USA > Connecticut > Windham County > Historic Gleanings in Windham County, Connecticut > Part 8
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We, as Windham County people, have great reason to complain of the treatment our own Putnam has received at the hands of rivals and critics. Perhaps
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the most remarkable specimen in this line is the state- ment recently made by one of these self-appointed critics in the New York Sun : "That Gen. Putnam has neither lateral nor lineal descendant living, although a few families claim without any foundation such de- scent." If other charges against our old hero are equally baseless we can afford to let them slide.
The summer of 1778 brought many Windham County homes into close connection with the front through Sullivan's Rhode Island campaign. An at- tempt was made in concert with the newly-arrived French fleet to drive the British army from Newport and Rhode Island. Windham County was called upon to furnish all the aid in her power-ammunition, cartridges, provisions for man and beast, and above all, with soldiers. A Windham County company was stationed on this field for the year, and companies of her militia served at different periods. My maternal great-uncle, Theodore Gay, went out for his first campaign, with one of these companies. Though living in the vicinity of the Great Elm, my grand- father's family had not shared in that memorable alarm. The good deacon and his three oldest sons were indeed absent in service, but Joseph and Theo- dore, though only seventeen and fifteen years of age, felt quite equal to the situation. But they did not trust in carnal bullets, nor even in hot water and irons. Going on with their usual day's work, they
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then proceeded with the "nightly chores," and after supper sat down in the big kitchen with grandmother, mother, and sister, read comforting words from the great family Bible, and offered the accustomed even- ing prayer. Two of the brothers died that autumn in Jersey, and now the bright young Theodore, God's latest, best gift to the household, was sacrificed to the Rhode Island campaign. A terrible norther swept down at the beginning of the action, drove the French fleet far south, and rendered futile months of careful preparation. Many of our soldiers died from the effect of cold and exposure, never seen again by those at home who had sent them out so cheerily.
Another calamity, greatly afflicting many Wind- ham County homes that same discouraged 1778, was the Indian massacre at Wyoming, Penn. Some of the most enterprising and promising young men in a number of towns had taken their families to this beautiful valley, and were among the victims of In- dian barbarity. Conflicting rumors brought to Con- necticut homes were followed by weeks of anxious suspense, and then by the arrival of hapless widows, foot-sore and destitute, with orphan families of eight, ten, and, in the case of Mrs. Esther Minor Yorke, of Voluntown, twelve children.
But enough of loss and disaster. There is a brighter side to the picture. There are gleams of light behind the clouds. As years passed on and it
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became increasingly evident that the colonies could not be brought under subjection to the British yoke, hope revived in patriot hearts. If in some cases the war wrought demoralization, in a far greater num- ber it stimulated energy, courage, self-reliance, self- sacrifice. With unfailing constancy our Windham County towns kept up their quotas of soldiers and supplies. Lads who had so faithfully helped their mothers in home and farm, grew up to take their father's place in camp and council. It was a time of rapid quickening and development. How it brought out the stamina of our women. We mourn over the comparative inconspicuousness of the Pilgrim moth- ers ; we feel they do not receive their just meed of honor and remembrance. Few of the stately colo- nial dames are brought to actual knowledge. But the Revolutionary period not only brings to personal recognition Mary and Martha Washington, Abigail Adams, Mercy Warren, Faith Trumbull, Lucretia Shaw, and the honored names affixed to scores of Chapters, but called out unsuspected energy and fac- ulty in thousands of humbler homes. The soldier on the field was sustained and carried forward to final victory by the labor and sympathy of the woman in the home. How bravely they bore the heavy bur- dens brought upon them. We see them caring for their stock, carrying on their farms, making the hay, gathering their own supply of fuel, manufacturing
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cloth, preparing their own tea and molasses, besides attending to everyday domestic affairs and training their children. Women trained to use the pen were called to write the household letters for less favored sisters. Some special feats of workmanship are re- ported. Mrs. Elisha Adams, of Brooklyn, lays down her floor and finishes her apartment. The women of Hampton, assisted by a lame old carpenter, raised the frame and assisted in building a large two-story house that has stood the wear of over a century. It was in this same vicinity that a suit of clothes was evolved from a sheep's back in less than two days.
