USA > Connecticut > Connecticut in transition: 1775-1818 > Part 12
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39 Winslow Watson, Memoirs of Elkanah Watson, p. 414; Pease and Niles, Gazetteer, pp. 88, 220, 275; Kilbourne, Sketches, pp. 187, 203, 208, 273; Loomis and Calhoun, Judicial History, pp. 240, 252, 492, 524, 528, 536, 561.
40 Pease and Niles, Gazetteer, pp. 53, 240, 262, 294; Atkins, Middlefield, p. 21; Loomis and Calhoun, Judicial History, p. 237.
41 Humphreys, Discourse (1814), p. 15. For a few characteristic accounts, in- cluding an exposure of the Western Emigrant Society of Cincinnati, see Courant, Aug. 26, Sept. 30, Oct. 7, 21, 1817; Mercury, Sept. 30, 1817. The Farmer's Song from Portland Gazette in Courant, Dec. 9, 1817, expressed their views:
Let the idle complain, And ramble in vain, An Eden to find in the West,
They're grossly deceiv'd Their hearts sorely griev'd They'll sigh to return to the East.
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and mechanic to consider. Men were advised not to be seduced from happiness by a log hut, but to ponder before the wild spirit of this epidemic. Better "tarry at Jericho," some counselled, than chance the so-called "promised land." One newspaper strove to abate the delirium with the argument that:
When the civil, social, literary and religious institutions of New England are taken into account, it seems the height of madness for men, who have no extraordinary reasons for removal, to leave their homes for the wild lands of the west, and their still wilder state of society.42
The editor of the New York Columbian, commenting on the anx- iety of Connecticut papers over the emigration furor, believed that the New Englander was not inclined to migrate and hazard the unknown, but rather to bear ills. He observed that:
Political disaffection and religious intolerance has, no doubt, been one considerable cause of emigrations from those states. By rendering it the interest and happiness of our population to stay at home, is the only way to check the rage.43
The economic causes which the neighboring editor overlooked were difficult to counteract. Those who urged agricultural improvement and the encouragement of manufactures were working along the right lines. In this way alone could prosperity be revived and population be kept at home.
Immigrants, on the other hand, seldom turned toward Connecticut. This could hardly be expected, for a foreigner was not apt to choose a state whose own citizens were largely emigrating. Then, too, the im- migrant, who rather feared the Puritan, heard the call of the West. Fur- thermore, the immigrant was welcomed in the new countries, whereas in Connecticut he was received with cold disfavor, not being able to hold land without a special legislative license.44 President Dwight, who had a strange dread of the French spy system, looked with fear on the immigrant, even though he were headed for other states.45 His mis-
42 Dedham Gazette in Courant, Sept. 30, 1817.
43 Quoted in Mercury, Oct. 21, 1817.
44 Statutes, p. 350. A Republican bill introduced in Oct. 1817, to allow for- eigners to hold land, was withdrawn because of the opposition lest all the rogues of Europe take advantage of it. Courant, Oct. 28.
45 Decisions, Dispute 2. Cf. Morris, Statistical Account, p. 95: "Only two European families have settled in Litchfield [town]; they came from Ireland, and were respectable." See also Webster, Ten Letters, p. 25.
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CONNECTICUT IN TRANSITION: 1775-1818
givings indicate the general attitude, and explain the reason, as a travel- ler remarked, why "Foreign emigrants seem never to think of New England." 46 Stiles, as the exception, was always interested in immigra- tion, and far-seeing enough to realize the important part it would play in American history:
Manufactures and artizans, and men of every description, may perhaps come and settle among us. They will be few indeed in comparison with the annual thousands of our natural increase, and will be incorporated with the prevailing hereditary complexion of the first settlers ;- We shall not be assimi- lated to them, but they to us, especially in the second and third generations. This fermentation and communion of nations will doubtless produce some- thing very new, singular and glorious.47
The inhabitants were almost entirely of English descent, with a few French, Scottish or Irish people among them. David Field in his Statis- tical Account of the County of Middlesex unconsciously emphasizes this point when he described the pauper class as universally natives, "as for- eigners rarely reside with us long enough to become inhabitants." 48 Due to the lack of racial mixtures, there was a pride in the purity of their native blood, which in part accounted for the Connecticut attitude toward the foreigner and the feeling of superiority to the cosmopolitan, frontier communities. This offers an additional reason for the new- comer turning toward the states where all races intermingled.
