USA > Connecticut > Litchfield County > Winchester > Annals and family records of Winchester, Conn.: with exercises of the centennial celebration, on the 16th and 17th days of August, 1871 > Part 46
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This and other societies at that period formed in nearly every town in the county and state, was organized for active work, and fulfilled its mission. The county society, composed of delegates from its auxiliaries, assembled monthly with some one of these, received reports of the state of the work in all the towns, consulted on measures promotive of the cause, and heard addresses from its ablest advocates. The subordinate societies were stimulated to activity by reports from their delegates, and guided in their course of action by the combined wisdom and experience of the parent society.
For several years the county meetings were crowded by delegates and friends of the cause. The work went bravely on. The auxiliary socie- ties at every meeting called for signers of the pledge, and appointed frequent committees to go from house to house circulating temperance tracts, and soliciting new recruits. Lecturing agents were employed to address the children in the school districts, and enroll them in temperance bands.
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The original members of the Winsted Society were: Rev. James Beach, Solomon Rockwell, Asaph Pease, Willard Holmes, Salmon Burr, Austin Crane, Norman Palmer, William S. Holabird, Anson Cook, James H. Alvord, Lyman Case, Sidney Munson, Horace E. Rockwell, Erastus Woodford, Josiah Smith, Leumas H. Pease, and Eleazer Andrews. Ac- cessions of members were rapidly made from month to month, until, in 1836, there were enrolled 297 males and 268 females. At the outset, it was a mooted question whether females had any temperance rights the lords of the creation were bound to recognize by admitting them to mnem- bership in the society. The question was speedily decided affirmatively, and their efficient co-operation in the cause was secured.
The active laborers in the temperance field at this day can but faintly realize the obstacles encountered, and the prejudices overcome by the pioneers of this movement. At the outset, the Methodist body, which eventually furnished many of the noblest and most persistent workers in the common cause, conceived that their churches were strict temperance bodies, competent to carry on the cause by enforcement of their discipline. This exclusiveness, however, was short-lived, and was followed by a hearty co-operation of the membership in the general work. There were also religionists of diverse persuasions who prated and canted about the sin of rejecting any good creature of God, and of covenanting with associates without the pale of the church. This class of opposers were in high favor with the drinking masses, who felt assured of their competency to take care of themselves, and who seorned to sign away their own liberty.
Nevertheless, the doctrine of abstinence gained ground rapidly, and to short-sighted observers seemed to promise a speedy renovation of society. Distilling of spirits by Christian men was generally abandoned. Respect- able traders and taverners ceased to sell the villainous compounds. Farmers and manufacturers, to a large extent, ceased furnishing them to their work- men. But a radical defect in the pledge of abstinence soon became appa- rent. It embraced only distilled spirits in its prohibition ; and by impli- cation sanctioned the use of fermented drinks, as harmless. The conse- quence was, that habitual and intemperate drinkers, the classes to be ar- rested in their downward course, naturally and almost inevitably resorted to fermented drinks to satisfy and perpetuate their craving appetites. The poor inebriate substituted hard cider for cider brandy, and ale for whisky ; while the richer one found in highly-drugged wine a solace for abstinence from cogniac brandy. It was not pleasant nor edifying to hear half-boozy guzzlers of wine, ale, and cider, expatiating on the benefits of abstinence from rot-gut in a distilled form. It sometimes seemed better that they should speedily terminate their drunken career by use of the concentrated poisons than to dishonor a noble cause by their advocacy and example.
Nevertheless, very many who signed the limited pledge, carried out the
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principles on which it was based by abstaining from every form of alcoholic drinks; and thus the original organization was productive of incalculable good.
The transition from the first to the second stage of temperance reform was gradual in the Winsted Society. Earnest and conscientious members, from time to time, affixed the letters T. T. A. to their names, subscribed to the original pledge, thereby binding themselves to total abstinence from all intoxicating drinks. A new life and activity became apparent as these cabalistic letters were appended to the names of members. By the close of 1836, every active member of the society bad become a radical Tee Totaller, while many partially reformed members had fallen by the way side and many other once zealous members had become neutral or hostile to the cause.
