USA > Connecticut > Hartford County > Hartford > Colonial history of Hartford, Connecticut > Part 19
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1 Winthrop's History, II: 311.
2 Hartford Town Votes, I: 164.
3 Probate Records, Book III, County Court, 1663-1677, p. 127.
4 Hartford Town Votes, I: 167.
LITTLE RIVER ABOUT 1854
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THE BANKS OF THE RIVERET
town votes do not disclose the results of this action. A bridge was doubtless built at once, and, in the writer's opinion, near or at Main Street. Some calamity befell this bridge, for, in 1676, the town was in need of a "present passage to pass over the riuer," until another could be built. They then considered a stone bridge, indicating some im- patience with recent wooden structures. Again they were building a bridge in 1691, for a present passage over Mill River. From this time, the town bridge assumed a large importance. The two "Sides" which had maintained from the beginning certain individual interests, began to find more in common, along the dividing stream. It had, for some occupations, decided advantages over the landing or the square. Intercourse increased. The fordways were still in use. In 1702 they also resorted to a ferryman, probably at the lower crossing when the bridge was closed. The transformation along this dividing stream was gradual, and only culminated after many years. Still the days of the riveret's natural beauties were passing away. In 1728, the town authorized the building of a "new bridge," for which £130 were levied. It was their most ambitious · effort hitherto. Captain Stanley, who lived near, was given the care of it. This was more generally called the "Town Bridge." Another was authorized in 1742, at a cost of £300. It was popularly termed the "Great Bridge" and lasted until 1756. Another was built in 1769. In 1780, a stone bridge was considered, to be paid for by a lottery. The plan failed and a new one was built in 1786. Porter's sketch of it, on his survey of 1790, indicates that it was of simple but strong construction. The need of repairing an old bridge, or building a new one, was before the town in 1801, 1804, 1807 and 1817. The plan of 1804 contemplated one not less than forty, nor more than forty-four feet wide. Earlier bridges had probably not exceeded thirty feet. Stone piers to protect the supports were proposed in 1817. Finally, however, in 1832, a stone bridge was voted, and it was erected the following year.1 Many doubts were then expressed as to the stability of an arch with a span of one hundred and four feet. This is now the Main Street bridge.
1 Ibid., MS. Vol. III: 151, 154, 160, 165, 166; Mem. Hist. of Hartford County. I: 368, 369.
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THE COLONIAL HISTORY OF HARTFORD
It was widened twenty feet east of earlier bridges and necessitated raising the highway six feet near it, with the lowering of the grade northward.
That which contributed most to alter the appearance of the riveret, was the town's leasing of land along its banks. Locations had been granted, now and then, for shops on public land, but the earlier development was elsewhere. In 1695, Ebenezer Gilbert was given such a privilege on the south bank of the riveret. Other grants soon followed. In 1701, Thomas Gilbert was voted a location for a barber shop on the north bank, west of the bridge. Some of these grants were regarded as temporary and were not recorded. The practice grew, however, into a system of leases. The first of these was made in 1737, for twenty years. In 1753, forty years was the usual term. Within six years, a dozen were made. Then the town in 1760, having examined into all grants and leases, appointed a committee to sell and dispose of the lands on both banks east of the mills. Rules were adopted for the adjustment of all rights of occupants and future leases. The proceeds were to be used in erecting and maintaining the great bridge. It does not appear that new leases were made under this action. In 1769, another committee was appointed to carry out the rules. A new bridge was then in contemplation. Twice the activities of the committee were revived by other appointments. After the Revolutionary War, however, leases were common. The period was then nine hundred and ninety-nine years. In 1824, in consideration of the location of Washington College in Hartford, the town authorized the selectmen to quitclaim the rentals and fee in these leased lands to the amount of $5000 to the said institution.1 The trustees of Trinity College have since disposed of most of this interest.
