USA > Connecticut > Hartford County > Hartford > Colonial history of Hartford, Connecticut > Part 26
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The site of this school-house is approximately determined by the vote of the town in 1719, giving liberty for the erec- tion of horse sheds in Main Street, to suit the convenience of attendants at the South Church. Their location was to be "at the South End of the School houfe by Mr Howards fence." 3 In 1748 Thomas Seymour, Esq., bought from Sam-
1 Conn. Col. Rec., IV: 30, 31.
2 Hartford Town Votes, I: 252, 253, 298, 299; Hartford Land Records, 2: 160.
3 Hartford Town Votes, MS. Vol. II: 15.
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uel Howard two tracts of land here.1 He erected a barn in 1749 and made an elaborate estimate of the expense of a new house, "in order," he wrote in his Memorandum Book, "to first Count ye Cost," according to the Scripture warning. His estimate was £2946., upon which he afterwards com- mented thus: "N.B. I did not Count half the Cost." His house was of the best materials and superior workmanship, as the inspection of it proves, for it is still standing at the west end of Linden Place. After his death in 1767, it was the home of his widow Hepzibah (Merrill) Seymour and her children. Her rights in the cellar buttery where the "Arch" is and in the "Space way," near the "fore Door," whence the stairs ascend, as well as the deeds, easily identify the house. It passed in 1793, by deed of gift from her son, Mayor Thomas Seymour, to his son, Major Thomas Y. Seymour, who was living there in 1801, when the land for Linden Place was conveyed to the City of Hartford, the north and south lines running from the east corners of this house. It was later the homestead of Sylvester Wells, and from the estate of Ralph Wells passed, in 1839, to Hon. Gideon Welles.2 Here President Lincoln's Secretary of the Navy lived before his residence in Washington. As the town gave Thomas Seymour, Esq., liberty in 1749 to move the school-house not more than twenty rods from the river, and a driveway to his house was early constructed, the school-house doubtless stood opposite the entrance to Lin- den Place, and was removed to suit Squire Seymour's convenience.
The school building was of wood and comparatively small. It is thought to have had only one room. Various provisions were made to secure fuel to heat it in winter. Here Rev. Daniel Wadsworth preached to the negroes and held other services on Sunday evenings. The teachers were young and inexperienced college graduates. Some of them studied theology, medicine or law, at the same time. Noah Welles Jr. of Colchester, a graduate of Yale College in 1741, was the teacher for several years. The terms of such in-
1 Hartford Land Records, 8: 99, 138.
2 Ibid., 20: 368; 21: 563; 22: 123, 459; 25: 272; 28: 9, 101, 133; 29: 23, 24; 32: 93; 43: 356; 58: 214, 281; 60: 191; 61: 88; 62: 322.
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HOUSE OF THOMAS SEYMOUR, ESQ., 1750
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structors were short, and their schools were likely to be inferior. From 1751 to 1760, Rev. Edward Dorr, pastor of the First Church kept a private school. Jeremiah Wadsworth was one of his pupils. It is not unlikely that other teachers did the same during this period.
The establishment of this Free School gave to Hartford better advantages for the higher education of those days, but it did not further public elementary instruction. The revised law of 1700 required all towns having no free school to maintain a school to teach children to read and write. Grammar, or free schools, were then provided in Hartford, New Haven, New London and Fairfield. In Hartford, children could enter after receiving elementary instruction at home, or from a school-dame. The above law also es- tablished a new system of aiding town schools from the Colony's treasury.1 This was extended, later, to parishes. By an act of 1710, the inhabitants of the East-side had been empowered to manage their own schools. The West Di- vision was made a society in 1711, to which like privileges were granted under a law of 1712.
Such were the conditions in 1753, when an agitation began in Hartford for the elimination of elementary education from the grammar school. The plan was to accomplish this by providing two parish schools, one in connection with each ecclesiastical society. This was really in accord- ance with the existing law, requiring such schools in every society where there were seventy families. This fact was used as an argument with the General Assembly in urging the division of Hartford into two districts. In 1753, the town voted that the income of lands and rents be applied for the future to the maintenance of the grammar school, and it appointed a committee to take charge of the fund. Further action in this direction was taken in 1756, it being expressly declared that the income of the town's school fund should be devoted "to the proper ufe or ufes defigned in the original Donation." 2 Thus the Grammar School was started on a new career, which we shall follow later. It was not so easy to establish the proposed parish schools.
