USA > Connecticut > Fairfield County > Greens Farms > Greens Farms, Connecticut, the old West parish of Fairfield historical sketches and reminiscences > Part 7
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Christmas was a long-anticipated day. My sister and I hung up Father's long woolen stockings by the chimney for Santa Claus to fill. We had implicit faith that he came over the land with his reindeer and sleigh- bells bringing good cheer. He never failed us. There was lots of excitement on Christmas morning in empty- ing the stockings. There were articles of wearing ap- parel, toys and candy, sometimes a potato for a joke, but always an orange down in the toe. One outstand- ing delight was the time that I found a small pair of rubber boots. How did Santa know that I wanted a pair of rubber boots? Wasn't it glorious to walk right through puddles of water and snow-broth like a grown man?
Christmas as a feast day, however, was not observed in our home with the joyousness of today. Puritan New England had swung the pendulum to the other extreme from the license of a riotous fête day of the
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Greens Farms, Connecticut
Restoration in England, and everything that savored too strongly of Popery was shunned. Just as they kept all color from church service, all decoration and orna- ment from their meeting-houses, inside and out, so they modified their lives to the same stern, austere pattern. The meeting-houses were bleak and cold in winter, and the services were very long; there was no organ, and the singing of the congregation followed a leader who pitched the tune. The New England re- ligious systems stressed the sermon and instruction with independent thought rather than worship with a ritual. The Catechism was the basis of the teaching in the Sunday School, with Bible pictures and text cards for the small tots.
My first business venture was when Father allotted to me a couple of rows of onions in the patch south of the house. I was to weed them and have the money from their sale in the fall. This was quite an under- taking for a small boy, but I guess that Father helped some. In the fall the onions were sent off on the mar- ket boat, and the money deposited in the Southport Savings Bank in my own name.
In 1831 Cyrus McCormick had invented a reaping machine. Thirty years after the invention, I went with Father to Uncle Charles Wakeman's farm on Benjamin Hill where he was trying out these reaper attachments on his one-horse mowing machine. A number of neighbors were in the field watching; it did
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Seventy Years Ago
successful work but did not supersede the old hand cradle for many years in this locality of small fields.
Mother took me to the Consecration of the Church of the Holy Trinity in Westport, June 30, 1862. The interior of the edifice excited my curiosity, for it was quite different from our plain church in the Farms. The ceiling was Gothic with blue frescoing and gilt stars, and the windows were also Gothic with colored glass. All this, together with the memory of the chan- cel, has remained in my mind as a pleasant impres- sion through the years.
Wood was becoming scarce in the lower Farms. Every bit of tree trimming was saved and chopped up for kindling. Near the beginning of the Civil War, to close an estate on Greenfield Hill, some forty acres of woodland in "Dirty Swamp" were plotted into two- acre tracts and auctioned off. Father came home from the auction a very pleased man, for he owned a new woodlot. The taxes all these years have just about balanced the wood and timber which it has yielded.
In the fall of 1862 Father took us all, that is, Mother, Sister Cornelia, and myself, on a trip to Rosendale, Wisconsin, to visit Grandfather Hill and other rela- tives who had moved from Compo to the West a few years before. There were no "red caps," no sleeping- cars, no cement roads. Travelling by night we slept in our day-coach seats as best we could. We carried
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along lunches, but interspersed this monotony with swooping attacks on railroad lunch counters.
At the junctions of the numerous separate railroad systems there were poor connections, and interminable waits; often we travelled across a city in a carriage from one station to that of another road. Swinging north from Chicago, we reached Fond du Lac, Wis- consin, the end of the rail journey. In the forenoon we left for Rosendale in the mail stagecoach over the old plank road.
America's first hard-surfaced roads were made of wood. It was the most abundant material. The present generation knows little about plank and cor- duroy roads. They have a limited acquaintance with corduroy in sport clothes and have driven over plank bridges, but that is about all. A plank road inferred liaison with a sawmill, but outside of sawmill range the corduroy was substituted. The logs, cut to the proper length, were laid crosswise on the roadbed to keep the stages and loaded wagons from miring in the mud. Today a well-laid tar pavement will "crawl" under the pressure of loads; imagine how the sticks and logs of a corduroy pavement would "crawl" under the impact of loaded teams in all weathers! Imagine, too, a 12-mile trip over such a road!
