USA > Connecticut > Hartford County > Farmington > Farmington papers > Part 19
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Two HUNDRED YEARS AGO
Maine. On May 22d comes the news of a violent storm in London, - church spires blown down and London Bridge stopped up with the wreck of vessels. Number 9, on the 12th of June, announces a fast proclaimed by the Queen in reference to the heavy judgment of the Almighty in the ter- rible and dreadful storm of November 26th; also of the capture of privateers, a frequent event. Number 10 gives a letter dated October 30th from Constantinople, announc- ing the public entry of the Grand Signior with great solem- nity and " with all the ceremonies used on the like oc- casions," such as the beheading of the eldest son of the late Mufti. At home we have sentence of death passed on seventeen pirates, advertisements for lost goods, includ- ing one for the return of Penelope, "a well set, middle sized Madagascar Negro woman," with a flowered damask gown; also the last dying speeches of six pirates and the exhortations and prayers of the ministers at great length. In Number 11 we have several new shocks of an earth- quake, and a letter to the Pope from " Adrian Saghed, by the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, Emperor of Ethiopia, Nubia, Sheba and all the confines of Arabia &c, of Glorious Race, descending from Queen Sheba, humbling his Ene- mies, and defending such who have recourse to him; The Pillar of the Christian Faith, &c, King of Soldiers and Armies never subdued, Lord in power and words, with un- expressible moderation, Full Moon of his Kingdom, without any Eclipse," etc. He asked for missionaries. On the 10th of July we have more particulars of the ways of the Inquisition and an order of Queen Anne "to the master of our revels and to both companies of Comedians Acting in Drury-Lane and Lincolns-Inn-Field, to take special care that nothing be acted in either of the Theatres contrary to Religion or good manners . . that no woman be allowed
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to presume to wear a visard Mask in either of the The- atres." Number 14, July 17th, contains a long and cir- cumstantial account of the destruction of Minas, the land of Longfellow's "Evangeline." On July 31st we have more successes of Yankee privateers and further particulars of the utter wiping out of Minas. On July 24th and 31st we hear more of privateers and of the destruction of Minas. On the 7th of September, 1704, the date of our account, the news of the great event of the year was on its three- months' journey to Boston, and had not yet reached the happy ears of the villagers. The battle of Blenheim was on the 2d of August, O. S., shattering the power of Louis XIV and making religious freedom possible. With this account of Farmington in 1704, its men, their homes, occu- pations, and customs, and of the light from the outside world just breaking upon them, we must bid them a long farewell.
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AN HISTORICAL ADDRESS DELIVERED AT
THE ANNUAL MEETING
-
of the
THE ANNUAL MEETING
OF FARMINGTON, CONNECTICUT
September 13, 1911
by Julius Gay
JOHN BLACKLEACH
delivered at the annual meeting of the Village Library Company September 13, 1911
Ladies and Gentlemen of the Village Library Company of Farmington:
It is now seven years since I had the honor to read to you the last of a series of papers giving some account of the early life of the village, - its libraries and schools, the houses which sheltered the early settlers, the soldiers who protected them in colonial days and during the long war of the Revolution, of the music of the sanctuary and of the social habits of the worshipers. A new chapter in the history of the village green has just begun. The town meeting of September 2d, 1911, has practically decreed that Church and State are no longer one.
While great changes may be in abeyance, let us call to mind, for a few minutes, things most dear to our an- cestors, - the Meeting House Green and the three houses in which successively they worshiped God. The masterly account of the third and last house by President Porter in his address of 1872 is well known to you all. I remem- ber also, as if it were only yesterday, sitting in the North gallery of the meeting house full to overflowing and listen- ing to his " Historical Discourse of 1840," and seem to remember the very tones of his voice as he concluded with the words: " As we look back along the dim path-way of
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their darkness and danger in the past, we behold the bright token of His presence and care, in the words which the three vines planted on the Connecticut delighted to bear aloft upon their banner: 'Qui transtulit sustinet.' As we look forward to the days that are to come, we behold them as they brighten in the distance, splendid in their tokens of future promise. Yes, He who brought them over will still uphold; not them, for they are dead, and so are their sons, and their son's sons; but their principles, their spirit and their honored names."
