USA > Connecticut > Hartford County > Farmington > An historical address delivered at the opening of the village library of Farmington, Conn., September 30th, 1890 > Part 13
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Orvis, in the company of Adonijah Fitch, were probably identical with Farmington men of that name. In May, 1746, twenty men were ordered as scouts to the county of Hampshire, Massachusetts, and forty more for a similar service "between the enemy's borders and the borders of the British plantation." By request of his Majesty's gov- ernment a new expedition against Canada was organized. In May the General Court ordered 600 men raised, and in June increased the number to 1,000, but the ships for their support were sent elsewhere and the colonies given over to destruction by the formidable French fleet under d'Anville, which proposed to wipe out every vestige of Englishmen and their hated religion from the western continent. Pestilence and the war of the elements came to their relief, and the New England divines thanked the Almighty for a repetition of the story of Sennacherib the Assyrian. The war ended with the treaty of Aix la Chapelle, April 30, 1748.
For seven years the colony had a respite from war, but in 1754, without any declaration of war, the French began to extend their line of forts around the English settlements, which led to four expeditions to break their line in 1755. One against the Ohio, resulting in Brad- dock's defeat and Washington's first lesson in war; one against Nova Scotia, familiar to the readers of Longfel- low's Evangeline ; one against Niagara, and one against Crown Point. For the latter service Connecticut raised 1,500 men in four companies of 750 men each, who partic. ipated in the bloody but indecisive battle of September 6th at Lake George. As a result of the Nova Scotia expedition, some of the Acadians were sent to Connecti- cut, and more, to the number of 400, being expected, the General Court ordered fourteen sent to Farmington as its proper proportion. So ended the year 1755. Of Farm- ington soldiers, we can identify Ezekiel Lewis, sergeant :
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Ebenezer Orvis, ensign; and privates Bela Lewis, Sam- uel Bird, and Noah Porter, father of the late Dr. Noah Porter and grandfather of President Porter. Deacon Noah Porter, who served in this expedition, lived in his boyhood in the house of his father Robert which stood where now stands the brick house built by the late Fran- cis W. Cowles, next north of Miss Adgate's pharmacy. The house was given him by his father on his marriage in 1764, and was occupied by him until about 1781, when, after the birth of Dr. Porter, he removed to what is now the town farm on the road to Avon. This he sold in I Sog and returned to village life at the house of his son, then the pastor of the church of which the father had been for thirty-four years a deacon.
For the campaign of 1756 against Crown Point the Connecticut Colony ordered 2,500 men raised and formed into four regiments, and in October, in response to the urgent call of the Earl of Loudon for reinforcements, eight additional companies of 100 men each were ordered raised out of the town train-bands, Josiah Lee of Farm- ington to be captain of one of the companies. They were no sooner raised than Loudon concluded to go into winter quarters three months before the usual time and do nothing. The troops were accordingly dismissed, and so ended the inglorious campaign of 1756. In this cam- paign were Ezekiel Lewis, lieutenant, Ebenezer Orvis, second lieutenant, Samuel Gridley and David Andrus, sergeants, and Samuel Bird, Abraham Hills, and Bela Lewis, privates. Dr. Elisha Lord, then of this village, was in March, 1756, appointed physician and surgeon for this expedition. On the ad of October Dr. Timothy Collins of Litchfield, the chief surgeon, returned home sick, and Dr. Lord took his place. He soon afterward removed to Norwich.
In the campaign of 1757 Connecticut raised 1.400 men
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to act under the Earl of Loudon. There followed the surrender of Fort William Henry at the southern end of Lake George to the French general, Montcalm, and the butchery of the garrison by the Indians in violation of the terms of the surrender, and this was all the result of great preparations, vast expense, and brilliant hopes. The Farmington soldiers were Ezekiel Lewis, ensign, privates Samuel Bird, Sylvanus Curtis, Gershom Orvis, and Bethuel Norton. Immediately upon the capture of Fort William Henry, the colony was called on in hot haste for reinforcements, and sent about 5,coo men. They were no sooner on their way than orders came from General Webb for their return. This campaign was known as the Alarm of 1757. The soldiers from this village were in service sixteen days, and were Captain William Wadsworth, sergeant Judah Woodruff, clerk James Wadsworth, corporal Hezekiah Wadsworth, and privates Amos Cowles, Phinehas Cowles, Rezin Gridley, Elisha Hart, Noadiah Hooker, John Judd, Elihu Newell, Joseph Root, Timothy Woodruff, Solomon Woodruff, and an Indian, Elijah Wimpey. Probably there were others.
