USA > Connecticut > Hartford County > Bristol > Centennial celebration of the incorporation of the town of Bristol [Conn.] June 17, 1885 > Part 2
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MR. NEWELL'S ADDRESS. 25
O God, we thank Thee for all the precious personal mem- ories that come to us to-day; for the dear and hallowed associations of friendship and of home that give peace and gladness to our thoughts, and, as we perceive how rapidly the years are passing away, and the forms and faces that we love are hastening one by one into the eternal ages, we desire to be reminded of the value of time and of the great obliga- tions that are resting upon us in the present.
We beseech Thee, almighty God, that through coming days and through coming years, as the long centuries move ou, we, and all who shall come after ns, generation after gen- eration, may be found faithfully serving Thee; and at last. may be welcomed to Thine eternal and glorious kingdom above.
O Lord, accept our praise, hear and answer our supplica- tions. Let Thy blessing rest upon us this glad centennial day of our history, - upon all the families of this town, upon all those descended from and connected with these families, upon our children, and our children's children, through the centuries to follow, and upon all the people let it rest. And to Thy great name, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, will we give everlasting praise. Amen.
Mr. Newell, the chairman of the day, then delivered the
ADDRESS OF WELCOME.
We meet to-day to celebrate the first centennial of the incorporation of Bristol as a town.
The celebration of the anniversaries of great events has been enstomary in all ages and among all peoples; how much grander, more important, and imposing, the celebration of the centennial of such events. The majority of individuals are permitted to participate at the anniversaries of events, but participation in the celebration of the centennials of those events is granted to how few of the generations! Of those
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BRISTOL'S CENTENNIAL.
who were living at the time of the passage of the act of incorporation -- one hundred years ago - not one is present ; and yet how vast the multitudes who have come into being and passed away since the year 1785! Thus it will be in the centuries to come.
And while we meet to consider the past, we should remem- ber that we stand in the same relation to posterity that our ancestors do to ns; and as we consider and criticize the con- duct and achievements of the fathers, so will our conduct and achievements be brought into judgment by our successors.
We are to be congratulated and should be grateful to a Divine Providence that we live at the time of the occurrence of Bristol's first centennial ; that we can participate in the entertainments and pleasures of this occasion ; and that we are permitted to revive the recollections, and call forth the reminiscences of the past, which, except for such occasions as these, become mouldy in the cells of memory.
The history of our New England towns is most interesting ; and Bristol's, certainly, is no exception to the rule. When the town of Bristol was incorporated it embraced within its territory what are now the towns of Bristol and Burlington, and so remained until 1806, when Burlington was set off from Bristol. Bristol may, therefore, be called a mother town.
But Farmington ! venerated old town, is not only the mother of a large family of towns, but is a grandmother ; and from the increase and prosperity of her children, which is apparent to all, we need have no fear that her lineal descend- ants will ever become extinct. Farmington may well have a just family pride. Never will her children look upon her and her history except with reverence and admiration.
Of Bristol we can truthfully say that in one respect, at least, it is the most magnanimous town in the State, the most un- selfish in its disposition. In the last one hundred years she has furnished more Time for the world than any other town and now has not sufficient for her own use. [ Applause ].
To crowd into the exercises of a few hours all that would be appropriate to, and interesting and profitable on, such an occasion as this, is impossible.
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MR. NEWELL'S ADDRESS.
How vast the subjects for consideration ! Through what changes and revolutions have the Nation, the State, and these towns passed ; with what great events is the history of this country fraught ! To those who reside here, and whose lot it has been to live so many years among these hills and valleys, it is a great joy and pride to behold this vast assem- blage of people, who have come to celebrate this event, and to welcome home so many of the sons and daughters of Bristol.
On the part of the committee of arrangement and the town of Bristol, I extend to you a most hearty and cordial greeting ; and only desire that you all should be present at, and partici- pate in, the celebration of Bristol's next and second centennial. [Applause.]
Your attention is now invited to the reading of the History of Bristol, which has been prepared with much labor by Mr. Roswell Atkins and Mr. Epaphroditus Peck, both natives of the town and descendants of our older families. It will be read by Mr. Peck.
HISTORICAL ADDRESS.