The first meeting-house, the first of three, stood on the main street midway between mountain and river. The wor- shipers were then, and for the next quarter of a century, summoned to attend by beat of drum. The deacons still lined out the psalm, and musical instruments and dissensions in the choir were unknown. Of the style of architecture in this old building we know little. There were doors on the east and south, and probably on the west. Negroes sat upon a bench at the north end, and, as the capacity of the house became less and less sufficient, individuals were allowed to build themselves seats anywhere in the gallery, " on condition that they do not damnify the other seats in the meeting-house." The allotment of seats below was termed dignifying the house, and the seating committee was ordered to " have respect to age, office, and estate, so far as it tendeth to make a man respectable." The youths and the unmarried were forced upstairs where they gave the tithingman sufficient occupation. There was one excep- tion in favor of certain sedate young women. "The town by vote gave liberty to Lieutenant Judd's two daughters, and the Widow Judd's two daughters, and the two eldest daughters of John Steele to erect, or cause to be erected, a seat for their proper use at the south end of the meeting-
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house at the left hand as they go in at the door, provided it be not prejudicial to the passage and doors." Seats too were reserved for the guard of eight men who marched in with muskets at shoulder. The Indian atrocities at Deer- field and vicinity were but recent, and the meeting-house itself had long been a fort as well as a house of prayer. In 1674 Deacon Bull makes a charge for a joist for the fort gate of the church, and in 1675 for the irons of the fort gate, and again in 1676.
The green was used as the parade ground for the mil- itary companies of the village, and from its pulpit in times of war stirring discourses sent the soldiers forth to battle. The eloquence of the beloved Pitkin was a power in the land. One of his discourses was from the words, " Play the man for your country, and the cities of your God; and the Lord do that which seemeth Him good." In times of peace we read of it as " the place of parade or muster- ing in said Farmington, where Capt. Hawley usually trains his company," and similar records are frequent. There was once a belief, never wholly disproved, that the first meeting-house stood opposite the house of Admiral Cowles, where lived the Rev. Samuel Hooker, second minister of Farmington, and probably his brother-in-law, Rev. Roger Newton, its first minister. William Hooker, grandson of Rev. Thomas Hooker, owned the property where Admiral Cowles now resides. On his death his widow Susannah married John Blackleach, a Hartford merchant who lived on the place and to whom the town gave " liberty to take up four acres of land where he can find it," that is provided he remains in town four years. He was the grandson of John Blackleach of Hartford, farmer, merchant, ship- owner, philanthropist, writer on theology, and ancestor of many worthy people of Hartford. I propose to give you
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a brief account of him as a very interesting character apart from his relationship as grandfather of our ancient towns- man of the same name.
We first hear of him as joint owner with the noted Sam- ual Maverick of a plantation known as Winnissimet on the north side of the Mystic River immediately east of the present site of the United States Marine Hospital in Chel- sea. Mr. Maverick, an early and noted settler of Massa- chusetts, in the manuscripts which have come down to us, describes it as " Two miles south from Romney Marsh on the north side of Mystic river in Winnissimet, which though a few houses on it, deserves to be mentioned. One house yet standing there which is the ancientest house in this Massachusetts government, a house which in the year 1625, I (that is, Samuel Maverick), fortified with a palisado and flankers, and guns both below and above in them, which awed the Indians, who at that time had a mind to cut off the English. They once faced it but receiving a repulse, never attempted it more."
Samuel Maverick and Amias his wife and John Black- leach and his wife sold the place in February, 1634, to Richard Bellingham and also an interest in the ferry. When Mr. Blackleach arrived in New England, or how either he or Mr. Maverick obtained a grant of Winnissimet or of the ferry has escaped much research by learned histo- rians of that vicinity. Mr. Blackleach may have been a resident of London, for before 1644 he had married Eliz- abeth, daughter of Robert Bacon, formerly of Wapping but afterward of " the parish of St. Katherine Cree Church, London, Gunner of His Majesty's good ship or vessel called the Mare Honor."
