USA > Connecticut > Hartford County > Farmington > Farmington town clerks and their times (1645-1940) > Part 13
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way across the road running from the Litchfield road to Perrys' bridge so wide as shall be necessary for manufacturing and other purposes on condition they shall build and keep in con- stant repair, bridges and embankments across said raceway of sufficient height and width to accommodate the public travel and transportation, provided also that they enter a bond to the acceptance of the Selectmen."
CULTURE
AND CONTENTMENT
Edward Hooker
1828-1833
BORN with the silver spoon of culture and comparative wealth, to a father whose position in the town was foremost in political acumen, social polish and military achievement, Edward Hooker was from the first, trained to value and always pursue the studious and serious rather than the active or social way of life, and his life span of sixty-one years went through in its foreordained way.
Edward Hooker was the third generation to be born in the old family homestead, formerly the Stanley house, on Mountain Road. His father was Colonel Noadiah Hooker, and his mother Rebekah Griswold of Wethersfield. Edward was the youngest of eleven children. Colonel Noadiah Hooker left an estate of $23,317.89, most of which after paying small bequests to William G., James, Sally and Abigail Hooker, other children of Noadiah's, went to Edward. This included the old homestead with its huge kitchen paved with field stones and doors large enough to admit the farm oxen with their load of wood for the great fireplace. Here had lived Sarah (Lewis) Hooker, Edward's grandmother, descendant of the famous school teacher, Ezekiel Cheever, with her influence toward carrying on the traditions of her family. Here had sat Joseph Hooker, Edward's grand- father, receiving in his old age, homage from the townspeople for his early efforts in firmly welding the growing town into a complete unit. Here too, had come the great men of the colony during the dark and trying days of the Revolution, when Noah- diah was a young man and had no hesitation about driving his oxen to Fort Ticonderoga, or taking a long journey on horse- back into the Maine woods for timber. Here at the comfortable
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Edward Hooker
प्रत्म
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Edward Hooker
farm, met officers of the Revolution, legislators, educators, ministers from the surrounding parishes and townsmen for consultation and the dearly loved discussions of that day. Here sat small Edward, absorbing the talk and making resolutions of what he would do when he grew to manhood. Whether these all came true we cannot know, but surely many of those early boyish plans must have materialized.
Edward Hooker was born in 1784 and was graduated at Yale in 1805, with honor. He was afterward a tutor there. He also tutored at South Carolina College at Columbia, South Carolina, returning to Farmington to marry and settle. His wife was Eliza Daggett, of New Haven, whom he had met while at college. He died in 1845 at the age of 61 years.
The early training of his home influenced his entire after-life. Always his desire to learn showed itself in his writing, and his intercourse with his fellow townsmen, whom he loved to meet at home, on the street or in the famous academy, where dis- cussion of the day touched any subject from paper money, the use of ardent spirits at the meetings of the people for business, the colonization of the negro, the morals of the community, the distribution of public school money, the expediency of general education for the mass of the people to the burning question of the day - the assessment of property. He belonged to the "Conversational Club," the principal members being besides Mr. Hooker, such prominent men as Doctor Eli Todd, later to become world-famous for his care of the mentally ill; Dr. Thomson, leading physician, Mr. Goodman, principal of the academy, Egbert Cowles, who lived to be almost one hundred years old, with a great wealth of memories of ancient Farm- ington, and other equally important men of the town. Mr. Hooker kept a diary and recorded these discussions, often with witty afterthoughts of his own such as are confided in diaries. With Governor Treadwell he conversed on the origin of man- kind, on foreign missions and on the sudden growth of Farm- ington opulence; with Captain Seymour on the most profitable mode of reading; with President Dwight of Yale "on various subjects but mostly on matrimony," and he records "Made a
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call on Chauncey Deming. Conversed for an hour on his favorite theme, the selfishness of human nature."
Mr. Hooker was also a lover of music, and purchased one of the first pianos in the village, but we know from his son John that much of his playing was done in the night, after the rest of the family had retired when they would hear him for an hour, working on some favorite song or hymn.
