USA > Connecticut > Hartford County > Newington > Early days in Newington, Connecticut, 1833-1836 > Part 11
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to Russia, by Abraham Lincoln. The life in this cabin, you see, was the reverse of that in the cabin of Mr. Mac. Six or eight miles farther on I came to Farmington, a nice little town, which had been settled by good people six or eight years. On to Canton, ten miles, where I found an older and larger town with quite a business air, settled by a good class of people. I learned as I traveled that Yankees would draw Yankees around them, but southern Ohio and Tennessee people were afraid of them, and were very clannish. I came across no better land than that at French Grove, and I knew that the settlers who were there were ready to sell out their small improvements and pass on to the frontier and make a new start. Mr. Welles and myself were the only Yankees there, but I was convinced that a few men with $6,000 or $8,000 could make a fine Yankee settlement, and this I hoped to bring about through Mr. Stoddard and a few others. I was also convinced that the land, crops, coal, stone and health of the country were all and more than I had expected. The winter wheat was coming on beautifully, and when I returned to French Grove, Mr. Welles was raising all the help he could get to plant his corn. I joined the ranks and went to work. Mrs. Mac boasted of her ability to "drap corn," and wanted a job at 50 cents a day. Her babe of only a few weeks she wrapped in a blanket and laid upon the ground near the work, notwithstanding rattlesnakes were common. Back and forth she went all day over the field, barefooted, besides going to the house to get the meals and do the housework. The little boy and girl played around till tired, then fell asleep anywhere and always turned up all right at night. When Sunday came, I inquired about a church or meeting-house, and was told there was none nearer than Farmington, sixteen miles away, but that a Methodist minister had been at French Grove and had appointed a class leader, and there was a class meeting every Sabbath at one of the cabins. As I had always been a church- goer, I went to their meeting. Nearly all the settlers were there, and but one had even a common education, and I think the one most ignorant of letters had been appointed class leader: but his voice was most astonishing, and made up for all other deficiencies. He could read a little in the Testament, and stagger at reading the hymns. He exhorted most faith-
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fully, and if at a loss for words "hollered" the louder. He also led the singing, and his voice was like the "Bull of Bashan." He knew but one tune, and that tune had to fit all meters. I sat there with sober face, but I don't know what I should have done if I had caught the eye of some of my Newington friends. We were all questioned as to our religious state of mind every Sabbath. With all their ignorance they were sincere, and as I believed then and now that any religion is better than no religion, I continued to meet with them. The time had now come when I was ready to send my report to Mr. Stoddard, and I began on the largest sheet of foolscap paper to answer his questions. Every letter going over four hundred miles was twenty-five cents, small or large sheets. Two sheets, however small, were fifty cents, the largest no more. Account was taken of the number of sheets only, no regard paid to weight. I could certainly give as favorable account of the country as Peck's Guide, in fact, I had fallen in love with the country and can say now, after more than sixty years of ob- servation, that I have never seen any land which equaled that part of Illinois between the Illinois and Mississippi rivers, for one hundred miles south and fifty north of Peoria county. It was all the richest and best prairie, good timber, abundance of coal and stone, and well watered, and as healthy as any new country. I reported to Rollin Stoddard that deer were very abundant, I had seen them in droves of forty or more, prairie chickens were without number, and the woods were alive with grey and fox squirrels. To Lucy I could say that I was as- sured that prairie flowers later in the season were handsome and abundant, and I could testify from my own experience that wild strawberries were never so plenty and sweet. I sent this large and full letter to Mr. Stoddard and was confident it would bring him and his family West in the fall. So I began to look about for a house for him to winter in, but there was none vacant. I then decided on my own account to buy eighty acres of prairie near Mr. Welles and forty of timber at a cost of one hundred and fifty dollars, and build a large cabin. I went at once about it, so as to have it ready when they should arrive, and give Mr. Stoddard a place to live while he could make his own selection of a home. I exchanged work with Mr. Welles and had Mac to help me, cut the logs and
