USA > Connecticut > Hartford County > Farmington > Farmington town clerks and their times (1645-1940) > Part 3
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One of Thomas Hooker's closest friends had been the Rev. John Wilson, who visited Mr. Hooker in Hartford and on sev- eral occasions the two friends had journeyed to Boston together, more than once traveling by way of Providence, rather than the equally circuitous Connecticut Path. Dr. Wilson was one of those Puritans who saw his duty clearly during the witch
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John Steele
horror in Boston, and interrogated children and grownups alike, carrying his sense of duty to the gibbet if he found it there. He and John Cotton saw eye-to-eye on the evil of witch- craft, but differed entirely on the wisdom of allowing Anne Hutchinson to preach. John Cotton said of her, "one well be- loved and all the faithful embrace her conference and bless God for her fruitful discourses." Governor Winthrop and Rev. John Wilson were actively and vehemently opposed.
Mr. Wilson had a son, John, whom he had brought to Boston with him on his second trip from England. The son John was a member of the first class to be graduated from Harvard college in 1642. He with his father visited at the home of Thomas Hooker in Hartford. Sarah, the youngest of the Hooker daugh- ters was the only one then unmarried, and in 1648 shortly after the death of her father, she and John Wilson, Jr., were married. Rev. Thomas Hooker had bequeathed Sarah one hundred pounds sterling. Their first child, John, was born 1649, dying in infancy. In 1651 John and Sarah Wilson moved to Medfield, Massachusetts, where he was ordained October 12, 1652, as first pastor of the first church there, serving as physician and schoolmaster as well as minister, until his death there in 1691. The date of his ordination was the day previous to the organiza- tion of the church in Farmington. Eight children were born to John and Sarah (Hooker) Wilson of whom John 3rd, born 1660, married his cousin Sarah Newton, daughter of Rev. Roger and Mary (Hooker) Newton.
Rev. John Wilson lived in Medfield on what is now the site of the Town Hall, as is engraved on the corner stone. During King Philip's War, Mr. Wilson wrote to the Colonial Court urging aid for Medfield, and although it was sent, it was too late to save many homes and lives. After the massacre, John and Sarah Wilson took into their home five wounded men whom they kept for twelve weeks and "most of the soldiery at several times, sometimes 3 score, 4 score" - the bill for which was ordered paid by the General Court of Massachusetts.
In the two and one half years from the date of his leaving Farmington and accepting the pastorate of the First Church in Milford, July 29, 1660, where he served until his death,
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Farmington Town Clerks and Their Times
Roger Newton was not only with friends, but was in close touch with the foremost preachers and teachers in Boston. Rev. John Wilson, Sr., had a new church and parsonage there, his son John, married to Newton's sister-in-law was within an hour's journey in Medfield - Rev. John Norton was teacher in the First Church and Rev. Samuel Hooker had married Mary Willet, daughter of Captain Thomas Willet, at Plymouth September 22, 1658, where he was preaching.
If Mr. Newton had his large family with him, they could have been accommodated at the Wilson home in Medfield, or on the ancestral grant in Braintree - a huge house in what is now the business center of Quincy, with acreage extending from Nantasket Bay to the Dorchester town line.
Another close friend of Thomas Hooker's, whose life was intimately connected with the Newton and Wilson families, was Governor Edward Hopkins.
A favorite tradition in Farmington which seems to be sub- stantiated, points to many of the early church gatherings being held in a house belonging to Sarah (Hooker) Wilson. Under a bequest in the will of Governor Hopkins, his farm in Farm- ington, consisting of a dwelling-house, barns, gardens, out- houses and ten acres of land, was given to Sarah Wilson. This farm was on the southwest corner of Meadow Road and Town Path now Main Street, where the homes of Wilmarth Lewis and Samuel Root now are. As Governor Hopkins died in London in March or April, 1657, this tenement or empty house, given to Mrs. Wilson at about the time of Mr. Newton's leaving Farmington, may have been the first church, the congregation having outgrown the average home and their pastor having left in September of that year. Sarah Hooker Wilson owned this farm until August 20, 1662, when she sold it to John Roote, whose descendants, without a break in the male line, owned it until December, 1941.
