USA > Connecticut > Fairfield County > Fairfield > Centennial commemoration of the burning of Fairfield, Connecticut, by the British troops under Governor Tryon, July 8th, 1779 > Part 2
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In the conflagration of the town, his widow, with their chidren, lost their dwelling house which bounded the limit of the fire in that direction.
On the corner below us, now occupied by the beautiful lawn on which Mr. Henry Beer's house stands, lived Capt. Samuel Smedley. When very young he married Esther Rowland, his near neighbor,
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and early in the war, became an officer on the Con- necticut armed vessel the Defense, of which he was soon promoted to the chief command. Among the valuable prizes he took were the Snowswift, the Grog, the Anna and the Lydia. In consort with Capt. Parker of the Cromwell, another Connecticut ship, two armed British vessels were attacked, the Admiral Keppel of 18 guns and the Cyrus of 16. It was a time of partial disablement on the Defense, one of Capt. Smedley's officers had died of small pox and fifty of the crew having been exposed to the disease, had been inocculated. Yet though suffering from the fever attending this process, the men did noble service. Both the English ships were captured and the prizes including their cargoes sold, the one for about {20,000, and the other, to give exact figures, for £22,320 18s. and 8d. After the war was closed Capt. Smedley received the appointment of Collector of this port.
The Sheriff of the county in those days was Gen. Elijah Abel whose house was the second one set on fire. This he afterward rebuilt and it is occupied by Mrs. Benson. Gen. Able was an active man in the affairs of the county, the town, the militia and the church.
Mr. Andrew Rowland filled during many years the important office of Town Clerk, and his dwelling which survived the fire, is now the house of Mr. Benjamin Betts.
In the group of families bearing the familiar name
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of Burr, that of Mr. Thaddeus Burr and Eunice, his wife, stands prominent. His dwelling was on the site of the house of Mr. O. W. Jones, and many traditions have come down to us of the plenty, elegance and hospitality which characterized that home. Within it were welcomed friends driven out of Boston at the time of its blockade. There, one of the most noted beauties of that city, Dorothy, daughter of Edmund Quincy, was, on the 28th of August, 1779, married to John Hancock, President of the Continental Congress.
Andrew Eliot, who records this marriage, places it in its order next to that of Jack, negro servant of David Barlow, and Mary, negro servant of Deacon Hill. The nuptial tie, like the grip of death, clutches mortals of every station. To Mr. Burr's dwelling Gen. Tyron had given a protection, but this did not avail to save it and its valuable contents from des- truction.
The affidavit of Mrs. Burr, an intelligent and re- fined women, describing the scene of which she was a witness, presents a forcible demonstration of the wanton outrages committed by the invadors of our soil. The same may be said also of the sworn state- ments made by others who witnessed similar scenes in their own dwellings. Of these I may mention the names of Jane and Abigail Bulkley, Mary Beers, Isabella Trubee, Ruana Roberson and Ann Nichols, all of them wives of Fairfield men. All offered vain entreaties to prevent the destruction of the homes over which they were watching.
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In considering the calamity that came upon this people, we must not forget that down to the year 1765, they, with all their New England compatriots had been thoroughly loyal to the English Govern- ment.
The news of Clive's wonderful victory at Plassy in 1757, which laid the foundation of a British Empire in India, had been hailed by them with glad acclamation. They did not foresee that policy which to help the fortunes of the East India company would seek to force its stores of tea upon unwilling America.
These colonists also bore much of the burden laid upon them in the French and Indian wars, and when Quebec was taken and the treaty with France in 1763 secured the possession of Canada as British territory, our own town, with all others in New England, welcomed the splendid results of Chatham's states- manship and Wolfe's heroic valor.
But the stamp act of a two years' later date turn- ed back the current of this loyalty. The sanctions of constitutional law wrung by our fathers from the hands of an unwilling king at Runnymede, and the principles that occasioned and sustained the Pilgrim exodus were alike arrayed against the new stand taken by the British ministry. Throughout our whole land the controversy waxed stronger, until ten . years after its beginning it found vent in the bullets of Lexington.