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drew them together and at last had a house raising. I must ask pardon for a disgression here, feeling sure it will interest at least some of my readers. About this time (1835) emigra- tion came to Illinois in floods, and a boom as never before seen was beginning. Railroads were chartered all over the settled parts of the State. State bonds were put on sale in New York and London, work began on the Illinois canal, but the financial crash of 1837 put a stop to all public works and the hardest of hard times were seen in this new land till about 1850, when a new career of prosperity began and has not yet ceased. In 1835 a set of about a dozen young men or more settled within a radius of thirty or forty miles around Springfield, all lawyers, who became leaders and men of great prominence. Abraham Lincoln was yet in his New Salem store, but studying law. Stephen A. Douglas from Vermont settled in Jacksonville as a lawyer at the age of 22. Ed Baker and Dick Yates were raised in Illinois, Sidney Breese was from New York. Ken- tucky furnished some of the brightest and strongest men, John J. Hardin, John Calhoun, O. H. Browning, Stephen T. Logan and Edwards, and James Shields, who was an Irishman by birth. There was also Ebenezer Peck, William Thomas, W. D. Ewing, Lyman Trumbull, David Davis and others. These were about equally divided in politics and talent, and they came in contact with each other not only in the law but on the stump, and most of them in the Legislature and Congress. They grappled with great questions which came up in the formative conditions of the State. Lincoln and Douglas were especially pitted against each other in politics from 1836 to 1860. The force of circumstances developed all these men. Douglas went up the most rapidly. At 23 he was prosecuting attorney, then land commissioner, then in the Legislature, judge, Con- gressman and United States Senator, where he remained till his death in 1861. These were a set of mighty men, of sur- passing eloquence, as Congressmen, Senators, judges, Cabinet officers, Governors and one President. Douglas was called in Congress the "little giant," but they were all giants. I will not speak further of Abraham Lincoln, the greatest of all. James Shields, the brilliant lawyer who challenged Lincoln to a duel, was a general in the Mexican War, was shot through the body, the ball passing through the lungs, yet he recovered,
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came home, and was sent to the United States Senate from Illinois, afterwards from Minnesota, then from Missouri. Three of these men who were especially prominent came to their death by the bullet, namely Abraham Lincoln, assassinated by Booth; General John J. Hardin in the Mexican War, and Colonel E. D. Baker at Balls Bluff, in the War of the Rebellion. Colonel Baker was raised in southern Illinois from a boy of 16, where there were no schools. His education was largely from hearing others speak. At 16 his memory was so remarkable that he could repeat almost verbatim and with great eloquence a stump speech to which he had listened. He never frogot a name or a face, or a point of law, and he became an eminent lawyer, great orator and the most brilliant stump speaker in Illinois. Yesterday, Lyman Trumbull, the last of them all, was laid to rest in Chicago. He was just my own age, 83. These men were most of them a trifle older than myself, but I knew them well and also know that they were a wonderful body of men-none such in Illinois now or elsewhere. I began my western life in a quiet way at the time they appeared so active on the stage of life. Now they are all gone, and I alone remain to tell the story of their greatness. But to re- turn. It was July, and the haying season was now on hand. The prairies produced about one and one-half tons of hay per acre. Grass was free. Uncle Sam had thousands of acres of grass every year burned by the fall fires. I was help- ing Mr. Welles in his mowing, and for every day's work earned money enough to buy an acre of land. By this time I was more captivated than ever by the country and remember writing Sophia Stoddard that soon all that country would be made into beautiful farms, and then the touch of the Yankee woman about the house would make it the garden of the world. One day a letter brought from the Peoria post-office was handed me. It was post-marked Newington. The writing was not that of Mr. Stoddard, but of his daughter Fidelia. I hastily opened it. It was a long letter, written sixty-one years ago. I have it now, and will quote from it the following: "We are in deep affliction and sorrow at our home. Our dear father was stricken down with apoplexy last week and died the third day. Our home is desolation. Brother Simeon is with us, and Aunt Mary and Uncle Allen are so kind to us."
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I will not, I cannot, describe the shock this was to me. I had great respect and love for Mr. Stoddard; now he was gone, and for the moment it seemed that gone, too, were all my hopes and expectations. The orphan family can never come West. I, who would be a help and a comfort to them, am separated from them by a month's journey. What can I do? What shall I do?
Grinnell, Iowa, June 26, 1896.
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I finally confided in Mr. Welles, told him all my sorrows and disappointments, and found in him a true and sympathiz- ing friend. It was a relief to do hard physical work, and I labored in the hay field ten or fifteen days, mowing at an average of three acres per day. At the same time I was con- sidering matters in all their various phases.
