USA > Connecticut > Historic towns of the Connecticut River Valley > Part 7
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The first record of a school in Haddam was in 1705, and for seventy years it was the only school in the town.
The Rev. David Brainard, a descendant of the early settler, was one of Haddam's notable sons. He was famous and greatly
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beloved in all of the British Colonies for his grand work as a missionary among the Indians. He began his work among them in 1743, at a place known as Kaunaumeek, near Kinderhook, New York, and from there he went to the Forks of the Delaware, not far from the line dividing New York and Pennsylvania. It was among the Crosweeksung Indians, near Freehold, New Jersey, that he experienced his greatest success. The hardness of his life and his devotion to his work so far broke his health that he returned to New England in the hope of recovering it. His health was too far gone, however, and he died in the home of the Rev. Jonathan Edwards, in Northampton, Massachusetts, in October, 1747, at the age of thirty. An early writer described Mr. Brainard and his work as follows :
If the greatness of a character is to be estimated by the object it per- sues, in the danger it braves, the difficulties it encounters, and the purity and energy of its motives, David Brainard is one of the greatest char- acters that ever appeared in the world. Compared with this standard of greatness, what little things are the Alexanders and Caesars, the conquerors of the whole earth? A nobler object no human * * * mind could ever propose to itself, than to promote the glory of the great Governor of the Universe, in studying and laboring to diffuse purity and happiness among His unholy and miserable creatures. His life among the Indians exhibits a perfect pattern of the qualities which should distinguish the instruction of the rude and barbarous tribes; the most invincible patience and self denial, the profoundest humility, exquisite prudence, indefatigable industry, and such a devotedness to God, or rather, such an absorption of the whole soul in zeal for the Divine glory and the salvation of men, as is scarce paralleled since the age of the Apostiles.
EAST HADDAM.
T
HE first house built in East Haddam was that of Robert Chapman, situated north of Creek Row. The records of the Colony prove that this Chapman house was standing in 1674, and Barber thinks that Chapman began his clearing about 1670.
In 1685, a number of families moved across the river from Haddam to East Haddam and settled at Creek Row, the sup- position being that they joined the pioneer, Chapman, as would be entirely natural. Their names were, Gates, Bates, Brainard and Cone.
At about this time, other settlers arrived in East Haddam and
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established themselves to the east of the Creek Row people. They were, the Ackleys and Spencers, from Haddam, who soon were joined by the Annable, Booge, Fuller and Percival families, from Plymouth Colony ; the Olmsteds, from Hartford; Samuel Emmons, from Cambridge, Massachusetts ; John Chapman, from Saybrook; James Green, Elijah Atwood, Nathaniel Goodspeed. and Isaac Taylor, later arrived from Plymouth ; Henry Champion and Matthew Smith, from Lyme; Robert Hurd, from Killing- worth ; John Warner, from Sunderland, and John Church, from Hatfield, Massachusetts. These families and individuals arrived at different times during a considerable period of time, reckoned from the first settlement made by Chapman in 1670.
Millington, in the middle of the town near the eastern bound- ary, was settled by Jonathan Beebe, from New London, about 1704. He made his pitch near the southern end of Long Pond (now Shaw Lake) and was soon after joined by other settlers. With the exception of the tiny settlement near the foot of the lake, there was no other in that district of East Haddam known as Millington, till sometime between the years 1732, and 1734, when a settlement was started near the river by the Arnold, Barnes, Brainard, Chapman, Church, Cone, Emmons, Fuller, Gates, Olmsted, and Spencer families, from the East Haddam Parish ; Harvey and Hungerford, from Hadlyme; Graves, from Colchester ; and Stewart, from Voluntown; Daniel Smith, from Plymouth Colony ; Lemuel Griffin, from Lyme ; and Thomas Fox, from Colchester, joined the families named, a little later.
By 1740, the settlement of East Haddam was general, but the population of the town did not increase much, in fact there were migrations to Litchfield County and Berkshire County, Massachu- setts; and to Vermont and New York, from it.
Long Pond (Shaw Lake) where Beebe settled in 1704, is a pretty body of water about a mile and a half long and half a mile in the widest part. It covers the top of a hill 400 feet above the Sound. Its only inlet is a tiny brook, less than 1,500 feet long. The Lake is probably fed by underground and surface springs, which have their rise on the hills to the north, east and west, and which lie close to the hill, the top of which the pond covers, and are about one hundred feet higher. The outlet is from
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the south end of the pond and forms Eight-mile River, or one of its branches.
