USA > Connecticut > Hartford County > Berlin > History of Berlin > Part 17
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The bar of the tavern was in the south front room and the money was kept in a corner cupboard in the next room back. When this cupboard was removed, Mr. Loveland found beneath it handfuls of sixpences and ninepences, that had slipped through the cracks.
East from Mr. Galpin's, halfway down the hill, on the north side, was once a building, used for private schools, for religious meetings by the Methodists, and by the Universalists, and for other purposes.
At the foot of the hill, on the south side, on the spot where Mr. Shumway's greenhouse now stands, the Booths had a tan- nery, during the first half of the last century. There were eight or ten vats inside and outside the building. Water was con- ducted into the vats from a spring in the lot now owned by Mr. Gwatkins. The tan bark was ground by horse power. The boys used to think it great fun to sit over the big wheel and drive the horse, to keep him going. Cowhides and calf- skins were tanned in the vats, to be made into boots and shoes. Men's jackets and breeches were also made from the leather. The inventory of Daniel Wilcox of East Berlin, who died in 1789, has in the list, "Best leather breeches," "Second best leather breeches."
Mr. Bulkeley remembers seeing cowhides strung on the fences, both sides of the road, from his father's, all the way to the
William Bulkelly
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THIE EARLY INDUSTRIES OF BERLIN
footbridge over the stream, in the valley below. The Booths also did considerable business in wool pulling. Mr. Booth would go to the surrounding places where sheep were killed, and bring home the pelts, by the wagon load. The skins were placed in vats with lime until the wool was loosened. Then they were spread on slanting boards and stripped by hand. The skins were packed still wet into hogsheads and sent away to be used for book covers and bindings.
In hot weather the school children who had to pass the tannery used to hold their noses, and the young men who worked on the skins had to use a great deal of perfumery in order to make themselves agreeable to the girls whom they visited at evening.
The wool was spread on large platforms to dry in the lot opposite the tannery.
In later years, Almeron Bacon used the old tannery building for a marble- and granite-cutting yard. Mr. Bacon did off a part of the building for a tenament. In the lot southeast of the tannery was a distillery.
The barn in the field across the way, that was burned in the fire of 1895, was built of timbers from the old Roger Riley house, and was used as a slaughter, conducted by Robert McCrum and George Patterson.
Going east from the tannery, on the crest of the hill, at the left hand, stands a factory bearing the name of "Justus and William Bulkeley," who in 1823 started here in the business of making tinners' tools. Horse power was used at first and ten men were employed. The tools were forged in this shop, and then were taken to what is known as Risley's saw mill, to be ground and polished.
Justus Bulkeley, who lived in the house east of the shop, died in 1844. His brother William continued the business and, in 1850, put an engine into the factory.
Colonel Bulkeley purchased his place in 1823 of Blakeslee Barnes, or of his estate. At that time the shop, and the house which is a part of that now occupied by the Rev. E. E. Nourse, stood on the south side of the road, between the Bulkeley house and barn, and had been used by Mr. Barnes for the manufacture of tinware. Mr. Bulkeley was a genial man, full of fun, and
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HISTORY OF BERLIN
a good neighbor-one of the kind who would go out of his way to do a favor. In his day, whenever there was an auction in town, Colonel Bulkeley was called upon to conduct the sale. By his ready wit he made much fun for the people, as he led up to the final "Going, going, gone."
The Sixth Connecticut Regiment was organized in 1739. Mr. Bulkeley was colonel of that regiment, 1834-1836, and thus received his title. Colonel Bulkeley died in 1878, aged eighty- one.
The Justus Bulkeley place was bought by Deacon Joseph Savage, who died there in 1857, aged sixty-three.
Deacon Savage was remembered for his pleasant disposi- tion, and for his sweet tenor voice, with which he led the singing in the evening meetings. He used to start the tunes by aid of a long pitch pipe, and later he would hum the scale up and down to get the right key.
The row of beautiful maple trees along the north side of the street in front of his property, was planted by Deacon Savage.
