USA > Connecticut > Fairfield County > Greens Farms > Greens Farms, Connecticut, the old West parish of Fairfield historical sketches and reminiscences > Part 5
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Morningside Drive reaches north to Long Lots Road along the easterly slope of Clapboard Hill. Rounding the corner to the south of Clapboard Hill is the old
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common and intersection of Beachside Avenue, the site of the Machamux Memorial Boulder. At this point the Morehouses, Grumman and Gideon, had their home sites. "Uncle" Samuel Craft, who was a lay reader in the Methodist Church, lived where the present parsonage property now is, and almost directly opposite and the other side of the road was built the house for the first minister of the parish, the Reverend Daniel Chapman, about the year 1715. A little further on at the "hot holes" Thomas Nash had his black- smith shop at the same early time. The corner lot opposite has been known as the clay hole. These three sites have been verified for me by William E. Smith of Southport, whose great-grandfather was Mr. Samuel Craft.
The Island Lane branches off to the left along the horse pasture to Sherwood Island. Here was the large Banks farm, now the Wynfromere Farm. To the right was the homestead built by my father, and later the property of the late Deacon Frederick T. Bedford, in 1864. The western end of Clapboard Hill here inter- sects the Country Road, and just to the west was lo- cated the home of our Revolutionary minister, the Reverend Hezekiah Ripley, now owned by Mr. Bru- baker. Around the hill on the side of the road- out- side the fence line, near Muddy Brook, was the old David Mills house, a landmark for three-quarters of a century.
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MORNINGSIDE DRIVE NEAR ELMSTEAD About 1900
The Country Road
Gideon Hurlburt's fulling mill stood just north of the bridge on Muddy Brook. The road to the north is West Parish Road. The Colonial Burial Ground is next on the left, and the Second, or Colonial, Meeting- House stood opposite the gate. Further along on the top of the hill the Wakemans established their home- steads. Petticoat Lane leads in a southerly direction to Petticoat Lane Point. Climbing again to the brow of Benjamin Hill, the road forking north is now known as Prospect Avenue. The Country Road continues in a southwesterly direction until it meets and crosses Hills Point Road, on which the Rumseys and the Guyers had located, while southerly the Sherwoods at the Tide Mill, and at Hills Point the Hill family were the earliest settlers on the southern slope of Compo Hill, then known as Compo Neck.
The Country Road continues westerly, where the Disbrows had their home-lots on the northern slope of Compo Hill. At the foot of the hill Valley Road comes in from the north. At this intersection the Compo School was located for many years until it was merged with the school on Bridge Street, now known as the Saugatuck School. And so the old road me- anders, winding in and out until it meets Ferry Lane and on to the old ferry at the Saugatuck River. Much of the land at this point in the early days was owned by the Allens and the Grays.
This Country Road from Sasco River to the ferry
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at Saugatuck was the great highway for all the coast towns along the Connecticut shore. Over Prospect Avenue to the ford at Sasco, General George Wash- ington was escorted by Reverend Doctor Hezekiah Ripley, in 1775, when the General rode through Greens Farms on his way to Cambridge, Mass., to take charge of the Continental Army.
In 1745 the May session of the General Assembly at Hartford "grants to Matthew Disbrow of Fairfield the liberty to keep a ferry and build a tall bridge across the salt water river (Saugatuck) between Fairfield and Norwalk, at a place called the Narrows at the great rock, to be for horse and load and also for a single horse, ox or cow or other meat cattle, 8 pence old tenor or 4 pence in like tenor for single person. Ferry to begin at or before Ist. June 1746."
This ferry continued for many years; the bridge, however, was never built. A hundred years after the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad agreed, with the town of Westport, to maintain a foot bridge alongside of the train bridge.
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A-Courting
A" FEW years after the uniting of the old West Parish of Fairfield with that section of the colonial town of Norwalk to the west of the Saugatuck River which was set apart by the General Court of Connecticut as the town of Westport in 1835, the old feuds that had existed so long about the "divi- dend" line between the two colonial towns were to be smoothed out. A prosperous proprietor's son, Wil- liam Scribner, living on Indian Hill, Saugatuck, one evening donned his Sunday best; a-courting and a- wooing he would go. He tracked down to the old ford of the Saugatuck River. From the corner of his nautical eye, the old ferryman divined the young man's intentions without any questioning, for was not the old ferryman acquainted with all the goings and the comings of the inhabitants?
