USA > Connecticut > Hartford County > Farmington > Farmington papers > Part 22
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The most imposing anniversary was Independence Day, not then a day of license and vandalism, but a day when the old soldiers who knew well what independence cost gathered with those who shared with them the blessing of freedom, and listened to the story of their valor, their sufferings, and their glorious victory, and all unitedly offered up to the God of Nations a people's thanksgiving. The exercises were the reading of the Declaration of Inde- pendence, prayer, an oration, and a patriotic anthem. The young people closed the day with a ball, and their elders
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had a dinner with formal toasts and much good cheer. Perhaps a school girl's account of one celebration is quite as good as the more formal reports occasionally given in the newspapers: "Wednesday the cannon arrived. Some of the artillery are expected. Friday went to the meeting- house at the time set, 11 o'clock. There I was an hour and a half or more before the troops arrived, who were all dressed in uniform and looked extremely well. They sang at meeting first Berkely; Dr. Todd and Hooker and Mr. Seymour played on their instruments. Next, Mr. Washburn made an excellent prayer, prayed that we might be truly thankful that our country still maintained its independence, and that if any came to meeting that day more for the amusements of the day than for praise of God, that they might be pardoned. Next, Uncle Solly ascended the pulpit and read in their law book [the Dec- laration of Independence ]. Next came Dr. Todd with his oration. It was a very good one, indeed. The exercises closed with a hymn which was composed for the occasion by Dr. Dwight, and sung to the tune of New One Hun- dred, written by Birkenhead's brother. Returned home and soon went back to the tea party opposite Mr. Wads- worth's. There was another in the next lot south. Danced until twelve, when the ball broke up. One hundred and fifty dined under a bowery at Gridley's." Thanksgiving, the best enjoyed of all old-time anniversaries, is briefly alluded to by the same person as follows: "Tuesday. Thanksgiving is coming and we are making preparations. We keep three days. Wednesday ; have finished twenty-one pyes and some cake. I wished for your assistance to flour the tarts. Thursday attended meeting. The first I heard was 'Marriage is intended between Robert Porter and Roxanna Root, both of this place.' Heard a most excellent
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sermon by Mr. Washburn, in which he exhorted us in a most pathetic manner to embrace the gospel. The parties were married in the evening. Timothy carried round the cake and wine."
Weddings were mostly informal. We have one re- ported by Mr. Hooker, then a tutor in Yale College. "At- tended the wedding of Richard Cowles and Fanny Deming at Mrs. Deming's. Large concourse of relations and friends, perhaps sixty. Not much ceremony. The parties were seated in the room when the company arrived. None stood up with them, but Mr. Camp and Caroline sat near them, and, after the ceremony, handed round two courses of cake, three of wine, and two of apples. The company in the different rooms then conversed half an hour, then those who could sing collected and sung very handsomely a number of psalm tunes, and half an hour after had quite a merry cushion dance. I came away about nine, leaving still a large number capering around the cushion." Some of our older people may be able to explain the nature of a cushion dance, if they care to confess their youthful follies. I have an invitation given some time afterward to a wedding for Wednesday evening at 7 o'clock, on which the recipient years afterward wrote, "A large assembly and a very pleasant evening, several college acquaintances present. After the old folks had gone we had a fine cushion dance, according to the fashion of our old Puritan fathers." At this latter wedding some one took Deacon Richards to task for drinking wine. "Sir," said the solemn deacon, " I have the highest authority for drinking wine at wed- dings," and, forthwith, drained his glass like the old soldier he was.
Ordinations with their solemn rites, their good cheer, and their closing ball, were notable days in the land. In
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this town they came about once in two generations. The Rev. John Richards, writing to his children years afterward, gives his recollections of one. "Dr. Porter," he says " was ordained Nov. 5, 1806. I remember well how he looked in the pulpit, and how Dr. Dwight looked with his green spectacles while preaching the sermon. I sat directly behind Mr. Roberts, the singing master. Just before the close of the sermon Caty Mix fainted. 'There,' said Mr. Roberts to Col. Tillotson, 'we lose one of our best singers.' But they sang the Ordination Anthem not- withstanding, well. I was in raptures, especially at the verse :
'The saints unable to contain
Their inward joys shall shout and sing; The Son of David here shall reign, And Zion triumph in her king.'