Governor Hopkins left under the terms of his will, in addition to the thirty pounds to the eldest child of Mrs. Mary Newton, "to Mrs. Susan Hooker relict of Thomas Hooker such debts as are due to her from me upon the account I left in New England, and to Sarah Hooker Wilson land in Farmington." Governor
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John Steele
Hopkin's generosity to the Hooker family and the fund for school purposes left to the town of Hartford showed his deep interest in the colony where he had been governor, after his return to positions of great influence and remuneration in London.
It would seem therefore entirely plausible that it was Roger Newton's intention to sail for England in connection with the settlement of Governor Hopkins' estate - the diary of John Hull showing that Mr. Newton had booked passage and was waiting for the next sailing. The ship, taking advantage of a favorable wind and departing without him, left him with friends and relatives until he accepted an invitation to the First Church in Milford in 1660. We may be sure that the two years intervening between the two pastorates were spent in further study and congenial companionship. His large library, the largest inventoried in the colony at the time of his death, attested his studious habits and his wide interests. Volumes in Greek and Latin, discourses on the books of the Bible, tales of travel, and treatises on domestic relations and home remedies made a list of over 200 volumes.
Roger Newton, in his will, left to his daughter Sarah, evi- dently a favorite in the family, his land in Farmington known as Bohemia, consisting of 150 acres situated in the vicinity of Bohemia Street in Plainville, also 50 acres of meadow and up- land, 10 acres in Pequabuck meadow, another parcel of 18 acres in that meadow and an equal undivided interest in land between Plainville and Southington held with Captain John Stanley. A month after Mr. Newton's death on June 7, 1683, his daughter Sarah married her cousin John Wilson, son of Rev. John Wilson and Sarah (Hooker). They went to Braintree to live in the ancestral home which had been granted to the first Rev. John Wilson. Mary (Hooker) Newton, wife of Roger, died February 4, 1676.
John Steele as Town Clerk entered in Volumes I and 2 of the Farmington Land Records, according to the order of the General Court, a description of all land owned by Farmington inhabitants, whether received by deed, by grant, or as an original proprietor, and whether resident or non-resident.
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Farmington Town Clerks and Their Times
This hard-won land was not held lightly by those who had bought and cleared it, as is shown by the careful scrutiny and rigid laws governing the admission of inhabitants and the sale of lands.
The township of Farmington had been formed by men and women of education, culture, intelligence and excellent family, having the necessary means for comfortable living, but who had found that "bread alone" was insufficient for their needs. They were congenial in their tastes and way of life, entirely agreed as to their religious beliefs and mode of expression, and as we see them now, most deeply motivated by the germ of democracy, brought to this country for cultivation and lived and preached by their leader and pastor Thomas Hooker, soon forever expressed in the Fundamental Orders. Farmington in those first years was only for those men and women who thought and lived likewise. Their object here was not that of personal riches nor the establishment of an empire for the gain of a few, but solely that of an opportunity to work out the system of government where "The Foundation of Authority is laid firstly in the free Consent of the People."
The word Democracy was not in their language as it is in ours today. But the Colony of Connecticut was working out an original system of government, as a separate unity, entirely free from attachment to any company or overseer proprietor.
When in 1645 the General Court at Hartford granted the charter to Farmington as a corporate town, many problems of government which had confronted the river towns at the expiration of their first year under Massachusetts authority, had been solved, and were already defined by the General Court. Laws for the actual management of town affairs were few, the town of Farmington "to have like libertyies as the other towns upon the River for making orders among them- selves provided they alter not any fundamental agreements settled by the said committee (Court)."
Under the orders of the General Court the only officer re- quired by the town was the recorder or town clerk. The town had the privilege of choosing such other officers, with their number and term of office as they might decide among them-
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John Steele
selves. However, Mr. Steele as recorder was required by the laws of the Colonial Court to record each man's land and make a copy for the Secretary of State. The town clerk was also re- quired to record vital statistics as they were brought to him. Alas, no law required ministers and physicians to make returns as today, and marriages, births and deaths occuring far from the convenient center of the town were seldom recorded, much to the distress of their descendants. Mr. Steele was also chosen clerk of the body of proprietors as the necessity arose to dispose of the great undivided lands in the Town.
