USA > Connecticut > Hartford County > Farmington > Farmington town clerks and their times (1645-1940) > Part 2
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For twelve years after the settlement of the town, the pion- eers here had no organized church, but we well know that they were not without religious inspiration and comfort during that time. While the first houses were being built they must still have attended Rev. Thomas Hooker's church in Hartford.
All that Farmington has stood for in the three hundred years of its existence - its very foundations - its traditions of sim- plicity and culture, are so interwoven with the life of Thomas Hooker - his principals of government - his preaching and practice of the freedom of the individual - and his immediate family, it would seem much to the point to assemble here some of the outstanding features in the life of this leader of Hart- ford's Founders.
Thomas Hooker's birthplace seemed to have been well- established, beyond doubt, until recent new correspondence was uncovered and published. With no attempt to settle here a matter of such importance, particularly in view of the vast amount of research done in England by some of the authors to
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be quoted herein, but with a desire to offer such information as is available, we journey to ancient England in Leicester county in the sixteenth century.
Centrally located in the county is the city of Leicester. About five miles west is the town of Markfield. Three miles north of Leicester is the small village of Birstall (sometimes spelled Bustall), "on the Soare, where is a pretty chapel in which be neither arms nor monuments," and eighteen miles eastward is the town and parish of Tilton. The parish comprises three other tithings, or towns, these being Marfield or Marefield, also variously spelled on the ancient records, Halsted and Whatborough. Marfield is in the Hundred of Goscote - Mark- field five miles to the west, is in the Hundred of Sparkenhoe.
This should sufficiently clarify the distinction between the two towns; but they have been considered by some authorities as the same. Today Marfield in the parish of Tilton has five houses - in 1600 there were six. The place of worship for this parish was the fine old church of St. Peter, built in the twelfth century. It was of gray stone, with a tower containing a peal of four bells and a lofty spire. Set up on a hill, it commanded a wide view of the hills and green valleys of Midland England. It was here that Thomas Hooker was baptised and received his early religious training and inspiration. The head of the Hooker family was of sufficient importance in the village and parish to be designated as "Mr. Hooker, Gentleman." How- ever favorably known in the village the family might have been, Thomas Hooker soon desired a more liberal education than that afforded him at home. He was admitted to the free school at Market Bosworth, some twenty-five miles to the west, where he prepared for Cambridge. Hooker was about eighteen years old when he entered the University where he was a student for seven years and a Fellow Resident some years more. Every man at that time was taking sides in the Puritan and anti-Puritan conflict, and Thomas Hooker was in the midst of this in his most impressionable years. That his reaction was toward non-conformist principles we gather from what Cotton Mather wrote, as he intimated that because of this, Hooker
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did not receive his degree of Doctor of Divinity, for which he certainly was trained.
This did not, however, prevent him from receiving and ac- cepting, in 1620, an invitation to preach at Esher in Surrey, where the living was donative, his patroness being the invalid and hypochondriac, Mrs. Joanna Drake. The living was a mere forty pounds a year. Here he met Susanna Garbrand, a relative and waiting woman of Mrs. Drake. They were married within the year. It is recorded in a small book, long since out of cir- culation, that the power of Mr. Hooker's preaching so im- pressed Mrs. Drake, that she recovered and lived out her life in a measure of happiness, having previously, however, worn out two other ministers. We see here, even in Hooker's early life, signs of the great power he was to exert over men in years to come.
Susanna Garbrand was born about 1593, a daughter of Rich- ard and Ann Garbrand of Oxford, England. Her father was one of four sons of Garbrand Harkes, a Protestant who fled from persecution in Holland to England about 1538 and settled at Oxford. There he dealt in books, music and manuscripts and became rich. His four sons and four sons-in-law were all grad- uates of the University. He dropped the family name of Harkes, using the given name of Garbrand. Thomas Hooker and Susanna Garbrand were married April 3, 1621, at Amersham, Bucks, England. Sometime after the death of Thomas Hooker in Hartford, on what was probably the sixty-first anniversary of his birth, July 7, 1647, Susanna married Elder William Goodwin, who had been for many years a close and faithful friend of the family. She died in Farmington May 17, 1676, at the home of her son, the Rev. Samuel Hooker. There is no known record of the place of her burial.
