Connecticut in transition: 1775-1818, Part 11

Author: Purcell, Richard J. (Richard Joseph), 1887-1950
Publication date: 1963
Publisher: Middletown, Conn., Wesleyan University Press
Number of Pages: 346


USA > Connecticut > Connecticut in transition: 1775-1818 > Part 11


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Middlesex: 3 cotton factories; 5 woolen; 17 fulling; 16 carders; a powder mill; a paper mill; I oil mill; 43 grain mills; 1 forge; 6 furnaces; manufactures respectable; considerable commerce (about 100 vessels) and shad fishing. Ibid., pp. 270-271.


Tolland: 9 cotton factories; 4 woolen mills; 11 fulling; 20 carders; 3 paper mills; 2 oil mills; 36 grain mills; 3 glass works; 2 forges; 3 furnaces; manufactures, both domestic and commercial. Ibid., p. 289.


III. FIGURES FOR 1820


COUNTIES


POPULATION


AGRICULTURE


COMMERCE


MANU- FACTURERS


Hartford


47,264


7,919


626


3,315


New Haven


39,615


6,673


617


2,648


New London


34,248


7,68 1


975


1,847


Fairfield


41,353


6,157


472


3,083


Windham


30,871


6,317


156


1,851


Litchfield


40,288


8,347


251


2,682


Middlesex


21,895


3,457


424


1,582


Tolland


14,080


3,967


60


533


CHAPTER IV


1. Emigration and Western Lands


E MIGRATION, western lands, and the improvement of agricultural methods became questions of vital importance after 1800. They were so interdependent that the discussion of one involves the consideration of all. Emigration was caused partly by the knowledge that lands, cheap, fertile and abundant, were available on the frontier. To prevent emi- gration, which was draining population and increasing the cost of labor, agriculture was encouraged. Something must be done, it was reasoned, to enable the high-priced Connecticut farm to compete with the en- ticing new lands of the West. Because of their close association, the three subjects will be treated in a single chapter.


"Emigration is a wholesome drain on a redundant population," said Edmund Burke. The word "wholesome" was used advisedly, for emi- grants as a rule were from the discontented class. President Dwight be- lieved and even rejoiced that the New Englanders who were going west- ward were shiftless, ne'er-do-weel persons.1 One might differ from Dwight by arguing that the emigrants, while poor, were men of energy and force, with the courage to venture on a new life in the wilderness. At all events, they were dissatisfied with conditions. They felt op- pressed and desired change. They might not have been knowingly re- formers or radical in politics, but there was within them a consuming fire which made of them potential revolutionists. Emigration offered a panacea to them, and to the state a safety-valve. To the Standing Order it was a Godsend; for otherwise this discontented mass must have broken down restraints and forced an earlier reform, if not a thorough upheaval.


The population of Connecticut could hardly be described as redun- dant, even though at first the economic life was agricultural, and inten-


1 Travels, III, 509-510.


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CONNECTICUT IN TRANSITION: 1775-1818


sive farming was unknown. From the time of the Revolution there had been a heavy emigration which continually increased until, by 1815, it became almost a migratory furor. In 1817 a western traveller could write: "Old America seems to be breaking up and moving westward." 2


For such a movement there must have been an occasion. The rea- sons are not far to seek, though their ramifications strike deep into the vitals of the state's life. Men were actuated by various considerations, some vital, others secondary. Some were discontented with the narrow religious system of a state church, the close scrutiny over morals and pleasures, the forced payment of tithes, and the oppressive ministerial influence which permeated the whole atmosphere. These were likely to be men of no religion or dissenters.3 Others, harassed by the social intrenchment, were attracted by the frontier, with its liberality and equality. Others were men of political ambition who saw no hope of advancement under the Federal Congregationalist régime. Still others were on the underside of the economic scale with small, worn-out and mortgaged farms. They might have been farm laborers or men displaced by the failure of the shipping business. To them the West offered land and dreams of a future. Finally, due to their enterprising character, Connecticut people, like all New Englanders, were supposed to have a natural touch of wanderlust quite in accord with the term "wandering Yankee." 4


