USA > Connecticut > Historic towns of the Connecticut River Valley > Part 10
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MIDDLEFIELD.
S AMUEL ALLEN, Samuel Wetmore and Benjamin Mil- ler, from the First Society of Middletown, were the first settlers of Middlefield, in 1700. They were soon joined by other families from Middletown, Durham, Stratford, and Guilford, so that in 1744, when the town was incorporated, there were fifty families forming a vigorous settlement of 350 or 400 individuals, probably, for the average number of persons in a family in those days was large. Middlefield was destined by nature to be vigorous and prosperous, in the days when water- power was the only motive power known, for the town was generously supplied with excellent power along the Coginchaugh River, and the numerous smaller streams that flow into it. A hundred years after the incorporation, it was a busy manufactur- ing community.
Like all Yankee settlements, as soon as the people were made into a parish by the General Court, they built a church. A meet- ing-house, forty feet square, was built in 1745 and the Rev. Ebenezer Gould was the first minister. Although there was dis- satisfaction with the minister on the parts of several of the con- gregation, he remained there till 1756, when he was dismissed. As far as can be ascertained from records, the dismissal of the Rev. Ebenezer Gould from the Middlefield Church ended his ministerial career. From 1756, till 1765, the people were without a settled minister. They had made several attempts to settle one but without success, so it looks very much as if the trouble was caused by individuals of the parish, rather than by the minister. Finally, in February, 1765, the Rev. Joseph Denison, of Wind- ham, a graduate of Yale in the class of 1763, became the minister. He died in 1770, at the age of thirty-one.
The Rev. Abner Benedict, of North Salem, New York, a graduate in the class of 1769, at Yale, was the next minister, he serving from 1771, till 1785, when 'he was dismissed by his own request that he might move to a place more favorable to the health of his daughter, who was an invalid. The Rev. Abner Benedict was an exceptional man, as a minister and as a citizen.
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While in Middlefield he convinced the people of the sin of slavery and that it was a crime against society, with the result, that every slave owned in Middlefield was freed. The Rev. Joel Benedict, D.D., of Lisbon and Plainfield; and Lieutenant Peter Benedict, a soldier of the Revolution, were brothers of Abner, who was a writer of merit upon religious subjects. The late Rev. Dr. Field in commenting upon the sad disruption in the Church, due to there being as " many people of many minds ", in those early days, as at the present time, says :
This dismissal was exceedingly unfavorable to the interests of religion in Middlefield. Had he remained there, the Church would have probably been greatly strengthened and the society united and prosperous. But after he was gone the society remained vacant more than twenty years. No minister of Christ was statedly in the desk on the Sabbath, enlighten- ing and establishing the minds of the people in the great truths of the gospel, and telling them on week days from house to house, words whereby they and their children might be saved. The old professors of religion died or removed, until the church was almost extinct.
But the Lord having revived his work in the neighboring town of Durham, and this having spread somewhat in this place, the church was reorganized, or rather a new church was formed in December, 1808, and twenty-nine persons solemnly entered into covenant with God, and with one another. A few of these had been members of the old church, the others were those who had recently entertained hope of a saving interest in Christ.
But the members of this church, and those disposed to attend worship with them, had no meeting-house of their own, and difficulties existed in the way of their occupying the old meeting-house. In this situation they met for a time in private dwellings, and then assembled for worship in a conference-house, which they erected, until they found means to build a sanctuary. This they raised on the site of the old meeting-house in 1841 and dedicated it June 8, 1842.
CROMWELL.
C ROMWELL was known as Upper Houses - sometimes Upper Middletown - from the settlement of Middle- town in 1650, down to 1851, in which year Upper Houses was incorporated as separate town. . The Upper Houses were simply the houses, or little settlement, in the upper portion of Middletown. This designation for out-lying hamlets belong- ing to the larger and principal settlement or town, was customary in many Connecticut towns and many of the original towns gave
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the names of Upper and Lower Houses, to hamlets lying above or below them.
The majority of the first settlers of Cromwell built their houses on Pleasant street. They were John Kirby, Nathaniel White, Robert Webster, Samuel Stocking, George Graves, Joseph Smith, Daniel Harris, John Martin, John Savage, David Sage, and Thomas Ranney. They were joined by several other families before the end of the year. Between the Upper Houses and Mid-
ORIGINAL STREET, CROMWELL.
dletown was Little River, which was crossed in going to and from the Church and stores in Middletown, by a ferry.
