USA > Connecticut > Hartford County > Bristol > Bristol, Connecticut : "in the olden time New Cambridge", which includes Forestville > Part 13
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At another time, a party of men entered his church, and as he was about reaching the prayer for the King, pointed a musket at his head,
2. Beardsley's History of the Episcopal Church in Connecticut, vol 1. p 312 Beardsley, 1, 313.
Welton's sermon, cited before. Also see Beardsley.
. Welton's sermon, and Beardsley.
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"OVERLOOK," RESIDENCE S B HARPER.
He calmly went on, and, whether they did not fire, or missed, he escaped injury. (5.)
But many of his brethren, though less bold than he, suffered more.
Dunbar's last days in jail were confronted by the sacred offices of the church administered by Rev. Roger Veits, a fellow-prisoner, who had been tried at the same term with Dunbar and convicted of assisting captured British soldiers to escape, and giving them food.
Nor was Dunbar's own pastor, Rev. James Nichols, treated much better. Rev. James Nichols appears by the records of his church to. have administered baptism five times in 1776 after July 4th, once in 1777, and four times in 1780, Rev. X. A. Welton says that these sacred offices were performed in a cave, and adds: "Once, says reliable tradi- tion, he was discovered hiding in a cellar near the residence of the late Sextus Gaylord, captured, tarred and feathered, and dragged in the neighboring brook." (6.) At the same term of court at which Dunbar was convicted of treason, this Mr. Nichols was also tried, but was ac- quitted. (7.)
A new convert to the religious faith of the Church of England, under the teaching of its persecuted ministers, a man evidently of courage and resolute energy, we can hardly wonder that Moses Dunbar was a devoted and fearless supporter of the royal cause. In his own words, "From the time that the present unhappy misunderstanding between Great Britain and the Colonies began, I freely confess I never could reconcile my opinion to the necessity or lawfulness of taking up arms against Great Britain." (8.)
His adherence to the Church of England had already caused a
5. Beardsley, 1, 319.
6. Welton's sermon.
7. Connecticut Courant, Jan. 27, 1777.
8. Dunbar's statement, in The Town and City of Waterbury, vol. 1, page 435
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OR "NEW CAMBRIDGE."
breach between himself and his father, in which he seems to have been practically driven from home, and it was then probably that he began living near his wife's home in New Cambridge. He continued to pay toll-taxes in Waterbury as a resident, and describes himself in deeds as of Waterbury; but both a strong local tradition, and the early printed accounts of him, speak of him as having lived in Bristol, that is, of course, of Farmington, and he is so described in his formal indictment. A house that used to stand on the east side of Hill street, a little way north from the South Chippins' Hill schoolhouse, was known to every one about there as the house where Moses Dunbar lived.
Probably after his father cast him off, the young husband of eighteen took himself to the more friendly society of his wife's family, who lived in this Chippins' Hill neighborhood.
He certainly attended schurch in the little church building on Federal Hill, and there his four children were baptized, Bede, in 1765, Zeriah in 1773, Phebe in 1774, and Moses, of whom I shall speak again, in December, 1777.
During the twelve years from his marriage in May, 1764, to his wife's death, he had seven children, of whom four survived their father. On May 20th, 1776, his wife died, as wives and mothers usually did in those days, when they reached the age of thirty or so.
Not many months afterward, he was married again to Esther Adams. The Revolutionary War, with its accompanying divisions of neighbor- hoods and families, was now in full progress, and Dunbar was already an object of suspicion. "Having spoken somewhat freely on the sub- ject," he says, "I was attacked by a mob of about forty men, very much abused, my life threatened and nearly taken away, by which mob I was obliged to sign a paper containing many falsehoods." (9.)
The family of which he was a member by marriage was as much
RESIDENCE EDSON M. PECK, SUMMER STREET.
9. Dunbar's statement, ut supra.
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divided politically as any could be. Zerubbabel Jerome, the father, and his three sons, Robert, Thomas, and Asahel, were all four soldiers in the American army. Asahel died in the service. (10.) Chauncey and Zerubbabel, Jr., were tories, and were, in 1777, imprisoned for some time in Hartford jail for disloyalty, and finally released on profession of repentance, and taking the oath of allegiance to the state. (11.) Chauncey was also once flogged, or escaped flogging only by slipping out of his shirt, by which he was bound, and fleeing to shelter. (12.)