Prior to the Revolution there was a decided interest in the West. The Delaware Company, which as early as 1760 undertook settlements, was a Connecticut company. The incorporators of the Susquehanna Company were for the most part from Connecticut, and chiefly from Windham County. In 1774-1776 the Susquehanna district, the ill-fated Wyoming Valley, was settled by Connecticut people and incorporated as a town attached first to Litchfield County and later as a separate county.5 Phineas Lyman, the hero of Lake George in the French and Indian War, migrated to West Florida, settling near Natchez.6 Litch-


2 Morris Birkbeck, Notes on a Journey in America, p. 32. See also Pease and Niles, Gazetteer, p. 11; Niles' Register, X, 398.


3 The emigration of dissenters was noteworthy. See Bronson, Waterbury, p. 314; Atwater, Plymouth, p. 429; Goodenough, Clergy of Litchfield, p. 14; Kil- bourne, Sketches, pp. 303 ff.


4 See Duncan, Travels, I, 106.


5 Lois K. Mathews, The Expansion of New England, p. 119; Johnston, Con- necticut, p. 275.


6 Johnston, Connecticut, pp. 262, 277; Dexter, Biographical Sketches, III, 36.


93


EMIGRATION AND WESTERN LANDS


field County becoming fairly thickly populated, the Connecticut emi- grant turned toward more distant frontiers. He made his way up the Connecticut River into the river counties of New Hampshire, settled in the Berkshires, or pushed into Dutchess or Columbia counties, New York.7


The war stimulated emigration by making men familiar with new lands. It inaugurated the policy of paying off soldiers in land-script. By way of illustration, the town of Salisbury found that of its war veterans few ever returned, preferring to settle in the new countries.8 Evidently the type of man who fought the war was represented in the intrepid, stirring emigrant. There was a steady increase in emigration, especially to western New Hampshire and Vermont.º So great was the exodus to the latter state that it was colloquially often spoken of as "New Con- necticut." Vermont might be considered the child of Litchfield County, whence came so many of its colonists and early leaders in political life, at the bar and in the pulpit. For instance, the town of Middlebury was settled by people from Salisbury, Connecticut. The roster of Dartmouth graduates emphasized the same story, the trend toward the north. Of the two hundred and eighty-four men who had taken degrees up to 1790, one hundred and twenty-one came from Connecticut, besides those who were sons of emigrants.10


There was a rush before 1800 for New York. Enterprising young men with their families were entering what was then termed the Genessee Country, now Ontario and Steuben counties. It was a Suffield man, the bank promoter Oliver Phelps, who was a partner in the pur- chase of this huge tract of two and one-fifth million acres. Naturally, he exerted himself to the utmost to sell farms in this region. Through his efforts and influence the Genessee became characteristically Con- necticut.11 Judge Hugh White of Middletown founded Whitestown, which rapidly increased in wealth and population. Along with the neighboring settlements of Binghamton and Durham, it was an outpost


7 Mathews, Expansion of New England, map opposite p. 124; Field, Middlesex, p. 17; Pease and Niles, Gazetteer, p. 11.


8 Church, Address, p. 50.


9 Gov. Wolcott's Address to the Assembly, Courant, May 16, 1796; Field, Mid- dlesex, p. 17; Pease and Niles, Gazetteer, p. 11; J. F. Mclaughlin, Matthew Lyon, pp. 79 ff .; Mathews, Expansion of New England, pp. 142 ff.


10 Mathews, Expansion of New England, p. 133.


11 Ibid., pp. 153 ff .; Woodward, Hartford Bank, pp. 47-49; Field, Middlesex, p. 39; Church, Litchfield Centennial, p. 48.


94


CONNECTICUT IN TRANSITION: 1775-1818


of old Connecticut.12 Then there was a considerable movement of pop- ulation into the Western Reserve, which Connecticut had sold in 1795 to the land speculators, chief of whom were Oliver Phelps and William Hart.13


No figures are available for emigration, but the movement was sufficient to arouse misgivings. Population was kept at a standstill.14 Statesmen were questioning if it were good policy to encourage this western movement, and if the land speculator, by arousing the migra- tory spirit, was doing a patriotic service.