Reaching the east side of the river, the ferryman eased the young man's nervousness and said he would moor the boat to a large iron ring in the rock (which ring can still be found) so that he could ferry himself back during the night without calling the ferryman. Following down Ferry Lane and along Compo Road, William was intent on courting Mary Hill, the sister of my mother, down in the old Hill House on Hills Point. These visits continued until he won Mary; they
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settled down on a part of the farm on Compo Road below the Minute Man.
Then came the great westward movement in the early fifties. They sold their farm in 1850, packed their household goods and family Bible, and entered upon the great adventure. The route was by steam- boat up the Hudson to Albany, by railroad to Buffalo, and by steamer on Lake Erie, up Lake Huron, and down Lake Michigan to Milwaukee, Wisconsin; then by covered wagon some eighty miles, until they finally came to Rosendale, where they helped to form a new community and church, and to build a state. This is only one example of many others who have gone out from the various paternal homes in New England to build up the Great Middle West with Puritan char- acter and ability.
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The Railway
A™ BOUT 1846 a railroad was projected from New York to New Haven. Westport, true to the independence of thought and action of its Bankside fathers, in town meeting instructed its rep- resentative in the General Assembly to oppose the granting of the charter. No iron horses for our fathers! But more far-seeing men sat in legislation, and the project was viewed favorably, and a charter was granted. This single-track road was opened for ser- vice on December 27, 1848.
Two surveys of the town showed the present route the best, there being less hills to cut through. The upper survey was near the present Post Road. It was a wise choice, for crossing the Saugatuck River near the old ferry there is a surpassing marine view down the harbor, and after passing the cut at Compo Hill, Compo Mill Pond opens out with its Tide Mill and a broad outlook on the Sound. To the south are Gallup Gap Creek and the old horse pasture, and the exten- sive outlook across the meadows and the Sound to Long Island.
Here three highway bridges over the railroad were necessary in a distance of 500 feet. These were named the "Tri-bridges." The west one was for the cart path running down Long Hill to the salt meadows; the
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middle one for the present Shore Road, and the east bridge connected with Turkey Hill Road. Looking out from the train now one can see the shore line from Burial Hill eastward to the bluff where the Bankside farmers settled, the Indian lands now the site of wig- wams too grand to be within the bounds of Indian imagination. This stretch of railroad, some four miles on to the Southport harbor, helps to give the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad its name of the "Shore Line."
At the time when the railroad was being graded in 1848 there was a large influx of Irishmen as laborers on the line. The work was largely hand labor with pick, shovel, and wheelbarrow. During the years 1852-1853 the road was double-tracked.
Right here in Greens Farms was a logical place for a station, but the community continued agricultural with no centre or country store. The farmers con- tinued to go to Southport or Westport to get their mail, to trade, and to replenish their demijohns with gin, for Mrs. Abigail Jennings' tavern was no more.
About 1870 the farmers clubbed together and graded for a Greens Farms station, located south of the tracks between the Turkey Hill Road and the Shore Road bridges on the property of the old green. The railroad built the station; the same building now serves as the westbound station, having been moved to its present site when the road was four-tracked, between the years
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The Railway
1889 and 1897. For that event the building actually "rode on the cars," for it was transported on flat cars from the old site to the new. At the time of four- tracking, by agreement between the town of Westport and the New York, New Haven and Hartford Rail- road, all grade crossings were eliminated, and over- head bridges or underpasses were provided. Between the Saugatuck River and Sasco Creek, the original boundary of Greens Farms, seven overhead bridges and two underpasses had to be constructed.
The New Haven Railroad instituted in 1876 through train service from Washington, Philadelphia, and on to Boston, ferrying the whole train of cars around New York City on the steamer Maryland.
At first Greens Farms was a flag station with Eben- ezer Baker in charge. On April 7, 1875, George E. Crossman was appointed agent; some six trains stop- ping each way daily. Mr. Crossman became the first postmaster, and his letter-boxes were made by a local carpenter-"pigeon-holes," two dozen of them-and placed in the ticket office. After the death of Mr. Crossman, in 1882, his son, Mortimer M., succeeded, and continued until pensioned, November 28, 1930. Now his son-in-law, M. Rudolph Robling, carries on the family tradition. The post office is now third class.
