USA > Connecticut > Historic towns of the Connecticut River Valley > Part 16
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On January 14, 1639, all the free planters of Hartford, Wethersfield and Windsor met in Hartford to draw up and adopt this famous first written constitution for civil government.
DISTRIBUTION OF LAND - LABOR, ITS WAGES.
The manner of the distribution of the land to the original settlers, or proprietors, was to give each head of a family a lot in the settlement proper, or the village, of about two acres upon which the home was to be built, and then a piece of greater acreage outside of the village, for raising crops. These farm pieces were bounded by the settlement at one end and stretched out in all directions, in long, narrow strips. The acreage in these farm pieces was determined by the sum the individual had contributed to the general fund for the purchase, or by services rendered. Sometimes they were in accordance with the position in the community of the individual, and sometimes in accordance with his necessity. The rule in regard to the two-acre lots in the settlement was that the house should be built within a year, and in regard to the farm land, that it should be improved. Failure to comply with these rules caused the land of both kinds to revert to the Town. Realizing the danger from fire and the seriousness of loss by fire (for the houses were built
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with great labor) and the danger, should a fire start, that the other dwellings with their logs covered with dry, inflam- mable bark, would all go, the people were required to pro- vide a ladder, or to leave one tree sufficiently near the house for it to be used as a ladder. No owner was permitted to sell his village lot or farm, or any portion of either, without giving the Town the first chance to purchase, the payment to be for only the improvements. Property could not be sold by an original owner without the consent of the Town. This was a wise provision. It was made for the same purpose as was that governing the admission of new Inhabit- ants; to keep undesirable outsiders from gaining citizenship. In 1640, this rule regulating the selling of property was changed, so that owners who had been Inhabitants for four years could sell as they chose, but a reversion to the old rule was made by the General Court, in 1651.
That portion of the territory purchased from the Indians, that had not been assigned to original proprietors, was known as the Commons and belonged to the Town. When new settlers were admitted as Inhabitants, portions of the Com- mons were assigned to them. The common lands were at first under the charge of a committee, and later under the Selectmen, whose duty it was to see that there was no dam- age done by live stock, and that the timber should only be cut by those who were given licenses to do so. Grants of the common lands were made for public service, such as ditching and clearing, but the grants could be made only with the knowledge and consent of the entire town. The feudal system was unknown in Hartford. The people owned their property absolutely, save that they owned it under a superior authority, which was the People, of which superior authority each owner was a sovereign unit. So their land was not held under the superior authority of the King in the mother country, but under that of Themselves and their fellow Inhabitants. No man of Hartford ever took the oath of allegiance to the British King till after the Charter of 1662 was granted.
There were also laws governing extravagance and display in dress and ornament, and the prices to be paid for the
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work done by men and cattle, and the length of the work-day.
The wages paid for labor by the day varied from eighteen pence to two shillings and sixpence, the season of the year and the " smartness " of the man being considerations influ- encing the pay. The length of a work-day in summer was eleven hours, and in winter it was nine hours.
The charge for the use of cattle for a day varied from four- teenpence to eighteenpence, also according to the season and working qualities of the cattle. For the use of a cart from threepence to sixpence a day was charged.
Sawyers, the makers of lumber, received better pay than farm laborers. The pay for this work varied from four shil- lings and sixpence to seven shillings, and if either party gave or received more than the sums fixed, for the particular kind of work, he was fined five shillings for each offence.
Trouble arising from an employer taking advantage of a man's necessity, was settled by arbitration by the Towns- men, who imposed fines to suit the offence. So, while some of these laws were arbitrary, they were made for the good of the community and if they seemed a hardship in particular cases it was due to ignorance, or lack of experience, rather than a desire on the part of the employed to do as little for as much as possible, or on the part of the employers, to give as little for as much done as possible.