From 1800 to the Second War emigration continued. New Hamp- shire, Vermont and Maine lands appealed to the few 15 while Pennsyl- vania and western New York attracted large numbers. Kirby and Law's settlement in Pennsylvania was described as rapidly enlarging, with schools and churches already flourishing. The lands of Wayne, Tioga, Northampton, and Luzerne counties were advertised in all newspapers by the agents who toured the East. These counties, especially Luzerne, became Connecticut centers.16 New York lands were boomed quite as much. Genessee, Oswego, Greene, Delaware, Chenango, Steuben, Ti- oga, Onondaga counties became familiar to everyone. Connecticut towns were pouring out their "surplus" population. Yet, great as was the movement into these states, the distant Ohio country was attracting even more emigrants.


The Western Reserve drew with magnetic force the emigrant. He knew that he was merely going to New Connecticut, where the ad- vantages of the old state in the way of people, schools and churches were to be found in conjunction with cheap lands and western freedom. Then, too, the Ohio land companies were closely connected with Con- necticut through officers or incorporators who were natives.17 Rev.


12 Pease and Niles, Gazetteer, pp. 88, 275; Dexter, Biographical Sketches, V, 121.


13 Woodward, Hartford Bank, pp. 47, 70 ff.


14 Boyd, Winchester, p. 84; Larned, Windham County, II, 294; Porter, His- torical Address, p. 88; Stiles, Diary, III, 311.


15 A million acres were offered in Lincoln County, Maine, with the suggestion that this region was more suitable for Connecticut men than the pestilential lands of the West. Courant, Aug. 13, 1806; see also Courant, Sept. 20, 1809; July 31, 1811.


16 The agent printed lists of Connecticut purchasers, Courant, July 31, Aug. 7, 1811. All these newspaper references are simply illustrative, for land advertise- ments appeared in all issues.


17 Mathews, Expansion of New England, pp. 175, 179; Larned, Windham


95


EMIGRATION AND WESTERN LANDS


Manasseh Cutler, whose son lived in Killingly, had for his surveyor a Connecticut man, Jonathan Meigs. James Kilbourne of Granby was prominent in the Scioto Company; and General Cleveland of Canter- bury was associated with all these ventures. Harrison and Randolph counties were said to be in Connecticut hands. Five hundred thousand acres were offered on the Lake Erie turnpike road and four hundred thousand in Trumbull County by a Hartford dealer. Uriel Holmes, Lemuel Storrs, Ephraim Root, John Caldwell, Jonathan Brace, Enoch Perkins and Thomas Bull were among the leading local land agents. Business was done on a large scale, every inducement was offered, and words were not spared in the portrayal of rosy vistas for the prospec- tive emigrant. Rivalry only stimulated their activity, their business shrewdness, and their descriptive vocabularies. The land agent was serv- ing his purpose.


The extent of this migration can be seen in the rapid growth of the Western Reserve. As early as 1809 it was said to contain 15,000 to 20,000 persons, with four counties, courts, eighty mills, a furnace, ten stores, schools and a college.18 Rev. Thomas Robbins, while a mission- ary, met many Connecticut people and numerous personal acquaint- ances. Closely scrutinizing the newspapers, one is surprised at the num- ber of exiles whose names appear in the obituary columns. Margaret Dwight, travelling from Old to New Connecticut in 1810, was so im- pressed by the westward movement that she wrote: "From what I have seen and heard, I think the state of Ohio will be filled before Winter." 19


The War of 1812 brought a lull in emigration and a slump in land sales. With peace declared, the rush westward gained ever greater mo- mentum. Emigration in 1815 had become a mania.20 The state was in the throes of what was aptly termed the "Ohio fever." Newspapers were again filled with land advertisements by the New York and Ohio land agents. Western correspondents' letters were published along with articles descriptive of the West, in order to further encourage emigra- tion. Widely circulated guides, gazetteers, and books of travel played


County, II, 316; Dexter, Biographical Sketches, III, 644-666; Courant, June 11, Nov. 12, 1806; May 20, July 22, 1807.