In February, 1635, the freemen of Salem granted Mr. Blackleach three hundred acres more at Long Marsh along
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the seaside and containing half the marsh. Of this, fifty acres was rock, but that he might have sufficient ground to maintain a plow, they gave him in 1638 fifty acres more, conditionally that he will be at the charge of plowing it, or the greatest part of it. Such were the inducements held out to the incoming farmers of England. At this time there were said to be but thirty-seven plows in all Massa- chusetts.
In May, 1635, he was made a freeman by the General Court at Boston, to which body he was a deputy from Salem in May of the following year. About this time he made a voyage to England and back, beguiling the way by writing a work on theology. He calls it a treatise, and sends it to Gov. Winthrop at Hartford with an introduc- tory letter, which the Governor endorses August 3, 1637, and which opens thus :
" Great and many are the reasons (Right Worshipful), that moved upon the vast and troubled ocean sea, to study and commit to writing the following discourse. These following notes have cost me much pains, and some time, to gather them together, and to commit them to writing. I pray you let it not be grevious to you to read them. It may be that something herein may seem harsh (I am but a mortal man, therefore subject to error), yet I believe what I have written to be truth, otherwise I would not have tendered it to your consideration. I . humbly pray that when you have perused the following treatise, you will restore it to me again." Probably this request was granted, as the treatise is not to be found among the Blackleach papers of the Massachusetts His- torical Society.
Mr. Blackleach returned to Salem and seems to have added the mercantile to his agricultural business, for in
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March, 1637-8, he pays an excise duty of four pounds, three shillings and four pence on wine bought and sold by him. We lose sight of him until in May, 1644, the records of the General Court inform us that "Mr. Blackleach, his petition about the Moors was consented to, to be com- mitted to the elders to inform us of the mind of God herein, and then to further consider it." This was the first of his philanthropic schemes of which we have any record, and refers to his wish to instruct certain negroes in religion. The case of Mrs. Hutchinson was too freshly in mind for anyone to presume to meddle with religious teaching with- out due authority. These Africans were a source of great perplexity to the good people of Massachusetts and had been brought to Boston on this wise. Gov. Winthrop, in his History of New England, informs us that in the winter of 1645 Mr. James Smith " who was a member of the church of Boston with his mate Keyser were bound to Guinea to trade for negroes, but when they arrived there, they met with some Londoners, with whom they consorted, and the Londoners having been formerly injured by the natives, (or at least pretending the same), they invited them aboard one of the ships upon the Lord's day, and such as came they kept prisoners, then landed men, and a murderer, and assaulted one of their towns and killed many of the people, but the country coming down, they were forced to retire without any booty, divers of their men being wounded with the negroe's arrows and one killed."
Arriving at Barbadoes, on their return in their ship Rainbow, Captain Smith and his mate Keyser quarrelled. The latter seized the ship and returned to Boston with the negroes and cargo, leaving Smith to get home as best he could. Get home, however, he did, and brought suit
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against his late partner. The court allowed him substan- tial damages against Keyser, but, on the other hand, or- dered that " Captain Smith should allow Keyser ten pounds for threatening to pistol him." Gov. Winthrop adds " For the matter of the negroes, whereof two were brought home on the ship and near one hundred slain by the confession of some of the mariners, the magistrates took order to have these two set at liberty, and to be sent home; but for the slaughter committed, they were in great doubt what to do in it, seeing it was in another country, and the Londoners pretended a just revenge. So they called the elders, and desired their advice." Richard Salton- stall, therefore, being an Assistant in the General Court, reported the act of murder and the act of stealing negroes contrary to the law of God and of this country "but the act of chasing the negroes as aforesaid upon the Sabbath Day, being a servile work is expressly capital by the law of God." Ultimately one negro was given by Captain Smith to Mr. Williams of Piscataqua, and the General Court ordered the other, called the negro interpreter, to be sent to his native country of Guinea with a letter of indignation. To whom this letter was to be addressed is not stated; and how good a christian Mr. Blackleach made of the bearer does not appear. His efforts were however so approved that a new door was speedily opened to his pious endeavors. In April, 1657, the Society for the Prop- agation of the Gospel in New England writes from its Lon- don office of the "information we have received of the abilities of and good affection of Mr. John Blackleach, whose heart we are persuaded is engaged herein, to com- mend him to your approbation as a person whom we think may be useful and serviceable in civilizing the Indians and also helpful to inform them in the knowledge of the gos-