1 Conn. Col. Rec., IV: 331, 375.
2 Hartford Town Votes, MS. Vol. II: 155, 167.
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Neither of the churches had clearly defined parochial bounds. The natural division between them was the Little River, but some families in each lived on the side of the other. A difference arose, therefore, as to the dividing line. This occasioned long delay. The matter was before the First Ecclesiastical Society on January 16, 1756, when the above difficulty was stated. The opinion then recorded was that "this Society judg necessary that Exclufive of the Grammar School ther be (to be erected in some con- venient places and situations within the Limits of said two Societys) two other Schools sett up and Supported for an English Education only," or, as later explained, to teach "reading, writing and arithmetic."1 This society then petitioned the General Assembly for a division of the town into two districts. Some of the Second Society, however, desired to include in that district the homes on the north bank of the Little River, from Haynes's Corner to the Mills. Perhaps this was for personal reasons; but it seems more likely that they desired to have the new Grammar School building on School Street, on the dividing line between the two districts. These societies finally united in a petition to the Assembly, which granted their request, making the Little River the boundary between them.2 This conclusion was reached in May 1761.
The inhabitants of the First or North District did not wait for this action. In 1758, or early in 1759, thirty of the Proprietors, being unable to act as a town or a society, erected the famous Brick School House. The cost was divided among them in equal shares. One of these was conveyed, May 30, 1759, as "one Thirtieth part of the Brick School Houfe now lately built and standing on the Old Meeting Houfe Hill and near the dwelling houfe of Capt. John Lawrence in Hartford." 3 This was in the eastern section of the square. It was the first school-house of the North District, although it was erected as a Parish School before that district was created. James Hosmer, being
1 First Ecclesiastical Society Records, Feb. 3, 1755, Jan. 16, 1756, Feb. 24, 1757, Jan. 24, 1759, and Feb. 13, 1760; State Archives: College and School, I: 153 ff. 2 Conn. Col. Rec., XI: 410, 467, 560; XII: 497; XIII: 337.
3 Hartford Land Records, 9: 502; 11: 245, 256.
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seventy-nine years of age, testified in 1830, that when he was a boy of twelve years, he attended school there. The building faced the south, and he was "in the habit of peep- ing frequently from the school house to the old Williamson tavern." 1 In a deed the building is located about fifteen rods east of the Court House. Its career was brief. In making preparations for the celebration of the repeal of the Stamp Act, May 23, 1766, a quantity of powder in it was ignited and the school-house was blown up. Six young men representing prominent families, died after being escued from the ruins, and many others were wounded. 2 On the following Sunday, Rev. John Devotion of Saybrook, being providentially in Hartford, preached in the North Meeting House a memorial discourse upon the calamity.
The district doubtless made temporary provision for several years, pending the contemplated division of the school funds. The Second North District was set off in 1770. It depended upon rented quarters for some years, but later built near the junction of Ann and Main streets. The First or "Middle District" was given liberty in 1771 to erect a school-house on the northeast corner of the burying-ground. This building was of brick, thirty-six feet long north and south, and twenty-two feet wide. It had a chimney at each end and a partition in the middle. This school-house was sold in 1814. Its successor was the "Stone Jug" school-house on Market Street. The South District experienced delay in erecting its first school-house, because the inhabitants could not agree on a location. As early as 1762, they sought a division into two districts. It is believed that they used the old Grammar School building for a time. In 1769, a district school-house was erected on the South Green. We have entered, however, the era of our modern district system, the history of which has been written.3 At the time this system was adopted, it was
1 "Report of the Committee on the Petition of Samuel Olcott," State Street Papers, Town Clerk's Office.
2 Barber's Conn. Hist. Coll., p. 54; Hartford Town Votes, MS. Vol. II: 213, 214, 236; Conn. Col. Rec., XII: 467; Mem. Hist. of Hartford County, I: 298, 299.
3 "Historical Sketch of Districts," by Supt. Thomas S. Weaver, in Annual Re- port of School Visitors, 1904, pp. 83 ff.
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a necessary step in the evolution of better and higher education.
