, Vermont, in 1723, a company of 200 men was formed from the trainbands of Hartford, Windsor, and Wethersfield to hold themselves in readi- ness. Hunting parties of friendly Indians were forbid- den north of the roads from Farmington to Waterbury
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and from Farmington to Hartford, and scouting parties of whites were ordered to range the woods continuously north of Simsbury. In May, 1724, thirty-two men, of whom ten were from Farmington, were ordered for the defense of Litchfield against a party of hostile Indians discovered lurking about that town. One of the ten was Matthew Woodruff, the fourth in direct descent of that name, who, in his memorial to the General Assembly in May, 1725, says: "Your memorialist in the summer last past at Litchfield, being a soldier there, killed an Indian (one of the common enemy) by the help of God." The - Assembly voted him thirty pounds, whereupon one Na- thaniel Watson of Windsor, encouraged by his success, represented to the Assembly that he too made a shot at an Indian at the same time as Mr. Woodruff, and thought he hit him, but the General Assembly thought otherwise. The following year the New Milford Indians held dances in war-paint and barbarously murdered a child, where- upon the Governor and Council ordered all painted In- dians to be treated as enemies. John Hooker, William Wadsworth, and Isaac Cowles, or any two of them, were ordered to "inspect the Indians of Farmington every day about sunset " who were required to give "an account of their rambles and business the preceding · day." Submission to such an infringement of their per- sonal liberty, shows the peaceful character of the Tunxis Indians. In October following they were allowed their former liberty, provided they abstained from war-paint and wore a white cloth on their heads while in the woods. The danger was soon over, and no Connecticut town suffered actual violence.
In October 23, 1739, England declared war against Spain, and Connecticut was called upon for two compa- nies of 100 men each which sailed in September of the following year under Captains Roger Newberry and John
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Silliman to join the disastrous expedition of Admiral Vernon against Carthagena. Of the 1,000 men from New England, scarcely 100 returned. What was the quota of Farmington does not appear or the names of the men. The folly and rashness of Vernon, bringing sorrow to a thousand homes, did not prevent the poet Thomson from singing his praises or Lawrence Washington from nam- ing Mount Vernon in his honor. Five years of compara- tive quiet pass. On the 4th of March, 1745, France de- clares war and once more lets loose her savage allies upon the English frontiers. Her stronghold was the fortress of Louisbourg on the island of Cape Breton, and no -lasting peace seemed possible until Canada, and, first of all, this fortress, was wrested from her. An expedition of New England troops, under the direction of Gov. Shir- ley of Massachusetts, defended from molestation seaward by British men of war, was sent for its reduction and cap- tured it June 17th, a day subsequently memorable as the anniversary of the battle of Bunker Hill. Connecticut sent 500 men besides 100 in the colony's sloop, Defence, and 200 more during the siege. Of the company from this vicinity Timothy Root of Farmington was lieuten- ant, and died at Cape Breton in April after the surrender. He was the great-great-grandfather of T. H. and L. C. Root. I know of no list of the soldiers of his company. Dr. Samuel Richards, who practiced as a physician in numerous towns in this vicinity and died in Plainville, learned the rudiments of his professional knowledge in the hospital established for the New England troops. Another soldier in this campaign, as appears from his memorial to the General Court, was Ebenezer Smith, son of Jonathan, who lived on the south side of the road to Hartford, near where Mr. Martin O'Meara now lives. He removed to New Britain, and his gravestone describes him as late of Farmington. Ebenezer Lee and Gershom
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