At or near this period the original society was re-organized ; or rather, it was left in the hands of the abstinents from ardent spirits only, and forthwith died of inanition ; and a new society was organized under the name of "The Winsted Total Abstinence Society." Every live member of the old organization who had super-added to his name the total, or " tee-total," abstinence initials, joined the new society. Its members were active and earnest, and accessions of new members were made at évery monthly meeting. Nearly every business man, and every trader in the town became an active member of the society, or an outspoken advocate of its principles. Every store-keeper in town ceased to buy or sell intox- icating liquors. We had few, if any, saloons in those days, and no apoth- ecaries. Taverners, on applying for liquor licenses, were steadfastly re- fused by the civil authorities. Respectable farmers were ashamed to bring into the village their barrels of cider for sale to the topers. Not a few of them cut down their ungrafted apple trees, and many others fed their apples to their stock. The cider mills rotted down or were torn down, and the buildings were appropriated to better uses. We speak advisedly when we say that public opinion and public action had reached this stage in our community 'years before the advent of the great Washingtonian temperance movement.
Our limits permit only a brief allusion to the first legislative acts giving to towns the right to prohibit the sale of liquors within their borders. Winchester first voted for prohibition ; a second meeting was called and voted for licensing the traffic; a third meeting, and a fourth, voted as the first had done, and the contest was abandoned. In these meetings, the principles of Total .Abstinence were thoroughly ventilated in the presence of men who had never attended a temperance meeting. Argu- ments long before worn trite and threadbare in temperance meetings, found a lodgment in tlie consciences of many who had never before heard them. The law which had given occasion for these municipal debating so-
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cieties was repealed by an adverse legislature, but the results were abiding. The moral suasion movement went onward.
In 1840 or 1841, the Washingtonian movement was initiated by an association of intemperate mechanics in Baltimore, who banded together for mutual aid in freeing themselves from the slavery of intemperance, by a pledge of abstinence from all intoxicating liquors. Large numbers of intemperate men flocked to their standard. Their delegates went abroad and organized associate bands in many of the neighboring cities. John Hawkins, the ablest of the pioneers in this movement, came to Hartford during the legislative session in 1842. His public addresses made a pro- found impression on the members of the legislature and every class of citizens. A Washingtonian society, embracing a large portion of the intemperate men of Hartford, was at once formed. Every member was an apostle of faith and good works in advancing the cause.
Delegates from this society came to Winsted in the summer of 1842, and were cordially received. They related their personal experiences, their emancipation from the slavery of intemperate drinking, their im- proved condition, the happiness and comfort of their families, and their own conscious manhood. They were listened to by crowded and thoughit- ful audiences ; but they departed without obtaining a signature to the new pledge. On the day after their departure, however, the fruits of their labor of love became manifest. Some twelve to fifteen men, most of them habitual drinkers, who had ever before kept aloof from the tem- perance movement, came in a body to the Secretary of the Total Absti- nence Society and enrolled their names on the pledge. Others speedily followed their example; and in ten days nearly every habitual drinker in the place had signed the pledge.
The new converts soon embodied themselves in a distinctive Washing- tonian Society, which was also joined largely by members of the old Total Abstinence Society, which thereafter became dormant, leaving the temperance work in the hands of the more popular and zealous organization.
The principle of total abstinence, after an agitation of near fifteen years, had now become an article of faith and practice in this community. Its positions were unassailed and unassailable. The old west village tavern, the last stronghold of the rumselling interest, had finally suc- cumbed to the power of moral and legal suasion. Not a haunt, above or below ground, existed where liquors could be obtained in large or small quantities, without extreme privacy. We were in advance of any other town in the county.
The new organization, formed in the midst of excitement, and con- trolled by recent, though earnest converts to the temperance cause, lacked the steadfastness of its predecessor. Its action was spasmodic rather
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than persistent. Some of its most zealous members fell away within the first year of its life; others followed in the downward road; the cause was dishonored, and the organization paralyzed. Yet, the vital principle had become deeply rooted and widely pervading. Without combined effort advancing progress ceased, though retrogression was hardly perceptible until the opening of the Naugatuck Railroad in 1849, and the consequent influx of new inhabitants not trained to temperance principles and habits. A more free intercourse with the outside world, and a rapid increase of population and wealth, tended to a relaxation of moral sentiment, and an acquiescence in fashionable customs and indulgences. Moral suasion had signally reformed our community up to the time of the Washing- tonian movement, but it lost its power over men recreant to their solemn pledges, and over both the fashionable and degraded classes of new comers.
