USA > Connecticut > Hartford County > Berlin > History of Berlin > Part 20
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Blue Hills brook and Crooked brook are natural trout streams, but the stock is kept up and improved by yearly addi- tions of young trout from the state hatcheries.
The Indians could catch fish Sunday or any other day of the week, wherever they pleased, but we have not that privilege, and a breakfast of trout, caught from one of these streams, might prove an expensive luxury.
Section one of Chapter 199 of the public acts of 1903, as amended by Legislature May 20, 1905, reads as follows :
Every person who shall throw down or leave open any bars, gate, or fence upon the land of another without permission of the owner, occupant, or person in charge thereof for the purpose of hunting, trapping, fishing, or taking or destroying the nests or eggs of birds, or bee hunting, or gathering nuts, fruits, or berries . shall be fined not more than fifty dollars or imprisoned not more than thirty days, or both.
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The possession by any person while trespassing upon the land of another, of a gun, dog, ferret, or fish rod shall be deemed prima facic evidence of his intention of hunting or fishing thereon.
Section two of the same act provides that :
The owner, occupant or person in charge of the land or such person as he may command to assist him may arrest any person who violates any of the provisions of the preceding section and forthwith take him before some proper prosecuting officer who shall proceed to try such person.
William H. Gibney is the special protective officer for Berlin, appointed by the fish and game warden of Hartford county.
At a distance of a mile or so west of Earl Cooley's, the road, which leads to Kensington, is crossed by Crooked brook, there about a mile away from its head springs.
In April, 1895, a company of business men, known as "The Kensington Fish and Game Club," whose office is at Hartford, purchased a tract of land bordering this stream.
Now, by additional purchase through Mr. John Norton, their agent at Berlin, they own most of the way on both sides of the brook, for the length of a mile, extending north from the Kensington road, and besides this, they have leased land for half a mile farther down the stream.
As one good result of this ownership, the banks of Crooked brook will not be despoiled by the wood-cutter, and while notices everywhere warn trespassers, we may feast our eyes on the mosses, the maiden hair ferns, and-well-only a poet could fittingly describe the beauties of Crooked brook and its "sylvan slopes."
Turning eastward from the brook we rise a hill and come up onto the plains of Berlin, once covered with rattle boxes, now the property of the Connecticut Valley Orchard Company. This company was formed May 14, 1884, under the late John B. Smith as organizer and president. Mr. Smith, with his usual foresight, saw the possibilities of that sandy, barren plain, and by his advice the company purchased two hundred and forty- three acres there, to be used as a fruit orchard. For quick returns peaches were at first the main dependence.
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Now, if you care to count the trees, you will find 3,000 apples, 10,000 peaches, 1,000 plums, 500 pears, and 250 cherries. Of grapes there are 1,000 vines. Truly the desert has been made to blossom as the rose.
The life of a fruit grower is one of eternal vigilance. Yellows made no end of trouble with the peaches. \ blight came over the quinces, and now the fight is on with the San José seale, with possibly the Gypsy and Brown Tail moth later.
In 1905 this property was transferred to J. T. Molumphy, who is now president, manager and chief stockholder of the business.
A walk across the fields north of the peach orchard brings us to "Cranberry Marsh" curiously set, like a great basin, on that high ground, little lower than the sandy plain above. Hills are on every side. There is no inlet, no outlet to the marsh. Near the western bank is a little lake of clear water, said to be fathomless. Who knows but here is the "lost crater." All about the marsh is a dense thicket, where high bush huckle- berries grow. Cranberry vines creep everywhere over the mossy bogs. From pools, here and there, a greedy pitcher plant lifts its rosette of cups. Women, in their craze for this queer side-saddle flower, have been known to follow from bog to bog, all the way across the marsh, but this is a dangerous under- taking. A mis-step might swamp one to the neck, and worse.
Should you visit this interesting place, as the children say, "keep your eyes peeled" for snakes-blacksnakes, rattlesnakes, and red adders. Great place for snakes! and there are lots of hornets' nests there, too.
CHAPTER XII.
Belcher Brook and its Industries .- The History of Risley's Mill .- James Lamb's Stove Factory .- The Blair Factory.
As we drive eastward from the peach orchard, down one hill and up another, so steep that we shall want to get out of the carriage and walk, to spare the horse, we come to the farm long known as the Hollister Risley place, now the home of Sidney Roby and his family. Here Miss Helen Roby will be pleased to show you her studio adorned with many water color paint- ings. That Miss Roby is a lover of the sea is proved by her charming coast scenes, chiefly from Gloucester and the Bay of Massachusetts. These pictures, the wharfs, the rocks, and the quaint homes of the fishermen, with their boats at anchor or wave-borne, all show the artist and her superior skill as a drafts- man. Miss Roby spent three years abroad in study, under Harry Thompson at Paris, and with Theresa Hegg at Nice.
As a painter of flowers, Miss Roby has few equals in this country. While in Paris she was told that it would be useless for her to offer any of her work to the Salon without influential support. She made the attempt, however, and a large bunch of chrysanthemums which she sent was accepted solely on its merit, and placed in the exhibit-a great honor for a young American girl.