Phebe married Dunbar; Ruth married Stephen Graves, who was a notorious tory leader, and lived for a time in the "tory den," where his wife, then nineteen years old, carried him food at night; Jerusha married Jonathan Pond, who, Mr. Shepard says, was probably a tory, and the other danghter, Mary, married Joseph Spencer, whose political position is now unknown. (13.) Of Stephen Graves, Mr. Welton speaks as follows :- "Stephen Graves, a young churchman residing in the southeast corner of Harwinton, was drafted for the continental army, and sent a substitute. The next year, while he was paying wages to the substitute, he was drafted again, an act so manifestly oppressive and cruel that he refused any longer to maintain his substitute, and thenceforth became the object of relentless persecution by the lawless band who styled themselves. the 'Sons of Liberty.' Once they caught him and scourged him with rods, tied to a cherry tree, on the line between Plymouth and Harwinton, at the fork of the roads. Again he was captured in Saybrook, whither he had gone to visit his grandfather's family, and brought back, but when within three miles from home he escaped, while climbing 'Pine Hollow Hill,' and reached home safely; but did not enter his house till his pursuers had come and gone without him. The loyalists of the neighborhood for a while worked together on each one's farm for safety. Their wives kept watch for (the Sons of Liberty) and she who first sighted them, blew her tin horn or conch; all the others in turn repeating the warning, till the men had time to get well on their way to their cave, which the men-hunters never dis- covered." (14.)
After his first wife's death, Dunbar says :- "I had now concluded to live peaceable, and give no offense, neither by word nor deed. I had thought of entering into a voluntary confinement within the limits of iny farm, and making proposals of that nature, when I was carried before the Committee, and by them ordered to suffer imprisonment during their pleasure, not exceeding five months. When I had remained there about fourteen days, the authoritity of New Haven dismissed me. Finding my life uneasy, and as I had reason to apprehend, in great danger, I thought it my safest method to flee to Long Island, which I accordingly did, but having a desire to see my friends and children, and being under engagement of marriage with her who is my wife, the banns of marriage having been before published, I returned, and was married. Having a mind to remove my wife and family to Long Island, as a place of safety, I went there the second time, to prepare matters accordingly. When there I accepted a captain's warrant for the King's service in Colonel Fanning's regiment.
"I returned to Connecticut, when I was taken and betrayed by Joseph Smith, and was brought before the authority of Waterbury They refused to have anything to do with the matter. I was carried before Justices Strong and Whitman of Farmington and by them com- mitted to Hartford, where the Superior Court was then sitting. I was tried on Thursday, 23rd of January, 1777, for High Treason against the State of Connecticut, by an act passed in October last, for enlisting men for General Howe, and for having a captain's commission for that pur-
10. The Tories of Connecticut, by James Shepard, Connecticut Magazine, IV., 262.
11. Records of the State of Connecticut, Vol. 1, p. 259.
12. Welton's sermon, ut supra. The Tories of Conn., supra, p. 260.
13. MS. notes of Mr. James Shepard. See Conn. Magazine, IV., 260.
14. Welton's sermon, ut supra.
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OR "NEW CAMBRIDGE."
RESIDENCE J. R. HOLLEY, BELLEVUE AVENUE.
pose. I was adjudged guilty, and on the Saturday following was brought to the bar of the court and received sentence of death." (16.)
Several things in this statement attract attention; firstly, the great powers stated to have been exercised by the "committee," who could imprison a man at their pleasure, not exceeding five months, without trial; again, the persistent activity in the royal cause which even his marriage hardly interrupted. During his very honeymoon, he was pledging himself irrevocably to the King's cause, and receiving the formal commission, which would necessarily condemn him, if it were discovered upon him. The regiment in which he was commissioned was made up of American loyalists, and Rev. Samuel Seabury, afterward the first American Bishop of the Episcopal church was its chaplain.
The refusal of the Waterbury authorities "to have anything to do with the matter," for which Miss Prichard in the history of Waterbury already cited, expresses herself as thankful, evidently thinking that it denoted greater moderation on their part, seems to me to mean simply that, in inquiring into the facts the Waterbury magistrates found that the specific acts charged were committed in Farmington. and, therefore, sent him thither for trial. It was only the usual and necessary procedure, since a criminal trial must always be had in the jurisdiction where the criminal acts are committed.
