USA > Connecticut > Hartford County > Hartford > Colonial history of Hartford, Connecticut > Part 16
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THE COLONIAL HISTORY OF HARTFORD
contains bricks of various sizes, probably because of its rebuilt masonry. In 1685, the General Court, noting the fact that there was a "variety of sizes used in the makeing of bricks," ordered that "the length of all bricks shall be nine inches and their bredth fower inches and a halfe and that they be two inches and a halfe thick." 1 An act was passed in 1770, making the size 8 inches long, 4 inches wide and 2 inches thick. It was quite common for an early brickmaker to put a date on one of his bricks, especially when he made a quantity for some particular building. Early handmade bricks can be found with the finger-prints of the maker upon them. Yet these bricks, being laid in clay and easily cleaned, frequently passed from one structure to another, so that the date does not always give the correct age of an edifice. Bricks of a later date were also used in repairs. It is an error to suppose that bricks were brought in any large quantity from England.
The second sphere of their early labors was agriculture. There is ample evidence in the records that these were arduous. Other than Indian corn, they had little grain to consume for several years. Their limited supply of English wheat, rye and peas was needed for seed. The natives furnished much of their corn. At times this was scarce. In 1638, the price was 5s. per bushel. It was reduced to 3s. in 1641, and the next year to 2s. 6d., which was the standard of value for several years. Wheat was then 4s. 4d. per bushel; rye and peas 3s. 6d. Grain was largely their medium of exchange, so they planted their fields with hard cash. As an example of the average planter, we may cite Richard Lyman's estate. He had suffered in the loss of cattle at the time of his removal. When he died in 1641, his herd numbered four, besides three goats and eight hogs. His inventory also shows that he had planted that year five acres of Indian corn, three roods of peas and barley, and an acre each of summer wheat, oats and meslin - a mixture of wheat and rye. Presumably this shows the progress of his agricultural labors after five years. James Olmsted, who died in 1640, had besides three horses, a herd of thirteen, the same number of swine and four goats. Of
1 Conn. Col. Rec., III: 192.
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Indian corn he had 160 bushels, 30 of summer wheat and 12 of peas. William Wadsworth was a prosperous farmer of early times. At his death in 1675, he had 11 cows, 1 bull, 4 yoke of bullocks, 10 young cattle, 7 calves, 13 hogs, 4 young swine, 5 horses, 3 colts and a mare with her colt. The raising of sheep increased in later colonial times. In 1671, the town ordered certain highways, then to be staked out, "to bee Cleered for sheepe pasture." A shepherd was in charge of the flock. Complaint was made in 1774, that the sheep turned into the highways ate up the grass used by the poor inhabitants.1 At this time, Hartford was a thriving agricultural community. A visitor in 1788 says, "It is a confiderable rural town; the greater part of the inhabitants live by agriculture; fo that eafe and abundance univerfally reign in it." He also speaks of the "vaft meadows covered with herds of cattle of an enormous size." 2 During early years, the fields fit for cultivation were limited. They had a large amount of provender to provide for their cattle in winter. Many buildings were required for shelter. This was surely an arduous task for the hardiest English yeoman. The town's orders show, also, that they needed many fences. Their yards and gardens were enclosed with paling. This was made of stakes driven into the earth, and fastened to one or more horizontal rails. Pales were from three to six feet in length, according to their use. They also fenced their cornfields and meadows, often to no purpose, as frequent suits for damages prove. On the side toward the town they fenced their pastures. Swine soon became numerous in the settle- ment. They were a necessity, but the forefathers were almost plagued to death by them. As they were then given the freedom of common lands at times, they naturally be- came wild. They broke down the fences, and the settlers suffered extensive damages.
If now we can imagine the inhabitants of this settlement as busy as bees for some years in these employments, we shall see how naturally the town grew. Their earliest highways were not laid out by the town. They were de-
1 Ibid., XIV: 216.
2New Travels in America, by J. P. Brissot de Warville, pp. 72, 73.