England, now thoroughly tired of its incompetent generals and ministers, compelled King George to accept the administration of William Pitt, the great commoner, as the only man to save the country from ruin. Pitt re- called the weak Loudon and sent over Generals Wolf and Amherst, and Admiral Boscawen, and a new era began. In response to an appeal by Pitt stating that his majesty has "nothing more at heart than to repair the losses and disappointments of the last inactive and unhappy cam- paign, and, by the blessing of God on his arms, the damages impending on North America," the General Assembly raised five thousand men for the campaign of 175S. The capture of Louisburg, the strongest fortress
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of the French, followed by that of Fort Frontenac on the north bank of the St. Lawrence where it flows out of Lake Ontario, and of Fort Duquesne where now stands the city of Pittsburg, revived the spirits of the nation. The loss of Lord Howe in the march against Fort Ticon- deroga and the subsequent ill-advised attack on that fort by Bradstreet, alone marred the success of the campaign. The Farmington soldiers, so far as known, were Judah Woodruff, lieutenant, Samuel Bird and Eleazer Curtis, sergeants, and Ashbel Norton, David Orvis, Daniel Owen, and Bela Lewis, privates, and probably Matthew Norton and Thomas Norton.
For the memorable campaign of 1759 Connecticut raised 3,600 men. The capture of Ticonderoga, Crown Point, Niagara, and finally of Quebec itself followed, with the glorious victory of Wolf over Montcalm on the Plains of Abraham. We know very few of the soldiers who took part in this series of victories. The imperfect mus- ter rolls here fail us altogether. We know that Judah Woodruff was first and Samuel Gridley was second lieu- tenant during the years 1759 and 1760, and that is about all. The journal of a single private soldier has been preserved,-a boyish, illiterate performance, it neverthe- less gives us quite as vivid a picture of what happened around him as do the more formal accounts of his supe- riors. It was written by Reuben Smith, son of Thomas and Mary Smith, well-known citizens of our village, who owned and lived in the south two-thirds of the long house opposite the savings bank. I will give you the greater part of the journal.
"April the 18, 1759. We marched from Farmington. The 20th we entered Greenbush. The next day we sailed over the river and encamped on the hill. May 29, 1759. We marched from Albany to Schenectady, and the same day Horres [Horace ?] was shot at Albany before we marched. We set out very late and got
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there before night, and pitched our tents and lay very well. As I have thought it proper to write all that is strange, now this thing it seems more strange than anything that I have seen since I came from home. June the 3d day in Schenectady there were two old women got one of the old Leather Hats drunk, and took him to the guard house and put him under guard. God
save the King and all the Leather Hat men. June the 6th. There was a woman riding the road from Schenectady to Sir William Johnson's. There came a number of Indians and pulled her off her horse and scalped her, but left her alive. Oh ! it grieves me to take my pen to write these ways of an Indian. This poor woman had a child about one year and a half old, which she begged that she might embrace it once more with a kiss before they killed it. But these cruel, barbarous, cruel creatures stripped her and left her in her blood, and they killed her poor child or carried it into captivity, and another lad that was with them. This woman was brought into Schenectady, and she lived about two days and died. I saw her buried myself, Reuben Smith. June the 12th day, 1759. One of Major Rogers' captains, Captain Redfield, catched three Frenchmen and brought two of them into Schenectady, and from there to Albany. The other they carried to Sir William Johnson's. I saw these captives myself. Reuben Smith. Schenectady, June 20. Died William Ellsworth of Har-
rington [ Harwinton ?] in a fit. Belonged to Capt. Paterson's Co., the first that died after we left home. June the 24, 1759. Died Samuel Wright, son to Emersine [ Emerson?] Wright of New Britain. He died at Schenectady with sickness in the barracks.
He was about 18 years of age. July the Ist, 1759. I was pleased to take a walk to the Dutch Church, and all that I learnt was the 148th Psalm, which they sang. I understood the psalm which the clerk mentioned, and that was all. July 4, 1759. Returned one Stevens who had been in captivity the space of one year. He be- longed to Canterbury. He was sold to an Indian squaw. She told him that she would return him to his own land in a few days, but kept him almost one year, and he ran away, and his first post was Swago [ Oswego ?], and from thence to Fort Stanwix, and there came a guard from thence with a French lieutenant. They carried him from Schenectady to Albany blindfolded. July 20. 1759. Died Samuel Woodford of Farmington at Schenectady. July 10, 1759. I set out a batteauxing for my pleasure. I went to
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the Little Carrying Place and returned the 19th to Schenectady again. . 2 of August I had news that Niagara was ours at the loss of [illegible] notwithstanding. "Kept a day of re- joicing and eating and drinking. Came night we built a large fire almost extended to the clouds, and shot our guns briskly. August the 10. Came an old bush-headed man crying good limes, good limes, good limes, with such open throat and horrid mouth that some took him to be the devil. October the 14th. I am sorry to think that I have omitted writing so long. Now one thing prompts me to write. There were two men killed by Negroes in a garden. November the 7th, 1759. Died Capt. Daniel Owen of Farmington, belonging to Major John Patterson's com- pany."
