USA > Connecticut > Historic towns of the Connecticut River Valley > Part 21
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The following letter written to his little son in 1781, who was then in his thirteenth year, shows that John Fitch yearned for his family and that his separation was still a source of sadness and regret :
My darling boy - Believe me, when I took you in my arms and kissed you for the last time, and took my farewell, you may be assured that I felt every emotion that it is possible for a tender father to feel. How my heart dissolved into tears, and how my sinews wanted strength, I can better feel than express. Be assured, your father loves you, and that there is nothing would make him more happy than to take you under his parental care.
This was written just before his capture by Indians. A few days after his return from captivity in Western Ohio in 1784, he wrote as follows.
Heaven forbid that I should endeavor to raise an irreverent thought in your heart against your mother. But our separation, you may be assured, was no trifling matter to me. There was nothing that I more ardently wished for, at the time, than that Heaven would call me to the world of spirits. You, my child, staggered every resolution and weighed more to me than a mountain of diamonds. Finally, I resolved, and re-resolved, and then resolved again, and gave you a sacrifice to the world more un- willingly than the patriarch of old.
Soon after peace had been declared with Great Britain, he organized a land company. It was composed of his friend, the Rev. Nathaniel Irwin, Dr. John Ewing, W. C. Houston, Jonathan Dickinson, Sergeant Potts and Stacy Potts, of Trenton; and Colonel Joshua Anderson, of Bucks County, each of whom put in £20 for the expense of exploration and survey, in western Ohio. The company being satisfied with the results, another surveying trip- was made the following spring, in 1785. Through an act of Congress this enterprise was a total failure. On a Sunday in April, 1785, as Mr. Fitch and James Ogilbee were returning from hearing the Rev. Mr. Irwin preach, the idea first occurred to Fitch which culminated in the world's first steamboat. Mr. Fitch was somewhat crippled by rheumatism, due to his exposure while a captive of Indians. A Mr. and Mrs. Sinton passed them rapidly, in a " chair " to which a fine horse was attached. The difference between his slow progress and their speed,
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suggested the idea that some force could be found that might be applied to vehicles and thus make traveling easy and rapid, without the necessity for keeping a horse. At this time he was entirely ignorant that a steam engine had ever been thought of or invented. His Yankee mind had already noted the expansive qualities of steam, so, when he arrived at his home, he began to make drawings of a steam propelled car- riage. At the end of a week he realized that the rough, un- improved roads of that period made such a vehicle impossible. Had American roads been fairly good, he might have been the father of the automobile. As it happened, the smoothness of water turned his thoughts to that as a highway and the application of steam power to a boat.
He spent two or three weeks making drawings which he showed to his friend, the Rev. Mr. Irwin, who became greatly interested. Mr. Irwin took down from its shelf, Benjamin Martin's Philosophia Brittanica, published in 1747, and showed Fitch the description of a steam engine. It was then that Fitch confessed : " Although it was not to my credit, I did not know that there was a steam engine on earth, when I proposed to gain a force by steam ".
He immediately began to construct a model with side paddle- wheels, similar to those now used. The machinery was made of brass and the completed model was tried on a small stream and proved an entire success. By 1788, he had obtained protec- tion by patent from four states and in 1791, from the United States, for the application of steam as a motive power for marine purposes.
Fitch met with the same ridicule and heart-breaking opposition by the skeptical, as did George W. Featherstonhaugh thirty years later, in regard to steam railroads, in Schenectady, Albany and New York. Mr. Fitch did not give up the ship. He bore ridi- cule as best he could and met the opposition of the ignorant and doubtful with explanation and intelligent reasoning. He finally induced twenty persons to put $50 each into the enterprise, thus forming a company. His first boat was built in Philadelphia, in 1787. The boat was launched and tried over a course of a measured mile and its speed was found to be eight miles an hour. Sometime later, an all-day run was made and eighty miles were covered.
