USA > Connecticut > Hartford County > Hartford > Colonial history of Hartford, Connecticut > Part 15
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There was probably in earliest times a cartway from the
1 Hartford Land Records, 1: 73; Hartford Town Votes, I: 259, 263, 265, 275, 283, 291, 319; MS. Vol. II: 91; State Archives: Towns and Lands, II: 79-84.
2 Nathaniel Jones married in 1713 Rebecca Pantry. They were the parents of Pantry Jones. In 1719 the town gave Nathaniel Jones liberty to erect a fulling mill on West River, and he was to hold the land while he had a mill there. Appar- ently he abandoned his first intent. This road can now be easily traced to the river, and the shoulder of Jones's dam remains, near a large oak tree.
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THE COLONIAL HISTORY OF HARTFORD
Old Ox Pasture gate through the woods into the southern section of the pasture. A highway to Haynes' Nook is men- tioned in 1755. At the beginning of the last century, there arose a demand for a direct road to West Hartford. The General Assembly, therefore, in 1801 laid out Asylum Street through lands then undeveloped, as a part of the Farmington Turnpike Road. Thus Farmington Avenue, from the junction westward, was established through the Old Ox Pasture.1 It passed through Mathew Allyn's original lot. Part of this was acquired in 1818 by Joseph Morgan, when he bought his farm on the north side of this road. His farm-house stood on the elevation called in early times "Ox Pasture Hill," near the site of the Cathedral.
All undivided lands in early times were called "commons." This term was applied to various tracts in Hartford. One of these was concretely named the "Town Common." On January 30, 1672-3, the proprietors, who had recently ac- quired by repurchase from the Indians a new title to the lands west of those already divided, voted to distribute a mile and a half of the west end the whole length of the town's bounds. This was the West Division. The Mountain Road was its west line. It was divided among the proprie- tors according to the rule of 1639, in which proportion they had been assessed for the recent purchase. They also voted that the remainder, next to the lots already laid out, "Shall be & remayn a common foreuer for the ufe & benifitt of the Inhabitants of Hartford." 2 This tract was west of the forks of the Little River, and east of the one and a half mile tract. Its western bound was near Quaker Lane. On the north it extended to Windsor, and, on the south, to Wethers- field, now Newington. The only land in this Common that had been already granted was Bridgefield. It was a rec- tangular tract bounded south on the dividing line between the two plantations, and east on the Little River. The sides were two hundred rods east and west, and two hundred and twenty-eight rods north and south. It contained two
1 See articles on Asylum Street and Farmington Avenue in The Hartford Times, April 15, May 6, 1890, May 8, 1907, and March 9, 1909; and in The Hartford Courant, May 21, 1887.
2 Hartford Town Votes, I: 253, 254; MS. Vol. II: 54; Original Distribution,. pp. 551, 555.
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hundred and eighty-five acres. Farmington Avenue now divides this ancient field. In the records, it is bounded as one tract. The earliest entries were made by John Steele, indicating that it was not a plantation division. It was laid out in 1697.1 Among the original grantees were Haynes, Hooker, Goodwin, John Allyn, Talcott, Stebbins, Wads- worth, Goodman and Lewis. The names of some are un- known. The John Knowles farm was in this field and partly made up of Governor Haynes's lot. The development of Bridgefield had been carried on many years before the common land about it was divided. In its general char- acter, the Common was woodland. It remained such for many years. All the trees of the forest grew there. The town frequently found it necessary to restrain the slaughter of them.2 Here and there, gigantic oaks are now standing that escaped because they defied the woodsman's ax. This Common was not altogether without activities. In 1732, some acres of Pine Tree Hill were fenced for a sheep pasture. It was land that Daniel Clark asked liberty to improve in 1699. Pine Hill, probably in the same neighborhood, was a tract bounded on the west, north and east by West River.3 In 1741, John Seymour Jr. leased from the town land in the Common for tanvats. The name "Stone Pit Hill" was applied to a tract bounded east, south and west by Woods River, and north by Simsbury Road.4 Here Timothy Andrews and Nehemiah Cadwell received liberty to set up a sawmill, in 1744. Presumably it was the same location granted, in 1697, to Jonathan Ashley and John Marsh. At the south end of the Common, near Piper's River, there was another sheep pasture, probably for the South-side inhabitants. At various times, the entire tract was put to such uses. After about seventy-five years, however, its career as a Common came to an end.5 It had been en- croached upon from the west. The rest of the land was wanted for farm use. Its original projectors were dead.