18 See Uriel Holmes's land advertisement, Courant, Mar. 22, 1809. Description of Reserve, ibid., Jan. 21, 1807. See G. Van R. Wickham, The Pioneer Families of Cleveland, 1796-1840.


19 Diary, p. 47.


20 Mathews, Expansion of New England, p. 183; Boyd, Winchester, p. 223; Duncan, Travels, I, 106.


96


CONNECTICUT IN TRANSITION: 1775-1818


their share in this general education. The omnipresent agent was no- where inactive. Young men who built roads in New York or worked farther west during the dull season returned, praising the soil and cli- mate. The New England peddler brought back his usual store of infor- mation concerning the new country and its opportunities. All classes were interested. The Yale Commencement oration in 1816, for instance, was on the "Spirit of Emigration from Eastern to Western States." 21


The Ohio emigrant had generally been of the laboring class, but by 1815 many an emigrant was a man of some means in his native state.22 No longer were western lands an experiment; men of capital were be- coming interested, as the safety of investment was assured. No longer need there be that dread of Indians at which the most courageous quailed, for the whole region by test of arms was American and the frontier had been moved another stage westward. The depression and hard times which so injured shipping and manufacturing found the de- mand for agricultural products steady and prices high. The hopes of in- ternal trade were being pointed out by far-seeing individuals and fos- tered by land speculators. Men were instinctively recognizing the West's future. Eastern capital was being invested in western roads and canals.


As early as 1806 a Maine land advertisement called attention to the importation of western wheat into Massachusetts and Connecticut.23 The Embargo days demonstrated the certainty of agriculture as com- pared with commerce. In 1817 the Courant noticed the driving of hogs from Kentucky to Georgetown, and from Ohio to New York, with the observation that they were in as good selling condition as if locally raised.24 Market prices were announced for grain, only to be followed in another column with accounts of the bumper wheat and rye crops of the Lake countries. A Windsor dealer read the spirit of the inquiries after a market, when he lauded the Western Reserve because of the Philadelphia cattle market and the "newly discovered Lake market of Montreal." With markets available, men of means could afford to invest in the new lands and emigrate themselves. Only the "frontier farmer"


21 Courant, Sept. 24, 1816.


22 Cf. Birkbeck, Notes, p. 144.


23 Courant, Aug. 13, 1806. About 1810 flour from New York and Philadelphia came into general use, though before 1800 all flour was locally milled. Allen, En- field, I, 51.


24 Courant, Jan. 14, June 24, 1817.


97


EMIGRATION AND WESTERN LANDS


class with its self-sufficient mode of life could go beyond the markets.25 The moving westward of the frontier was a question of market stages quite as much as of classes of men.


Labor after the war received a low net wage, for the cost of living was relatively high, and work was scarce. Hence laboring men turned toward the West where labor was held in respect, as it was in demand. Wages were good and the necessities of life cheap. The Cincinnati Liberty Bell advised Yankee, job-hunting, street-walking mechanics to come to a rapidly settling locality which was self-supporting and demo- cratic. The American Mercury encouraged out-of-work mechanics to take advantage of the attractive opportunities of Ohio. Such appeals were not made in vain to debtors and men who were willing to work with a future competency as their goal.26


The democracy of the West was widely heralded. Travellers from abroad or the East noted that in the new country all citizens had a vital part in the government.27 Republicans of political aspirations saw a future in this promised land where there were no Tories, few lawyers or doctors, no tithe gatherers, and where ministers were only ciphers. To the West they looked for the preservation of Republican principles as a counterbalance for the growing aristocracy of the East. Men knew that the life led on the frontier could but breed equality and social de- mocracy.28 It was this knowledge which proved one of the strongest incentives to emigrate.


