USA > Connecticut > Historic towns of the Connecticut River Valley > Part 20
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waist-high was a menace to the health of their women and children, they did not fear the displeasure of Almighty God, if they remained in their little settlement and worshipped Him in their homes during the winter, but they were in mortal terror of that powerful, well organized Congregational Church. So they humbly asked permission of the Church to worship at home, instead of exposing their women and children to the hardship of the long journey through the snow. The petition was graciously granted and two years later the Parish of Wintonbury was formed from the three towns already named.
The new society met in November, 1736, and voted to build a church and to settle a minister. The Rev. Hezekiah Bissell was ordained in February, 1738, as the first minister. He was a supporter of the half-way covenant. A disagreement in the Church between Deacon Abel Gillett (or Gillette) and John Hubbard resulted in the withdrawal of the Gillett faction and the organization of a Baptist Society.
EAST WINDSOR.
W HEN the First Congregational Church of East Wind- sor was 102 years old it had had but two ministers, so it may be seen that the town was as prosperous and peaceful in Church matters as it was in temporal matters.
In 1736, individual families began to select sites for their homesteads. The heads of these families were men of worth ; as men, pioneers, and Christians and it is notable that their first homes were not the usual log cabins, but frame houses, small to be sure, but comfortable and neat in appearance. From this it may be guessed that they were a little better supplied with this world's goods than were the average settlers, who could build their homes only of logs.
The first Church society was organized about 1752, and on October 30, 1752, the people voted to raise £500 with which to build a church. There was a little delay in fixing upon a location that would be central. In 1754, the Rev. Thomas Potwine (Sir Thomas Potwine, the old records' named him) was called as the minister of the people, but as yet no church edifice had been erected, so he was ordained in a new barn that had not yet been used. The church was not built till a year after his ordination,
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EAST WINDSOR.
and in the meantime service was held in the homes of one or another of the people. After the church had been built a small building was erected near it. Here, those who had come from a distance spent the recess between the morning and afternoon services, and ate the luncheons they had brought with them. It was during this recess that the weekly exchange of news and harmless neighborhood gossip took place. In the winter, they refilled their footstoves with coals for the afternoon service, from the stove in this little building, for in those days a heated church was considered far too luxurious and profane. As was the custom all over the Colony, everybody attended church, generally on horseback, so it was not at all unusual for one hun- dred saddled horses to be seen on Sundays, all of them carrying from one to three persons, the father, mother and infant, or small child.
When the church became somewhat dilapidated, through neglect caused by a serious division in the Church, some of the people advocated repairing the old building, which they regarded with affection, it being the first place of worship in the com- munity, while others, probably the younger element, wished to build a new church. In the evening of October 5, 1801, the church was seen to be on fire and before any thing could be done to save it, the dry material of which it was built turned to ashes and charred embers. It was suspected that the fire was due to the desire of that portion of the congregation which wished to build a new church. Several persons were openly accused of being responsible for the burning of the old church. The families and close friends of the accused ones took sides and many persons withdrew from the society. The burning of the old church, in which he had served for fifty years, was a source of great grief to the venerable minister and, in connection with his failing health, hastened his death, which occurred a year after the fire.
Up to the year of its incorporation, in 1768, East Windsor was a part of Windsor and was known as Windsor Farme.
More or less confusion in regard to the Towns of East Windsor and South Windsor and the village of East Windsor, is unavoid- able. The Towns of East and South Windsor were known as East Windsor up to 1845, when South Windsor was incorpo-
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rated so, while South Windsor did not exist during the period covered by the text, it is referred to in the text in order that confusion in regard to the location of houses and the places where certain historical events took place, may be avoided. For in- stance ; the house in which John Fitch was born was situated on the boundary between East Windsor and Hartford but the same house is now situated on the boundary between South Windsor and East Hartford. Bissell's Ferry connects the Town of Wind- sor with the Town of South Windsor at the village of East Windsor.
SOUTH WINDSOR.