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THE COLONIAL HISTORY OF HARTFORD
termined by the topography of the land and the activities of the inhabitants. After their house-lots were located, the town soon found out where the people wanted to go. It made there a highway, the lines of which were established in due time. The way a settler found most convenient in reaching his employment was followed by others, until it became a road. To the woods he went for his timber; to the falls for stone; to the kiln for clay or brick; to the meadow for hay; to the pasture with his cows; to the mill with his corn; to the mouth of the meadow creek for his boat to cross the river, and to Windsor or Wethersfield to see his friends. Others did the same. Soon roads were made, which survive to this day as the city's streets. It is significant that no highways now cross Main Street east and west. The eastern portion of Pearl Street was laid out where it is, because it was a convenient route to the mill. The same is true of all early highways. Hence their roads
came to be named according to their destination, or the places and residences that were thus connected. Some- times these occur in reverse order in the records. The road from the Meeting House to the Mill was through Pearl, Trumbull, Jewell and Ford streets. It was also named "Town to the Mill" and "Old Mill to the Meeting House." The eastern end was sometimes designated as "Seth Grant's to the Meeting House." The extension farther west had destinations according to the development of the settlement - "to the Ox Pasture," "to the Country," "to the Middle Ox Pasture," "to the Woods," "to the Little River" and "to the Commons." After the new mill had been erected at the falls, the road from it westward also received the ambiguous designation "Mill to the Ox Pasture." Centinel Hill was another place of departure for highways. They ran thence "to the Cow Pasture," "to the Neck," "to the North Meadow" and "to Seth Grant's." The latter was usually named "Seth Grant's to Centinel Hill," now Trumbull Street, from Pearl north- ward. In time, Centinel Hill came to be called "Pound Hill," and the names changed accordingly. The entire length of this highway was named "Little River to Centinel Hill," or, "Thomas Stanton's to Centinel Hill." John
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Steele lived where the Travelers Insurance Company building is. When he recorded his lot, he bounded it on the west by "the hyway Leading from the olld Palifado Now fro the mell to the meeting houfe." As the bridge became a conspicuous landmark, this street received the names "Bridge to the Meeting House," or "Bridge to Pound Hill." Another place of departure was George Steele's house, at the corner of Washington Street and Capitol Avenue. Hence we have the name, "George Steele's to the Mill," applied to the road along Trinity Street, turn- ing then north-west around Capitol Hill to the site of the upper mills. The road from his house southeast joined Buckingham Street near the South Church and continued eastward. It was the highway from "George Steele's to the South Meadow." The section east of Main Street was also named "Giles Smith's to William Gibbons'." The road from "George Steele's to the Great Swamp" led through Lafayette Street, joining Washington Street farther south. One of their longest highways started at the upper mills and went eastward through Elm and Sheldon streets. There was a similar road along the north side of the Little River, now Arch and Wells streets. That portion of Main Street south of the river was called the "Road to Wethersfield" and the "Road to the Ox Pasture." The town, bridge or river, were sometimes its place of departure, and southward from Buckingham Street, the home of John Moody. There is, indeed, scarcely a highway that had not several names applied to it during early years. These continued in use for a long time in the land records. Probably in conversa- tion all roads were designated according to their destina- tion. In the course of time, however, the town's streets came to be named after some feature or the location. It was convenient to speak of "the broad hyway." So their principal thoroughfare became "Broad Street," just as, at a later time, "the main street" became "Main Street." Trumbull Street was at first called "the back street," and then "Back Street." Other town streets were conveniently spoken of as the road that passed the home of some well- known resident. This was a natural origin of the custom of naming streets after certain citizens. As the town-plot
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THE COLONIAL HISTORY OF HARTFORD
became more clearly defined, highways were said to lead from the town to some suburban place or neighboring town. In 1679, the General Court ordered that roads from plantation to plantation "shall be reputed the country roades or King's highway."1 For this reason, probably, the road from the Meeting House to the Little Meadow came to be named "King Street." Main Street north of the square was then called "Queen Street." The cart tracks in these ancient highways were not necessarily straight for any considerable distance. The land reserved for them was of liberal width, and the roadway might be made in any part of them according to the driver's con- venience.
