USA > Connecticut > Hartford County > Farmington > An historical address delivered at the opening of the village library of Farmington, Conn., September 30th, 1890 > Part 20
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In 1786 Connecticut ceded to the United States the western part of the land claimed under the charter of 1062,
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reserving, as the basis of her school fund, what now con- stitutes the ten northeastern counties of Ohio, and also reserving, for the benefit of the Connecticut towns burned by the British, the so-called " Fire Lands," now the coun- ties of Erie and Huron lying next west. The whole re- served land was described as the "land lying east of a line 120 miles west of and parallel with the western boundary line of the state of Pennsylvania." The land was sold by a committee of one from each of the eight counties of Connecticut, John Treadwell of this town, afterwards Governor Treadwell, being first on the list. Thirty-six men who afterwards or- ganized the Connecticut Land Company, purchased the three millions of acres for $1,200,000. The share of Major William Judd of this town was $16,256, and that of Gen. Solomon Cowles was $10,000. To this land of promise came Farmington pioneers - Samuel Tillotson, Rollin Dutton, Lewis B. Bradley, Gad Hart, Daniel Wood- ruff, Rev. Ephraim Treadwell Woodruff, first pastor of the church in Wayne, and I know not how many more. Still further west in Kaskaskia, Judge Alfred Cowles, brother of the late venerable Egbert Cowles, settled in 1823 as a lawyer, his first stopping-place in his western journeyings. He was active in the anti-slavery fight at Alton, and later on practiced law in Chicago and San Francisco, and at length celebrated his one hundredth birthday at San Diego, July 7, 1887.
There were others who left the old home besides those who traveled with their families in the big ox-wagons. Young men tired of the monotony and restraints of this happy valley, and, hoping to better their fortunes, began to travel over the South and West. Their letters home show how the unusual manners and morals of the new world appeared to them, and how soon their own opinions of many things were changed. From a great variety of letters we have time to make a few selections in illus- tration from those of one young man only. In October,
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1816, he left a commercial house in New York and a sal- ary of $350 to travel in its interest. After a voyage of seven days in a terrible gale, he arrived at Norfolk, Vir- ginia, from which place he writes: "I was invited to dine and take tea with a gentleman to whom I had letters of introduction. I did myself the honor to attend, and was treated with the greatest hospitality. His wife was a lady of about thirty years of age, and highly accom- plished, played charmingly on the forte piano and harp, and, in fact, was about as elegant a woman as I ever saw. They live in great style, and have about 15 or 20 negroes in the house. They have a fine plantation up in the country, where they live in the summer. They were quite inquisitive respecting the customs and habits of the northern people, and were much surprised at my relation respecting them. The people have very little regard for the Sabbath, Bible, or religion." He writes from Peters- burg, November 17th, on his way to Richmond : "I have been now two weeks in Virginia, and have seen a consid- erable part of the country, but do not like it much. The general state of society here is wretched, and as respects morality, it is known in this state only by name. This day being Sunday, there is a large party engaged before the house where I am now writing in playing ball, fight- ing, halloing, swearing, and making every other kind of noise that their ingenuity and the whisky they have drunk prompts them to." Five weeks afterward he writes from the same place : "I have spent my time very agree- ably, and am more pleased with the place and inhabitants." January 25th sees him still in Petersburg, about starting for Kaskaskia, Illinois Territory, having just returned from a six days visit to Norfolk, where he had a good time as before. "I was six days in Norfolk, and was treated with great hospitality by my acquaintances there, and attended two splendid parties. At one of them tea was brought in about dark, and was carried round in the same manner as you do in Connecticut. After ten the
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ladies and gentlemen played whist till about 9 o'clock, when a fiddler was called and cotillions and country dances were performed till 1 or 2 o'clock, when the party adjourned. There were about twenty ladies present. During the evening we were regaled with the best of wine, cherry rum, apples, filberts, raisins, peaches in brandy, almonds, and every kind of foreign fruit that I think of. At about II we sat down to an excellent cold collation. Some of the ladies were very communicative and polite, and not so reserved as the northern girls. They converse very handsomely, and have, in general, received a very good education." His description of Williamsburgh, through which he passed, would answer as well for the present day. "It has formerly been quite a handsome town, but is now falling into decay in conse- quence of the seat of government having been removed to Richmond. The ancient college of William and Mary is in this place, where many of our first men have been edu-
cated. In the yard of the college is a handsome marble statue erected in honor of Lord Bottetourt, one of the former governors of Virginia." On the 12th of Feb- ruary he had arrived in Pittsburg, having stopped a day in Washington to call on Mr. Pitkin, the member of Con- gress from this state and town. At Pittsburg he found the Ohio river frozen over and had to wait until about the first of March. On the 9th of April he writes from Kas-