Middletown granted the right to the people of Upper Houses to have their own school as early as 1683, and a similar grant was made by vote of the Town in 1690, possibly because the pro- visions of the first grant for a school had not been complied with, and no school had been started. In 1703, the General Court, by desire of the inhabitants of Upper Houses, incorpo- rated it as a parish distinct from Middletown, with the stipula- tion, that the people should procure a minister within a year,
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otherwise they would have to continue as a part of the Parish of Middletown, and would have to pay their portion toward the support of the Church there. At this time, 1703, the little vil- lage contained about 250 persons. While they governed their own Church and school affairs, they were, in matters relating to the town, under the jurisdiction of Middletown. A Church was not organized and a minister settled till 1715, when the Rev. Joseph Smith was settled as the first minister of Cromwell.
The great fertility of the soil made the chief occupation of the
RIVER ROAD, CROMWELL.
people its cultivation, for nearly 150 years after the settlement. A few years after the close of the Revolution, ship building began and for several decades was carried on with energy and profit. William Belcher, Captain Luther Smith, and Captain Abijalı Savage had ship yards, and further back from the river was a rope-walk in which the cables and cordage, for the vessels built there, were made. At about the beginning of the nineteenth century there were a few small manufacturies.
In 1810, a debating society was organized that was called the
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Friendly Association. It had a small library which formed the nucleus for a larger collection of books several decades later. The first officers were : President, the Rev. J. L. Williams ; vice- president, Silas Sage; secretary, William C. Redfield ; treasurer, Allen Butler. The association flourished for twenty years and then slowly died.
One of the most distinguished men of the first half of the nine- teenth century, in New England, was William C. Redfield, who was born in Middletown, in 1789, and spent his childhood and
STOWE HOUSE, CROMWELL.
part of his youth in Cromwell. His father, who was a sailor, died when William was but thirteen years old, and much of William's early education was obtained from his mother, who was possessed of more than ordinary mental attainments. At the age of four- teen he was apprenticed to a mechanic of Cromwell. Although his duties occupied nearly all of his time, he still found opportu- nities to study and so lay the foundation of the education it was his ambition to obtain. William read and studied at night, after the work of the day was finished, by the light from the logs burn- ing on the andirons in the large open fireplace. In the Rev. Dr.
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Tully William had a good and wise friend, who gave the am- bitious youth free access to his library and suggested to him the best course of reading, and study.
That William Redfield in later life became well known, as a scientist, original investigator and philosopher, in the Eastern and Western Hemispheres, was due to his untiring patience and great energy of body and mind. His method was to determine upon some particular object which he wished to attain and then to go at it and, overcoming all difficulties, attain it. An instance
BROOKE HOUSE, CROMWELL.
of his determination and great physical energy - which was even excelled by his mental energy - will give an idea of the youth who, as a man, became the co-discoverer of the rotary motion of storms.
At the age of twenty-one, when his apprenticeship was finished, he desired to visit his mother, who had remarried and moved to Ohio. The distance from Cromwell to her home was 700 miles and the only way he could get there was to walk. He covered the 700 miles in twenty-seven days and as he rested four days
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he was actually on foot twenty-four days and so averaged a trifle more than twenty-nine miles a day. As his eyes and ears were ever on the alert and his ability to perceive and observe was profound, his 700-mile journey on foot did as much for him as a year in college would have done for the average young man of twenty-one.
After his return to Cromwell he resumed his trade and con- tinued his studies. The great storm of September 3, 1821, was the means of Mr. Redfield's discovery of the rotary motion of storms. Not only was the storm severe, but it covered a great territory. His power of observation has been mentioned. In
THE RANNEY HOUSE, CROMWELL.
this instance, he had observed that the storm approached Middle- town from the south-east, and that the up-rooted and fallen trees lay with their tops toward the north-west. Soon after this storm, Mr. Redfield had occasion to go to western Massachusetts where he found that the storm had up-rooted trees there also, but that they were all lying with their tops toward the south-east, exactly opposite to those at Middletown. He made inquiries there and found that in western Connecticut and Massachusetts the storm had approached from the north-west, at the same time it was approaching from the opposite direction, seventy miles away in
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the neighborhood of Middletown. He followed the course of the storm and gave to what he found intense thought. He dis- covered that all great storms are cyclonic, or as he expressed it, progressive whirlwinds. For the benefit of navigators, Mr. Red- field immediately published " The Law of Storms ".