In 1753, Mrs. Abigail Woodbridge conveyed to the town's school committee sixty-five square rods of her home-lot near the corner of Main and Arch streets, for the erection of a new Grammar School building. Here this school was conducted for about half a century. The site is now occu- pied by the east end of the Municipal Building. The edifice fronted on the highway along the north bank of the Little River, to which it gave the name "School Street." 1 It was the town's most ambitious effort hitherto for higher educa- tion. The town's vote to devote thereafter the income of its school funds to this original purpose, gave the enterprise encouragement. In 1672, six hundred acres of land had been granted by the Colony for its benefit. Many years elapsed before this grant was laid out in Stafford. It was not sold until 1776.2 Tracts of land in Litchfield and Fairfield coun- ties were also bestowed upon it. This school was under the care of a committee of prominent inhabitants, including the town's ministers, to which others were added from time to time afterwards. It had been suggested however in a meeting of the First Ecclesiastiacl Society, January 24, 1759, that a portion of the funds in the hands of this committee properly belonged to the English School. Certain persons were then appointed to treat with them. Perhaps this opin- ion was entertained elsewhere. In 1765, the town considered the matter, and subsequent votes forecast the final result. A division was made in 1771, and one-fourth of the fund, or £284, was given to the two districts. The residue was set apart for the Grammar School.3 No doubt that school had failed to meet their expectations since its removal. Titus Hosmer, the son of Captain Stephen Hosmer of the West Division, was the preceptor from 1758 to 1760, when he began the practice of law in Middletown. He was a graduate of Yale College, and the recipient of a Berkeley scholarship. Thomas Seymour's accounts with the school
1 Hartford Land Records, 1: 155; 9: 306.
2 Conn. Col. Rec., II: 176; IV: 402; V: 462; VI: 548; XV: 448; Colonial Land Records, III: 258.
¿ Hartford Town Votes, MS. Vol. II: 209, 212; "Papers Relating to the School Districts," in collections of the Conn. Hist. Soc.
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indicate that his successor for a time in 1761 was a Mr. Dean, who has not been identified, unless he was Silas Deane.1 This distinguished patriot was graduated from Yale College in 1758. After Mr. Dean, perhaps with an interval, Nehemiah Strong, Yale College 1755, became the preceptor and was teaching the school in 1769. He was perhaps followed by John Wright, who begged his patrons in 1771 to pay up, as he was about to leave town. Eleazer Wales, a graduate of Yale College in 1753, and a son of Ebenezer Wales of Windham, became preceptor about 1772 and continued in service for seven or eight years. He had been licensed to preach in 1765. In 1775, he opened an evening school at his house, to teach young men navigation etc. Oliver Lewis came to Hartford in 1780, the year of his graduation from Yale College. He advertised, in September 1781, that the Grammar School was opened, where Latin and Greek would be taught. "A watchful eye," he added, "will be kept over the morals of the youth." In 1783, he advertised a morning and evening school to be kept at the Grammar School building. The hours on Monday, Friday and Saturday, were from 6 to 8.30 o'clock in the morning; and on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, from 5 o'clock to sunset. He had studied law in Hartford and in 1783 was admitted to the bar. During this period, private schools sprang up in the town. In 1770, John Jeffrey, who had come from Rhinebeck, N.Y., and married in 1766 Sarah Nichols of Hartford, advertised a private school where Andrew Thomson had formerly kept a store. Samuel Holbrook had such a school in 1775. Noah Webster the lexicographer, who is said to have lived and done some of his work where the Robbins building now stands, on the north corner of Main and Mulberry streets, opened a rhetorical school in 1783 for the cultivation of the English language. In 1784,
1 "Seymour Papers" in Boardman Collection, State Library, No. 5561. Bris- sot de Warville in his New Travels says of Wethersfield: "They tell me it gave birth to the famous Silas Deane, one of the first promoters of the American revolu- tion; from a school master in this town, elevated to the rank of an Envoy from Congress to Europe." Mr. Deane was born in Groton, Conn., and we know of no evidence that he taught school in Wethersfield. Perhaps his teaching in Hart- ford may have been the source of this impression. He is said to have settled in Wethersfield in 1761.
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Ebenezer Whiting taught a school in the house of Mr. John Hall. Mr. Lathrop advertised in November 1788, that he had opened a school for young ladies at the large building a few rods south of the printing office. These schools undoubtedly detracted from the public interest in the Grammar School. After the incorporation of Hartford, this interest was revived. Solomon Porter was the preceptor for some years. He resigned in 1792, and George Jeffrey Patten succeeded him. He was the son of Rev. William Patten, pastor of the Second Church, and Ruth, the daughter of Dr. Eleazar Wheelock, President of Dartmouth Col- lege. His service ended in 1798.1 That year, at the town's request and upon a memorial drafted by John Trumbull, Esq., the committee then in charge of this school were incorporated as "The Trustees of the Grammar School in the Town of Hartford." 2 The school was then newly arranged. Its pupils were boys, limited to forty in number. In a list of those examined and approved for entrance in 1798, we find the familiar Hartford names, Beach, Bolles, Bull, Butler, Cadwell, Hart, Root, Wolcott and Wyllys. During the next decade the following Yale graduates were in succession the preceptors: Elisha Chapman, Alanson Hamlin, Thomas Adams, Stedman Adams and Amasa Loomis. The trustees had for some time anticipated the sale of this property and a new location elsewhere. In 1808, they secured a portion of the Seymour homestead, lying between Buckingham Street and the house formerly occupied by Thomas Y. Seymour. Here there was a building standing. It was, perhaps, that referred to in 1807 as the Seymour office. An addition was built by the trustees, and the whole was equipped for the school. At the same time, another portion of the lot was secured. The removal was accomplished in 1809, and the old property was conveyed in 1810 to Daniel Wadsworth. John Langdon of Yale College was the next preceptor. He was succeeded by Isaac Parsons. The school prospered. In
1 Memoirs of Mrs. Patten, pp. 71, 83; Family Letters of the late Mrs. Ruth Patten, pp. 257-259. Mr. Patten afterwards founded a Literary Institute in Hartford for both sexes, and kept a school for boys. He died in 1830. His sisters the Misses Patten kept a girls' school from 1785 to 1807.
