USA > Connecticut > Fairfield County > Greens Farms > Greens Farms, Connecticut, the old West parish of Fairfield historical sketches and reminiscences > Part 3
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The Greens Farms streams are interesting. Sasco River rises up in Quasset in the northwestern corner of Fairfield, flows southerly between Merwin's Lane and Sturges Highway to Long Lots, whence it is the bound-
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COMPO COVE AND OLD TIDE MILL About 1885
Topography of the West Parish
ary line between Westport and Fairfield to the sea. Dead Man's Brook rises above Cross Highway and flows southwesterly, bisecting Roseville, skirting the Westport Sanitarium grounds, crossing Evergreen and Myrtle Avenues, the Post Road at Bay Street, and is swallowed up by the river near Imperial Avenue. Muddy Brook (Werrappamaucke), the present name being erroneous since its clear waters are from pure springs and rivulets flowing in from either side, rises near Cross Highway, meanders in a southwesterly di- rection across the whole of Greens Farms until it loses itself in the Compaug Creek that "runneth down through the salt meadows"; winding through Compo Pond, it enters the Sound where the old Tide Mill formerly stood. Muddy Brook probably got its name from the fording place where its waters unite with Compo Creek. Prior to the Revolution, when the church and the school were just west of the stream banks, the fording place seems to have been at the civic centre. The meanderings of the stream have been expensive to the town, for seven bridges have been necessary. Ever a stickler for style, the stream has demanded the latest fashions in bridges; within the lifetime of the writer they have changed from the stone of the Revolutionary period to the wood of the Civil War era, and later to the durable cement of the automobile age. In one of these new bridges is still preserved a part of the post-Revolutionary structure;
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Greens Farms, Connecticut
this is in the Morningside Drive bridge near the Greens Farms school. Near this is the point where Muddy Brook crosses the Post Road, where, on the north side of the highway, it is fed abundantly by a noted spring, Port Royal. This was a favorite drinking place for the scholars at the academy and for the West Long Lots district school for more than two generations. Up in the great swamp of the former Birge farm above Long Lots is another famous spring generously feeding the brook. This spring never freezes in the coldest weather, and there is reputed to be a bottle of whiskey somewhere in the depths due to a string-that broke.
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Early Industries
I HESE early farmers were largely stockmen, breeding cattle, sheep, horses, and swine. The strains were replenished by importations from the old country. The cattle were pastured in a town herd, the horses in the horse pasture, and the sheep were kept within fences near home. The farm- ers butchered and cured their own fresh beef and pork, and had fresh mutton and poultry and wild game. Salted beef and pork were the mainstays. A limited variety of vegetables and fruit, principally potatoes and apples, were the winter supply. The making of wool into clothing was one of the indus- tries of the women; another was the making of linen from flax. Hemp was also raised and manufactured into rope, sails, and men's coarser clothing.
In the fall cider making was a lucrative business; cider was a popular colonial beverage, possibly be- cause it was the only way to prevent the waste of so many apples. Nothing was wasted in the colonies, and apples were plentiful. Our soil has always been adapted to the growth of apples, although until quite recently the farmers usually set out their orchards on steep, remote side hills which made cultivation im- possible and harvesting dangerous, while the fertile
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Greens Farms, Connecticut
convenient flat lands were used almost exclusively, in the early years, for cattle.
It was good grazing ground, the many brooks sup- plied sweet water, and the salt meadows, self-fertilized, yielded bountiful crops of salt grass and black grass, both excellent cattle fodder in the winter.
At first it was feared that the rigorous New England winter would be a serious handicap to the cattle in- dustry, but liberally bedded down in yard and stable with salt hay, the livestock wintered in comfort, and by spring there were heaping barnyards of coarse manure. Even before the farmer knew the necessity of humus in the soil, in order to clear his cattle sheds he was re- turning to his fields a liberal compensation for the leaf mold which had been the wealth of the pioneer, and of which he had robbed the soil for his grain crops. Thus husbandry was developing from the time of the settler through that of his children and grandchildren.
During the post-Revolutionary period the farmer was clearing from his fields the rocks of the glacial age, and building a network of stone fences. From the outcropping ledges and stony hillsides he was able to pry out great slabs of flat stone which he used in build- ing water courses. When a house was to be built, the hearthstone was the first consideration. This must be ' a slab 6 to 9 feet long, from 3 to 5 feet wide, and if possible 6 inches thick, smoothed and shaped to fit the fireplace. Around the hearthstone the fire-
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Early Industries
place was built, and to one side, the bake oven. From this foundation rose the chimney, of stone in the old days, but later of brick.