T HE Town of South Windsor, formerly East Windsor, will be notable in New England, for all time, as the birth-place of Jonathan Edwards, the great Congre- gational minister of the eighteenth century who discovered that "hell is paved with infants' skulls". It should be notable to the entire civilized world, for all cime, as the birth-place of John Fitch, the inventor and builder of the first steamboat of the world.
The great-grandfather of John Fitch was an early settler in Windsor, where he purchased one-twentieth of the township. To his sons, Joseph, Nathaniel and Samuel, he left a considerable estate which they squandered. Joseph was the only son who married. His inheritance to his two children, Joseph and John, was poverty. Joseph, the father of John the inventor, was taken by a family of means and good position in Hartford society, and brought up by them, and given a good education. He married Sarah Slialer, of Bolton, and of their six children the fifth was John, the inventor.
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If it is true, as Mrs. Carey has said, that some of the most successful lives of the world are those of men who have died poor and whom the world regards as failures; successful, be- cause regardless of discouragements, adversity, opposition, mis- understanding, abuse and ridicule, they kept their faith in God, themselves and mankind, and struggled on hopefully and ener- getically to the end, instead of weakly giving up and sinking under overwhelming discouragements. If such men are suc- cesses, then John Fitch was the greatest success of the eighteenth
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century. In addition to possessing the qualities enumerated, he was patient and forbearing, although possessed of a proud spirit and hot temper ; he was courageous and patriotic, but he seems to have been born to be misunderstood, insulted and abused. His fine instincts were treated with ridicule and coarse contempt ; his first act of splendid heroism - performed when but a little boy - won for him a beating and villification at the hands of his elder brother. His repeated efforts to serve his country in the Revolution, in any capacity, were repulsed, and he was sub- jected to humiliating insult by his fellow patriots, who, as the world gauges men, were successful, because they had no obstacles such as he had, to overcome. And even after his death, his misfortunes continued, for Robert Fulton, the thief of other men's ideas - at least of John Fitch's - was and is credited by the world as being the father of steam navigation. Notwith- standing the fact that Fitch invented, built and successfully navi- gated a steamboat for carrying passengers, many years before Robert Fulton knew of the possibility of the application of steam as a motive power for marine purposes, and twenty years before he "plowed the Hudson ", with his misappropriated "inven- tion ", Fulton is generally credited with being the inventor of the steamboat.
John Fitch, the fifth child in a family of three sons and three daughters, was born in January, 1743, in the home which was situated on the boundary line between East Windsor, now South Windsor, and East Hartford. As the greater part of the house was in Windsor, Fitch claimed that town as his birthplace. He was sent to school at the age of four years and immediately showed a liking for study and books. A few months later his mother died and this greatest of his misfortunes was rapidly followed by others. His father married Miss Abigail Church of Hartford. When he was in Hartford, "courting ", the home was left in charge of the children. On one of these frequent visits to Hartford, John and his younger sister Chloe were in the house and his older brother and sister, Augustus and Sarah, were at the barn milking. Chloe, wishing to show John a present she had received, lighted a candle and accidentally set on fire two bundles of flax, which burnt with a fierce blaze. Young as John was, he saw the danger and courageously tried to move the
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burning flax to the fireplace. This he succeeded in doing, by resting the bundles on his knees. His hands were burnt and his hair blazing. He extinguished the blaze in his hair and then carried the other bundle, which was burning even more fiercely, to the fireplace and stamped the fire out.
In the mean time, Chloe had run to the barn to call her brother Augustus. Notwithstanding that the little fellow's (he was not yet seven) feet, hands and head were burnt and that , he was suffering greatly, Augustus, without a word or question, gave the little hero a beating. He complained of his brother's treatment to his father, upon his return from the business of courting, but his father treated it with indifference and coldness. In later life, when writing to his friend ; perhaps his only faithful friend ; the Rev. Nathaniel Irwin, of Bucks County, Pennsyl- vania, he referred to that act of barbarous cruelty and said : " This sir, being what I may call the first act of my life, seemed to forebode the future rewards I was to receive for my labors through life, which have generally corresponded exactly with that ".