Besides all of the common grains, and beans, the settlers had a fair variety of vegetables. The raising of tobacco, hemp and flax was encouraged and regulated by law. To encourage the raising of tobacco, there was a penalty of five shillings for using any that was grown out of Connecticut, and the Connecticut referred to in the law was composed of the three towns of Hartford, Wethersfield and Windsor. Strict laws were passed in regard to the use of tobacco, for the General Court feared that the people were abusing them- selves with it. The Court ordered that no person under the age of twenty-one should use tobacco in any form, with- out a certificate from a physician that tobacco was good for him, and even then, the would-be user was required to obtain a license from the General Court. This requirement included
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all who had not acquired the habit, as well as those under twenty-one.
After the certificate and license had been obtained, the possessor was forbidden to smoke, chew or snuff, on the pub- lic streets, the highways, or in barn yards, and on training days he could not indulge in any open space. This probably was to prevent the use of tobacco on, or about the training ground. The penalty for each offence was sixpence, and any one could be convicted by the testimony of but one witness.
In 1640, the General Court compelled the raising of flax and hemp. This law provided that each family should plant one spoonful of the seed, the seeds to be planted one foot apart. In the second year, each family keeping a team was to sow at least one rood of hemp or flax ; each person keeping cattle was to sow twenty perches; families not owning cattle were obliged to sow ten perches and to provide at least a half pound of hemp or flax seed, or be subject to the public censure of the Court. As there was a scarcity of hemp seed, the Court ordered that any person who possessed more than the required spoonful and refused to sell to those who had none, should be obliged to plant that much more.
Their animals were cattle, horses of a rather poor quality for any other purpose than heavy work, hogs, sheep and goats. The goat's well known capacity for mischief caused him to be barred from the commons and the streets of the settlement without a keeper. While pigs were a frequent article of diet in the form of pork, as pigs, they were a fre- quent subject of legislation by the Town.
There is a tradition that many years later than the period just mentioned, about the third and fourth decades of the nineteenth century, there were finer specimens of "trouble- poultry " - as an old colored man called his fighting cocks - in Hartford than could be elsewhere found in New England. Had it not been for a hungry woman on one of the emigrant ships, of 1637, Hartford might have had fighting cocks with spurs on heads as well as heels. Tradition says that this woman was bringing with her from Old England to New
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England, in 1637, a pair of fowls which had spur-like horns growing out from their heads on either side, but she killed and ate them before landing.
The earliest record of a law in regard to public education in Conneetieut is that of 1642, when £30 was set aside for the Town Sehool. Thus early did Hartford establish "The Little Red School-house " in which the majority of America's greatest men obtained their first thirst for knowledge.
In 1650, each Town of fifty householders was required to maintain a sehool master, and each Town of one hundred house- holders was required to maintain a Grammar Sehool, with a master who was competent to prepare pupils for the Univer- sity - meaning Harvard. In 1664, Governor Hopkins gave to this school f400, that the sehool might be on a firm founda- tion. One of the chief reasons the people were so strongly in favor of an education was, that more persons would be able to read the Seriptures in the Greek, and so avoid the danger of depending upon translators, who might eonstrue the original to suit their own " mistaken " ideas. Another was, that a greater number of young men might be stimulated to fit themselves for the ministry.
One of the duties of the Selectmen was to require all chil- dren and apprentiees to attend sehool, and they were given authority to take minors of both sexes from parents or mas- ters who negleeted their duty in sending their children or apprentices to school. Sueh children were to be placed under the guardianship of some person - till they were twenty-one in the case of boys, and eighteen in the ease of girls - who would see to it that they were properly educated for good eitizen- ship, industry and obedienee to the laws. The Seleetmen were also obliged to require heads of families, onee a week, to eateehize their children and servants in the principles of their religion, meaning the Congregational Church. The schools had a hard struggle for the people, however well off they might be, had little ready money to give to their sup- port. The people had a keen appreciation of the advantages of an education, and they showed a determination and sin- cerity of purpose, to do all that was possible to keep the "little red factory " of good citizenship at work on full time,
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with a full force. For this noble purpose many ways for keeping the machinery going were adopted. Wood for heat- ing the school-house was donated; small sums of money were given for the rent of a room, when the cost of a school-house would be too great ; or pupils were charged a tiny tuition. The people voted in Town Meeting to tax themselves for the support of the institution that was so close to the Church, that it stood nearly on a level with it. Those old-time New Englanders were austere, rather mirthless and grim, but they were nation and character builders and devoted to their Church and School.
