USA > Connecticut > Hartford County > Bristol > Centennial celebration of the incorporation of the town of Bristol [Conn.] June 17, 1885 > Part 6
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H. B. HARRISON.
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BRISTOL'S CENTENNIAL.
EXETER, N. H., May 12th.
S. P. Newell, E'sq. :
DEAR SIR : I have received an invitation from your hand to assist in the celebration of the first centennial of the incorporation of the town of Bristol. Please tender my hearty thanks to all those who have desired that such an invitation be sent me. I am obliged to say that the duties which constantly press upon me, and the distance to be traveled, will forbid my acceptance. I trust you will have a memorable occasion.
Respectfully, SWIFT BYINGTON.
SPRINGFIELD, June 12, 1885. Bristol's Centennial Committee :
GENTLEMEN : I am sorry that I cannot be present at the " Con- tennial," June 17th. Another engagement prevents my attendance. Birth in Bristol, and a few years of boyhood there, with rare visits since, are all that make me in any sense a resident. But it would be a pleasure to join with you in the centennial exercises, and meet the few friends and playmates left. Bristol, the growing town, with busy life, thrift, and industry, beautiful hills and val- leys, has abiding interest for me.
The historical address, tracing the course of progress, would have afforded special gratification. I trust you will have a good day, and listening to the recital of what the ancestors have done, the successors will be yet more worthy men and women.
Yours truly, L. H. CONE.
HARTFORD, June 10th. S. P. Newell, Esq., Chairman, etc ..
MY DEAR SIR: Your letter, inviting me to be present and make a short address at the celebration of the centennial of the incorpo- ration of the town of Bristol, was duly received. I thank the committee for the invitation ; but, not. thinking that I have sufficient strength for the performance of even this light labor in a manner satisfactory to myself, I ask to be excused. I also ask the committee to pardon my delay in making this answer.
Very respectfully, D. W. PARDEE.
THE LOAN EXHIBITION.
"THERE was probably no part of the celebration which was productive of so much genuine pleasure as the Loan Exhibition. This was opened on Saturday, June 13th, and remained open day and evening until Thursday morning, June 25th.
The music, the decorations, the feasting, the public exer- cises,- all were productive of temporary sensations which we call pleasure. But at the Coliseum, people would come, look, examine, and discuss, and come again and again. Enough to excite the curiosity of all; so much that the most insatiable were never satisfied.
The following account of the exhibition consists, for the most part, of newspaper descriptions written at the time. It has been thought best to insert the different accounts nearly as written, and this explanation is made that the forms of expression and apparent inconsistency in the use of the tenses of the verbs may be understood.
An attractive catalogne was prepared by Wallace Barnes of the committee, although it is necessarily incomplete, many articles having been brought in too late for entry. About 1,500 articles were on exhibition. The exhibition is held in the Coliseum, and proves unexpectedly full and interesting. There is a liberality about all the arrangements that is very taking. To begin with, the exhibition is free. There is no buying of tickets at the door, and, what is almost as important, there is no buying a catalogue. There is one, a neat pamphlet of 128 pages, but it is given to visitors, not sold. There is, too, a way of treating the public as beings to be trusted that
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it is much to be hoped will not be abused. Valuable little articles stand out wholly unprotected ; for instance, a minia- ture sun dial, only about two inches across, not to mention old china and a good many other small articles. Along many of. the tables there are glass cases, but many others have no protection whatever. People come and go as they like, and the people of the town will get a great deal of satisfaction from it and be able to study it at leisure.
A GENERAL VIEW.
The effect of the room and its contents is very good. The building is of wood, well lighted, profusely decorated with banners and Chinese lanterns, and the space is so well used that without any appearance of crowding a very large and varied collection of articles either enrious in themselves or of local historical value is shown to good advantage. A general glance shows double rows of tables running along each side, far enough from the walls to leave a free passage, and a space in the center which is partly filled with larger and heavier articles. The walls are utilized for hanging pictures, some of which are very curious and wonderful productions in oil, embroidery, and the like, besides a collection of modern Bristol clocks which takes np most of the north wall. At different parts of the room are old clocks made there and elsewhere, all having particular interest to Bristol people who live in a town that was fairly saved by the clock industry, and turned from a place of declining population to one of the most active and thriving of the smaller manufacturing centers of the State.