H ISTORY is but fragmentary at best. We say, " Bristol is a hundred years old to-day," but these hills and valleys are many centuries old. Men and women had their homes, and institutions, and rude manufactures here, for how many centuries we can hardly guess; but their savage lives left no record, except the rude weapons or tools which they casually dropped, and which we casually find.
The Indian tribe of this neighborhood was the Tunxis. But their sparse population, and their indolent natures, pre- vented any attempt to subdue these rugged, forest-covered hills. Along the river at Farmington, where the soil was level and mellow, they had their principal village; in the open fields which are now Plainville, they had another settlement ; but these woods --- the " Great Forest" they called it - were more valuable to them as a hunting-ground, stocked with all manner of game and fish, than they could have been as a village site. The ledge of cotton-stone, run- ning along the crest of this hill, they discovered, and put to practical use; and the vessels, finished and unfinished, together with the still evident traces of work on the ledge itself, show that a quarry of considerable importance was located there. Vessels from this quarry are said to be found in many parts of the State.
Without doubt the Indians who came here to work this quarry, or to hunt in the " Great Forest," built wigwams for their temporary nse ; and there were certainly a few isolated Indians who lived here permanently.
The name of Cochipianee, who lived on the hill to the northwest, has come down to us in the name of Chippin's
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HISTORICAL ADDRESS.
Hill; Morgan Swamp, on Fall Mountain, preserves the name of another Indian, who died, and is said to have lived, there ; the claims of Bohemia and Poland to their land in the Stafford district were respected by the whites in the layout of 1721; there was probably an Indian wigwam near the Mortimer Lee house, and a group of them near the Compounce ceme- tery. But the tribal center was at Farmington, and there was nothing within our limits which could be called even a village.
The same causes which determined the choice of the Indians operated also upon the early white settlers of New England, and tracts of arable land, lying near water-courses, were everywhere first chosen for settlement. So when the Massachusetts settlers began to think of colonizing the wilderness around them, and heard from the friendly Indians of the fertile and open valley of the Connecticut, Wethers- fin11, Windsor, and Hartford, on the river bank, became the first village-sites. So again in 1639, when the river towns had sent out a committee to explore the surrounding country for the most inviting spot for settlement, they selected, as the Indians had done, the fields along the Farmington River, and began there the settlement of our mother town in the next year.
Thirty-seven of the Hartford settlers received a charter from the General Assembly, and also bought from the Taxis Indians the right to settle on the land included therein. Among these proprietors we find the familiar names of Hart, Lewis, Barnes, Brownson, and Wilcox. In 1672 the Assem- bly fixed the length of Farmington at fifteen miles, and its width at eleven miles, extending west from the Hartford line. The western boundary thus fixed is now the western line of Bristol.'
As the Farmington settlers in turn began to push beyond their original location, the level land along the Peqnabnek attracted their attention, and in 1663 the town granted to John Wadsworth, Richard Brumpson, Thomas Barnes, and Moses Ventruss, a tract described as " forty acors of meddow Land Lying att the place we comonly Call Poland." Twenty
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BRISTOL'S CENTENNIAL.
acres more were granted to Jomm Langton and George Orvis in 1664. This Thomas Barnes was an ancestor of our towns- folk of that name, and the sixty aeres then granted lay on both sides of the west branch of the Pequabuck River, extend- ing nearly as far west as to the rolling-mill. These two grants seem to have exhausted the arable land in this direction, and no settlement was made upon them.
In 1672, the Farmington proprietors, then eighty-four m number, took formal possession of the territory which had just been assigned to them by the General Assembly. They laid out a parallelogram a little over eight miles long, and four wide, for the home settlement, and called it " the reserved land." The remaining land they divided among themselves in proportion to their assessment lists, giving to Mr. Hooker, the minister, a double portion. The actual survey of the west- ern land was not made until 1721. Six tiers of lots were laid out, each three hundred and five rods wide, and about eleven miles long, with reservations between for twenty, thirty, and forty rod highways ; so that each " division," with its adjacent highway, was a little over a mile wide. The first two of these tiers were each divided into twenty-one lots, and cach lot assigned to four proprietors; the last, or westerly, four were each divided into eighty-four lots, and assigned to indi- vidual owners; so that each Farmington proprietor had a lot, or an undivided quarter-lot, in each division. The widest of these lots were one hundred and thirty-one rods, four feet wide, and the narrowest nine rods, ten and a half feet ; each one, of course, being three hundred and five rods long. These allotments were made to the men, and in the propor- tions, which had been fixed by the vote of 1672, and most of them were actually taken by the heirs of the men in whose names they were allotted. Narrower highways were reserved, running across the divisions, and a reservation of about one hundred and ninety aeres was made to the Indians, Bohemia and Poland. The westerly five of these divisions now con- stitute the towns of Burlington and Bristol .*
* See Frontispiece.