During these years men were brought face to face
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with the question which each must answer for him- self. Fairfield answered it with almost entire unan- imity, and in response to those Massachusetts muskets of the 19th of April, 1775, fifty of her militia, under Capt. David Dimon, were speedily on their march toward Boston.
Connecticut has been fortunate in the choice of her governors, and the chief magistrate of our common- wealth who is with us to-day belongs to a company of noble men, and is, we believe, worthy to be en- rolled in such a companionship. We feel all the more confident in trusting the administration of Governor Andrews because he had Jonathan Trum- bull as one of his predecessors, Brother Jonathan, Washington's prudent adviser, to whose wisdom and patriotism the chief of the nation gave clearest tes- timony. Under the counsels of this man, holding the highest office in the State, Connecticut, from the first, took an active and important part in the conduct of the war. Gov. Trumbull, as contrasted with Tryon, the Royal Governor of our neighboring State of New York, reminds us of objects presented by Jotham's ancient allegory. One was a cedar of Lebanon, under whose shadow men came for shelter and strength ; the other, the bramble, out of whose thorny spines shot forth the flames that blasted and consumed.
Some of the sons of Fairfield were early enlisted among the Continental troops sent to the defense of New York. They shared in the disaster of Long
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Island and White Plains. They had their represen- tatives among the captives of the sugar house and prison ship. On an exchange of prisoners some re- turned suffering from small-pox, that scourge of the army, and near the old powder house a commodious barn was fitted up as a hospital for them. In our town meeting, during the want occasioned by the blockade of Boston, an effort to obtain food for the suffering people resulted in the despatch of 750 bushels of grain for their relief. The thankful ac- knowledgment of this timely gift may be read upon our records, and it is one of the writings of which none of our townsmen need to be ashamed. The im- portant articles of association passed by Congress, October 14th, 1774, met with hearty response among us, and a large committee, consisting of some of our most prominent citizens, was formed to make the pledge effectual. It was designed to free our people from dependence upon goods imported from Eng- land, to encourage the practice of economy, alike in sports, luxuries and mourning apparel, and to frus- trate the efforts of any who might seek to weaken the patriotic sentiment now rapidly advancing toward the final conflict.
During these years, active measures were taken to prevent surprise by sudden incursion upon our coasts. Alarm signals were concerted and guards stationed at Stratfield, Compo, Frost Point, and Mckenzie's Point, to keep watch from sunset to sunrise. The fort on Grover's Hill was strengthened and supplied
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with 12lb. cannon and ammunition for the use of its garrison of 25 men. These were enough to act as sentinels throughout during the day. They proved afterward, though a little decreased in number, vic- torious against all the force that could be sent against them.
In May, 1779, an unavailing request was made to the Governor and Council for an armed vessel to guard our coasts during that approaching summer, for even then there were portents of dread events to come troubling the minds of our people. The last action taken in town meeting, before the house of its assembly was consumed, was the adoption of a reso- lution designed to arrest the depreciation of paper money.
I have spoken of Gov. Tryon. The story of our disasters could not be told without the frequent men- tion of his name. Among the distinguished visitors whom Fairfield has entertained, this British Gover- nor and Major-General stands pre-eminent. So fas- cinated were our people with him during his brief stay of less than thirty hours, that twelve days after his departure a committee was appointed in town meeting to raise a sum of money to be offered as a reward to any person who should "captivate " and take him.
Sir Wm. Tryon, Bart., makes his earliest appear- ance in American History as Governor of the Province of North Carolina. Assuming a vice royal state, he built a palace in Newbern, and to sup-
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port the expenses attending his dignity oppressed the people with heavy taxation. An insurrection was caused by his petty tyrany, which he suppressed with the bullets of his guards.
On the 8th of July, 1771, he was transferred to New York, and appointed to the same station in that province, having his residence in its chief city. Surrounded there by active and intelligent loyalists he yielded credence to their expressed statements that through the weakness of resources and the jealousies and corruption too manifest among them- selves, the American people who had engaged in the conflict must ultimately yield to the greater power of the mother country. Tryon had much vanity in his character ; this he had shown in New- bern, this also appears in his ordering a new county to be made from Albany, to which his name was attached, now substituted by that of Montgomery. He had the disposition to be active in the contest that when the rebellion had been crushed, King George might be constrained to give to him a better title than that of Baronet. Yet, although he had physical courage, it is unfortunate for his reputation that he never availed himself of his high standing in the British army to encounter an organized force in the open field.