The son came home in rags, and the sheep was sheared and bundled away in the cellar, while its wool was spun, woven, and made up into a substan- tial suit of clothes in time for the young soldier to wear back to camp in triumph. Here, too, little Mary Stedman, the ten-year-old kinswoman of the poet, Edmund C. Stedman, wrought out with her own small fingers a web of tow-cloth, carding, spinning, and weaving, exchanging it at Windham Green for a set of silver tea-spoons, now held as priceless heirlooms by her descendants. Among the thousand private, beneficent acts called out by the exigencies of the time, I like to include that of an aged widow, in Thompson-Mrs. Elisabeth (Hosmer) Alton-who kept through the summer a barrel of freshly brewed
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beer on tap by the doorstep for the especial refresh- ment of any passing soldier.
A somewhat quixotic expedition gave me a glimpse of two Revolutionary homes under rather peculiar aspect. The friend who enticed me had the good for- tune to grow up at the feet of a great-grandmother, and was particularly impressed by her yearnings for the scene of her early married life, in a remote cor- ner of Woodstock, where she had reared and buried children, and so a century later we started off to visit this "old Bolles homestead." We had some difficulty in finding anyone to direct us in our search, but after we had fairly recovered the trail, and the old house came in view, it was wonderful how the old stories of her youth came back to my companion :
"O, there's the great house fronting south just as grandmother described it, and there is the very same great stone doorstep where she stood parleying with the officers who had come to search for a deserter. He was a poor, little, young fellow from the neighborhood and had fared so hard they all pitied him, and so grandmother talked with the officers on the doorstep while he słunk out of the pantry window. Why, don't you see in that little projection at the end of the house there's the very window and he ran down the hill to this same bridge we are crossing and then up the hill on the other side, running backward through the snow so as to muddle up the track to a house right over the hill. Why, there's the roof and chimney of that very house, and he went in there and flung himself down before old Goody Blake who was spinning at her wheel and begged her to save him from
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the officers in pursuit. Well she had had wild boys of her own and knew how to feel for him, so she just raised a trap-door and stowed him away under the floor, and spreading a rug over the door set her spinning-wheel upon it and when the officers came on there she was spinning away at her wheel and innocently humming a psalm tune."
In these later years, as the armies moved south- ward, there was less immediate connection and per- sonal communication with the seat of war. Our lit- tle Ephraim Cutler, who, sleeping in bed with his grandfather, caught the first echo of " the shot heard round the world," now enlightened the neighborhood at Killingly Hill by reading aloud "The New Lon- don Gazette " every Sabbath noon. The house would be filled with elderly people, mothers and grand- fathers, anxious to hear the news. One of the most harrowing days during the whole period was that Thursday afternoon in 1781, when residents of the south part of the county heard the roar of the can- non and saw the flames of consuming New London. Men hastened to the scene and saw with their own eyes the terrible butchery and destruction, more dreadful from the thought that one of their own fa- vored sons had been most active in this outrage.
Aside from this terrible experience and other New London and Rhode Island alarms, there was less dis- tress and suffering during these closing years. For one thing, supplies were more plentiful. Success in
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privateering brought to New London West India goods and even articles of luxury. And these goods were so carried about through the country that a bridal outfit was no longer limited to homespun. One glimpse in this line we leave with you for a part- ing picture.
A young girl in Pomfret is musing upon the ques- tion of a wedding dress-a lovely young girl with a face of rare promise and character -- among whose numerous descendants are Mrs. Louise Chandler Moulton and Mrs. Caroline Fairfield Corbin. She knows the difficulty of the times, the scantiness of money and the many demands upon the father's purse, but a suitable dress for this supreme occasion in a young girl's life she must have. A peddler comes along with heavy packs. No matter where he got his goods : they are wonderful-and among them is the most beautiful piece of dainty pink satin that ever gladdened the eyes of prospective bride. She glances at the gruff old father, puzzling with knotted brow over his accounts. She does not dare to ask the favor, but the satin must be hers. Gathering around her the glistening folds she steals across the room, and kneeling at her father's feet, looks up with plead- ing eyes. And the grim old father catches on. With- out a word spoken on either side he unlocks his desk and puts in his daughter's hand forty silver dollars, and the dainty pink satin soon figures at the
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marriage feast as the bride's gown and the bride- groom's waistcoat. And so, after our many sombre pictures, we leave you with this gladsome tableau- vivant, typifying, we believe, the happy days that were in store for the young republic, when, after the long, weary struggle, came the blessing of assured peace and perfected Union.