At the corners from Mr. Cooley's, the turnpike leads north- easterly past the places once owned by C. J. Griswold and G. R. Aspinwall, the former a bricklayer and mason, the latter a house carpenter.
From the same starting point another road runs north to Risley's pond, so called, on Belcher brook. A dam here, across the stream, gives a good water power that has been utilized many years.
A deed of date January 25, 1790, shows that, at that time, William Kilbourn of Worthington Parish, for the consideration
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of £147 16s., sold to Lucius Cook of Wallingford, 120 rods of ground, "bounded West & North on Wait Smith, East & South on Josiah Norton, together with my dwelling house, shop and Dve House thereon standing. And also my Tools which I improve to carry on the clothiers Business, viz. Dye Kettles, Serew, Shiers & prep plate etc. together with every other article which I improve in the works." "And also my Fulling Mill standing by a Grist Mill now owned by Hezekiah Sage and William Tryon."
From the description given in this deed, the conclusion is that the property conveyed was that of this south mill on Belcher brook.
When Mr. Kilbourn started his business, or when Lucius Cook sold it, we cannot say, but we do know that later Nathan Elton made satinet there, and that he was a dyer and fuller of cloth. Satinet is a coarse material used for men's wear, made with a cotton warp and woolen filling. A part of the building was used as a saw mill when Mr. Elton was there.
The property came into the possession of Elishama Brande- gee, merchant, who, about the year 1830, sold it to the firmn of Justus & William Bulkeley, who used the water power for polishing their tinner's tools. Then, when Mr. Brandegee wished to start his son Jacob in the business of making German silver spoons, the Bulkeleys fitted a room in that factory with machinery for the purpose. For some reason Mr. Brandegee was unable to carry out his plan, and the Bulkeleys made the spoons, but used the J. S. Brandegee stamp. In a little while they had twenty men at work on the spoons. Made of the best German silver, they were quite durable, and many of them may be found in the kitchens of to-day. The objection to them was that they had a coppery taste and were readily attacked by salt, so as to form verdigris, and it was too much trouble to keep them bright. William Sage worked on these spoons when he was married in 1840, and his daughter, Miss Hattie Sage, has still a number of the sets that he made for his wife when they went to housekeeping. Some are marked "J. S. Brandegee," others bear the stamp "IT. Kenea & Co."
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Henry Kenea was an uncle of Mrs. Henry Sage.
When the Bulkeleys repaired the shop one of the extensions fell, and Ralph Sage had a leg broken, that kept him on his back for a long time.
Besides the German silver spoons, the Bulkeleys made, for R. K. Clark of New York, large quantities of brass spoons, silver plated. The goods were stamped out at the mill, and brought up to the factory opposite Colonel Bulkeley's, where they were boiled in a silver solution.
The sheets of metal, German silver and brass, were pur- chased in Waterbury of John D. Johnson, whose wife was Sarah Loveland, daughter of Landlord Elijah Loveland. The scraps were too valuable to be used as filling for holes in the highway; they were taken back to Mr. Johnson to be remelted, and Mr. Bulkeley remembers riding with his father on a wagon load of those scraps over to Waterbury. They drove home by way of New Haven.
The Bulkeleys had all the work they wanted to do with their tinners' tools, and so they gave up the making of spoons to Ralph Sage and Henry Durand.
Mr. Sage invented a diving machine, in which he went down into the depths of the pond. He survived the experiment.
In 1844, Justus Bulkeley died, and Lyman Wilcox, who married his daughter Maria, and who had learned his trade of the Bulkeleys, bought the old mill with its appurtenances. He built a dwelling house, still standing, southeasterly from the mill, and had established a good business in tinners' tools, when he died March 10, 1855, aged thirty-six. His wife sur- vived him less than four years. They left three little children. Lyman, the oldest, a soldier in the War of the Rebellion, prisoner at Andersonville and Florence, died May 29, 1875. His wife and two children now live at Anaheim, Cal.
The second son, Robert M. Wilcox, long connected with the Meriden Britannia Company, used to manifest his interest in the boys of his native town by his annual gift of a silver cup and medal, "The Bulkeley Prize Cup," to the one who won in the foot race at our agricultural fair. Mrs. Wilcox is the well-known poetess, Ella Wheeler Wilcox.
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Harriet, the youngest of the three, the wife of Leander Bunce, now lives in New Britain.
Deacon Selah Galpin of Westfield, the father of Miss Sarah Galpin, bought the mill and factory property of the estate of Lyman Wilcox, for his son Charles, who made a patent four- tined barnyard fork. Reuben Beckley made steelyards in a part of the factory.
The Galpins ground corn and feed. Lemuel W. Elton, who lived west of the pond, was a miller. Mr. Elton had a son, Levi, who played the organ in church very acceptably. One of his neighbors said of him, that "he was a fine musicianer." He taught music, and had a large class of pupils around about Berlin.