I had expected Fidelia Stoddard would become my wife when she came West with her family in the fall. Now, as matters stood, would it not be too much to ask a lady of her refinement, who had been reared so tenderly, to leave her friends and come alone to the little Western cabin, as the state of society then was? If I did ask it, would she come? To go into my cabin alone, and keep "bachelor hall," as so many were doing, I could and would not. If any of you who have read "Pilgrim's Progress" know what John Bunyan means when he says of one of whom he writes, "He was so tumbled up in his mind he did not know what to do," that was just my own condition. My mind gradually became clearer, and I decided to return to Newington, though when I left there four months before, I never expected to behold it again, and if necessary give up all my high expectations of a Western life, go back to the study of medicine and become a New England physician. When this point was reached I put away my scythe and told Mr. Welles I was going back to Newington, and did not know whether I should ever return or not, and asked him if he could carry me to Peoria the next Monday. The cheery answer of my friend did much to lighten my heart: "I will," he said, and added, "You are doing just right. Tell the young lady that I shall bring a wife here, in the spring, and want her as an
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associate. Society will be all right in a few years. My brother Charles has decided to settle here, and my father will spend next summer with us, and I have learned that Martin Kellogg, Jr., is talking of coming in the spring." On Monday morning, with this brighter outlook before me, I was on my way to Peoria. I left my unfinished cabin and all my interests with Mr. Welles, and soon was on the steamer "Little Joe" bound for St. Louis. On reaching that city I found that most of the boats were not running on account of the low water in the Ohio River. Only one boat was. advertised, and to Cin- cinnati. I took passage on it, and we made our way without hindrance, down the Mississippi and up the Ohio above Louis- ville, and then we lay upon a sand bar for twenty-four hours. During the day I saw men wade on that bar across the river from the Ohio to the Kentucky shore. Our engine worked at the bar for a day and a night, when enough sand was washed away to permit us to cross, and in due time we reached Cin- cinnati. Here we were told that the water was so low no boats would leave for Pittsburg till the fall rains had caused the rise of the river, the last of September or October. It was now near the last of August, I could not be detained in Cincinnati so long a time; but for my trunk I should have started on foot. During the day I went to the stage office and found there was a daily line running by way of Columbus, Ohio, to Wheeling and over the mountains to Baltimore, a distance of four or five hundred miles. It was very expensive, but by close cal- culation I found I had money enough to carry me home by this route. I mounted the stage with eight other passengers and we traveled night and day, stopping only to change horses and for refreshments. I sat with the driver a good deal, so as to get some idea of the country we were passing through. At that time, Columbus, the capital of Ohio, was only a small town. The stage was ferried across the Ohio River at Wheeling, near the place where I had seen the forty slaves chained, on my previous journey. On we went, crossing the Alleghanies at Laurel Hill in the night. There was not a little excitement among the passengers, for it was here that the stage had been "held up" by robbers a night or two before. A railroad was built out of Baltimore for twenty miles, and we left the stage for cars drawn by horses for lack of an engine. I had ridden
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that long distance, day and night, without much fatigue. I now took a boat, and finally made my way to New York as best I could by water, or short pieces of railroad. We crossed the Sound in the night, and the next day, a bright day near September first, I caught sight of the spire of the Westhersfield church, and was soon at Hartford, having been twenty-eight days on the road. It was Saturday afternoon; no cars then to Newington, but I felt sure I should see some one from there, and to my surprise Mr. Atwood was the man. His was the last familiar face I saw when I left; the first on my return. He gave me a warm grasp of the hand, and a look of surprise, and also gave me an invitation to ride home with him and remain over night at his house. After the kindly greetings of the family, we sat down and talked of my experiences and journey- ings. It seemed like a dream that I had been out and returned from the far West. I learned that all were well at the Stoddard home, and also the particulars of Mr. Stoddard's death. The next morning, in the quiet of the New