When John was about seven, his father married his spinster and brought her home. John attended school till he was ten, but was obliged to help his father with the work, and at especially busy times was taken out of school that he might help. His earnest desire for an education increased. His father was stingy, stern, and entirely unsympathetic. When ten years old John was taken from school to work on the farm, notwithstanding that he was so young and small, even for his age, that he had not the strength to do much. His father was one of those hell- fire-and-damnation Presbyterians who thought it a sin to pick up an apple from the ground and eat it on Sunday, but saw no sin in depriving an ambitious boy of an education, nor did he think it wrong to make him do work that was far beyond his strength. He was permitted, however, to study at home, before and after working hours.
When he was eleven years old he earnestly wished to own Salmon's Geography. As his father refused to buy it for him, John asked and obtained permission to raise potatoes on a small patch of ground so that he could buy the book with the proceeds of the sale of the potatoes. He worked on holidays, at noon and
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at night, on his patch and finally sold his crop for ten shillings. The money was given to a neighboring merchant who was going to New York, and the precious book was finally his, but his delight was somewhat lessened by the fact that the book cost tívelve shillings and that his father required him to return a quantity of seed-potatoes equal to what he had let him have. Good fortune enabled him to soon pay these debts and then he mastered his geography.
That same year, his eleventh, John had a flattering experience with Governor Roger Wolcott, who was a neighbor of the Fitch family. John's father had taught him as much about surveying as he himself knew (as it cost nothing), and as he was proficient beyond his years at arithmetic, Governor Wolcott borrowed him to help make some surveys. The Governor found the boy even brighter than he thought him. He treated John with kindness and even respect, but when the work was finished, he not only failed to give him anything for his services, but also forgot to thank him.
When he was thirteen, his father opened his heart and per- mitted him to again attend school, for six weeks. In that time he acquired as much knowledge of mathematics as the teacher was competent to impart. His father was gratified and again opened his heart by buying him a few simple surveying instruments, and at the end of two weeks he had also acquired all the knowledge on this subject that the teacher possessed. This ended his " schooling ". His father felt that he had performed his full duty by his son, from the standpoint of a hell-fire-and-damnation Presbyterian of those days. When he was fifteen, his father sold his services to Roswell Mills, who kept a general country store in Simsbury, for eleven shillings a month. When he was seventeen, he became heartily sick of the life on the farm and so decided to go to sea. He told his father of his determination and re- ceived a Presbyterian blessing and twenty shillings from him.
The voyage to Newport and Providence lasted five weeks and ended his life as a sailor. His next venture was to apprentice himself to Benjamin Cheney a self-alleged clockmaker who knew little of the trade. Cheney cheated John shamefully. The little he knew about clocks was never imparted to John. He was never given enough to eat and was obliged to work on the farm instead
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of at his trade. When John insisted upon being taught to make and repair clocks, Cheney gave him some tinkering brass-work to do, which bore about as close a relation to the trade of clock- making as John's father's religion did to Christianity. Finally John refused to do any more farm work, so Cheney gave him his freedom, as he found he could get no more work out of him, and advised his going to his brother, Timothy Cheney, who was a " really and truly " clockmaker. He did so, but he was not permitted to learn anything of the trade but was kept at brass- work. Cheney even kept his tools locked up so John could not see and become familiar with them.
At the age of twenty-one, he started in business for himself as a brass-worker, with debts to the sum of £20, a much greater sum then than it is now. But by industry and economy he paid his debts and had £50 over in two years, and had acquired some knowledge of clockmaking through his own unassisted efforts. John was interested in many things and always succeeded in accomplishing whatever he put his mind and hands to, except the making of money. On December 29, 1767, he married Lucy Roberts, of Simsbury, whose father was a man of some promi- nence in that place and possessed of considerable property. Lucy was "something of an old maid " and very much the nagger, scold, and all-round termigant. John was even-tempered and for- bearing. He warned his wife, that unless she changed he would have to leave her, but she, thinking he was talking for effect, did not mend her ways. In all other respects she was a good woman. Their first child, a son, named Shaler, was born on November 3, 1768. On January 18, 1769, unable to longer stand his wife's scolding and nagging, he left her, taking only some clothing and less than eight dollars, all his other property being left for his wife and child. Some months after he left home his daughter was born.