ยท Leesville (originally Lord's Mills) in the extreme north-west corner of East Haddam, on Salmon River, four miles from its , mouth, was settled about the middle of the eighteenth century, Captain Jonathan Kilburn being one of the earliest, if not the first of the settlers. The tide flows up to Leesville and in the early days sloops of sixty tons were built and launched there. About 1765, the first oilmill in the State was built there. In 1814, there was a woolen and cotton factory started, and in 1816 it con- tained 500 spindles.
In 1743, the first house in East Haddam Landing was built and a produce market was opened and a storehouse built. The business of the pretty little village is still at the Landing and back of it, on the ab- ruptly rising kills is the residential portion of the village. This por- tion of the place con- OLD CHURCH, EAST HADDAM. tains fine, home-like ap- pearing houses, sur- rounded by large yards and shaded by splendid great trees. Sometime before the Revolution, East Haddam Landing began to be famous for its ship and boat yards, which were situated a little to the south of the Landing, at what was then called Chap- man's ferry.
The inevitable heated dispute (which grew into a quarrel) when it became necessary to build a new church, resulted in the formation of St. Stephen's Episcopal Parish. In other words, a portion of the people returned to the Church they had left in England, but it was a purified Church and free from those char- acteristics which had been the cause of their leaving the Old 6
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Country. This separation took place in April, 1791. Deacon Solomon Blakesley presided over the Parish till he took full orders, in 1793. The Rev. Solomon Blakesley was rector of this Parish for more than twenty years. The bell of St. Stephen's Church is probably unique in the United States, for its great age. The inscription on the bell is in Spanish. The translation is :
" The Prior, being the most Rev. Father Miguel Villa Mueva, The Procurator, the most Rev. Father Jose F. Estavan-Corvalis, has made me. Made in the year A. D. 815." This bell formerly hung in a Spanish Monastery.
East Haddam Society was made a separate society from that of Haddam, in 1700. In 1704, the people began to transact their own society business and to keep records of their proceedings. As there was doubt in regard to the legality of their acts, the two Societies of Haddam and East Haddam entered into an agree- ment, which was authorized by the Legislature, in 1710. Among other things, this agreement provided that each society could transact its own business and elect its own representatives to the Legislature. This agreement continued till May, 1734. when the Town of Haddam was divided and East Haddam was incorporated.
One of East Haddam's sons, who became prominent in the Colony and later as a soldier, was the Hon. Joseph Spencer. The first American ancestor of this family was Jared Spencer, who came to America and settled in Newtown (Cambridge), Massachusetts, and a few years later moved to Lynn. Still later, he became one of the first settlers of Haddam and was made an ensign there by the General Court at Hartford, in September, 1675. His great-grandson, the Hon. Joseph Spencer, married Martha Brainard, daughter of the Hon. Hezekiah Brainard, in August, 1738. His public service began as judge of probate in 1753, and he filled this office till his death. In 1758, he was a major in the northern army against the French. In 1775, a short time before the signing of the Declaration of Independence, he was appointed a brigadier-general, and in 1776, he was made a major-general in the army of the United States. He served till 1778, when he resigned. He was in the State Council from 1766, to 1779, in which year he was Judge of the Hartford County Court. In 1779, he was sent to Congress and the following year was again
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elected to the State Council and was re-elected each year till his death, in 1789.
Let Edwards have the praise which his talents, piety, diligence, faith- fulness, and uscfulness deserve; let Hopkins have the praise which is due to his self-denial, honesty, diligence, watchfulness, boldness, patience and faith; yet who, that has had a personal acquaintance with Emmons, or that knows the wisdom with which he constantly taught the people knowl- edge, can refuse, either before God or man, to place him first in respect to the purity, simplicity, consistency, transparency, amiableness, humility,
NATHAN HALE SCHOOLHOUSE, EAST HADDAM.
energy, dignity, and beauty of his character and the knowledge, goodness, and wisdom of his conduct in the constant instruction of his people.