Mr. Noah Smith, who occupied the place in his later years, also planted many trees and vines on the premises.
The large trees in front of the Bulkeley house, and down the hills toward the village, were planted by Colonel Bulkeley.
At the beginning of the last century, when Elijah Loveland was keeping tavern, his next door neighbor, on the south, was John Dunham, a tinner, who carried on his business in a shop standing in his north yard.
The Dunham house was burned. It was said that in her fright at the time of the fire, Mrs. Dunham shut herself into a closet. Her daughter Maria, who seized a heavy table and carried it across the street, remained, in consequence, an invalid all her life. The house was rebuilt and later was owned by Timothy Boardman, a skillful tailor, who employed, as appren- tices, a number of young men and women.
Mr. Boardman, who was an excellent citizen, removed to Middletown in 1856. His shop, which stood on the north side of his premises, close to the Loveland line, is now a part of the house of W. H. Shumway, the florist, situated at the foot
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THE EARLY INDUSTRIES OF BERLIN
of the hill going toward Colonel Bulkeley's. In 1864 the Rev. Daniel Francis, who succeeded Mr. Boardman, sold the prop- erty to Mr. Josiah Robbins of Wethersfield, and it is still occupied by his daughter, Miss Frances C. Robbins.
"Jacob Brandigee," the progenitor of all the Brandegee family in Connecticut, was born at Nine Partners, N. Y. At the age of thirteen he came to Newington.
The Newington records state that "Jacob Brandigat" mar- ried October 11, 1753, Abigail Dunham. The family bible says he was twenty-two and Abigail sixteen when married. Jacob Brandegee owned the covenant at New Britain, July 27, 1755. He was a weaver by trade. He was also engaged in the West India trade and sent out vessels from Rocky Hill.
In 1762 he bought a traet of land at Christian Lane, in "Great Swamp," as all this section was called for twenty years after the first white settlers came. There was a house already on the land, and Mr. Brandegee set up a store, first near the home of the late Moses Gilbert, and afterwards opposite the Norman Porter house.
He died at sea, on his passage from Guadaloupe to Connect- icut, March, 1765, aged thirty-six, as recorded on the tomb- stone erected to his memory in the South Cemetery in Worthington. We are told that a stone was erected to his memory in the Christian Lane burying ground, where some of his children were buried. All the Brandegee stones were after- ward removed to the family yard in Berlin Street.
Jacob Brandegee's monument, now in the "Maple Cemetery," the name under which the south burying ground was incor- porated April 3, 1903, was placed there in 1834, by his grandson Jacob. His son Jacob died at Cape Francois, Jan- uary, 1786, aged twenty-one years.
Jacob Brandegee's widow, Abigail (Dunham), married, sec- ond, Rev. Edward Eells of Upper Houses, Middletown. She died January 25, 1825, at the age of eighty-six, and was buried in Cromwell, but her inscription was cut with that of her first husband on the monument in Maple Cemetery, Berlin.
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HISTORY OF BERLIN
Jacob Brandegee had at Rocky Hill a little negro boy from Guinea, whom he had picked up on one of his voyages. Quam, as he was called, became very homesick. He said he wanted to see his mother, and begged to go back to Guinea. The Rocky Hill boys laughed at him. There was a keg of powder in the attic of the house, and one day the boys told Quam that if he would go up and sit on that keg and strike fire, he would go to Guinea, and would see his mother. Soon afterward Quam was missed.
Mrs. Brandegee,-remember she was only a slip of a girl, just past sixteen-went up the attic stairs, and there sat the boy, as directed, in the act of striking a flint. Mrs. Brandegee ran for her life and escaped, but poor Quam!
The roof of the house was blown off, and the child's mangled body was found in the garden. It was buried there where it had fallen. When the Connecticut Valley railroad was built in 1871 it passed through this garden, and the workmen cast out, with their shovels, the skeleton of Quam.