The blizzard of 1888 filled the cuts through Greens Farms to the tops of the banks, and was the last of the
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snow blockades to be dug out. Mr. F. C. Coley, Gen- eral Passenger Traffic Manager of the New Haven System, and an old friend, lends me the photograph for the picture appearing on the opposite page. The railroad was tied up from Monday forenoon until 6 P.M. on Friday.
A fourth improvement to the railroad was the elec- trification work begun in this section on June 21, 1914.
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1888
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GALLUP GAP CUT, 1888
By the courtesy of Mr. F. C. Coley, General Passenger Traffic Manager of the New Haven Ry.
Farming
F OR the first twenty years the Bankside farmers were busy making homes and settling down- "getting things started well" and firmly laying the foundations for a strong community. Their houses built and their home-lots fenced, they turned to the ground for food, first raising corn, rye, and peas. The General Court of Connecticut desired the colonists to grow hemp and flax; seed of the latter was distributed free, and each farmer was to sow a spoonful or more and to give the excess to his neighbors. But it was some years before the Bankside farmers did much seri- ous experimenting with it; their skepticism of anything new became proverbial. As a matter of fact, they were probably too concerned with the reliable meth- ods of making a living to gamble on uncertainties.
Their stock was marked and grazed together, the sheep were pastured in enclosures, and the horses were turned loose on the common horse-pasture on Sher- wood Island and land adjoining. Oxen did the team work and the horses were used for riding and travel, as there were no wheeled vehicles. The salt marshes afforded an abundance of salt grass, which stock will eat, and between the salt meadows and the uplands there is always a strip of black grass, and this, if prop- erly cured, the cattle will eat in winter and thrive on.
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Farming gradually progressed; English grasses were sown on fields newly prepared for cultivation, and mills starting over on Mill River furnished an incen- tive for the growing of rye and oats, despite the fact that the laws were very strict about tolling the farmers' grist.
The hills to the north were wooded, and in winter work on the timber proved lucrative. Pipe staves, four and a half feet long by three inches wide and a half-inch thick, were split for export. Boat building was also an early industry. At first timbers were hewed with a broadaxe or shaped by adz, but later the saw pit with a whip-saw came into use; one man on top of the log and the other below in the pit worked the saw up and down. Afterwards the sawmill was estab- lished for sawing logs, using the principle of the up- and-down saw.
The Bankside farmers had plenty of game and sea food; they did not have to depend solely upon the ground. This was fortunate, for they had large fam- ilies. But the children were an asset-they were early taught to be useful, to help with the chores, and to learn the household arts such as spinning, weaving, curing meats, and cooking. At the same time, their education was decidedly not neglected; lacking schools, they were home-taught and lost nothing thereby for the Bankside parents came of good, solid, intelligent stock from the shires of England, with a substantial
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Farming
background, and were capable enough of instructing their young.
There was little money or coin for business transac- tions. Produce was bartered or used in paying taxes. Prices were established by town vote. Prices of team work and wages for mechanics were set in the same way. Particular persons were appointed as tavern- keepers, and strict laws against drinking to excess were established by the General Court.
Very early, fruit trees brought over from England were set out. Later, the apples were developed into new improved varieties, and Greens Farms gradually, with characteristic caution, began to realize the possi- bilities of apple growing as a source of income. The Baldwin and Rhode Island Greening were, and still are, the most popular varieties. It is of interest to note that the first apple tree set out in the state of Ohio came from an orchard in this parish. An ancestor of the late Miss Laura Chapman (Miss Chapman was a direct lineal descendant of the first minister of this parish), carried a seedling from his farm in Cross Highway on horseback to his new home, a claim, in Ohio. It was carefully nurtured and lived to be very old.
The cultivation of land must have been crude in these early days. Farm tools were primitive. A cast- iron plow and an "A"-shaped harrow, with teeth of wood two inches in diameter, were the principal tools.