In the very early days there were queer laws made for regulating who should be, and who should not be inhabitants. There can be no doubt that the laws, queer as they were, were CHARTER OAR necessary for the protection of ' FELL: the community in its social, po- Aus. 21. 1856. litical, industrial and religious lives. The community was com- posed of families which had un- dertaken a great enterprise in leaving the comfort and, in niany instances, the luxury of their homes in England and HARTFORD, CONN. later, in leaving the comparative safety of their homes in Massa- chusetts for the unknown far-west. They were united in their purpose, in their standard of life, both public and domestic, and in their manner of worship and Church government, so they could not afford to hazard the discord that might result from the promiscuous influx of strangers. They were a house which, divided against itself, would not only have fallen, but would have been annihilated. They had insti- tuted their wonderful Town Government and it must be maintained, even at the expense of seeming inhospitality.
Strangers could become inhabitants only upon proof of good character - which meant honest, God-fearing industri-
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ous lives - and then, only upon an affirmative vote of a majority of the inhabitants. Persons who were evidently waifs were absolutely barred from citizenship. Families, which were already inhabitants, were not permitted to enter- tain strangers in their homes for a period of time longer than one month, without permission from the Town. Young unmarried men were not allowed to live in any family with- out permission from the Town, no matter how good were their characters; nor was a young unmarried man permitted to live in bachelor-quarters, unless he kept a servant or was a public officer. The penalty for such an offence was a fine of twenty shillings. This was the strangest of the laws gov- erning life in those early days. It was probably due to the fear that a man living alone would become slovenly, dirty and perhaps immoral and to them, the people of Connecti- cut, who gave to America its Town Government and to the World its first written Constitution, cleanliness of person and domicile was but little less important than cleanliness of inorals.
Inhabitants were obliged by law to attend Town Meeting. Failure to do so without reasonable excuse, was punished by a fine of sixpence - small indeed in value, but the princi- ple involved by the fine was great. If there were a similar law now, in every State of the Union, in regard to attendance at primaries, the high officials in Town, County, State and Nation, would be men who have inherited their American Citizenship instead of those who have acquired it through the naturalization courts.
There was one striking particular in which Connecticut,
. and therefore Hartford, was far in advance of the Colonies of Massachusetts and New Haven. To be a voter in Con- necticut it was only necessary to be an Inhabitant; in Massa- chusetts and New Haven, membership in the Congre- gational Church was necessary. They were continuing in the New World that union of Church and State which they found so objectionable in the Old World. The people of Massachusetts found that the union was rather a pleasant condition, giving as it did, greatly augmented power to those persons who held office. And in New England they were the
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Church and State, while in Old England they were simply the puppets of the Church. It is not at all strange that they found the power very pleasant and tickling to their self- esteem.
MISCELLANY.
In 1642, Connecticut had provided the death penalty for twelve crimes, and later two more were added to the frightful list, and they were all based upon the Bible.
Human beings were put to death :
For worshipping another God than the Lord God.
For being a witch, or consulting with a familiar spirit.
For blaspheming the name of God the Father, Son or Holy Ghost * * with presumptuous or highhanded blasphemy.
For wilful murder.
For slaying another through guile, either by poisonings or other such Devilish practice.
For kidnapping. For false witness.
For conspiring or attempting an invasion, insurrection or rebellion against the Commonwealth.
For a child above sixteen years of age to curse, or smite his father or mother.
For a son above sixteen years of age, who will not obey his father or mother, after he has been chastened by them.