I knew not then, as I did long afterwards, the meaning of the words."
Besides these solemn festivals, other diversions of a lighter character occasionally though rarely enlivened the quiet of village life. Mr. Hooker records: "Dec. 12th. Snowy day. A large, tawny lion, a tall and beautiful Peru- vian llama, an ostrich, and two or three monkeys were ex- hibited at Phelp's inn. To gratify my little daughter and son, I took them thither to see the animals. John rode the llama about the barn, while the keeper led the animal and I steadied the rider.". Other occasional amusements, in which society of to-day does not indulge, sometimes came within reach of an easy drive from the village. In the same journal we read: "Tuesday, June 1, 1824. Very dry and warm, but otherwise pleasant. After breakfast I took John and his cousin Samuel with me in the chaise and rode fifteen miles north to the town of Tolland to
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witness the awful scene of an Indian man executed for mur- der. We arrived there about ten, and, after putting out the horse at Col. Smith's inn, walked up the hill half a mile to view the gallows and other preparations, and re- turned to the village which, by this time, had become filled with company. Probably seven or eight thousand (and some say ten or twelve thousand) people were there. . The cavalry were on white horses and made an impressive show in the procession. There was a variety of musical instruments, drums, fifes, bassoons and bass viols, clarionets, etc. "*
One of New England's proud anniversaries was the
* I remember well the incident which my father has here related. The cousin who was with me was Samuel S. Clarke of Columbia, Conn., who was at school at Mr. Hart's academy at Farmington, and was a member of our family. I was, at the time, 8 years old, and he 10. This paragraph from my father's journal is interesting as showing the great change in public opinion with regard to executions from that which prevailed at that time. The curiosity to witness such an awful spectacle was not a little barbarous and morbid, but there was a general feeling that such exhibitions would make a deep moral impression and be a strong deterrent from crime. It was with that feeling, I have no doubt, that my father took my cousin and myself to see this execution. There was a vast concourse of people from miles distant. The gallows was erected at the top of a hillock, where it could be seen by the surrounding thousands. There was not one in the great assemblage who could not see the wretched murderer swinging in the air. My father was not only very tender-hearted, but full of good sense with regard to such matters, and it is some surprise to me that he took us to see the distressing sight. It is to be said, as some excuse for the general desire to witness it, that it was a very rare thing that executions had taken place in this State, and there may have been some special atrocity in the perpetration of the crime that created an unusual interest on the part of the public in seeing the criminal punished. I was once telling the late Judge Waldo, of our Superior Court, about my attending the execution as a boy, when he told me that he was there. He must have been about 20 at the time. I have never seen the time when I would have taken my son to witness an execution, or would willingly have looked upon one myself. - J. Hooker.
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college commencement. To this came the best culture of the land to do honor to the embryo statesmen and divines as they exhibited their learning in some unknown tongue to admiring parents and friends. The first student in Yale who arrived at the honor of a bachelor's degree was a Farmington boy, and the first tutor was our second min- ister'st son. The town has very frequently been represented on the commencement stage, but New Haven was a far country and too inaccessible to make the anniversary a pop- ular one. Col. Isaac Cowles writes to his son about the difficulty of getting him home at the end of the college term : " I spoke to Mr. W- the other day respecting your getting home. He will lead down the bay mare for you to ride back. In that case you cannot bring your trunk home." At the end of next term he writes: "We send a few lines by Mr. C. Hope he will be sober when he delivers them. May he be a warning to you and all other youth. The Farmington East India Company will prob- ably be loading their ship at vacation if the snow continues till that time. If not, shall get you home some other way. You must be a good boy. Don't let us hear any bad re- port of you." A young miss, who mourned because her mother thought her too young to attend the Yale com- mencement the next summer, writes how her neighbors went to a similar entertainment : " The quality of Hartford and some of Farmington have gone to Dartmouth College to spend the commencement, viz., Chauncey Gleason, wife and daughter, Polly Cowles, and Sally Gleason, in one hack with a driver, and black Dick on horseback to officiate as servant. Mr. Howe and Mrs. Dolly Norton in a chaise."
t Rev. Samuel Hooker, son of Thomas Hooker, the first minister at Hart- ford. He was settled over the Farmington church from 1760 till 1797, dying in his pastorate. - J. Hooker.