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HISTORICAL ADDRESS.
The actual settlement was begun six years later by Daniel Brownson of Farmington. He bought the seventy-first lot in the fifth division in November, 1727, and in that year, or early in the next, built a house at Goose Corner, so called. This house has long been gone, and Mr. Brownson seems to have left the village very soon.
The second settler, and one in whom we feel more interest, because both his house and his family still remain, was Ebe- hezer Barnes, a descendant of the Thomas Barnes already mentioned. He built, in 1728, the house, which, having since been added to at both ends, is now the central part of Julius E. Pierce's residence in East Bristol. In the same year, Nehemiah Manross of Lebanon, the ancestor of our present Manrosses, built a honse north of Ebenezer Barnes, and on the west side of the road. Perhaps in this year, Abner Matthews built a house on the East Fall Mountain road.
During the next score of years a little group of houses was built on the East Bristol road, north of the Barnes and Manross honses, another hamlet on Chippin's Hill, a still smaller one on Red Stone Hill, and isolated houses stood on Fall Mountain, in the present Stafford district, and in the centre of the town.
The only present Bristol families which settled here before 1742 are the Barnes, Manross, Gaylord, and Jerome families. Joseph and David Gaylord came here between 1740 and 1742, and both became prominent citizens ; David was one of the first deacons of the Congregational church, and Joseph equally prominent in the Episcopal church. David Gaylord's honse stood about where Henry A. Pond now lives ; Joseph's, southwest of the Brownson house, on the slope of the moun- tain.
William Jerome bought land in the second division in 1741, and his son Zernbbabel moved here. The farm which the family still ocenpy they bought in 1748, from Caleb Palmer, who had already built a house on the present site of Horace O. Miller's.
The distinctive symbol of New England Puritanism has been said to be a meeting-house fronted by a school-house.
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BRISTOL'S CENTENNIAL.
Our ancestors very early established both these institutions. Prior to 1742, they had felt the distance to the Farmington church a heavy burden. In that year they sent a petition to the General Assembly praying for permission to hire a preacher of their own during the winter months. This petition, bearing the signatures of all the residents, is among the legislative archives at Hartford .* It was promptly granted, and the first society meeting was held November eighth, 1742. This is an important date, for then first, one Inmdred and forty-three years ago, did this traet, which we call Bristol, and the settlers living upon it, assume individu- ality and corporate existence, as "the Southwest winter society."
In December it was voted to hire Mr. Thomas Canfield for the coming winter. This Reverend Thomas Canfiekl, a young man of twenty-two, our first gospel minister, disappears from our local history at the end of this winter. He went to Roxbury the next year, and preached there till his death in 1795. ITis epitaph concluides with the following lines :
" O what is man, poor feeble man Whose life is but a narrow span. Here lies intomb'd in earth and dust The Reverend, meck, the mild and just."
The Congregational church at Roxbury have in their pos- session a record in Mr. Canfield's hand-writing, containing the following statement : " I having an Invitation to go & Preach at ye Mountain, now called Cambridge in Farmington, wch I accepting accordingly Preach yre ye next Sabbath it being ye 6th of Dec' & from y' time till the latter end of Octobr 1743."
It is difficult to reconcile this statement as to the length of his service here either with our society records, or with the powers granted to the society by the Assembly.
The Reverend Ichabod Camp probably preached during the next winter, though no positive record of that fact exists.
The poverty of the settlers, and the hardships which they
* See Appendix A.