Elishama Brandegee, Sr., the oldest of the six children of Jacob, was born in 1754. He married Widow Lucy (Plumb) Weston in 1778, and came over to Worthington Street, where he settled on the property known as the "Mulberry Orchard" south of the John Dunham place. He also acquired consider- able land on the opposite side of the way.
The Middletown and Berlin turnpike road, which was opened in 1810, passed down the eastern hillside, south of the Galpin place, through land owned by the Brandegee family.
Elishama Brandegee was a Revolutionary soldier. After- ward he followed the calling of his father, and sailed the seas as a merchant. His business was chiefly with the West Indies. He managed his own vessels and was always known as "Captain Brandegee." He died in 1832. The house in which he lived, situated on the west side of the street near the south boundary of his premises, is barely recalled by our oldest residents. A tall evergreen tree, recently removed, stood in the front yard and was for many years a landmark.
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THE EARLY INDUSTRIES OF BERLIN
Among the historical articles exhibited by Mrs. R. M. Gris- wold at the Berlin Fair of September, 1905, was a set of liquor bottles from the brig Minerva, which sailed from the river ports of Connecticut to Spain and the West Indies, pre- vious to 1775.
During the time when our country was weakened from its struggle for freedom, French privateers captured many Ameri- can vessels, one of which was the Minerva, owned in part by Capt. Elishama Brandegee.
The United States had been unable to keep all the agreements of its treaty with France, made in 1778, and the two nations settled their difficulties by making one grievance offset another.
Bills of indemnity, called "French Spoliation Claims," have been before our government for over a hundred years, but the heirs of Captain Brandegee have yet to receive their first penny on account of the loss of the good brig Minerva.
In the days when the generation now come to the front was filled with youth and enthusiasm, whenever funds were needed for an extra church expense, or for unusual charitable objects, a festival, with tableaux and charades, was in order. In 1871, a carpet that had borne the impress of the feet of many a saint in its time of service, on the floor of the Congre- gational church, since its dedication, was in tatters. The young people of the society volunteered to raise money for a new carpet, and gave a well-planned and popular entertain- ment in the old town hall, on the evenings of January 3 and 5, 1872. The gross receipts for the two evenings were $384.
This seeming digression from our subject was suggested by the fact that at such times, while every attic in the village was ransacked (this was before the advent of rummage sales) for calashes, bell-crowned hats, swallow-tailed coats and all manner of old-fashioned garments, to be used in making up picturesque costumes for the occasion, the loan of a certain red silk gown was always desired.
This gown was a purely domestic production, the work of the hands of Mrs. Lucy Brandegee. She reared the silk-worms,
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HISTORY OF BERLIN
which she fed with leaves from the mulberry trees that sur- rounded her home. She spun and dyed the thread and wove the fabric, with the intention it was said of presenting the dress to Mrs. Martha Washington. Somehow it missed its destination and was worn by Mrs. Brandegee.
It is still in a good state of preservation, but is so highly valued that it would be presumptuous to attempt to borrow it to be used in the hasty scramble of dressing for a tableau or charade.
Emma Hart began her career as a teacher at the age of seven- teen, in a schoolhouse which stood in that mulberry orchard, on the Brandegee place. It was in the year 1804.
In the History of New Britain, by Prof. D. N. Camp, is an account of Miss Hart's first day's experience with her pupils, given in her own words, as follows :
I began my work by trying to discover the several capacities and degrees of advancement of the children, so as to arrange them into classes; but they having been under my predecessor, accustomed to the greatest license, would, at their own option, go to the street door to look at a passing carriage, or stepping onto a bench in the rear, dash out of a window and take a lively turn in the mulberry grove. Talking did no good. Reasoning and pathetic appeals were unavailing.
At noon, I explained this first great perplexity of my teacher life to my friend, Mrs. Peck, who decidedly advised sound and summary chastisement.
"I cannot," I replied, "I never struck a child in my life."
"It is," she said, "the only way and you must."
I left her for the afternoon school with a heavy heart, still hoping I might find some way of avoiding what I could not deliberately resolve to do.