The growth of a town is usually revealed in the condition of its highways. Imagine the appearance of Main Street as it must have been in 1640 - a wide swath that the ax had cut through the forest, with a road finding its way from end to end, over swales and around stumps. The improve- ment of such roads was an early public service. In 1640 it was ordered that every man fit for service should work on them one day, magistrates and church officers excepted. The two highway surveyors were empowered, in 1641, to call out the train-bands and teams for two days; and he who refused to respond was to be reported to the Particular Court. Two years later another call was made, to work on the highway from the bridge to the meeting-house, "vntell the worck be finished." That year, also, the eight residents on the north bank of the Little River were freed from common work on the roads, on condition that within that time they made our present Wells Street "pasabell with loden carttes," at their own charges. It was years before the settlers realized how much work was necessary on their highways. They then vested in the townsmen extraordinary powers to compel such public service. In 1760 the General Assembly granted the privilege of a lottery to raise £300, "for the repairing the main streets in the town of Hartford." 2
One of their early public works was the construction of causeways. These were paths made of stones, logs and earth,
1 Conn. Col. Rec., III: 30. 2 Ibid., XI: 411.
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raised above the natural level of the highway, to afford a dry passage for the feet. In England they were then in general use. The earliest was constructed in Hartford in 1644. It was along Main Street, for it is described as leading "to the metting hous and vp the lane to the pound by tho Spenser." The pound was west, and Thomas Spencer's house north of Centinel Hill. Probably others were soon built, for, in 1646, it was forbidden, under penalty of six pence, to ride a horse on any causeway that led to the meet- ing-house, except to cross it. Two years later, the driving of cattle or carts upon any of the "Causyes that Lead from any parte of the Towne to the meeting howse" was prohib- ited. That year, also, it was ordered that such causeways be constructed on the South-side, from George Steele's, Thomas Hosmer's and Mrs. Wyllys's, to the bridge over Little River; and, on the North-side, from William Phillips's, William Kelsey's and William Westwood's, to the meeting- house. These paths, with those supposed to have been built earlier, would have served most of the inhabitants. Each side was to do its own work; and if either failed to complete the work on or before the last day of September, it was to pay forty shillings to the other side. This was surely a friendly rivalry in preparing the way of the Lord. Such facts show us the early town in its rural simplicity. The value of sidewalks as now constructed, was not recog- nized for more than a century. In 1758, the streets being "very miry at times, unfit for walking on foot," the efforts of divers persons to make foot walks, probably in front of their own homes, were encouraged by the town, and their walks protected from misuse by horses, very much as the causeways had been in 1646.1
Such details help us to understand how encroachments upon their highways came to pass. In those early times they had no thought of future city streets. An old English town would better illustrate their ideal. Highways that were so little regarded by the public naturally became the prey of abutting owners. They pushed out their fences to suit themselves, gradually taking in land that was not occupied by the roadway. This was encouraged by the
1 Hartford Town Votes, MS. Vol. II: 178.
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THE COLONIAL HISTORY OF HARTFORD
town's grants of land in the highways and the meeting- house yard. In 1644, John Talcott was given liberty to set a cart house in front of his home lot. Others, from time to time, received similar locations for shops. Being so liberal in such matters, the town would hardly notice the encroach- ment of a fence. Thus, like the crowd viewing a procession, others moved out to get in line. The width of Main Street was in this way diminished in places, especially north of the square. That the tenants of the Ancient Burying Ground could not follow the custom is doubtless the reason for the width of the street in front of it. In 1683, the town took action to prevent encroachments. The General Assembly also did the same in 1724.1 The early conditions could not be restored in the town's main streets. The people had slumbered so long that the rights of abutting owners had been secured, and many practical difficulties hindered reform.
It is evident that the settlers needed pounds from the first. Their contention with the Dutch made one impera- tive on the South-side. On December 26, 1639, it was "ordrd that ther shalbe two pounds made wth 6 Rayls 40 foote square: one on the one syd the River the other on the other side, to be Reddy by Aprell." A pound was also established early at Hockanum; but it was apparently given up and the land allotted. Later, two were located else- where.2 The South-side pound was near the southeast corner of Andrew Bacon's house-lot, on the road from George Steele's to the South Meadow.3 The North-side pound was northwest of Centinel Hill, near the corner of Thomas Burr's lot. In 1742, the selectmen were authorized to exchange this tract with Thomas Burr, Jr., and a new pound was established near-by on the west side of Trumbull Street.4
The changes of a century in the neighborhood of Centinel
1 Conn. Col. Rec., VI: 449, 450; VII: 34.
2 Hartford Town Votes, I: 46-48, 82, 189; Original Distribution, p. 458; Good- win's Hist. of East Hartford, p. 70.
3 Original Distribution, p. 367; Hartford Land Records, 1: 19, 69; 5: 310; 8: 46, etc.
' Hartford Town Votes, MS. Vol. II: 117, 162, 256; Hartford Land Records, 7: 112, 356, 357.