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HISTORICAL ADDRESS.
underwent to support preaching, are shown by the levy of a sixteen pence tax, that is, a tax of six and two-thirds per cent., in 1743, to pay the society expenses, which cannot have been more than a very small sum. But the people were not dannted, and at the same meeting at which this sixteen pence tax was laid they voted to apply to the Assembly for a com- plete ecclesiastical organization .* The town assented, and in 1744 the Assembly again changed the "Southwest winter society " into the "New Cambridge society," with power to lay taxes, and support preaching and schools. The name " Cambridge " appears from the Canfield record to have been already given to this section of the town in popular speech, but the reason is unknown.
This society had hardly begun its record, when the univer- sal contest between orthodoxy and liberalism broke out. One party, made up principally from the settlers on Chippin's Hill, was more inclined to the milder doctrines of the Church of England, while most of the settlers in the valley were rigid Calvinists. During the fall of 1744, Mr. Samnel Newell was invited to preach three months, and his vigorous support of the Westminster theology caused a speedy ontbreak of the latent differences. The majority voted to settle Mr. Newell, but seven members were so pronounced in their opposition that his coming was deemed unwise. Mr. Camp then preached again, and a Mr. Christopher Newton, both of whom, I think, were more acceptable to the minority, and both of whom afterward became Episcopal clergymen. After these futile attempts to secure agreement, the majority again voted to hire Mr. Newell, and he was settled accordingly in 1747.
The opposition had now inercased to ten, and they, Caleb and Abner Matthews, Stephen and Benjamin Brooks, John Hickox, Caleb Abernathy, Abel and Nehemiah Royce, Daniel Roe, and Simon Tuttle, " publikly declared them- selves of the Church of England, and under the bishop of london." The relations of these churchmen, as they were
* See Appendix B.
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BRISTOL'S CENTENNIAL.
called, to the society, became somewhat peculiar. They at once refused to pay their ecclesiastical taxes, and for some time took no part in society affairs. It was finally agreed that they should be entirely relieved of the " meeting-house rate," and should pay one-half of the " minister rate " so long as they had no rector of their own .* After this compromise the churchmen began again to share in such society business as did not directly concern the management of the Congrega- tion church ; after an Episcopal rector was located here, separate assessment lists were made, a separate collector appointed, and a due share of the tax paid to their rector. The two churches lived in harmony until the Revolution, when the political hostility became much more fierce than the religions had ever been.
Mr. Newell was installed in August, 1747, and it was evidently a great day for the society. Joseph Benton, Nehe- miah Manross, Joseph Gaylord, David Rich, Ebenezer Barnes, Jr., and as many more as chose, were instructed by a vote of the society to keep open a public house of entertain- ment on the day of the ordination.
The society gave Mr. Newell €500 " for his settlement," payable within three years, and a permanent salary of $300, beside building him a house (since known as the Dr. Pardee place).+ These sums were payable, however, in colony bills of eredit, which were worth only about one-sixth of their face value. The influence exerted upon the village by this clergy- man can hardly be over-estimated. He was a strong-minded, strong-spoken man; holding to the rigid old doctrines of theology, and exerting a great influence even in secular matters. He was pastor for forty years, till his death in 1789. The following epitaph is inscribed upon his tomb in the South grave-yard :
" Here Lyeth Interred the Body of y" Rev. Samuel Newell, A. M., Late Pastor of the Church of Christ in New Cambridge. A gentleman of Good Genius, Solid Judgment, sound in the faith, A fervent and experimental Preacher of unaffected Piety, kindest of Husbands, Tenderest of Fathers, the best of Friends and an Ornament of the Ministry
*See Appendix C, January 4th, 1749-50.
| See Appendix C, vote of July 20th, 1747
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HISTORICAL ADDRESS. 35
having served his generation faithfully by the Will of God with serenity & calmness he fell on sleep February ye 10th 1789, in the 75th year of his Age, And the 42nd of his Ministry.
Death, Great Proprietor of all, 'tis thine To tread out Empires, and to quench y- Stars."