2 Private Laws of Conn., II: 1060; V: 514.
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1813, another addition to the building was erected. Their school-house had been outgrown, however, in 1828, when Enoch Perkins, Esq., was authorized to secure the building of "a new brick school-house," 54 feet long and 38 feet wide. It was to have two stories and be furnished with desks, seats and a stove. The north front of this edifice was twenty or thirty feet south of the south line of Linden Place. It looked toward the old Seymour house, then known as the Welles homestead. The city had meanwhile opened Capitol Avenue, which divided the school-house lot. The playground was south of it. A lane south of Enoch Perkins's house, which had furnished access from Main Street to the earlier school-house, thus gave place to a city street. The new building of the Hartford Grammar School is remembered by the living. It was here that the desire of the founders of Hartford, to establish a school for classical learning, was worthily realized, after nearly two centuries of struggle, and this school stood near the site that Governor Edward Hopkins had chosen. The sequel relates to recent events. In 1847, the trustees approved a proposition of the First School District to unite with it in supporting a High School. Thus their relations with the classical department of that school were established.
CHAPTER XVII PHASES OF CRIMINAL HISTORY
IT will not be denied that criminal history is one of our best means of acquaintance with social conditions in any age. The standards of virtue, as well as the current vices, are there disclosed. Our fathers kept no such record of crimes as the modern newspaper publishes. The entries made by the courts are very meagre. In some cases written testi- mony is extant in the State Archives. We have sufficient details, however, in one way or another, to secure a near view of the criminal courts of colonial times, their proceed- ings and those who were arraigned before them.
The court established by the Commission for a provisional government was the first in Connecticut. It had civil and criminal jurisdiction. The General Court set up by the inhabitants of the plantations, succeeded it. Sessions of a Particular Court were held as early as 1637.1 Their records begin with 1639. Until 1650, these were kept in the same volume with those of the General Court of the Colony, and are printed with them. Thereafter, they are in separate books and unprinted.2 The Particular Court gave place, in 1666, to the County Courts. In 1665, the Court of As- sistants was established. The Superior Court succeeded this in 1711. These were the criminal courts of colonial times.3
The early Particular Court was constituted of the Gover- nor, Deputy Governor and magistrates. In 1642, the presence of either the Governor or Deputy Governor, with four magistrates, was made a quorum. Two magis- trates only were required in 1647, or three magistrates,
1 Conn. Col. Rec., I: 16.
2 Particular Court, Vol. II, Probate Records, 1650-1663; Probate Records, Book III, County Court, 1663-1677 - Secretary of State's Office.
3 Conn. Reports, Vol. 53, Appendix by Dr. Hoadly; "Origin of Conn. Courts," by Judge Hammersley, in N. E. States, I: 477 ff .; Report of the Temporary Ex- aminer of Public Records, 1904, pp. 21 ff.
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one of whom presided. Quarterly sessions were adopted in 1642. Trials by jury were customary in criminal cases. The jury might be composed of six or twelve men. Although strenuous efforts were made to secure unanimous verdicts, one could be rendered by four or eight jurymen. A grand jury was provided for in 1643. The judges of this court were obviously the leaders in public affairs. During its existence, the following Hartford men were numbered among them: Haynes, Hopkins, George Wyllys, Welles, Webster, Samuel Wyllys, Whiting, Cullick, Talcott, Mathew Allyn, John Allyn and James Richards. These men were not lawyers, but they were not lacking in qualifications. According to the laws, their decisions were just and wise.