Judge Jones, in his History of New York, a bitterly loyalist book. says of the charge against him :- "His commission and orders from General Howe were in his pocket. There happened to be no existing law in the Colony which made such an offense punishable with death A law was therefore made on purpose; upon which ex post facto law he was indicted and tried for treason." (17.)
This charge that the law was passed after the criminal acts were committed, if well-founded, would be a serious one: for such legislation is universally recognized as contrary to natural justice: By the Consti-
16. Dunbar's statement, ut supra.
17. Jones's History of New York, Vol. 1, page 175.
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tution of the Uinted States, not then in force of course, any ex post facto law is invalid and null. But I do not believe that the statement 'is true.
The act defining treason under which he was convicted was the second act, the first having been a ratification of the Declaration of Independence, passed by the General Assembly which met October tenth, and adjourned November seventh, 1775.
Jones himself says that Dunbar was taken up early in 1777; Dunbar says that by the justices he was committed to Hartford, where the Superior Court was then sitting, by which he was tried on January 23rd, 1777. This was, the January, 1777, session of the court, The indictment charges his treasonable acts to have been committed on November 10th, 1776, and January 1st, 1777; very likely the latter date was charged because he was arrested on that day, and the royal commission was then found in his possession.
So that it is quite clear that his arrest, and the acts for which he was tried, were a considerable time after the passage of the act against treason.
Doubtless this is true; that he and other tories had been arrested and imprisoned as dangerous characters, and there had been no sufficient statute under which to punish them; and the Legislature, at the earliest possible moment after the Declaration of Independence, supplied the omission. But when they instituted a prosecution under the act, they clearly set up acts occurring after its passage.
The indictment of Dunbar read as follow: "The Jurors for the Governor & Company of the State of Connecticut upon their oaths present that one Moses Dunbar of Farmington in said county being a person belonging to and residing within this state of Connecticut not having the fear of God before his Eyes and being Seduced by the Instigation of the Devil on or about the 10th day of November last past and also on or about the 1st day of January Instant, did wittingly and feloniously wickedly and Traitorously proceed and goe from said Farmington to the City of New York in the State of New York with Intent to Join to aid, Assist and hold Traitorous Correspondence with the British Troops and Navy there Now in Armes and Open Warr and hostilities against this State and the rest of the United States of America and also that the said Moses Dunbar on or about the said 10th Day of November last and 1st day of January Instant Did wittingly and knowingly feloniously wickedly and Traitorously at New York aforesaid Join himself to the British Army and Enter their Service and Pay and did Aid and Assist the said British Army and Navy Now in Arms and Enemies at Open Warr with this State and the rest of the United States of America and did Inlist and Engage with said British Army to levy Warr against this State and the Government thereof and Did Traitorously Correspond with said Enemies and Give them Intelligence of the State and Situation of the State and did plot and Contrive with said Enemies to Betray this State and the rest of the United States of America into their "Power and hands against the peace and Dignity of the State and Contrary to the form and effect of the Statute of this State in Such Case lately made and provided.".
His sentence was: "that he go from hence to the goal from whence he came and from thence to the place of execution and there to be hanged up by the neck between the heavens and the earth untill he Shalle be Dead." (18.)
The name of the man whom Dunbar was charged to have persuaded to enlist, John Adams, suggests that he was probably a father or brother of the Esther Adams, whom he had just married. Apparently Dunbar carried on his courtship and his loyalist campaign together; and won the heart of the daughter for himself, and of the father or brother for the King, at the same time. .
18. Superior Court Records, Secretary of State's Office, vol. 18.
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There were quite a number of other trials and convictions under the same statute; but no one was executed but Dunbar. I presume that the colonists felt it necessary to make an example of some one, to show that the law had teeth, and to drive the tory sentiment of the state into concealment and silence. For this purpose they may have desired a shining mark, and selected as the victim a man of high character rather than the reverse.
He was ordered to be hanged on March 19th, 1777. On March first, with the aid of a knife brought him by Elisha Wadsworth of Hart- ford, he cleared himself of his irons, knocked down the guard, and escaped from the jail. Wadsworth was indicted for his part in this escape, and was sentenced to be imprisoned for one year, to pay forty pounds fine, and the costs of his prosecution. Half of his term of imprisonment, and his fine, was afterward remitted.