" Thou too sail on, O ship of State, Sail on O Union, strong and great . . . Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears, Our faith, triumphant o'er our fears, Are all with thee, are all with thee."
V.
WINDHAM COUNTY AND PROVIDENCE.
The capital of Rhode Island and this northeast corner of Connecticut have held close and continuous relations. And even before there was a Providence or a Windham County, before a sectional boundary line had crossed the face of New England territory and its fields and forests lay open to wild beasts and wilder savages, these sections held continuous com- munication. The Narragansetts claimed right to territory east of the Quinebaug river. The great lake -Chan-bon-a-gong-a-monk (bound-mark) now in Webster-marked the bound between sea-board Narragansetts and inland Nipmucks, dwelling in
Nipnet - the pond or fresh water country. The stronger Narragansetts held in close subjection the feeble clans or tribelets of Nipmucks. Tradition preserved but one instance of successful revolt, inter- esting to us as showing the early date of that peculiar Rhode Island institution-the original, aboriginal, perennial clambake.
The Nipmuck tributaries in the vicinity of Lake Mashapang (now Alexander's) were invited to partake of a shore dinner of shell-fish, which it need hardly
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be said they devoured with great relish. But when their hosts in due time returned the visit, nothing was offered them but lamprey eels served without dressing. The daintier Narragansetts scoffed at this plain fare and a free fight followed, in which but two of the Narragansetts were spared to carry back the tale of insult and defeat. A band of warriors was straightway sent up to avenge their brethren, but were again forced to quail before the arrows of the entrenched and triumphant Nipmucks, and retired from the field, leaving their dead behind them. The bodies of the slain were interred in deep pits at the junction of the Quinebang and Assawaga rivers, a spot still known as "the Indian Burying Ground," in Danielson, where many Indian relies have been unearthed. The name Aspinock, designating the Quinebang valley near Lake Mashapaug, is transla- ted by J. Hammond Trumbull-"an eating place," and may have received its name from this encounter, which surviving Nipmueks detailed to the first white settlers. The Narragansetts would doubtless have given a very different version.
After settlement by the whites, and particularly after the Uncas claim to Mohegan and Wabbaquasset countries had been allowed by the Government of Connecticut, the Narragansetts found it difficult to maintain their footing within Connecticut lines. Moosup, alias Pessacus, a war-like chieftain, brother
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to Miantonomo, affixed his name to the largest branch of the Quinebaug, and struggled manfully to retain the Quinebaug country now included in the towns of Plainfield and Canterbury, but according to Roger Williams, in 1668, the Nipmucks had then for a long time renounced allegiance to the Narragansetts, and the border-land between Connecticut and Rhode Island was but a patch of ground, full of troublesome inhabitants, sandy, stony, and scarce worth fighting for. During King Philip's war these inhabitants sought shelter at the headquarters of their respective tribes, and the barren patch was made more waste by ravages of roving bands, carrying off all the corn and swine that could be found therein. Its first white Providence visitants were a company under Capt. Nathaniel Thomas, who scoured the country far and wide in pursuit of the fugitive King Philip. The night of August 3, 1675, they reached the second fort in the Nipmuck country, called by the Indians-Wap- o-sosh-e-quash-Wabbaquasset, a mile west of the present Woodstock Hill. Capt. Thomas reports-" a very good inland country, well watered with rivers and brooks: special good land, great quantities of special good corn and beans, and stately wigwams as I never saw the like." These wigwams were built under the direction of one of the Apostle Elliott's Indian preachers, Sampson, and bear striking testi- mony to the success of his faithful labors.
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Within ten years after the visit of Capt. Thomas and the close of the war the fertile fields of Wabba- quasset had been appropriated by our sharp-sighted sister, Massachusetts, and a flourishing colony from Roxbury had planted the town of Woodstock. Though bound by ties of allegiance and blood to Boston, these Woodstock settlers soon found them- selves drawn to the nearer market at Providence, and one of their first public acts, after formal town organization, was a vote "To be at the charge of making a way unto the cedar swamp on the other side of the Quinebang River for a road to Provi- dence-Benjamin Sabin to do the work and Peter Aspinwall if he can't do it." Our friend Peter ac- complished the work in the course of a few years, making a narrow way suitable for foot or horseback travel. The greater part of this way ran through the outlands of the distant town, as yet a barren wil- derness, with only here and there the cabin of some hardy pioneer, furnishing food and shelter for man and beast.