Yet a noticeable change appeared about 1815 in the attitude toward immigration, even though not toward the individual immigrant. As emi- gration increased, as the population of towns dwindled, as labor became scarce and higher-priced, and as factories required more hands, an inter- est in immigration was aroused. There were jealous eyes cast on the new states, with their increasing population, greater wealth and political power.
The Connecticut Courant led the way by printing extracts from other papers dealing with immigration.49 Articles appeared, commenting in a hopeful tone on the enrichment of the country through the labor, brawn, and ideals which the foreigner bartered for protection and freedom. Republican writers, seemingly, were winning over their op-
46 Henry B. Fearon, Sketches of America, p. 99.
47 Sermon (1783), p. 50. In his diary and miscellanies he frequently noted the ship-loads from Ireland to America.
48 P. 23. The Aurora commented on the paucity of foreigners, quoted in Mercury, Jan. 6, 1803. See Morse, Geography, p. 158; Webster, Ten Letters, p. 25; New Haven Hist. Soc., Papers, III, 176.
49 Courant, May 21, Sept. 9, 23, 24, 1816; Mercury, May 21, 1816.
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ponents in this one respect at least. Governor Wolcott expressed a grow- ing feeling when, in his address to the Legislature, he half lamented Connecticut's failure to win her quota of foreigners.50 Another decade was destined to bring the immigrant when factories created a demand for his labor.51
2. Agriculture and Sheep Raising
American agriculture in the beginning of the nineteenth century was generally admitted to be inferior to that of England. This must have been dismayingly apparent, to compel American recognition of the justice of foreign criticism. The conditions in Connecticut were no im- provement on those prevailing elsewhere.52 If anything, agriculture was at a lower level. The characteristic conservatism of a rural community was here intensified by the constitutional conservatism of a Connecti- cut countryman.
In England agricultural methods and implements had been improved by the experimental work and treatises of a number of scientific agri- culturalists of whom Arthur Young is best known. The Tory land- holders could afford to experiment and hire the additional labor which intensified farming demanded. They were endowed with enough enter- prise to try out the new ideas. The slow-moving squires were impressed with the results and followed the lead of the great landlords. Excep- tionally good local and foreign markets during the Napoleonic Wars stimulated this interest in more scientific farming.
In Connecticut the knowledge of the improvements in English farm- ing had no effect. There was no class of large gentlemen-farmers to lead the way; indeed there were few cultivators of large farms. The small freeholder, with his farm of 50 to 150 acres, could not afford to be progressive. Afraid of a surplus, he preferred to continue in the way of his fathers, harvest a tolerable crop to meet the local demand rather than speculate on a wider market. The Napoleonic Wars created the market, but the Connecticut farmer failed to take full advantage of it, because of his neglect to improve his farm so as to meet western com-
50 Mercury, Oct. 14, 1817.
51 Article on Irish immigration, New Haven Hist. Soc., Papers; Allen, Enfield, I, 51-52. The census of 1820 reported only 568 naturalized foreigners. 52 Dwight, Travels, I, 18-82.
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petition. To increase the output for a rather dubious sale would have meant an outlay for labor, better implements, stock, seed, and fertiliza- tion. Careful rotation of crops would be necessary, as well as the intro- duction of new roots and grasses.53 Rather than do this, he continued to scratch the top of an exhausted soil with an antiquated plow, sow home- grown seed on unharrowed fields and await the harvest. Indian corn, the staple crop, was cultivated as the aborigines had taught the first set- tlers, fertilized by whitefish or seaweed. Potatoes, onions, and pumpkins for fodder were the standard vegetables. Crops of barley, rye, oats and especially wheat were poor because of the poverty of the soil. Small apple orchards furnished apples for cider-brandy. Cattle were of the mixed "native" variety, neither beefers nor milkers. Still, in the aggre- gate the production of butter and cheese was large. Sheep were of a mongrel type, producing little wool. The "Narragansett" horse being too small, oxen were used for the heavy work of the farm, and horses chiefly for driving. Swine alone were considered up to the standard by foreign observers. This was the condition of farming in the early years of the nineteenth century, 54 when the era of improvement was inaug- urated.
