USA > Connecticut > Hartford County > Canton > Celebration of the one hundredth anniversary of the incorporation of the town of Canton, Connecticut, July 15, 16, 17, and 18, 1906 > Part 2
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MY FELLOW CITIZENS OF CANTON :
In the few moments which I shall occupy I can hardly do more than congratulate this township of Canton on reach- ing its one hundredth birthday. The individual, if he is fortunate in reaching the age of one hundred years, has passed the most useful period of his life. But a township one hundred years old is still in its youth, and years of de- velopment and growth are before it. Canton today is in such a position, and you may look back upon a most enviable record and may look forward to most pleasing prospects.
It is, therefore, an honorable and very agreeable privilege to bring to you from my fellow citizens throughout the State their felicitations on this notable occasion.
As we look into your history, we remember that in this town was started that industry which has flourished and which has published the name of the State far and wide. We join with you in congratulation on the success of this enterprise and in your growth and prosperity. The name of the "Collins axe" and the various instruments made in this industry, are synonyms for Yankee ingenuity; that of The Collins Company, for enterprise and business thrift.
While you have prospered in this township in various ways, the State in which you live has grown and advanced in many uplifting ways. One hundred years ago our State was but sparsely settled; we then had but few within our bor-
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ders. But from the earliest times, from our forefathers' noble examples of patriotism and loyal devotion and lofty ideals, we have taken to heart the lessons they bequeathed us and have grown in strength and numbers, our churches and our schoolhouses ever being companion structures in this development. Our forefathers contended that the nur- ture of the soul and the strengthening and discipline of the mind were necessary requisites for a strong future manhood and womanhood, and this sentiment has been maintained in the years that have passed, so that today we have a leading university and schools and colleges of wider than State fame, within whose walls have been gathered students from all lands and from which have been graduated women and men who have been prominent in our advanced civilization. From the time the first steamboat was launched and the ap- plication of steam as a motive power thereto, the invention of a Connecticut man, till today, there have emanated from the brains of Connecticut men numerous and valuable inven- tions. It is this enterprise and this genius that have built up our thriving towns, with their busy mills, and given em- ployment to thousands of respected and self-respecting men and women, than whom no State has better, and who share in our Commonwealth's prosperity.
And where our State has grown, our country's growth has been marvelous also. We today stand in the forefront rank of the nations of the world, a power to be respected and a force to be reckoned with in the settlement of disputes and the adjustment of international affairs, and furnishing the world with subsistence from our fertile fields.
And so with these blessings and these privileges which have accrued to us in these hundred years, it behooves us, my fellow citizens, to take note of them and to live and be guided as our fathers have been, by patriotic and high mo-
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tives, and I deem it to be the duty of every citizen to be in- terested in his town affairs and always desire that his town shall grow and advance along the best lines to the best ends. With this in view, and because those who organized the home coming in this town were moved by these motives, I am sure that good ought to accrue to you through your cele- bration of this home gathering. I regret that this Old Home Week idea has not taken stronger hold upon the peo- ple of our State than it has. It has been the means for the accomplishment of much good work in other States. It has erected memorials of noted events and distinguished personages, which will be handed down to future genera- tions.
In these cursory remarks I desire to again congratulate you on this occasion and this anniversary, and to wish you the same blessings and same prosperity which have accrued to you in the past, and which I am sure will be yours through the years that are to come.
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CHURCHES IN CANTON.
I, METHODIST EPISCOPAL, North Canton.
2. BAPTIST, Canton.
3. CONGREGATIONAL, Collinsville.
4. ST. PATRICK'S CATHOLIC, Collinsville.
5, CONGREGATIONAL, Canton Center.
6. TRINITY EPISCOPAL, Collinsville.
7. ST. MATTHEWS EVANGELICAL LUTHERAN, Collinsville.
S. SWEDISH EVANGELICAL PILGRIM, Collinsville,
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PRAYER
BY REV. J. W. MOULTON of Canton Center.