As Pomfret, Killingly, and other Connecticut towns struggled into being, they too claimed the privilege of better communication with Providence, and selectmen from the new towns joined with those of Woodstock in petitioning Providence town coun- cil to help at their end of the work. Committees from Killingly, Pomfret, and Woodstock were chosen
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to meet at sun an hour high, October 3, 1710, "To state a place over the Quinebaug River most commo- dions for a bridge to meet the prospective highway," but ten years passed before road or bridge was ac- complished. The southerly towns gained first the right of way. Travel from Norwich and Windham passed through Plainfield over the " old Greenwich Path," an Indian trail " trod out " by early Narragan- sett claimants.
The General Assembly of Rhode Island and Provi- dence Plantations met this need by voting in 1711, that a highway should be laid out through Provi- dence, Warwick, and West Greenwich to Plainfield. Representations were made to the General Assembly of Connecticut that travelers to the westward from Boston and Providence, met with great difficulty and were exposed to great danger for want of a suitable country road through Plainfield and on to the col- ony. The famous journal of Madam Knight, 1704, gives a most graphic picture of the condition of the roads, and the discomforts experienced in traveling from Boston to New York, through Connecticut and the Narragansett Country at that date. Our colony promptly responded to Rhode Island's suggestion. A committee was appointed; land was freely given by Plainfield proprietors, and a good and sufficient causeway was constructed four rods wide and eight rods wide at intervals for the convenience of loaded
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carts in passing each other. A safe and sufficient bridge was thrown over the Moosup, and canoes pro- vided for transit over the turbulent and formidable Quinebang. This improved and convenient highway became a popular thoroughfare, greatly facilitating communication between Boston and Providence and New York, called the best and nearest route that had then been opened between those business centres, and aiding much in the development of these towns and the intervening country. Eastern Connecticut now found in Providence her nearest market and base of supplies. The boundary quarrel that raged so fiercely in the vicinity of Pawcatuck river was confined to southern sections, and pleasant, neigh- borly intercourse was constantly maintained between Windham, Plainfield, and Canterbury settlers and their favorite market town.
The northerly road, through Pomfret and Kil- lingly, was much behind time in construction, mainly because it was carried through by the towns apart from Government aid. Peter Aspinwall's bridle-path was long the only means of communication, even barrels of rum having to be brought up on horse- back lashed on trees and dragged behind the rider. The road was finally accomplished under the super- vision of Nathaniel Sessions, of Pomfret, who drove the first cart over it to Providence in 1721. His son, Darius, future deputy-governor of Rhode Island,
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then ten years old, may be said figuratively to have driven in the last spike-the youngster claiming the honor of conducting the oxen into the town. In the following year the long-coveted bridge was placed over the Quinebaug at the High Falls (now in Put- nam) by Capt. John Sabin.
With these two important thoroughfares open to the public, intercourse between the inhabitants of the neighboring colonies became more and more frequent and friendly. Heavy carts laden with country pro- duce ; horse-back riders with pillion and saddle-bag ; foot-travelers with packs, way worn and weary, were ever passing to and fro. Hartford might be the political centre of these Connecticut towns, but Providence drew them by the stronger ties of business relations and social affinities.
And yet from the outset there was a radical differ- ence between a Rhode Islander and a Connecticut man. The Rhode Islander affected white corn; a golden yellow was the true hue for Connecticut. A Rhode Islander might go to church and build a house of worship if he fancied-the Connecticut man was compelled by law to build a meeting-house and go to meeting. It is a little amusing to read in some local town history the glorifications over these "good men who in their own poverty and scarceness made imme- diate provision for public worship, &c." Of course they did this, and in the majority of cases did it freely
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and heartily, and yet the truth remains that the law compelled them to do it, and they risked the loss of their township by failure. Woodstock, unable by the difficulties of Sir Edward Andros' administration to build their house and settle a minister promptly, felt constrained to make most humble acknowledgment for being in some respects "out of capacity;" and beg the General Court " that the great overturns that had been might excuse this omission." The patent of Killingly, granted in 1708, expressly provided "That no person now inhabiting on said land, or any other persons dwelling without this colonie who have purchased any lands within the said township, that shall not give due obedience to all the laws of the colonie for the upholding the worship of God pay- ing of all public charges shall have no benefit by this act." The redundance of negatives makes this injunction more emphatic.
