USA > Connecticut > Hartford County > Berlin > History of Berlin, Connecticut > Part 7
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THE HART FAMILIES
church made up, in 1756, by the newly-settled minister, the Rev. Samuel Clark. Captain Isaac Hart was deacon of the church. He died January 27, 1770, aged eighty-four. His widow, . Elizabeth (Whaples), died November 14, 1777. They were the grandparents of Luther Pattison, father of Miss Abby Pat- tison, and the old house, so dear to her, to which she clung to the last, habituating herself to the increasing slant of the floors, was the same to which Isaac Hart brought his bride.
A writer in "Old Houses of Connecticut" describes this house, with its overhang, and goes on to say :
The house is said to have been built by Isaac Hart in 1721. This we cannot believe. Isaac may have added the lean-to, but the house is of a type which belongs to a time before his day. If it is not so late as this, it cannot, on the other hand be earlier than 1670. The house probably belonged to some settler, attracted to the neighbor- hood by the presence of Richard Beckley, and was built in the decade which began with 1680.
It was related of Isaac Hart that one day, when at work in his meadow over west, he saw a bear coming toward him. With only a pitchfork for a weapon, he mounted his horse, set chase for the bear, and killed it.
Miss Pattison was born in 1811. When she was young, Indians used to come straggling along, and stop to beg for feed, and a night's lodging. Her mother, who was always kind to the poor, used to prepare a bed for their comfort, out in the barn, and sometimes Abby was sent, alone, with the Indians, to the barn to make up the bed. She said she was not at all afraid of them. One day an old Indian and his squaw came there. The squaw took a Bible and pretended to read its pages devoutly. Her husband said, aside, "She can't read a word."
About the year 1815 a number of lively young people of Berlin, attracted by the doctrines and zeal of the Methodist Church, formed a "Class," with a leader, and had preaching services occasionally. Their first meeting was held in the south front room of Luther Pattison's house. Miss Pattison said that when they asked her father's permission to come there, he answered, "I guess they won't hurt the old house."
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Miss Pattison's father had promised her that she should go to Mrs. Willard's school at Troy, but her mother became an invalid, and thenceforth her life was one of self-sacrifice and devotion to the needs of others. One instance will serve to show the kind- ness of her heart. A man who had lived with the family many years, paid a small sum for his board, until his money was gone. Aunt Abby, whose own income was probably less than a hundred dollars a year, said she could not send the old man to the poor- house, and she gave him a home free for the rest of his life.
In her latter days Miss Pattison lived quite alone. One cold night she thought her pet kitten would suffer out of doors, and before retiring she carried it to a chamber. As she turned to go down the crooked stairway, her foot slipped and she fell. Her body was so bruised and broken that she could not survive the shock. She died March 10, 1897, aged eighty-six. Up to that time she was active and had retained all her faculties. With her bright mind, if she could have had the advantages of Troy, as was said, "what a lady she might have been."
After Aunt Abby's death the "old house" was vacant. Noth- ing now remains of it but the great chimney foundations, ten feet or so square. One Sunday afternoon, it was August 2, 1903, flames were discovered leaping out from the windows, and its end had come. A boy candidate for the Reform School out of "pure cussedness" had set a match to a pile of hay stored in one of the rooms. Speaking of the age of the house Miss Patti- son said she could count it back 180 years, that was more than nine years ago, and would take it to 1717, four years before Isaac Hart was married.
A hundred years ago, around on Lower Lane, as it turns eastward, there was an old, forsaken dwelling house. Mys- terious lights were seen there at midnight, and the story went abroad that the place was haunted. Emma Hart was not to be scared by ghosts, or anything else. One dark, rainy night she and a young friend disguised themselves, and started out to investigate. Sure enough there were lights in the house. When
THE PATTISON HOUSE (Built before 1721)
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THE HART FAMILIES
the two girls crept cautiously up to a window and looked in they saw-a company of men playing cards.
In the first half of the eighteenth century, a Mr. Edward Pattison, who, to escape religious and political persecution, had fled from Scotland to the north of Ireland, planned to emigrate, with his family, to America, but he was taken sick, and died, before he could accomplish his desire. In accordance with his parting advice, his eldest son, Edward, came over to see what the country was like, and then returned for his brothers and sisters, William and Noah, Anna and Jennie.
It was said of Edward that he came from Boston to Berlin, with only eighteen cents in his pocket. Is it not probable that he had the same disposition seen in his great-granddaughter, Miss Abigail Pattison, and that he had given all he could pos- sibly spare to his younger brothers and sisters ?
It would seem that William Pattison came to Berlin with Edward. He was in this vicinity in 1747, and was a member of Great Swamp Society.