There was a community spirit of co-operation among these early farmers, for they clubbed together in cut- ting and hauling logs for their houses and in digging out the rocks, in building the fences, the cart paths, and bridges.
For more than two and a half centuries after the settlement of Bankside in 1648 Greens Farms prospered as an agricultural community. Indeed during all this time it occupied a front rank in the contemporary agriculture of the state.
The early centre of population was around the Green or Common, sometimes called the Parade Ground, at the southern end of Clapboard Hill. Ac- cording to a United States geodetic survey map of 1835 this green appears to have extended in a south- easterly-northwesterly direction and was approxi- mately 250 feet wide by 750 feet long, or about two and one-third acres. The first schoolhouse was here built in 1703 and the first meeting-house in 1711. The last town-owned remnant of this historic common is the bit of land on which is set the Memorial Boulder. Why succeeding generations allowed this heritage of their fathers to slip from an indifferent grasp is some- thing to be wondered at. But this settlement was un- like most of the others. During the centuries following
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Greens Farms, Connecticut
there was never a well-defined centre of population or business, no "Main Street"-the mainspring of other towns-and-cities-to-be. The westward drift of population pulled the church and schoolhouse to Muddy Brook; then the church was moved still fur- ther north and the school was divided and scattered to meet new conditions. Only the church held the people together in a common band of union; that is why, largely, the history of the Congregational Church of Greens Farms essentially covers the activities, the joys, and sorrows of the entire parish almost down to the present time.
Until the Civil War there was no railroad station nor post office. Nearby villages on the harbors on each side gave adequate service in trade, and in pro- fessional service excepting that of the minister and of the schoolmaster. The following anecdote illustrates the rural conditions of the place:
Approximately in the year 1860 a candidate for the pastorate of the Greens Farms church came up from Brooklyn to preach. He and his wife were city bred, but because of their large family of growing children he sought a more rural atmosphere. Arriving here he found a well-filled church of progressive, responsive people, no doubt as wealthy a church as could be found outside of the larger towns in the State. He returned to Brooklyn very favorably impressed with his reception and the opportunity. His wife, after the
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--
REVEREND BENJAMIN J. RELYEA Pastor, Greens Farms Church, 1861-1888
GEORGE PENFIELD JENNINGS 1855-1933
Early Industries
manner of ministers' wives, anxiously inquired what sort of a place he had found. He liked his joke, and, putting on a long face, told her that there was just a lot of farmers, that there was not a lawyer nor a doctor in the community, nor a professional man of any kind whatsoever except the teacher of the acad- emy. There was no post office, no railway station, not even a store. Having let her down to these depths, he began painting the other side of the picture. The outcome was that he accepted a call to the church, and for twenty-seven years the Reverend Benjamin J. Relyea was the beloved pastor of the church here while his family developed as an integral part of the com- munity.
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Revolutionary Days
G ENERAL TRYON's raid and the burning of Fair- field, the 7th of July, 1779, was followed on the next day by the burning through Greens Farms from the Sasco River westerly along the Coun- try Road (now Greens Farms Road) to the community centre around the old green or common and the southern slope of Clapboard Hill. The Jesup Home- stead on the common was destroyed but the good deacon saved the church silver communion service by dropping the contents in a bag down his well. The Andrews house on the home-lot of Elmstead of six acres where the author lives was included in the burning.
Mrs. Eben Sherwood, who was an Andrews, related to me the following over sixty years ago about this house. Madam Andrews, whose husband was in the Continental Army, was alone with her children. She heard of the raid and burning. She turned her stock loose, saddled her horse, and, taking her young chil- dren, drove her stock up country. A reference is made to the burning of Mrs. Abigail Jennings's tavern. I have been unable to locate this tavern, but the public then by intuition could divine the route.
Continuing westerly along the Country Road, Doc- tor Hezekiah Ripley's homestead was the next to fall
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Revolutionary Days
to the British torch. After the raid was over, Doctor Ripley secured a barn frame all hewed and framed in Weston, and rebuilt his homestead, now the property of Mr. Howard Brubaker.