Western lands, so easy of acquisition, were the main cause of the exodus. While these lands were not all the imaginative land agents por- trayed in their prospectuses, yet they were far more fertile and produc- tive than the worn-out farms of Connecticut. Western lands required little care, while home farms needed painful attention. Connecticut farms were relatively small, though there was a tendency toward con- solidation and enclosure-arrangements possible only for the wealthy


25 Courant, Nov. 7, 1810; Aug. 5, 1817; Richmond Enquirer extract, Courant, July 22, 1817. There is a valuable article on internal navigation in The Portfolio (1817), IV, 165, also one on the progress of intercourse, Mercury, Oct. 6, 1808. See Charles W. Brewster, Rambles about Portsmouth, II, 363-376.


26 Mercury, Aug. 30, 1815; Sept. 10, 1816; Courant, Aug. 5, 1817. See Perkins, Historical Sketches, p. 59.


27 Birkbeck, Notes, p. 29.


28 New York Journal article in Mercury, Sept. 6, 1810; Mercury, Aug. 30, 1815. Note I, p. 172.


98


CONNECTICUT IN TRANSITION: 1775-1818


farmer. For the poor man the purchase of local lands was out of the question, for prices ranged from about fourteen to fifty dollars an acre, and taxes were high.29 Better lands could be purchased for three dollars an acre in western New York, Pennsylvania or Ohio where taxes were at a minimum, and transportation was becoming easier every year.30 No lands were sold for taxes in Ohio, while every year saw hundreds of small Connecticut lots sold under the auctioneer's hammer.31


The purchase of western lands was made easier by the terms, often seven years, which the agent allowed.32 He would trade large tracts for small Connecticut plots; he would give special inducements to men of standing who were already freeholders; and to actual settlers he would sell lands cheaper. In this the agent anticipated the later national policy of selling lands at a low rate in order to further settlement. The agent took care of the poor man, selling farms as small as fifty acres at a slightly increased price, when the government would sell only to large purchasers. Here again Congress was to learn.


The number of emigrants cannot be estimated in even the roughest way. Were such data available, the result would be astounding. The census figures for the various towns picture the desertion of Connecti- cut. Many towns were as large or larger in 1790 than in 1820.33 Other towns were more populous in 1800 than in 1820.34 The greatest losses appear to fall between 1790 and 1810. While there was a distinct loss of population in a number of towns from 1810 to 1820, others remained about stationary, with a few, where manufactures were developing city life, actually making material increases.35 This is not surprising, for


29 Pease and Niles, Gazetteer, p. 214; Dwight, Connecticut, p. 440. A Hartford farm was offered at $14 an acre (Courant, Mar. 22, 1809); at Granville for $22 and at Winchester for $14 (ibid., June 3, 1807; Mar. 27, 1811).


30 Courant, Apr. 10, 1811; Feb. 27, 1816.


31 John Kilbourne, Ohio Gazetteer, p. 176. In Connecticut great lists of such lands were advertised every year.


32 For instance, James Burr's notice in Courant, Mar. 19, 1816. See Courant, May 24, 1809; Apr. 15, 1817.


33 Chatham, East Haddam, Bolton, Coventry, Hebron, Branford, Cheshire, Derby, Southbury, Wallingford, Waterbury, Woodbridge, Windham, Brooklyn, Lebanon, Voluntown, New Fairfield and Hartford.


34 Ellington, Somers, Union, Voluntown, Franklin, Lisbon, Lyme, Preston, Stonington, Kent, New Hartford, Norfolk, Plymouth, Roxbury, Warren, Wolcott, Hampton, Suffield, Tolland and Colchester.


35 Middletown, New London, New Haven and Hartford made large additions to their population, no doubt from the entrance of laborers from the smaller towns. Hartford real estate, for instance, increased in value 400% from 1801 to 1818. Pease


99


EMIGRATION AND WESTERN LANDS


there are instances when enough emigrants left a town in a body to per- petuate its town life in the new country.36 Other towns long bore visible marks of their losses in the ruins of deserted houses and shops, or a standing chimney in a solitary field.37 Looking at the total population of the state, the percentages of increase from 1790 to 1800 are found to be five and four-tenths, from 1800 to 1810, four and three-tenths, and from 1810 to 1820, five-as compared with thirty-five and one-tenth, thirty-six and four-tenths, and thirty-three and one-tenth for the United States.