In 1754 he was in New Britain and was one of the school committee in 1758-9. He was active in society affairs, and was an original member of the First Church, formed in New Britain, April 19, 1758. He had a blacksmith shop next his house, on East Street, and was rated as one of the wealthiest men, at that time, in the parish.
In 1759 he sold, for £300, his homestead of twenty-six acres of land, extending from East Street to Wethersfield line, with buildings thereon, to Dr. John Smalley, who lived there nearly thirty years.
William Pattison and his wife, Sarah (Dunham), were received, April 11, 1762, by letter from New Britain church to the Christian Lane church.
Another William Patterson* came to America from Ireland, and settled in Baltimore. By his great business talent he became one of the richest men in Maryland. His daughter Elizabeth, born February 6, 1785, was possessed of remarkable beauty and wit.
* A variant spelling for Pattison. See below.
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In 1803, Jerome Bonaparte visited this country and met Miss Patterson at the autumn races at Baltimore. It was a case of love at first sight. They were married Christmas eve of that year.
On July 7, 1805, a son, named for his father, was born to them at Camberwell, England. Jerome professed to be very fond of his wife, but Napoleon Bonaparte had other plans for his brother and caused the marriage to be annulled.
Madame Bonaparte spent much time abroad, but returned to Baltimore, where her last days were spent in a quiet boarding house. She died April 4, 1879, aged ninety-four.
Their son, Jerome, married November 30, 1820, Miss Susan May Williams of Baltimore. Their son, Charles Jerome Bona- parte, grand nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte, is now (1905) Secretary of the Navy, U. S.
It would be interesting to know the connection between the William Pattison of Berlin and the William Patterson of Baltimore, both of Scotch descent, and both from the north of Ireland.
Mr. Charles J. Bonaparte, in answer to a letter of inquiry, states that he has not been able to trace his Patterson ancestry. He said, however, that he did not think the two families could be related for the reason that in Baltimore, the name was spelled "Patterson" whereas his correspondent spelled it "Pattison." If Mr. Bonaparte should consult the Berlin records he would find Pattison, Patterson, and Paterson. Edward's branch of the family have preferred the "Pattison" spelling.
Edward Pattison's sister Anna came to Berlin and was mar- ried to Amos Galpin. They were the great-grandparents of Henry N. Galpin. Noah and Jennie Pattison went South and all trace of them has been lost.
Edward made his home on Hart Street. A well in the lot south of Miss Abigail Pattison's is all that now remains to mark the site of this dwelling place. He was a tinsmith by trade and his shop stood opposite his house on the north corner of the property now owned by the heirs of the late William F. Brown.
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Here, about the year 1740, Edward Pattison established the manufacture of tinware-the first made in America. At first the ware was a luxury, and a great curiosity. At Tabitha Norton's wedding the guests exclaimed :
"Oh what's that lordly dish so rare, That glitters forth in splendor's glare? Tell us, Miss Norton, is it silver ? Is it from China, or Brazil, or -? " Thus all together on they ran. Quoth the good dame, "'Tis a Tin Pan-
The first made in the colony; The maker Patterson's just by-
From Ireland, in the last ship o'er- You all can buy, for he'll make more."
Mr. Pattison began the sale of his tinware by carrying it from house to house in baskets suspended from the back of a horse. The tinplate was imported from England and during the Revolutionary War the business in this country was suspended.
Young men employed by Mr. Pattison set up shops for them- selves and after the war peddlers were sent all over the South and West with wagons loaded inside and out with bright tin pans, kettles, etc., made in Berlin.
Edward Pattison was married November 28, 1751, to Eliza- beth (Betsey) Hills. They had six children, Edward, Shubael, Lucretia, Lois, Elizabeth, and Rhoda. Mrs. Pattison had large, brilliant, black eyes, that have been transmitted to some of her descendants, to the present day. Mr. and Mrs. Pattison have tombstones in the South Cemetery at Berlin. Their inscrip- tions read as follows :
In memory of Mr. Edward Pattison who departed this life Dec. 22d, A. D. 1787, in the 57th year of his age.
In memory of Mrs. Elizabeth, relict of Mr. Edward Pattison, who died Nov. 6th, 1804, Æt 72.
Mr. Pattison's age, as here given, would make him only ten years old in 1740, and doubtless there was a mistake. Miss
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Ruth Galpin has a record of her great-great-grandmother, Anna Pattison, which shows that she was born in 1724, and was mar- ried to Amos Galpin, November 5, 1745. She was sixteen in 1840 when her brother Edward was said to have settled in Berlin.