Imagine also the uneven surface of a plank road laid flat in the dirt, bedevilled by sun and rain and snow and frost. But we landed in Rosendale at
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Seventy Years Ago
Grandfather Hill's at last. He was a long way from his old home at Hills Point, but there was something seductive in the opening West and he was satisfied with his chance. His was the true pioneer spirit.
Father took advantage of the trip to take wide side trips into the northwestern country. On our return journey we came through Ontario, Canada, on the Great Western Railway to Niagara Falls and viewed this wonder of nature as well as the new Suspension Bridge, likewise a wonder to man in those days. Such trips are good for a child. That one is fresh and bright in my mind today.
Another journey stands in my memory; I was ten years old then and it was soon after the war that we went to the Shenandoah Valley. A cousin, Jarvis Jennings of Greens Farms, had bought a large farm there at White Post. On our way down we stopped at Harper's Ferry to view the scene of John Brown's raid, then so fresh in the public mind. At Winchester we saw soldiers in uniform and looking across into the suburbs we saw the cemeteries of the "Blue and the Gray," with the markers. We drove down the pike, fording streams and noting the breastwork on either side of the road at places where the various armies had entrenched. We finally arrived at Cousin Jarvis's farm.
Everywhere, barns, outbuildings, and bridges had been destroyed. The armies had commandeered all
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Greens Farms, Connecticut
iron kettles, plows, wagons, and implements. On horseback we visited a number of old plantation set- tlers; their homes were destitute of carpets, which had been taken for blankets for the soldiers. The flour mills were destroyed and there seemed to be utter desola- tion. Such was the impression on my young mind.
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The Lure of the Seaway That Is Long Island Sound
T HE families of both Father and Mother were farmer folks.
My Grandfather Jennings owned the land to the north of "Uncle" Samuel Craft's "Hot Hole" lot and reaching up the western slope and on the top of Clapboard Hill. My father acquired two acres and hired William Hemsen, a local carpenter, to build his house at 12 shillings per day, working from sunup to sundown. Queen Anne was dead and of her successors Greens Farms at this time knew nothing and cared less. The old salt-box type of house was changing to a two-story upright that was built with its gable end to the road. There was a story-and-a-half addition used as a dining-room and a sitting-room, and lean-to for the outer kitchen and woodhouse.
The building of a house in those days was a season's job for the carpenter. The chestnut timber had to be hewed, flooring planed and matched by hand, win- dows, doors, and house trimmings all to be made by the local carpenter.
With such a background and in such an environ- ment it was only natural that I should have been brought up to be a farmer. One of my first jobs was to go up to the swamp pasture and let down the bars
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for the cows and horse to come to the barn; another job was to turn the grindstone. There is no better exercise to strengthen young backs than turning the grindstone. Then came my row of onions that I had to weed-another form of exercise for young backs. But backaches were forgotten that fall when the onions were shipped to New York in Captain Joe Jennings's market boat and a big new dollar came to me. I was proud of that dollar.
Father always had a love for the salt water and a hankering for sea food. When he went to the shore he took me along. While he was gathering the seaweed on the beach or digging long clams on the flats or wading out waist deep raking out "little necks" (qua- hogs), or gathering scallops in the eel grass, or tonging for oysters offshore, I was wading barefoot along the edge of the ebbing tide. The joyful sensation to my feet remains to this day. The little wavelets of soft wet sand left by the water were like rubber cushions. I watched each gentle ripple of water as it failed to come up to the mark on the sand. Why did the sea water ebb and flow? The long, long thoughts of childhood-and the questions!