I found the school a scene of uproar and confusion which I vainly endeavored to quell. Just then Jesse Peck, my friend's little son, entered with a bundle of nice rods. As he laid them on the table before me, my courage rose, and in the temporary silence which ensued I laid down a few laws, the breaking of which would be followed with immediate chastisement.
For a few minutes the children were silent, but they had been used to threatening, and soon, a boy rose from his seat, and as he was stepping to the door, I took one of the sticks and gave him a
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THE EARLY INDUSTRIES OF BERLIN
moderate flogging; then with a grip upon his arm which made him feel that I was in earnest, put him into his seat.
She then exhorted the children to be good, etc., but informed them that she must and would have their obedience.
But she says :
The children still lacked faith in my words, and I spent most of the afternoon in alternate whippings and exhortations, the former always increasing in intensity, until at last, the children submitted, and this was the last of corporal punishment in that school.
Elishama Brandegee, Sr., had three sons and two daughters : Jacob, John, Elishama, Lucy, and Sally Milnor. Lucy was the wife of Major Giles Curtis; Jacob settled in New York; John went to New London; Elishama remained on the homestead at Berlin; Sally Milnor died at the age of sixteen.
As a man, Elishama Brandegee, Jr., was upright, kind, genial, full of public spirit, and a leader in many important enterprises of his day. According to the family tradition, he planted, at the age of twelve, on his father's premises, the two rows of stately maples that still remains a monument of the work of his boyhood. After the Middletown turnpike road opened in 1810, he planted the trees on the south side of the way from the top of the hill down to the tannery.
In 1811 he married Emily Stocking of Middletown Upper Houses. The next year he built, on the north side of the old homestead, the fine large house, now owned by W. S. Brandegec. The exact time is not known when he built the great rambling store, once so famous, that occupied the corner opposite his dwelling, but it was in full swing in 1811, with Elishama Brandegee, Jr., as proprietor.
At this store was carried the largest stock of dry goods, groceries, boots and shoes, drugs, etc., to be found between Hartford and New Haven. It was also the wholesale depot for dealers in surrounding towns. The people came here from Meriden and New Britain, and from all about, for miles away, to do their trading. Farmers' wives brought their butter and eggs to this store, where they could exchange them for
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HISTORY OF BERLIN
finery-butter at twelve eents a pound and eggs eight eents a dozen.
Twice a year Mr. Brandegee journeyed by stage to New York to replenish his stoek. His business there was mostly done on Pearl Street. The merchandise came by water to Mid- dletown, and was brought out to Berlin by teams of horses or oxen. The stock comprised many artieles not to be found in country stores of this day. Labels on the drawers are recalled, as SILKS, SATINS, LACES, FINE SHAWLS, etc. In one drawer might be found dainty, colored kid slippers.
Our grandmothers loved gay attire. Mrs. Lucy Curtis used to speak of wearing a pink satin dress on a steamboat excursion down the Connecticut river.
It will give an idea of the part Mr. Brandegee bore in the interests of the town to say that when the new academy was built, he took two hundred of the three hundred and eleven shares subscribed at five dollars per share.
On April 9, 1854, Mr. Brandegee was one of a hundred and thirty persons propounded for admission to the Second Congre- gational Church. The next day he died quite suddenly, while sitting in his chair.
The children of Elishama Brandegee, Jr., were: Jacob, Dr. Elishama, Camillus, Marius, John, Henry, Sarah (Mrs. Barney), and Julia. John, who assisted his father in the store, kept up the business until 1856. Afterward, for a short time, Mr. Wilcox of Meriden used the building for the manufacture of hoop skirts and employed a large number of girls.
Then for a long while the old store lay idle and the boys and girls of the village played hide and seek in the bins that were formerly used to hold sugar and other commodities.
At last the huge old pile was torn down by William Sage. One small building, made from the lumber, stands opposite the house of C. M. Jarvis. It was once used by Mr. Sage as a stone cutter's shop. The door of that shop was one of the side front doors of the store.