The advocacy of severe prohibitory laws indicated decadence rather than advance in the reformatory movement. Such laws became a neces- sity, growing out of a relaxation of persuasive efforts.
In 1854 a legislature favorable to entire prohibition was chosen, and the Maine Law was enacted. Public sentiment was in accord with its stringent provisions. It carried terror to the hearts of conscienceless rum sellers, and filled the prohibitionists with rejoicing. For a time it worked like a charm. The open traffic in liquors was in a great measure aban- doned. Drunken men were arrested and fined, and prosecutions were instituted against open and secret traffickers. It was easy to convict and fine the poor inebriates, but to bring to justice the shrewd and unscrupu- lons panderers to their vitiated appetites was a far more arduous under- taking. It was found, as a general and almost invariable rule, that vitiated customers refused to betray the sellers of intoxicating liquors, and the proof of guilt in most cases could not be substantiated without their testimony. With this hindrance in the way, if the prosecutor suc- ceeded in making out a case before a justice court, an appeal could be taken to the higher court, where a jury trial could be had, and juries are very uncertain dispensers of justice. In almost every jury impaneled more than one juror proves to be in sympathy with the rumseller, and his conviction is frustrated. As a consequence, the law, when applied to the arch promoters of intemperance and its kindred pollutions, became a dead letter.
Yet the Maine Law has not proved an utter failure, else foul-breathed and red-nosed demagogues had ceased to rail against it. Its terrors have restrained in a great measure the tempting exhibition of liquor bottles, and the barefaced sale of their contents in open day. It has confiscated . thousands of barrels of vile decoctions more dangerous to life and health than gunpowder or glycerine. Even the staggering graduates of the
63
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pot-house have learned to avoid public exhibitions of their accomplish- ments. During the long years of its neglected enforcement, it has retained a reserved force that could be, and often has been, applied to the effectual suppression of outrageous haunts of drunkenness.
Much more good might have grown out of the Maine Law, had not the delusive idea prevailed among temperance men that legal enactments possess an inherent power to do the work of reform, which can be done only by stiff-backed, straight forward workers, by means of their instru- mentality. To this infatuation, as much as to inherent defects of the law, is the decadence of temperance principles and habits to be ascribed.
Those of the surviving temperance men who labored in the field from 1830 to 1850- who fought the early battles, and achieved the early victories - have retired from active life, and another generation of workers, now in the field, struggling manfully to stem the overflowing torrent of intemperance, have an arduous but not a hopeless work before them. They have not, as their predecessors had, to contend with pro- fessedly good and pious men in settling the first principles of total abstinence and prohibition. Doctors of divinity have ceased to denounce the movement as heretical. Political demagogues no longer exhaust their spread-eagle eloquence in asserting the inherent right of every American citizen to get drunk, and to make drunkards. The question of to-day is rather one of expediency than of moral or religious principle.
A "tidal wave " broke over the Legislature of 1872, and swept away, for the time being we trust, the fundamental principle of the Maine Law, and again legalized the traffic under a license system. Stump orators now tell us of the amount of money that is to flow into our town treasu- ries for licensing, and thereby clothing our rumsellers with the robe of legal respectability. When the disciples of Mrs. Woodhull shall apply for a law to legalize adultery, and license prostitution, they will find the principle of expediency already established, and the argument of license money flowing into the treasury already promulgated and irrefutably established.
It is bad enough in all conscience to allow every person who wills to sell liquors in violation of law, but it is infinitely worse to remedy the evil by giving the traffic a legal sanction. The talk of licensing only respectable and conscientious men to deal out the villainous decoctions, is the merest twaddle. Where is the board of selectmen who will recommend for license the palatial hotel proprietor and the aboveground saloon-keeper and apothecary, and dare to refuse the subterranean restaurant, be he Yankee, Paddy, or Dutchman ?