The subsequent year our journalist came again to Schenectady, but died on the 26th of May.
To strengthen and defend the places captured, and for the reduction of Montreal, Connecticut raised 5,000 men in 1760, and 2,300 more during each of the years 1761 and 1762. Martinique was captured in February, 1762, and Havana in the succeeding August. From the latter expedition scarcely a man returned. From the memorial of his widow to the General Assembly, it ap- pears that Lieut. David Andrus, who lived where the East Farms district schoolhouse now stands, was taken sick before the embarkation of the troops on their return from Havana, and died about eight days after his ar- rival in New York.
The treaty of Paris, February 10, 1763, ended the war. With the exception of 265 men sent in 1764 to put down the Indian uprising at Detroit, the colony was not called upon for more soldiers until the War of the Revolution.
Such is the account of the soldiers of this village, so far as I have been able to gather it from contemporaneous records. A much more entertaining narrative might have been constructed from family traditions, which sometimes contain a grain of truth, but not always. The
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stories of Indian warfare compiled by the father of the late Egbert Cowles, Esq., for the history of this town by Governor Treadwell, might have been drawn on, or the stories heard in my own childhood to the droning accom- paniment of the spinning-wheel, in the long winter even- ings, when the labors of the day were over - blood-curd- ling tales of Indian massacres, interspersed with stories of New England witchcraft, of Captain Kidd and the sa- tanic hosts who guarded his buried treasure - all devoutly believed in by the aged narrator. If, instead, I have given you but a bare list of names, it is, so far as it goes, a reliable one and an honorable one.
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INDEX OF SOLDIERS' NAMES.
Page.
Page.
Andrews, David. .
17
Norton, Ashbel
19
Andrews, Joseph .
IO
Norton, Bethuel
18
Barnes, Benjamin
10 Norton, Matthew
19
Barnes, Joseph
10 Norton, Thomas .
19
Barnes, Thomas
5 Orvis, David
19
Bird, Samuel
17, 18, 19
Orvis, Ebenezer
17
Bronson, John
5 Orvis, Gershom
. 16, 18
Cowles, Amos
18
Orvis, Roger
· 9, II
Cowles, Phinehas .
18
Owen, Daniel
. 19, 21
Curtis, Eleazer -
19
Porter, Daniel
Curtis, Sylvanus
18
Porter, Noah
17
Gridley, Rezin
18
Porter, Thomas
II
Gridley, Samuel
10, 17, 19
Richards, Samuel .
13
Hart, Elisha .
18
Root, Joseph
18
Hart, John
I3
Root, Timothy
15
Hart, Stephen
5
Scott, John
13
Hills, Abraham
17
Smith, Ebenezer
15
Hooker, Noadiah .
18
Smith, Jobanna
9 .
Howkins, Anthony
9, 10
Smith, Reuben
19
Judd, John
10, IS
Stanley, John
11
Judd, Samuel
IO
Stanley, Timothy .
IO
Lee, Ebenezer
15
Wadsworth, Hezekiah . IS
IS
Lewis, Bela .
. 17, 19
Wadsworth, William
IS
Lewis, Ezekiel
16, 17, 18
Warner, John
6
Wimpey, Eltjah
IS
Lord, Elisha .
17
Woodruff, John
12
Newell, Elihu
18
Woodruff, Judah .
. IS, 19
Newell, John
IO
Woodruff, Matthew
14
Newell, Thomas
10
Woodruff, Solomon
13
North, James
I1 Woodruff, Timothy
18
North, Nathaniel .
11 Wrotham, Simon .
12
.
.
.
·
.
Lee, Josiah
17
Wadsworth, James
.
.
Lewis, William
10
.
THE EARLY INDUSTRIES OF FARMINGTON
AN
HISTORICAL ADDRESS
DELIVERED AT THE
Annual Meeting
OF
THE VILLAGE LIBRARY COMPANY OF
FARMINGTON, CONN.
September 14, 1898
By JULIUS GAY
HARTFORD, CONN. Press of The Case, Lockwood & Brainard Company IS98
THE EARLY INDUSTRIES OF FARMINGTON
AN
HISTORICAL ADDRESS
DELIVERED AT THE
Annual Meeting
OF
THE VILLAGE LIBRARY COMPANY
OF
FARMINGTON, CONN.