1 Hartford Town Votes, I: 249, 254; Original Distribution, pp. 554, 555.
2 Hartford Town Votes, I: 220, 221, 271, 312, 321, 322; MS. Vol. II: 20.
3 Hartford Land Records, 3: 306; 5: 616; 7: 99; Hartford Town Votes, I: 256, 259; MS. Vol. II: 80, 114.
4 Hartford Land Records, 20: 633; 28: 510; 44: 285.
5 Hartford Town Votes, MS. Vol. II: 4; The Hartford Times, June 5, 1893.
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THE COLONIAL HISTORY OF HARTFORD
Still the "heirs and assigns" of the proprietors of 1639 were alive and they owned it. At least the Court so decided, after a memorable contest, as elsewhere related. In 1754, the old Town Common was laid out in thirty-three tiers of lots, and the tract was thus divided among the inhabitants as preserved in the records. The list of participants fur- nishes a valuable census of Hartford residents at that time.1
The division of Soldiers' Field has been reserved for special consideration, as it. is generally admitted that the original grantees of its lots were Hartford's soldiers in the Pequot War. This tract extended from the road to the North Meadow, now Pleasant Street, northward to the swamp, and had the creek on the east. Its western bound going north, was, in turn, the first Neck road, the swamp, William Cornwall's lot and the Neck. There was an early path or lane through it, from Mr. Allyn's house to the creek. This was allowed to him, probably when the lots were dis- tributed. South of it there were three one-rood lots. The narrowest part of the tract was at its southern end. Its width varied farther north. Porter reckoned the area of this field as about fifteen acres. The calculations of Mr. Francis H. Parker, based upon later ownership, make it twenty-eight acres.2 About one-half of its lots are recorded as containing one rood. These were doubtless original allotments. When the entries were made several had two or three roods, and there were two four-acre lots. The names of the twenty-nine owners recovered by Mr. Parker, beginning at the north end, are as follows: Edward Elmer, John Peirce, John Holloway, Nicholas Desborough, Benja- min Munn, Nicholas Gennings, John Warner, John Purchase, Thomas Root, William Pratt, Sergeant William Cornwall, Richard Goodman, Zachary Field, Thomas Munson, Thomas Barnes, William Phillips, Samuel Hale, Thomas Hale, Ser- geant Thomas Spencer, Stephen Hart, John Bronson, William Hayden, Thomas Olcott, Richard Olmsted, William Blumfield, Jonathan Ince, George Steele, Nicholas Clarke -
1 "Records of Hartford Town Common" in the State Library; "Town Common Papers," in the collections of the Connecticut Historical Society; Hartford Land Records, 8: last pages.
2 "The Soldiers' Field and its Original Proprietors," by Francis H. Parker, MS. in collections of the Connecticut Historical Society.
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and John Clarke. It is known, however, that other Hart- ford settlers served in the Pequot War, whose names are not found in this list.1 Several additional soldiers are mentioned in narratives of the war. These are Rev. Samuel Stone, Thomas Bull, Philip Davis, Nicholas Olmsted, Arthur Smith and Thomas Stanton. The Colony also granted land to others for such service. If all the following received their grants for this reason, as some did, their names should be added to the list: Peter Blachford (Col. Rec., II: 161), Thomas Blatchley or Blakesley (Col. Rec., II: 133), Thomas Bunce (Col. Rec., II: 154), John Hall (Col. Rec., IV: 276), John Hills (Col. Rec., II: 161), Thomas Hurlbut (Col. Rec., II: 161; V: 379), William Parker (Col. Rec., II: 196), John Stone (Col. Rec., II: 100), Henry Walkley (Col. Rec., II: 112), and Samuel Whitehead (Col. Rec., II: 150). The Colonial Records also confirm the claims of twelve, who had grants in Soldiers' Field. Various authorities, presumably on good evidence, have added to these the names of Benjamin Burr, Captain John Cullick, Robert Sanford and John Stanley. In the three levies of the Pequot War, Hartford was called upon for sixty-one sol- diers. We have in the above lists the names of forty- nine, and twelve are missing. Thomas Gridley and Edward Lay are said to have enlisted from other towns, but being later in Hartford, they may have been recognized here as soldiers, by the town's bounty.