Then I would paddle along the crest of the beach leaving my footprints in the sand, picking up yellow jingle shells, blue and iridescent mussel shells, or, if lucky, the long curved thin razor shells. The round scallop shell with its radiating ribs from the straight
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THE WILLIAM J. JENNINGS HOMESTEAD Purchased by the late Frederick T. Bedford
DANIEL SHERWOOD HOUSE ON SHERWOOD ISLAND The original settler of Sherwood Island about 1790
The Lure of Long Island Sound
hinge side was much prized by Sister for making pin- cushions. Then there was the curiously twisted peri- winkle, the polished clam or oyster shell, star fish, the horsefoot with its dome shell with the eyes on top, feet underside, and a long spike tail used in propelling itself on the sea bottom. There were the black pocket- books and strings of rattlers, both marine growths; the rock weed, a variety of sargasso of the tropic seas, with its puff balls that would pop when pressed; the eel grass; the tall stately sedge plant turning, twisting, and bowing at every motion of the water. All these were of interest-wonders to my budding mind.
In my teens I bought an old skipjack sailboat and learned to sail it on Compo Mill Pond, and, feeling like a Viking of centuries ago, dared the open sea to Cockenoes Island and along the coast.
In these after years I have walked the shoreline from Dennies Point at Sasco Creek to Cedar Point at Compo, fished at the outer rock off Frost Point, and picked up oysters at the outer rock off Sherwood Point at very low tide, and with the horse and wagon have gathered seaweed there, fording the creek at Burial Hill but only at low water. In zero weather I have walked the ice from across the cove or bight to Frost Point.
Within my remembrance the easterly storms have washed the banks along the Indian Field lands many feet inland, and the southwesters have beaten back
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Greens Farms, Connecticut
with terrific force into the cove at Bankside, washing away the banks and sending the spray and surf twenty feet up across the highway.
All this shore land was laid down by the great ice cap when it was receding eons ago. I suppose the fishing rocks far out from the points and many other boulders were drifted in by the ice and left in place to hold the bank. This same explanation applies to Seymour Rock in Saugatuck Harbor. Parallel ledges of the eternal rock extend out from the homestead of Frederick T. Bedford into deep water and so prevent the sand from drifting. Some sixty years ago adjoin- ing proprietors along the cove at Bankside began building retaining walls to hold back the surf. Often breaches would be pounded through the wall by the sea. Now many jetties are built out into the Sound and they appear to keep the sand and gravel from washing. Midway out to Frost Point there is a small hook on the home-lot of Frederick T. Bedford. If a curved line were drawn from this point to the creek at Burial Hill, you could visualize the wash during the last century.
In August, 1931, there was a hurricane from the northwest that blew down hundreds of trees along the track of the storm and hit very hard at Bankside. At this time the tides nearly bisected the Stetson bluff; it required thousands of dollars to refill the bank and build concrete retaining walls.
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The Lure of Long Island Sound
The Sound has many whims and caprices. It can be smooth and shiny as a plate-glass mirror, blue in color, warm and sensuous for bathing. With "poge" tides one can walk far out from shore. Then again the easterly storms send great mountainous tides up the Sound filling every creek to overflowing, salt meadows awash, and the parkway to Burial Hill a foot under water. Our beach is treacherous on ac- count of the sand-bars. Not so many years ago three Greens Farms women, the Barlow sisters, were drowned together while clamming; the incoming tide confused them and they stepped off the sand-bar into the deep water; although expert swimmers, they were drawn under by the weight of the baskets full of clams, attached to their waists.
From Mr. William H. Davis's front porch on Clap- board Hill there is a wide view of the Sound. Off Stratford is the Middle Ground lighthouse. Off Fair- field are Black Rock and Penfield Reef, and down among the Norwalk Islands is Peck's Ledge. To the southwest, across on the Long Island shore, is the tall white tower of Eaton's Neck Light, and to the east near Port Jefferson the Oldfield Light stands forth. These lighthouses are equipped with fog-horns. From my house years ago I saw the Great Eastern with its five funnels and six masts sail through the Sound, and after a storm, great fleets of coasting schooners scud- ding eastward. Years ago I complimented a man
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whom I knew in New York on being the captain of a Sound night steamer. "It's only a dog's life," he said. "Your orders are to sail and make a safe trip and har- bor in the morning, regardless of weather."
One foggy winter night I was ill with the grippe, tired, weary, rolling and tossing in bed worse than the Diamond Shoals Lightship. Through the fog came the almost human tones of the siren blast of a Sound steamer. My nerves relaxed and I gained some sleep.