The reader can best gather information concerning the changes along the Little River in colonial times, by follow- ing it westward from the mouth. On the right is Dutch Point, at first a low and sandy tract, then a part of John Haynes's pasture. It passed, in 1792, to John Ellery. Later it was occupied for occasional ship-building, and
1 Hartford Land Records, 38: 377-405; Hartford Town Votes, MS. Vol. III: 113; Mem. Hist. of Hartford County, I: 373.
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THE BANKS OF THE RIVERET
finally claimed for manufacturing. In 1790, Porter located there a saw-mill. This gave place to Taylor's planing-mill, which was burned in 1849. Barber, in his Historical Collec- tions, shows a picture of Dutch Point as it appeared in his day. On the south side of the stream, west of the Point, was the House of Hope. For many years, the fields on either side were used for hay and pasture. Taylor's wharf on the north bank is noted in 1790. The bridge at Commerce Street was built in 1858. Between that point and Front Street on the right, there were originally two inlets, one of which is said to have been partly filled with the ruins of the Dutch fort. Abreast of John Chenevard's wharf, there was once an island, called "Sheldon's Island," after the family living near. The fordway crossed from Front to Governor Street. It was above the limits of the riveret's navigation, except at high water. The steamboat Barnett took advan- tage of one spring flood, to go up stream over Daniels's dam, as far as Imlay's foot bridge. At the beginning, there was a landing on the left, east of the fordway. It was near Governor Hopkins's house. There, the earliest merchants of the South-side Plantation conducted some of their trade. Perhaps there was also a landing on the north side of the stream. In 1793, when commercial interests increased in that neighborhood, the town laid out a public landing there. Continuing up stream, we pass on the right bank, the site of John Nichols's tailor shop and Daniel Hinsdale's store, and reach the lower dam. Here, in 1779, Thomas Seymour asked liberty to build a grist and saw-mill. It was opposite his homestead. He received, in 1787, the usual lease of the premises. The grist-mill was on the north, and the saw- mill on the south side of the riveret. Both continued for many years. In 1824, Ward's Woolen Manufactory occu- pied the former site. Little did Thomas Hooker imagine such a building across the street from his dooryard. The Ledyard elm that stood near was witness to these changes. West of the saw-mill there was another inlet or creek, over which a stone bridge was built before 1783. Most of the land on both banks westward to the falls was leased. On the north side, was the Ellery house, now standing at the end of Prospect Street. East of the bridge, Joseph Shepard
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THIE COLONIAL HISTORY OF HARTFORD
leased land, in 1737, for his cooper shop. The old Shepard house is now east of the site. In 1769, Joseph Reed leased between Shepard and the bridge. His property was con- fiscated during the Revolutionary War, he having "joined the enemies of his country." It was sold in 1781, to buy saddles for Colonel Sheldon's regiment of dragoons.1 Thus the owner paid his annual rental of "one peppercorn." The land passed to Nathaniel Patten and later to the Frank- lin Market Company. The junction of Arch and Main Streets was called "Shepard's Corner." At the northwest corner of the bridge, was "Stanley's Corner." Here, in 1755, Colonel Nathaniel Stanley obtained a lease of a lot on the river's bank for forty years. John and Hephzibah Skinner became the lessees in 1787, having a house there. In 1790, Solomon Porter noted as landmarks west of them the houses of George Burnham, Benjamin Wood and Jacob Norton. Hudson and Goodwin were lessees next on the west. Then came the old miller's house. Near the mill, from 1773 to 1781, John Cable carried on a bakery, quite famous in its day. North of the mills there were more leased lots. In 1787, Ralph Pomeroy obtained a location near Mulberry Street bridge. There a stock company began the manufacture of broadcloth, a suit of which was worn by President Washington at his first inauguration.2 It was called "Congress brown." Later Cyprian Nichols had a soap and candle factory in this building. Factory Lane, or Gold Street, led thither from Main Street. The passways to the riveret along this bank were reserved for the use of fire engines. There they had occasional "washes."
On the south bank of the stream, west of the saw-mill, some of the earliest leases were given. Thomas Hender was about seven rods west of the stone bridge across the inlet. In 1781 Aaron Bradley's blacksmith shop was west of this. He was succeeded by Adonijah Brainard. A watering-place was west of this shop. Richard Butler came next. At the southeast arm of the bridge, was Thomas Seymour's store of colonial days. In 1767, when he died, he had two shops, one on each side of the Little River, near