There is no city in New England, in which public hospi- tality for travelers is greater, or the accommodations more comfortable and elegant, than in Hartford. The city has in- herited this characteristic for 260 years for in 1644, the Legis- lature, or General Court as it was then called, ordered that the towns of Hartford, Windsor and Wethersfield should each provide a house for the entertainment of strangers and the traveling public, in which they should be fed and lodged in a "comfortable " manner. The tavern-keeper was chosen for that employment by the people and was approved by two magistrates, as being the right man for the best in- terests of strangers and the reputation of the towns. There was a fine of forty shillings, to be paid by the Town failing to comply with this order within a month after its issuance,
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and a similar fine was imposed for each successive month that passed, before the order was complied with.
The first tavern in Hartford was in 1644, and Jeremy Adams was its keeper. Tradition and history makes Jeremy Adams a typical landlord. Hospitable, jolly and full of deviltry in his youth, when he began the duties of landlord, in later years he settled down and became a solid, substan- tial and prominent citizen. One of his early improprieties was to urge Thomas Hosmer, against whom an execution had been issued, to resist the levy by the constable. For this the General Court censured him formally. In 1662, Adams was confirmed by the authorities as tavern-keeper, so it is evident that he was regarded as the right man for the place. In 1663, he was appointed to the responsible office of Master of Customs. An especial enactment by the General Court provided that Adams' house should remain the tavern for the entertainment of neighbors as well as strangers; that if Adams failed in any particulars of his agreement, his license should not be forfeited, but that he should continue in its possession at the discretion of the Court and himself be subject to its censure.
This was practically a monopoly and no doubt it was as profitable in those days as are the monopolies of to-day. His monopoly included the exclusive right to sell wines in all quantities under a quarter cask, and all liquors under an anker ; a Dutch measure of liquids used in England, contain- ing ten wine-gallons. So Jeremy Adams had control of the retail and wholesale trade of the Colony, as it is hardly probable that his colleagues in the other towns were doing enough business to be able to buy wines and liquors in greater quantities than a quarter cask or an anker. It would be unjust and partaking of the nature of a vandalism to even suggest that the authorities received any of the mysterious presents, in unadressed envelopes, which the grantors of monopolies of the twentieth century find in their desks or coat pockets. In those days, when time was still young in the Colonies, public officials were simple, honest men, who had not reached that advanced stage of civilization that
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obtains in this century. It is evident, however, that Jeremy had what in these days is known in politics as a " pull ".
Jeremy Adams was in Cambridge in 1632. He was an original settler of Hartford and married Rebekah Greenhill, the widow of Samuel Greenhill. Adams came into posses- sion of the Greenhill estate by giving a bond to pay to the . two minor children a stipulated sum when they became of age. He sold his house and lot to Thomas Catlin and moved to the Greenhill property, on the west side of Main street, just south of the bridge. In 1651 he purchased a lot of John Steel on the east side of Main street, where the Travelers' Insurance building stands, and kept a tavern there for years. Becoming involved in financial difficulties he mortgaged this property to the Colony, which was redeemed by his grandson, Zachary Sanford, in 1685.
This first tavern or inn was situated on the east side of Main street, on three acres of ground, and the well in front of the inn continued in use for more than 200 years. In 1687, when the Charter was in jeopardy, the General Court met in this inn, where Captain Wadsworth blew out the candles, upon the arrival of Governor Andros, and, securing the Charter in the confusion resulting from the sudden dark- ness, escaped thence to hide the precious document in the Charter Oak. When this historic event took place, the inn was kept by Zachary Sanford. Sanford, a grandson of Adams, bought the mortgage which Adams had given the Colony and which the Colony had foreclosed: So it seems that notwith- standing his profitable monopoly, Adams got into debt more heavily than he could manage to get out of. Jeremy Adams died in 1683.