Edward Pattison's sons, Edward and Shubael, continued their father's business. By deed of date February 6, 1786, Mr. Pattison, for the consideration of £30, conveyed to Shubael a tract of land, which, judging from the description, must have been the same that was sold by heirs of Shubael Pattison to William F. Brown about the year 1848.
In 1787, Shubael married Sarah, the seventeen-year-old daughter of Zachariah Hart, his father's second-door neighbor on the north, and it is supposed that he built, at that time, for the reception of his bride, the large white house now occupied by the Browns. He also built a large, new shop on the south corner of his lot, where he made great quantities of tinware, which he carried in wagons to. Canada, where he sold it in exchange for furs.
It is said that John Jacob Astor was his companion on some of those Canadian trips. The business was very profitable. Mr. Pattison brought his furs home to Berlin and employed girls who came from Newington and all about to make them up into muffs and other articles in his shop on the corner.
There is a springy feel under the feet as one walks through this street. A few years since, when Elmer E. Austin planted a row of apple trees along the side of the road, by his premises, he found tin chips buried there the whole distance, and some of the trees died because the roots could not penetrate to the under soil.
In the fall of 1828, Shubael Pattison went to New York City on business, where he was taken suddenly ill with congestion of the lungs, on a Friday afternoon. A letter sent to Berlin was received the next Tuesday night. Two of Mr. Pattison's sons- in-law, who started the next morning to go to him arrived Thurs- day. Think of that "slow coach." Mr. Pattison died the next day, November 8, 1828, aged sixty-four. He was brought back
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EMMA HART WILLARD (From a painting by Robert Bolling Brandegee)
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THE HART FAMILIES
to Berlin, and his funeral, attended in the church on Monday, "was calculated to be the largest funeral ever held in the town."
Shubael Pattison and his wife, Sarah Hart, had ten children : Harriet, wife of the merchant, Orin Beckley, ancestors of Mrs. Caroline B. Sheppard of New York City; Chloe, wife of the merchant, Elisha Peck; Lucy, wife of Frederic Hinsdale, mer- chant; Julia, wife of Lyman Dunbar; Sarah, married first to Michael Stocking, second to the Rev. Theron Osborn; Lois M., married first to Calvin Winchell, second, February 26, 1830, to Dr. Caleb H. Austin.
Shubael Pattison's shop was moved about 1830 over to the Captain Samuel Hart corner and was made into the dwelling house now owned by Leonard C. Hubbard.
Should a resident of Worthington Street tell a man who lives on Hart Street that "it is damp there," he will reply, "My cellar is dryer than yours. If it were filled to-night with water, it would all disappear before morning." There is a porous, sandy subsoil all along that highway, which acts as natural drainage.
It has been said that a pupil of Miss Porter's school at Farmington may be known by the way she enters a room. Sixty or seventy years ago there was a class of young ladies in Berlin, of superior qualities of mind, and of distinctive bear- ing, the latter the result of a course of training at Troy Sem- inary, under Mrs. Emma Hart Willard," who seemed to have the faculty to impart to her pupils somewhat of her own dignity of manner.
Mrs. Willard was anxious that all the girls in her large circle of relatives should have a chance to obtain an education, and she invited them to come to Troy, at her own expense. Twelve
* It is well known that Mrs. Willard was educated at the old Berlin Academy. Cf. "Memories of Berlin's Earlier Schools," an historical address, delivered by Miss Alice Norton at the Old Home Day exercises, in the Congregational Church, Berlin, Sept. 20th, 1905. (Berlin News, Nov. 2, 1905.) This address gives an account of Mrs. Willard's experiences in the academy.
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HISTORY OF BERLIN
or more of her nieces and grandnieces, who lived in Berlin village, with a few others, in whom she became interested, accepted her generous offer. Among these were three daughters and three granddaughters of her brother Jesse Hart; Julia and Sarah Hart, daughters of Freedom Hart; Sarah and Susan Hinsdale, daughters of Frederick Hinsdale; Harriet Hart, daughter of George Hart; Jane and Laura Barnes, daughters of Blakeslee Barnes, and Frances Durand.
Mrs. Emily Galpin Bacon, mother of Attorney C. E. Bacon of Middletown, was born in the house that stood across the way from the Dr. Brandegee place. She has never forgotten how she longed to go to Troy with the rest of the girls. Her father was dead, Mrs. Willard did not know of her desire, and she could not go.
Most of these Berlin girls were fitted for teachers in schools, or for governesses. Some went South, whence not all returned single; others remained as assistants in the seminary.
Harriet Hart, who afterwards married Nathaniel Dickinson, taught in two of the Kensington schools, and in the Center dis- trict of Worthington, and in New York State.