I have sailed the Hudson River and the Great Lakes, and Puget Sound in my time. I have been through the West Indies and the Panama Canal. But one clear day in early October Mrs. Jennings and myself sailed from New Haven to New York on the day boat. The tang of the sea was in the air. From off Stratford Shoals Lighthouse to Stamford, Clapboard Hill was in full view. It was a trip surpassing any other in my memory. Dear old Long Island Sound-I love thee best of all!
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THE MINUTE MAN
كم تسر اللائ حية
YLIN NJAM WAT ..
الصم فا شهد
THE MACHAMUX MEMORIAL BOULDER
The Minute Man
"T HE MINUTE MAN" at the intersection of Compo Road and Hill Point Road was dedicated on June 17, 1910, under the ini- tiative and supervision of The Connecticut Society, Sons of the American Revolution, who desired to mark permanently the spot where the largest number of troops were engaged in any battle in the state during the Revolutionary War. A committee from the soci- ety was appointed to gather the facts, solicit the funds, and erect a suitable memorial. The funds were se- cured from an appropriation by the legislature, from The Connecticut Society, Sons of the American Revo- lution, and from generous gifts of interested citizens and friends throughout the state.
The statue was executed by the young, patriotic, and gifted H. Daniel Webster, descended from the brilliant man whose name he perpetuated. Mr. Webster had lately moved to Westport from Sioux Falls, S. D., where his immediate ancestors had been pioneers in opening that section of the country. The bronze was cast in the well-known Tiffany Studios. The design received most favorable criticism from the State Board of Architects. The statue is a composite figure of a number of local people descended from colonial patriots.
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A brief history of the engagement that this statue commemorates might be in order. In the spring of 1777, 2,500 of the flower of the British infantry and cavalry commanded by the most brilliant leaders of the Crown were landed, with their field guns, from a large fleet which had left New York the day before, and had anchored off Compo Point (then called Cedar Point). The invaders proceeded up Compo Road and thence to Redding and Danbury, where they hoped to remain. However, because of reports that the col- onists were gathering between Danbury and the shore, the British were compelled to burn the vast war sup- plies that Connecticut had gathered for General Washington's use, and then started to retreat by way of Ridgefield. It was at that town that they met with their first real resistance, and General Wooster and Colonel Gould of the patriots fell mortally wounded. Thence the retreat of the British became a rout, and at Compo Hill there was a sharp engagement between the aroused colonists who, by this time, had gathered from all sections of Connecticut, and the troops that had been landed to cover the retreat of the expedi- tionary force.
As a parting send-off, when the British sailed away from Compo Beach, it is related to me by Captain Charles Thorpe Allen, the Minute Men had planned to burn tar barrels on Compo Hill, but for some un- known reason the Minute Men gathered on a high
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The Minute Man
flat-top rock near the intersection of Compo Road and Narrow Rocks Road, and here burned their barrels. This new beacon light confused the admiral as to direction, and his vessel went on the rocks, since known as Tory Reef, to the east of Cockenoes Island. The rock where the signal was placed is known to this day as "Tar Rock."
For a more complete description of this unsuccessful expedition, the reader is referred to "The Minute Man," compiled and published by The Connecticut Society, Sons of the American Revolution, and on file in the Westport Library.
To Honorable William H. Burr, patriot and "Long Lots" farmer, and a member of the Sons of the Ameri- can Revolution, is due the credit for securing the ap- propriation from the state legislature, and additional gifts for the erection of this Minute Man monument.
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The Four Meeting-Houses
66 T a meeting warned and accordingly held on june the 12-17II at maximus Johnan drews then being Chosen recorder for the meeting. there was then a cleere vote passed that thare should be seventy pound gifen to mus dannil Chapman for a years salary for preching. further it was voted that Simon Couch, John Cabel and John andrews should be selectmen for this present yere. furdere it was voted that these men should set up notification of meetings in ritting one at or neere the meting house in maximus and another at Compo sine post at lest three dayes before the meeting and that to be sofisunt warning."