He tried the art of rhetoric, addressing letters to Gov. Trumbull, Gen. Parsons, and others, in which he sought to convince them of the hope- lessness of their cause. A specimen of his power
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in this direction is before us in the famous address issued to the people of Connecticut and widely scattered at New Haven and Fairfield. This told them that their towns, their property and them- selves were within the grasp of a power whose forbearance they had ungenerously construed into fear, and urged them to humble themselves because of their delusion and conscious guilt.
Tryon's pen in all these efforts proved powerless. Another course he pursued was one of treachery. He corrupted some near the person of Washington in expectation that the American General might be made his prisoner, but in this he was foiled.
He made similar efforts to secure the capture of Putnam, but his secret agent was discovered and taken. When Tryon sent a threatening message demanding his release, the reply came back from Peekskill in this curt and comprehensive note :
To Gov. TRYON, Sir : Nathan Palmer a lieutenant in your service was taken in my camp as a spy ; he was tried as a spy ; he was condemned as a spy ; and you may rest assured, Sir, he shall be hanged as a spy.
I have the honor to be &c., ISRAEL PUTNAM.
P. S .- Afternoon : He is hanged.
Gen. Tryon's warlike achievements were each con- nected with the people of Fairfield County. The
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first was in the spring of '77, when he landed at Compo with two thousand troops and burned a por- tion of Danbury-with this the battle of Ridgefield was closely associated. Gen. Silliman and the Fair- field militia and artillery then first encountered the man who was two years later to set their town on fire.
The second of these expeditions was made by land, in February, 1779, and is connected with the story of Putnam's famous leap at Horse Neck Hill. The third, and most interesting to us, was the descent upon this portion of the coast occupying about ten days in July, 1779.
We may properly pause here and inquire what were the motives that led to this predatory warfare. Gen. Tryon held no special grudge against these three towns. He was not like John Butler, who cherished intense hatred toward the Connecticut colony of Wyoming, and whose people, with the aid of his savage allies, he massacred in cold blood. He had no such occasion of offence as later in the war brought Benedict Arnold to wreak vengeance on his native town of Norwich.
Tryon acted under instructions from the English ministry and from Sir Henry Clinton, the comman- der-in-chief of all the British forces in America. The former were incensed at the recent alliance formed between France and America. To them it appeared like the mortgaging of English property to England's ancient foe, and whatever could be done to damage that property was in accord with justice
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and propriety. The success of American privateers had also been a source of great annoyance, and the depredations on peaceful towns might, it was thought, discourage such undertakings.
Gen. Clinton favored the expedition for military reasons. With the exception of an army at New- port and a small post on the Penobscot, New Eng- land at this time was free from British troops. The active measures of the war had been transferred to the south, but Clinton held a large and well organ- ized army at or near New York. Meanwhile, the American General was guarding the passage of the Hudson, with his headquarters at New Windsor, and
his troops stationed among the highlands. To draw Washington from this secure position, and to force him to a battle on the open field, with all the advan- tage of numbers and discipline on the British side, was the purpose and wish of Clinton. Many at the time blamed the American commander-in-chief be- cause he did not march to the succor of distressed Connecticut, but time, and the events of history have vindicated both his judgment and humanity in the course he pursued.
The ends aimed at by the British ministry and military commander were not realized, and this sack of the dwellings of inoffensive people added neither credit nor strength to the British cause. Sir Henry Clinton recalled the fleet without allowing the intend- ed descent upon New London which was to follow the burning of Norwalk. It may be his acute mind
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perceived a mistake had been made. Sympathy was aroused even among some who were enemies, and the patriotic spirit of our own people was more than ever intensified. Dr. Franklin, in a letter, quotes Paul Jones, the valiant privateer, as saying that the burn- ing of Fairfield and other towns had demolished all his moderation.