It happened that General Reid, of the British Royal Engineers, made a similar discovery at about the same time. Commodore Perry - whose gentle knock upon Japan's front door caused it
GRAVE OF THE REV. THOMAS RANNEY IN THE OLD CEMETERY.
to be opened to America - spoke of these two scientists, in the report of his Japanese expedition, as follows :
It was my good fortune to enjoy for many years the friendly acquaint- ance of one as remarkable for modesty and unassuming pretensions as for laborious observation and inquiry after knowledge. To him and to Gen- eral Reid, of the Royal Engineers of England (now Governor of Malta), are navigators mainly indebted for the discovery of a law which has already contributed and will contribute greatly to the safety of vessels traversing the ocean. The honor of having established, on satisfactory evidence, the rotary and progressive character of ocean storms, and de-
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termining their modes of action or laws, is due alike to the memory of William C. Redfield and to our country's fame.
Mr. Redfield was a marine engineer of note. The famous Connecticut River steamer, "Oliver Ellsworth ", was built by him in 1823. The idea of carrying freight, to and from New York and the upper-Hudson, on long strings of barges drawn by tug-boats was his. Mr. Redfield and George W. Feather- stonhaugh ( the first Government Geologist of the United States whose mansion and country estate were in Duanesburgh, Sche- nectady County, New York), were the first to see and appreciate the possibilities for national wealth by connecting by railroads the vast fertile territory of the North-west with the great markets of the East.
It may be remarked incidentally, that Mr. Featherstonhaugh began writing for public prints upon the subject of railroads in 1812, and on March 26, he and Stephen VanRensselaer, the last of the Patroons, incorporated the first railroad company.
In 1829, Mr. Redfield issued a pamphlet setting forth his ideas, which were to connect the Mississippi and Hudson Rivers by a railroad over which the crops and minerals of the West could be brought to New York, and the West peopled with men of energy and enterprise from the East. The route he proposed was practically that of the Erie Railroad and his prophesy for the routes of other railroads, that would connect Indiana, Illinois and Michigan, with the East, was closely fulfilled.
MIDDLESEX COUNTY.
W ILD animals were beginning to be scarce in Middle- sex County by the time the Revolution broke out. Bears, wolves, " catamounts", deer etc. could be found by experienced hunters, but it was not so many years be- fore the Revolution that they were to be had without hunting for them.
Wolves were a source of trouble and loss to the farmers till 1770, when those that were left gradually withdrew to the wilder portions of northern New England. They were suffi- ciently rare for the killing of one in the northern part of Say-
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brook, in the winter of 1815, to excite unusual interest and comment.
That moose ever roamed the meadows and forests of the lower Connecticut, and gorged themselves on lily-pads and river grass, hardly seems possible, but the time was, when they were not at all scarce, although not frequently seen near the settle- ments, because of their timidity. It is a fact, however, that in 1770, in the Town of Saybrook, near where the wolf was killed in 1815, that a moose was killed. It was probably the last of its kind in Middlesex County.
Deer were so numerous in very early times that they often proved a nuisance as crop destroyers. They were plentiful up to the hard winters of 1764-'65, when great numbers died or were killed by hunters.
Wild turkeys were common up to 1780, or '85, and could be found by skilful hunters up to 1790.
The animals that were hunted and trapped for their valuable fur, disappeared many years before those that were killed for food, as well as for their hides.
