USA > Connecticut > Colonial Days And Ways: As Gathered from Family Papers > Part 3
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18
Very heavy fines, the loss of stipends justly due, and imprisonment for too great freedom of speech, were among the minor punishments inflicted upon the clergy and laymen who did not acquiesce in the doctrines inculcated by those in authority. These, and the despair of better days coming in the old England, were the considerations which drove the great body of our Puritan settlers to take the desperate step of emigrating to the New England. Even this was not permitted without much oppo- sition from the officers of the crown. A few persons would meet privately, agree upon one or two men as leaders, and empower them to secure and charter a suitable ship, shipmaster, and crew, and to lay in the necessary stores for the voyage and the subsequent plantation in the wilderness. Those who wished to join the adventure were obliged to sell their landed estates or other prop- erty, and also to purchase their personal supplies, mostly at a great disadvantage on account of the necessary secrecy. At all ports of possible depar-
39
ture the government's spies were constantly on the lookout to report tokens of intention to escape. Detection made arrest certain, and imprisonment and confiscation of property almost as certain.
The cost of transportation of human beings, cat- tle, or freight, in the miserable little vessels of the time, was - considering the difference in the purchasing power of money - enormous. The company which went to Watertown, Massachu- setts, brought with them one hundred and eighty servants, whose passage cost the company an ave- rage of something over eighty-three dollars each, which was probably equivalent to about two hun- dred and fifty dollars of our present currency. At this rate the transportation of a large family, with servants and domestic animals, agricultural imple- ments, other essential tools and provisions, not only for the voyage, but for twelve or more months thereafter, and even the most modest outfits of per- sonal and household effects, must have gone far toward exhausting the funds which the adventurers might have derived from the necessarily disadvan- tageous sales of their property.
It was from Watertown that a great part of the Connecticut Colony came. Some persons were sent ahead, in the summer of 1635, to prepare temporary quarters for the families. The latter, numbering sixty persons in all, men, women, and children, began to move in October of the same year. The journey, which was necessarily on foot,
40
- there being no paths save the Indian trails, and very few, if any, beasts of burden,- was so long that winter came weeks before the poor creatures were nearly ready for it. "By November 15th," says Trumbull, " the Connecticut River was frozen over and the snow upon it was so deep that a con- siderable number of the cattle that had been so painfully driven from Massachusetts, could not be got across the River. The sufferings of man and beast were extreme. Their principal provisions and household furniture had been sent around in several small vessels to come up the River. Several of these were wrecked. Great numbers of the cattle perished." The following summer the Rev. Thomas Hooker headed the second company com- ing from Watertown. It was a pleasanter coming, owing to the more propitious season, and made forever both picturesque and pathetic by the pres- ence of the litter bearing poor, patient Mrs. Hooker, carried as tenderly as might be by the willing hands of her husband's parishioners and fellow- pioneers.
Although the Rev. Henry Smith is historically called the " first settled pastor of the first settled town in Connecticut," it is not probable that he came with either of the first two bands from Watertown, but with a later one. A few log cabins were built in what subsequently became known as the "town of Weathersfield " even before the first settlers reached Windsor. Thus
41
Wethersfield claims to be the first settled town in the State, and Mr. Smith was its first settled pastor, though he was not installed as such until after Mr. Hooker and Mr. Warham were officiating in Hartford and in Windsor. It is not recorded just when Mr. Smith came to Wethersfield, but he was residing there and received his allotment at the first apportionment of the town lands.