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Hill, will serve to illustrate the process of development that was carried on in all parts of the settlement. The hill itself was an elongated elevation, with its summit a little west of the present corner where Main Street turns to the northwest. On the theory that civilization reduces hills and fills up valleys, though rarely to a level, the topographical map of Hartford made in 1892, gives the base of this hill in its contour lines. The rise began as far south as Church Street and extended in a curve to the northwest, near Trumbull. The design of the pioneers, apparently, was to have this hill to command the neck on the north, and, at the southern end of a broad highway, the palisado to command the Little River. It was a splendid location for their plantation. Perhaps signals could once be exchanged between the hill and the South Green, as tradition relates. On the east side of the hill the slope descended abruptly into a swale or ravine. The late Dr. Gurdon W. Russell, who had an intimate acquaintance with the neighborhood, once pointed out a spot, in Main Street at the head of Morgan, where he saw in an excavation, twelve or fifteen feet below the present grade, a large log. His conclusion was as above stated, and the records confirm it. In early times there was no road on that side of the hill. The house-lots of Goodman and Lewis, farther south, were bounded on the west by a high- way; but those of Talcott and Elmer had Centinel Hill for a western bound. This explains the language of the town votes as to the causeway. It went "vp the lane to the pound." The road from the meeting-house northward had room enough until it came to the hill. Then it was com- pelled by the swale on the eastern side to follow the western base to the pound, narrowing its width to a "lane." There it divided, the western branch leading to the Cow Pasture, and the eastern swinging around in front of Thomas Spencer's lot to the North Meadow, as shown in Porter's plan. There was a chaseway up the slope from William Westwood's lot, between those of Elmer and Ely. Probably there was a spring in the road to the meadow. In 1644, the town appointed a committee to view "the plase that Nath Elly desiers to draw watter in to his lott outt of the highway." Perhaps a pioneer's path to the spring grew into a chaseway,
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THE COLONIAL HISTORY OF HARTFORD
which the cattle of Front Street followed to pasture. Its modern successor is Morgan Street, laid out in 1788. The settlers began at an early date to fill up the swale, naturally by grading down the hill. They thus extended their main throughfare northward, to connect directly with the road to the North Meadow. This improvement covered many years. In 1655, the Elmer lot, having passed to Colonel John Allyn, was still bounded west by the hill. Ten years later, the owner was given "liberty to improve the land fro the corner of Mrs Tallcotts ffence to the Chasse lane." The inhabitants were forbidden, in 1660, to "digg or cary away any earth from Sentinell hill," without the consent of Ensign Talcott and John Allyn, under penalty of two shill- ings a load. Probably the earth was wanted for filling on the east. In 1709, the Allyn lot was bounded west by the high- way. As the extent of the hill was decreased, the lane to the pound was widened. An open area was thus established. Next south of it, was the house-lot originally recorded to Mrs. Dorothy Chester. In 1639 her liberty to build upon it was extended two years, but it is not known whether she ever lived there. It was probably acquired by Richard Webb, whose lot bounded it on the south and was included in the three and one-half acres that he sold in 1651 to Barthol- omew Barnard. This lot was then bounded on the north, east and west by highways. For many years thereafter, it was the Barnard homestead, around which were gathered the homes of some well-known Hartford families of that time. It was one of the town's fortified houses in 1689, when there was danger from the Indians. The others were the houses of Samuel Wyllys on Charter Oak Hill, James Steele at the corner of Washington Street, and John Olcott on the Windsor Road.1 At the death of Bartholomew Barnard in 1697, his homestead passed to his son Sergeant John Barnard, who, in 1734, bequeathed the northwest corner to Jonathan Olcott, and the balance to Joseph Olcott. Meanwhile, the hill having disappeared, the abutters had extended their bounds northward. In 1756, Colonel Samuel Talcott petitioned the town for a small piece of land "on the Hill," north of Joseph Olcott's house "at the Turn of the High-