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pel." In the meantime while the catechism and bible and other good books were being translated into Algonkin, Mr. Blackleach is recorded a resident in Salem as late as September, 1651. Thence he removed to Boston in time to have his house and goods burned in the great fire of March 14, 1653, which Endicott calls " the most dreadful fire that I ever saw." Some mercantile business brings him to New Haven where he spent the winter of 1658, and where he made himself so agreeable to Mr. Davenport and his wife, who had never seen him before, that they gave him liberty to lay up his barrels of pork and corn, etc., that were to be paid him for his goods, in the garret of the house of Governor Winthrop, absent in Hartford. To the latter he writes a letter of apology, proposing " to come to Hartford the first opportunity, when the rivers are open about March next. Desiring the Lord to bless, guide, and keep you and yours." To Hartford therefore he came and bought a house and lot of Elder William Goodwin who had removed to Hadley. It was situated on the North side of the Riveret and on the East side of the road from the Pallisado to the Sentinel Hill, or in modern phraseology, on the northeast corner of the inter- section of Main and Arch Streets. Mr. Blackleach seems to have met with the too common prejudice against new- comers. The General court in March, 1661, "having weighed and considered the nature of the offence of Mr. John Blackleach in his contemptuous expressions against several persons in authority in this colony. . doth impose the fine of thirty pounds to be paid by the said Mr. Blackleach to the public treasury." To what partic- ular worshipful magistrate Mr. Blackleach had failed in respect we cannot say, but speaking contemptuously of those in authority was pretty serious business. Good men held
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with the Apostle Jude that the dreamers who speak evil of dignities should be ranked among the ungodly. After a little delay and the exercise of common sense the wrath of the Court was appeased and they found his prosecutors guilty of prejudice, of lying on wait, and suspecting that " both Loveridge and Burnam guilty of the same crime they testify against Mr. Blackleach, . cannot but see just cause to acquit Mr. Blackleach of that fine im- posed." Here then he remained or made his headquarters for the last twenty years of his life, making voyages mer- cantile and philanthropic to foreign lands. His acquaint- ance with the Governor seems to have been mutually agree- able, and the latter in a letter dated Hartford, January 27, 1664-5 to Sir Robert Moray, communicating certain scientific statements made by Mr. Blackleach to his honor's consideration and to that of the Royal Society of which the Governor was a member and founder, first announces his own astronomical discoveries as follows, "Having looked upon Jupiter with a telescope upon the 6th day of August last, I saw five satellites very distinctly about that planet." This is one more satellite than any other observer has reported. "I observed it with the best curi- osity I could, taking a very distinct notice of the number of them. Another thing I make bold to mention, upon occasion of a relation which I had lately from an understanding seaman that hath been master of some ves- sels and often in the West Indies, (Mr. John Blackleach) He affirmed confidently that being in the Gulf of Florida, he saw a great pillar of water (which is commonly called spouts), rise up from the sea, and rise higher till it joined itself to a white cloud over it. I urged it to him to be a mistake. . He confidently affirmed it could be no. mistake, his ship was near, and that both himself and all
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on the ship with one consent judged it to rise out of the sea." As between the Governor's five satellites and Mr. Blackleach's water spout, the latter's scientific accuracy is to be commended.
In October, 1667, he was back in Hartford where " This Court grants Mr. John Blackleach liberty to retail wine and liquors to his neighbors that are honest, sober householders, and these only, till the last of November next."