Trained from infancy to consider the stated estab)- lishment of religious worship as the first and chief duty of state and town Government, it is not surpris- ing that our Windham County visitors and sojourn- ers should be scandalized and grieved at Rhode Island's destitution. As this lack of ministers and meeting-houses became more apparent with increas- ing intercourse, their hearts were moved to mission- ary efforts in their behalf, and in 1722, the year that the Quinebang bridge was erected, a petition was
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sent to the General Assembly of Connecticut, praying that a brief might be granted in several congrega- tions, gathering contributions from such as were piously inclined towards introducing and carrying on the ministry of the Gospel in the town of Providence. The Governor and Council graciously granted this request and a brief was sent out, directed to minister or deacon of a number of eastern Connecticut churches, including those in Windham, Canterbury, Plainfield, Pomfret, and Killingly, empowering them to make collection for this purpose. This missionary move- ment in behalf of benighted Providence had been set on foot by some zealous ministers of Massachu- setts, who addressed a letter to the deputy-governor and other eminent men of Providence, in which, after commending the peace and love with which religious societies of different modes of worship had been entertained in Rhode Island, and the freedom and safety they had enjoyed in preaching, they most humbly begged their countenance and encourage- ment if it should come to pass that a small meeting- house should be built in their town to entertain such as are willing to hear our ministers. Deacon Jonathan Sprague's reply to this humble request fairly makes our ears tingle. Genuine Rhode Island sauce has a very pungent quality.
In spite of this rebuff a Congregational meeting- house was built on the corner of College and Benefit
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streets, and served for many years as a beacon of Puritan orthodoxy among the Baptists, Quakers, and Independents of free-thinking Rhode Island.
With passable roads and suitable provision for Sabbath-keeping, emigration to Providence assumed a more permanent character. Young men averse to farming found employment in other lines of labor. Boys went to sea and found places in stores. Enter- prising young men of better education, like Darius Sessions, tried their chances in the growing town. Some went back in time for the girls they left be- hind them. Others found wives in their new home. An elaborate entry in Thompson church records, in mammoth letters, with the blackest of ink, records the marriage, 30 September, 1739, of Capt. Nicholas Cook of Providence, to Mrs. Hannah Sabin, daugh- ter of Capt. Hezekiah Sabin, first settler of Thomp- son Hill, and proprietor of its famous old red tavern in the centre of the common. As the bride was only eighteen we may assume that this honorary title was given her out of respect for the dignity of her own and her husband's social position, or, perhaps, with a prophetic sense of the honors that awaited her as the wife of a governor and mother of a dozen stal- wart Rhode Islanders.
Capt. Sabin's successor in the tavern was a typical Rhode Islander, Benjamin Wilkinson, one of the class of roving Yankees described by Washington
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Irving, whose idea of settlement in life is to set out upon his rambles. It is said that he kept tavern in every stand between Providence and Connecticut's north-east corner. When he brought up against Massachusetts line, on a beautiful farm west of the Quinebang-now in New Boston-people thought he had come to stay, but destiny met him in the shape of a shabby old traveler who carelessly asked what he would take for the premises. Mr. Wilkinson named a high figure and thought no more of it till in a few weeks the shabby old man appeared before him with a bag-full of gold and silver ready to clinch the bargain. Amused at the incident, and always ready for travel, Mr. Wilkinson resigned the farm and purchased the tavern stand on Thompson Hill, where his energies found ample exercise. He hauled off the stones, dug out aboriginal tree stumps, and planted peach-stones by every rock and along the highway for public accommodation. Through all his wanderings he carried with him Rhode Island ideas and white seed corn, and while serving as committee for the standing society and opening his house to accommodate the Congregationalists in win- ter, he gave sympathy and building spot to the strug- gling Baptists. On one occasion only he came into collision with church authorities-that fatal Sunday when a grind-stone was heard in his door-yard, just across the road from the meeting-house, creaking
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