It is interesting to inquire into the processes by which the first settlers established and maintained government.
The inhabitants, either original or admitted - as defined in the Constitution of 1638 - were the first settlers, who were householders with an active sense of the responsibility of es- tablishing and maintaining government. They were, of neces- sity, the only ones at first qualified to choose their own town officers and vote at town meetings and had, therefore, a legal status. If a purchase price had been paid for the land the inhabi- tant had shared in this cost, or if no such price had been paid, he contributed through taxation to the cost of government. The legal inhabitant was the seed from which the organization of the town was grown, the very essence, in early colonial times, of democracy. He was not, necessarily, a proprietor or a free- man. An inhabitant who took the oath of fidelity had the right to vote for the deputies to the General Court.
In order to fill the office of deputy, or to vote for the magis- trates and Colonial officers, he must take the freeman's oath, subject to the approval of the General Court. Only a freeman might enjoy the full franchise.
Many of the original inhabitants of Farmington had been made freemen before settling here.
To sum up: an inhabitant, original or admitted, took the oath of fidelity much as we today take the oath after examina- tion for being made a voter. Deputies to the General Court were chosen by the inhabitants and were equivalent to our representatives. The deputies chose the Governor and the six Magistrates, who made up the General Court. After election,
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Farmington Town Clerks and Their Times
the Court had the privilege of adding to their number as many as they might consider requisite.
The necessity of forming the body of proprietors was due to the fact that the inhabitants, original owners of all undistrib- uted lands in their town, had under the Constitution of 1638 made over to the General Court their inherent right to dispose of these undistributed lands. On October 10, 1639, this privilege was restored to the inhabitants of the three towns then in exist- ence upon the river (Hartford, Windsor and Wethersfield), this right of course extending to Farmington upon its incor- poration. The proprietors of the town were the direct result of this need of an organized body to make distribution of the vast area of woodland, meadow and mountain within the limits of the town. This distribution was eventually made by rating each man's property and making a proportionate distribution from each of the divisions in the township.
One can well understand that this took many years to accom- plish, if a drive is taken around what were then the boundaries of the original town of Farmington. The realization of the diffi- culties of those years will make it easier to understand that the proprietors could at first plan only the divisions nearest home - and the wide highways, later a source of great revenue to the town. More will be given concerning the eighty-four proprietors and the several divisions of the town in a later chapter.
To get back to John Steele. He was baptised at Fairsled, Essex County, England, December 12, 1591, and was probably born there. He was in Dorchester in 1630 and in 1634 was made a freeman in Newtown in Massachusetts Bay Colony. He was a prominent member of the advance band which led the way to Hartford in 1635 to prepare the settlement for Rev. Thomas Hooker and his "flock" the following spring. He married Rachel Talcott, sister of the socially and politically prominent John Talcott. She died in Farmington in 1653. On November 25, 1655, John Steele married Mercy, who had been for one month the widow of Richard Seymour of Hartford. John Steele died No- vember 25, 1665, it being the tenth anniversary of his marriage to Mercy. He left a grandson John, the son of his own son John
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John Steele
who had died in Farmington in 1653, the same year as his mother Rachel, a son Samuel and two daughters who married respectively William and Thomas Judd.
His will reads as follows, giving us a very clear picture of his taste in home and furnishings:
I, John Steele, of Farmington, being stricken in yeares and weakness, doe see necessary to set on smal occasions in ye world at a stay. I give to my wife Mercy Steele the house wherein I now dwell. I give to my son Samuel Steele a silver bowl, wch was mine own, Marked with three Silver Stamps and an S. all on the upper end of the bowle. Also, I give unto my son Samuel one half of all my Books, also my gold scales and weights belonging to ym, All which particulars I give to my son Samuel and his heirs forever. And to avoid other trouble of other conveyances of house and land to my son Samuel Steele of what I gave him at his marriage with Mary Boosy, I here express it that as then I did so here I doe give and bequeath unto my son Samuel Steele a parcel of land with a tenement standing on it wch parcel of Land contains by estimation two Acres, abutting on the highway east and River West, and William Judds Land south and John Steeles land North; As also a smal parcel of Land on wch his Stillhouse stands, Containing by estimation nine roods. I give and bequeath unto my two sons-in-law, William and Thomas Judd, my now dwelling house, and barn, Home lott, yards, Garden, orchyard thereto belonging, to be equally divided betwixt the aforesaid William and Thomas, to them and their heirs forever, to enter possession immediately after myne and my wives departure out of this natural life. Further, my Will is that a few things Should be disposed to my Wife Children and grand Children: To my Wife, two small Silver Spoones and some small matter of linnen; And to Mary Judd, one piece of gold; And to Sarah Judd, one piece of gold; and to John Steele, son of John Steele deceased, one Silver Spoon; and to Samuel, son of John ye said John deceased, one Silver Spoon; and to Benoni Steele, one Silver Spoon; and to Rachel, Daughter of Samuel Steele, one Silver Spoon; to be delivered to them at their marriage by my son Samuel Steele. But my wife and two daughters shall have theirs imme- diately after the departure of my natural life. My sons-in-law, William and Thomas Judd, Executors. Samuel and James Steele to be Overseers.