The parish records do not mention the burning of the meeting-house, but a vote was passed to hold ser- vices the coming year in William Burr's home on Long Lots Road, so this colonial meeting-house, which then stood just beyond Muddy Brook opposite the Colonial Burying Ground, was destroyed. In all, 15 dwelling houses, II barns, and several stores went up in flames.
Today we have no animosity that this parish meet- ing-house was burned by the British, but rejoice that the Stars and Stripes and the Union Jack float side by side standing for peace, civilization, humanity, arbi- tration, and Christianity around the world.
After the burning of the community centre around the green, the population spread out in various direc- tions throughout the parish, and since then there has been no well defined commercial centre.
Quoting from old records:
"A Fairfield town meeting October 31, (during the Revolutionary War) voted that there be a guard of 26 men to guard the town nightly, and every night to be set in the manner following, viz .: 4 to patrol from the Saugatuck River to Cable's Mill and from said Mill to Sasco River."
The following is a copy from the original impress,
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Greens Farms, Connecticut
which document has been handed down and is now in the possession of Arnold Schleat, Esq., the present owner of the Thomas Hill property at Compo:
"To Either of the Constables of ye Town of Fairfield- "Greeting
"Whereas Complaint hath this Day been made to me the Authority Subscribing by Nath'll Wilson Bar- rak-Master for ye town of Fairfield that the guard at Compo has no Barrak and that Doc't Thomas Hills house is ye Most Convenient place for Safty of said Guard and the Inhabitants-These are therefore in the Name of ye Governor and Company of the State of Connecticut to Command you forthwith to Impress the East room in said Hills house and Place ye said Guard in said East room and order ye Sarjent of s'd Guard to Improve ye same as a Barrak for said Guard ten Days from ye Date here of unless otherways or- dered fail not but of this Writ with your doings thereon Make-Due Return Dated at Fairfield this 25th Day of October A. D. 1780.
ABRA'M ANDREWS Jus. peace"
"The Returns from the Constable:
"In Fairfield on the 25th Day of October 1780 then by Vartue of the within Impress I impressed the East Room of Doctor Thomas Hills House at Compo for the Space of ten Days for the use of the Gard where
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THE NATHANIEL L. HILL HOUSE Showing the lean-to used as a barracks From a painting by John B. Morris, Jr.
SOU'EASTER, FROST POINT
Revolutionary Days
the Said Gard are Posted and Placed John Crosman thereas Sargant of the Gard to Improve the Same as A gard house for the Space of the Said ten Days. Attest Benj'm Rumsey Constabel fees and time Spent gs: Od Silver at 6s 8d pr ounce."
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The Fulling Mill
A s the country road, like a creeping vine, encircles the foot of Clapboard Hill, bud after bud of a developing community springs to life upon its fertile stem. First there was the church and school- house on the common, then the parsonage, which in those days was the Executive Mansion of the settle- ment, then the blacksmith shop, with the dwellings of the settlers interspersed between. Still westerly in its course around the hill is the ford of Muddy Brook where the brook enters tide water.
On the brook, just above the ford, another bud of the community life appears-a carding and fulling mill. The brook for much of the year furnished water enough for this incipient factory. The remains of the dam are still visible. As the blacksmith shop catered mostly to the needs of the men, so the mill for carding and fulling textiles was to lighten the labors of the women. The textile industry was largely a feminine responsibility.
I am able to confirm the location of this mill by an old record, which says: "In regards to the 'Fulling Mill' property conveyed to Stephen Wakeman, jr., 1414 acres at Greens Farms at a place where Gideon Hurlburt's fulling mill stood, bounded westerly by highway, southerly by the country road (West Parish
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The Fulling Mill
Road, near the present Greens Farms Fire House) and northerly on land laid out to Dennie Chapman. The Chapman land was conveyed by Dennie Chapman to John Phillips April 7 1774." A hundred years later the land of the northern boundary was still in the Phillips family for the writer remembers a Widow Phillips, still living on the property with her adopted daughter, Sarah L. Hyatt Sherwood, the wife of Judge Silas B. Sherwood.