To continue the bird's-eye view of the room, and get a general notion of what is to be seen, it should be noticed that the first table at the north is given to a very full and attractive exhibit of stone tools, weapons, and implements, many of them found in Bristol and its immediate vicinity, but including also the valuable collection of a local specialist gathered from all over the country, and from Europe. The next table is filled with old-fashioned articles of domestic use, including
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THE LOAN EXHIBITION.
such things as a carpenter's brace, made wholly of wood, some very venerable bellows, an old miniature hair trunk, foot warmers, and so on. At the west, the first row of tables is mostly given to glass cases containing articles of dress, samplers, old china, embroideries, and old-fashioned hats and bonnets. Beyond, in the same line, are two old " four- posters," one with a canopy and one without; one of them covered with portions of a spread 127 years old. The second table on this side is chiefly given to collections of table-ware, records, ornamental work, and curiosities, including a quantity of daguerreotypes. At the south end, a table shows a rather large and interesting collection of andirons, shovels, tongs, candle-sticks, snuffers, lamps, tankards, warming-pans, candle- moulds, trenches, and such like household wares. In addition there are muskets, swords, and pistols, a very ancient ax of peculiar form, and various implements used in or about the house. The north table is ocenpied in much the same way, and that next to it, toward the center, has a display of crock- ery, footwear, printed or written documents, a collection of eggs, books, etc. The center space is given to furniture, a loom, flax and hemp wheels, and the other apparatus con- nected with spinning and weaving, a dug-out canoe, old agricultural implements, and so on.
DR. WILLIAMS'S ARCHEOLOGICAL COLLECTION.
The most important single collection is that of stone tools, etc., of Dr. F. II. Williams of Bristol. It is very full, and is one of the most perfect private collections in the country. The prehistorie specimens are partly from the late Professor Rollston of Pennsylvania, and those from Europe have a new value, in that now they are only to be had by favor, as the governments of Denmark, Germany, Sweden, France, and Switzerland do not allow further exportation. In this very interesting and valuable exhibit, only a few things can be noticed. Among those most interesting to the ordinary visitor, are implements made of fossil coral turned to chafeedony, and an as of fos- sil coral. These came from Tampa Bay, Florida, where
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the fossil coral had been worked at those points where the chert and chalcedony nodules were uncovered by the tides. The ax closely resembles those of the earliest paleolithic period, and Professor Jeffrey Wyman describes one exactly like it. These specimens were obtained by Dr. Williams on the spot.
There is almost a full line of the oblong beads, called peak ; deer bones from a prehistoric cemetery at Madisonville, Ohio ; a gorget of shell from a mound near Knoxville, Ten .; shell beads from ancient graves; a large bead from the famous great mound of St. Louis; arrowheads, etc., from the mounds of the ancient shell-fishers of Florida; an ax found at Palatka in a mound, the shells of which were all of fresh water species, this very rare; war-club heads made of shell ; the skull of an Indian from a prehistorie cemetery in Farmington ; a copper spear of hammered native copper ; a pipe found in Waterbury twenty-five feet below the surface, and of a kind made only on the northwest coast ; a very rare " crow pipe," found in Southington; a bar amulet found in Bristol, and of a form not represented in the Smithsonian; a very rare double-grooved stone ax found at Pot Island, Guilford ; rare hoes used by the Mound Builders, none of which are found in this part of the country.
There is also a bowl of soapstone, found three feet below the surface in Bristol, an unusually fine specimen ; another somewhat larger and more flattened, found on Chippin's Ilill in Bristol ; tools used in making soapstone pots, also portions of the pots, one showing how the outside was first formed, and another bearing the marks of the tool. Very interesting is a collection from the field of Gettysburg (first day), being part of a great nn. ber which indicated that there had been an Indian battle at the place, all evidently very old; rare discoidal stones, very elaborately worked, and used to play the game of chunkge ; hematite worked into different forms ; a sacrificial urn from a mound at Ottawa, Illinois, with a jaw bone which was in it when found. The collection has nich in the beanty of workmanship and material to interest those
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THE LOAN EXHIBITION.
who have no knowledge of the relation and meaning of the separate elements that compose it.
CLOCKS.