Dunbar was soon recaptured, and was executed on March 19th, 1777, according to the sentence. The gallows was erected on the hill south of Hartford, where Trinity College now is. "A prodigious Con- course of People were Spectators on the Occasion," said the Connecticut Courant of March 24th.
"It is said that at the moment when the execution took place a white deer sprang from the near-by forest, and passed directly under the hanging victim. This tradition," says Miss Prichard's History of Waterbury, "is pretty firmly established.'
Two official sermons were preached on the occasion of Dunbar's exe- cution; one by Rev. Abraham Jarvis, of Middletown, afterward Episco- pal Bishop of Connecticut, at the jail, to Dunbar himself; and one by Rev. Nathan Strong, of the First Church in Hartford, in his church. Mr. Strong says: "For reasons we must in charity hope honest to him- self, he refuses to be present at this solemnity; my discourse therefore will not be calculated, as hath been usual on such occasions, to the dying creature who is to appear immediately before the Great Judge; but to assist my hearers in making an improvement of the event, for their own
RESIDENCE MILES LEWIS PECK, SUMMER STREET.
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BRISTOL, CONNECTICUT
RESIDENCE HENRY L. BEACH AND PHILIP H. STEVENS, PROSPECT PLACE
benefit." It is reasonable inference that Dunbar's refusal to listen to a Congregational minister let to Mr. Jarvis, a leading clergyman of his own faith, who was also a loyalist, being invited to preach the sermon to him. His treatment would not seem in this matter to have been harsh or inconsiderate.
Mr. Strong's references to him in his sermon are also entirely free from bitterness of tone; he ends thus:
"With regard to the dying criminal, while you acquiesce in the necessity of his fate, give him your prayers. Though public safety. forbids him pardon from the State, he may be pardoned by God Almighty. As Christians, forgive him; let not an idea that he hath sinned against the country keep alive the passions of hatred and revenge.
Remember the instruction of Christ, forgive our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against us, forgive your enemies, and pray for those who use you wickedly; commend his spirit to the mercy of God, and the Saviour of men's souls." (19.)
The text was I Tim. F, 20. "Them that sin rebuke before all, that others also may fear."
The excitement among the loyalists by Dunbar's sentence and impending death appears very clearly in this statement by Judge Jones, in the history of New York, already cited: (20.)
"No less than four expresses, at four different times, were sent to General Howe between the condemnation and the execution, to each of which the most faithful promises were made, that an application of such a serious nature should be made to the Government of Connecticut, as should insure his discharge.
There were about four hundred rebel officers and five thousand soldiers at this time prisoners within the British lines at New York.
19. Strong's sermon, Conn."Hist. Library.
20. Vol. 1, page 176.
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No application was ever made, and while the general was lolling in the arms of his mistress, and sporting his cash at the faro bank, the poor unhappy loyalist was executed. This is a fact, and the General knows it. His word, his honour, and his humanity were all sported away in this affair.'
Jones goes on to accuse the Connecticut authorities of barbarous treatment of Dunbar's wife:
"Dunbar had a young wife, big with child. On the day of execution the High Sheriff, (by orders no doubt) compelled her to ride in the cart, and attend the execution of her husband. This over, she left Hartford, and went to Middletown, about sixteen miles down the river, where a number of loyalists lived, and where several British subjects were living upon parole.
Her case being stated, a subscription was undertaken for her com- fort and relief. No sooner was this hospitable act known to the com- mittee at Middletown, than they sent for the poor woman, and ordered her out of town, declaring at the same time, that if she should there- after be found in that town, she should be sent instantly to jail.
The unhappy wretch was obliged to leave the town in consequence of this inhuman order, and had it not been for the hospitality of a worthy loyal family, who kindly took her under their roof, she would in all probability have been delivered in the open fields. A striking instance this of American lenity, which the rebels during the war proclaimed to the world with so much eclat." (21.)
As to this, of course there is now no contrary proof; but few classes of statements are so unreliable as to the counter-charges of severity in a civil war. Jones's authority is very small, as I was assured by the late President of the Connecticut Historical Society, and State Librarian, Mr. Charles J. Hoadley, he certainly is wrong in his previous statement that Dunbar was tried under an ex post facto law, and the treatment by the authorities in other respects does not seem to have been unkind.