The recent dissenting note in what has seemed conclusive proof that Hooker was born in Marfield, recently came to light in the New York Genealogical and Biographical Record, Vol. XLIV, page 2, setting forth a deposition of the man Mrs. Hooker had engaged to attest Hooker's citizenship and ship his clothing to Holland, where Hooker was then residing for safety ..
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The deposition reads: "John Tarleton of the parsh of St. Olaves in the borough of Southwark, brewer, aged 46, deposes December 30, 1631, that in July last he, at the entreaty of Susan Hooker, wife of Thomas Hooker of Walthem in the county of Essex, preacher of God's Word, now resident in Delph, in Holland, did lade abord the Jacob of London, one small truncke of apparell contayninge, as he hath been informed by the said Hooker's wife, one stuffe gown, one stuffe cloake, one cloth cloake, three shirts twelle handkerchiefs, seven white capps, three ruffe bands, two falling bands, three payre ruffes, one payre stockings, one payre garters, one payre of shoes, and one or two sutes of apparell and two letters, which truncke of apparell this deponent, by direction of the sayd Mr. Hooker's wife, did consigne to be delivered to one Mr. Peters, a minister dwelling in Rotterdam, for the accompte of the said Thomas Hooker.
"And he also sayeth that the said Hooker was born at Bustall in the county of Leicester and is a natural subject of the King of England, and went into Holland in or about the month of June last and his wife and family still dwell within the parish of Waltham in Essex."
There is, of course, the possibility that Susan Hooker did not know where Thomas was born. We assume that she had some good reason for instructing the man to make affidavit as to Bustall. When Thomas Hooker's mother died in 1631 and his father in 1635 in Marfield, they had been residents there for many years. Thomas Hooker the elder owned land in Gaddesby and Frisbye, small towns about equally distant from both Bustall and Marfield. It is entirely possible that the Hookers lived in Bustall at the time of Thomas' birth. We can go as far back in Thomas' line as his father's father whose name was Kenelm (variously spelled, a frequent Digby family name), of Blaston. It is of further interest to find in Bank's Topographical Dictionary of English Emigrants to New England 1620-1650, that according to family records of the Hooker family, the English parish from which Hooker came to New England was Blaston. The New England Genealogical Register gives the Parish of Markfield as that from which he
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came. This we see would be incorrect, and confused with Mar- field. We find this constant confusion of Markfield with Mar- field. Hooker's brother John died in Marfield and his estate was settled in the probate court there. His sister Frances married Mr. Tarleton of London; two other sisters were Mrs. Pymm and Mrs. Alcock and a fourth sister, Dorothy, married John Chester of Blaby in county Leicester. After the death of her husband she came to Hartford where she died, leaving a son John of Wethersfield.
The first child born to the Hookers was a daughter, named Joanna, probably for their friend and kinswoman, Mrs. Joanna Drake. Mary, John and Sarah Hooker were also born in England, and two children who died there. The birthplace of Samuel was probably in New England as he was graduated from Harvard College in 1653 and would not have been over twenty years old at that time. Sarah is given as the youngest of the children in the Hooker family record, but she had been for five years the wife of John Wilson, when her brother was graduated. This would bring the birth of Samuel at the time of the Hooker family immigration to New England. A younger child died of the smallpox while the family lived in Newtown. This recent child-bearing may explain why Mrs. Hooker was carried to Hartford in a litter, on that pioneer journey. She truly was a fitting mate for her courageous husband.
Whether Mrs. Hooker and her children came to New Eng- land with Mr. Hooker does not appear. Cotton Mather tells us in his Magnalia that his grandfather, John Cotton, and Thomas Hooker boarded the "Griffin" incognito in 1633, that after an eight-week trip they arrived at Mt. Wollaston to join Hooker's company, most of whom had arrived the year previous, the entire company then moving on to Newtown in the Bay colony. In the spring of 1636 the family was in Hart- ford, in the comfortable house prepared for them on present Sheldon Street.