Mr. Smith had reached this country, going first to Watertown, in 1636 or 1637. While the rule in New England pastorates was that the pastor was literally as well as figuratively the head of an obe- dient flock, which paid him all due deference, and followed his lead as sheep follow the piping of the shepherd, the pastors who successively essayed the charge of the church in Wethersfield were the unfortunate exceptions. In no sense could Mr. Smith have found his new pastorate a bed of roses. Besides the privations and hardships common to all pioneer pastors, there seems to have been a strong and most unusual element of turbulence in the membership of this wilderness church, for two preceding ministers had tried and failed to unite the members of the congregation sufficiently to secure a settlement, and the trouble did not im- mediately cease upon Mr. Smith's installation. Previous to or about the time of his settlement in Wethersfield the most prominent of the insurgents, under advice of the Rev. John Davenport and others, had removed to Stamford; yet the restless spirits
42
who were left found enough to say against Mr. Smith's ministry during the next few years. There is evidence tending to show that he may have been too liberal in his construction of doc- trinal views, and inclined to too great charity in matters of personal conduct, to suit the more rigid among the townsmen. In at least one instance matters went so far that the pastor was brought before the General Court on charges the nature of which is not now apparent; but it is recorded that fines which for that day were very heavy were laid upon certain individuals "for preferring a list of grievances against Mr. Smith and failing to prove in the prosecution thereof." From references to this, which appear in manuscript of about a cen- tury after this date, referring to this trial as a thing still remembered, it would seem that Mr. Smith was opposed to severity in church discipline, and also to the importation into the Connecticut Colony of the bribe to hypocrisy which was offered by the law restricting to church-members the right of suffrage in town as well as church matters; and that he also preferred to believe an accused man to be innocent until he was proved guilty, and even then did not believe in proceeding to extremities until after every gentle means had been tried in vain.
One cause of animadversion is said to have been that Mr. Smith had advocated the separation of a wife from a drunken husband who had frightfully
43
abused her and her children. This seems to have been thought by some members of the congrega- tion to indicate great laxity of moral principle on the part of the pastor; but evidently the majority of the people were with him on these and other disputed points, and so were his friends, Mr. Thomas Hooker, the beloved pastor of the church at Hartford, and Mr. Warham of Windsor. An- other complaint against Mr. Smith was that he refused to listen to those who brought him reports concerning alleged infractions of church discipline, on the ground that many of these things were mat- ters which lay solely between a man and his Maker. In the end Mr. Smith carried the church with him, and when he died, in 1648, he was sin- cerely mourned even by those who at one time had " despitefully used " him.
Mr. Smith is said to have been "a scholarly man of gentle birth and breeding, a persuasive preacher and a loyal friend." What his salary may have been does not appear, but the stipends of other pastors of his day rarely exceeded from seventy to seventy-five pounds per annum. Much of this nominal sum was paid "in kind," that is, in farm produce or in peltries, which last were considered as the equivalent of cash, always bringing their fair price in the English markets. One hundred pounds per annum, paid in very much the same way, was an exceptionally good salary more than one hundred and twenty-five years later.
44
Indians were a very real and imminent danger in the early days of Wethersfield. Their depre- dations were frequent, and the dread of them was never-ceasing. We do not know whether the first meeting-house of Wethersfield, which was prob- ably the only one erected during Mr. Smith's pas- torate, was built of logs or was a frame structure, but we are certain that it was intended to serve not only as a house of worship but for purposes of defense in times of danger, and that, whatever its form or substance, its builders worked in constant fear for their wives and children, with muskets ever at hand and sentinels always on duty.
Another thing we suppose that we know, only because it is true of all other churches of the time, is that it had no chimney. This lack of provision for any means of ameliorating the cold of our winters was not owing, as sometimes believed, to any foolish prejudice or superstition, or, as some seem to think, from mere love of hardships and discomforts on the part of the Puritans, but to the dread of conflagration. Fireless church edifices were then universal, both in Europe and America. Furnaces and even stoves were not, and open fires are dangerous enough even in houses that are in- habited and watched. An open wood fire built in a house that had been closed all the week could scarcely have accomplished more than to thaw the frost from the walls into visible streams of chilly dampness, without greatly raising the temperature
45
by the time that even the prolonged services of the Puritan Sabbath were finished; and the treach- erous beds of embers, even after copious waterings, often proved to be unsafe.
Those who could afford such luxuries curtained their square pews to keep currents of air from too great familiarity, cushioned their otherwise com- fortless seats, and covered the floors with wolf- skins and even sometimes with those of the bear, though the latter were generally too precious for floors.
At as early a date as time and means permitted, small "Sabbath Day Houses " were erected at a cer- tain distance from the sacred edifice. These little buildings were furnished with forms and stools, and here, during the service-time, care-takers were left and fires maintained. From these the coals were taken for the small foot-stoves of which many are still found in old garrets, and which afforded a degree of comfort to the half-frozen church-goers, who at intervals between services were wont to gather in the little houses to warm themselves and exchange neighborly greetings and news. Bitter indeed must sometimes have been their sufferings in cold winter weather, but hardly as great as the same state of things would cause to-day, because no one had yet been rendered un- duly tender by furnace- or steam-heated houses. There was not then in the colonies anything that could be termed wealth, but had there been ever
46
so much of it, the treasure of an equably warm temperature could not have been purchased.