Such was the opinion publicly expressed by the Rev. Thomas Williams, of East Greenwich, Rhode Island, at the funeral of his life-long friend, the Rev. Nathaniel Emmons, D.D., in regard to his life as a minister of Christ and leader and teacher of the people of his parish. In a letter, Mr. Williams described the personal, every-day life of his friend as follows :
As a son and brother, as a husband and father, a neighbor, a Christian and friend, a companion and gentleman, a scholar and author, a member
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THE LANDING, EAST HADDAM.
EAST HADDAM. 85
and ruler of a christian church, a parishioner, an attendant at public worship and a hearer of divine instruction, a citizen, a patriot and philanthropist, he was eminent and exemplary, as consistant and amiable, [in all these] as he was in the office of a teacher and preacher of divine truth.
This was not a panegyric ; a mere collection of words of praise, but an honest, simply expressed truth in regard to a man whose life was a blessing to all with whom he came in contact, and an honor to the Power that created it.
The Rev. Nathaniel Emmons, D.D., was born in East Haddam, on May 1, 1745. His passionate desire for knowledge showed it- self in his childhood and continued through the ninety-five years of his useful life. At the age of nineteen he en- tered Yale College, un- der the presidency of the Rev. Thomas Clap, whose influence for good was frequently referred to in after years by Dr. Emmons. As an under-graduate he must have taken a high stand for he was chosen by his class for the Cliosophic Oration, i11 1767. This oration . was delivered by a OLD CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH, EAST HADDAM. member of the senior class, about eight weeks before Commence- ment. The honor of being chosen for this oration was greatly coveted, and that Dr. Emmons was chosen for it, fixes his scholar- ship as being high, for among his class mates were John Tread- well, Samuel Wales, John Trumbull and Joseph Lyman. After being graduated, Dr. Emmons studied for the ministry under the Rev. Nathan Strong, of Coventry, and the Rev. John Smalley,
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D.D., of Berlin. Dr. Smalley was regarded as one of the great pulpit orators and teachers of New England. In 1769, Mr. Emmons made a public profession of faith in Christianity and joined the Church in Millington, in the Town of East Haddam, under the pastorate of the Rev. Diodate Johnson.
On April 21, 1773, he was ordained as minister of the Church in Franklin, the ordination sermon being preached by the Rev. Levi Hart, D.D., of Preston. The services were held out-of-doors, the congregation sitting on raised seats above the pastor and ordaining council. This fact appealed to Dr. Emmons' strong sense of humor. He used to say, that he was ordained under his church and people instead of over them. While still a young man, Dr. Emmons' Christian fortitude was severely tried through the death of his wife and two sons, his wife's death occurring on June 22, 1778, and his sons' two months later. Dr. Emmons' congregation was not large, but it was notable. Each member bore the sterling-mark stamped upon his character by the teaching, influence and example of his pastor. While the Revs. Timothy and Jonathan Edwards were employing their pro- found intellects to elevate themselves and increase their power, Dr. Emmons employed his to elevate mankind and increase the power of good.
As a minister and teacher Dr. Emmons had the faculty of 110t only pointing out the true path, but also of inspiring a life-long desire in the hearts of his parishioners to keep in that path. He died on September 23, 1840, in the ninety-sixth year of his age and the sixty-eighth of his ministry. It is interesting and most unusual, that he officiated at the funeral of every person who was a member of his parish at the time of his ordination.
MOODUS.
The village of Moodus takes its name from an Indian word, Machimoodus, meaning in English place of noises. The Indians occupying the territory now East Haddam, were given over to superstition, even more so than the majority of Indians in other parts of the Connecticut Valley. There was a fierce savagery in their superstition, resembling that of the African savage more than that of the New England savage, whose superstition was of a gentler, more poetic nature. As a result, the Moodus Indians
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MOODUS.