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The success of the steamboat and the possibilities it opened, so greatly delighted the Governor and Council of Pennsylvania, that they presented Mr. Fitch with a handsome silk flag for his boat. . At about this time Mr. Henry Vail, of Troy, the American Consul at L'Orient, who was also one of the company, requested Mr. Fitch to visit France for the purpose of introducing his steamboat invention to that country. The company of persons who had subscribed the money for making experiments and building the boat sent Mr. Fitch to France. France was enjoy- ing one of its periodical revolutions, so nothing was done about steamboats and Mr. Fitch returned to America, greatly dis- appointed. It seems, that sometime afterward, when Robert Fulton was in France, Consul Vail showed to Fulton, Mr. Fitch's papers and the drawings of his invention. This was an odd thing to do and it shows that Robert Fulton's steamboat was really John Fitch's invention.
Fitch, like the majority of men who are a century ahead of their fellows, struggled against dense ignorance, but he left noth- ing undone, in his efforts to gain the confidence of someone, so that he might obtain the money required for the perfecting of his boat. Fitch had faith in his invention; he knew that a little money would enable him to make the changes and experiments necessary for success; he knew that if he could not accomplish it, that before long someone else would, so it must have been heart-breaking work for him. He tried to induce Rittenhouse, one of the company, to purchase his land in Kentucky so that the money for perfecting the steamboat could be had, but without the hoped for result.
Fitch predicted that in time, the mode of crossing the Atlantic would be in steamboats; and on another occasion, when con- versing with one of the mechanics who had worked on his boat, a number of other persons being present, he said :
"Well, gentlemen, although I shall not live to see the time, you will, when steamboats will be preferred to all other means of conveyance, especially for passengers and they will be par- ticularly useful on the Mississippi."
After Mr. Fitch left, one of those present remarked:
"Poor fellow. It is a pity that he is crazy."
An absolute knowledge that his ideas were practical and the disappointment and humiliation that he could not obtain the
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money to prove it, so preyed upon his mind that he sought relief from his thoughts in inebriation. Mr. Fitch, the man who in- vented the steamboat many years before Robert Fulton saw his - Fitch's plans - and twenty years before Fulton brought out his boat, drowned himself in the Alleghany river.
John Fitch died a suicide in July, 1798, in Bardstown, Ken- tucky, after fifty years of struggling against the worst and most cruel and tireless enemies a man can have, his fellow men. From the time he saved the home from fire, in his sixth year, when his elder brother, finding him with head, hands and feet blistered by the flames, gave him a beating and his father refused to redress the act of barbarity, to the day of his death, he was subjected to just such injustice, misunderstanding, insult and cruelty. It is not possible to doubt that he was in some way lacking iu qualities which, had he possessed them, would have made such treatment impossible. Had he possessed more self-esteem, van- ity and domineering pride, he might have avoided all the unhappy things that filled his life.
His personal appearance has been described by an early writer as follows :
He stood six foot two in his stocking-feet, was what was called thin and spare, face slim, complexion tawny, hair very black, and a dark eye, peculiarly piercing. His countenance was pleasing, and somewhat smiling. In point of morals and conduct, he was perfectly upright, sincere, and honorable in his dealings, and was never known to tell a wilful falsehood, or, indeed, to use any guile.
For thirty years there was no settlement on the east side of the river, the reason no doubt being, that the passage of the Connecticut was laborious in summer and difficult, or impossible, in winter ; that the meadows on that side of the river being lower, were subject to floods and, too, there were the Podunk Indians to be considered, who occupied the land on the east side of the river.
The Bissell family is regarded by historians as the pioneer family of the east side. In 1648, it was granted a monopoly of the ferry, still called Bissell's Ferry, between Windsor and the hamlet of East Windsor, in the Town of South Windsor. There is a tradition in regard to this grant, that is interesting, if not founded upon fact, as Stiles claims. This tradition is, that Jolin Bissell was sent by the Colony to England, in 1636, to purchase
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and bring back a supply of cattle as the previous winter had been so severe that many of their cattle had died. Mr. Bissell returned with seventeen cows and a bull and as an equivalent for his services he was granted the monopoly of the ferry across the Connecticut.
