USA > Connecticut > Hartford County > Farmington > Farmington papers > Part 20
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22
In Jamaica our philanthropist found a wide, if not a profitable field for his religious zeal. Here was no Gov- ernor Winthrop or General Court to encourage him. Jamaica was still the rendezvous of English as was St. Domingo, of French privateers, buccaneers, or pirates as you choose to regard them, the treaty of Madrid in 1670 'to the contrary. Spanish galleons, merchandise, cities, towns, anything Spanish they held fair game. Mr. Black- leach narrates with considerable minuteness the departure from Jamaica and subsequent fiendish exploits of some five hundred buccaneers under the noted Welshman, Henry Morgan, whom Charles II afterward knighted and made Deputy Governor of Jamaica. Those of us who read Harper's Magazine fifty years ago will perhaps remember an account of Morgan by the Rev. J. T. Headley, profusely illustrated by an artist who portrays him as a courtly soldier listening to the appeal of a beautiful woman. Let all such
· 301 .
20
1
FARMINGTON PAPERS
turn to Justin Winsor's Narrative and Critical History of America for a copy of an original painting of the real Sir Henry Morgan.
The profanity of these men, of which he records cer- tain choice specimens, shocked the good old man. "In those raging fits," he says, " I have taken occasion to ex- hort them to repentance, and have found that all, or all but one, have fallen under and manifested some repentance."
" It is a difficult matter to fasten a word of exhortation, because no man may dispense a word without order from England." At all events the voyage seems to have greatly improved his health, for in November of the next year he entered into partnership with Richard Lowe by whom he is directed to purchase what fish or other goods are needed (besides the fish already bought in Salem), for the Ketch Blessing, thence to proceed to Bilboa, Spain, to sell his cargo, and thence to some part of France, where it may be most advantageous to lay out the proceeds in linen cloth, and whatever else may be best, and thence directly to Boston. Blackleach as partner is to have no wages, but instead ten per cent. on the sale of Lowe's por- tion in Bilboa and five per cent. ditto in Boston."
Illustrative of the uncertainties of Hartford ventures by sea at this time we have two years afterward on the 30th of July, 1674, a lease by Richard Lord and John Black- leach of Hartford and John Ruck of Salem to Richard Wharton of Boston, of " The good Ketch called the John and Sarah of Salem of the burthen of seventy tons or there- about now riding at anchor in the harbor of Salem, . for five months certain, or ten months uncertain, for a voyage to be made with her, by God's assistance," from Salem to Boston, thence to Cape Sable and "then with
· 302 .
JOHN BLACKLEACH
the first opportunity of wind and weather to the port of Rochelle, Nantz, or Bordeaux in the Kingdom of France or to all or any of them for the delivery of her fish and receipt of her loading for Boston aforesaid." . . . " But in case Samuel Pickman, master of the said Ketch, shall, before his arrival in any of the ports in France, have cer- tain information of wars raised between England and France that then the said master shall sail to the kingdom of Portugal, Spain, or England or either of them."
In 1675, in the midst of the Indian war known as King Philip's, Mr. Blackleach is on a committee for the protec- tion of Hartford, and the Council orders them to place flankers in or near the outside houses of the town so that they may be able to command from flanker to flanker round the town. Two years later he signs an agreement with Richard Lord to act as master of the ship Hartford on a voyage to the West Indies. In 1678 he makes a voyage to Madeira, Barbadoes, and home to New England, sailing from Barbadoes in the Ketch Mayflower with his son John for Boston, there fitting out the ship for another voyage to Madeira in December, 1679. This may have been his last voyage. He was now an old man, and giving over his wanderings and religious enterprises, he settled in Wethersfield and there died August 23, 1683, following to the grave his wife Elizabeth who had preceded him the previous month. In an age which glorifies visible achieve- ments, his well meant endeavors for the good of his fellow men may seem visionary, but he certainly gained the respect and esteem of such men as Rev. John Davenport of New Haven and of Gov. John Winthrop. Wait Winthrop, son of the governor, writes to Fitz-John Winthrop February 26, 1688-9, about the expediency of a marriage between
· 303 .
.
.
.
FARMINGTON PAPERS
some of the younger members of the families and says: " I have always had a particular friendship to the old gentle- men."
