USA > Connecticut > Hartford County > Farmington > An historical address delivered at the opening of the village library of Farmington, Conn., September 30th, 1890 > Part 7
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Amos wrote many entertaining letters which I have no time to quote at length. He gave to his brother Fenn, who kept the shop in his absence, minute directions for preparing those tremendous medical compounds which were supposed to suit the hardy constitutions of our ances- tors. His orders about clothing would horrify the trim
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militia man of our time. Every man in the army dressed as seemed good unto himself. There were no uniforms. Deacon Elijah Porter, Farmington's first librarian, is said, on the authority of another deacon, to have worn his wedding suit to the war. Orderly-Sergeant Roger Hooker records on the 14th of June :
"That no man appear for any duty, except fatigue, with long trousers, or without stockings and shoes."
After Washington took command the orderly-book announces that the officers
" Be distinguished in the following manner. The Com- mander-in-Chief with a light blue ribbon worn across his breast between his coat and vest. The Major and Brigadier-Generals with a pink ribbon in the same manner, and the Aids-de-Camp by a green ribbon."
Colonel Fisher Gay writes, February 26th :
" Was Officer of the Day. 27th, returned the sash . . at 9 o'clock and made report to Gen. Ward."
This sash or ribbon seems to have been the means of distinguishing officers from privates. On the 4th of Sep- tember Lieut. Wadsworth was on the point of joining Arnold's expedition against Quebec, but was dissuaded by his friends. Almost the next we hear of him is the account of his funeral, celebrated with much military dis- play on the 30th of October, the day after his death. The procession was headed by an advance guard of twenty men with reversed arms, followed by the Sergeants as bearers. The coffin was covered with black velvet and bore two crossed swords. Then followed the mourners, his mother and brother, the regiment under arms, and the officers of the other regiments. The musicians played the tune, " Funeral Thoughts," and at the end of every line the drums beat one stroke. The march was a
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mile and a half long, and during the last half-mile the Brookline bell tolled constantly. His monument stands to-day in the old cemetery of Brookline. His brother Fenn soon entered the army, and was for several years one of the Committee of the Pay Table in Hartford. He died just after the close of the war, and a monument in Saratoga marks his resting-place.
From this point our sources of information about Farmington men in the war are sadly lessened. The orderly-book of Roger Hooker closes with his promotion to be Second Lieutenant under Ebenezer Sumner, Cap- tain of the 5th Company in the 22d Regiment, which office he was holding as early as December 11th. On the 2d of February, 1776, begins the short diary of Colonel Fisher Gay. He says :
"Set off for headquarters to join the army under command of General Washington before Boston, and arrived at Roxbury the 6th of said month. Stationed at Roxbury with the regiment I belonged to, and quartered at Mr. Wyman's with Col. Wolcott and Mr. Perry. Was sent for by General Washington to wait on his Excellency the 13th of said month, and was ordered by the General to go to Connecticut to purchase all the gunpowder I could. Went to Providence, and from thence to Gov. Trumbull, where I obtained 2 tons of the Governor, and then to New Lon-
- don to Mr. T[homas] Mumford, and obtained of him an order on Messrs. Clark & Nightingill, merchants in Providence, and re- turned to camp the 19th, and made report to the General to his great satisfaction."
On Sunday, March 17th, he writes :
"Col. Wolcott on the hill. An alarm in the morning. I ordered the regiment to meet before . the Colonel's door after prayers. I marched them off with Major Chester. Near the alarm post found, instead of going to action, the enemy had aban- doned Boston. 500 troops immediately ordered to march into and take possession of the fortifications in Boston. Col. Larned. myself, Majors Sproat and Chester, with a number of other officers
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and troops, marched in and took possession, and tarried there till the 19th at night, then returned to camp at Roxbury. Never peo- ple more glad at the departure of an enemy and to see friends."
Deacon Samuel Richards also tells of the entry into Boston in his " Personal Narrative." He says :
"I had the gratification of being selected to carry the Ameri- can flag at the head of the column which entered from the Rox- bury side. When arrived in the town numerous incidents crowded upon our view. I can particularize but few of them. The burst of joy shown in the countenances of our friends so long shut up and domineered over by an insulting enemy; the meeting and mutual salutations of parents and children, and other members of families, having been separated by the sudden shutting up of the town after the battle of Lexington; the general dilapidation of the houses, several churches emptied of all the inside work and turned into riding-schools for the cavalry; all the places which had been previously used for public resort torn to pieces. As I was the bearer of the flag, I attracted some attention and was constantly pressed with invitations to 'call in and take a glass of wine with me.'"