Probably the house of the pastor would have been as well built and furnished as those of his neighbors, but in the earliest days that is not say- ing much for either. Even in the stateliest dwell- ings of England, though there was sometimes a good deal of luxury and display, there was then very little of what we should esteem to be the necessary comforts of life. In this country the in- ventories of the seventeenth century reveal the poverty of the land in unmistakable ways. No- thing was too small to escape enumeration, so we know that the poorest farm-laborer of to-day is richer in comforts than the wealthiest of these pioneers.
Few, if any, of the early houses were of more than one story in height. They were built of logs, and rarely contained more than four rooms. An exception to this was the old stone house of Guil- ford, Connecticut, built in 1639, which was in- tended to serve as a fortress as well as the minis- ter's residence. Exceptional also were the houses of the Rev. Thomas Hooker and Mr. Whiting of Hartford at the time of their erection. But it was not long before well-constructed, durable, and even handsome dwellings were reared in every colony.
In our own day the lives of pioneers are consid- ered of the hardest; yet now all are within com- paratively easy reach of the base of supplies. The
47
Klondike is not now farther from us than old England was from New England in those early days. Probably but few of the settlers belonged to the wealthy class at home, yet many were num- bered among the substantial landowners,- the upper-class yeoman and the lower gentry,- accus- tomed in their own country to all the comforts then known. Almost all who came between 1628 and 1640 had fled from the persecution under Archbishop Laud which had done so much to bring on the parliamentary wars and the reign of Cromwell, and such refugees had neither thought nor hope of returning. All must have felt their privations keenly, but concerning this we have little recorded complaint or testimony of any sort. The difficulties of transmission were so great that probably few letters were written, and of these but a small number have descended to us.
In the diary of Juliana Smith, 1779-81, there exists a copy of a fragment of a reminiscent let- ter, written in 1699 by the Rev. Henry Smith's son, Samuel Smith of Hadley, Massachusetts, to his son, Ichabod Smith, residing in Suffield, Connecticut, apparently in reply to some inquiries which the latter had made.
Juliana writes :
" Today my Grandmother Smith gave me to read what is left unburnt of a Letter which was written to my Great-Grandfather by his Father &
48
has permitted me to copy it. The Letter itself belongs to my Uncle Dan because he is my Grand- father's eldest son. A large part of it was burnt when my Grandfather's house in Suffield took fire, and was barely saved from destruction, with the loss of many things, especially Books & Papers. The Bible in which this Letter was kept was found on the next day still smouldering, with more than half of its leaves burnt away, including a part of the Family Record & this Letter :-
"' Hadley, Massachusetts Colony,
Jan. ye Firste, 1698
"' My Dear & Dutiful Son: . . . I was of so tender an Age at the death of my beloved Father that I am possessed of but little of the Information for which you seek. My Revered Father was an ordained Minister of ye Gospelle, educate at Cam- bridge in England & came to yis Land by reason of ye Great Persecution by which ye infamous Archibishop Laud and ye Black Tom Tyrante, (as Mr. Russell was always wont to call ye Earl of Strafforde,) did cause ye reign of his Majestie Charles ye First to loose favour in ye sight of ye people of England. My Father & Mother came over in 1636, firste to Watertown which is neare Boston, & after a yeare or two to Weathersfield on ye great River, where he became ye firste settled Pastor.
"'Concerning of ye earlie days I can remember
49
but little save Hardship. My Parents had broughte bothe Men Servants & Maid Servants from Eng- land, but ye Maids tarried not but till they got Married, ye wch was shortly, for there was great scarcity of Women in ye Colonies. Ye men did abide better. Onne of em had married onne of my Mother's Maids & they did come with us to Weathersfield to our grate Comforte for some Yeares, untill they had manny littel onnes of theire Owne. I do well remember ye Face & Figure of my Honoured Father. He was 5 foote, 10 inches talle, & spare of builde, tho not leane. He was as Active as ye Red Skin Men & sinewy. His delighte was in sportes of strengthe & withe his owne Hands he did helpe to rear bothe our owne House & ye Firste Meetinge House of Weathers- field, wherein he preacht yeares too fewe. He was well Featured & Fresh favoured with faire Skin & longe curling Hair (as neare all of us have had) with a merrie eye & swete smilinge Mouthe, tho he coulde frowne sternlie eno' when need was.