England Sabbath, we all went to church. My appearance was a surprise to all, as I took my place in the Atwood pew. I found at the Stoddard home Simeon B. filling, so far as he was able, his father's place, and settling the estate. But, alas, there stood the "vacant chair." Mr. Stoddard had, so far as the tenderest of fathers could do, filled the place of both father and mother for twelve years, and was greatly beloved and sadly missed by his children, yet in all their sadness they were a most happy and united family. Simeon was two months older than myself, and the close friendship then begun lasted till his death last October, sixty years. I had hastened home from the West in hopes I should be in time to secure the North School for the winter, but was too late, as another had already engaged it. Though I wished to remain in Newington during the winter, I found I must look elsewhere for a school. I learned that a teacher was wanted for the school on the Robbins or Wolcott Hill in Wethersfield, and I at once called on Mr. George Wells, who was one of the committee to hire teachers. So far as he was concerned I could have the school; the other member of the committee was not at home, but Mr. Wells said he would see him and let me know his decision at once. I was soon in- formed that this gentleman was not willing I should have the
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school, because I had been General Kellogg's hired man. I had supposed that whatever odium had been attached to my having occupied that lowly position had been lived down, but not so; like "Banquo's ghost" it will not down. I now found the value of such friends as Deacon J. Seymour, Mr. Atwood and others, and they gave Mr. George Wells strong testimonials of my success as a teacher in Newington. I finally concluded to go myself over the mountain, and see the man who so opposed me. He was a kind and good man and was honestly looking for the best interests of the pupils. He brought up his strong objection to me, and said that generally those who had occupied that station were rough and unculti- vated. I pleaded guilty of having worked for two seasons side by side with the general and his two sons, and also with Giles and Sam Smith, and had spent those earnings toward an education. This committeeman, like many in that good old town, had quite a touch of aristocracy in his composition, as well as pride in the blue blood so abundant in the town. At last I turned from the subject of schools, and spoke of the Wethersfield minister, Dr. Tenney, who was settled there in 1814, and was greatly beloved by his people. This brought out a tribute of praise from the gentleman in honor of the beloved pastor. I was then prepared to tell him incidentally that Dr. Tenney was my uncle, my mother's brother, and that I had lived with him several years when a boy. He stood and gazed at me for a moment, then said slowly: "So Dr. Tenney is your uncle!" Whether he then compared my blood with his own or not, I cannot say; at any rate he waived all ob- jections to me and I secured the school. There is much in the common saying, "Blood will tell," but it cannot always be relied upon, for a taint may run underground several gen- erations, but will crop out at last and make the worst of men, as in the case of Aaron Burr, where the taint came from back of his grandfather, who was the great and good Jonathan Edwards.
I taught in the old brick school-house, which stood in the middle of the road, and I had on my list seventy scholars. When in Wethersfield last summer, sixty years later, I learned that three of my former pupils were still living, near their boyhood home, namely Charles and Robbins Wolcott and
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Stephen Wells. I saw Charles only, and he was an old man. There was a sadness in talking of the West at the Stoddards'. The dear father who had taken so active an interest in it was gone. I did, however, talk with Fidelia freely about it, of the country and all its privations, and also of the great prospects of those who went early and grew up with the country. I did not urge her to go there, for she knew that as much as I wanted she should, I would give it up and be a New England doctor, if she declined. Things, however, worked favorably in the direction of the West. Martin Kellogg, Jr., decided to cast in his lot with the French Grove people, and Judge Welles of Wethersfield was going there for the next summer and would take several families with him. Now a new Western fever made its appearance in Wethersfield among the best and strongest men. They contemplated an organization to buy 20,000 acres of land, and would establish a New England colony in Illinois. They invited me to join them, and urged me to go as one of a committee of three to buy the land. I could not go at that time, however, so I declined. General Kellogg and Roger Welles each took a share of $250 in the company.