American leaders, with the turn of the century, became thoroughly imbued with the necessity of agricultural reform. Connecticut fell into line. Her statesmen encouraged the movement, on the patriotic grounds of cutting off all European leading strings. Others saw new markets and hoped to compete for the domestic and foreign trade. Politicians dis- played an interest in the farmer. Shippers saw an increase in the carrying trade. Provincially inclined men hoped to curtail western emigration, which was destined to weaken New England's power in the nation.55
53 Warden, in his Statistical Account, II, 27, estimated farms at from 50 to 200 acres, held in fee simple by men comfortably well to do, but not rich. In his Geographical Description, John Melish estimates from 50 to 500 acres, p. 166. Pease and Niles agree with the former in their Gazetteer, p. 214. The Courant, Dec. 16, 1817, in a list of farms for sale, has one of 1,170 acres.
54 Material on this subject is available in the accounts of travellers like Dwight, Melish and Harriott; Webster, Farmers' Catechism (1790); Gen. James Warren's comparison of English and American farming in The American Museum (1787), II, No. 2; Rev. Jared Eliot of Killingworth wrote (1760) Essays on Field Hus- bandry in New England; and of great value is H. Newberry, Address before the Hartford County Agricultural Society, Oct. 1820. An excellent monograph is that of Percy Wells Bidwell, Rural Economy in New England at the Beginning of the Nineteenth Century.
55 Courant, editorial, June 9, 1811, feared that the newer states in the Louisiana Purchase would render the North and East of as little weight in Congress as the Irish delegation in the Commons.
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The Embargo and the War intensified the patriotic grounds. High prices and the extension of internal and coast trade lent force to argument. The siren call of western lands and the damaging emigration only stim- ulated the movement, for it was rightly appreciated that by scientific working alone could Connecticut land compete with the fertile western fields.56 Both parties, all newspapers, in fact every element in the com- munity aided in bringing about what might be called an agricultural revolution.
Agricultural societies were founded in order to educate the farmer. As these societies became the promoters of agricultural colleges a couple of generations later, it is interesting to record a Yale debate of 1789 on the question: "Whether it would be best to introduce agriculture into Colleges as a classical study." 57 Whatever the outcome of this particular debate, it is instructive in pointing out a current interest. The work of the Philadelphia Agricultural Society (1785) and the Massachusetts So- ciety for the Promotion of Agriculture (1792) was followed closely by Connecticut readers. The New Haven County Agricultural Society was organized about 1803.58 The Berkshire Agricultural Society (1811) and its president, Elkanah Watson, had as great influence as the later Con- necticut societies of which it was the direct antecedent. The importance of its work for the New England farmer is not to be lightly estimated.59
Watson was an intimate correspondent of General Humphreys, who probably did more than any other for the industrial development of Connecticut during this period. In a splendid address (1816) on the Agriculture of the State of Connecticut and the Means of Making it more Beneficial to the State, he pointed out that, while it was unfortu- nate that the state had no staple product, yet with agriculture improv- ing it would again prosper as "a commonwealth of farmers." Toward this end, he gave the farmers a wealth of advice, saying:
Those who remove, leave their farms behind them. Those who will oc- cupy them, must endeavor to make these landed estates more productive by good husbandry. The best means to prevent emigration, will be to convince our citizens that old and worn out land can be renovated and enriched by labour and manure, so as to bear as good crops as land just cleared of its forests; and that at as little expense as the clearing would cost. ... Our
56 See Note II at end of this chapter.
57 Stiles, Diary, III, 355.
58 The Mss. of its proceedings are preserved in the Yale Library.
59 Watson, Memoirs, pp. 371-372; J. G. Holland, History of Western Massa- chusetts, I, 393-398; Elkanah Watson, A History of Agricultural Societies on the Modern Berkshire System.
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CONNECTICUT IN TRANSITION: 1775-1818
merchants and ship owners have done their duty. They have been in the number of our most enterprising and valuable citizens. Much praise is due them. But their occupation, like Othello's, is gone. Commerce is fled; manu- factures languish. The one may be brought back again, the other reanimated. Perseverance in agricultural improvements will contribute more than any- thing besides toward their happy re-establishment.60
In 1817, under the guidance of General Humphreys, the Connecticut Agricultural Society was incorporated. Governor Wolcott gave it his full support, having recommended such an organization in his address to the Legislature. This society published a model almanac of useful in- formation to further the success of its educational campaign.61 The first issue contained an inspiring article by Humphreys on the dire necessity of encouraging agriculture. In 1818 the Hartford County Agricultural Society was chartered with a system of town committees to bring the work down to the farm. Andrew Kingsbury and Henry Ellsworth were its leading officers. As indicative of the bitter partisan spirit of the town, this was largely a Federalist society laboring to disseminate agricultural information and incidentally to demonstrate to the farmer the advan- tages of the Federalist party.62 Shortly afterward there followed the Litchfield County Agricultural Society under the presidency of the governor. The success of these societies is best attested by the establish- ment of similar organizations throughout the various states.