Two stories concerning Thomas Hooker are of particular interest: "On returning home, after his course of preparation for the ministry, he found his friends and townspeople in a great state of excitement over what was considered to be a
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haunted house. The house was a solitary one, standing on the outskirts of the town, and had been empty for several years, the owners being unable to rent or sell it, or even persuade a care- taker to live in it, rent free. Strange sounds were heard from the house at night, and lights were seen flashing from the win- dows, wierd shapes were seen by the terrified watchers passing to and fro within the house, and it was rumored that the Devil himself, in proper array, with horns, hoofs and tail, had been seen.
"This young clergyman, being of a bold nature, volunteered to sleep in the house and ascertain the truth of the stories. In spite of the entreaties of his friends he went to the house and to bed in a second story room, his pistols on a table by his side. The early part of the night passed quietly and he slept soundly, but by and by he was awakened by the certainty that some one was in the room with him. Sitting up he struck a light and there saw, glowering at him in the dim light the alarming figure of the Devil, standing motionless at the foot of the bed.
"Without an instant's hesitation our hero, seizing his pistols, sprang from the bed and threw himself at the intruder. The Devil turned and fled, the young clergyman after him. Down the stairs they went, through the house, until they reached the cellar stairs. Down went the Devil and his pursuer came tumb- ling after, reaching the ground just in time to see a square of light in the floor through which the Devil was disappearing. He grasped the edge of the trap door before it could be fastened and dropped into the subterranean passage, which opened out into a larger brightly lighted room. Here he found a number of men, engaged in making counterfeit money, and to his horror he recognized some of his friends and fellow townsmen, prominent in church and business. They all clustered about the breathless Devil and a hurried consultation was held as to what should be done with their unwelcome visitor.
"As soon as the latter had recovered his breath he said coolly : 'Gentlemen, it is publicly known that I slept in this house to- night, and if I do not appear in the morning, this house will be razed to the ground, and your secret will be discovered. If you will solemnly promise to cease this wicked work for ten
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years from this night, I will on my side solemnly promise you not to mention for ten years what I have learned to-night.' This was agreed to and Thomas Hooker then returned to his bed where he spent the rest of the night in peace.
"The next morning he reported that there was nothing un- canny about the house and that he had found everything much to his taste. "The house was soon after rented and nothing more was heard of the ghost stories. Time passed and the young minister joined the Puritans and came to America. When nearly eleven years had passed Mr. Hooker received from over the sea a package which contained a magnificent silver tankard with the inscription 'Compliments of the Devil.' The tankard has been handed down for many generations as a treasured heirloom."
The silver tankard was not a part of Thomas Hooker's estate. A great many Hooker descendants would like to know what became of it.
The other account is of Thomas Hooker's almost uncanny ability to foresee the future. Cotton Mather relates it in his Magnalia.
"These passages I quote, that I may the more effectually describe the apprehensions with which this worthy man (Hooker) took his farewel of his native country. ... 'Tis very likely that the scribe has all along wronged the sermon, but the words now referred to, are of this purport, "That it had been told him from God, that God will destroy England, and lay it waste; and that the people should be put unto the sword, and the temples burnt, and the houses laid in ashes." Long after this, when he lived at Hartford in New England, his friends that heard that sermon, having the news of the miseries upon England, by the civil wars, brought unto them, enquired of him "Whether this were not the time of God's destroying England whereof he had spoken?" He replied, "No, this is not the time; there will be a time of respite after these wars, and a time when God will further try England; . .. There will there- fore a time come, when the Lord Jesus Christ will plead his own cause, and the cause of them who have suffered for their fidelity to her institutions: he will plead it in a more dreadful
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way and break the nation of England in pieces, like a potter's vessel. Then a man shall be precious as the gold of Ophir; but a small remnant shall be left; and afterward God will raise up churches to himself, after his own heart, in his own time and way." God knows what there may be in this prediction.'"*
Ernest Flagg in The Founding of New England wrote: " ... Thomas Hooker was indeed if not in name the first Gov- ernor of Connecticut ... He was one of the great men of his time and would have been a great man in any time ... it is only within comparatively recent times that the full import of his work has been known . . . his fame will spread and he will receive his just place in the estimation of the people as one of the chief moulders of our institutions."