Susan Hinsdale, whose parents lived in the Captain Samuel Hart place, had a select school in the Evelyn Peck shop, across the way from her home, which was attended by children from "up street."
An old woman used to go to the "Seminary" with a basket on her arm, filled with candy and cakes, which she sold to the girls, in exchange for their cast-off clothing, and it was said that Jane Barnes ate so much candy that she ruined her health. She died September 1, 1834, at the age of eighteen. When her mother went for her, to bring her home, she begged to be taken to Niagara, that she might see the Falls before she died, and her request was granted.
Jane Porter Hart, now Mrs. William Dodd of Cincinnati, taught music and drawing at the seminary.
Miss Emily Treat Wilcox, now of Westfield, a granddaughter of Mrs. Willard's sister Lydia, was educated at Troy Seminary
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THE HART FAMILIES
which she afterward conducted for a number of years, as a day school.
Miss Catherine R. Churchill, whose early home was in New York City, was sent "away to school"' to Troy. Miss Sarah Churchill remembers seeing Mrs. Willard at a party in New York, given by the Scudders, as she sat, like a queen, with her turban on her head, surrounded by a group of scientific men, like Davies, the mathematician, while the young people looked on from a distance.
Sometime during the ministry of the Rev. Wilder Smith, 1862-1866, Mrs. Willard visited the sisters, Mrs. Mindwell Hart and Mrs. Sophia Camp, who lived opposite the academy. Mr. and Mrs. Smith were invited to meet Mrs. Willard at tea. Mr. Smith, on his way home, remarked, "What eyes; she looks right through you."
The popularity of Mrs. Willard's school was so great that pupils came to her from all parts of the United States, from Canada, and even from the West Indies. In 1838, she resigned her charge to her son, John Willard, and his wife, in order that she might travel abroad, and have more time to give to her liter- ary labors. She died in Troy, April 15, 1870, aged eighty-three years.
Almira Hart, known as Mrs. Phelps, was the seventeenth child of Captain Samuel Hart. Born in 1793, she was six years younger than her sister, Mrs. Willard, who for three years was her teacher, in the schools of Berlin.
The Rev. W. W. Woodworth, writing of her says :
At the age of nineteen she taught a school in her father's house, and not long after took charge of an academy at Sandy Hill, New York. In 1817 she was married to Simeon Lincoln, of New Britain, then editor of a literary paper, published in Hartford. He died in 1823, and in 1831 she was married to the Hon. John Phelps, of Ver- mont, an eminent jurist and statesman . . In 1841 she was invited by the Bishop of Maryland and the trustees of the Patapsco Institute, to "found a Church school for girls." Here she continued fifteen years, doing, as her sister says, "her great and crowning edu- cational work." Her husband died in 1849. She died in Baltimore
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in 1884, at the age of 91. She published many books for students in the various departments of natural science, the best known of which is her work on botany, published in 1829, while she was vice- principal of the Troy Seminary.
Before the publication of Mrs. Lincoln's "Lectures on Botany," the science had been little studied in schools. Her work of about 500 pages met a quick demand and in a little more than three years nearly 10,000 copies had been sold. It gave a com- fortable income to Mrs. Lincoln, and made her publishers rich. For many years it was a standard text book on the subject of botany in colleges and high schools throughout the country. It was written in an attractive style, the unavoidable scientific terms, which so often discourage a pupil, were interspersed with interesting remarks relative to the history and uses of plants, with occasional quotations from the poets. For instance under class "Pentrandia" we read :
The garden violet, viola tri-color, has a variety of common names, as pansy, hearts-ease, etc. Pansy is a corruption of the French pensée, a thought; thus Shakespeare, in the character of Ophelia, says :
There's rosemary-that's for remembrance, And these are pansies- That's for thought.
In 1833, Mrs. Lincoln, then Mrs. Phelps, published a small botany for children. In spite of its long, hard words, such as "helminthology" and "infundibuliformis," the "Botany for Beginners" found a ready field. In six months the first edition was exhausted and the second sold as quickly. In 1847 a third edition, revised and improved with "many useful remarks inter- spersed throughout the work," was introduced in the common schools.
One of the sweetest memories of a lifelong resident of this village is of a Saturday afternoon (school kept Saturday morn- ing then), nigh on to sixty years ago, over on the "Ledge," back of the old Bosworth place, sitting on a mossy bank, where the wind flowers grew, and partridge berries, and fragrant pipsis-
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sewa. There, teacher gathered about her knee, her class of little girls, who had begun to study the new botany, and taught them to name the parts of the flowers, which they held in their hands. One of that class placed a mark in the index of her book, against all the flowers she learned to know. There are 126 marks there, thanks to Mrs. Lincoln Phelps and to "Teacher."