Connecticut, as early as 1640, enacted laws encour- aging and regulating the cultivation of hemp and flax for cordage and clothing, and the improvement of sheep. In 1660 these animals were freed from taxes paid on other cattle, and the grounds were ordered cleared and fenced for their pasturage. Our early planters raised few sheep. The men clipped and washed the fleece, while the wives and daughters made yarn and wove the coarse fabrics on the hand-loom. The wool, after washing, was combed as straight as possible by hand-cards with wooden backs and wire teeth set in sole-leather. The wool came from the hand-card in a long soft roll, and was then spun upon the spinning-wheel, so much affected in the present day by the devotees of the antique. The large wheel caused a small spindle to revolve at great speed, and the spindle gave to the yarn the proper twist while the nimble fingers of the operator drew it out to the desired size. Then followed the weaving on hand-
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Greens Farms, Connecticut
looms, and the dyeing and fulling by hand. The long winter evenings were spent in weaving. Machinery was yet to come to give women leisure to improve themselves as they are now doing.
As time passed, while home spinning went on, to aid in the other textile processes, the men erected on water- power streams carding mills with the necessary ma- chinery to do the carding. Then followed the fulling mill, which also required plenty of water from the running stream. After it had been woven, the cloth was prepared in the fulling mill for the clothing manu- facture.
The technical explanation of fulling is: "a process applied to certain fabrics, composed in part or en- tirely of animal fibres. It shrinks, thickens, and makes the goods more compact. ... The process of cleans- ing and shrinking cloth by means of moist heat and pressure. . . . The object of fulling is to work the fibres so that the surface may not show the naked transverse threads, but form a felted mass. .. . " These carding and fulling mills did custom work for the farm- ers and lightened the textile labors of the women.
Fuller's earth is "a species of clay. It is usually opaque, very soft, and feels greasy. It is used by fullers to take grease out of cloth before they apply the soap." The old method of fulling cloth was to knead it with the feet, hence come our surnames of Fuller, Walker, and Trucker.
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The Fulling Mill
Flax was grown by every planter and required a variety of operations to prepare it for spinning-pull- ing the flax, washing, breaking, swingeling, hatchling, spinning, and weaving. All this is back of every piece of old linen.
Hemp was cultivated, and its growth and manufac- ture encouraged. Cordage and coarse sacking were made from it. But the methods of local handling seem to have slipped away into oblivion.
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The Eli Couch Cider Mill
W ITH our forefathers, when the corn was in the shock, the frost on the pumpkin vines, and the "honk, honk, honk" of the wild geese airplaning to the Southland, all politics were shunted into the cart rut, and the subject of cider- making was on tap. Cider-making and the merits of the different cider mills were talked about at all fire- sides, at the village store, and after church service around the horsesheds.
Our forefathers were a hard-working folk. Just look at the land cleared of stones and boulders and built into stone walls and now moss-covered for a century! They were thrifty, for they planted apple trees around their farmsteads. Many of these old apple trees are still standing and bearing fruit, al- though the homesteads are gone as well as the de- scendants of the early families. One variety of apple was the Pound Sweet, taking the place of bananas as now used. When those Sweets were baked in the old brick ovens, the juice oozed out, and in the process became a delicious syrup. Others were Fall Pippins, as large as your two fists, yellow and juicy, and equal in flavor to the McIntosh Red and the English Rus- sets; they were long-keeping and added flavor to the cider. Buck Meadows, sometimes water-cored, but
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Juan BaMorris Ir
THE ELI COUCH CIDER MILL
From a painting made especially for this volume by John B. Morris, Jr.
The Eli Couch Cider Mill
with a flavor of the meadows, the bakers of a spicy taste, and later our prized Baldwin and Rhode Island Greenings completed the story. Such apples made the cider. The housewife boiled down the cider for culinary purposes, one of which was the making of apple butter. All honor to our Connecticut mothers who showed their independence and thrift by using boiled cider in place of imported brandy in flavoring their mince pies, or using the home-made wooden nutmeg in seasoning their pumpkin pies.
One of my earliest recollections was a cider mill then owned by the late Eli Couch of this place. It was located on West Parish Road near Center Street. If the Federal or Third Meeting-House, built just after the Revolutionary War, had occupied the site as "staked out" by the Committee of the General Court of Connecticut, the two would have stood side by side.