September 14, 1898
By JULIUS GAY
HARTFORD, CONN. Press of The Case, Lockwood & Brainard Company IS98
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ADDRESS.
Ladies and Gentlemen of the Village Library Company of Farmington :
Having been requested by your Committee to read for your entertainment another paper on the Farmington of our ancestors, I propose to give this evening some account of the early industries of Farmington.
The first settlers of this village came from Hartford probably along the same path and through the same notch in the mountain we still use. Finding further progress westward interrupted by the river, they turned southward and built their first houses where runs the Main street of to-day. To each settler was allotted a strip of land about two hundred feet wide, bounded on the east by the mountain and on the west by the river. When their numbers increased, and their flocks and herds required ampler accommodation, they made use of the meadows and forest to the westward, enclosing them with a strong fence and a deep ditch, remains of the latter of which may still be traced from Avon southward through the Pine Woods nearly to Plainville. This fence kept their flocks from losing themselves in the forest, and was thought a sufficient bar against wolves, which do not easily climb an obstruction.
Here in much peace and contentment they lived the laborious lives of early settlers. Let us see what can be learned of their industries and daily life for the first sixty years of their residence. During this period forty-five. out of a much larger number who died, left estates
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minutely inventoried by the courts of the day. These inventories, showing all a man's possessions, from his farm down to his smallest article of clothing, give us about all the information of his daily life and habits we possess.
They were all farmers, every one of them. The min- ister was the biggest farmer of them all. To him was allotted a double portion of land. The Rev. Roger New- ton removed early and died elsewhere, but his successor, the Rev. Samuel Hooker, dying here in 1697, left a farm valued at 5440, many horses, cattle, and sheep in his pas- tures, much wheat, rye, corn, and barley in his granary, and already sowed for the next year's crop, with abun- dant husbandry tools for the prosecution of this industry. With two sermons, not of the shortest, to write every week, and another for lecture day, with an occasional election sermon, and much public work in the colony, he must have been a laborious man. His estate, with the exception of that of Mr. John Wadsworth, was the largest inventoried before 1700.
The work of the farm was done largely by oxen. Almost every farmer owned one yoke, but none more than two, so far as can be learned. Horses were about twice as numerous as oxen, and were also used in the cul- tivation of land, as the inventory of their tackling proves. Every man had a cow ortwo but no large herds. John Hart, burned in his house in 1666, left six, as also did Nathaniel Kellogg, dying in 1657, but one and two were the common number. Sheep were held a necessity on every farm to furnish warm clothing in the long New England winter. John Orton, dying in 1695, left a flock of twenty-two, but the average number wasten. Swine were numerous. John Cowles' estate had thirty-eight. The average for a farmer was fifteen. A few hives of bees usually closed the list. Farming implements were much
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as we knew them fifty years ago, before the day of horse rakes and mowing-machines, only a ruder construction. They had fans but no fanning-mills, trusting to the winds of heaven to winnow the grain from the chaff as in bibli- cal times. Their carts and plows were home-made and so rudely built that the appraiser frequently estimated the value of the iron parts only. Josselyn in his "Two Voy- ages to New England," printed in 1673, advises the planter to buy his cart-wheels in England for fourteen shillings rather than trust to colonial workmanship. Certain tools were then common which some of us remember to have seen in our boyhood, long unused. There was the heavy and cumbersome brake for breaking flax, the wooden swingling knife for continuing the process, and the hetchel. Wool cards were also common. After flax, wheat was the most important crop, and rye was raised when the exhausted land would no longer bear wheat. Mislen, or a mixture of wheat and rye, was often sowed in the hope that one or the other grain might thrive. Barley was raised for the manufacture of malt, and we find even oats used for this purpose. It took the Eng- lishman several generations to learn that he could live without beer. Wood, in his " New England's Prospect," printed in 1634, gives his English view of the matter. "Every family," he says, "having a spring of sweet waters betwixt them, which is far different from the waters of England, being not so sharp, but of a fatter substance, and of a more jetty color ; it is thought there can be no better water in the world, yet dare I not prefer it before good beer as some have done." After the multi- plication of apple orchards, cider largely took the place of beer. John Hart had a cider press in 1666 and Capt. William Lewis in 1690 had not only a cider mill but a malt mill, a still, and a supply of malt and hops John Bronson in 16So had ten barrels of cider in his cellar