1 Hartford Town Votes, I: 228.
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way," to set a building upon "for a shop or Ware Houfe." At the same time, Isaac Pratt asked for land at this place for a blacksmith shop. The former purchased, however, part of the Olcott lot. He erected there the warehouse, which is still standing a short distance back from the street. This property he conveyed, in 1770, to his son Samuel Talcott. It then had upon it "a Shop or Store Houfe." Near the old pound Thomas Burr had received in 1695, a grant "oute of ye highway aganst his house." In this shop his son, Thomas, afterwards plied his trade as a shoemaker. Probably there were, later, other small shops in that neigh- borhood, which ultimately furthered the diminution of the open area. In 1760, the old home where the Barnards and Olcotts had lived, with its barn and orchard, passed out of Joseph Olcott's hands, and, in 1763, it was bought by Captain Jonathan Wadsworth.1 He also leased the original lot of John Holloway, the blacksmith. This was across the street, and had been an early bequest to the First Church. Thus the site of Centinel Hill was on its way to be divided up and put to the uses of trade, as seen to-day.
The process of transformation illustrated in this locality was carried on everywhere within the settlement. Swales, mudholes and ponds were filled up. There were once two ponds a little west of Main Street and south of Centinel Hill. They were called "Barnard's Ponds," or "Day's Ponds." In 1733, an attempt was made to drain them across Main Street, to which the town objected.2 Within the memory of recent inhabitants, all the land at the lower end of Pearl and Asylum streets was low and wet. Near High Street, there was a hill where bricks were once made. North of the square, near Market Street, the houses once stood on a considerable elevation. This was also the case on the north side of Asylum Street. Underneath the surface of the present city, with its builded squares, level pavements and easy grades, there are unmistakable signs, sometimes re- vealed in excavations, of that rough and wooded tract upon which the early settlers labored to bring forth better things.
1 Hartford Land Records, 10: 220, 339, 340.
2 Hartford Town Votes, MS. Vol. II: 82.
CHAPTER XI
ALONG THE GREAT RIVER
ON February 21, 1636-7, the settlement the forefathers had called "Newe Towne" was formally named by the General Court, "Harteford Towne." The reason assigned for this action in the colonial records is the commendable practice of giving to their new plantations the names of "some Citties and Townes in England, thereby intending to keep vp and leaue to posterity the memorial of seuerall places of note there, as Boston, Hartford, Windsor." 1 The former residence of Rev. Thomas Hooker not being of sufficient note, the birthplace of Rev. Samuel Stone was naturally suggested. This historical relationship to one of the famous cities of England, is now expressed in the seal of the City of Hart- ford - "Ar. An American Hart proper, fording a stream, trippant, in fess: in a Landskip, in middle base, a Grape Vine bearing fruit, naissant from a strip of earth - all proper. Crest. An American Eagle proper, displayed. Motto. Post Nubila Phoebus." The early purpose of the town's founders had died out, however, when, in 1785, Colonel Samuel Wyllys, alderman, and John Trumbull, Esq., councilman, reported a device for the seal of the newly incorporated city. The year before, a strange craft had appeared on the river. It consisted of two flat-boats lashed together side by side, with a platform on top, upon which circling horses created power for paddle-wheels on each side.2 The year following, John Fitch won his success with the steamboat at Philadelphia. He is said to have experi- mented on the Connecticut River earlier. A new era in Hartford's commercial life was at hand.3 Projects were -
1 Conn. Col. Rec., I: 313; The Hartford Courant, Jan. 8, 1895, Dec. 28, 1906, and April 27, 1907.
2 The Connecticut Courant, July 13, 1784.
3 "The Navigation of the Connecticut River," by Wm. De Loss Love, in Proc. of the Am. Antiq. Soc., April, 1903.
POST
PHEBUS
NUBILA
COAT OF ARMS, AFTER THE CITY'S SEAL ADOPTED IN 1852
HA
TRORDIENSIS
THE FIRST SEAL OF THE CITY OF HARTFORD, 1785
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ALONG THE GREAT RIVER
being discussed to deepen the river channel, and were, later, realized. The community was enthusiastic with a revived interest in trade, which many hoped to extend to foreign ports. The day of the Great River that had tarried so long had come. Thus it happened that the above committee reported as follows: "Connecticut River, represented by the figure of an Old man crowned with Rushes, seated against a Rock, holding an Urn, with a Stream flowing from it; at his feet a net, and fish peculiar to the River lying by it, with Barrels and Bales; over his head an Oak growing out of a Cleft in the Rock, and round the whole these words, 'Sig- illum Civitatis Hartfordiensis.'"' 1
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