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This repeated mention of " Black Dick " suggests the re- lation of society to the labor problem of those days, then, as always, an unsolved one. Who did the household drudg- ery then? Not labor-saving machinery. Not white serv- ants. You might hire some strong-armed girl to do some well-defined work, such as spinning or weaving, for a lim- ited time, but on an absolute social equality with the daugh- ters of the house. Most families were large, and the work was divided among all the members, who thus became not- able housekeepers in their turn. Indians could not be made servants of. They were removed too few generations from their untamed ancestors to bear dictation or continuous labor. The only servants were the blacks. The probate records of this town, which begin in 1760, show bequests of such valuable pieces of property as " A negro woman and boy as slaves." " A negro man called Daff." .
" A negro man called Gad." . . . "My negro boy called Cambridge." I have an original bill of sale, of which this is a copy: "Know all men by these presents that I, Sam- uel Talcott Junr. of Hartford, for the consideration of twenty-six pounds, ten shillings, to me paid or secured to be paid, have bargained and sold to James Wadsworth of
named Candace, warranted sound and healthy and free Farmington one negro girl about the age of six years,
from any claim of other person or persons, and the same warranted a slave for life. Dated at Hartford, September 30th, 1763." These unfortunate laborers, or fortunate
as some thought them, were a few of them imported from the West Indies, but most came from Newport, which our
trade. In 1711 slave-owners were compelled to support Quaker brethren made the center of the New England slave
the slave in his old age, and not set him at liberty to take care of himself. In 1774 the importation of slaves was
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forbidden. Ten years later it was enacted that all born after 1784 should be free at the age of twenty-five, and in 1797 all when they arrived at the age of twenty-one. Black servants, therefore, in the period of which we write, were not slaves. Such was our fathers' solution of a diffi- cult problem. The labor problem is still with us, and still we look forward to the final solution at the millenium with great diversity of expectation.
No account of the social life of the village which leaves out the religious side can be complete. That, however, has been so fully and fairly treated of in the Half Century Dis- course of Dr. Porter, that any attempt to add to or con- dense his account of what he more than all others was most qualified to write seems presumptuous. One great change, however, in religious thought, since he wrote, cannot be overlooked. From 1821 to 1851 he records ten revivals, those great awakenings which in quick succession spread over the community, gathering all classes from their ordi- nary avocations, some in ecstatic elevation of soul and some in abject terror. That phase of religious belief can hardly be understood by the present generation. We now hear from the pulpit more of character and less of eternal pun- ishment, more of the love of God and less of His wrath. Truth is eternal and the same. The same things are true to-day as two generations ago, but preachers and hearers alike do not universally and heartily believe the same things.
Such is an imperfect account of social life in the first part of this century. I have said little about it, preferring to leave the actors in the drama to tell their own tale in their own words. Of all the old diaries and letters which have furnished material for this paper, much the most val- uable is the journal of Mr. Edward Hooker, some parts of which have been printed, but which ought to be published
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in its entirety. Other diaries afford vivid pictures of the times which have not been given to the public, will not be, I trust, and ought not to be. Every girl began one almost as soon as she could write. Here they recorded the events of every day, all their love affairs with great minuteness, and their most sacred thoughts and aspirations. One of them began: "Diary. In the eleventh year of her age. To thee I will relate the events of my youth. I will en- deavor to excel in learning and correct my faults so that I may be enabled to look backward with pleasure and for- ward with hope." And right well did she keep her res- olutions until death early laid his hand on her as on many of the brilliant circle of her companions, and with trembling hands she records her last farewell to him she would have married, the last kindly words of Dr. Todd, and the last consolations of the saintly Washburn.
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84618.33
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