Edward had a brother James who early went to sea for the Cowles brothers, trading in furs, tea, molasses and rum. James never married, and in his later years made his home with his father and his brother Edward's family. Colonel Noadiah Hooker in his will, directed his son Edward to care for James as long as he lived, to pay his bills and care for his money. How well Edward fulfilled this request we know from his son John who wrote "Uncle James death was preceded by a long typhoid fever, during which my father watched over and nursed him night and day - 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."
Edward had a brother, William G., a sister Sally and a sister Abigail, all of whom were well enough off, with what had been given them, to warrant their father Noadiah making only small bequests to them. Edward had come home from his posi- tion in South Carolina to care for the extensive farm and his parents and his brother James, which no doubt seemed to Colonel Hooker excellent reason for leaving the bulk of his fortune to his son.
Edward Hooker built a new house for his bride, which, ex- tensively remodeled, stands on the corner of High Street and Mountain Road and has recently been purchased by Graham Jones. It was erected in 1812 from plans drawn by Captain Luther Seymour, the outstanding cabinet-maker and house- builder of the early nineteenth century. Many of his choicest pieces of furniture are still prized in Farmington today, and much of his handwork, well made to last at least within the memory of the generation, was buried in the old burying ground. Captain Seymour was librarian of one of the many
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Edward Hooker
libraries of the town of that day, and lived on Main Street just below the home of Horace Cowles.
It was in the new home that the three children of Edward and Eliza Hooker's were born. John Hooker later distinguished himself by serving for thirty-six years as reporter for the Su- preme Court, by marrying Isabelle Beecher, sister of Harriett Beecher Stowe, and by purchasing in Hartford in his later years, the great farm known since that time as "Nook Farm" where all that has been best in culture, art, literature and music has taken strong root and flourished, to the great and lasting pride of Hartford.
John Hooker loved Farmington, and as his contribution to the beauty of the village, planted without help all of the trees now bordering High Street and Mountain Road. His sister, Elizabeth Daggett Hooker, born May 1, 1813, only daughter of Edward and Eliza Hooker, married Hon. Francis Gillette of Windsor, and among their six children was William Hooker Gillette, the most famous of our American actors of the past century. The third child of Edward and Eliza Hooker was Commander Edward Hooker born December 25, 1822 in Farmington and early bred to the sea. He commanded a ship at the age of twenty-three and distinguished himself generally until his retirement.
John Hooker in his Reminiscences writes " ... My prep- tration for college was greatly aided by the private instruction of my father, who was a rare classical scholar for that day, and who began to drill me in Latin and Greek at quite an early age." And again he says in picturing the home life of Edward and Eliza Hooker: "My father had no fondness for display and no ympathy with ... habits in this respect. ... He had a compe- ence, but nothing that could sustain extravagance. My recol- ection of our home life is of abundance, but of very plain living. Our clothes were made from the wool of our own sheep, which vas fulled and woven at a mill within the town into strong gray cloth, which was then made into suits of clothing by a ailoress who came around regularly for the season's work at our house. My father's clothes were made of the same material. He had a nice broadcloth suit for Sunday and public occasions,
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but I think his ordinary suits were cut by a tailor and made up by the tailoress. With this plain living we had a most healthful and inspiring mental life."
Very much in line with the rest of his life work was "Old Red College" as his boys called the school, conducted by Edward Hooker next to his home on Mountain Road, where boys came from the south and southwest as well as from neigh- boring towns, to be prepared for college, or public or profes- sional life. There were usually twelve or fifteen boys, all from well-to-do families, living in the old family farmhouse, painted red, hence the name, and the boys in their fine clothes and shoes, made themselves conspicuous at all times, whether in church or at private homes, where they were welcome.
In 1816, plans made during the past twenty years for a higher education for the village children were perfected and an acad- emy building was erected by an association of Farmington gentlemen who contributed one thousand dollars, to which the society added seven hundred, thereby acquiring an interest in the building, for a lecture room. Edward Hooker willingly offered to close his school in favor of the Academy, and "Old Red College" was soon demolished to make room for the Female Academy, later the first school house of Miss Sarah Porter's school for girls in 1844.