As we endeavor to picture the appearance of our own town when this descent was made, we must not think of it as an old and dilapidated settlement. Although well nigh a hundred and forty years had passed since the colonists laid their first foundations, scarcely a vestige of their earliest buildings remained. They had given place to larger and better structures. The Prime Ancient Society still retaining their original site, had erected upon it in 1747 their third house of worship. Its dimensions were 60 by 44 feet, and its steeple was 120 feet high.
The Episcopal church, which, in 1738, took the place of the first building on Mill Plain, stood on Main street, facing the street that leads to our pres- ent post-office, on what is now Mr. Henry Rowland's place ; it was also a commodious building with a steeple 100 feet in height. The court-house on this central green had only recently been erected in place of one standing before where Mr. Hobart's store now stands. A noted thief named Fraser, confined in the jail then connected with it, had set that building on fire on the 4th of April, 1768. Hence had come the rebuilding, and the erection of a separate prison which
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was located where St. Paul's church now stands. All these comparatively recent structures were consumed, together with Penfield's Sun Tavern which also faced the green. The public and private buildings were creditable to the taste and prosperity of the people.
The village was surrounded with meadows, whose stores of hay had recently been gathered into barns, and the wheat harvest, which promised great abund- ance, had just begun.
On Saturday evening, the 3d day of July, the Bri- tish fleet weighed anchor off the port of Whitestone, eleven miles east of New York. During the spring, it had made a destructive raid upon Virginia, and re- turned in time to aid General Clinton in his success- ful assault upon Verplanck's and Stony Point on the first of June.
The New York Sons of Liberty had been informed of preparations for a fresh departure, and sent cour- iers to New London to warn that city of the coming invader.
Sunday, the fourth of July, was a warm, calm day. Our people were in their churches, and the vessels could scarcely have appeared in view before the night came on. The light breeze had no power to move them swiftly on their course. There were two large men-of-war, the Camilla and Scorpion, and forty- eight row galleys, tenders and transports. Sir George Collier commanded the fleet and General Tryon the land forces, about twenty-six hundred in number. Brigadier-General Garth had special charge
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of the Hessian regiments, the Landgraves and Yaegers. The English forces consisted of two- bodies of Fusileers, the Guards, the Fifty-fourth regiment of foot and the King's American regiment, refugees enlisted in the British army. Early on Mon- day morning, the squadron came to anchor near New Haven, where on that day and Tuesday the troops pursued their desolating work. On the evening of Tuesday the fleet left New Haven, and during that night was moving toward Fairfield. About four o'clock of Wednesday a gun from the fort on Gro- ver's Hill announced its approach, but it seemed to be passing by, and about seven o'clock the people who were anxiously watching it were rejoiced to see that it was steering westward, proceeding, as they thought, to New York. Soon after a very thick fog came on, during which the vessels were obscured from view, but when this dispersed, between 9 and IO o'clock it was seen with consternation that the whole fleet was under our western shore, where they came to anchor at the Pines, which have since dis- appeared, a little to the east of Mckenzie's Point. From Gen. Tryon's report, it appears that he with the main portion of the troops landed there, and that the Hessians, under Gen. Garth, made their dis- embarkation at the water front of Sasco Hill, over which they marched to take possession of the western section of the town.
Tryon, with the troops immediately under his command, marched along the beach and turned up
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the Beach Lane, somewhat galled by the guns of Grover's Hill. They pursued their way to this point where we are now assembled, and where, on the site of our Town Hall, the Court House was then stand- ing.
The British General was guided by George Hoyt, who was brother-in-law of Mr. Benjamin Bulkley.
His house, since demolished, stood on the ground where Mr. John Glover has his home, and Gen Tryon made his headquarters while here. With this, the dwellings of Capt. Maltbie, Justin Hobart, and Nathan and Peter Bulkley, were saved from the fire. These are now in the possession of Edmund Hobart, Miss Hannah Hobart, and the Denison estate.
The line of the conflagration extended from Mrs. Gould's house to Mill River, in the vicinity of Per- ry's Mill, including both the streets and their imme- diate neighborhood, and extended westward through the lower road at Green's Farms.
To silence the guns at the fort where Lieut. Isaac Jarvis had a garrison of twenty-three men, a galley had been dispatched, but although there was constant firing throughout the night of Wednesday, and several detachments of troops tried to take the fort by assault, it was gallantly defended and held out to the end.