There was a house near Bissell's Ferry previous to 1662, for . in a deed from John Bissell to his son Nathaniel, to property on the east side, near the ferry, mention is made of a house already standing there. Stiles says that John Bissell, Sr., probably moved from Windsor to the east side in 1662. Ten years later, there was a desire on the part of the people on the east side to organize a distinct and separate town. Three years later, in 1675, King Philip's War caused the greatest consternation on the east side, cut off as it was from the larger settlement on the west side of the river in Windsor and from help, should the fierce Podunks make the war an excuse for an attempt to exter- minate the small settlement. For this reason, several families moved across to Windsor and a little later, all the inhabitants were ordered to move over with their cattle and grain and other possessions. The order also required that certain houses should be fortified and garrisoned for the safety of such persons as were obliged to remain. At the close of King Philip's War the people returned, and the settlement became fixed.
The necessity of crossing the river to attend Church in Wind- sor caused the people, in 1680, to petition the Legislature for the formation of a separate town, so that they could settle a minister of their own, but nothing came of it. Eleven years later they again presented a similar petition, but nothing was done till 1694, the delay being probably caused by the people of Windsor object- ing to anything of the kind, as it would take just so many per- sons from the Windsor Church and so increase the cost of supporting the minister in Windsor, for the people of that town.
On May 10, 1694, the Rev. Timothy Edwards began preaching as a candidate and in March, 1695, he was ordained. Mr. Ed- wards prepared for college in the Grammar School in Hartford, then under the instruction of the Rev. Peletier Grover, of Spring- field. He entered Harvard College and was graduated in 1691, receiving the two degrees of Bachelor and Master of Arts on the same day, an honor earned by his scholarship. There can
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be no doubt that the people respected and admired Mr. Edwards, but it is hardly possible to suppose that they loved him, or even had affection for him. He was too thoroughly the master, the judge, the keeper of the congregation's conscience. It was not till 1735, that he plainly showed, no doubt unconsciously, his Roman Catholic tendency in matters of Church government. In that year in a sermon he laid down the law, that it belonged to the pastor to JUDGE and determine what complaints or accusa- tions should be brought before the Church, and what should not, and that the votes of the members to convict or restore an offender would be of no force or validity WITHOUT the CONCURRENCE or APPROBATION of THE PASTOR.
The chief difference - perhaps the only difference - between the Church in England and the Church in America was in Church government. The principle of Congregationalism was the right possessed by each separate Church to govern itself, but Mr. Edwards declared that the power was in the pastor. The people were surprised and grieved, but the crisis did not come till Mr. Edwards debarred Joseph Diggins from owning his covenant and having his child baptized, " until he was willing to publicly. confess himself guilty of a scandalous offence", with which Mr. Edwards had charged him. The step between the con- demnation of the Roman Priest and the secret confession, and the condemnation of Mr. Edwards and the public confession, was not a long one. Joseph Diggins' offence was, that he married the girl of his choice, against the wishes of her father, William Stoughton. Had Mr. Edwards been a priest, and his Church of the Roman Communion, his decree of excommunication would have been quite natural; as both Edwards and his Church were Protestant, it savors of the busy-body and looks very much like an insolent interference by an outsider, in something that was a personal and private matter between the Diggins and Stoughton families.
Diggins denied the doing of wrong and demanded a trial by the Church. Again did Mr. Edwards exhibit his Roman regard for the power of the minister, by refusing the trial and saying ; that he had a negative on the Church, and that until he had changed his opinion in regard to the guilt of Diggins, the Church need not trouble itself.
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The sorrow of the people may be imagined. In England they had suffered persecution; they had been fined, imprisoned and their estates had been confiscated because they dared to object to just such a form of Church government as Mr. Edwards was forcing upon them. They had spent years in thought - with prayers for guidance - in building up the Congregational form of Church government. Finally, they had abandoned their homes in England, to make new homes in a wilderness, so that they could have a Church which satisfied all their desires. After sacrificing everything to build up the substantial, dignified Con- gregational Church, on a foundation of self-government, the Rev. Timothy Edwards filled his lungs with warm air and puffing it out again, from between his lips, blew down what they had sacrificed so much for, and had been so many years in building, as a child blows down a house of cards. That is, he intended to do so, and he thought that he had done so, but the Church survived both himself and his son.