1 State Archives: Revolutionary War, 34: 118, 119, 147, 255.
2 Mem. Hist. of Hartford County, I: 564, 565; New England States, I: 195, 196.
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THE BANKS OF THE RIVERET
the bridge. In its later years the south side shop was occupied by Elizur Skinner's restaurant, called "Washing- ton Recess." 1 Across the street westward, John Lord was the first tenant in early times. He had a house and shop there, three rods west of the Great Bridge.2 Later John Thomas gathered several properties there. They passed from him to Josiah Benton. Porter's landmarks between this tract and the mill dam in 1790, were Joel Carter's house, formerly Ezra Hyde's, and Reuben Wadsworth's. Between the Thomas and Hyde lots, was that where Cotton Murray had his store in 1777. It had previously belonged to Peter R. Livingston. He acquired it from Andrew Thompson, who purchased it from Daniel Bull in 1762. It was a well- known store in its day, and stood north of Moses Butler's tavern. At an early date Henry Hayward, a malster, bought the lot originally owned by John Barnard, also a malster. He deeded, in 1698, to his son Samuel Hayward his house and "also his malt-house," north of the highway on the river's bank. This location was devoted to that business for many years. The malt-house was a landmark for locating later grants, such as Ebenezer Gilbert's shop, James Taylor's fulling-mill and others.
In colonial times the riveret west of the mills had no resemblance to the present stream. The dam then held back a considerable mill-pond. The land along its banks was low. In 1636, the area now included in Bushnell Park had a wild, woods-like appearance. Its islands were a picturesque feature. The land was claimed for tanneries, and it degenerated. Any one who remembers this tract before the park was created will not wonder that the propo- sition of Rev. Dr. Horace Bushnell was ridiculed by some as absurd.3 Porter's survey of 1790 shows three islands within the east part. In 1824 there were only two, Ward's Island and City Island. The latter was probably made up of two as seen in 1790. John Bidwell was the original owner of an island here, about two roods in extent. It abutted southward on the river, and northward on a creek coming
1 The Hartford Times, March 18, 1891; Hartford Land Records, 56: 368.
2 Hartford Town Votes, MS. Vol II: 167; Hartford Land Records, 10: 238.
3 "Letter of Dr. Bushnell" in Hearth and Home, Feb. 6, 1869, and The Hartford Courant, April 22, 1908; Connecticut Quarterly, I: 68-71.
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THE COLONIAL HISTORY OF HARTFORD
out of the river between the island and the highway. Within a few years it passed in turn to Michael Spencer, William Williams and William Kelsey. From the latter Edward Grannis bought it in 1664, and the same year another island of the same extent was given to him by the town. It abutted on William Andrews's land, and is said to have been "com- passed about" by the river. These two islands passed in 1671 to Samuel Burr, in 1674 to John Sadd, in 1715 to Daniel Messenger, in 1724 to Moses Merrill, in 1738 to Timothy Marsh and in 1741 to Joseph Forbs.1 All these owners were interested in the tanning business, which, with the currying of leather, the manufacture of leather breeches and gloves, was carried on in that neighborhood throughout colonial times.
When the dam of Allyn and Bidwell was built, it made a mill-pond that extended some distance up stream. The embankment ran across to the lot originally granted to Governor Haynes. There Rev. Joseph Haynes had made a garden, enclosed with a fence. Mrs. Sarah Haynes brought suit for damages.2 She eventually won, but the mill-pond remained. The tract involved is now occupied by the State Armory. Capitol Avenue was formerly called Oil Mill Lane. The land south of it was a pasture until about 1850. Rocky Hill Brook ran northward through it and emptied into the riveret. At the west end of the lane, there was a flaxseed oil-mill. There, in 1739, Nathaniel Hooker and Samuel Talcott secured liberty from the town to build a dam against "Butler's ten acres." The same year Jona- than Butler sold them the land. It adjoined the falls in the river, "a little above the flood" of Daniel Badger's mill- pond. The grinding of flaxseed was carried on here for years. A grist-mill was added before 1798. In 1819, this property was acquired by Samuel Ledlie, who sold to William H. Imlay. It was sometimes called "Imlay's Upper Mills." The Sharp's Rifle Manufacturing Company bought here in 1853. Such was the beginning of Hartford's present manufacturing district.
1 Original Distribution, pp. 144, 242, 245, 388, 539; Hartford Land Records, 3: 19; 4: 162; 6: 208, 461.
2 State Archives: Private Controversies, III: 67-73; The Hartford Courant, Nov. 6, 1909; Hartford Land Records, 1: 292.
CHAPTER XIII
ANCIENT MEETING HOUSES
THE First and Second churches of Hartford have been favored with historians, who have written after careful research. Yet the colonial history of the town would be incomplete without sketches of those meeting-houses that occupied the foreground of interest in their day. To con- vey to the reader a general impression of them, is, moreover, to our purpose, because each edifice was typical of the time in which it was erected, and stands now for a period in the town's development.