As the troops marched up toward the centre of the town, young Sam. Rowland, then ten years of age, saw them from the steeple at the Episcopal
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church, but he was soon sent home from his dan- gerous position, and his grand-children to-day re- peat the story they heard in their childhood from his lips. Mrs. Gen. Silliman from the home of her tem- porary widowhood on Holland Hill, heard the first guns of the conflict and set out for a safe asylum in Trumbull, where a few weeks later her second son, the distinguished Yale Professor was born.
Before the landing was effected, Mrs. Esther Jen- nings, the young wife of Peter Burr, went early to the pasture fields near Mckenzie's Point and drove the cattle there feeding to a safe refuge on Green- field Hill. Thither and to Fairfield Woods many of the little children with much furniture were removed in carts and chaises, while some of the women re- mained to guard the dwellings. The company who had charge of a field piece, wheeled it to a good po- sition on Burr's highway. The men in the village and farm-houses grasped their muskets and ammuni- tion, and rallied under command of Col. Whiting at the rendevous on Round Hill.
Tryon's march to the green was the signal of their resistance, and a small company under Capt. Thomas Nash, made a brilliant attack upon the English troops, firing from behind the fences, and killing a few who were laid in shallow graves by their com- rades on the meeting-house grounds. These after- wards were removed to permanent rest in our ancient cemetery.
About this time it would appear that the first
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house was fired, the one belonging to Isaac Jennings on whose site Mrs. Esther Huntington now lives. Then came the flag from Gen. Tryon and the read- ing of that address of which I have spoken. Col. Whiting sent back this spirited reply :
"Connecticut having nobly dared to take up arms against the cruel despotism of Britain, and as the flames have now preceded the answer to your flag, they will persist to oppose to the utmost that power exerted against injured innocence."
In resistance of an organized army who held pos- session of the town it was impossible for the militia to concentrate an effectual force. The night was coming on-that Wednesday night of the 7th, which witnessed scenes of debauchery and cruelty such as Fairfield has never known at any other period of her history. The Hessian general held the Western portion of the town, and his regiment of Yaegers are described as skulking and yelling like the wild savages of the forest. The detachments broke up into small squads and some of the governor's guards engaged in a dance in the Sun Tavern on the green. Most of the soldiers were passing in little companies from house to house, pillaging and wasting provis- ions, breaking up glass, earthenware and furniture, stealing the watches, jewelry and shoe-buckles from the persons of women, taking from them even their aprons and handkerchiefs, and with oaths and ri- baldry, grossly insulting them. Many soldiers were drunk with liquor or strong cider they had stolen.
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Tryon reports that they lay on their arms during the night, and Dr. Dwight, who was not an eye-witness to those scenes, describes in eloquent language a ter- rific thunder-storm. Enough it is for us to hear the guns thundering through all its dark hours in the de- fense and attack of the little fort, and to see one after another of the pillaged houses fall before the flames which the British general's troops had kindled. The burning cinders that fell that night, wet with the tears of women then made homeless, must ever in the record of history blacken Tryon's name.
The militia did all they were able to accomplish, keeping up a running fire, and more were on their way to join them. So the signal of retreat was sounded early on Thursday, and in the course of that morning of the 8th of July, the squadron was off for Huntington, only to cross the Sound again, and on the subsequent Sunday repeat their terrible work at Norwalk. It was on the morning of the 8th that the remaining private edifices and all the public buildings were consumed. More destruction would doubtless have been effected but for the wholesome fear of the ambush of the watchful militia.
The enemy dreaded the stone walls, fences and shrubbery. On this account the old mill of Peter Perry, which had ground the corn of the people for a hundred years, was still left to do its work. Through the exertions of the women who kept watch some fires that had been kindled were put out. This was done four times by Mrs. Lucretia Redfield dur-
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ing that Wednesday night, and the house she then saved stands to-day a pleasant abode occupied by some of the same name. The Nichols family, al- ways proverbial for notable housewifery, employed large hanks of yarn then soaking in preparation for the dye and with it extinguished the flames that had begun to consume their home.
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