It is obvious that Soldiers' Field was not distributed before 1637. Reasons are given elsewhere for the opinion that this tract was the site of the Indian village, and was sur- rendered to the English after the war, probably for the benefit of the soldiers. While the majority in the above lists were afterwards proprietors, a considerable number obtained their privileges by the town's courtesy. Most of these are believed to have been recent arrivals when war was declared. Some were young men, and perhaps had emigrated in the service of older planters. It is noticeable and significant, however, that only nine or ten of the lists can be classed as South-side residents. That plantation would certainly have furnished more than ten soldiers in
1 See Connecticut Soldiers in the Pequot War of 1637, by James Shepard.
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THE COLONIAL HISTORY OF HARTFORD
the Pequot War. We conjecture, therefore, that the missing men were of the South-side, who had less use for Soldiers' Field lots, and that they had at once sold their rights to North-side soldiers, in whose proportions they are included. To the latter, such lots were very valuable, especially for garden use. John Bronson, William Hayden, and others who lived near, may have thus acquired their larger proportions. Soldiers' Field was of sufficient extent to have provided a one-rood lot as a bounty for all of Hart- ford's soldiers, with a larger grant to any who were officers or had rendered special service.
The possession of these meadow lots, however, would not have been the first consideration to any late arrivals or young men of this victorious army. They needed, and would have desired above all else, house-lots - that primary grant of a plantation, which invited and established their residence. The principle and practice of the inhabitants in their divisions are strongly opposed to any gift of meadow lots without a prior assignment of house-lots. Their probable order of action was, that each plantation granted house-lots to its soldiers, who were not already provided for, and then the recently vacated meadow was divided by a committee among all their soldiers. Let us look for these house-lots. On the north side of the road from Centinel Hill to the Cow Pasture, now North Main Street, there was a row of such lots. Most of them were one-half acre in size. The original owners going west were John Holloway, Thomas Spencer, Thomas Fisher, Zachary Field, Thomas Root, Benjamin Munn, Samuel Hale, Benjamin Burr, John Warner, William Pratt, Nicholas Gennings, John Peirce, Daniel Garrad, Nicholas Desborough and Richard Seymour. All of these names are found in the above list of soldiers, excepting Thomas Fisher, Daniel Garrad and Richard Seymour. In 1640, the town gave Nicholas Gennings's lot in Soldiers' Field to Daniel Garrad. The house-lots of Thomas Fisher and John Peirce had been sequestered for them, but neither was sufficiently prominent to deserve a reservation as a proprietor.1 The latter surrendered his and settled on the south side of the Little River. Across
1 Original Distribution, pp. 152, 157.
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the road from this row of house-lots, were those of Thomas Barnes, Thomas Munson, William Phillips, John Purchase and Thomas Hale - all of them soldiers. John Bronson, Sergeant William Cornwall and William Hayden lived just below the hill on the east. Was there also a distribu- tion of such house-lots in the South-side Plantation? Along the road from George Steele's to the Great Swamp, now Lafayette Street, we find another row of house-lots, prob- ably allotted in 1637 or 1638. Most of these also contained one-half acre. Their original owners going south were William Holton, Paul Peck, Henry Walkley, Richard Watts, William Watts, William Westley, Edward Lay, John Olmsted, John Peirce, Richard Risley and George Steele. This row overlapped, and Thomas Selden, Thomas Bliss, Sen., and Thomas Bliss, Jr., had one-half acre lots in the rear. Across the lane northward was the house-lot of Thomas Bunce, and below the hill, was that of William Blumfield. The names of six of these grantees are found in the above list of soldiers. Captain Thomas Watts, the renowned Indian fighter of 1675, was a son of Richard and younger brother of William Watts. Dr. John Olmsted was a surgeon in that service. Several of this group re- moved at an early date to other plantations. Others died before 1670. Thomas Selden forfeited his lot, but in 1640 the townsmen were authorized to make him an allowance for his improvements.1 Edward Lay had also then for- feited his, by neglect to build upon it, but the town offered to restore it upon the same conditions. Only five of the entire number were alive, when the Colony made its grants of land for service in the Pequot War, and Thomas Bunce and Paul Peck were the only residents of Hartford.
These are the facts disclosed in an unprejudiced study of the land records. They do not constitute historical evidence upon which to base an affirmation, that all the original owners of these two groups of house-lots did military service in 1637. In the author's opinion, however, they make such a conclusion seem quite probable. They at least furnish thirteen new names for consideration. The missing soldiers of the South-side quota should be sought among
1 Hartford Town Votes, I: 42.
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THE COLONIAL HISTORY OF HARTFORD
the same class of inhabitants that furnished the majority from the North-side. For an expedition into the enemy's country, younger men and recent arrivals could better be spared from the defenders of both plantations, which might be assaulted at any moment. After this little army re- turned victorious beyond all expectations, the inhabitants of Hartford could do nothing less than receive their heroes as residents of their plantations, and enroll their names at least among the recipients of the town's courtesy, of which class the soldiers in the Pequot War constitute a large proportion.