Witness: James Steele Samuel Steele
John Steele
The silver spoons and bowl, and the house and barns have long since disappeared and returned to the same dust as their owner. John Steele's last resting place has no monument - indeed, we cannot be sure as to his burial place. It may be in the old burying ground on Main Street, and it may be in the first burying place overlooking the river, where the Indians and some of the first settlers were buried. But his work is a much more fitting and worthwhile memorial than one of stone might have been. With no precedent to guide him, he kept legible and careful records of the business of church and state and town. His own personal record is one of justice and service in a new country when the future was as a ship in the wind of
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Farmington Town Clerks and Their Times
fate - depending on men like him for a true course and a safe landing.
The family he founded in this country have proved in every generation to have the same qualities of courage and almost unconscious habits of loyalty to duty so constantly expressed by his life.
T H E
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S G O
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William Lewis
1665-1690
AFTER NEARLY fifty years of continuous usage, the "ould book" in which were recorded town votes, land grants, town commit- tees and officers, was "worn out" and those things considered of importance were from time to time, as the occasion arose, transcribed out of the 'ould book' into the new one, all this according to the first entry in Volume One of the Town Minutes, dated December 27, 1682.
This is of particular interest and importance, as frequently townspeople and visitors who have read the tale of the burning of the John Hart family and homestead, together with the Town Records, are vaguely disappointed to learn that not all of that tale is true, that no records were lost or burned, but all are safely and completely reposing in the Town Vault. There is no known reason as to why the records should have been in the Hart homestead at that time, as Captain William Lewis was then town clerk and would be the logical as well as legal custodian of them.
The burning of the Hart homestead in December, 1666, together with the death of John Hart and all but one of his children, was one of the major tragedies of all time in Farm- ington. The family lived just south of the present Mill Lane. This John was the son of Deacon Stephen, the original settler, who lived on the site of the red house on the north corner of Mill Lane. The Hart Genealogy states that the only member of the unfortunate family who escaped was the son John, who was attending part of the farm stock in Nod. He was eleven years old at the time and may have been at Hart Farm, with a farmer. He was surely too young to have been there alone.
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Farmington Town Clerks and Their Times
This Farm, known as Hart Farm, later as Old Hart Farm and now as Avon Old Farms, was a long way off in the year of 1666 for an eleven-year-old boy to be. But in that way he was saved, to become in later years the progenitor of a long and illustrous branch of the family, and the third town clerk of the town. We find however that The Hart Genealogy and the records of the town are at variance, as the records refer to the 'relick of John Hart inheriting the homestead where the house stood' - The Hart Genealogy stating that the wife and two children were burned to death. In his diary under date of February 11 , 1666-7, the Rev. Samuel Danforth, pastor of the First Church at Rox- bury, wrote: "Tiding came to vs from Connecticut, how that on the 15th of 10 m 66, Sergeant Heart ye son of Deacon Heart and his wife and six children, were all burnt in their House at Farmington, no man knowing how the fire was kindled, neither did any of ye neighbors see ye fire till it was past remedy. The church there had kept a Fast at this mans house 2 days before. One of his sons being at a farm, escaped this burning." The Rev. Simon Bradstreet of New London also kept a diary and in December 1666 wrote: "There was a house burnt at Farm- ington in Connecticut jurisdiction. The man, his wife (who was with child) and six children were burnt in it. The Lord is to bee feared because of his judgments. 129 Psal. 120."