Passing down the north side and taking a bird's-eye view of the centuries, the attention is arrested by the dreamy tiek of " grandfather's clock," seven and one-half feet high, aged 90 years, and, looking up into the face of the faded dial one learns the origin of the clock industry as he reads, " Gideon Roberts, No. 37." This is one of the first wooden clocks made in Bristol, and the knife-marks are visible on the hand-made pinions. Beside this stands No. 136 of the same make, show- ing five years' progress in clock making, the work being more neatly done, and the height of the case somewhat diminished. Between these relies of time stands upon " the shelf" one of HI. C. Thompson's small, nickel-plated, lever clocks, less in height in inches than the other is in feet, and with merry, child-like prattle beating five to one as in joyful welcome to the new century to which the old tall clocks bid farewell.
Following in the track of Time, you find a Terry & Andrews clock, fifty years old, owned by Julius E. Pierce ; an elegant one-year clock made by Chauncey Pomeroy, fifty years ago, now owned by Noah Pomeroy. In F. Downs' exhibit are mantel clocks made by Ephraim Downs, 1825-40, with wooden movements, and brass clocks by Terry, Downs & Co., 1851-57. The most ancient is the long clock 150 years old, in running order, exhibited by Caleb R. Barman, and an old Dutch clock of the same age, by N. L. Brewster. Specimens without date appear in the collections of Miss Stearns, Miss Lora Waters, Justus Webster, Mrs. Dr. Mills, George R. Tuttle, and Miss Keziah Peck, representing the styles made by Joseph Ives, Birge & Gilbert, and others not named. Elias Ingraham has the largest display of clocks, comprising more than seventy-five different styles, ranging from his first design for cases for George Mitchell, and C. and L. C. Ives, forty-five and fifty years ago, to the twenty-four-hour clock and the latest elegantly finished styles of the E. Ingraham Company.
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BRISTOL'S CENTENNIAL.
SOME OTHER EXHIBITS.
In general there has been an attempt in arranging the exhibits, to make a contrast between the old and the new, as when an old wooden plow is placed by the side of one of tre most recent patterns. The old one is not so very old, but it is a piece of mortised and pinmed frame-work, with an iron share, and with iron straps run along the wood frame- work. There is a great show of old guns, flint-locks and others, as to most of which tradition seems to be uncertain. The most conspicuous is also the largest, and that abont which the most seems to be known. It was made by Roger Lewis in 1776, carried by him all through the Revolution, and has done a good deal of service since. The barrel is four and one-half feet long, and the whole length is five feet nine inches. Next to it is a rifle which was carried by Charles W. Brown of Company I, 25th C. V., the stock of which was shattered by a ball while he carried it in the assault at Port Hudson, La., May 27, 1863. There is a rather interest- ing tinder-box which was made, and seems to have been designed, by Ira Ives of Bristol, and which has at the end a steel wheel which can be rapidly revolved, and, when a flint is held against it, throws a shower of sparks against the tinder. A good many of them were made and sold in their time.
Near one corner is a big stone mortar used by Chippin, the Indian, of Chippin's Hill, to grind mortar. He was a character, and there is a story of how he once carried over to Farmington, a few at a time, enough apples to make a barrel of cider. When they were made up, he rolled the barrel all the way to Bristol, and found friends enough to drink it up that night. At another corner is a buffet of pine that is well designed and left in the natural color of the wood. Close by is an old- fashioned fire-place with all the adjuncts that went to cooking in such a place, and with a very curious crane, different from those in common use.
There is a bill of sale of a negro, made out by Sammuel Newell of Farmington, in January, 1755, and an indenture
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THE LOAN EXHIBITION.
of a slave girl made in 1776 .* A copper tea-kettle exhibited by J. W. Camp, was first brought to the town of Plymouth two hundred years ago or more, and as to its history back of that, if any, nothing is known. There is a finger-bowl that was used in the Granby prison ; and in general it may be noticed that the display of old metal-ware is superior to that earthen-ware.
There are some interesting wooden bottles, hooped with wood or iron and holding from two quarts to a gallon. In form they are somewhat like a shortened firkin, and the month is in the middle of the side. There is also one very handsome hooped wooden tankard. C. C. Weld exhibits an old corn sheller that is ingenious, but as to which little could be learned. There is a wonderful picture of Tam O'Shanter on the east wall that no one should fail to see. A very euriously wrought waffle iron is shown on one table. It is made of wrought iron with the design carefully cut, and is an excellent piece of work. Its age seems nneertain.