kaskia: "I arrived in this place about 8 or 10 days since, after a thirty days passage from Pittsburg. . . . I came
of very handsome towns as I passed down, as Marietta, down the Ohio in a keel boat and stopped at a number
Cincinnati, Louisville, etc. The prospect is beautiful as you descend the river. I also passed through Vevay, a small town in Indiana which is inhabited by Swiss, who pay
great attention to the grape and manufacture a great deal of wine, some of which I tasted." Of the fertile prairie lands all around him he speaks in the manner of the spies on their return from the promised land. No wonder the
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delvers among the stony hillsides of Connecticut made haste for this western paradise. Here he remained until about the first of October, preparing the goods he was to take down the river, and hunting all sorts of game, with which the woods abounded. With western manners and morals, as before with southern, he was fast becoming ac- quainted. " Dancing is very fashionable in this place, par- ticularly with the French, who indulge themselves almost every night in this amusement. There are no Moral Soci- eties to rail against the innocent amusements." To his sister he writes: "In your last you make some inquiries how I passed my time on Sunday. There is no established church in the place except the French, and we commonly feel no great disposition to attend that, nor has there been any preaching since I have been here, and it is very sel- dom that there is any. When the weather is fine Sun- days we commonly ride out on hunting expeditions or fishing, or, in fact, anything to amuse ourselves and drive away time, or sometimes we are employed in taking care of peltries, selling merchandise, posting books, etc., etc. We are troubled with no grand juror's spies, tything-men, etc., every man following the dictates of his own con- science." November 3d sees him in Baton Rouge, on the way to New Orleans. "I shall proceed there tomorrow, and from there I shall go on to New York as soon as I can
dispose of the property I have in charge.
. If I am
fortunate I shall be in New York about the 25th of De- cember." Kaskaskia was a favorite gathering place for Farmington youths. Here were coming and going at or about this time, Edward Cowles, Erastus Scott, Alfred Cowles, Thomas Mather, John W. Mix, William Gleason, and doubtless others. All the way from Connecticut to
New Connecticut Farmington men could be found. A
prominent townsman of many years ago who had peddled
tinware through the South in the days when stories of wooden nutmegs were rife, asserted that he had made a journey without expense to the Western Reserve and
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back, finding acquaintances at every stopping-place happy to barter hospitality for news from their old homes. Whatever we may think of such economy, we are re- minded of the great numbers who had gone from the old village.
Besides the broad West there was another outlet for the superfluous energy of the village. Much Farmington capital and some men were engaged in seal voyages. Starting from New Haven, they proceeded to the Falk- land Islands, thence to the island of South Georgia, thence around Cape Horn to the island of Juan Fernandez, sup- posed to have been the home of Robinson Crusoe, and thence to Massafuera. Here they were accustomed to leave a part of their crew to catch seals, returning for them in about two years and taking with them the seals captured on some previous voyage. They touched next at the Sandwich Islands on their way to Canton. Here they exchanged their sealskins for tea. silks, nankeens, and china ware, and then touching at Calcutta, made their way home around the Cape of Good Hope. The history of some of the voyages has been minutely told, but how much our townsmen had to do with any particular voyage is uncertain. The ledgers of Elijah Cowles & Co., sold for old paper, might have told, and the records of the New Haven custom house certainly would, but during the recent stir in the matter of French Spoliations they were shipped to Washington as evidence, and are inaccessible to the or- dinary investigator. A few glimpses come to us from other sources. David Catlin, a young man about town and a favorite in Farmington society, writes from the island of South Georgia to his friend Horace Cowles. then a student in Yale College. He left New York May 28th, ISco. crossed the equator on the fourth of July, celebrated both the crossing and the day with the escal ceremonies, stopped at sundry ports duly recorded. arrived at the Bay of St. George September 5th, stayed two maths while build- ing a shallop of 28 tons, and arrived at the island of South
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Georgia December 17th, where he found seventeen sail of American and English ships. We must omit his-descrip- tion of the island, which you can read of elsewhere, and also the poetry he wrote on the voyage for the entertain- ment of his scholastic friend. We have also the original agreement of a crew signed at Massafuera April 1, 1803, in which many details of the business are set forth, and in which the crew agrees to remain two years and catch seals. The profits were divided about January, 1807, by Esquire John Mix at his office here. The ships Oncida and Huron were the most frequently mentioned in Farm- ington correspondence. The former carried sixteen guns and the latter twenty, for use, if necessary, against the Spaniards in Patagonia. These voyages began about the year 1796, and ended with the commencement of Jeffer- son's embargo, in December, 1807.