For five years we read of no more voyages, but in the quiet of Hartford, his old interest of twelve years before in the spiritual welfare of the Indians again takes posses- sion of him. " Mr. Blackleach Senior," so it is recorded, "moving the Court for their approbation that he might use his endeavors to make known to the Indians (in the best way he can), something of the knowledge of God according as he shall have opportunity, This Court grants his desire therein, with their desires that he may, through the blessing of God be an advantageous instrument to the end proposed." In November, 1669, he reports progress to the Governor: "Mr. Winthrop, Much Honored Gov- ernor. My due respect to you Sir. You may remember that at the last General Court, God gave me much favor in the hearts of the Court that they approved me to speak and act to and with the Indians to reduce them to civility and Christianity. I have studied and taken some pains in the matter and in my thoughts and actings I do endeavor the further progress therein. Mr. Elliot gave me an In- dian Bible and divers other books in the Indian tongue and added his prayers for my good success therein. Now, Sir, this is to request you to be a friend to me; it will cause me to proceed with more ease; however, my purpose is to do my endeavor herein, because I do delight
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in the work, believing that the work is acceptable to God. Thus, desiring God to bless, guide, and keep you, I rest. Yours to be commanded in all Christian duty,
John Blackleach, Senior.
Laus Deo.
New York 10. November 1669."
How proficient he became in the Algonkin tongue or how much the natives were benefitted is not related. His health failed him and in October, 1671, he writes from Jamaica to the Governor :
" Much Honored Sir, My due respects presented to you, to your wife, and to all yours,
" Sir, knowing your ingenuity, I thought it might not be unacceptable unto you to impart to you a brief of pas- sages observed by me during the present voyage hitherto - one month from Nantasket, near Boston, very temperate and good winds and weather, otherwise I fear I should hardly been able to endure it. We fell in with the eastern- ment part of Hispaniola, intending to have first made Porto Rico, but thereby we were necessitated to pass by on the north side of Hispaniola, which probably tended to our safety, for another vessel from New York passing on the south side was taken by a Spanish ship and plundered of part what they had. . . . If I had stayed in New Eng- land this winter, my present condition considered, I could not see other than that I was like to be a burden to myself and friends. As for the various and sharp afflictions with which it has pleased God to exercise me with, for divers years past, I could patiently have borne and waited for deliverance and not have come to this place, but I be- lieved I might please God in this voyage." Probably domestic troubles added to his despondency. His second son Benoni, a young man of 27, had given offense to a
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citizen of Wethersfield by certain writings and pictures, for which a kindly reprimand might have sufficed, but being tried in a public assembled he was enraged and the magis- trate for "his unsuitable bold carriage here in the court do adjudge him to pay as a fine for his misdemeaning him- self five pounds . . . and carry good behavior till the court in December next." A kindly neighbor, one Mrs. Wickham, gave bonds for him, and at the December court it was recorded " there was nothing appeared against Be- noni Blackleach at this court." Nevertheless neither Benoni nor the magistrate would give in, and so Benoni disap- peared forever. The record reads " Benoni Blackleach ap- peared not and so his father forfeited the bond of twenty pounds." Deeds and wills conveying Blackleach property for many years, contain such clauses as "It is thought Benoni may be alive." Probably he went to sea and like many another young man from the river towns was never heard from. His third son Solomon had become a sea- man, and not long afterward the Rev. John Cotton writes from Plymouth to the Rev. Increase Mather: "About a fortnight since came into our harbor a privateer under command of one Capt. Daniel. The Master is Solomon Blackleach, son to the old man once resident in Boston. They stole away Rodes (that is, John Rodes), from New York. I doubt many hellish abominations are here acted in secret by those who have not the fear of God before their eyes. They pretend a commission from the States of Holland, and design to take French vessels in your eastern parts." It is but just to the memory of Solomon Blackleach to say that an account of the trial for the condemnation of the James Frigate is given at length on Plymouth Colony Records and a list of everything in her including six great guns and ending with one grindstone.
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The only objectionable person or thing found was a convict spoken of by Rev. John Cotton named John Rodes who had escaped from a New York jail and whom the court speedily sent whence he came. The court suspected that Solomon commanded by virtue of a Dutch commission and found " that it would be of ill consequence to abet, harbor, or assist those who in show profess an open enmity to the French, our neighbors, with whom we ought to hold." In short, privateering against the Spanish flag was rewarded with high official position and honored with knighthood, as we shall see, but against any other nation was a hellish abomination. Solomon Blackleach died shortly after reach- ing Plymouth, having made a will in which he orders: "I bequeath my soul to God who gave it, my body to the dust, and my estate to my dear and loving wife Sindeniah."
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