The academy, now removed to the rear of the meeting-house green, was erected in March, 1816, and opened with Mr. Epa- phras Goodman as principal, who was succeeded in 1823 by the long known and honored Deacon Simeon Hart. Along with great success in inspiring boys and girls to learn their Latin, Deacon Hart gave them great good times, for they had school exhibitions, dramatic performances and parties with cake and wine, ending, as one young lady wrote "When that was through the scholars who had been engaged during the evening with speaking, formed a semi-circle on the stage and Mr. Porter stood in the center and made a prayer, which closed the exer- cises for the evening."
No more faithful Deacon did the Rev. Noah Porter have, nor more devoted friend and counselor than Edward Hooker. So much has been written of Noah Porter and of his sixty years
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of service as pastor of the church here, that nothing can be added here, except, perhaps, to quote from John Hooker's Rem- iniscences, in order that such quotation may be made more easily accessible than it now is:
"It is remarkable fact that Dr. Porter was a Farmington boy, and his first settlement was here in his native town, and here he continued his pastorate for over fifty years, dying here in a good old age, and buried here among his people. He was a great man; not an orator, but a thinker, a calm, clear-headed, self- sustained expounder of Christian truth. If he had been a lawyer, he might have made a great chief justice.
"It was the day of doctrinal preaching, and I once heard Dr. Porter say to my father that he intended to preach one doc- trinal sermon every Sunday. There were then two regular ser- mons in the forenoon and afternoon of Sunday, and an extem- poraneous address in the evening; a pretty severe demand upon both body and brain of the preacher. My father was very fond of Dr. Porter, and for a great part of his life was one of his deacons."
Nothing could give a clearer picture of the fineness of work- manship, or the clarity and honesty of thought which charac- ized all of Edward Hooker's life, than the records he kept in the five years in which he served the town of Farmington as town clerk.
The writing varies in size, shading and slant, not because of variation in character, but as an accent to the subject being recorded. Its perfect formation and legibility never varies and the methodical recording, with marginal notations, is well worth exhibiting and always draws forth exclamations of ad- niration.
Edward Hooker was elected town clerk for his first term on November 17, 1823, with General Solomon Cowles chosen moderator of the meeting and later elected town treasurer. Taxes were still heavy, the rate for that year being set at seven cents for general town expenses and an additional two cents or maintenance of highways. That would mean that today, vith that tax, an automobile assessed for one thousand dollars would bring a tax of ninety dollars. But property was assessed
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Farmington Town Clerks and Their Times
relatively low, the grand list for that year being but compara- tively few dollars for each owner and thereby making a tax actually paid but a few dollars. Then there was always the privilege of "working out" the highway tax if one preferred that way of paying the two-cent assessement.
At the first town meeting of the term of Edward Hooker as Town Clerk, the selectmen chosen were Horace Cowles, who was to succeed Edward Hooker as Town Clerk, Sidney Wads- worth and George Norton. A vote passed at that meeting was the forerunner of a great industry of the town for at least over a hundred years to come, being the beginning as it was, of the great paper mills, felt and cloth factories, nut and bolt and box shops which furnished Farmington with its principal indus- tries to the present day, and laying the foundations for fortunes, enjoyed long after the factories themselves had been replaced or removed by the exigencies of time and new demands.
It was "VOTED, That James and Augustus Cowles & Thomas & Joshua Youngs be permitted to build a raceway across the road running from the Litchfield road to Perry's bridge so wide as shall be necessary for manufacturing and other purposes, on condition that they shall build and keep in constant repair bridges and embankments across said raceway of sufficient height & width to accomodate the public travel and transportation; provided also that the said Cowles and Youngs shall enter a bond to the acceptance of the selectmen - to secure the town from any expense of other bridge or embank- ment so long as said raceway is continued.
"Voted also that the selectmen be authorized to alter said road to accomodate said raceway provided said alterations be made at the expense of said Cowles & Youngs."
And at a later town meeting held November 28, 1828, several votes were passed empowering the selectmen to lay out high- ways in the vicinity of Perry's bridge, one northward from Perry's bridge to Litchfield Road; one from the bridge to Samuel Butler's; and two roads discontinued - one from the bridge to John Isham's and one from the bridge southeastward : to Abe Parsons'. It was voted to discontinue the bridge over the Farmington river near the house of Rufus F. Hawley, and
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Edward Hooker
that the selectmen take immediate measures to discontinue the "old Northington Bridge and such parts of the Highway con- nected therewith as may be dispensed with."