Mr. Blackleach senior left a son born in 1635, com- monly known as Captain John, like his father a merchant and shipper. He was, so far as appears, a worthy man. His son John, as already stated, married Susanna, widow of William Hooker. Mary, daughter of Captain John, mar- ried three times, first Thomas Welles of Hartford, son of Thomas and grandson of Thomas the settler, from which marriage came children and grandchildren. She married second John Olcott of Hartford, son of Thomas the settler, and had four children. She married third Capt. Joseph Wadsworth of Charter Oak fame by whom she had no children. The name Blackleach has disappeared from mod- ern New England literature, partly from the excess of female descendants who lost the name in marriage, partly, perhaps, by the removal to other states of those who bore it, and partly no doubt by the interference of some spelling reformer.
1
· 304 ·
AN HISTORICAL PAPER FIRST READ AT
A MEETING of the
VILLAGE LIBRARY
COMPANY
OF FARMINGTON, CONNECTICUT
by Julius Gay
SOCIAL LIFE IN FARMINGTON Early in the Century
. Note. Appendix to Reminiscences of John Hooker, just read at a Library Meeting.
[The following article was prepared at my special request by Mr. Julius Gay of Farmington, a gentleman of fine education and of great intelligence in all matters of local and state history. I am sure it will very much interest the readers of my book. It is of special pertinence to these reminiscences, as Farmington is my native place and it depicts the social life into which I was born and in which I was reared. I have appended a few short notes, generally enlarging a little from my personal recollection some of the points spoken of by Mr. Gay.
The Edward Hooker, from whose journal of that time Mr. Gay makes several extracts, was my father. He kept a minute daily journal from the time of his graduation at Yale College in 1805 to about 1825, covering the period of his residence in South Carolina, his two years' tutorship at Yale, his marriage and the birth of two of his children (the second being myself), and the time of his taking young men to prepare them for college. The journal is an almost inexhaustible mine of materials for the study of the people and habits of that time. JOHN HOOKER.]
The present village of Farmington, the original center of the old town which once extended from Simsbury on the north to Cheshire on the south, and from the river towns of Hartford and Wethersfield westward beyond the Bur- lington mountain range, occupies about the same ground as the village of the Revolution. On the site of Union- ville the tavern of Solomon Langdon stood almost alone on the forest trail which led to Litchfield and far-off Al- bany. Plainville, then known as the "Great Plain," had only a few scattered houses, while Avon, Bristol, Bur- lington, and Southington, though parts of the town when
· 307 .
O.K
.
.
FARMINGTON PAPERS
the Revolution began, were separate communities, having meeting-houses and a social life of their own. The dwellers on the rich alluvial soil along the Farmington River were industrious and prosperous. The horrors of Indian war- fare came all around them and left them unharmed. The only Revolutionary armies which marched through their streets. were the friendly troops of Rochambeau. At the close of the war the one or two stores on the main street gave place to a dozen or more that supplied the wants of the numerous villages springing up to the westward. Their owners began to import their own goods from the West Indies and even from far-off China. From Middle- town they shipped to the West Indies, in their own ves- sels, oxen, cows, beef, pork, flour, corn, and all manner of farm products, until the breaking out of the war between England and France in 1792 let loose the French privateers on their unprotected commerce and gave rise to the still . unsettled "French Spoilation Claims." Later on from 1800 to 1806 much Farmington capital was invested in trade with China, in the ship Sally, Capt. Storer ; the Huron, Capt. Moulthrop; the Oneida, Capt. Brintnall, and other ships, usually with a Farmington supercargo. Along with the ships sailed the young men of the village seeking more stirring adventures than the quiet streets of their native village afforded .* Their letters home from Canton, the
· Among these sailors was my uncle, James Hooker, an older brother of my father. I remember well Captain Mix (a son of Squire Mix, a leading citizen of the town), who used to walk about the streets in his blue jacket, with the traditional gait of an old sailor. He was then but a middle-aged man, but was of intemperate habits, and as I understood lost for the reason his place as a ship master under the Cowles Brothers. I was a small boy when he died. Life on the sea seems at that time to have been a school of intemperance. It became the vice not merely of the forecastle, but of the cabin. It made a great change in this respect when the daily allowance of grog to each sailor was wholly discontinued, as it was by 1830. J. Hooker.
· 308 .