On the day before the evacuation of Boston Governor Trumbull closes a letter with the exclamation :
"Hitherto the Lord hath helped us. Although they came against us with a great multitude and are using great artifice, yet let our eyes be on the Lord of Hosts and our trust in Him."
And then adds :
"P. S. This moment received a letter from headquarters requesting me to throw two thousand men into New York from the frontiers of Connecticut to maintain the place until the Gen- eral can arrive with the army under his command."
In response thereto the Farmington soldiers marched by way of Providence to New London, where they took chip, and, after running upon a rock in Hell Gate, finally reached New York in safety. Here, on the 22d of August, shortly before the Americans were driven from the city,
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died Colonel Fisher Gay. A not very well authenticated tradition affirms that he was buried in Trinity Church- yard.
With New York in possession of the enemy, the towns on the coast were exposed to raid by the British and Tories. This, with the scarcity of provisions in New Haven, caused the corporation of Yale College to send the freshman class to Farmington, the sophomore and junior classes to Glastonbury, and the seniors to Wethers- field, to meet at these respective places on the 27th of May, 1777. Again they advertise that the sophomore class is ordered to meet at Farmington October 22, 1777 :
"Where provision is made for their residence. We could wish to have found suitable accommodations for the senior class, and have taken great pains to effect it, but hitherto without success."
Here came their tutor, the Rev. John Lewis, and here in the old cemetery you will find a stone recording the birth and death in this village of his son, John Livy.
After the surrender of Burgoyne, General Gates ordered the captured artillery sent to Connecticut for safety, and a memorial to the General Assembly states that Colonel Ichabod Norton, grandfather of the late John T. Norton, Esq., was ordered
" To take the command of a company and proceed to Albany for the purpose of guarding the cannon taken from Gen. Bur- goyne the last campaign, ordered to be removed to said Farm- ington."
After the expedition was well under way the snow disap- peared, and the men were a fortnight dragging the heavy pieces through the mud. They were finally stored in the orchard of John Mix, where they remained a considerable time.
During the remainder of the war the Farmington soldiers were located almost exclusively in the Highlands
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above New York. Of the first occupancy of West Point, Deacon Richards says :
" I being at the time senior officer of the regiment present, of course led on the regiment, crossing the river on the ice. . Coming on to the small plain surrounded by the mountains, we
. found it covered with a growth of yellow pines ten or fifteen feet high; no house or improvement on it; the snow waist high. We fell to lopping down the tops of the shrub pines and treading down the snow, spread our blankets, and lodged in that condition the first and second nights."
Concerning this same affair Deacon Elijah Porter says in his journal:
"When Gen. Putnam was ready to go over on the ice he called me to come to him. He then loaded me with tools for building huts, and took a heavy load himself, and bade ine follow him. When we got about half a mile on the ice, he went on some shelly ice, began to slip about, and down he went with his load of tools and made the ice crack so that I thought he would go down, but the ice held him up, and I sprang round and picked up his tools and loaded him up again. We went on and arrived safe on the point."
Deacon Porter soon returned home and his journal closes, but Deacon Richards remained at West Point and was an eye-witness of the execution of Andre. To Timothy Hosmer, formerly the village doctor of Farm- ington, and now army surgeon, was assigned the duty of laying his finger on Andre's pulse and reporting him dead.
Deacon Richards was at West Point during the build- ing of the fortifications the subsequent spring under the direction of Kosciusko. He says :
"I was quartered a considerable time with him in the same log hut, and soon discovered in him an elevation of mind which gave fair promise of those high achievements to which he attained. His manners were soft and conciliating and at the same time ele-
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vated. I used to take much pleasure in accompanying him about with his theodolite, measuring the heights of the surrounding mountains. He was very ready in mathematics. Our family now consisted of Brigadier-General Parsons, Doctor, afterwards Presi- ent Dwight, Kosciusko, and myself, with the domestics. When the weather had become mild and pleasant in April, I went one day with Dr. Dwight down to view the ruins of Fort Mont- gomery, distant about eight or ten miles. There was a pond just north of the fort, where we found the British had thrown in the bodies of their own and our men who fell in the assault of the fort."