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For smoothing purposes, white birch trees were at- tached to a cross-beam and drawn over the land. I remember these wooden-tooth harrows in my earlier days. For planting corn, it was the custom to ridge up the land by turning two furrows against each other and cross-marking them, then planting the corn in the intersection. My Uncle Walter Jennings and others cultivated their corn with oxen and plow; hence we have the term "plowing corn." Hoeing the corn after this manner of planting was hard and laborious work, but often good crops of corn were raised by this primi- tive means of cultivation.
Onion growing appears to have started around 1840-50 and was successfully carried on until the clos- ing years of the last century. The growing of onions at once began to improve the land, for level patches were selected, deeply plowed, harrowed, stones picked off, manured with many loads of stable manure, ashes, bone-dust, and guano. The land was raked by hand and the onions planted in rows a foot apart. Onion raising required much hand work, and boys and young men found employment by getting down on their knees and weeding the onions, thus crawling back and forth over the fields. Then there was the hoeing be- tween the rows. This was done by a hand hoe. At first there were no labor-saving machines, but soon a two-row sower was invented by William Hill of Compo, and also by a Mr. Crofut of Lyons Plains, Weston,
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Farming
which was adjusted to sow about four pounds of seed per acre. Then the push wheel onion-hoe with a wooden frame and wheel in front was invented by Andrew W. Jennings in 1864. This was clumsy at first, but like the old wooden-tooth harrow, it did satis- factory work. Mr. John Guyer, who lived on Hills Point Road, invented and manufactured several kinds of wheeled onion-hoes made of iron with steel blades and springs. Henry B. Sherwood of Compo invented a wheeled hoe, and Arthur B. Sherwood of Mill Hill did the same. For years this section controlled the onion market of New York City. Onions were shipped by packet vessels from Southport and Westport. Dur- ing the Civil War onion growing reached its climax in production and prices. Family fortunes hereabout can be traced to this era, and the most proper and legiti- mate central object in the creation of coats of arms for a dozen of our old families would not be a lion ram- pant, or a unicorn rampant, but a Greens Farms onion rampant. Many young men gained their start in life growing onions, notably the late Edward T. Bedford.
The late Charles A. Meeker of Greens Farms in- vented the Meeker smoothing harrow about 1880, which prepared onion ground so well that very little hand raking was necessary. This harrow has been adapted to various other uses such as grading lawns and preparing land for truck crops. It is still manu- factured in Southport.
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The improvement of the shape of the onion early attracted the attention of progressive farmers. The original Wethersfield onion, such as was first planted here, was flat or saucer-shaped. By careful selection and breeding, gradually the globe-shaped onion be- came standard, and the varieties now known as South- port Red, Yellow and White Globe onion, so named from the shipping port, really originated in our own parish of Greens Farms.
The growing of seed was scientifically attended to. Seed over a year old has poor germinating qualities. Then, too, the plantings of the different varieties of onions for seed must be kept apart in the field to pre- vent cross-pollinization. The white onion seems to be a sport, and the seed growers always wanted just a slight tinge of red on the cheek of the onion.
This fashion in color scheme in the white onion had an interesting background. The bumblebees in gather- ing the nectar from the pollen on the red onion seed, dropped specks of it on the adjoining field of white onion seed, and this resulted in a little splash of blush- red on the cheek of the white onion. Thereby hangs a bit of romance.
At the apple-paring bee the young hostess provided pans of apples for her women guests to pare, and the one who could remove the skin without breaking the long paring was allowed to go into the centre of the room and swing it around her head and then let it
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Farming
drop to the floor. Then they all studied the initial which this paring resembled. It was supposed to form the first letter in the name of one of the young men present. He could refuse then and there to redeem the forfeit, or he could make a philopena present.
In the days following, when preparing onions for market, if he occasionally discovered a few white onions with just a little blush of red, he would sort these out until he had a little bunch. At the next paring bee he would carry this bunch of onions and at the proper time blushingly present his lady with them. She, perceiving the blush on the onion, blushed herself-so much that the young man would take her arm and start the grand march, and the company would dance the Virginia Reel.
Selected white onions, carefully grown and cured, often commanded ten dollars per barrel in the New York market, while the average yearly price for the red or yellow varieties was a dollar and a half per barrel and up. A smart onion weeder could care for two and a half to three acres of onions a season. The curing of the onion and the wintering was carefully looked after; ventilation and an even temperature were of prime importance.