CHAPTER X GROWTH OF THE TOWN
WE invite the reader's company in the early springtime of 1640, as we stand together on the brow of Ox Pasture Hill and look toward the rising sun, that we may view the growing settlement of the proprietors of Hartford. All the sights one sees to-day from the broad avenue that climbs this hill westward, must be forgotten - the Capitol, the park, the railroad, the high buildings and the teeming thoroughfare. We are at the pasture gate, on the western border of a pioneer settlement. The woodland is behind us. A cartway, passing by a rude bridge over Brick-kiln Brook and winding northward, leads up the partly cleared hillside to our feet. A panorama is within our view, ex- tending from the present Tunnel Park to the South Green. Four years before, this tract was clothed with the forest. An army of woodsmen has marched through it. Their axes have left many scattered survivors, but everywhere we see the logs and stumps that witness to their slaughter. A limpid stream is visible on the south, flowing from the woodland. Overhanging bushes border its banks. It en- circles two or three islands in the lowland and, beyond, tumbles over a fall and disappears from view. The land we see is rough and hilly. To the right beyond the stream, is a hill - now crowned with marble, which rises in stately proportions to a gilded dome. Another hill, of conical shape, is in the distance on the left, where, perhaps, we descry a sentinel's lookout. In places, there are pools of water, or patches of marsh grass. Just at the base of the hill, where we stand, is a swamp, some acres in extent. It borders a brook that flows down a gully from the northwest. Through the leafless trees we can see, here and there, newly built log-houses, and a few more pretentious. Some are in process of erection. About them are plain out-buildings,
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THE COLONIAL HISTORY OF HARTFORD
strongly framed of unhewn logs, with fenced yards con- venient for use, and gardens whose fertile soil hungers for the tillage of civilization. In such a manner had these settlers been accustomed to group the buildings that housed their possessions in old England - even as the traveller sees them to this day. At the eastern limit of our view, these pioneer homes, separated by liberal intervals, seem to have ranged themselves in a row from north to south, with flanking rows from east to west, disclosing the location of their main highways. Still farther east, down the slope, is a parallel roadway. Its homes face a meadow, and beyond is a great river. The stream that flows eastward divides this settlement into two plantations. In some measure, these topographical features directed the course of their growth.
The area we have thus described, was largely the scene of Hartford's development west of the river for about two centuries, excepting only that of the agricultural interests in the suburbs. Of this settlement in 1638, De Vries wrote, it has "a fine church and a hundred houses." An examina- tion of the entries of houses, made in the records in 1640, shows that there were then at least sixty-three on the North-side and fifty-three on the South-side, or one hundred and sixteen in all. Some of the young men, or recent arrivals, then recorded only "a parcel for a house lot." Many of these houses were small habitations of the poorer settlers. In 1654 the rateable persons in this pioneer com- munity were only 177. Decades passed and added little to its population. A census was made by the selectmen in 1761. It shows the increase of one hundred and twenty- five years. There were then only 156 families on the North-side, or 868 whites and 68 blacks. On the South- side there were 720 whites and 41 blacks. East of the river the population was 1588, and, in the West Division, 653. Thus the total of the town's inhabitants was only 3938.1 This was a few hundred larger than the present population of Suffield, which town may suffice to picture Hartford in 1761. Its list of estates that year was £39826 11s. 6d. There were nine towns in the Colony that exceeded this.
1 Conn. Col. Rec., XI: 574 n.
VIEW OF HARTFORD FROM THE DEAF AND DUMB ASYLUM, 1849
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GROWTH OF THE TOWN
The census of 1756 gives Hartford a population of 3027. This was surpassed by Windsor and Farmington. In 1774 the population had increased to 5031, and, in 1782, to 5495.1 The year before the outbreak of the Revolutionary War, the males in Hartford, from twenty to seventy years of age inclusive, were 1022. In 1790, when Hartford was a newly incorporated city, its population was 4090. Even so recently as 1830, when nearing its bicentennial, its appear- ance was that of a country town, with 9789 inhabitants. An enumeration of its houses in 1786 gave the North-side 190, and the South-side 60, which was fifty less than Presi- dent Ezra Stiles estimated were in the town.2
The deductions from such facts are obvious. Our study is concerned with a rural community. Compared with modern times, the changes were few in the course of years. Time slipped along and men were born, lived and died, without witnessing any such alterations as every decade now brings. Public improvements were forced by necessity, rather than popular favor or artistic taste. No new vehicle was invented that involved a revolution in the customs of travel. The town's roads were repaired from time to time, but the rider on horseback, and the farmer's cart, followed the familiar trail of red mud for generations. Indeed, about 1830 Mr. G. W. Kappell published a humorous paper in Hartford, in which he narrated the experience of a citizen who went to a hat lying in the street north of the State House. He found a man under it. When he asked if help was needed, the man replied: "No, I have a good horse under me, and I guess I can get through." In colonial times there was no demand for anything better than the old dirt road. Grass grew along it, where the sheep and cattle browsed on their way to pasture. The survivors of the primeval forest, such as the Charter Oak, disappeared one by one. Young trees were set out, or allowed to grow up along the highways and about their homes. They came to large proportions, but sometimes the descendants of those who planted them still occupied the old homestead. The first century saw no conspicious changes in the simple architecture of their buildings. As a settler's means in- 1 Ibid., XIV: 485. 2 Diary of Ezra Stiles, III: 237, 266.