He closes a very gruesome account of the spectacle with the exclamation :
"Had the fort held out a little longer, I very probably might have lain among them."
I shall close this rambling paper with a notice of a proposed invasion of this quiet village, a bill for which actually passed the Lower House of the General Assembly near the close of the war in 1781 :
"Resolved by this Assembly that considering the peculiar difficulty that many of the members of this Assembly meet with in procuring subsistence for. themselves and forage for their horses, it is expedient this Assembly be adjourned to the town of Farmington to transact and complete the business of the present session, as soon as proper accommodations can be made and that the selectmen of said town be desired to make the necessary pre- paration for the reception of the Assembly as soon as possible.
" Passed in the Lower House, "Test, JOHN TREADWELL, Clerk. P. T."
The reply to this request by the Selectmen of Farm- ington was as follows:
" To the Honorable Lower House of Assembly now sitting in Hartford. Being desired by your Honors to make inquiry whether the General Assembly may be accommodated in their present ses- sions in this town, we have to observe that from the knowledge we have of the circumstances of the inhabitants, we are of the
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opinion that should the Honorable Assembly signify their deter- mination to adjourn to this place, the members might be conveni- ently, though perhaps not elegantly subsisted, and their horses well provided. The greatest difficulty will be to provide a house in which it would be convenient to transact business. The Meet- ing House, though elegant and well finished, would be inconveni- ent for want of a fire at this inclement season. The dwelling house of Mr. Asahel Wadsworth, situate in the center of the town, may be obtained for the purpose, and is as convenient as any in the town. It is 42 feet in length and about 22 in breadth. The rooms on the lower floor finished, and one of them may well accommodate the Honorable Upper House. There are two stacks of chimnies, one at each end. The chambers are unfurnished, the floor laid but not divided into several apartments. One fire place is finished, and the room, if proper seats were made, which might soon be done, would be large enough for the Lower House. The house is covered with jointed boards and clapboards upon them, but neither ceiled nor plastered. This is an exact description of Mr. Wadsworth's house, and if the Honorable Assembly shall judge it will answer the purpose, upon suitable notice might be accommodated and other preparation made in a short time.
"We are, with sentiments of the highest esteem and regard,
" Your Honors' most obedient and most humble servants. "FARMINGTON, February 26, 1781.
JAMES JUDD, Selectmen ISAAC BIDWELL, { of Farmington.
A letter from Elijah Hubbard offering the Assembly accommodations at Middletown equally magnificent was also sent.
Time fails to speak of the after-life of these worthy men, of William Judd, famous in the political history of the State; of John Treadwell, last of the Puritan Gover- nors of Connecticut; of Samuel Richards, first post- master of Farmington; of Roger Hooker, sitting of a summer evening under his noble elm tree and delighting the assembled youth of the village with tales of a seafar- ing youth, of shipwreck, and of his long service in the
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Continental army ; of Timothy Hosmer, village doctor, army surgeon, judge of Ontario county, New York, and pioneer settler of that western wilderness; of Noadiah Hooker, honored with many public trusts, and finally, as a white-haired old man, standing on the hillside above Whitehall and dropping a not unmanly tear over the graves of a hundred of his soldiers buried by him during the terrible days of the pestilence at Skenesborough ; of John Mix, for twenty-six years the representative of this town to the General Assembly of the State, and of Tim- othy Pitkin, welcoming his children home from their vic- torious struggle, their beloved pastor and faithful friend. There were other, many other, worthy men of whom we would know more, who deserved well of their country. If this paper shall prompt any one to preserve the scanty memorials of them which still exist, my labor this even- ing will not have been in vain.
OLD HOUSES IN FARMINGTON
AN
HISTORICAL ADDRESS
DELIVERED AT THE
Annual Meeting
OF
THE VILLAGE LIBRARY COMPANY
· OF
FARMINGTON. CONN.
May 1, 1895
BY JULIUS GAY
1.043
OLD HOUSES IN FARMINGTON
AN
HISTORICAL ADDRESS
DELIVERED AT THE
Annual Meeting
OF
THE VILLAGE LIBRARY COMPANY OF
FARMINGTON, CONN.
May 1, 1895
BY JULIUS GAY
HARTFORD, CONN. Press of The Case, Lockwood & Brainard Company i895
ADDRESS.