Thus was organized the West Parish of Fairfield, now known as the Congregational Society of Greens Farms. This transcript is taken from the original rec- ord book in possession of the society.
From scraps of information and imagination it ap- pears that the Western Farmers of Fairfield adopted the style of the first meeting-house from the mother church. It was about 36 feet square with 16-foot posts with 4 roofs rising to a point in the centre, with the front door facing east. There was neither chimney nor fireplace. The frame was of hewed oak, the under- pinning was of stone, and there were small windows
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THE GREENS FARMS CHURCH
From an original etching entitled "Turkey Hill" by Kerr Eby Reproduced by the courtesy of Mr. Eby
The Four Meeting-Houses
with small panes; sides and roof were covered with four and one-half foot clapboard, rived out of trees growing on Clapboard Hill.
The building was ready for service in 1711, but was not completed for some ten years thereafter. It was located at Machamux on the large open common, green, or military parade ground, very near the Machamux boulder. This meeting-house was built by yearly tax rates, raised to carry on and complete the work, and the society voted to have a lock on the door. The interior was doubtlessly roughly furnished, and without plaster or paint. At first it was furnished with rough seats, but later on pews were added.
In 1736 there was a movement for the building of the second meeting-house, as the parish had increased rapidly in population and wealth. "It was put to vote whether or no the Parish would build a meeting house for the worship of God and more than two-thirds of s'd Parish then present at the meeting voted in ye affermitive."
In the following year the parish voted to send an agent to the General Assembly to request a commit- tee to stake a place for a meeting-house; a committee was appointed to go and view Greenfield and Strat- field meeting-houses. In December of that year it was further voted that they "would build a meeting house 52 feet in length and 40 feet wide and 26 foot posts." The committee set the stake for this, the second or
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Greens Farms, Connecticut
Colonial meeting-house, west of Muddy Brook on the north side of the Country Road. The site is nearly op- posite the gateway of the Colonial Burying Ground. It is quite possible that this Colonial meeting-house and cemetery were located on common lands as I have been unable to find any record of previous ownership.
In 1738 "ye parish voted would raise the meeting house by way of gifts. The Rev. Daniel Chapman of his own free will gives ten pounds and the same amount in 1740." Voted: "Capt. Thomas Nash, Capt. Simon Couch and Samuel Sherwood shall be a committee to hire men to raise and build the meeting house. John Andrews being clerk for that year." They further voted to "raise a rate at eight pence per pound to start the work." The tax collector was to have "two pounds and five shillings to collect and make good to the parish for his reward."
The parish appeared ungrateful to its first minister, for when it was put to a vote to give the old meeting- house to Reverend Mr. Chapman, it voted in the nega- tive and decided to sell it at "public vendue and apply the proceeds towards the new meeting house."
At about this time the old square colonial type of meeting-house in New England was changing to a rectangular building, with belfry and spire. In the early settlements in New England, these old square meeting-houses were used for the worship of God and for all public meetings, as well as for places of defense
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SEATING ARRANGEMENT OF SECOND MEETING-HOUSE
The Four Meeting-Houses
from the Indians. The people of Machamux lived peaceably with the Indians. The second meeting- house had a belfry and a short spire. A bell was bought and hung in 1755. There were two rows of windows, and the building was probably covered with clapboards three and a half feet long; it, too, had no chimney. The interior was plastered and plainly furnished.
There is no mention of a "sabba day house" which was an adjunct to many New England meeting-houses. Probably those coming from a distance stopped at a friend's home or hired a room in a neighboring house for warming up their cold lunches and eating them during intermission. The horse shed was ever a place of rendezvous for the men of the parish before and after service; crops and politics as well as the sermon were discussed.
It was voted that particular persons should have the liberty to build their own pews. Andrew Burr and Thad. Burr formed the committee to appoint each man's new place. Their first allotment in 1741 caused disorder and a new one was made by the com- mittee. The photograph opposite is an extra reproduc- tion from the original drawing in the clerk's record book. It should be noted that this list of pewholders seems to signify the following grounds of advance- ment, namely: age, dignity of descent, place of public trust, pious disposition, and estate.
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