Ferries were established at an early date as a means of crossing the Connecticut. They were as follows: Saybrook Ferry, be- tween Saybrook and Lyme, 1662; Chapman's Ferry, between Haddam and East Haddam, 1694. These two were the only ferries crossing the Connecticut in Middlesex County for eighty- nine years after the first settlement. Brockway's Ferry, between Pautapoug (Essex) and the northern part of Lyme, 1724; Mid- dletown Ferry, between Middletown and Chatham, 1726; Upper- houses (Cromwell) Ferry, between Upper Houses and Chatham, 1759; Higganum Ferry, between Haddam and Middle Haddam, 1763; Warner's Ferry, between Chester and Hadlyme, 1769. Knowl's Landing Ferry (Chatham), between Middletown and Middle Haddam, was granted about 1736, but it was abandoned and a new grant made in 1806; East Haddam Ferry, between Haddam and East Haddam, in 1741, but it was only occasionally used and a new grant was made in 1811 ; Haddam Ferry, be- tween Haddam and Middle Haddam, 1814.
Post Offices were established, in Middletown in 1775; Say- brook, in 1793; Killingworth, in 1794; East Haddam and Dur-
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ham, in 1800; Haddam, in 1802; Knowl's Landing, Chatham, in 1904; Upper Houses (Cromwell), in 1809; Chester, in 1810; West Chester and North Killingworth, in 1817.
Stage lines were established in 1785, and in 1794, which car- ried mail from Hartford to New Haven, through . Middletown and Durham, in Middlesex County.
The interest and wonder excited by the first carriages, kept solely for driving or " pleasure-carriages ", as they were called, has been spoken of several times. The owning of one of these vehicles was greater evidence of affluence in those days, than a $20,000 " benzine-buggy " is in the twentieth century. The first made its appearance in Killingworth, in 1748; then followed, Middletown, about 1750; Saybrook and Durham, in 1755; Chat- ham, in 1768; East Haddam, in 1769; and Haddam, in 1785.
The first library in Middlesex was established in Chester, in 1733.
The idea is so utterly ridiculous to us now, that it hardly seems possible that those good, narrow, heroic Christians, who settled New England, should have thought the names of the days of the week to be sinful, because they were derived from the names of mythological gods, but as an actual matter of fact they did think Sunday, Monday etc. were naughty words. The week began on the Sabbath, or Lord's Day; the other days were known and designated by numbers. It really does not seem possible that such intelligent, strong-minded men, a large percent of whom had received liberal educations, could have believed that the taking out from their lives, their speech and their thoughts even, everything that was poetic, beautiful and romantic, was pleasing to the Creator, Who was the source of the very things they deprived themselves of. But they did, and they were honest and sincere in so doing. They would not tolerate the names of the days of the week because of their mythological origin. They deprived their children of all knowledge of Christ- mas and Easter because they were too strongly associated with Rome.
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CHATHAM.
C HATHAM was first settled by the English in 1710, when a family by the name of Goff made their " pitch " near the river, a little to the south of the landing at the vil- lage of Middle Haddam. The next white family to settle there, was that of Captain Cornelius Knowles, who built his house on the bank of the river and gave his name to the locality, which was long after known as Knowles' Landing. These two families were not long afterward joined by other families who took up land and built their homes on the slope, which rises rather abruptly to the height of one hundred feet and then to three hundred feet, a half mile back from the river. This situation was fine and the extensive view of the river and the high hills across it, in the town of Middletown, was most charming. It is a very noticable fact, that while Yankees always were intensely practical (and still are practical and always will be, with a keenness after profit, as the " Yorkers " claim), they were and are, more than any other people, lovers of Nature and her beauties, so their homes and little settlements were generally located in the most beautiful spots and where the view was fine.
For about fifty years the settlers cleared and cultivated the land and hunted, trapped and fished. Fishing in those days, and for many decades thereafter, meant shad and salmon. It hardly seems possible now, that there was a time when salmon were so common that it was customary in one or another of the river towns, especially Hartford, when an apprentice was indentured, to demand that he should not be given salmon oftener than a certain specified number of times a week. Agriculture and hunt- ing and trapping were succeeded, as the chief occupation, by boat building about 1760, the first to be launched being sloops and small schooners. The first ship was launched from the Middle Haddam yards in 1763. From that time the business increased and flourished till about 1805, when for some reason it fell off and eventually ceased.