The first meeting-house of Hartford was perhaps begun by the pioneers in the spring of 1636. They were then anticipating the coming of Hooker's company, and would naturally wish to provide a place of worship before his arrival. The area they had reserved for public uses was called, in the entries of surrounding lots, "meeting house land," "meeting house lot," or "the meeting house yard." Perhaps they thought it might become necessary to sur- round this yard with a palisade, as planters did in other pioneer settlements. At its southeast bound, James Cole bought, at an early date, from Thomas Scott one rood of land, which is described as "lying by the meetinge houfe.' A lane led thence southward to the home-lots of their ministers, called the "chase way leading to the meeting house." It is thought, therefore, that this first place of worship was located in the southeastern section of the original square. Such, too, is the tradition. We have no description of it; but it is fair to assume that, in construction and shape, it was like other pioneer meeting-houses in New England. If so, we may think of it as a plain struc- ture, built of logs, perhaps roughly squared, the chinks being filled with moss, or clay mixed with hay. The roof was thatched. Unglazed openings, provided with board shut-
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THE COLONIAL HISTORY OF HARTFORD
ters, served for windows, and the door was of plank. Ded- ham's first meeting-house, erected in 1637, was 36 feet long, 20 feet wide and 12 feet high, from sill to plate; but that was used thirty-one years. Hartford's was a temporary structure, probably of that type and smaller size. As an estimate for purposes of comparison, a pioneer meeting- house 24 feet long, 16 feet wide and 10 feet high, would have been of liberal proportions. It might have had a wooden floor; but beaten earth was more likely. It was furnished with rough benches, on either side of a narrow passage. The men occupied one side and the women the other. At the end, an elevated enclosure served for a pulpit. Seats near the door were provided for the guard. It was certainly such a plain building, whatever its shape or size, for it was only a Puritan meeting-place, intended mainly to afford an opportunity for all to hear the Word of God, and capable of seating quite a company. To the assembly that gathered there, however, it was "none other than the house of God," made sacred by the sincerity of their religious aspirations and the public significance of their councils within its walls. If we assume that this meeting-house was in use until another was provided, it served the congregation for several years. It seems most likely to have been the "litle house in the Meeting house yard," which, on January 7, 1639-40, the townsmen re- ceived liberty to sell.1 If so the plan failed, for, a few months later, William Spencer, in one of his last entries, made the record: "Its ordrd that the ould Meeting house shalbe given to m' Hooker." 2 We are to associate with this edifice all their early public assemblies. These included the general gatherings of the people, for civil as well as religious purposes. There, the Court, on February 21, 1636-7, christened the settlement "Harteford Towne." The following month they doubtless held there the first election of magistrates. On May 1, 1637, their General Court would have been assembled there, when they de- clared war against the Pequot Indians. It was there, ere their brave warriors embarked, that Thomas Hooker prob- ably told them in a sermon that the savages "should be 1 Hartford Town Votes, I: 11. 2 Ibid, I: 32.
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bread for them."1 They would have celebrated there also, on October 12, 1637, the first general Thanksgiving Day of the New England Colonies, and the earliest of record in Connecticut.2 If we correctly interpret the town votes, and their first townsmen were chosen by the inhab- itants of the North-side and South-side plantations in 1637, it was within these walls that the first organized town of Connecticut was prematurely born. In the spring of 1638, the committees and magistrates probably convened there to work out the democratic principles of their con- stitutional government. Most likely, too, Thomas Hooker preached there his famous sermon in May: and it was as picturesque a setting for the event as the cedars of Clark's Island for the Pilgrims, the old elm of Mattabesett for the settlers at Middletown, or the wide-spreading oak for the planters of New Haven. There they had certainly met that spring to confer with some Indian sachems, for John Hig- ginson states that it was in an edifice later "Mr. Hooker's barn," their second meeting-house being "then not buylded." There is a record of some "costlets" that had been kept in this house, probably suspended from pegs in its walls, like ancient armor, which were, on April 5th, committed to Richard Lord, to "bee fitted vpp." They had been used in the Pequot War; and the Indians had these weighty reasons for the submission they yielded at the conference. These scenes - and many others which an artist, only, could portray - must have transpired within that first meeting- house.