This cider mill was under a circular roof, some 30 feet in diameter, with a centre post for support. A circular water-tight trough was built around this sup- port, resting on the ground. This was about 25 feet in diameter and one and one-half feet in depth and width. A wooden wheel some 5 or 6 feet in diameter rolled around in the trough on the axle or sweep; the other end of the sweep turned around the upright support. A horse was hitched to this sweep and driven round and round. The apples were put into the trough and the wheel, in its rotation, crushed the
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Greens Farms, Connecticut
apples into pumice, which was left until the next day and then put into the press. The laying up of the cheese of apple-pumice with rye straw for squeezing was an art.
The older connoisseurs always said the cider made by the above process was superior to that made in the mills, where the apples were grated or ground. I have heard old people refer to the cider mill as "the press," and I had the impression that the earliest squeezing of the cheese was by levers rather than by screws, but the late B. F. Bulkley, Sr., who has been in the mill business for years, says not. Mr. Bulkley has shown me the old wooden screws that were used in his cider press before iron screws were made.
A very old water-power and mill privilege was de- veloped on the Sasco River near the Post Road, which has long since been in the Bulkley family. In addition to the cider mill, the Bulkleys had a sawmill and machine shop, while at one time they manufactured saddle-trees. Some years ago when the sawmill was dismantled, Mr. Bulkley, then eighty years old, re- marked that that was the last of the sawmills in this community.
In this connection I want to mention the Batterson blacksmith shop, on the Post Road near Roseville, which appears to have continued the old original blacksmith shop conducted by Thomas Nash way back in about 1718, at the "Hot Hole."
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The Tide Mill at Compo
I N early colonial times many streams emptying into Long Island Sound were used as tide-water power sites for gristmills, especially if there were good-sized ponds or creeks to hold the water. Compo Creek was such a location; its outlet to the beach was protected on each side by higher banks of sand, thus making a dam where flood-gates were installed to al- low the water to flow into the pond, and when the tide ebbed the gates closed, keeping the water within the pond. Compo Cove where the mill was located was protected from the coast by Sherwood Point on the east, and on the south and southwest by Puggs Knoll, Hills Point, and Cedar Point, thus forming a safe harbor.
For fifty years the Bankside farmers had used the gristmills on Mill River, Southport, but as the settle- ment moved northward and westward toward the Saugatuck, the farmers saw the advantage of a mill in their neighborhood. Gallup Gap Creek and Compo Creek furnished a large pond for the mill.
In 1703 a Mr. Whitney was granted the right to build a mill on this outlet, but for some unknown rea- son he did not carry out the bargain. In 1705 the town of Fairfield entered into an agreement with Thomas Oakley. In September of the same year Mr.
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Greens Farms, Connecticut
Oakley sold out his mill rights to John Cable, who built the mill. This deed of transfer was not recorded until a considerably later date.
The following is a copy of the original record of Mr. Oakley's application and the terms under which he was permitted to build the mill:
TOWN OF FAIRFIELD (1705)
"Whereas the towns of Fairfield have granted lib- erty to Thomas Oakley of Westchester to erect a grist- mill or mills upon Compo Creek within the bounds of Fairfield upon conditions mentioned in the said grant.
"One, whereof, is he agrees to such articles with reference to said mill or mills as to situations and toll, and everything else proper to the premises, with us, Peter Burr, Joseph Lockwood, and Samuel Couch, as a committee appointed by said town for the affair, as may more fully appear by the records of said town bearing date, April 17th, 1705.
"Now know all men that the said Thomas Oakley hath agreed with us, the above committee, and does hereby covenant, promise and bind himself and his successors in the said mill or mills, to secure all such grain as shall be brought to said mill or mills by any inhabitant or inhabitants of the said town of Fairfield at all times, and grind the same seasonably before he or they shall grind for a stranger, into good, sufficient
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...
TIDE MILL AT COMPO Burned about 1895
From a photograph loaned by Judge Joseph Morton
WILL SHERWOOD'S YOKE OF OXEN
The Tide Mill at Compo
meal, taking only a sixteenth part for toll, also to keep the said mill or mills continually in good repair after the time mentioned in said grant for accomplishing the same, or, if the said mill be at any time out of re- pair he or they shall, as conveniently may be, repair the same again, or in case he or they fail thereof, the said mill or mills, or what shall remain of the same, the dam, and all other appurtenances of said mill or mills to be at the command of the said town of Fair- field, provided they will pay to him, the said Oakley, or his successors in the said mill or mills the value, thereof, and that the stream is not to be counted an appurtenance of the mill, but in case of the failure above mentioned the stream to be free at the said town's command.
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