The prosperity of Middle Haddam, while the boat building
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yards were at their busiest, made it a trading center for a con- siderable distance to the south, east and north-east, people going there for their trading from as far off as the towns of Marlboro and Hebron. From 1805, when the business of the boat yards began to decline, to 1838, when it ceased, there were III vessels built, with a total tonnage of 27,430. The vessels launched be- tween those years were: 51 ships, 24 brigs, 21 schooners and 15 sloops, which shows that the greater number were sea-going vessels. One of the most famous master-builders of the Con- necticut River was Thomas Child, who was living in 1851, at the great age of 89. During his long life he had charge of the con- struction of 237 vessels, the greater portion of them being built in the Middle Haddam yards. The ship building industry naturally stimulated the wealthier citizens of Middle Haddam to embark in commerce, and a few of them owned the vessels they commanded, or an interest in those they helped to navigate.
For thirty years the people of Middle Haddam and vicinity were obliged to journey through the woods, or by boat and canoc on the river, to Portland, Middletown or Haddam to attend church. In October, 1738, they, with a few families from Haddam Neck, petitioned for incorporation as a parish. The petition was granted and the Church was organized on September 24, 1740. The Rev. Benjamin Bowers, of Billerica, Massachusetts, a grad- uate of Harvard in the class of 1733, was the first minister. In 1744, a meeting house was built as near the center of the scattered homesteads as possible.
The first Episcopal Church in Chatham was built in 1772, in the eastern portion of Middle Haddam, but it was not long-lived and the building was taken down. In 1786, another Episcopal Church was built in Middle Haddam, near the "Landing ", the Rev. Abraham Jarvis, rector of Christ Church, Middletown, officiating till 1791.
There was a Methodist Church there in 1792. The meetings were held in the homes of the members, or in the school house, till 1796, when a small church was built. There were at one time fifty communicants, but the membership fell off and the church was finally closed.
There is a hill about two miles back from the Connecticut River, partly in. Chatham and partly in Portland, that for more
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CHATHAM.
than a century was a great mineral mystery. The town line runs along the ridge of Great Hill, which rises precipitously from the pond at its south-western front, to a height above the pond of 400 feet and above the sea of 700 feet. For the first hundred years after the settlement of Middletown (which formerly in- cluded the Towns of Portland and Chatham), this hill was called " The Governor's Ring ".
It seems, that Governor John Winthrop, of New London, was accustomed to go to Great Hill with a servant and remain there two or three weeks at a time. When the Governor returned to New London he always had one, and sometimes several gold rings, and as everybody supposed that he obtained the gold from the hill, it came to be known as "The Governor's Ring". On May 25, 1661, the people of Middletown granted to Governor Winthrop certain rights and privileges, and the following is a paraphrase of the document.
The people of Middletown for the encouragement of our much honored governor, Mr. John Winthrop, in his efforts to discover mines and minerals, for the working of which he will set up such works as may be needful, do hereby grant unto our much honored governor, any profitable mines or minerals that he shall discover, upon any common land within the borders of our town, and such woodland as he may need, to be used in working the mines; in area from 500 to 1,000 acres, which woodland shall not be within two miles of the settlement, but in such place as the town shall decide will the least interfere with the town's supply of firewood. The town reserves the right of commonage until the governor incloses the property granted. It is further provided that unless the governor, and such others as may be associated with him, set up works and begin to improve the mines within five years, the town reserves the right to make this grant to other persons, and if the governor accepts this grant, he must do so within two years.
The original wording of this grant was a jumble of words seemingly put together for the purpose of hiding the intention of the document. It certainly was an easy grant to live under. Had there been a dispute, all the interested parties would have been dead by the time the document had been translated into understandable English.
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Nothing definite was done with the supposed mine in Great Hill, till one hundred years after the grant to Governor Winthrop was made. It is probable that he found minerals in it, of several kinds, but probably not in sufficient quantities to warrant the in- vestment of money for its working. In 1762, a German physician, Dr. John Sebastian Stephauney, had a small force of men make a horizontal opening into the hill. He gave up his operations after a brief time, only to renew them in 1770. This time he had two other Germans associated with him, John Knool and Gominus Erkelens. Dr. Stephauney gave up an active interest in the enterprise and turned over the management to his partners, re- serving for himself a portion of any profits there might be obtained. They agreed, that should metals or ore obtained from Great Hill be sent to England, that friends of Knool's should be the consignees ; if to Holland, friends of Erkelens' should receive them.
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