Some time later the authorities made rules for the regulation of inns which were rigidly enforced. A sign was to be placed where strangers entering the town could see it and, in 1679, when Adams neglected to so place his sign, he was fined forty shillings. The act of the General Court required that guests should be made comfortable and provided with as great a variety of nour- ishment, both liquid and solid, as possible. The Inn was to be to the traveler as his own house. Provided he had the money,
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he was to order what he liked and had the run of the kitchen to give directions as to how it should be cooked. The bed must have clean sheets, on which no one had before slept. A servant was to be provided to make his fire and to pull off and clean his boots. He had the option of eating with his host at the common table, or in his private room. There were rules for the care and feeding of the traveler's horse, and if the landlord failed to live up to the rules he was fined by the town two shillings and sixpence a day, and double that sum had to be paid to the owner of the horse. The rules governing the landlord were, that he must not permit excessive drinking or intoxication in his house. Half a pint of wine was the limit to be served to one person at one time. Drinking was not to continue for more than a half hour at one sitting, and never at unseasonable hours. Liquids ceased to flow at the call of the thirsty at nine o'clock at night. Wine could not be sold to be taken out of the Inn, except upon written authority from the head of a family. Every person found drunk, in or about an inn, was fined ten shillings. The Court imposed fines for different offenses in the use of strong drink and wine. For drinking more than the Court thought to be sufficient, there was a fine of three shillings and fourpence; for drinking for a longer period than a half hour, the fine was two shillings and sixpence; for drinking at unsea- sonable times, or after the hour of nine at night, the fine was five shillings. For second and third offenses the fines were two and three times as great respectively, while for the fourth offence, the penalty was imprisonment. If any convicted person was unable to pay his fine, he was either put in the stocks or given ten stripes.
Moses Butler was a famous and well liked inn-keeper in the old days. His place of entertainment was at the corner of Main and Elm streets, just south of the bridge. Besides being an excellent landlord, Butler was a character and a "crony ", and he gathered a number of other cronies about him - gentlemen who were past middle life - and formed the "Seven Copper Club". This odd name was derived from a rule of the Club, that whenever two or more of the members met at Butler's -- and Butler's was the meeting place of the Club - each one was obliged to spend seven coppers for a half mug of flip, no more
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and no less, nor was any other drink permitted. In this Inn, they would sit about a cherry table, polished till it shone, with pewter flip mugs of a quart capacity, and discuss matters of interest. Butler was strict in his rule that the club should adjourn at nine o'clock and that only one half-mug of flip should be drunk. On such occasions - and they were probably fre- quent - when one or another of the members urged for "just one more half-mug ", or for an extension of the time for adjourn- ment till past the hour of nine, tradition has it, that Butler's invariable reply was: "No, you sha'nt have another drop. Go home to your families ". No doubt this domineering spirit of Butler's was one of the charms of the Club, to the gentlemen who formed its membership, for there is nothing more pleasing to the man whose social and financial position is such that he can do just as he pleases, than to be domineered.
FIRST OFFICIALS ; THEIR DUTIES.
John Steele, the first Town Clerk, served till 1651, when he was succeeded by William Andrews, who was the first schoolmaster.
The Sealer of Leather was a man of importance, for all tanned hides must be examined by him and bear his mark of approval, otherwise there was trouble for the man who killed the animal which wore the hide, or for the tanner. Leather was much used for clothing as well as for foot covering, besides all of the many other uses to which it was put. The care taken in removing the hide from the animal, and in the tanning, was of great importance for the supply was far from being in excess of the demand. Hides were obtained only when an animal was slaughtered for food. Its flesh would provide food for a great many more per- sons than its hide would provide leather for shoes, boots and clothing, to say nothing of the various other uses to which leather was put, so the law was definite and strictly enforced. If the butcher was careless and gashed the hide while skinning the animal he was fined twelvepence for each gash. If the hide was carelessly allowed to heat, the fine was twenty pounds, or if the tanner spoiled it or made poor leather of it, the sealer refused to pass it and the tanner was out of pocket to the extent of the value of the tanned hide. Part of the duty of the Sealer
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