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valued at four pounds. Potatoes are not named. Prob- ably none of the settlers had ever seen one. Peas and beans were common, but by far the largest crop was Indian corn. Corn was the first eatable thing which the starving Pilgrims could find after they left Plymouth Rock. The friendly Tisquantum showed them how to raise it. " Also he told them except they get fish and set with it (in these old grounds) it would come to nothing. and he showed them that in the middle of April they should have store enough come up the brook by which they began to build." So says Gov. Bradford in his history. Other Indian advice was to place in each hill a shad, a few kernels of corn, and a few beans. The shad was for manure, and the cornstalks formed in good time sufficient poles for the bean vines to climb. The savage meanwhile retiring to the sunny side of his wigwam trusted the rest to all bountiful nature, with a little assist- ance from his squaw. Other things the settlers soon learned. Of the blackbirds which soon pulled up their corn, Roger Williams writing in 1643 says, "Of this sort there be millions, which be great devourers of the Indian corn, as soon as it appears above the ground. Against these birds the Indians are very careful both to set their corn deep enough, that it may have a strong root, not so apt to be plucked up (yet not too deep, lest they bury it, and it never come up); as also they put up little watch houses in the middle of their fields, in which they, or their biggest children lodge, and, early in the morning, prevent the birds from devouring the corn." As for the crow, he says, "These birds, although they do the corn some hurt, yet scarce will one native amongst an hundred kill them, because they have a tradition, that the crow brought them at first an Indian grain of corn in one ear, and an Indian or French bean in another, from the great God Cawtantowwit's field in the southwest, from whence
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they hold came all their corn and beans." In 1694 the town offered a reward of two pence for crows and one shilling the dozen for blackbirds. In Hartford, in 1707, it was held the duty of every good citizen to kill one dozen blackbirds each year, or pay a fine of one shilling. If he killed more than a dozen he was entitled to one penny for each bird. From that time to this many bounties have been paid and much powder burned, but the crow is still with us, and his morning voice is still heard as he wings his daily flight from the mountain to the meadow. The most troublesome animals the farmer had to contend with, were the wolves which, roaming by night in packs of ten or a dozen, with dreadful cries, devoured sheep, calves, and the smaller animals. From a stray leaf of the town accounts we learn that in 1718 Ebenezer Barnes, Stephen Hart, Samuel Scott, and Matthew Woodruff were each paid six shillings and eight pence for killing wolves. They were mostly killed in pits into which they were en- ticed by bait placed over the concealed mouth of the pit. They were poor climbers, and once in the pit their fate was sure. The road running from the eighth milestone southward from the Hartford road has, since 1747, and I know not how much longer, been known as the Wolf Pit road, and certain depressions in the ground used to be shown to credulous boys as the ancient wolf pits. Another very common method of destroying these animals, Josselyn tells us in his " New England's Rari- ties " of 1672. "The wolf," he says, "is very numerous, and go in companies, sometimes ten, twenty, or fewer, and so cunning, that seldom any are killed with guns or traps; but of late they have invented a way to destroy them by binding four mackerel hooks across with a brown thread, and then, wrapping some wool about them, they dip them in melted tallow till it be as round and big as an egg; these (when any beast has been killed by the
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wolves) they scatter by the dead carcass after they have beaten off the wolves; about midnight the wolves are sure to return again to the place where they left the slaugh- tered beast, and the first thing they venture upon will be these balls of fat." Bears were frequently met with, but they made the farmers very little trouble, and were es- teemed a good-natured animal, except when defending their young. The town paid for killing panthers in 1718 and in 1726, and probably in other years. In 1768 a bounty of three shillings was offered for wildcats, and on the 30th day of May, 1773, the town paid three shillings to Noah Hart for a wildcat, and the same day paid one shilling to John Newell, Jr., " for putting a strolling fel- low in the stocks," wildcats and tramps being held in like estimation. One other animal the settlers feared more than all the others put together. It spared neither man nor beast, and its midnight roar was not a cheerful sound to the lonely settler. All over New England they called it a lion, with about as much knowledge of natural history as Nick Bottom, who held " a lion is a most dreadful thing ; for there is not a more fearful wild-fowl than your lion living." Wood, in his "New England's Prospect," says, " concerning lions, I will not say that I ever saw any my- self, but some affirm that they have seen a lion at Cape Anne some likewise, being lost in the woods, have heard such terrible roarings, as have made them much aghast; which must be devils or lions there being no other creatures which use to roar saving bears, which have not such a terrible kind of roaring." Sundry locali- ties were named after the beast. A Lion's Hollow west- ward of the road to Plainville, and a Lion's Hole eastward of the road to Kensington were frequently mentioned in old decds. A Lion's Hole near Dead Swamp. is men- tioned in 1686, and one, hardly the same, in 1705 on the Great Plain. The animal was without much doubt a
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