RESIDENCE MRS. N. S. WIGHTMAN, SUMMER STREET.
21. Jones's History of New York, vol. 1, page 177
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BRISTOL, CONNECTICUT
RESIDENCE CHARLES T. TREADWAY, BELLEVUE AVENUE.
If Mrs. Dunbar rode with her husband to execution, I think it much more likely that it was from her devoted wish to stay by him to the last, than from any compulsion put upon her by the sheriff. That she may have been subjected to persecution afterward is likely enough, from all that we know of the usual treatment of the torics.
A reference to the date of the baptism of Moses, son of Moses Dunbar. on the New Cambridge church record, December, 1777, confirms Jones's statement as to Mrs. Dunbar's condition. Mr. Welton says that this son came to an untimely end; how, I do not know. Mrs. Dunbar went within the lines of the British army for protection, but afterward re- turned to Bristol, and married Chauncey Jerome, the brother of Dunbar's first wife, with whom she went to Nova Scotia. After the peace, they returned to Connecticut, and were the parents of several children. (22.)
Many years afterward Mrs. Jerome, then an old woman, was driving by the hill where Trinity stands, with Erastus Smith of Hartford; point- ing out to him an apple tree, she said, "That is where my poor first husband was buried."" Smith related this to Mr. Hoadley, who told it to me.
-
More than a century after Dunbar's execution, when an old house at Harwinton was destroyed, papers were found in the garret and ex- amined, among which were two papers written by Moses Dunbar on the day before his death.
The first was addressed to his children, and was as follows:
MY CHILDREN: Remember your Creator in the days of your youth. Learn your Creed, the Lord's prayer, and the ten command- ments and Catechism, and go to church as often as you can, and prepare yourselves as soon as you are of a proper age to worthily partake of the Lord's supper. I charge you all, never to leave the church. Read the Bible. Love the Saviour wherever you may be.
22. Sabine's American Loyalists, under Moses Dunbar.
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I am now in Hartford jail, condemned to death for high treason against the state of Connecticut. I was thirty years last June, the 14th. God bless you. Remember your Father and Mother and be dutiful to your present mother.
The other paper is an account of his life, and a statement of his faith. I have already quoted from it. It concludes as follows:
"The tremendous and awful day now draws near, when I must appear before the Searcher of hearts to give an account of all the deeds done in the body, whether they be good or evil. I shall soon be de- livered from all the pains and troubles this wicked mortal state, and shall be answerable to the All-Seeing God, who is infinitely just, and knoweth all things as they are. I am fully persuaded that I depart in a state of peace with God, and my own conscience. I have but little doubt of my future happiness, through the merits of Jesus Christ. I have sincerely repented of all my sins, examined my heart, prayed earnestly to God for mercy, for the gracious pardon of my manifold and heinous sins. I resign myself wholly to the disposal of my Heavenly Father, submitting to His Divine will. From the bottom of my heart I forgive all enemies and earnestly pray God to forgive them all. Some part of T-S-'s evidence was false, but I heartily forgive him, and likewise earnestly beg forgiveness of all persons whom I have injured or offended.
"I die in the profession and communion of the Church of England.
"Of my political sentence I leave the readers of these lines to judge. Perhaps it is neither reasonable nor proper that I should declare them in my present situation. I cannot take the last farewell of my country- men without desiring them to show kindness to my poor widow and children not reflecting upon them the manner of my death. Now I have given you a narrative of all things material concerning my life with that veracity which you are to expect from one who is going to leave the world and appear before the God of truth. My last advice to you is, that you, above all others, confess your sins, and prepare
RESIDENCE MRS. CHARLES S. TREADWAY, BELLEVUE AVENUE.
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BRISTOL CONNECTICUT,
RESIDENCE OF THE LATE EDWARD B. DUNBAR, SOUTH STREET.
yourselves, with God's assistance, for your future and Eternal state. You will all shortly be as near Eternity as I now am, and will view both worlds in the light which I do now view them. You will then view all worldly things to be but shadows and vapours and vanity of vanities, and the things of the Spiritual world to be of importance beyond all description. You will then be sensible that the pleasures of a good conscience, and the happiness of the near prospect of Heaven, will out- weigh all the pleasures and honours of this wicked world.
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