Ladies and Gentlemen of the Village Library Company of Farmington :
I have been requested to speak this evening of the old houses of Farmington and of some of the people who lived in them. If my paper be not very profound with great events and much learning, it may perhaps none the less, for a passing hour, revive the fast-fading picture of our ancestors, their virtues and their foibles.
In the winter of 1639, when the town of Hartford had been founded three and one-half years, and Windsor and Wethersfield about the same time, all three towns began to think their broad acres too limited, and applied to the General Court " for some enlargement of accommodation." A committee was appointed to view, the valley of the Tunxis and report on the 20th of February, but Windsor was busy building a bridge and a meeting house, and their neighbors of Wethersfield objected to the wintry weather ; so the Court added to the committee Capt. John Mason, who had recently rid the colony of 600 or 700 Pequots, and who brought the Court on the 15th of June following to order the Particular Court " to conclude the conditions for the planting of Tunxis."
Five years thereafter, in 1645, the village of Tunxis . Sepus, literally the village at the bend of the little river, became by legislative enactment the town of Farmington.
The settlers found the natural features of the place much as we see them to-day. To the east of the main street their lots extended to the mountain, and on the
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west to the river, beyond which fertile meadows spread away to the western hills, undisfigured for more than one hundred years by divisional fences, a broad panorama of waving grain and green corn fields.
The land was indeed owned in severalty, but annually the proprietors voted on what day in October they would use it for pasturage, and on what day in April all must remove their flocks and herds. Access to this common field was through the North Meadow Gate just west of the Catholic church, or through the South Meadow Gate near the Pequabuc stone bridge. Along the main street houses began to rise, log huts at first, each provided by law with a ladder reaching to the ridge to be examined every six months by the chimney-viewers. In 1711 the town granted fourscore acres of land to encourage the erection of a saw-mill, but long before this time frame houses had been built, the sides covered with short clap- boards split from logs. The oldest house of which we know the date of erection was built in 1700 by John Clark and stood until 1880 on the east side of High street, a little south of Mrs. Barney's. It had a leanto roof, the upper story much projecting, and ornamented with con- spicuous pendants. Another, the last of this style, but with modern covering, still stands about seventy-five rods further south. Within, a huge chimney with its enor- mous fire-place and ovens, filled a large part of the lower story, barring all convenient access to the interior of the house by the front door. But this sacred portal was sel- dom used except for weddings, funerals, and days of solemn thanksgiving. Later on appears the gambrel roof, which was the approved style until the time of the Revolution, and which is even now being revived under the name of the Old Colonial style. The huge chimney was at length divided into two, and moved out of the way of the front door, which now, with its polished brass
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knocker, welcomed the approaching guest. An old house was seldom pulled down, but, moved to the rear, it made a kitchen for the newer structure, so that in time the house had as many styles of architecture and dates of erection as an English cathedral.
As we first come in sight of the village, looking down upon it from the Hartford road, we see on the left one of our oldest houses long owned by Seth North, and built by his father Timothy or his grandfather Thomas. Mr. North did not take kindly to Puritan ways and never went to church, and so was universally known as "Sinner North." By the children he was pleased to be addressed in the most deferential manner as " Mr. Sinner." A most excellent authority, writing me about the old-time char- acter of the village, mentioned "its universally genteel ways, where everybody went to church except Sinner North." He was otherwise so much in accordance with modern ideas, that as he drew near his end, he ordered his body to be cremated, the place a lonely spot on the mountain between two rocks, and his friend, Adam Stew- art, chief cremator, who was to inherit the house for his kindly services. The civil authority, however, interposed and insisted on giving him what they deemed a Christian burial, but Adam Stewart got the house and it remained in the family many years. Nearly opposite stood in Rev- olutionary days the tavern of Samuel North, Jr. He, too, found his ways at variance with public opinion, bought, as he states it, his rum, sugar, tea, etc., in violation of the excise laws, in foreign parts, sold them for Continental money which proved worthless, and then was arrested on complaint of Thomas Lewis and Deacon Bull and fined £100, the General Court declining to interfere. A little east of Mr. North's tavern stood the home of the Bird family from whom the hill derived its name. They have all long ago taken their flight to other towns, but our old-
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est men can easily remember the old house and the tragic end of Noadiah Bird, one of the last of the family who dwelt there. He was killed by an escaped lunatic on the night of Sunday, May 15, 1825, and the attempt to capture the lunatic resulted in the death of still another citizen. Descending the hill toward the west, we find on the cor- ner where the road, formerly called the road to Simsbury, runs northward, an old house once the home of Josiah North, and soon after his death in 1784, passing into the hands of Capt. Isaac Buck, who there lived and died at an advanced age. But we must not linger on the site of the numerous houses that once looked over the valley from this hill, only at the foot we must stay a moment, though the little red house of Gov. Treadwell, just north of Poke brook and west of the big rock can only be remembered by the oldest of our people. Dr. Porter and Professor Denison Olmsted have both written worthy memorials of this eminent patriot, scholar, and Christian, but any exhaustive account of his public services must be a his- tory of the common school system of Connecticut, of the rise of foreign missions, and of much of the political his- tory of the State in the days of the Revolution.