Agricultural fairs were inaugurated by the agricultural societies, as one phase of their work.63 They were widely noticed in the newspapers and served to stimulate interest and rivalry in farming communities. One of the first fairs in the country was called independently by a group of Berkshire farmers. This example was afterward followed by the Berk- shire Agricultural Society, which held a notable agricultural and do- mestic manufactures show at Pittsfield in 1811. Another in 1816, known as the Pittsfield Cattle Show and Domestic Manufactures, created even a wider interest. The Brighton Cattle Show, which had for its purpose the improvement of stock breeding, was held in 1816 and annually there- after under the patronage of the Massachusetts Agricultural Society. In 1818 the Hartford County Agricultural Society held its first annual celebration. There were prizes for the best cultivated farms, for bulls,
60 Pp. 15-17.
61 Mercury, Oct. 14, Nov. 4, 1817; North America Review, II, 136.
62 Courant, Sept. 30, Oct. 14, 1817; Mercury, Sept. 23, 1817; Mar. 10, 31, 1818.
63 Holland, Western Massachusetts, I, 393 ff .; North American Review, II, 136,
434; Mercury, Aug. 29, 1811; Oct. 20, 1818; Courant, Oct. 21, 28, 1817.
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milch cows, oxen, swine, for plowing, and for the products of domestic manufacture. General Humphreys's farm, with its private fairs, served as an experimental farm. Here he tried out new methods and, if success- ful, they were adopted by the neighboring farmers, and made known to the general public through his lectures and writings.
Everyone contributed his share, for it was generally desired to de- crease emigration by the development of agriculture and domestic manufactures.64 If, as it was charged, "the sainted pilgrims call the men of industry and innocence, tag rag," it was an attitude about to be modi- fied. Governor Trumbull's request in 1807 was heeded by the passage of an act putting a bounty of ten dollars a ton on hemp and flax.65 Gov- ernor Wolcott was even more anxious for agricultural interests than his Federalist predecessors, urging the importance of facilitating agricul- ture in every possible way.66 Then, too, after the war shipping fell and forced the recognition of agriculture as the real basis of wealth.
Newspapers printed columns of hints to farmers. Minister Adams at St. Petersburg wrote a treatise on the "Russian Method of Cultivating and Preparing Hemp," which the Connecticut Courant printed at length. A suggestive article on the conservation of timber sought to im- press farmers with the advantages to be gained by husbanding the re- sources of the forests. The Courant also published a series of notes on the restoration of worn-out soils.67 No stone was left unturned in order to instruct the farmer that with proper care his lands could be made quite as productive as the distant lands which called so enticingly.
Interest in agriculture gave a zest to the construction of good roads which would shorten the distance to market. Capital was provided by the banks, whose directors were interested in the construction com- panies. Country roads were for the most part bad, being built by men desirous only of working out their poll tax. The year 1800 ushered in turnpike companies whose business it was to build and maintain roads by the collection of tolls from their patrons.68 While there were charges
64 Mercury, Jan. 21, Oct. 7, 21, 1817; Mar. 10, 1818; Courant, Oct. 7, 1817. See Ethan Andrews, Remarks on Agriculture (1819); Newberry, Address (1820), p. 7. 65 Statutes, p. 374; Mercury, May 28, 1807.
66 Courant, Oct. 14, 1817.
67 Courant, Apr. 10, 1811; Apr. 22, Sept. 9, 30, 1817, etc.
68 For material on the roads, turnpike companies, and the steamboat lines to New York after 1815, see: Barber, New Haven, pp. 47-48; Caulkins, New London, p. 654; Orcutt, Stratford, I, 610; Weeden, Economic History, II, 693, 857; Church, Litchfield Centennial, p. 45; Larned, Windham County, II, 295; Bishop, American
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of corruption and favoritism, the companies served a useful purpose. Substantial roads were built in all sections of the state; stages made bet- ter time from New York via New Haven and Hartford to Boston. New London and Middletown were brought nearer to New Haven. Mail travelled more speedily. Farmers marketed their products with greater ease and less expenditure of time. The distant districts of Litchfield and Windham were especially improved, their lands rising in value.