Almighty God, our Heavenly Father, Thou art and hast been our fathers' God, who has watched over this nation and people. Thou hast been our protector and guide down through all the centuries and hast permitted us to see this day. We thank Thee that we are permitted to assemble on .this occasion. We thank Thee for all thou hast done for us as a people. We thank Thee for the churches of this town, for the business, for the commercial, and for the agricul- tural interests of the town. We thank Thee for the noble men and women who have gone out of here in times past. We thank Thee for those who have died here, and for those who have gone out into the world and have striven to make it better. We thank Thee that they had those elements in their character to make them useful in the affairs of the town and in our State. We rejoice, our Father, in these homes scattered among these hills and valleys. We thank Thee for the homes where prayers are made day by day by men and women who have love for God. We rejoice that there are many homes today in this town where Thy name is re- vered and honored. We rejoice in the schools and in the good influences which they have exerted. We thank Thee for the noble men who have gone out from these schools and exerted good influences in our Commonwealth. We thank Thee for the manufacturing industry that was born and flourishes in this town, and for him who has been so long at the head of it. May he have strength to continue that administrative ability which is for the public welfare.
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We beseech Thee to bless its employees. We thank Thee for the high esteem in which they hold their employer. We pray Thee to bless them in their home life and work in con- nection with this industry, and in a social way and in all ways may they live lives to make them useful citizens. We pray Thy blessing upon these churches. We thank Thee for all the churches in the town, and we pray Thee, our Father, that they may be made stronger than in the past, and their influence may reach to the uttermost bounds of this republic. Bless, we beseech Thee, the schools of our town and grant that they may be held in great regard by the business interests of this town. Grant that all those who come to us from foreign lands may realize that God is worshiped here. We pray, O God, that in some future day all of these nationalities may become a part of our na- tion and that our nation may be made stronger than in the past. We beseech Thee, our Father, that all of these in- terests may be dear to us who are now living and to those who are to come. We thank Thee for the advance made in education in this town. We thank Thee for growth in the cause of righteousness among us and for the growing senti- ment against the curse of the liquor traffic, and we thank Thee for the day that is approaching when the saloons shall all be closed and this great evil forever banished. We re- joice, our Father, that in many towns of this State there is a strong sentiment rising against the liquor traffic, and we pray that men may align themselves against this evil, and all work and vote for the purification of politics and the com- mercial and business life of the nation. We pray, O God, that thou wilt hasten the day when graft will not be tolerated in this nation and when it will not be tolerated in this town, nor in any of the towns of this Commonwealth. Let Thy blessing, we beseech Thee, be upon those who are laboring
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for the upbuilding of the people in this Commonwealth and nation, and we pray that this may be a nation that shall be mighty in its influence among all the nations of the earth. We pray Thee to help us as citizens of this town and grant that we may see to it that that which is best for the interests of this town shall be ever kept in view. Let Thy blessing rest upon us in the further exercises of this day. May they be conducted with an earnest endeavor to please God and work for the welfare of humanity. O God, we know not who will be the people of this town in future ages. Grant that they may be a people who will work for her schools and all her institutions. We know that that which will be for the best interest of this town and of all towns will be men working for the upbuilding of character. We pray that un- selfishness and purity of motive may characterize us more as a people, and so may we live that Thy blessing may rest upon us here and at last we may rest in that home which our Redeemer has gone to prepare for us. - Amen.
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HISTORICAL ADDRESS
BY HON. EDWARD H. SEARS of Collinsville.
One hundred years as a measure of time embraces a longer period than an average human life, which is made up of so many events and experiences of great import to the individual and the family. The past century, when con- sidered with respect to social, political, and industrial affairs, has been so crowded with wonderful development in every direction of human activity that the connection of the present with the times of our grandparents may well seem a space of time more comparable with many other centuries taken together.
Yet, if we visit Europe, we will see wonderful structures that were old when Columbus discovered America, and, if we go to Egypt or Asia, we will find that there were civili- zations of the past measured not only by centuries but by thousands of years. So we are in a very new world after all and in a section of it whose colonial days came more than a hundred years after its discovery, and we are in a town whose history begins even a hundred years later than that.