Then began a long series of wanderings during which Mr. Fitch applied his unusual mechanical genius and skill, and his brilliant intellect, to many occupations for providing the means for living. His letters to his friend, the Rev. Mr. Irwin, show that the necessity for separating from his wife and child - he knew nothing of the approaching birth of his daughter - was a source of sorrow and regret. More than once he was on the
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point of returning, but something always prevented it. On one occasion, when his wanderings had taken him to the village of Woodbridge, now a part of Rahway, New Jersey, he had determined to return to his home. He stopped at the house of Benjamin Alford to purchase something to eat. The front door was open and inside was an old man who was being given a tongue-lashing by an old woman, presumably his wife. The sound of scolding was too familiar, so he continued his wan- derings.
In May, 1769, he arrived in Trenton and found employment with Matthew Clunn making brass buttons and later, with James Wilson, a young and wealthy silversmith, where John lived upon threepence a day. In September of the same year, he started out peddling brass sleeve-buttons and cleaning clocks. After two weeks he had sold out his stock and became convinced that there was money in the occupation. He returned to Trenton and made more sleeve-buttons and thus began his only profitable business. Wilson getting into financial difficulties, Fitch bought him out. He was enabled to borrow the money for this purpose because his honesty and strict attention to business were proven. Finally, he employed Wilson and other workmen and built up a business larger than any of the kind in Philadelphia. When the Revo- lutionary War broke out, he had accumulated the very consider- able fortune of £800.
Mr. Fitch being a Connecticut Yankee was, of course, a patriot. Early in the trouble with Great Britain he petitioned for the command of a company, in the Jersey line, and was assured that he would receive it. Nothing shows more strikingly Mr. Fitch's gentle courtesy and high sense of justice than his conduct after receiving his commission as first lieutenant. William Tucker, an old resident of Trenton, was second lieutenant. Fitch thought it not right that he, a comparative stranger, should outrank a lifelong resident, so he proposed an exchange of titles and was actually reduced to a second lieutenancy. Although John Fitch's life was largely made up of just such acts of generosity and justice, he was always misunderstood, insulted and imposed upon. His courage and patriotism were shown, after he was requested to become an armorer, or gunsmith, by refusing to take advantage of the exemption from military
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service, which exemption was offered to all gunsmiths, and con- tinuing with his company. Later, his fearless stand in the inter- ests of some poor soldiers was the cause of further trouble for him. A former acquaintance, Alexander Chambers, who was commissary, refused to provide some poor soldiers with blankets which they greatly needed. Fitch stuck to his demand and finally, through higher authority, succeeded in obtaining them. Chambers became his enemy and his sneaking, venomous animos- ity eventually drove Fitch out of the Continental army and deprived his country of one of its best soldiers. The strangest part of it all is, that although his superior officers knew of the underhand work, they did nothing about it. It almost seems as if he, in some mysterious and unconscious way, acted as a South Pole or repelling force to other men's better natures. It is evi- dent that he was not sufficiently vain and self-conceited for his good. Had he possessed even a small portion of the pride, vain- glory and egotism of his famous fellow-townsmen, Timothy and Jonathan Edwards, the world would have treated him better. In twentieth century American, it is called " Front ".
Lieutenant Tucker was promoted to a captaincy and Lieutenant Fitch was entitled to become first lieutenant, but through Cham- bers he was humiliated and deprived of his rightful promotion. Even General Dickinson, who had knowledge of Chambers' ani- mosity and the power to see that justice was done, utterly failed in his duty in the matter. All this time Mr. Fitch was in charge of the armory and he and his men were providing the soldiers with arms. For the good of the cause and his country which he so dearly loved, Fitch worked from dawn till dark, including Sundays, so that the supply of arms could be kept up with the demand. Here again did his ill luck pursue him, for he was expelled by the Methodists from their society for " breaking the Sabbath day". So far as is known, no biblical student has discovered just what locality in space such hypocrites will occupy after death. The final act of injustice, which drove him from the army, occurred in the autumn of 1776. A call for three com- panies from his battalion had been made, and Colonel Smith appointed Lieutenant Fitch to the command of one of them. Through Chambers and two men named Green and Smith, Fitch was again humiliated and degraded, and Ralph Jones, a subor-
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dinate officer, was given the captaincy. In this case Colonel Smith failed as completely in his duty as did General Dickinson. Had the case been reversed, Fitch would have refused to accept the appointment that rightfully belonged to another.