Every magistrate was bound by his oath to assist in the execution of the laws. He was the prosecuting officer in the community where he lived. In 1639 the laws were provided for each town in manuscript. Later, when they were printed, they were accessible to all the people. In fact, a deal that is both true and interesting might be written as to the aptitude of the early New Englander as a student of law. In 1642, twelve capital laws were established. Fines were imposed in the Code of 1650, for profane swearing, lying, petty theft and similar offenses. In default of pay- ment, the offender was put in the stocks or pillory. Some- times he was whipped. Branding in the forehead with the letter "B" was the penalty for burglary, to be repeated on the second offense, with the addition of whipping. The penalty for a third offense was death. When this crime was committed on the Lord's Day, an ear could also be cut off for the first and second offenses - a provision, perhaps, designed to protect their homes while they were absent at church. Forgery was punishable by standing in the pillory on three lecture days, and double damages to the party wronged. As actions for debt were very frequent, it should be noted that, in the Code of 1650, no person could be arrested and imprisoned for any debt or fine, if satisfaction could be obtained by law from his estate. If imprisoned, he was kept at his own charges until settlement was made. No defense is here attempted of the severe laws of those Puritan times. We must admit the truth of many charges
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that have been brought against them. In justice to their court records, it is stated, however, that their magistrates did not inflict, in many instances, the penalties that the law prescribed. Capital crimes were punished otherwise than by death. Some persons were released, after being compelled to stand for a time on the gallows ladder with the noose around their necks. Large discretion was then allowed the magistrates in the infliction of punishment. They were often very ingenious in doing so, and they sometimes made the most of mitigating circumstances. To a surprising degree, their trials reveal the fact that their main purpose was the reformation of the criminal, in which they sometimes succeeded. It was fortunate that their early courts had such magistrates as have been named. During their ad- ministration of justice, principles were established and methods of procedure were inaugurated, which continued for many years and, in some cases, throughout. colonial times.
As we might expect, there were no misdemeanors in which all colonial courts were more particular than those that im- pugned the court's own dignity, or the authority of its officers. More than one man of standing in Hartford, was compelled to offer his apologies to the court; nor was his fine remitted when he had done so. Contemptuous speeches about the court and its proceedings, or disobedience of its orders, were punished in a number of instances. One man was fined £50 for resisting an officer of the court. Another was fined ten shillings for not responding to a warrant. A man once dared to say that the court "had given the Con- stables a Lycense to Lye." In several instances, witnesses who concealed information were punished. The officers of a town were also sustained in their authority. One who offered an affront to the watch, or resisted him, was severely dealt with. In 1646, several rogues broke prison and escaped. Perhaps they had been concerned in a raid made shortly before, by a party of servants, who broke into William Gibbons's house and drank his wine. Gibbons himself gave bonds for the due appearance of some of the party. Those who escaped were concealed by a man-servant and maid- servant in the house of their mistress. The former was
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fined £5, whipped and required to give security for his appearance three months later, when he was to be whipped again, unless the Court was convinced of his reformation. The maid was also fined £5, and whipped at the house of her mistress, which was to be repeated in three months unless the Court was informed of her amendment. That was their form of probation, for which they had some justification. A man, who should have known better, was whipped for ad- vising the prisoners not to "peach" on their friends. There were a large number of cases of theft. Some of the offenders were only fined. A man-servant, who had been guilty of immorality, was confined in the house of correction. He was afterwards returned to his master, to be kept at hard labor and on a coarse diet. This punishment did not reform him. He was later convicted of theft. The Court required him to restore four-fold, and he was to be branded in the hand on the next training-day. There were comparatively few cases during earlier years where persons were charged with drunkenness. They increased later. A distinction was made between the various phases of this offense. The fines were in proportion to the fault. Confinement in the stocks was common, if payment was not made. There were cases of profanity, assault, buying stolen goods, taking excessive rates, trespass, Sabbath breaking and the like; but they were comparatively few. In some instances, these offenders were treated practically according to the modern principle of probation. They were put under bonds for their good behavior or reformation. The excess of one man's earnings while he was in the house of correction, over the expenses of his keep, was devoted to the maintenance of his child. In the Court of Assistants, in 1678, a man and his wife were fined for excessive drinking. Stephen Hopkins and John Easton were appointed by the court to see that they behaved themselves - the earliest instance that we have met with of the appointment of probation officers in Hartford. Throughout colonial times emphasis was placed upon the reforming effect of hard labor. This principle was applied as a corrective measure long before they had a workhouse. Murders were rare except among the Indians. Excusable homicide was punished by a fine. The death of Thomas Scott
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