When the English colonists came to New England their efforts to provide means of subsistence and their devotion to a zealous religious life were the dominant features of their existence. Their inland settlements were dependent upon rivers and water courses which afforded the only practicable means of transportation and communication and they nat- urally erected their log cabins where the alluvial valleys
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SEARS
H.
EDWARD
HISTORIAN.
CENTENNIAL
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and meadows offered attractions for the cultivation of a fer- tile soil.
Beyond in every direction was a wilderness, only to be penetrated when the number of white men had so increased that territorial expansion of a most primitive kind became · imperative.
Upon the invitation of the peaceable Indians of the Con- necticut valley, the first English settlers came from Massa- chusetts to the mouth of the Tunxis or Farmington river and established themselves at Windsor.
In time the settlers followed the Tunxis westward and located at the Great Falls (now Tariffville) and Massaco, which later was the town of Simsbury, embracing then the present towns of not only Simsbury but Canton, Granby, and a part of Bloomfield as well. Their settlements however, were confined to lands near the river and principally at the point now known as Hop Meadow, or Simsbury street.
Still later some of these inhabitants moved farther west- ward in Massaco land and settled first on the plain of Suf- frage, now Canton street, and then in the valley of the brook named after the Indian Cherry, now Canton Center.
The Dutch were the first to discover and occupy the Con- necticut valley.
Adrien Blok, a captain in the Dutch merchant service, and for whom Block Island was named, constructed a small yacht of sixteen tons at Manhattan, now New York City, and, sailing through the East river, made an extensive ex- ploration along the north shore of Long Island Sound, sailed up the Housatonic and the " Versche," or Fresh river, now known by its Indian name, Connecticut.
He found an Indian village or fort near Windsor, and, after reaching the rapids a few miles further north, re- turned to the Sound.
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The Dutch traders at Manhattan soon began traffic with the Indians whom Blok discovered, and at one time it is said they exported to Holland ten thousand beaver skins an- nually which were thus obtained. The Dutch traders pro- cured a strip of land of the Indians and built a fort at Hart- ford at a place still known as Dutch Point.
. At this time the civil and religious persecutions in Eng- land resulted in the emigration to America of the Pilgrims in 1620.
Further emigrations followed and, in 1630, seventeen ships with sixteen hundred or seventeen hundred people came to Massachusetts Bay and settled in Dorchester, Watertown, Roxbury, Medford and neighboring localities.
The Indians living in the valleys of the Connecticut and Farmington rivers suffered from frequent attacks of more powerful warlike tribes from the north and east. For some reason, possibly to secure valuable allies, Sachem Wahquina- cut, together with others of his tribe, visited the English set- tlers of Massachusetts Bay in 1631 and urged them to come to the Connecticut valley. Governor Winslow thought well of the project and made a visit of exploration.
In October, 1633, Plymouth Colony dispatched a vessel to the Connecticut river under the command of Capt. Wil- liam Holmes, who brought the Indian delegation home and established a trading post at Windsor. In 1634 and 1635 other colonists came and much privation and suffering en- sued. Finally, however, with added reinforcements, a fort was established at the mouth of the Farmington and the per- manency of Windsor colony was assured.
In the spring of 1636 Rev. Thomas Hooker headed a party of about one hundred from Cambridge, Massachusetts, and came overland to Hartford. From this time the colonies of Windsor, Hartford, and Wethersfield became well estab-
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lished. It may not be uninteresting to take a glimpse at the conditions that existed in colonial days and contrast them with the various changes that have taken place since.
So firmly did our ancestors adhere to their religious be- liefs that they were dominated by them not only in their social, but in their political life, and the intolerance which drove them from England seemed to have its counterpart in their treatment of all white men within their borders not in accord with their religious and political views.
At first the support of religion was voluntary in all the colonies, but later the Commissioners of the United Colonies recommended, in 1644, that each man should be required to pay a tax for religious opportunities according to his means.