When the British occupied Trenton, Fitch went to Bucks County, Pennsylvania, where he devoted as much time as pos- sible to study, he having purchased a share in the library in Warminster. From Trenton he had taken as many of his tools, and most valued possessions, as could be loaded on a small wagon. After the battles of Trenton and Princeton, he returned to his home to collect his property. He found much of it gone or destroyed, but what was left he took back to Warminster, Bucks County, and resumed his trade of silversmith, in a part of a wheelwright's shop owned by "Cobe " (James) Scout. Again the approach of the British made flight necessary, after burying a considerable quantity of gold and silver at night on the, Garrison place. He then supplied the army with various luxuries, especially with beer, from which he cleared from $6 to $18 in gold a week, which was, all things considered, about equal to from $25 to $75 now. In June, 1778, this business ceased and he returned to Bucks County only to find that a negro had seen him bury the gold and silver and had stolen it, and given nearly all of it to a young white man of good family, whose father eventually paid Fitch nearly the full value of the metal. He then resumed his trade with $40,000 in Continental money in hand, which he had made as sutler, but it was worth only $1,000 in gold or silver, and finally depreciated in value to but $100 in hard money. That he might save this money, he decided to invest it in land-warrants in Virginia. In the spring of 1780, he went to Philadelphia and obtained a letter of introduction from Dr. John Ewing, Provost of the University of Pennsylvania, to Dr. James Madison, President of William and Mary College, in Richmond, who later became the Bishop of Virginia. With this, and other letters from prominent persons, he started on foot for Richmond, where his letters procured for him the appointment of deputy-surveyor. With William Tucker, whom he employed as an assistant, he started and arrived at Wheeling Island, in the Ohio River, in the spring of 1780, where they found eleven boats ready to go down the river. On one of them he and Tucker took
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passage and after a trip full of danger and excitement, including a desperate fight with Indians, they arrived at Kentucky where the survey was to be made. On one of the boats was a Baptist minister by the name of Barned, between whom and Fitch a strong friendship was formed. Mr. Barned was poor so Fitch, ever on the watch to do good, offered him an interest in his land investments. Mr. Barned was appreciative and accepted with gratitude. The Rev. Mr. Barned, being an experienced woods- man, selected desirable tracts and Fitch and Tucker surveyed them. In Mr. Barned, Fitch found a man who appreciated his good heart and was very grateful for his generous treatment. They were exploring and surveying for a year and in the spring of 1781, Fitch returned to Virginia to have his surveys recorded, leaving Mr. Barned in Kentucky with the expectation of rejoin- ing him the following spring, but he never saw him again. He heard of him, however, in 1790, and that he had prospered and was worth £50,000.
In the summer of 1781, Fitch returned to Bucks County and disposed of his possessions for £ 150 in full-value money - gold and silver - with the intention of going down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers to New Orleans. In the mean time, Mr. Barned was still in Kentucky looking after their mutual interests. In March, 1782, Fitch arrived at Fort Pitt, where he invested his money and, with four other men, chartered a boat for the journey. The journey was never finished. Through the mismanagement and cowardice of the captain and crew, they were captured on March 22, by In- dians and every dollar invested was lost, with the greater part of their clothing. Although they were not cruelly treated by their captors, they had an exciting and varied experience and suffered from exposure and hardship. Fitch and two of his companions were eventually taken from their Indian captors, by a trader named Saunders, and turned over to the com- mander of the fort at Detroit, where they were still prisoners, but of the British instead of Indians. Finally, on Christmas, 1782, they arrived in New York, after nine months of cap- tivity by Indians and British, during which they had ad- ventures, excitement, and hardships enough to fill several volumes in the telling.
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