The foundation of self-sacrifice, upon which they had built their Congregational system of Church government, was so solid and. substantial, that even a much more violent tornado than passed from between the lips of the Rev. Timothy Edwards, in South Windsor, or between those of his illustrious son, the Rev. Jona- than Edwards, in Northampton, would not have caused a window to rattle.
After Mr. Edwards had demolished Congregationalism and declared his infallibility - by telling the people that so long as he considered Diggins guilty, he was guilty, notwithstanding what the church thought on the subject -- the case remained where it was till October, 1738, when a council was called which decided to give Diggins a trial. Sometime later, Mr. Edwards called a Church meeting and entered a formal protest against Diggins and charged him with breaking the Fifth and Eighth Commandments.
The case was tried and Diggins was acquitted. Mr. Edwards and two of the members dissented from this verdict, and called a council. It met on June 12, and 18, 1739, and while it sustained the decision of the Church in the Diggins case, it commended Mr. Edwards for his tenderness, prudence, faithfulness and caution, and so great was their Christian charity for the mis-
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guided, egotistical old man, that never a word was uttered of criticism or censure for the man who had wilfully and stubbornly tried to demolish the Church, that he might gratify and tickle his self-esteem. The council further said, that if he cannot with- out scruples admit Joseph Diggins, the brethren are advised not to press the matter, and Diggins was advised to apply to some other minister for Church privileges, and the baptism of his child. Although Diggins again applied and the deacons urged his cause, Mr. Edwards still refused.
Then, the people as a Church, wrote a plain-spoken, affection- ately expressed letter, urging Mr. Edwards to admit Diggins and asserting their rights as a Congregational Church. He again refused, pleading conscientious scruples against countenancing such marriages as that of Joseph Diggins.
The Church then authorized Diggins to seek elsewhere for Church rights, but he naturally objected to being driven from his spiritual home through the caprice of a self-willed old man, just as he would object to being evicted from his temporal home, by the same man for no better reason.
The deacons then asked Mr. Edwards to call a Church meeting, but he refused, so the deacons themselves called the meeting. At this meeting Diggins made a formal charge of mal-adminis- tration against his persecutor, and finally Mr. Edwards was in- duced to call a council. It met on April 22, 1740, and was asked to give advice in regard to the following questions ;
Concerning the power of the pastor to appoint messengers.
Concerning his power to negative action taken by the Church.
Concerning his power to judge and determine what complaints shall come before the Church.
To determine the case of Joseph Diggins.
Possibly the council lacked moral courage, at any rate it refused to advise in all but the Diggins case. This was not at all satis- factory. Congregationalism was endangered. Mr. Edwards was trying to destroy it by denying the right of the Congregation to govern itself, and by insisting upon the power of the priesthood.
Mr. Edwards was still charged with mal-administration and for about three years the celebration of the Lord's Supper had not taken place. Diggins was finally induced to withdraw his
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charge. Then a letter was sent to Mr. Edwards, dated Aug. II, 1741, which was as follows :
It would have been a great satisfaction if you had granted our motion to you (the last time you called us together) to call a Congregational Council to advise us in our controversies respecting our church-order, which was offered to the council that met, which they refused to hear and give their opinion upon. We are still of opinion that a Congregational Council would have been the properest way to have led us into peace in that matter. But since you have declined this, and we are denied the benefit of such a council, we hope you will suffer us, without offence, to declare that we are still a Congregational Church, and that in our opinion it is not with our pastor to debar us from any privilege belonging to us as such; but we are ready to receive any evidence from the Scriptures or reason, to convince us that the Congregational Church-order is unscrip- tural or unsound. We are further of the opinion that merely the differ- ent understanding between us about our church-order is not a sufficient cause to hinder our Communion, and Mr. Diggins having withdrawn his complaint, we see nothing in the way but we may set down at the Lord's Table together.