were fierce, cruel and war-like. As early as 1729, the Rev. Stephen Hosmer wrote to a friend in Boston describing these strange noises, from which Moodus takes its name :
As to earthquakes, I have something considerable and awful to tell you. Earthquakes have been here, as has been observed for more than thirty years. I have been informed that in this place, before the English settle- ments, there were great numbers of Indian inhabitants, and that it was a place of extraordinary pawaws, or in short, that it was a place where the Indians drove a prodigious trade in worshipping the devil. Also I was informed, that many years past, an old Indian was asked the reason of the noises in this place, to which he replied, that "the Indians' God was very angry that the Englishman's God was come there." Now, whether there be anything diabolical in these things, I know not; but this I know, that God Almighty is to be seen and trembled at, in what has been often heard among us. Whether it be fire or air distressed in the caverns of the earth, cannot be known; for there is no eruption, no explosion perceptable, but by sounds and tremors, which sometimes are very fearful and dread- ful. I have myself, heard eight or ten sounds successively, and imitating small arms, in the space of five minutes. I have, I suppose, heard several hundred of them within twenty years; some more, some less terrible. Sometimes we have heard them almost every day, and great numbers of them in the space of a year. Oftentimes I have observed them to be com- ing down from the north, imitating slow thunder, until the sound came near, or right under, and then there seemed to be a breaking, like the noise of a cannon shot, or severe thunder, which shakes the houses and all that is in them. They have in a manner ceased since the great earthquake. As I remember, there have been but two heard since that time and these but moderate.
In the year 1831, or '32, about one hundred years after Mr. Hosmer's, the following account was given by a gentleman who had heard the noises.
The awful noises about which Mr. Hosmer gave an account continue to the present time. The effects they produce are various as the intermediate degrees between the roar of a cannon and the noise of a pistol. The concussions of the earth, made at the same time, are as much diversified as the sounds in the air. The shock they give to a dwelling house, is the same as the falling of logs on the floor. * *
* But when they are so violent as to be felt in the adjacent towns, they are called earthquakes. During my residence here, which has been almost thirty-six years, I have invariably observed that an account has been published in the newspapers, of a small shock of earthquake, in New London and Hart- ford. Nor do I believe, in all that period, there has been any account published of an earthquake in Connecticut, which has not been far more violent here than in any other place.
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On the night of May 18, 1791, about ten o'clock, there was an earthquake so violent that it was felt in New York and Boston. The first shock was followed by another in a few minutes that was felt at a distance of seventy miles. In Moodus and the neighboring places, the roaring noises and shaking of the earth were great. Walls were thrown down and the tops of chimneys were thrown to the ground. And while but two shocks were felt at a distance, there were in Moodus and the surrounding country between twenty and thirty shocks felt. It was found the next day that the earth was cracked in several places and that great boulders weighing many tons had been moved.
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There is a tradition in regard to a certain Dr. Steele and the Moodus- noises, which goes to show that the white settlers were (when their superior enlight- enment, education, and Christian faith is con- sidered), as superstitious as were the Indians.
Dr. Steele was an Englishman, but where he came from, how he heard about the noises, or what reason he had for believing that he MOODUS. could remove from their pockets to his, the shillings and pence of the trusting and super- stitious white-men, by means of the art of enchantment, has not been recorded.
This Dr. Steele told the people that the noises and disturbances were caused by a great carbuncle that was confined in a large rock in the bowels of the earth and that he, by his magic, could remove the carbuncle and so stop the noises. Dr. Steele, being a man of " much book-learning " the people absorbed his words and entered into some kind of agreement with him. The doctor then secured a blacksmith's shop, plugged the windows, cracks,
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MOODUS.
holes and doorways so that no light could enter, nor the prying gaze of the awe-inspired people discover his secret. He worked at night, as all such mysterious persons do, and when the people saw the vast cloud of smoke, lighted by flame and thousands of sparks, they felt sure that Dr. Steele and Satan were raising Hell, and that the great carbuncle would come up with it.
While his dread work was going on, Dr. Steele told the people, on the rare occasions when he consented to let himself be seen, that he had located the great carbuncle and that he could remove it and so stop the worst of the shakes and noises, but that he
COBALT MINE, COBALT, CT.
had discovered some smaller carbuncles which would, as time went on, cause more noises but not nearly so terrible. At last the cause of the trouble was removed and Dr. Steele immediately disappeared, never to be seen again by Moodus people. It so happened that the noises ceased for a time and were never again so violent. The people were convinced that Dr. Steele was a wizard, if not a close relation to his Majesty of the nether world. Mr. J. G. C. Brainard, editor of the Hartford Mirror, wrote a
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poem of thirteen verses (fatal number) on the subject of Dr. Steele and the great carbuncle, from which the following are quoted :
See you upon the lonely moor, A crazy building rise ? No hand dares venture to open the door - No footstep treads its dangerous floor - No eye its secret pries.