Not only the number, but the quality of the emigrants must be con- sidered, in order to understand the state's loss and the nation's gain.


Generally the emigrant was of the farming and laboring class, with a sprinkling of artisans and an occasional merchant of financial backing. Still, there were many professional men who sought relief from too keen competition. A number were Yale graduates. They were apt to be young lawyers who hoped for political preferment and wealth in the newer states. Some among them rose to high positions in their new homes, thereby demonstrating what their native state had lost in not being able to retain them by offering equal opportunities. This drain of the best blood dated back of the Revolutionary War, but became more noticeable as the call of western democracy echoed louder.


Vermont was indebted to Litchfield County alone for her first gov- ernor Thomas Chittenden, Ira and Ethan Allen, Governor Richard Skinner, Senator Samuel Phelps, Senator Horatio Seymour and many others less widely known.38 Into New Hampshire filtered many emi- grants who rose to distinction in politics, in the college and the pulpit. Gideon Granger, later Postmaster-General, emigrated to New York. Martin Welles, the son of a Revolutionary general, Judge Hugh White, Thomas P. Grosvenor, Governor Daniel Dickinson, Philo Ruggles, Oliver Phelps, one of the largest land speculators of his age, Chief Jus-


and Niles, Gazetteer, p. 44. East Haddam, Bolton, Hebron, Union, Franklin, Ston- ington, Colebrook, Cornwall, Sharon, Derby, East Haven, North Haven, Water- bury, Windham, Hampton, New Fairfield, Newtown, Norwalk, Sherman, Suffield -all remained practically at a standstill during the decade.


36 Danbury, Connecticut, to Danbury, Ohio. Plymouth to Plymouth, Ohio. New Canaan founded Stillwater, New York. Pease and Niles, Gazetteer, p. 53; Atwater, Plymouth, p. 429; Goodenough, Clergy of Litchfield, p. 14.


37 See Boyd, Winchester, p. 223; Roys, Norfolk, p. 22; Allen, Enfield, I, 51; Morris, Statistical Account, p. 17; Courant, Jan. 21, 1817.


38 Pease and Niles, Gazetteer, p. 123; Kilbourne, Sketches, pp. 89, 91, 117, 161, 277, 303-307; Church, Address, p. 50; G. H. Hollister, Connecticut, III, 598.


100


CONNECTICUT IN TRANSITION: 1775-1818


tice Ambrose Spencer, General Peter Buel Porter, Judge Frederick Whittlesey, Charles Perkins, Amos Benedict, and Isaac Baldwin were all leaders in New York at the bar, on the bench and in politics.39 Gov- ernor Samuel Huntington emigrated to the shore of Lake Erie. Stanley Griswold, the unfrocked Republican minister, first edited a Republican paper at Walpole, New Hampshire, and later was appointed governor of Michigan Territory. Horace Holley was called to the presidency of Transylvania College. Even Theodore Dwight, the partisan Federalist, found greater prosperity as editor of an Albany paper. Rev. Azel Backus became president of Hamilton College, Georgia.40 This list might be increased. Statistics enough have been given to show the calibre of the men lost to the state and, incidentally, to the reform party.


The state was highly wrought up over the emigration problem by 1817. Every influence was exerted to stem the ever-growing outward tide of fortune seekers. Editors and news-writers waged a mighty con- flict.41 The glowing descriptions of land speculators were exposed, though the effectiveness was often minimized because of the obvious purpose in mind. Many were the accounts of floods and storms, and of unhealthy regions where men worked themselves into untimely graves. Stories were recounted of men broken down in spirit and fortune who pined for their forsaken hearths. Emphasis was placed on the burden- some privations of a land without churches, schools and roads. It was "a deplorable species of madness," this going simply into the "West," with no idea of the particular section. Helpless, it was said, they were before avaricious speculators who, without a moral scruple, sold the untamed wilderness. Is the West an Eden for which the rest of the coun- try should be deserted? This was the question for the prudent farmer




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