In spite of the heavy burden which the support of a pastor had imposed upon the little society, and in spite, too, of the severe loss which the Episcopal schism had caused, they almost at once began to plan for the building of a meeting- house. In December, 1746, the site, which had been chosen by a committee from the General Assembly, was bought of Joseph Benton for £4. They began the work at once, and, I think, began to hold services in the new building carly in 1748, though it was not entirely finished till 1753.
The sacrifice which the people made to build this house and support preaching is strikingly shown by the heavy taxation. Before it was begun the society taxes had never been less than five per cent., but in May, 1748, a ten per cent. tax was laid, in December of the same year a twenty per cent. tax, and another ten per cent. tax in December, 1749! It must be remembered, too, that this was for eccles- iastical purposes alone, and did not include town or state taxation. It was against these ten and twenty per cent. taxes that the protest of the Churchmen had been especially directed. This first meeting-house stood a few feet north- east of the present one, and was furnished partly with the old-fashioned pews, and partly with seats. Sittings were assigned according to the wealth, age, and official rank of the congregation, and this " dignifying the meeting-house " was a most delicate operation. To each man's grand list was added fifty shillings for each year of his age, and twenty pounds additional for the rank of Captain, ten for that of Lieutenant, and five for that of Ensign.# All over fifty years of age were seated in front, the young folks in the galleries, the children on benches in the aisle. The children were to be seated in the pews, "menkind at 16 years old, and female at
* See the rules for dignifying the second meeting-house, in Appendix C, vote of Dec., 1771.
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BRISTOL'S CENTENNIAL.
fourteen." One pew, doubtless the least desirable, was assigned to the slaves; for some of the good people held slaves in those days, and the Jerome family still have a bill of sale of "a negro boy, Job," signed by no less reverend a person than Parson Newell himself.# Deacon Gaylord appears to have been the musician of the society, and for fourteen years he was elected to " set the psalm."
Attendance at church, and proper behavior while there, was enforced with all the rigor of the law, as some light- minded , youths of Parson Newell's flock found to their sorrow. In 1758 Nathaniel Messenger, " for whispering and langhing between meetings," was fined three shillings and costs, and in 1762 John Bartholomew, " for playing with his hand and fingers at his hair in meeting," paid a like penalty.
This meeting-house was replaced by a larger one in 1771, and that by a third, which is the main part of the present building, in 1831.
Of the early Episcopal church much less can be related. The ten " churchmen " left the Congregational church in 1747, and three years later they seem to have been under the care of some Episcopal clergyman. In 1754, they built a small church building, opposite the Congregational meeting-house, north or northwest of the present first district school-house. Here occasional services were held by missionaries from another parish, among whom were Messrs. Camp and New- ton, who had formerly preached in the Congregational church.
In 1774 the Reverend James Nichols took the care of this parish, probably in connection with others. Soon after his coming, the ecclesiastical differences, which had separated his people from the rest of the society, began to develop into political differences. The excited and patriotic feelings of the . Revolution were largely directed against the Episcopa- hans, nearly all of whom were supporters of King George. Chippin's Hill, where many of them lived, became quite a Tory centre, and meetings were held there of Tories from all parts of the state. Mr. Nichols is said to have been several
* See Appendix E.
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HISTORICAL ADDRESS.
times shot at, and the popular indignation at the position of his people was so markedly shown that many of them left New Cambridge for more congenial neighborhoods. Mr. Nichols himself stayed in the western part of the state, and his loyal people continued to collect their separate taxes, and send them to him. These were received by him in 1778 at Salisbury, and in 1779 and 1780 at Litchfield. The society refused to recognize these payment of taxes to the absent rector as a sufficient discharge, and made some collections by legal process. Of course this intensified the bitter feelings between the two parties, and the Episcopal services were suspended for several years.
After the Revolution Mr. Nichols returned to New Cam- bridge, and the church in 1784 reorganized with twenty-nine members. Services were held by several successive rectors until 1790. In that year the parish united with the Episcopa- lians of Plymouth and Harwinton to build a church mid-way between the three parishes. This is still standing, and is now a mission of the Bristol church, called Plymouth East church. The vacated church building was sold to Abel Lewis, was used by him as a barn, and was afterward destroyed by fire. The windows were saved, and are still used in the gambrel- roofed house standing near the former church site. Many of the ancient grave-stones are still standing, hardly decipher- able.
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