SOCIAL LIFE
islands of the South Atlantic and South Pacific, then first explored by adventurous navigators, gave brilliant pictures of foreign travel when life was young and every scene a surprise. We have letters from the Falkland Islands off the east coast of Patagonia, from South Georgia some seven hundred miles eastward, and several from Massafuera just west of Juan Fernandes. At these places they cap- tured large numbers of seals, making up cargoes of seal- skins, on one voyage at least, 13,025, which were sold in Canton for ninety-five cents each, and the proceeds invested in silks, nankeens, tea, and china ware. Then, after cir- cumnavigating the globe, the adventurers sailed back to New Haven, and the wealthy owners divided the spoils. So Farmington, for one generation, grew rich and took on luxurious habits. President Porter, in his discourse of 1872, says, " The old meeting-house began to rustle with silks and to be gay with ribbons. The lawyers wore silk and velvet breeches, broadcloth took the place of homespun for coat and overcoat; and corduroy displaced leather for breeches and pantaloons. As the next century opened, pianos were heard in the best houses, thundering out the ' Battle of Prague ' as a tour de force, and the gayest of gigs and the most ostentatious of phaetons rolled through the village. Houses were built with dancing halls for even- ing gayety, and the most liberal hospitality, recommended by the best of cookery, was dispensed at sumptuous dinners and suppers." At this rapid increase of wealth and luxury, Gov. Treadwell sounds a note of warning. "The young ladies," he says, "are changing their spinning-wheels for forte-pianos, and forming their manners at the dancing school rather than in the school of industry. Of course the people are laying aside their plain apparel manufactured in their houses, and clothing themselves with European and
· 309 .
FARMINGTON PAPERS
India fabrics. Labor is growing into disrepute, and the time when the independent farmer and reputable citizen could whistle at the tail of his plough with as much serenity as the cobbler over his last is fast drawing to a close. The present time marks a revolution of taste and of manners of immense importance to society, but while others glory in this as a great advancement in refinement, we cannot help dropping a tear at the close of the golden age of our ancestors, while with a pensive pleasure we reflect on the past, and with suspense and apprehension anticipate the future." Good Deacon Samuel Richards also exclaims, " The halcyon days of New England are past. The body of the people are putting off rigidity in habits and morals."
One of the first results of increasing wealth was a de- sire for a better education for their children than the dis- trict school afforded. Already, in 1792, Miss Sally Pierce had established her famous school in Litchfield under the patronage of Chief Justice Tapping Reeve, Gov. Wolcott, Col. Tallmadge, and other distinguished men, probably the first female seminary in America. Here were sent the young ladies of this village until the Farmington Academy was established. E. D. Mansfield, LL.D.,* once connected with the " Old Ren College " of Mr. Edward Hooker of this village, gives us in his " Personal Memories " an out- side view of the school as it appeared a few years later, on his first visit to Litchfield. "One of the first objects which struck my eyes was interesting and picturesque. This
* Edward D. Mansfield, here mentioned, was born in New Haven in 1801, prepared for college with my father, graduated at Princeton College in 1822, studied law in Litchfield, settled in Cincinnati, where he was elected professor of constitutional law in Cincinnati College in 1836, soon after leaving that position for journalism, in which he continued the rest of his life. He died in 1880. He was the author of several books. His "Personal Memories " was published in 1879. J. Hooker.
. 310 .
SOCIAL LIFE
was a long procession of school girls coming down North street, walking under the lofty elms, and moving to the music of a flute and flageolet. The girls were gayly dressed and evidently enjoying their evening parade in this most balmy season of the year. It was the school of Miss Sally Pierce, one of the earliest and best of the pioneers in Amer- ican female education. That scene has never faded from my memory. The beauty of nature, the loveliness of the season, the sudden appearance of this school of girls, all united to strike and charm the mind of a young man, who, however varied his experience, had never beheld a scene like that." He was about to enter the Litchfield Law School, a famous institution which gathered numerous brilliant young men, especially from the south. Their prox- imity might have been a disturbing element in the quiet of the young lady's school had Miss Pierce lacked the wisdom to manage discreetly what would have ruined a weaker administration. The young men were allowed to call on certain evenings, but woe to the man who trans- gressed ever so slightly the laws of strict decorum. To be denied admission to Miss Sally Pierce's parlor was the deepest disgrace which could befall a young man. A school girl writes home that a " Mr. L- was very attentive to Miss N- - of Farmington, and gazed at her so much that it mortified Miss N- -, and Miss Sally spoke to him, and he has not been in the house since March." It was only after much correspendence and penitence that Mr. L- was reinstated. On leaving the school each girl was expected to bring home to her admiring parents some evidence of proficiency in her studies. Those who could exhibited elaborate water color drawings which have ever since hung on the walls of Farmington parlors. Others
· 3II .