Farmington letters of the last century have much to say of ships fitted out by the merchants of this village at Mid- dletown, New London, and New Haven, and sometimes stopping on their way at all three places. I once bought at a book auction in Boston what purported to be an import- ant work on Farmington. It cost me twenty-five cents, and turned out to be the "Ship Book for the Brigantine Mary, September 10. 1792. 3/8 belonging to Solomon Cowles Jr. & Co., 3/8 belonging to John & C. Deming, 1/4 to Capt. Amon Langdon Master." It contains a minute account of the cargo, from numerous horses down to one quire of paper. An account of five other voyages follows, the value of the cargoes varying from £677 to £1734.
An account of one more exodus from the village must complete the story. When gold was found in California, Farmington, too, had her Forty-niners who went around the Horn, and in due time returned not much poorer than they went, but rich in a fund of stories which lasted the rest of their lives. But it is not of them I would speak. A Farmington man, born in the Eastern Farms and edu-
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cated at the Farmington Acr Dr. Joseph Washburn Clark neyed across the plains t 1850. A relative writes: whatever danger of Ind : belonging to his party the rest of the train + California ; and it .
.my and at Yale College, ith a party of settlers jour- alifornia in the spring of never traveled on Sunday ; there might be, the wagons ys stopped on Sunday, letting : on in their eagerness to rear .ys came out that his teams, r
freshed by a day's . ., overtook the train before the nex. Sabbath." A quarter of a century of labor and honor, with sufficient wealth, awaited him in California.
Such have been some of the principal removals from the old center of Farmington. The tide has at length begun to turn. New names are fast taking the place of the old. But twelve of the surnames of the old Eighty-four Pro- prietors remain with us, while almost every state in the Union has its Farmington. I trust there are still enough descendants of the men of old left to take some interest in this too long rehearsal of matters fast fading from the memory of our people.
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Farmington Two Hundred Years Ago
AN
H .TORICAL ADDRESS
DELIVERED AT THE
Annual Meeting
OF
The Village Library Company OF Farmington, Connecticut September 14, 1904
By JULIUS GAY
Dartford Press : The Case, Lockwood & Brainard Company
1904
ADDRESS.
Ladies and Gentlemen of the Village Library Company of Farmington :
Two hundred years ago, that is, on the 14th day of Sep- tember, 1704, this town had existed sixty-four years. Its polity, whether civil, ecclesiastical, or social, had become firmly settled. Its inhabitants were loyal subjects of good Queen Anne, voted every year for Major-General Fitz-John Win- throp for governor, and for John Hooker, Esq., and the " Worshipful Captain John Hart " for deputies, stood stoutly to their own opinions in matters ecclesiastical, and lived the lives of prosperous farmers.