James H. Bunce, the well-known and prosperous dry goods merchant of Middletown, began his mercantile career as clerk
W
THE BRANDEGEE THREAD FACTORY IN EAST BERLIN (LATER THE PROPERTY OF ROYS & WILCOX CO.) From a painting by Durat
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THE EARLY INDUSTRIES OF BERLIN
for John Brandegee, and there are persons now living in Berlin who recall his polite and accommodating ways.
At the close of the War of 1812, our country was burdened with a debt of a hundred million dollars, and business generally was paralyzed for want of money. The amounts attached to names in the following list, made in 1817, of the men who were at that time engaged in business in Berlin, will show one method taken to relieve the situation :
LIST OF ASSESSMENTS FOR 1817
MERCHANTS
SADDLER
Elish Brandegee $ 80
Pattison & Peck 80
ATTORNEYS
Joseph Booth
20
Daniel Dunbar
120
PHYSICIANS
David Carpinter 40
Wm M Hand 40
BOOK BINDERS
Elisha Cheney $40
Levi North
10
Jedediah North 20
John Lee
10
Lyman Latlıam
10
Elias Beckley
10
Allen Beckley
10
TINNERS
SHOEMAKERS TANNERS
Benjamin Wilcox 25
John Dunham 60
Samuel Pattison
30
John Hubbard
15
WAGON MAKERS
Freman Howard
25
Salmon Warner
10
TAILORS
CARPENTERS
Urbane Kelsey 10
Asahel Kelsey 10
DISTILLERS
Samuel Porter
10
JOINERS
Ch'ncey Shipman
15
MASONS
CARDING MACHINES
Jabez Dickinson
15
Daniel Riee
15
James Guernsey
10
HATTERS
CABINET MAKERS
Abijah Flagg
10
TAVERNERS
Amos Kirby 25
Jesse Hart 30
BLACKSMITHS
Reuben North 40
Andrew Norton 10
Zenas Richardson 10
Abijah Porter 10
Seth Savage 10
Elijah Stanley
25
Elijah Smith
15
Horrace Steel
15
Nath'n'l Cornwel
10
Lyman Wilcox
25
Jos R Wileox
10
Lyman Wilcox
10
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HISTORY OF BERLIN
GRIST MILLS
Loren Percival
12
Jos R Wilcox 45
Lyman Wilcox 45
tinner, no amount at-
Phineas Squires 15
tached to his name.)
Moses Riley
15
Guernsey Bates
30
TINNERS
CLOTHIERS
Jesse Eddy
20
LIST OF CHAISES AND ASSESSMENTS
Adam Rittenhouse $15
David Webster $15
E & A Edwards 15
Seth Deming 15
Amos Hosford
20
Lardner Deming 15
Erastus Sage 30
Samuel Porter 20
Erastus Sage
15
Wid Hep Beckley 15
Edmond Boldero
30
Shubael Pattison 15
Horace Steel 2
20
Eleazur Roberts
15
E Brandegee Jr
30
Ch'n'cy Shipman
15
Elisha Peck
30
Elisha Cheney
15
Rojer Riley
20
Jacob Willcox
15
Freman Howard
20
Benjamin Willcox 20
Samuel Willcox 15
Lyman Latham
15
Josiah Willcox
15
Daniel Galpin
20
Solomon Norton 15
Samuel Whitlesey 15
66
15
Blakeslee Barnes 50
Joseph Both
15
John Dunham
40
Caleb Galpin
15
Daniel Dunbar
20
David Dickinson
40
Giles Curtise
20
Nath'l Dickinson
20
At a meeting of the Listers of the Town of Berlin, convened at Jesse Hart's inn, 13th of Oct, 1817, voted that the persons above named be assessed the sums affixed their names
NOAH W STANLEY
LEVI WELLES, JR FRANCIS HART
ASHBEL HOOKER
WILLIAM STOCKING
JAMES GUERNSEY
REUBEN NORTH
66
20
Reuben North 15
15
15
Lyman Willcox
15
David Carpinter
15
Samuel Norton
12
Blakeslee Barnes, (was a
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TIIE EARLY INDUSTRIES OF BERLIN
In 1817 Horace Steele, Elishama Brandegce's next door neighbor on the south, was engaged in the business of book- binding. Afterwards he made bandboxes, which he carried to Hartford to sell to the milliners.