All this made going West look more attractive, and al- though I had bought at French Grove, I was glad to hold on to this new proposition, and join this colony if I chose. The purchase was made in 1836, twenty-four miles north of French Grove, and beyond all settlement. A year later, I went there with two others from Wethersfield, and made the beginning of a 'settlement, when there was no house within ten miles. What some one said was about true, that there was "no settlement north of us to the North Pole." Time went on, I taught my school in Wethersfield, going over the mountain once or twice a week to the Stoddard home. I remember the snow was deep that winter of 1835 and 1836. I knew just how deep it was over the mountain, and how long the walk was those cold nights. Marcus Stoddard used to laugh, and tell the story that I used the same tracks down the mountain all winter, and that they were just four feet apart, and lasted till July. Changes came in the old Stoddard home. The six children were all gathered together in the old house for the last time. Newton, a rising young lawyer in western New York, and William, who
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was also settled in his own home, came. As none of the sons wished to be farmers, they sold the home and their interest in the farm to Allen Stoddard. And now the hearts and the home of Allen Stoddard and his wife were oepned and re- ceived Fidelia and the younger children, as they had done their brother Elisha's children, when he died. I am sure, from my own observation, that no stranger could have told, from their treatment, which were the children of the parents still living. They were a merry set. Three girls of about 20; one from each family, Cornelia, Sophia and Fidelia; then there were Marcus and Rufus, Charles, Rollin and Lucy, and on Saturday evening, there usually came home from their business in the neighboring city, Mason, Alexis and Simeon. On Thanksgiving Day, the children of the three families were together. Aunt Mary had the strength and executive ability to manage and plan the work, and with the help of the girls carry it out, and prepare a host of good things for that occasion. All went like clockwork, and I was pleased when I received an invitation to make one of the number who gathered around that long table. It was my last and best New England Thanksgiving Day. What a jolly time we had in the evening! Few, very few, women have there been like Aunt Mary; so good, so capable, so useful. As I looked upon Emily, her granddaughter, and daughter of Rufus, now Mrs. Miller, I was reminded of Aunt Mary in many ways. On the first day of January, 1836, my answer came full and unreservedly from Fidelia. It was in the spirit of the beautiful Ruth. I now realize, as I did not at the age of 22, the magnitude of the question she had to decide-for a young lady of character and culture, beautiful in person and attractive to all, to con- sider whether or not she would leave home, her parents' graves, her kindred, and all the dear associations of early life, and go into the far West, with a log cabin for a home, among strangers, for the sake of any man. None but a brave, confiding, loving, true-hearted woman could do it. I well remember Simeon's answer, as we stood under the hard-maple trees in the front yard, when I asked him for his sister: "Yes," he said, "treat her kindly; she is a good girl, and I may go West, too." That proved true. He made one of our number at our cabin the next winter, and with his rifle furnished us hundreds of prairie
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chickens. He finally settled in Rock Island, Illinois. Four years later Lucy was a member of our household, and then half of the family were West. Now I began to prepare to go West as soon as spring opened and my school closed. As I visited at the Stoddard home I would sometimes see an unusual activity in the line of sewing, which was all done by hand, as machines were not dreamed of. One day I saw a quantity of curtains, perhaps eight feet long, made to slide on a line, and was told by Aunt Mary that they were partitions which Fidelia had made for a log cabin. I said "She will do." Sometimes as I received the congratulations of my Newington friends, the thought would come over me with wonder, that only three years before, when I had first caught sight of Newington, all my possessions were in a small bundle; now I was about to leave the town with the good will of the people and the richest gift which could be bestowed upon me. I was one day at General Kellogg's, and saw an elderly woman, a good woman too, but poor and unfortunate in her husband and family. She was a Mrs. Smith, Lydia, wife of Giles Smith who died March 1, 1855, aged 71, whom I had seen there one day in a week for years, when she came to help in the hardest of the work. I remember she was then scrubbing the kitchen, and stopped to bid me good-bye. I was sorry for her, and took her hand and said to her the kindest and most encouraging words I could. It touched the woman's heart, she brightened up, and looking me in the face told me how glad she was of my success, even though her own son, by whose side I had worked, was a grief to her. Then for a moment she stood like a prophetess, and told me of the good fortune which would come to me in the West. Within twenty years, the last of her predictions was fulfilled. I should then have written the good soul and given her some substantial aid, but I lost my op- portunity, and now she needs neither money nor sympathy, for in her home the very streets are paved with gold. The first of March drew near. There was an unusual stir in the Stoddard house; the same where Lewis Stoddard now resides. In the evening a large company was gathered in the northeast room. Alexis, Mason and Simeon came home. The neigh- bors and my best friends were present; the house was full. It was our happy wedding day. Fidelia Stoddard stood by my
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side, on either hand were Sophia and Simeon Stoddard. Dr. Tenney the good pastor of the Wethersfield church, stood before us. The solemn pledges were given, and the words fell from the lips of the man of God which threw around us the silken cord and gently bound us fifty-four happy years, then softly unloosed, as the beautiful Fidelia Stoddard Little, the wife, the mother, the center of our Western home, passed within the veil, which closing, hid her from our sight.
"And when the sunset gates unbar Shall I not see thee waiting stand, And white against the evening star The welcome of thy beckoning hand?"
Grinnell, Iowa, July 4, 1896.
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