The temperance reformers of this era must work with an indomitable will to achieve the lost ground, combining moral and legal suasion wisely and persistently. Many excellent provisions of the Maine Law continue
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unrepealed. The passage of the new license law was a blunder of legislation, not in accord with the views of the legislators who permitted it to be enacted, nor of their constituents. Let its crude provisions and evil tendencies be thoroughly ventilated; let its repeal be made a test question to candidates for legislative honors, and it will sooner or later be repealed, and the traffic in intoxicating drinks again be outlawed.
There are in all communities numbers of men of owl-like wisdom, who assert as an unquestionable fact that more tippling prevails, and that the yearly crop of drunkards is greater in these years, than in the years before concerted temperance movements began. Such Jeremiahs, in order to speak with authority, should have been on the stage more than forty years ago, when there was a cider mill and a cider-brandy still in every school district ; when there were two or three taverns to every one now existing, each of them sustained more by neighborhood tipplers than by traveling customers ; when every store-keeper bought and sold four- fold more rum and whisky than molasses; when bleared eyes, rubicund noses, and pot bellies infested all public gatherings, and even put in their appearance around the communion table. Such men, if any there be, may rejoice at the prospect of our soon getting back to the " good old times " of free rum, improved by town treasuries overflowing with license money.
The temperance bands now on the stage of action have arduous duties to perform, but not more arduous than those performed by the pioneers in the cause some forty years ago. They have in the last few years earnestly labored in stemming the flood of intemperance, amid reproach and discouragements. Let them continue steadfast and immovable ; let them " trust in the Lord, and keep their powder dry," and they will in the end become as invincible as Cromwell's Ironsides.
St. Andrew's Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons, No. 64, was char- tered in the Spring of 1823, and was installed in June or July following by a deputation from the Grand Lodge, consisting of Jeremy L. Cross, William H. Jones, and Laban Smith, of New Haven ; George Putnam, of Hartford, and others. The officers installed were :-
Josiah Smith, W. M. Hosea Hinsdale, S. W. Wheelock Thayer, J. W. Elisha Smith, Treasurer. James M. Boyd, Secretary.
The first lodge room was fitted up in the old academy building, now a tenant house, immediately north of Forbes' cabinet establishment, on Main street, west village. About 1829 the lodge was removed to the
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hotel in the east village, and about 1830 was removed to the old Higley Tavern in the west village.
The anti-masonic excitement growing out of the disappearance and probable death of Morgan, extended to this state in 1829, and paralyzed the masonic order for several years. St. Andrews, in common with most of the other lodges of the state, became dormant, and surrendered its charter to the Grand Lodge about 1835.
In 1853, on application to the Grand Lodge of members of St. Andrew's Lodge, its charter was restored, new officers were appointed, and work was resumed in Woodford's original brick block, which was burned down, March 25, 1853, and the lodge was removed to the Clark and Wetmore store, then standing on the site of the Clarke House. This store was burned down in 1856, and the furniture, jewels, regalia, and all the records of the lodge were consumed. The lodge was reopened in Chamberlin's store, now owned by James A. Bushnell, and thence in. the same year was removed to Weed's brick block, and thence to Wood- ford's new block, in which a new and spacious hall for its occupancy has been fitted up under the new Mansard roof recently erected on the building.
Meridian Chapter, No. 15, of Royal Arch Masons was early located at Canaan, and its charter was revoked by the Grand Chapter in 1839. It was reinstated at New Hartford in May, 1848, but not reorganized. It was transferred and reorganized at Winsted in May, 1857, occupying the same halls with St. Andrew's Lodge.
In 1858 Tyrian Council of Royal Masters, No. 31, was chartered and installed, and has occupied the same hall with the preceding orders.
Prior to the reorganization of St. Andrew's Lodge in 1853, Orion Lodge of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows was chartered, installed, and located in Clarke & Wetmore's store. A dissension among its members resulted in the charter of Union Lodge of I. O. O. F., which was located in Woodford's block. On the burning of the Clarke & Wetmore store, Orion Lodge became dormant, and has never been revived. Union Lodge has also become extinct.