This method of church support found ready acceptance by all, whether Separatists of Plymouth, or Massachusetts Puritans. To them an enforced taxation for their churches seemed a necessary condition for the well-being of the people and a proper foundation for civil government. In the first code of laws established by the General Court of Connecti- cut in May, 1650, we find this :
"It is ordered by this Court and authority there- "of that every inhabitant shall henceforth contribute " to all charges both in church and commonwealth, " whereof he doth or may receive benefit, and every " such inhabitant who doth not voluntarily contribute "proportionately to his ability with the rest of the "same town to all common charges, both civil and "ecclesiastical, shall be compelled thereunto by as- " sessments and distress, to be levied by the constable "or other officer of the town as in other cases :
" And that the lands and estates of all men, "wherever they dwell, shall be rated for all town " charges, both civil and ecclesiastical, as aforesaid, " where the lands and estates shall lie, and their "persons where they dwell."
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This union of church and state was the result of the strong bond of religious belief of the Colonists, and, if re- ligion was to be properly maintained at all, a general tax seemed to them necessary. In later years this tax law was repealed.
The Congregationalists were the principal religious de- nomination in Connecticut in early times, and the settlers were not disposed to look with favor upon the Church of England in America, which was associated with unpleasant memories of their grandfathers' treatment in England.
In the year 1740 there was organized in the eastern part of Simsbury (now North Bloomfield) the Episcopal mission parish of St. Andrews.
Because the rector would not pay his tax for the support of the Congregational church in Simsbury he was confined in Hartford jail.
Another rector of this church during the American Rev- olution was confined in the same manner, because he was a royalist and it was believed aided royalist prisoners to escape.
The establishment of this parish of St. Andrews, as well as the migration of many of the Simsbury settlers westward to the present town of Canton, was largely due to the divi- sion of opinion which existed for years in the Simsbury parish as to where their meeting house should be located.
Simsbury was so named in 1670, having been previously known by the name of Massaco. It was described in the records of the General Assembly as "an appendix to the town of Windsor," whence most of its early settlers came. In 1676 the town was burned by King Philip's hostile In- dians from the north, the inhabitants having fled previously to Windsor.
In 1736 the town was divided into four ecclesiastical societies, Wintonbury (now Bloomfield), Salmon Brook
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(now Granby), Turkey Hills (now East Granby), and Simsbury.
The migration of settlers from Windsor westward to the meadows of the Tunxis was in April, 1642, when the General Court granted the Governor and Mr. Haines
"liberty to dispose of the ground uppon that parte "of Tunxis River cauled Massacowe, to such inhabi- "tants of Wyndsor as they shall see cause."
Invasion of the country occupied by the Indians was a conquest not always peaceful, and the settlers were con- tinually on their guard against some outbreaks of opposi- tion to their encroachments.
Although the settlers sought to buy lands of the Indians, the consideration given was trifling, and the title obtained generally of little value, for the aborigines had no concep- tion of English law, and probably had no expectation of any restrictions upon their hunting, fishing, and roaming about as they had always done, even if some of them did give possession of their lands for a trifling sum. It is recorded that the first title to Simsbury obtained of the Indians was a grant by the tribe of the whole town of Massaco in lieu of a sentence imposed by the court in Hartford upon one of their number who had burned the stock of tar made by one of the settlers.
The sentence was that the Indian was to pay a certain fine and, in default thereof,
"either to serve, or to be shipped out and exchanged " for neagers, as the case will justly beare."
In the first book of Deeds in Simsbury is the record of an affidavit of Thomas Bancroft, dated March 11, 1661, in which he stated that his brother, John Griffin (the manu- facturer whose tar was burned) gave an Indian, named Manantoe, liberty to plant at Weatogue meadow and the
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"said Manantoe did then acknowledge John Griffin "to be the true owner of the lands of Massa- "choe and that Pawnsattaquam at Massaco had said "John Griffin was now the sachem of Massachoe "and the Indians had no right to any of these lands "to whom Tuxes bounds."
If there were any clouds upon Griffin's title to his real estate, either real or suspected, he doubtless considered that he had by this affidavit made secure his possession.
According to Trumbull, the Indian historian, Massaco is from "massa " (great) and "sank " (outlet) ; meaning the "great brook's mouth," the place where Hop Brook empties into the Farmington river.