It had become evident, however, in 1637, that they could anticipate a Colonial estate. A new era in their develop- ment was within their view, and it demanded expression in a meeting-house such as older communities in Massa- chusetts had already erected. Moreover, the town's in- habitants had increased. On any reasonable estimate of the size of their first edifice, it could not accommodate them. In his diary, Rev. Daniel Wadsworth records the fact that, when the second meeting-house was taken down,
1 Mason's "Brief History" in Mather's Early History of New England, ed. 1864, p. 156. Cf. Numb. XIV: 9.
2 Love's Fast and Thanksgiving Days of New England, pp. 135, 136.
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THE COLONIAL HISTORY OF HARTFORD
the date 1638 was found "upon ye weather cock." 1 Other instances of such inscriptions are known. We have, how- ever, no town votes concerning their plans or the initial steps in carrying them out. Such action was doubtless taken, and it may have been recorded in the plantation records, but, as these votes were not of "general concern- ment" when William Spencer transcribed the orders then in force into the town votes, they have not been preserved. This second meeting-house was located, says Dr. Hoadly, "upon a little rising ground on the east side of the present state house square." 2 The conveyance of a share in the brick school-house, in 1759, states that this building stood on "old Meeting House Hill," and near the dwelling-house of Captain John Lawrence. The former edifice is supposed to have been a little southeast of it. Its architecture was of a type early adopted in New England and prevailing throughout the century. Such meeting-houses were nearly or quite square, with a truncated pyramidal roof, having at its peak a "tower and turret." There were doors on three sides, the fourth being occupied by the pulpit. We have good reasons to believe that Hartford's meeting-house was fifty feet square, and it was of sufficient height to permit the erection of galleries.3 It is proved by the records, hereafter cited, that the first meeting-house of the Second Church was of that size; that the second meeting-house of that congregation also was exactly the measurements of the First Church edifice, and that other Hartford meeting- houses, built about the same time, adopted those propor- tions in their ground plan. The material of that erected in 1638 was wood. There was a door on the north side, near which the guard sat on raised seats. As the pulpit
1 Wadsworth's Diary, p. 12.
2 "Some Account of the Early Meeting Houses of the First Church," by Dr. Charles J. Hoadly, in Appendix to Sermons Preached by Rev. Leonard Bacon and Rev. Geo. Leon Walker, Feb. 27, 1879; Rowland Swift in Two Hundred and Fiftieth Anniversary, p. 144; The Hartford Courant, July 29, Nov. 30, Dec. 2, 1907; The Hartford Times, Aug. 17, Dec. 2, Dec. 4, 1907.
3 New Haven's meeting-house, ordered in 1639, was "fifty foote square," and had a pyramidal roof (New Haven Col. Rec., I: 25, 145). Northampton's, built in 1661-1664, was forty feet square. That of Springfield, contracted for in 1645, was forty feet long, twenty-five feet wide and nine feet high. It had two turrets, one for a bell and the other for a watch-house.
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ilimin
Kas
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THE MEETING HOUSE OF 1638
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ANCIENT MEETING HOUSES
was on the west side, the main entrance was doubtless on the east, according to custom. This was the natural front at that time. Probably there was also a door on the south side. There was a window on either side of each door. These were small. Their two narrow window-sashes, hung on hinges at the sides and opening in the middle, were glazed with lozenge-shaped panes of glass, set in lead. The cost of this meeting-house when completed, judging by the experience of New Haven, must have been considerable. It was not the custom in that day, however, to complete new meeting-houses at once. The work usually lingered for some years, and additional features were added as the inhabitants could afford the expense. This was the case in Hartford. Probably their edifice was sufficiently ad- vanced so that it was occupied during the winter of 1638-9, and they met there to adopt their first Constitution. Of the work's progress, we have several hints in the records. On April 11, 1639, the ringing of their bell is mentioned. This they had brought from Cambridge. The town agreed, on October 28, 1640, with Stephen Post, at 5s. 6d. per hundred, to hew, plane and lay the clapboards. One addition to their original design had been ordered a few months earlier. It was the construction of an enclosed porch, covering, as the custom was, the front doorway. In the author's opinion, this porch projected in front of the edifice. Over such porches a chamber was usually built, called a "porch-chamber." As now, with dormer windows, it furnished light and a convenient egress from the interior of the second floor. This empty space above a church auditorium, was called "the meeting house cham- ber." Springfield's church had, at first, only the joists for one; but, in 1649, John Pynchon agreed to "make a chamber over the meeting house and board it," provided he could have the use of it for ten years. There he stored his corn.1 A stairway - usually in the porch or near the door - afforded access to such chambers. Hartford's meet- ing-house had apparently a floor above. It seems to have occurred to some, to add the porch and, through a chamber above it, to provide for the use of the second floor. How
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