During the Civil War many barrels were shipped to the South as food for the soldiers. Onions have the unusual quality of preventing scurvy. Around the eighties many schooner loads of New York horse ma-
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nure were landed on our shores and spread on the onion ground. It was usual for the town assessors to ask how many acres of onion ground you had on your farm; and then they made an advanced assessment for onion ground over the other farm land.
After 1860 the growing of pears, peaches, and the small fruits became quite general and profitable. Then followed truck farming, and in these latter days, on old onion ground, glass-houses have been built for growing fruit and flowers with artificial heat.
From the best of the author's memory, he can re- call some 75 farmers or individuals who were onion growers within the section of Cross Highway, Sasco River, and Saugatuck River. The acreage would average from one to ten acres each. Good crops would run up to 100 barrels per acre. Many young men were anxious to raise onions on shares and so got a start in life.
In the beginning of onion growing the farmers thought that the land would stand cropping indefi- nitely, but such was not the fact. No land can stand the fertilization of manure, ashes, bone dust, guano, and commercial fertilizers without rotation of crops, so onion growing came to a close with the century. These onion-growing farmers kept a yoke of oxen, cows, fatted hogs, and a family horse. Salt meadows were mowed for bedding as well as sea weeds picked up on the beach. Carrots were often raised between the
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Farming
rows of onions, and the farmer boys planted water- melon seeds in the onion patch and so in the fall had delicious "Mountain Sweets" to eat. Potatoes yielded well, so did corn and rye. The meadows produced heavy crops of timothy hay. All these products, in- cluding surplus apples and cider, were shipped on the market boat to New York, where they found a quick sale at good prices. Thus the prediction of the first five farmers who viewed Machamux, the red man's Paradise, from Clapboard Hill, was realized as THE BOUNTIFUL LAND.
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One of the "Seven Plagues" of Onion Growing
G EORGE HALE, a young man of Greens Farms, served through the Civil War and was mus- tered out with the rank of captain. He mar- ried, and bought the Ebenezer Disbrow farm on the northern slope of Compo Hill. He was an industrious and progressive farmer and onion grower. One morn- ing he went out into his onion patch to hoe onions, which were about six inches high, and he noticed a little spot where the onions were drooping over. He saw that they had been eaten, but could find no cause. The next morning he observed that the spot had been enlarged and that more onions were drooping. On the third morning there were several square rods that had been eaten. He dug down and discovered a worm that was eating off the onion just above the ground. What to do he did not know.
But the following morning he went out into his patch with his men, each with a pail, determined to pick up the worms. They gathered a considerable number; he kept up this operation every morning for several weeks until he had literally picked up and de- stroyed a bushel of these worms. George Fairchild, Jr., who was an onion grower on Benjamin Hill, as well as Lewis P. Wakeman with his father, the Taylors
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One of the "Seven Plagues"
and others were having like experiences with the cut- worm.
The late Charles Burr Meeker of North Avenue was a great benefactor to the onion grower. Forty years ago the cutworm plague threatened to destroy not only the entire onion crop but also the home garden truck. The cutworm is a fat little ugly brown creature, usually an inch long, with a single ambition-to cut down the tender young vegetable stalk. It was a genuine menace that extended over the whole eastern seaboard country. Nobody seemed to be able to cope with it. Mr. Meeker, by patient experimenting, eventually hit upon the idea of mixing bran, mo- lasses, and paris green, and scattering it over the land. The idea worked, the only one that did work, and an enterprising farmer on the Hudson made his fortune, boxing up the mixture and selling it. Mr. Meeker, too busy perfecting his melons, neglected to take advantage of his money-making idea. He was satisfied to be acknowledged in later years the fore- most grower of melons in the state.
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The Farmers' Club
I N the winter of "sixty-sixty-one" the farmers, real- izing the benefits of an organization to discuss agricultural problems, called a general meeting of the farmers, which was held at the schoolhouse; thus the Greens Farms Farmers' Club came into being. John S. Sherwood, of Mill Hill, Southport, was elected the first president, with Jarvis Jennings, secretary. The constitution was drawn up and adopted. The club held its meetings with the various members at their homes.
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