There are some musical instruments which look queer enough to-day, but which were well thought of only a gener- ation ago. One of these is a lap melodeon, the bellows of which had to be worked with one arm, while at the same time the fingers of both hands were employed upon the keys. Near it stands a seraphine, and one of the earliest of the melodeons made by II. JJ. Potter of Bristol. Close by stands a modern cabinet organ, showing to what the melodeon has grown.
It is much less than a hundred years, hardly more than half that, since the women of the farmer's family spun and wove the various fabrics used for clothing, bed clothing, etc., and here are exhibited the various tools with which they did it. Here lies a bundle of flax as gathered from the field, and here is the breaker by which the stalks were crushed, the swingle by which the coarser refuse matter was separated, the hatchel by which the tow was removed from the fine fibre, the wheel with which the fibre was span, the reel on which
* See Appendices E and F.
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the yarn was wound, the loom on which it was woven. Here, too, are the hand cards and the wheels for preparing the woolen yarn, and the comb for preparing worsted material. All these (and there is on exhibition a number of almost every sort) represent a vast deal of household labor and skill of which the women of to-day, in this land, know noth- ing. The huge factories to be found in almost every valley and village in New England and elsewhere, now do all this work, and all this old-time drudgery is gone by forever. These antique implements, in many a farmer's attic, are of absorbing interest to this new generation. They mark an era in domestic life which lives only in memory and history. The Inn of the spinning wheel has given place to the music of the organ and piano ; the clatter of the loom to - croquet.
Ancient books, papers, and documents are numerous and cannot be particularly dwelt upon. They are deserving of much attention and study if one has the time, exhibiting as they do as great differences in style and quality of work and material, as compared with modern productions of the kind, as are to be seen between the other articles, old and new, that have been named.
In one corner of the west corridor stands an old brown gravestone, from the ancient cemetery on Federal Hill, record- ing the death of some one in 1773. Its carving and lettering are in the quaint antique style. Dr. Tyler has a case represent- ing the dental art, in which is a complete npper set of teeth on a suction plate, known to be at least 150 years old. The whole is carved from a single piece of ivory with wonderful skill. E. Manross exhibits skins of various species of birds, which he recently brought from Florida, also a collection of air plants, exhibiting the close relation between the pine- apple and the long Spanish moss. The specimens are inter- mediate between the two, and are of surpassing interest to others beside botanists.
F. Downs has cases filled with a multitude of curiosi- ties largely from California. C. S. Treadway exhibits in a
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THE LOAN EXHIBITION.
frame a fine, and we believe a complete, collection of the frac- tional enrreney used during and after our civil war. Mrs. J. T. Peck has cases filled with a variety of curiosities connected with domestic life in the olden time.
There is, too, a piece of the leather man's coat ; a piece of the bell of the Old Pine Tree Church of Virginia, rung at the wedding and also the funeral of General Washington ; cane brought from England by Captain Sutliffe in 1765, and in- herited through five generations, and a lock of Noah Web- ster's hair, presented to his neice, mother of the exhibiter, Mrs. Frank Terry.
Near by is a huge rongh stone mortar, which belonged to Cochipianee, the Indian owner of Chippin's Hill. It is loaned by Edson Downs, and weighs about half a ton.
Whatever of a modern character is on the walls of the rink seems to be free from the disagreeable feature of advertising, so common on such occasions.
Quite a heap of wooden "bottles " attract the curious. Some are painted, others are plain. Some have stoppers, some have none. The straps of many have been worn off' evidently by constant use. The amount of "influence " which has gone in and out of these silent companions, cammot be easily imagined.
Work was begun on the first copper mine in Bristol by the pick loaned by Julins E. Pierce. The implement is shaped like a turkey's head and beak.
About 125 years ago, Josiah Lewis used a bake-pan of iron, which is shown by his great-great-great-grand-daughter, Miss Nellie Hubbell.
A enrions article is an Indian dish of cotton stone, exhibited by J. Frank Smith, formerly of Burlington. It is hollowed on the top and bottom, one side for the use of the Indian, and the other for his squaw.
Fifty pounds of meteorie stone in one piece fell many years ago in the quarry in Canton, where stone was being quarried for the Collinsville dam. It came down during the absence of the workmen at dinner. Exhibited by J. Frank Smith.