Of the early and later public libraries in Winchester, only a meagre account can be given. In the "Old Society " a library of standard works was in existence early in the century, and continued until about 1845, when the books were sold or distributed among the shareholders.
In the early reading days of the compiler, there was a library of un- known origin kept in the office of Solomon Rockwell & Brothers, between the east abutment of Lake Street bridge and Camp's brick block. What was the character of the more solid works we have no knowledge; but
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from the lighter class we obtained our first reading of The Fool of Quality, Tom Jones, Pamelia, and Tristram Shandy. This library was broken up, and sold or distributed as early as 1810.
As early as 1808, under the auspices of Joel Miller and other scholars of the West District School, a youth's library was organized and located at the house of Asahel Miller, then standing nearly opposite the house of David N. Beardsley, on Spencer Street road. Strange as it may seem, this location was then central to the largest portion of the scholars of the district. The collection consisted mainly of paper- covered volumes, then termed chap-books, which constituted a part of the stock in trade of the trunk peddlers of that period. Among the books were Robinson Crusoe, Baron Trenck, Stephen Burroughs, The Ring, Count de Lovin- ski, and other similar works, by the careful reading of which we were precociously trained to a love of sensational works of a higher order. This library was of short continuance, and would be unworthy of mention otherwise than as illustrative of the craving for literary food by the boys and girls of that day, and of the kind of provender provided for them be- fore the age of model children who were too faultless to live in this sinful world.
The next library was got up about 1810 by members of the Congrega- tional society, and was named "The Winsted Historical and Theological Library," and was kept in the study of the pastor. In the Theological department were, Edwards on the Will and on the Affections, Gilles' Church History, Witherspoon's Sermons, Griffin on the Atonement, and Kinney on the Prophecies. In history it contained Smollet's England, Marshall's Washington, and Trumbull's Connecticut. In its miscellaneous department were two strictly religious novels-Thornton Abbey, and Cœlebs in Search of a Wife. The most readable, and most read book of all, was Silliman's Journal of Travels in England, Scotland, and Holland, then just published. This library, after some five to ten years, was pur- chased by the pastor, for whose use it was mainly instituted.
About 1812, another library was organized in the West Village, and located at the house of Colonel Hosea Hinsdale. The books selected were such as the people wanted to read rather than such as a severe mor- alist would have said they ought to read. Russell's Modern Europe was the most ponderous, and Knickerbocker's New York the most popular work in the collection. Butler's Hudibras and Peter Pindar were highly appreciated. As a whole it was a well selected library, and well man- aged ; but, like its predecessors, the society was dissolved, and the books were sold after five or six years.
The next library was got up by a set of young men about 1820, and was located in the East Village. The books were suited to the taste of its founders. They consisted of poetry, novels, plays, and a modicum of
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history. The life of this institution was brief. The books were sold and scattered in four or five years.
The last and longest-lived library was founded by parties in connection with the Methodist Episcopal Church. With a view to its permanency, provision was made in its articles of association for its being holden by the Trustees of the Methodist Society in trust for the use of its share holders. Its books were to be religious and historical, and all fictitious works were to be excluded. No books were, under any circumstances, to be sold ; any attempt to break up the library, or otherwise to dispose of it - was to divest the trustees of their right to control it, and the trust was to be transferred to the town of Winchester. Though denominational in its character, it was not sectarian in an exclusive sense. The Life and Ser- mons of John Wesley, The Life of Adam Clarke and his Commentary, and divers other standard Methodist works constituted the nucleus of the collection, but beyond this the selection of books was suited to all classes of religionists and to every cultivated taste. A majority of the committee of selection were not Methodists in name or religious preferences. His- torical and biographical works were largely selected. Boswell's Johnson and Irving's Conquest of Grenada had a place on the shelves, although the latter was objected to as a fiction ; but on a suggestion that Fra de Savedra was not the author of the chronicles, but the warrior who effected the conquest, and that Irving was the historian of the campaign, the scruples of the objector were removed, and the book enjoyed a high de- gree of popularity.
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