"' Ye firste Meetinge House was solid mayde to withstande ye wicked onsaults of ye Red Skins. Its Foundations was laide in ye feare of ye Lord, but its Walls was truly laide in ye feare of ye Indians, for many & grate was ye Terrors of em. I do mind me y't alle ye able-bodyed Men did work thereat, & ye olde & feeble did watch in turns to espie if any Salvages was in hidinge neare
4
50
& every Man keept his Musket nighe to his hande. I do not myself remember any of ye Attacks mayde by large bodeys of Indians whilst we did remayne in Weathersfield, but did ofttimes hear of em. Several Families wch did live back a ways from ye River was either Murderdt or Captivated in my Boyhood & we all did live in constant feare of ye like. My Father ever de- clardt there would not be so much to feare iff ye Red Skins was treated with suche mixture of Jus- tice & Authority as they cld understand, but iff he was living now he must see that wee can do naught but fight em & that right heavily.
"' After ye Red Skins ye grate Terror of our lives at Weathersfield & for many years after we had moved to Hadley to live, was ye Wolves. Catamounts was bad eno' & so was ye Beares, but it was ye Wolves yt was ye worst. The noyes of theyre howlings was eno' to curdle ye bloode of ye stoutest & I have never seen ye Man yt did not shiver at ye Sounde of a Packe of em. What wth ye way we hated em & ye goode money yt was offered for theyre Heads we do not heare em now so much, but when I do I feel again ye younge hatred rising in my Bloode, & it is not a Sin because God mayde em to be hated. My Mother & Sister did each of em kill more yan one of ye gray Howlers & once my oldest Sister shot a Beare yt came too neare ye House. He was a goode Fatte onne & keept us all in meate for a
51
good while. I guess one of her Daughters has got ye skinne.
"' As most of ye Weathersfield Settlers did come afoot throu ye Wilderness & brought with em such Things only as they did most neede at ye firste, ye other Things was sent round from Boston in Vessels to come up ye River to us. Some of ye Shippes did come safe to Weathersfield, but many was lost in a grate storm. Amongst em was onne wch held alle our Beste Things. A good many Years later, long after my Father had died of ye grate Fever & my Mother had married Mr. Russell & moved to Hadley, it was found yt some of our Things had been saved & keept in ye Fort wch is by ye River's Mouthe, & they was brought to us. Most of em was spoilt with Sea Water & Mould, especially ye Bookes [Foot-note by Juliana: "My Father hath one of these books - The vision of Piers Plowman. It is so ruinated with damp and mould yt no one can read ye whole of it."] & ye Plate. Of this there was no grate store, only ye Tankard, wch I have, and some Spoones, divided amongst my Sisters wch was alle so black it was long before any could come to its owne colour agen, & Mr. Russell did opine yt had it not been so it might not have founde us agen, but he was sometimes a littel shorte of ye Charity wch thinketh no Evil, at ye least I was wont to think so when his Hand was too heavy on my Shoulders & I remembered ye
52
sweetnesse & ye Charity of my firste Father, but on ye whole said he was a Goode Man & did well by my Mother & her children, & no doubt we did often try his wit & temper, but it was in his house yt'-
"Here," writes the copyist, "there is a break " -:- probably where the sheets of the original had been burned.
The silver tankard mentioned in the foregoing letter of Samuel Smith of Hadley is in all proba- bility the one now belonging to my brother, Gil- bert Livingston Smith of Sharon, Connecticut, though the earliest positive record which we have concerning it is in a bill of sale, including various things to the amount of nearly £700, made to the Rev. Cotton Mather Smith by his brother, Simeon Smith, M.D., when the latter was leaving Sharon to take up his residence in Vermont in 1787. It is there described as "One ancient Silver Tan- kard marked with our coat of arms & S. S., bought by me from Brother Dan." The tankard now has on the side opposite the handle a spout, which was put on about 1820 that it might be used as a water-pitcher. Family tradition has always held that this tankard was brought from England in 1636 by the Rev. Henry Smith, and referred to in the letter just quoted.