Now why is each crevice stopped so tight ? Say, why the bolted door? Why glimmers at midnight the forge's light ?
All day is the anvil at rest, but at night The flames of the furnace roar.
Woe to the bark in which he flew From Moodus rocky shore --
Woe to the captain and woe to the crew,
That ever the breath of life they drew, When that dreadful freight they bore.
Where is that crew and vessel now? Tell me their state who can,
The wild waves dashed o're the sinking bow -
Down, down to the fathomless depths they go - To sleep with a sinful man.
The carbuncle lies in the deep sea, Beneath the mighty wave; But the light shines up so gloriously
That the sailor looks pale and forgets his glee, When he crosses the wizard's grave.
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1
MIDDLETOWN.
T HAT Middletown was not settled until a decade and a half after those other ancient river towns - Saybrook, Wethersfield, Hartford and Windsor - is due to two reasons. In those days, the forests were primitive and conse- quently dense and the individual trees great in size and the banks of the Connecticut River were overgrown by a thicket which completely hid the country back from the river. Because of this forest and thicket, the natural highway was the river, and so, when exploring parties passed up or down the river, from the settlements at the mouth, or from the settlements about Hartford, the country about the "great bend " seemed uninviting. What the pioneers of the Connecticut Valley desired was clear, flat lands for farming purposes, such as surrounded the settlements at Saybrook and at Hartford. Timber could be had anywhere, but cleared land had a value far beyond woodland at that time. The labor and expense of clearing the land from woods was far too great to be thought of by the first settlers; if it could be avoided.
Another, and very potent reason was, that the Great Sachem Sequasson, of the Mattabesett Tribe, was all-powerful over a con- siderable area, which included what later became Middletown. This Sachem was friendly to the Pequot Indians, whom the set- tlers and their Indian allies had exterminated, soon after the settlements were made. Several years before a settlement was made, Sequasson sold to Governor Haynes, of Connecticut, a vast territory which comprised nearly all of the township of Middle- town.
Mattabesett was settled in 1650 by families chiefly from Hartford and partly from Wethersfield. The settlement was known by its Indian name till November, 1653, when the General Court changed it to Middletown. This name was given on account of its location, about midway from' Saybrook to Hart- ford. The township included territory that later became the Towns of Middlefield, Chatham, Portland, Cromwell and a por- tion of Berlin.
[91]
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THE CONNECTICUT VALLEY.
The families during the first decade of the settlement were those of, Thomas Allen, Nathaniel Bacon, William Bloomfield, Nathaniel Brown, John Cockran, William Cornwall, William Cheney, Henry Cole, Samuel Eggleston, George Graves, John Hall, father and son; Richard and Samuel Hall, Thomas Hope- well, Giles Hamlin, Daniel and William Harris, George Hubbard, John Kirby, John Martin, Thomas Miller, William Markham, Thomas Ranney, John Savage, William Smith, Samuel Stocking, the Rev. Samuel Stow, Joseph Smith, Matthias Treat, Robert Webster, Thomas Whitmore, Nathaniel White, William Ward, John Wilcox, and Robert Warner.
The public worship of the Creator was the first thought of those fine men who made New England famous for its fervent religious spirit, and tradition has it, that the first Sunday services were held under the shade of the wide spreading limbs of a gigantic elm. The settlement had not been in existence a year, when the people voted to build a meeting-house. The meeting at which this important event in the tiny community was decided upon, was held at the home of John Hall. The meeting-house was twenty feet square and was located near the great elm which stood near the entrance to Riverside Cemetery. The building was most primitive and was not long in the building. It was surrounded by a stockade, so that, in case of attack by Indians, it could be used as a temporary refuge. There was, however, little annoyance from the Indians, who were well disposed toward the white settlers, the more so because they had been the means of ridding the country of the fierce and cruel Pequots.
The records of the town for the first two years were lost or perhaps there were no records kept. However that may be, records of the town from 1652, are complete and the first re- corded vote was for the meeting-house built near the great elm tree. The settlers were energetic and hard workers, who obtained their living from the soil or from their ingenuity and the skill of their hands in making articles necessary for the little community. In this respect they differed most strikingly from the Dutch set- tlers of the Hudson and Mohawk Valleys, who lived chiefly by trade with the Indians. The population increased slowly, but steadily. In 1703, the portion of the settlement known as the
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