1
1
FARMINGTON PAPERS
less gifted were advised to paint their family coat of arms, and, if they had never heard of any, they soon learned how all this could be managed without any correspondence with the Herald's College. One Nathan Ruggles, who adver- tised in the Connecticut Courant, " at his Looking Glass and Picture Store, Main Street, opposite the State House, city of -Hartford," had somehow come in possession of the huge folio volume of "Edmonson's Complete Body of Heraldry," and allowed anyone to select from its vast as- sortment of heraldic monsters, "Gorgons and Hydras and Chimeras dire," such as suited his taste. His sole charge was the promise of being employed to frame the valuable work when done. I have seen several of these devices which were brought home from Litchfield, some done in water colors and some in embroidery, with com- binations of color which would make a herald stare. They had, however, just as good right to them as ninety-nine out of a hundred of the families who flaunt coat armor and pictures of English castles, and all that in their published genealogies. Nathan Ruggles, who was in a measure re- sponsible for all this spurious heraldry, came to an un- timely end. We read in the Connecticut Courant that in a private display of fireworks at his house, the whole sud- denly exploded and brought his heraldic career to an all too brilliant conclusion. Music was not a specialty of Miss Pierce, and so the Farmington young ladies were removed to the school of Mr. Woodbridge in Middletown, where a piano was procured for their use, and instruction was given them by a Mr. Birkenhead. One of them writes, " My Papa has just informed me that I might go to Mid- dletown this summer to school with my cousin Fanny. I am so strongly attached to my native place that it is not without regret that I leave it; from the calm scenes of
. 312 .
SOCIAL LIFE
pleasure into a busy crowd of extravagant people. I have been warned of my danger. My Mamma is something un- willing I should go, for fear that the pleasures of the world and its fashionable enjoyments will gain an ascendency over me and raise ambitious views and lead me into the circle of an unthinking crowd." Two years afterward she is sent to New York to continue her musical studies and writes, " Had a long passage here ; no female kind on board with us, but plenty of male, . . . and above all was Mr. Wollstonecraft, brother to the famous Mary Godwin, author of the 'Rights of Women.' He was a very good looking man, conversed handsomely, and was, to appear- ance, of great information. He informed me that his sister died two years ago. . . . I have seen him once since we came here. He is an officer in the army stationed at New York." By Mary Godwin she refers to the mother of the future wife of the poet Shelley.
The first piano in town of which I find mention was bought by Gen. Solomon Cowles, probably in 1798 or 1799. In November 6, 1799, his niece writes, " Wednesday Came to Uncle Solomon's to hear the music, piano and bass-viol and three voices. . . . From there to Mr. Chaun- cey Deming's to see their new piano, which is a very good one. It has ten more keys than Fanny's." A piano was bought about this time by Zenas Cowles, and these three pianos were probably the only ones in town for several years .* As for the style of music rehearsed on these in-
* When I was a small boy my father purchased a piano for my sister, three years older than myself. There were at that time but few pianos in the village, and they had not ceased to be curiosities, and to be regarded as extravagances. My father was very fond of music, and began at once to amuse himself with the piano, though he never became an expert player. I often heard him for an hour at the piano after we had all gone to bed, and be not infrequently spent an hour over it at midnight when he happened
. 313 .
i
FARMINGTON PAPERS
struments, we read: "Wednesday eve. Mr. Birkenhead had a benefit at Gridley's and his pupils played, all except Nabby Deming and myself. He wished me to play, but as I did not sing I thought it not best. Fanny played much the best, and sung extremely well, indeed. The tunes she played were ' The Shipwreck,' 'The Tear,' and 'The Bud of the Rose.' Dr. Todd, I. Norton, and Larcon were there with their instruments. After the playing was fin- - ished the company danced two figures, and George [after- ward Gen. George] danced a hornpipe. Came home at twelve o'clock."