Mrs. Willard and Mrs. Phelps both retained a lifelong interest in their native town. Both expressed a desire that the street on which they were born could be called "Hart Street."
CHAPTER IV.
Daniel Wilcox, Pioneer Settler of Savage Hill, Northwest Division of Middletown, and His Family.
In treating this subject I shall take the liberty of going back- ward, or forward or sideways at my pleasure.
Daniel Wilcox was fourth in descent from John Wilcox, original proprietor of Hartford, 1639. The name of John's wife was Mary, and their home was on a part of what is now Bushnell Park. Their children were John, Sarah, and Ann. Sarah was married to John Bidwell of Hartford. Ann, born about 1616, married John Hall and settled in Middletown.
John Wilcox, Sr., was chosen surveyor of lands 1643, 1644, and Townsman or Selectman 1650. The office of Selectman in early times was one of honor, and it carried much responsi- bility.
John Wilcox's life in this new country was short. He died October 1, 1651. Our knowledge of his circumstances must come mostly from his will dated July 24, 1651.
Charles J. Hoadly, formerly State Librarian, told me that John Wilcox's will was the first probated in the colony. He had a new house and an old house, so called. He had horses, cows, oxen, swine, fowls, bees, fields of grain, of hemp, and of flax. He had silver and wamppeage and a pew, a man servant and a maid servant.
Besides other provisions for his wife Mary, he gives her the old house to live in, with the use of his furniture and half the fruit of his two orchards. She is to have the pew, a colt and the use of a horse for two years with bridle and pannell to ride to Windsor, to Wethersfield, to Hartford or to the Sermon.
We cannot connect John Wilcox with the English Wilcoxes ; neither do we know the family name of his wife, Mary. It is my theory that she had a clearing out time when she moved from
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the new house after John's death and that like some neat house- keepers of the present day she destroyed all the family records.
The wife of one of my uncles, in a spasm of housecleaning, threw into the fire their family tree, prepared at considerable expense by a professional genealogist.
Charles N. Camp, genealogist of New Haven, is authority for the statement that John Wilcox, Senior, served in the Pequot War. (See Colonial Year Book, page 811.)
It is probable that John Wilcox was buried in the Center Church burying yard at Hartford where stands a granite shaft on which his name appears with those of a hundred founders of the Town inscribed thereon.
Mary survived her husband seventeen years and died in 1668. In her will, dated October 4, 1666, about two years before her death, she gives to "Cosin" Sara Long two pewter platters, and to daughter "An" Haul forty shillings and "my best feather pillow." All the rest of her estate after payment of debts and her comly funeral expenses she gives to son-in-law John Bidwell.
Toward the last on account of weakness she had been unable to occupy the "old house" and orchards, and according to a provision of her husband's will her son John was ordered by Court to pay her six pounds a year. She did not mention son John in her will. It would have been. natural that she should have gone to spend her last days with daughter Sarah Bidwell (variously spelled Biddle, Bidoll) who lived in Hart- ford, the other children being away at Middletown, and possibly there was undue influence, as they, who are disinherited, say.
John Wilcox, 2d, eldest child of John, Senior, and his wife Mary, born in England, came to America with his father. He received a grant of land at Middletown before 1653, but instead of settling there at once, he went to Dorchester, was there in 1654, whereupon the General Court passed a vote to compel him to occupy his land or to find a substitute. He returned to Middletown and purchased the homesteads of Joseph Smith and Matthias Treat. These he sold, and purchased elsewhere
6
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before November 1, 1665. He married September 17, 1646, five years before his father died, Sarah, eldest daughter of William Wadsworth of Hartford. Of this marriage, one child, Sarah, was born, October 3, 1648. Sarah, the mother, died that same year, probably when little Sarah was born. From the dates given she could not have died earlier than October 3, 1648-9, and the next January (January 18, 1649-50) John married, second, Katharine Stoughton, daughter of Thomas Stoughton of Windsor (Thomas Stoughton, called "The Ancient," built the stone fort still standing at Windsor, page 742, "Upper Houses," Charles Collard Adams), but then there was the motherless little one and so we will excuse his haste. Katharine took such good care of Sarah Wadsworth's baby that she thrived and grew to womanhood and became the wife of David Ensign, who was an original member of the first church of West Hartford, 1713. Katharine, however, did not succeed as well with her own children. According to Charles Collard Adams, John, Thomas and Mary, her first three children, died young; only Israel, born June 19, 1656, and Samuel, born November 9, 1658, came to maturity.
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