The land was named after its white proprietor, " Griffin's Lordship," and later conveyed to the town proprietors, and certain lots were set off to Windsor settlers.
The extent of Massaco is not clear, but it doubtless in- cluded all that land which in 1670 was designated as the town of Simsbury, and extended ten miles north and south and ten miles east and west.
In 1669 there were only thirteen "stated inhabitants" of Simsbury: Thomas Barber, Michael Humphrey, Samuel Pinney, John Case, Joshua Holcomb, Joseph Phelps, Samuel Filley, Thomas Martel, John Pettibone, John Griffin, Luke Hill, Joseph Skinner, and Peter Buell.
The earliest settler in Canton was Richard Case 2d, who came from Simsbury in 1737, and erected a house on East Hill in 1747, which was the first house built in the town, and on the property now owned by the heirs of the late John Case, who was Richard's great-grandson. The foundations of this log house are still in existence. The early settlers lived in log cabins, such as they could build themselves. There were no roads, wagons, or sawmills until years later. In the course of time houses built from hewn logs and
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boards from local sawmills became the habitations of the more prosperous settlers.
Traveling was always on horseback over narrow paths and river fords. From a map of Simsbury, made about the year 1730, there is no road indicated west of the road lead- ing from Avon northerly through Simsbury street to Granby, although other Simsbury roads are shown, together with the location of the houses within the limits of the town.
In 1752 citizens of Simsbury, Farmington, and New Hartford petitioned the county court for an order opening a road from Hartford to the Green Woods. The petition was granted and commissioners laid out the route. It was located from
"Col. John Whitings farm a cross the mountain "near to Mr. Joseph Woodford's and So. west- "wardly until it meet with a highway which is layed "thro. the notch of the mountain near Cherry's Pond "so called."
On account of opposition on the part of the inhabitants of Farmington, who were averse to paying for a large share of the cost that would not benefit them especially, no road was built until later. It was, however, completed in 1764, with more or less changes in its layout. This road became the principal thoroughfare connecting Litchfield county and Hartford, and later with some changes of loca- tion, became the Albany Turnpike.
Even as late as the last century it was considered an ex- travagance and innovation for a family to ride to church in a wagon.
Some of the early settlers in Canton, nearly all of whom came from Simsbury, were Nathaniel Alford, on East Hill, on what is called the Missionary lot, in 1739; Thomas Bidwell, on Indian Hill, in 1740; Deacon Abraham Case
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and Amos Case, in 1740; Captain Josiah Case, in 1743, to premises now owned by his great-grandson, George J. Case ; Oliver and Solomon Humphrey, in 1742. In 1753 Captain John Foote settled in Canton Center and his descendants have lived on the premises ever since. Captain Zacheus Case came in 1746 or 1747 to premises later occupied by Ephraim Mills. The farm now known as the Atwater place was occupied by Ezekiel Case in 1754.
Captain Ezekiel Humphrey settled in 1743 on the place now owned by L. Quintal. His son, Frederick, built one of the oldest houses in Collinsville, in 1789, where he resided until his death, in 1821. This house was at the corner of Center and South streets, and was torn down in 1905 by The Collins Company, who have erected two double cottages on the lot.
Frederick Humphrey owned nearly all the land on both sides of the Farmington river, which was afterwards bought by Samuel W. Collins for the old firm of Collins & Co., the predecessors in business of The Collins Company.
In 1792 Frederick and his brother, Col. George, Humphrey, erected a forge for the manufacture of iron, located near the site of the stone shop which was torn down by The Collins Company in 1905 to make room for a brick shop. The forge was badly damaged by the "Jefferson flood" in 1801, and afterwards swept away by the great flood of 1804. A gristmill and sawmill were erected by Joseph Segur on the same spot and afterwards bought by Collins & Co., in 1826, who soon thereafter and on this site built their axe shops, including the stone shop above re- ferred to.
The Higley family were among the early settlers in Windsor and later in Simsbury. John Higley, of whom mention will be made later, a captain in the militia, was the
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