Poor and incomplete are these glimpses of a New England pastorate, but they bring before us
53
some of the privations suffered, and the courage which so bravely met them because it was grounded on an unbounded faith in an omnipotent Father, and was cheered by family affection. Of both of these the last will and testament of the Rev. Henry Smith gives beautiful testimony. It is not couched in legal phraseology, but was apparently written by himself, and hence is more than usually expressive of the testator's character. He had not waited until the shadow of death had fallen upon him before making his slender worldly prepara- tions for " departing hence to be no more," but, " Being in health of body and soundness of mind," and " wishing to leave no occasion of trouble for my children," the will was made several months before his decease. There was not much to be disposed of, only a trifle over £370, but that little is so graciously bestowed that one feels as fully persuaded of the testator's own loving heart as he was persuaded of God's " unchangeable love and good will both in life and death . . . according to His covenant, viz : - I am thy God and of thy Seede after thee."
After this profession of faith, which evidently comes from a simple and earnest heart, the will proceeds :
" Then for my ovtward estate, wch, because it is but littel, & I haue well proued the difficulties of this covntry, how hard a thing it will bee for a
54
woman to manage the affairs of so great a family as the Father of Mercyes hath blessed mee withall, & haue allso experience of the prvdence & faith- fulness of my deare Wife, who shall, in parting withe mee, part allso withe a great part of her liue- lihood; I do therefore beqveath & giue to her, the full power & disposal of alle that estate wch God hath gieuen mee, in howses, lands, cattells & goods whatsoeuer, within dores and withovt; only pro- uiding that in case shee marry again, or otherwise shee bee able comfortably to spare it from her own necessary maintenance, that shee giue vnto my Sonne Samvell that part of my hovse lott that was intended for my Sonne Peregrine lyinge next to the bvrying place, & the land I haue beyon the great Riuer eastward; & allso, to him & my sec- ond Sonne, Noah, fiue acres apeece of meadow with vplands proportionable therevnto, & to the reste of my children vnmarried, 20 pounds apeece, at the age of one & twenty yeares, or at the time of her death, wch shall come the sooner. & for my two Davghters that bee married, my desire is that they haue 20 Shillings apeece and euery onne of their children fiue Shillings apeece, either in bookes or such other things as my Wife shall best please to part withall."
Of the £370 nearly one half was in houses and lands, £50 were in live stock, which did not include any domestic fowls, the latter being still
55
scarce in the colonies. Bees, number of hives not stated, were valued at £8, which seemingly dis- proportionately large valuation was probably due to the scarcity of the cultivated variety. Probably Mr. Smith was, as all the New England pastors of his time were obliged to be, a farmer as well as a preacher, but he could not have been enthusiasti- cally devoted to agriculture, for his "husbandry tools" were only valued at £3 10s., while his " armes & ammunition " were reckoned at £4.
" Bookes" are mentioned, but their value not : estimated, probably because at the time of his death, during a prevailing "grate fever," proper appraisers may not have been on hand. Min- isters were usually appointed to appraise books. Out of thirty-seven inventories which were re- corded during the first ten years of the Connecticut Colony, in only nine, including that of Mr. Smith, do we find mention of books. The total value of these in six of the nine is estimated at £39 13s. Mr. Hooker's books were estimated at £300, a considerable item in an estate amounting to only about £1136. I say " only " when viewing this subject from present conditions; under those of 1648 in the colonies, Mr. Hooker was a wealthy man. His friend and parishioner, Mr. William Whiting, the plutocrat of the Connecti- cut Colony, left an estate of £2854, including debts due to him which are classed as " doubtful," and "adventures wch are harserdous" to the
56
amount of £429. His " books & apparell " united are appraised at {25.
What would seem to be a disproportionately costly item in Mr. Smith's house furnishings was that of beds. Bedsteads are not named, perhaps because there were none, for there were compara- tively few in the country, save the sleeping-bunks built in with the houses, until fifteen or twenty years later than this. "Three feather beds with all things belonging to them " are valued at £40, which would seem to show that the "all things " were of extra quality, or that the other usual fur- nishings of the bedrooms, and perhaps also that of the parlor or living-room, as well as the beds themselves, were included in that valuation.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.