Geographically considered, the town was a rectangle fifteen miles long from north to south, and eleven broad from east to west, the Round Hill being the starting point for measure- ments. With the exception of the main street and a locality next to Simsbury known as Hart's Farm the whole region was the lawful hunting ground of the Tunxis Indians and the home of wild beasts. Wolves were numerous, as were also animals of the wild cat variety, magnified of record into lions and panthers. The reward for their destruction, along with crows, blackbirds, and other objectionable animals, was a fruitful source of revenue to the adventurous youths of the village. Scattered here and there were lands known as " Sol- dier Lots," given those who had served against the Pequot. together with many broad acres granted the minister, and lesser holdings bestowed upon those who had deserved well of their fellows. The owners were allowed to locate their grants anywhere outside of the village subject to the approval
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of a committee, provided they did not trespass on highways or previous grants. These grants, known as "pitches," were much in the way when the surveying out of rectangular lots began in 1721, and made an oldtime map much resemble the so-called crazy quilt. A fence or a combination of fence and ditch ran from Nod on the east side of the river south to the Eighty Acre meadow, and another along the north bank of the river west to Crane Hall. The three principal openings through this fence were closed by the North and South Meadow gates and by the Eighty Acre bars. Every spring the Proprietors of Common Fields voted when the meadows should be cleared of all sorts of cattle, and every fall when they could again be used for pasturage. Woe to the sluggard who left his corn and beans unharvested a day too long ! Before knocking off the fetters by which they had been re- strained, and turning neat cattle, sheep, and swine into the meadows, each owner marked the ears of his animals for future identification. Their private forms of mutilation, by the crop, the half-penny, the slit, and the swallow tail, were duly re- corded by the town clerk and were the inviolable property of each owner. Thomas Gridley used " a half-penny on ye upper side of ye left ear "; Thomas Judd, Sen., "a half-penny on ye under side of ye left ear"; John Cowles " a crop cut upon the left ear and a half-penny cut on each side of ye right ear "; and so on down the list.
Before introducing to you the ancient denizens of the village, let us consider a moment the streets which their daily steps brought into existence and along which their houses arose. The main street ran much as now. Starting from near Cronk Swamp, named from the Indian Coxcronnock, on the south, the first considerable branch we find ran westward through the South Meadow gate where now runs the road to the railroad station. A little to the north a road ran east- ward between the present holdings of Messrs. Vorce and Porter to the old mill. Just before reaching the meeting-
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house the Little Back Lane, so called, ran south and also to the mill. A few rods further on we reach the mill lane, which ran westward to the new mill on the river and along the present north line of the Deming property. Next we come upon the " Road up the Mountain," now leading to New Britain. Arriving at the north end of the main street we find one branch turning sharply to the east towards Hartford and one westward to the North Meadow gate. A noble, broad highway gave an uninterrupted prospect from Mrs. Barney's west to the river. The town had not then allowed Deacon Richards to encumber it with his shop, nor had the subsequent owners sought to fortify their possession with a building of brick too huge, in their estimation, ever to be removed. Just before reaching the river, a path along the river bank, often impassable by reason of floods, conducted northward to Nod. If any desire on this 14th day of September, 1704, to cross the river, and their business in the wilderness beyond, or per- chance with far-off Albany, admits of delay . may be well to know that in February, 1705, the town will vote to " be at the charge of providing and keeping in repair a canoe with ropes convenient for passing and repassing over the river at the landing-place." The subsequent history of this river cross- ing is beyond the scope of this paper, but I can hardly forbear stating that in December, 1722, the town " granted to Samuel Thomson, son of John, for the charge he hath been at in recovering the canoe that was driven down to Simsbury, five shillings." In 1728 a vote was passed to " sell the boat, that at present lies useless." The subsequent history of sundry bridges and of the war between the high bridge and the low bridge parties, with the frequent " I told you so " of the high bridge men, are interesting. As for the highways to the west of the canoe place, the town in 1736 took down the testimony of " John Steele, aged about 89 years, and of William Lewis, aged about 82 years," concerning the louis they remembered as running in their boyhood from the North
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Meadow gate to the south side of Round Hill, to Crane Hall and to divers other places, all which information is open to the perusal of the curious. The branch known first as the road to Hartford, and then, as it entered the forest, simply as the Hartford Path, crossed Poke Brook as now, and, climbing Bird's Hill, passed localities whose obsolete names were once household words. The traveler soon reached the Rock Chair, corruptly known as the Devil's Rocking Chair, on his left, and a few rods beyond came to the Mile Trec, near the present remains of the stone-crusher, and opposite the Mile Swamp or Round Swamp, of bad repute as engulfing stray animals in its treacherous depths. Then, leaving Prat- tling Pond on his left and the Wolf-Pit path on his right, his course lay along the Old Road to Hartford, the favorite route sixty years ago. A branch, known of record as the " Road to Durty Hole," ran north from Poke Brook to con- nect. with " Clatter Valley Road," and a highway running south, recently named by the wisdom of our borough fathers High Street, and laid out in 1673, was long known as Back Lane.