. Mr. Hooker was nearing forty years of age when, after twen- ty years of teaching, lecturing and preaching as a lay preacher, by invitation, he was formally ordained as minister of the gospel and pastor of the church at Newton, later the First Church of Christ in Hartford. The company of faithful follow- ers had planned and waited since 1629, in Chelmsford, Eng- land, for this day. From October 11, 1633, until July 7, 1647, the date of his death, Thomas Hooker led his people and his church in earthly and spiritual matters. He inspired the first courageous few who established the settlement at Hartford; he led his company through unchartered wilderness to his new home, and his ideals directly resulted in the Fundamental Orders and first Constitution of the Colony of Connecticut, now acknowledged the corner stone of American democracy.
As homes were completed and community life formed in Farmington, a leader for religious and educational activities was needed.
The logical man was at that time a member of the family of Thomas Hooker.
Roger Newton had arrived in New England about 1638. He was the son of Samuel Newton and of the same family as Sir Isaac Newton. Cotton Mather wrote of Roger Newton as. one of those young men who came to this country to be further
*Mather's Magnalia, Vol. 1, p. 341.
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educated at John Harvard's college. While studying there, Roger Newton heard Thomas Hooker preach in Cambridge, and was so impressed that the friendship which followed led to his being invited to the Hooker home in Hartford to con- tinue his studies there under the guidance of Hooker. In the household besides Mr. Hooker were his wife, Susanna, his three daughters, Johanna who married Rev. Thomas Shepard, Hooker's successor in Cambridge, Mary the eldest and Sarah, and his son Samuel. Two other daughters had died in child- hood, and another son, John, had remained in England. One can well imagine that Roger Newton found a warm welcome and cordial home there, and that to the family he was another son and brother. Soon, in truth, he became a member of the family, choosing Mary Hooker, that resolute girl who had cared for her mother on the long journey to Hartford, now com- memorated in marble over the front door of the State Capitol. and who had since been responsible for the household of the min- ister. They were married between 1643 and 1645 and their first child, Samuel Newton, was born and baptised there October IO, 1646. Governor Edward Hopkins in his will left 30 pounds to "the eldest child of Mrs. Mary Newton." Rev. Thomas Hooker died in 1647 and Roger Newton evidently brought his family to Farmington the following year, teaching here in 1648 and signing an agreement with the Indians in 1650.
One of the earliest land records made by John Steele shows a homestead in the name of Roger Newton, extending from the river on the west to the mountain (where now stand the homes of William Sheffield Cowles, Mrs. Harriet Porter, and Robert B. Coburn) and containing twelve acres, bounded on the south partly by Meadow Road and partly by the farm belonging to Governor Edward Hopkins, and the entire piece of land tra- versed by the Town Path. Here on the east side of the Town Path, with his young family lived Roger Newton, teaching a few children, leading the religious life of the community, conducting his farm and joining with other townsmen in treat- ing with the Indians concerning their hunting and planting privileges in the town and their reservation for living quarters. There is no record of Roger Newton's interest in his homestead's
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being conveyed to his brother-in-law, Reverend Samuel Hooker, but there Mr. Hooker lived during his thirty-six years as second pastor of the Congregational Church. The present home of Mrs. Harriet Porter is built on part of the foundation of the Newton-Hooker house.
During Hooker's lifetime, he conveyed land on the south side of his home lot to his son Nathaniel, who was married in 1698 to Mary Stanley. Two of Nathaniel's children were born in Farmington. He later removed to Hartford to live on a lot south of the present Center church, given to him by his father- in-law, Nathaniel Stanley. Nathaniel Hooker died 1711, leaving minor children and his father's estate still undistributed. By distribution of the estate of the Reverend Samuel Hooker, not completed until 1728, Sarah Hooker, daughter of Nathaniel, took all of the homestead where Samuel Hooker had lived and also Nathaniel's house and lot south of his father's home. In the distribution of Nathaniel's estate in 1713, "a begun house" stood on his land. This is part of the house now belonging to Robert E. Coburn.
Soon after receiving the property which had belonged to her father Nathaniel and her grandfather Samuel Hooker, Sarah married, in 1728, Daniel Edwards of New Haven. He was later Judge of the Supreme Court of Connecticut. In 1733, Daniel and Sarah Edwards sold the ancestral property to Captain Isaac Cowles and it remained in the Cowles family for about one hundred and forty years.