It is not difficult to imagine the distress and horror of that night - the light from the blazing house, the alarm, the helplessness of the father, Deacon Stephen Hart, and the broth- ers and sisters who all lived near-by, the consternation and sorrow of neighbors and friends, many of whom were related by marriage to the Hart family. John's brother Thomas lived in part of the Stephen Hart homestead, his other brother, Stephen, lived on Mountain Road, his sister Sarah, wife of Thomas Porter, lived next south of the burning house, his sister Mehitable, wife of John Cowles, lived across the street, and his sister Mary, wife of John Lee, lived next north of the Hart homestead. The family of John Wadsworth lived in what was probably a newly built homestead where now stands the home of Adrian R. Wadsworth, this farm having been in continuous operation in the Wadsworth family since 1650.
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Captain William Lewis
There were the Bronsons, too, who had practically all of the land now bounded by Colton Road, Hatter's Lane and Diamond Glen Road and had the first sawmill on the side of the moun- tain where the brook comes tumbling down, and a house there so well built that it still stands. There were the Judds and Steeles, the Nortons, Newells, Thomsons and Smiths at the north end of the street, all doing their full share of building the town and rearing large families. In the center was the family homestead of Robert Porter whose homestead land has never been out of the family of his descendants and for nearly one hundred years has been the seat of all that is highest and finest in education.
The fire at John Hart's was attributed to unfriendly Indians and although the Colonial Court made every effort to find a cul- prit, no one was directly blamed. But more later of this boy John Hart, so early and tragically left without father, brother or sister. He was later a town clerk with a most interesting and useful life and family.
Three steps were uniformly observed by the settlers as they founded a new colony; first, a grant to them of the land from the recognized authority, secured by a patent from its reigning head; second, purchase of the land from the natives, whose actual title might be questionable but who were given at least a nominal compensation; third, possession. In 1650 Mr. Roger Newton, William Wadsworth and William Lewis drew one of the outstanding documents still, fortunately, preserved for us in the records. These articles of Agreement were signed by Pethus and Ahamo but not recorded until January 18, 1667. Possibly the agreement had been all of those years in the keep- ing of Captain Lewis, who, upon his election as town clerk, immediately made a permanent record of it. The agreement was confirmed May 22, 1673, with William Lewis' name again appearing as Register and reproductions on the record of the signatures of Pethus, Ahamo and many of the braves and squaws. This famous agreement, affirmed by the Indians, plainly re- minded them of the great advantages that were theirs, now that the English had come to live in their midst. Attention was drawn to the deplorable conditions in which they had
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Farmington Town Clerks and Their Times
existed before the coming of the white man; and their future homes, hunting and fishing grounds were well defined -- to all of which the Tunxis Indians agreed. Surely these forefathers of ours feared nothing but their God, and fearing Him, were unafraid of all else.
Many transcriptions were made from the "ould book", some as late as 1714. In that year town clerk John Hooker reported a large gap torn out of the top of one of the pages. About thirty- three extracts were made from this old book into the new one showing that it was in existence from 1648 to 1714. The tran- scriptions made were primarily of a pertinent or future nature. The election of officers was a past and gone event, with no rela- tive importance. Consequently we have no record of the elec- tion of many of our earliest town officers.
By 1667 the town was well established. Lewis' father, William Sr., becoming aged, had recorded eleven acres and a homestead in Farmington in 1650, on or near the site of the present Elm Tree Inn, and had probably been here many of the following intervening years. We first learn of William Sr. in Cambridge in 1635. In that year, in order that he might more readily sell his holdings there, he recorded two houses on Crooked Street, an acre on "Cowyard Rowe," four acres in "Wigwame necke," together with many other pieces of land. He soon sold all of this land for the purpose of accompanying Hooker to Hartford. How truly a founder he was. No sooner was a new colony founded than he and his associates moved on, further into a new wilderness. Always a permanent town was founded and left in excellent formative state when these pion- eers, surely urged by destiny, moved on. Such was the honor- able heritage from William "the aged" to his son, Captain William.
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