Mr. Steele's children were Eliza (mother of the Rev. Andrew T. Pratt, missionary in Turkey), Caroline (Mrs. Joseph Booth), Mary, Jane, Lucy Ann (Mrs. Lorenzo Lamb), and William.
Their home, a large colonial house set well back from the street, was, in its day, socially a center of attraction, filled as it was with bright, merry young people. The old house was torn down by William Steele and the house which he built on its site is now owned by Walter Gwatkin.
In 1801 the Rev. Evan Johns and Mr. Edmund Boldero, with their wives, who were sisters, came to America from Eng- land. The pulpit of the Second Congregational Church of Berlin had been without a settled minister since the death of Mr. Goodrich in 1799. Mr. Johns was called to be his suc- cessor and was installed June 9, 1802. He was a man of good ability, but he had a high temper, so poorly controlled that he and his people were kept in turmoil until, to the relief of both, he was dismissed February 13, 1811.
He chose as the text of his last sermon, the words "The Devil is the father of liars, and ye are the children of your father." He went on to say, "You are all liars, and the truth is not in you." One good brother, in righteous indignation, rose in his seat to go up and pitch Mr. Johns out of the pulpit, and was hardly restrained from his purpose. Mr. Johns desired to preach one more Sunday in order that he might finish what he had to say, but he was not allowed to enter the pulpit.
The two English families, Johns and Boldero, lived together, in the house lately owned by S. F. Raymond, situated next south of the Horace Steele place. Mr. Johns had one son, Thomas, who, for fear of contamination, was not allowed to go to school, or to play with other children. When Tommy was out in his yard, the little boys of the neighborhood would go
14
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HISTORY OF BERLIN
and peek at him through the pickets. Then Mrs. Johns would appear and say, "Tommy, come away. I do not wish you to speak to those children." It was said that as soon as Tommy came to his majority he plunged into all manner of dissipation and went speedily to "the bad."
The Bolderos remained after the dismissal of Mr. Johns until the death of Mr. Boldero in 1839. Then Mrs. Boldero boarded in the family of Charles A. Goodrich until her death in 1842.
The inscriptions on their tombstones in the East Berlin ceme- tery read as follows :
Edmund Boldero Esq. Youngest son of Rev. John Boldero, late rector of Ampton, Suffolk, England. Born Anno Domini 1767.
Emigrated to America 1801. Died at Berlin Aug. 3 1839 Æ 72.
Eutychia Ann Boldero, Relict of the late Edmund Boldero, Esq. and youngest daughter of the late Rev. Thomas Harmer, D.D. Born at Hattisfield, Suffolk, England, Sept. 25th, 1760. Died at Berlin March 27, 1842, Æ 81.
The Bolderos left some property in charge of Mr. Goodrich, who turned it into money, and sent it, by the hand of his son Samuel, over to England, where he delivered it into the hands of the heirs, two interesting old ladies, who lived, if remembered rightly, at Bury St. Edmunds.
There was a mystery about the Bolderos that was buried with them. Some said Mr. Boldero had offended the king and that he came to America to avoid arrest. They lived a secluded life and kept their house locked. Whenever anyone came there, a door would be opened a crack, or a chamber window might be raised, to inquire what the errand was. The children of that generation used to think it great fun on Thanksgiving day to dress up and go from house to house making calls. A party of them once stopped at the Bolderos and knocked at the door. Mrs. Boldero opened a window and asked what they wanted. They answered: "It is Thanksgiving day and we have come to call upon you." She replied : "Every day, with me, is Thanks- giving, and you'd better run right along."
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THE EARLY INDUSTRIES OF BERLIN
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