While building the Collinsville branch of the New Haven
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and Northampton railroad, a portion of an oven used for dry- ing corn for shipment was unearthed. It is of perforated brick and has nine holes one and one-half inches across and three inches deep.
.
Mrs. F. A. Crane shows a rude chopping-knife made and used by her grandfather, Anson Warner, in 1799.
Evidently the style in steelyards has not changed. E. P. Woodward has a pair here, 250 years old, which has been handed down in one family. They look exactly like the modern article.
The owner of what was once a valuable sword, many years ago pawned it to pay his marriage fees, but never redeemed it. Ralph Rigby exhibits it.
Colonel James Botsford's sword carried by him in the Rev- olution, is loaned by his daughter, Mrs. Julia A. Hubbell. A rolling pin 101 years old is one of the exhibits of II. W. Barnes.
A large round iron tea-kettle, loaned by Mrs. Jeumie Clapp, sits.quietly among bed warming pans, old iron shovels, can. dle-sticks and other domestic bric-a-brac, seemingly proud of its exclusiveness in being 243 years of age. It was made and used in 1642. Close by is an old hatchel, loaned by Eli Norton, and once the property of Stiles Hotchkiss, over 200 years old.
There is an abundance of old pewter platters, mugs, candle- sticks, and dishes on exhibition, and they attract much attention.
Two century plants contributed by Elisha S. Hollister, are perfect beauties. Elevated in the center of the rink, one opposite the other, in large iron vases, they are the admiration of everybody who enters the hall.
The first communion service ever used by the Congrega- tional church of Bristol, is perhaps as interesting as anything else there. There are ten pewter mugs, three bread plates, a baptismal dish, and three tankards. AH bear evidence of hay- ing been carefully polished hundreds of times.
Mrs. II. S. Pratt shows a side-saddle and pillion -very old articles. A tow basket, shown by a Mr. Ambler, is about ten inches high and three feet in diameter, and the handle is
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THE LOAN EXHIBITION.
about thirty inches high. A " fore and aft " heavy wooden cradle, once Tracy Peck's family cradle, is loaned " by those who were rocked in it." It closely resembles a coffin with no top.
A.nice piece of work is the old dug-ont canoe shown by Frederick Crane. It was dug out of a solid log.
The shoemaker's candle-stick nsed by Philo Botsford, is exhibited by Julius E. Pierce. It consists of a three-legged stool with a tall wood spindle, at the top of which a serew thread extends some ways down, and a eross piece of wood with a candle at each end is raised or lowered by the thread when the candle bar is revolved.
Another curious candle-stick is exhibited by Lester Goode- nough. It is very old, and seems to have been cast out of some composition metal. The leaves, and the bugs running up and down the stem, are very perfect.
Something new and yet old, is the iron-ring flask loaned by J. Frank Smith. At one side is a cork, while the whole thing is a cirele and is made to slip on the arm of the overcoat when out driving, for instance, so as to be handy to use in case of extreme or even ordinary cold weather. W. C. Richards shows a pocket knife which he claims is 125 years old.
Among the pictures hanging about the walls, is one of the three Dimbar brothers when mere boys. Taken many years ago, the lads appear nnused to the performance, and in the center boy one would never pretend to see any resemblance to the present State Senator from this town. The picture of Wallace Barnes, too, taken when a mere boy, is a study for anybody who knows the gentleman now. In fact, he seemed to have difficulty last night in recognizing it himself.
One , object of interest is the Governor Bradford chair, exhibited by Mrs. J. J. Jennings. There are but few of these in the country. The back is very high, and large ears project to the front at the top. It is covered with white homespun linen, and the same cover has always been on it.
George D. Seymour shows a large glass case of china, and scores of ladies of every age hover about it continually. The
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specimens are variously colored. and are quite rare and ancient. Every kind and make, almost, can be found in this collection, - tea-pots, bowls with odd handles, candle-sticks, deep dishes, sugar-bowls, vases, tea-cups and saucers, etc.
. Very interesting and curious, too, is a complete, unbroken set of blue and white crockery, the illustration being " The Landing of General Lafayette in New York, in 1824." Very few can fail to envy Mrs. Dr. Mills her ownership.
A fac simile of the warrant for the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots, in 1587, is shown, as also of the warrant for the execution of Charles the First, in 1649.
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