The townsmen were having their troubles with the Farm- inton Canal Company also, as the following vote eloquently shows:
"Voted that the Selectmen be authorized and directed to give immediate notice to the F. Canal Co. that some of the public roads of this town, by the interference and procurement of said Company, are impassable, and others nearly so; - and require the said Company to put the same in good repair immediately Voted, further, That in case the said Company neglect or refuse to put said roads in repair within a reasonable time, after the aforesaid notice shall have been given, the selectmen are hereby directed to repair the same immediately, keep an account of the expense, and take measures to collect said expense from the said Canal Company
"Voted; That the Commissioner of Roads be instructed to except, in the contracts made by him with individuals for the repairs of roads all Canal Bridge embankments and all such parts of the roads as have been interfered with by the Canal Company, until the same have been accepted by the town."
At this time a new bridge was badly needed over the Farm- ington river in Farmington village, and the selectmen were authorized and directed to procure such material as might be required to build the bridge and preserve the same to be ready for use when such rebuilding could be done, provided however, that if in the meantime, the Inhabitants of the North Society should be incorporated into a separate town within one year from date, their proportion of the expense incurred in building the new bridge should be refunded to them.
A memorandum made as a foot-note by Mr. Hooker tells us that an informal vote taken relative to the establishment of the town of Avon at that time showed that of the persons pres- ent at the meeting, all residents of the proposed new town, fifty-nine were for and forty-four against dividing the town.
However, on May 6, 1830, at a town meeting held for the
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special purpose of considering certain petitions and memorials, Mr. Hooker makes the following entries:
"A Memorial was next read, signed by about One hundred and seventy of the inhabitants living in the north, northeasterly, and northwesterly parts of Farmington, petitioning the Gen. Assembly that Northington Society, together with the tract of country east of the mountain, contiguous to Windsor and Hart- ford, and also the principal part of Union District, in the first Society, may be incorporated and formed into a new town - Whereupon, Voted, that measures be taken to oppose the granting of said petition. Aff. 61-Neg. 50
"Voted - that an agent be appointed to oppose the petition Aff. 61, Neg. 51.
"Voted - that Timothy Pitkin Esq. be requested to officiate as agent in this business. Aff. 63, Neg. 38."
But at the next recorded meeting it is recorded that "Ezekiel Cowles, Horace Cowles and Solomon Cowles be a Committee to join Committees from Hartford and Avon, for the purpose of running new lines beteen Farmington and those towns.
"Voted - that Timothy Pitkin, Horace Cowles and Noah- diah Woodruff be a Committee to join such Committee as have been or may be appointed by the Town of Avon for the purpose of settling all claims and demands which may exist between this town and the town of Avon; - and adjusting all questions which may arise between the towns in consequence of the recent participation of the old town of Farmington; - agreeably to the bill in form passed by the Legislature of this state at its last session; - with directions to report at a future meeting."
On February 28, 1831, a special meeting considered the ad- visability of a new bridge in Farmington village with or without a covering. The record reads:
"The Committee of three, appointed at the last meeting on the subject of bridges, made a report, accompanied with ex- planations & estimates respecting the plans of various open or
- unroofed bridges, in which they expressed their preference of the plan of a bridge in the Town of Canton, known in this vi- cinity, by the name of The Canal Bridge Plan. - On a motion for acceptance there was an animated discussion of the subject
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Edward Hooker
during two or three hours; chiefly in reference to the main points in question viz: - piers or no piers - roof coverings or no roof coverings - after which the question of acceptance was decided in the negative - (Aff. 58 - Neg. 75)"
In April 1832, the subject of assessing property of the town was one of great moment. Lectures on the subject were given and it was discussed wherever two or three gathered together. For many years taxes had been mounting until for the past twenty-five years, seven, eight and nine cents on the dollar had been laid and with the most moderate assessment, the load of taxation was becoming unbearable. Mr. Hooker records that April 2, 1832, Sidney Wadsworth, Henry Lewis and Roderick Stanley were elected assessors and Horace Cowles, Joshua Youngs and Egbert Cowles members of the board of relief, and the town clerk tells us in a foot-note that sixteen ballots were necessary to accomplish the foregoing six elections.
Two items were considered at a town meeting held Novem- ber 30, 1832.