to have a wakeful night. My uncle James, whose intemperate habits com- pelled my father to relinquish his settled plan of going into the practice of law in Columbia, So. Car., with his brother John, and to settle in Farm- ington and take the family farm and the care of his father and mother, was then living with the old people at Farmington, and, upon the death of my grandfather, came into our family. My father was the youngest member of the family, and the only one (besides James) who was not settled in life. My uncle James, I remember well, in all my childhood. He lived to be 67. He had been a sailor under the Cowles Brothers, and had spent a few years on the sea. He there acquired the common habit of sailors to taking their daily grog, as well as a familiar use of their picturesque and often very emphatic language. He had been a bright boy, and through life was very fond of sitting all day in his room and reading. He had very positive views of social matters, and greatly disliked the introduction in our homespun village of pianos and extravagance. I have often seen him terribly irritated by my sister's inartistic practice upon it, and remember his once saying, as we stood in the yard, with the noise from it coming through the open win- dow, "There goes again that d-d eternal jewsharp." His death was preceded by a long typhoid fever, during which my father watched over and nursed him night and day, feeling, I think, that he had been too im- patient with him in his "often infirmity." When at last, at the end of several weeks, he died, my father at once went to bed in complete exhaustion, and died in four days. He was but 61, and ought to have lived twenty years longer. Thus was wasted the life of one of the brightest of the family, and more than wasted, since in going down it carried with it the life of my father, one of the best and most useful of men. - J. Hooker.
· 314 .
SOCIAL LIFE
And now with the young men, some in college and some in Canaan Academy, and the girls in Litchfield or Mid- dletown, what sort of schools had they left behind them? As good as those of our neighbors, and as much better as the lifelong labors of Gov. Treadwell could make them. Two or three young misses, just beginning to write letters, thus inform their dignified cousin at Yale: "Mr. Lee," that is, Matthew Lee, the teacher, "says that the girls make more disturbance than all the rest of the school. I learn Geography but not Grammar, because Mr. Lee says he does not understand English Grammar." Eight months afterwards our collegian is informed - " We have got a good schoolmaster. His name is Gordon Johnson. You must be a good boy, and learn as fast as you can." A year later we learn that -" Mr. Nathan North keeps . our school. He boards at our house. Mr. North has between thirty and forty scholars in his school." It was visited on the last day of the year by Gov. Treadwell, Major Hooker, Rev. Mr. Washburn, Deacon Bull, Col. Isaac Cowles, and Gen. Solomon Cowles. Imagine these pon- derous dignitaries sitting around the blazing log fire on that winter's day. I will warrant there was not want of decorum in school that day, on the girls' side or anywhere else. What hard questions they put does not appear. Prob- ably Messrs. Washburn, Treadwell, and Bull could hardly have failed to inquire, " What is the chief end of man? " One lively miss writes, " They praised us very much, and if I was sure you would not think I was proud, I would tell you that my writing was judged the best in the school." Good penmanship was considered of first importance, and was the one qualification most insisted on in the exami- nation of teachers. Nathan North, sitting at his desk one winter's day after school was out, writes to a friend - " It
. 315 .
FARMINGTON PAPERS
is six o'clock, and I am at my schoolhouse writing in the dark. Oh wretched man that I am, because I can write no better."
But enough of schools. The intellectual life of the mid- dle aged found exercise in the several debating and literary societies of the day, The Social Club, The Union Society, The Weekly Meeting, and I know not how many others. The latter comes into being January 15, 1772, with this ponderous preamble : " It has been justly observed in all ages that vice increases when learning is on the decline, and, on the contrary, when useful learning flourishes, it in some measure excludes vice and immorality; and we, the subscribers, sensible of the prevalence of vice and the low state useful learning is in among us," etc., etc. We learn, however, that after a few weeks this meeting joined the Social Club, under different regulations. A series of four- teen essays written by Amos Wadsworth for these clubs, beginning with the year 1772, and as many more by his brother Fenn, have come down to us. The subjects, many of them, show the theological bias of the age. Some of them were - " Conscience, whether it be lawful to follow its dictates in all cases; " "Infant Baptism vindicated; " " Extorted Promises not binding ; " " Beasts not rational; " "Enslaving Negroes vindicated; " "Origin of Civil So- ciety; " " The Sabbath Evening must be kept holy;" " Theft ought not to be punishable with death; " "The duty of unregenerate men to pray; " " The Supreme Mag- istrate not to be resisted;" " The Powers of Congress." The club sometimes also dropped into poetry. They have left us a "Sing to Sylvia," in six verses, with much about love and turtle dove, the nightingale and amorous tale, and other interesting matters. I speak of these clubs as being the progenitors of those of the next two generations
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.