Although religious services were undoubtedly held in various homes, it would seem logical that the organization of the church was held in Mr. Roger Newton's house, as we know of no church until 1666, and then only as described in the records of land belonging to John Cole or Cowles as it was variously spelled. His homestead is described in the records, under date of January 22, 1666, as follows: "Land in ffarmington in ye Jurisdikston of Conekticut belonging to John Cowles & to his heighers fourever. One parcell for a hous loot with a mesuage or teniment standing thereon: with yards: orchards standing or being thereon which he bought of Thomas Dement, Con- taining by estimation five acres bee it more or less. Abutting
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on the highway Leading to ye south end of ye towne west: & Comon land to ye east: & comon land & ye highway to ye mill South: & on the meting hous Loot & land North. Through which Loot John Hart John Wadsworth & John Lankton are to have a hyway from the mill(Brownson's mill) hyway on that side next John Wyats hous Loot to their Land on the east side of the fformer parsell for themselves their heighers or assigns forever."
Under later date Samuel Cowles, son of John, recorded this land as his own together with four acres additional which he had bought of Thomas Dement. The description was similar so far as reference to the "meting hous Loot" on the north, with land of Thomas Bull (now the Bull lot) and the road leading up the mountain on the south. This highway has long been dis- continued, but ran east from present Colton street to the ledge of the mountain on the north side of the Bull lot. John Cowles married Mehitable, youngest daughter of Deacon Stephen Hart, and lived about on the present site of Hart House, home of Miss Rose Churchill.
October 13, 1652, the First Church of Christ in Farmington was formally organized with Reverend Roger Newton as its pastor, who with Deacon Stephen Hart, John Bronson, John Cowles, Thomas Thomson, Thomas Judd and Robert Porter constituted its seven pillars, or supporters. Stephen Hart and Thomas Judd were chosen deacons. One month later Mr. Steele was admitted to membership and chosen clerk. It was at this later meeting that Mrs. Mary Hooker Newton, daughter of Thomas Hooker and wife of the pastor, was admitted to the church, with Mehitable (Hart), wife of John Cowles, the wife of Stephen Hart and the wife of Thomas Judd, who was a daughter of John Steele. Anna (Welles) Thomson joined at this time also.
Roger Newton had, beside his eldest son Samuel, three other sons, Roger, Ezekiell and John (baptised June 5, 1656) and four daughters, Susanna, named for her grandmother Susanna Hooker; Sarah, named for her mother's sister; Mary, named for her own mother, and Alice, who was born in 1665. The five eldest children were born in Hartford or Farmington. Mr.
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Newton remained in Farmington as teacher and preacher until September, 1657, when at his own request he was dismissed. The following month, October, 1657, he was in Boston where he preached on several occasions, at least once for John Norton. Mr. Norton was teacher, 1656-63, in the First Church of Charlestown in Boston, under Reverend John Wilson, pastor 1630-67. Mr. Wilson was the first pastor of the church when it was organized in Charlestown in 1630 and moved with it and Governor Winthrop to Boston in 1632. The first teacher under Mr. Wilson was John Cotton, 1633-52. "The duties of the pastor were of private and public exhortation, and to administer the word of wisdom; those of teacher, were doctrinal and Scrip- tural explanation. In the present day they would be called colleagues." President Ezra Stiles of Yale said in his famous diary: "I consider the Rev. Peter Bulkeley of Concord, Mass., President Chauncey, Mr. Hooker, Mr. Norton and Mr. Davenport as the greatest divines among the first minis- ters of New England and equal to the first characters in theol- ogy in all christendom and in all ages."
In following, briefly, the life of Mr. Newton, we find an entry in the diary of John Hull, mint-master of Boston, he who coined the famous and rare pine tree shillings. He wrote: "Roger Newton went to Boston in October 1657 to embark for England. The Ship in which he had taken passage, with another for the same destination was detained several days by head winds, and he was invited by letter to town on a special service."
This leads us to wonder why Mr. Newton left his pastorate in Farmington. Two possible explanations come to mind. He had friends in the Massachusetts Bay Colony from his years at Harvard, his relationship and close association with Thomas Hooker and his marriage to Mary Hooker with the resulting connections.
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