With the agricultural revolution there entered an interest in sheep- breeding.69 Connecticut flocks were as they had been a century earlier, with no attempt at improvements such as English drovers had long been making.70 As all weaving had been done at the hearth, only coarse cloths were woven, all of the finer fabrics being imported. Hence there was little demand for wool, which the farmer regarded as only an incidental by-product of the farm.
Spanish merino sheep were practically unknown in America until 1802. Few were exported save by royal favor, so determined were the Spanish authorities to maintain their monopoly of the fine wool market. The few sheep which had been presented to foreign favorites had so improved foreign stock that France, Saxony, and Hesse Cassel were be- coming dangerous competitors. Hence, Spanish precautions against smuggling became more painstaking. The American minister at Paris, Robert Livingston, becoming interested in the improvement of native sheep, sent to his estates at Clermont, New York, a few Spanish merinos from a French flock. In this same year General Humphreys shipped to his Derby farm a flock of seventy-five ewes and twenty-five rams.71 A friend of Washington and Jefferson, he had served as minister to Portu- gal from 1791 until 1797, when he was transferred to Madrid. While at the latter capital, he became a social figure among the Spanish grandees, from whom he acquired a deep knowledge and interest in Spanish sheep. Retiring at the end of the Adams administration, American custom would not allow him to accept the usual Spanish gift to a departing
Manufactures, II, 127; Kendall, Travels, I, 97; Albert Gallatin, Report on Roads and Canals, p. 55; Beach, Cheshire, p. 256; Blake, Hamden, p. 94; Woodward, Hart- ford Bank, pp. 95-98; Giddings, New Milford, p. 110.
69 Importation of blooded cattle came later. Courant, June 2, 1818.
70 Watson, Memoirs, p. 364; Wright, Wool-Growing, pp. 11-12.
71 Sheep Industry, pp. 133, 154 ff .; Sharpe, Seymour, p. 49; Wright, Wool- Growing, p. 14. See Humphreys, Discourse on Agriculture (1816), and Livingston's classic Essay on Sheep (1810).
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minister. At his suggestion he was tacitly permitted to send this flock of pure-blooded merinos to his Connecticut estate. This flock became the source of most of the early blooded sheep in the country; Humphreys one of two or three authorities on sheep culture; and his Connecticut farm the center of the wool growers' interest as well as the seat of a model woolen factory. Humphreys was early awarded a gold medal for this importation by the Massachusetts Society for Promoting Agricul- ture, and somewhat later Connecticut gave him a testimonial in recog- nition of his public service.
From 1802 to about 1807 the merinos were regarded by the Ameri- can farmer as a curiosity. In Connecticut the farmers could not be interested, do what Humphreys would. His influence caused the Legis- lature to protect the purity of the breed and encourage its extension.72 Yet little could be done until the demand compelled wool-growing.
With America shut off from foreign supply, there was created a de- mand for domestic wool. As Spanish wool could no longer be bought by England, the market price of wool rose. A sense of nationality was gradually awakening in men, and with it a patriotic impulse to support American industry and to wear home-spun. The farmer was encouraged to grow wool, and the capitalist to weave cloth. Agricultural societies took up the propaganda. Interest in sheep grew during the years 1807 to 1812, until it seized the people in a sort of contagious mania.73 Card- ing machines for this fine wool were soon to be found in every hamlet. Congress did its share by increasing the ad valorem duties on raw wool from 5 per cent in 1789 to 35 per cent in 1812. Patriotism combined with protection put sheep raising on a commercial basis.
The demand for pure-bloods could not be satisfied. As no more sheep could be imported, there was a jump in prices which enriched dealers and growers. In 1806 Humphreys was glad to get $300 for a ram and two ewes; in 1808 he sold a ram for $1,000. In 1810 he sold four rams and ewes at $1,500 apiece to a stock farmer in Kentucky, though full- blooded rams were usually rated at $1,000. Livingston at a shearing at his Clermont farm in 1810 sold full-blooded lambs at that figure. He re- fused $500 for fifteen-sixteenth bloods. He would not take less than
72 Sheep Industry, p. 163; Statutes, pp. 597-598.
73 Courant, May 9, 1810; Mercury, Oct. 24, 1811; Wright, Wool-Growing, pp. 21 ff .; Watson, Memoirs, p. 364; Larned, Windham County, II, 399; Sheep In- dustry, pp. 161 ff.
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