Three buildings of public utility were ranged along these streets: the meeting-house, the schoolhouse, and the mill. The meeting-house, the first of three houses for public wor- ship, was built before 1672, and after frequent repairs was fast failing to meet the needs of the worshipers. There were doors on the east and south. Negroes were required to " sit upon the bench that is at the north end of the meeting-house below." Liberty to build private pews was granted, one in 1697 " over the short girt at the easterly end of the gallery ": one the next year. " at the south end of the meeting-house at the left as they go in at the door "; one in 1702 over the south door "to continue until the town find it obstructive in their building a gallery "; and one in 1707 over the east door. With these as the only hints I can give, a lively imagination can easily reconstruct the building after the manner of ar- chæologists.
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A mill was built by John Bronson on what was long known as Mill Brook, until our more sentimental age named the locality Diamond Glen. It was sold to Deacon Stephen Hart before 1650, and there is reason to believe he erected a grist mill in addition to the well-known sawmill before 1673, for on the 16th of February, 1673, he paid Deacon Bull for sharpening his mill bills. Of course they may have been for use at his mill on the river, which was built some time before 1701.
On the 27th of December, 1687, the town "voted that they would have a town house to keep school in built this year, of eighteen foot square besides the chimney space, with a suitable height for that service." Votes about finishing the school- house were passed in 1689, 1690, and 1691. Let our present committee take courage.
A fourth building, the inn, with its swinging sign, offering entertainment for man and beast, may have existed. Colonial law ordered each town to provide one sufficient inhabitant to keep an ordinary for the occasional entertainment of strangers in a comfortable manner, and Joseph Root, at the south end of the village, was appointed by the town to attend to this duty. The inn, however, was for the stranger, not for the townsman. Anything like hotel or club life was frowned upon. Every resident was expected to be a member of some family. In 1692 the town "by vote gave to Joseph Scott a liberty to dwell alone provided he do faithfully improve his time and behave himself peaceably towards his neighbors and their creatures and constantly attend the public worship of God, and that he do give an account how he spends his time unto the townsmen when it shall be demanded by them of him."
Of the style and age of the private houses standing in 1704 extremely little is known. It is not impossible to trace back the ownership of any house lot to the first settler, but which of its successive owners built any particular house or
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when it was built can rarely be told. The definite ages boldly assigned of late to several old houses admit neither of proof or disproof. The best description of the form of the earlier houses which I have seen occurs in the appraisal of the estate of Samuel Gridley in 1712 and can be found in my paper on the " Early Industries of Farmington." On either side of a central hall were the parlor and kitchen, and back of all the leanto. In front was a porch with a chamber over it. The porch with two stories was peculiar to the early house. That of Rev. Thomas Hooker in Hartford had one, and the room above was his study. A house with a porch projecting five feet was built for the first minister of Springfield and a house · " with a porch convenient for a study " for the second min- ister. On the east side of High Street not long ago stood three houses of the same style of architecture. The middle one now remaining, commonly known as the Whitman house, has been considerably altered in form by recent additions. The overhanging upper story with the conspicuous pendants below were the characteristic features of the three houses. They have often been described. The northern of the three houses, pulled down in 1880, stood on land conveyed by Jolin Clark to his son Matthew, April 8, 1702, " with the new end of a house upon it." It is hard to see how the age of the Clark house can be carried back beyond that of the new house of 1702. Houses of so peculiar construction usually mark the fashion of some limited period. As for the age of the so-called Whitman house, John Stanley, Sen., sold to his son Thomas on the 23d of May, 1700, the land on which the house now stands together with " my house that I now dwell in and do reserve the new end of the said house and leanto adjoining to it." This is not absolute proof that the house began to be built in 1700, but this, for other reasons, seems to me likely. The southern of these peculiarly constructed houses, with pendants and projecting upper stories, stood on the four-acre wood lot of Robert Porter and his descendants, at the north-
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