Crossing the brook and walking on the line of the old road which once ran where the south gate of the prem- ises of Mr. Barney stands, we come upon the house of Mr. Elijah L. Lewis, built for his grandfather Elijah in 1790, the family living while it was building in an old house just west. Going southerly about thirty rods, we find on the corner next south of the North schoolhouse an old gambrel-roofed building with the end towards the street, and, in some far-off time, painted red. In 1752 it was the property of Daniel Curtis, who, twenty years thereafter, sold it to his son Gabriel, who, after another twenty years, found it necessary to pay Capt. Judah Woodruff for new windows and for twenty days' labor in
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making the old structure habitable. Gabriel was a tanner and shoemaker, and in 1812 sold out to Frederick Andrus of the same trade, removing to Burlington, Vermont. The old house now became the noisy abode of journey- men shoemakers pounding leather under the direction of Mr. Andrus, thereafter known as Boss Andrus. He died in 1845, and the old house followed the usual dreary fortunes of a tenement house until, in 1882, we find it transformed by the subtle magic of a genial philanthropy, into the home of the Tunxis Library. Entertaining books fill every nook and corner, and antique furniture ranged around the vast old-time fireplace welcome readers young and old to a free and healthful entertainment.
The old house next west, in 1752 the residence of Daniel Curtis, became thereafter the home of his son Solomon until he died in the army in 1776. In 1822, his heirs sold it to Frederick Andrus. The brick blacksmith shop and the white house adjoining were built soon after 1823 by Charles Frost. The land on which the house next west stands was successively owned by the families of Norton, Rew, Judd, North, Smith, Whitmore, and De Wolf. I do not know who built the house. The Elm Tree Inn, where Phinehas Lewis once kept a famous tav- ern in revolutionary days, was built at various times.
Just across the line on what was once the garden of Col. Gay and of three generations of his descendants, stood the little red shop now removed to the east side of the Waterville road just north of Poke brook. In 1795, Gabriel Curtis pays Capt. Judah Woodruff thirteen shil- lings for making for it a show window of thirty-two sashes (you can count them to-day if you like) for his son Lewis Curtis. Lewis advertises in the Connecticut Courant under date of 1799, "that he still continues to carry on the clock-making business, such as chime clocks that play a number of different tunes and clocks that exhibit the
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moon's age," etc., etc. A few steps down the hill west- ward bring us to the house built by Col. Fisher Gay in 1766 and 1767, as appears by his ledger account with Capt. Woodruff. Col. Gay died early in the war, and some account of his public services can be found in H. P. Johnston's " Yale in the Revolution."
Crossing the Waterville road, we come to the house opposite the Catholic Church, some parts of which are very old, the upper story of the front, however, having been built by the late Capt. Pomeroy Strong, soon after he bought the place in 1802. There was, as early as 1645, one more house to the west, and then came the North Meadow gate.
Returning now to the main street, the highway com- mittee in 1785 sold to Deacon Samuel Richards a strip out of the center of the highway, 26 feet wide, where, in the year following, he built the little shop in which traffic has been carried on successively by himself, Horace and Timothy Cowles, James K Camp, William Gay, and by his son, the present owner. Crossing the trolley track, we come upon the lot on which Daniel Curtis and his youngest son, Eleazer, had in 1783, as the deed reads, "mutually agreed to build a new house, and have large provision for the same." As they held it until 1794, it is probable that the present edifice was built by them. The next house south, where Mr. Abner Bid- well lived many years, was built by Deacon Samuel Richards in 1792 as he records in his diary.
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