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THE COLONIAL HISTORY OF HARTFORD
creased, and saw-mills prepared abundant material, the pioneer's log cabin gave place to a framed house. It was many years before some of the original house-lots were divided up, and the early groups of buildings were scattered. Yet, little by little, the settlement of the founders was transformed. The disorder of wilderness life disappeared. Fields were cleared and seeded down. Stumps went to decay. Hillocks were leveled. Swales were filled up. Fences set bounds to their highways, and the trees spread over them arches of shade. Such was the town in which we are interested. To recover it from those early times, the imagination must rebuild it, using such materials as the ancient records furnish.
The early years of the settlers were chiefly devoted to two spheres of labor, in the course of which the town was developed without any special plan. These involved wide- spread activities. The first was their building operations. There were masons, carpenters and men of other trades in the town, but most of this work was done by the settlers themselves, with such supervision or assistance. Those well built houses that have survived to recent times were exceptions rather than the rule. One hundred houses of the simplest type involved a deal of labor. If we compute the number of trees required to erect them, with their out- buildings and fences, we can readily understand how the settlers would have cut off most of the available timber within the town-plot before 1640. At first they dug "saw- pits" where the trees had been felled. Over these they rolled the logs. The familiar "whip-saw" was used, a "top-man" working it from above and a "pit-man" from below. Thus they prepared their timbers, planks and boards. Their progress in erecting buildings may be inferred from the fact that, on January 7, 1639-40, such pits as were on public land, or not in use, were ordered to be filled up, and all pits were to be protected by pales. The regulations passed by the town the previous month indicate that the settlers were even then seeking timber outside of their limits on common land, and that they were "cleaving and squaring" such timbers for the construction of better buildings than they had at first.
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GROWTH OF THE TOWN
Stones were in demand for underpinning and chimneys. Their earliest supply was sought at the "falls" of the riveret, near Thomas Lord's house-lot. It is only recently that the removal of Daniels's dam disclosed signs of quarry- ing, which was probably done there in those times. One of their early orders, probably passed in 1637, forbade it longer. They then opened a quarry at the lower falls, where there is a ledge of red sandstone. It runs northwest underneath the municipal building, in erecting which much of it was excavated and placed along the banks of Park River. Specimens of these early building stones are some- times seen in old cellar walls, for, like oak timbers, they often passed from an early building to its successor. Later they took their stone from Rocky Hill.
Bricks soon came into general use. The brick-kiln was established as early as 1637, in the hillside north of the railway station. Clay was found there or in the neighbor- hood, and the brook furnished a convenient supply of water. Probably each settler made his own bricks. If otherwise, the brickmaker's name is unknown. The kiln was sufficiently patronized to demand a road thither. It is believed to have been in operation for many years. In 1685, the town granted Evan Davy liberty to make a brick- yard in the highway near Stephen Hopkins's lot, southwest of the Capitol. Perhaps he had made bricks in that neigh- borhood earlier, as he bought land there in 1681. A brick- yard was conducted in 1702 by Wilterton Merrill, James Easton and Richard Seymour. These bricks were of various sizes from the first. The reason may have been that they were put to different uses. Some were square and flat, as if for paving floors or walks. Larger sizes would be more suitable for chimneys; the smaller for filling in between the studs of a house wall. An old brick, bearing the date 1672, and supposed to have been in the chimney of the first Prior house in East Windsor, is 7 inches long, 32 inches wide and 24 inches thick. In the Richards house, the bricks were 8 inches long, 4 inches wide and 2} inches thick, though the width and thickness were sometimes less. Those in the Dorus Barnard house were 84 inches long, 4 inches wide and 25 inches thick. The Morrison house
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