This was signed by Hez. Porter and seventeen other members. After the receipt of this letter, Mr. Edwards administered the sacrament. It would seem that now Mr. Edwards had found a place in the controversy where he could return to his duty as a Christian and minister of the Church, without hurting his mag- nificent self-esteem, but he did nothing of the kind. On Sunday, November 1, 1741, he read a letter requesting that a messenger be sent to a council at Hartford. One of the rights he had denied the Church and claimed for himself, was the appointment of messengers, but he condescended on this occasion, " for the sake of peace ", to leave the election of messenger to the Church. He then laid himself open to a suspicion of hypocrisy by pur- posely refraining from being present at the meeting (which he was invited to attend) so that he could refuse a certificate to the messenger on the ground, that as he was not present at the "meeting, he did not know who was elected.
It is doubtful if there ever was before or has been since his day, a man of his profound mental attainments, in the Christian Protestant ministry, who was so completely self-centered and self-satisfied as the Rev. Timothy Edwards, unless it was his illustrious son, the Rev. Jonathan Edwards. This is strikingly shown by a manuscript record of the Rev. Timothy Edwards'
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of what he was pleased to consider especial acts of Providence for his personal safety. Some of them in twentieth century English, are as follows :
When I was a little child I fell into a tub of water. The Providence of God caused somebody to see me and pull me out.
On another occasion, in the school-boy period, he choked with a peach stone, which stuck in his throat when, "God by His power brought it out from me and saved my life."
On another occasion he climbed a cherry tree " to show some mates how venturesome and bold I was and yet God brought me safely down again ". Was not this truly a marvel? It was probably the first occasion known, from the time of Adam to that of Mr. Edwards, on which a boy had climbed a cherry tree and had come safely down again with or without the help of Provi- dence.
On another occasion he would have gone under the ice and been drowned, while skating, had someone not warned him of the danger.
It must be remembered that this is not the record of a little boy, but of a mature man (who was given two degrees at once by his College on account of his mental attainments) who was regarded as one of North America's greatest and most scholarly divines. It probably never occurred to Mr. Edwards that there were hundreds of thousands of other boys in whose safety Divine Providence was equally interested.
Finally, after keeping the East Windsor Church in disorder for many years, the Angel of Death came to the rescue of the people and at the same time, probably saved the Congregational Church from disruption and the formation of a separate sect, which Mr. Edwards, in his self-love would no doubt have chris- tened, Edwardsites. Timothy Edwards was a man of profound learning and powerful intellect, who had wilfully smirched the religion, the Founder of which he professed to serve, that he might set himself above his equals, gratify his vanity and nourish his stubbornness. For this reason his sin was seemingly the greater. Whether Death gathered him into Abraham's bosom, or caused him to walk over that unique pavement described by his illustrious son, Jonathan Edwards, is not for man to judge, even if Timothy Edwards did establish the precedent by judging others.
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WINDSOR LOCKS.
WINDSOR LOCKS.
T HE Connecticut River Company, which built the Enfield Falls Canal, gave Windsor Locks its name, from the fact that the series of locks at the southern terminus Of the canal were at that place. Windsor Locks was not incor- porated till 1854. Previous to the building of the Enfield Canal the territory was called Pinemeadow.
The meadow from which it derived its name, is two miles south of the present village and at one time, far back in the ages, when the Indians possessed the art of tempering copper, this fertile meadow was occupied by them as has been shown by the graves, and stone and copper implements found in them. But when the English first settled on the Connecticut River, no In- dians lived there.
Henry Denslow, son of Nichilas Denslow, built the first house in Pinemeadow in 1662 or '63, on land he had purchased from Thomas Ford, of Windsor. The Denslow family lived there, with William Hayden their nearest neighbor, two miles away. In 1676, just after the beginning of King Philip's War, the family moved to Windsor for safety. A short time afterward Henry Denslow returned to his home alone, contrary to the ur- gent entreaties of his family and friends, and was killed by Indians. A large boulder marking the site of his home, was in- scribed with an account of his death, on the two hundredth anniversary. Mrs. Denslow, her son aged seventeen and her seven daughters, returned to their home after Philip's War was ended and lived there alone for twelve years, with no neighbors nearer than two miles, and the son continued to live there till his death. His sons, Samuel and Joseph Denslow, built houses on the farm. The site of Henry Denslow's house - the first built in Windsor Locks -and a portion of the farm has been owned by his descendants for nearly 250 years.
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