The first item was to hear a report of progress of the com- mittee appointed to consider allowing certain persons to erect horse sheds on the public green.
The second item reads "Voted; that the Selectmen be au- thorized and directed to allow and pay at the rate of ten cents for each crow, which may be destroyed within the limits of this town - from this time to the first of June'next."
Edward Hooker's last entry followed the record of a town meeting held April 3, 1833. In a foot-note he wrote:
"Memorandum: The Elections held at the meeting of which the preceding was an adjourned one in the preparation and progress, are supposed to have invoked a degree of party feeling and party organization rather beyond what has been common with us for some years past; and were probably somewhat con- nected with the party question which operated upon the State Elections held the same day - although it is probable that the differing views entertained among our citizens in regard to the principals & modes of assessing property, trades etc were kept in view in selecting candidates - Highest vote of successful ticket 113 - unsuccessful, 92."
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Farmington Town Clerks and Their Times
On April 1, 1833, Mr. Hooker recorded what was undoubt- edly the first history of Farmington. The committee, ap- pointed to report on horse sheds, consisted of Lemual Whitman, Ozem Woodruff and Asa Hawley. They traced with great pa- tience and care the right of the public to the land always known as Meeting House Green. They did this to justify their decision that the public or any part of it was entitled to the use of the land for legitimate purposes if it were not incompatible with the public good.
The meeting at which the report was read was specially warned and Horace Cowles, to be the next town clerk, was appointed moderator.
The Committee to whom was referred an application from certain individuals (on the 19th of last November) for au- thority to erect horse sheds on the Public Green, presented the following report:
"To the Inhabitants of the Town of Farmington in town meeting assembled: -
"The Committee appointed at a late town meeting to take into consideration the application of sundry inhabitants of said town for leave to erect Horse Sheds on the margin of the Meet- ing House green, - beg leave to report: - That the subject referred to them necessarily involves an inquiry into the right of the Town to control or dispose of the property, or the use thereof, in the tract of land known by the name of Meeting House Green - and this seems to embrace an historical inquiry into the titles of land in the Town of Farmington. - It is a principal of our law, that all lands in this state are subject to absolute ownership, by some individuals, body politic or cor- porate. ---
" 'The territory embraced in the original town of Farmington, was, about the middle of the seventeenth century, granted by the Governor and Company of the then Colony of Connecticut, to Eighty-four persons, known by the name of The 84 Proprie- tors of the Town of Farmington; - and whose names are re- corded in Farmington Proprietors' Records. - This territory embraced the present towns of Farmington, Southington, Bristol, Burlington, Avon a large part of Berlin, part of Hart-
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Edward Hooker
ford, Windsor, Canton and Wolcott, and perhaps a small part of Wethersfield and Middletown. - This territory was, by the said grant, absolutely vested in the said Eighty-Four proprie- tors, their heirs and successors. - They transacted the business relating to their interest in this territory, by rules and regula- tions voted and established at their meetings, - sometimes called Proprietors Meetings, and sometimes in town meetings. - They early disposed of the whole territory, either by grants or allotments to individual proprietors, in severalty, by reserva- tions of large portions for future grants, allotments or pitches, - by large reservations of lands for highways (not to be used as highways, as is generally supposed, but to constitute a fund, from the avails of which necessary highways were to be pur- chased, or obtained by exchange) and by smaller reservations, or, as sometimes called, sequestrations for common and public use. - Of reservations of the last description, there were three, in the present town of Farmington - viz: The Meeting-house Green, - The Round Hill, - and a tract of land between the First and Second Mountains. - Sundry votes and acts of the Proprietors and town meetings go to show that these tracts were protected from individual appropriation, with great vigi- lance. - By a vote of the Proprietors, at their meeting on the IIth of November, 1735, it appears that two persons, members of a Committee for laying out pitches upon the reserved lands, were dismissed from office for attempting to lay out a pitch, for themselves, on the Meeting House yard; - and that act con- demned and disapproved. - At a meeting of the proprietors on the 8th of March, 1736, a vote was passed, declaring in sub- stance, that the Meeting House yard, the common land about the round hill, and the common land between the first and sec- ond mountains, should not be taken or appropriated for indi- vidual or private use.
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