Deacon Galpin sold out to William H. Risley, who removed the machinery and partitions in the shop, and put in a new grist mill. He also built a long addition for a saw mill. A machine for sawing shingles, which he set up in the mill, seems to have been little used. Now the property is in the hands of E. E. Austin, who runs a saw mill, grist mill and cider mill. He has also an ice house, near by, which he fills with ice of fine quality, cut from the pond, for his own use, and for sale.
At a distance of about a quarter of a mile north of Risley's pond another dam was laid across Belcher brook, another pond was formed, and another factory built; by whom we shall never know. The story is that he was an infidel and that no industry started here ever prospered. Certain it is that the place has been the scene of much unprofitable business.
James Lamb, founder of the Lamb family in Berlin, was born in Middletown in 1777. He learned the tinners' trade of Shubael Pattison and invented a cooking stove.
Early in the last century Colonel Bulkeley worked on the Lamb stoves, at what was known later as the Blair factory. This stove, the first cooking stove used by our ancestors, was made on much the same principle as those of the present day, and it was the first, patented in this country, in which the heat passed around the oven. A stove was in use before this, but it was a simple box affair.
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In those days, of course, there was no place near Berlin where castings could be made, and Mr. Lamb went to New York, where he remained, while working up his invention, from about 1813 to 1818, when he took out his patent. In 1818 his son Lockwood was born in the house next east of the Blair factory. Mr. Lamb seems to have purchased this place before he went to New York.
A deed, on record at New Britain, shows that in 1800, Oliver Hills sold land to James Lamb, bounded east on Jonah Norton, south on highway, with house thereon. Mr. Lamb sold his place in 1823 to Samuel Edwards of Philadelphia.
In 1822 he had moved over to the Colonel Bulkeley house, where his daughter Louisa was born.
The new cooking stove was square and upright, with brass urns on the corners, which were kept shining bright by good housewives. The lettering on the front was a great curiosity, and many a child learned his a. b. c's from the Lamb stove.
The fire was high up, over the oven, and when the new stove took the place of the open-hearth fire, old men complained that there was no place to warm their feet. Reuben North made a high platform, placed his chair thereon, and mounted himself on a level with the fire. The oven was a good baker, equal to any in use to-day.
Miss Fannie Robbins tells this story of her father: "One morning he arose early, made a fire in his new Lamb stove, and closed the oven door. Presently he heard a pitiful mewing, as of a cat in distress. He searched everywhere until at last he opened the oven door and out jumped the cat." This story brings to mind another, nothing to do with stoves: One morn- ing before daybreak, there was a fearful noise in the dining room of the Robbins house, as of someone breaking up all of the furniture and crockery. Mr. Robbins did not dare to go in and meet the intruder, single handed, but as soon as it was light enough to see, he, with the hired man, each armed with a club, ventured cautiously to open the door. Instead of a raving maniac, there was only the cat, her head fast in a milk pitcher,
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which she was slamming about in her frantic efforts to free herself."
That the Lambs were fond of alliteration is shown by the names they gave their children : Lysis, Lesbia, Lewis, Leverett, (Huldah), Loomis, Lockwood, Louisa, and Lorenzo. Huldah was named for Mr. Lamb's first wife.
Of the nine children, two are still living, in Hartford, Mrs. James B. Carpenter (Louisa) and Lorenzo. Not a representa- tive of the family remains in Berlin.
The father, James Lamb, died February 9, 1833, aged fifty-six.
If Mr. Lamb had known the worth of his invention and had held on to his patent, he and his family might have been immensely rieh.
It is impossible to find dates for all the industries which were carried on at Blair's, by help of the water power from Belcher's brook.
After James Lamb's time, meal, from corn ground in the grist mill, was dried for export to the West Indies. The kiln, in which the meal was baked, stood north of the pond, at a safe distance from other buildings. At the saw mill, trunks of great trees, from our primitive forests, were made into lumber for home use, and also for export. Yarn, spun here, by machinery, from cotton and wool, was given out to families to be woven into cloth on hand looms.
After the Bulkeleys sold the Risley mill to Lyman Wilcox, they ground their tinners' tools and made rotary shears for cutting sheet metal in circles at Blair's factory.
Isaac Farnham, the father of Mrs. William Sage, and his brother, who were coopers, made tubs for Mr. Brandegee, in a shop under the dam, at the north end of the pond.
The Farnhams lived in the house next east of the factory. The ell of this house and the barn were of hewn timbers, as if made from some ancient building, probably on the place, as mentioned in the deed, when James Lamb bought it, in 1800. The main part of the house was large and fine, built
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of sawed timbers. It looked like the work of Elishama Brande- gee. Families who lived here boarded the factory people until it came to be known as the boarding house.
Lucy Farnham was a remarkably pretty girl, with a lovely pink and white complexion. It will help us to a date for some of these industries, to know that she joined the Worthington church in 1837.
Elishama Brandegee, who owned the property about this time, fitted up the factory with machinery for making sewing silk and cotton thread. The industry, which was carried on in East Berlin at the same time, gave employment to forty girls, under the brothers Nicholas and James Douglass as foremen. Both had families. James lived in the Deacon Horsford place.
Much of the thread was sold in penny skeins, but a part of it was wound on spools; about the first attempt at spooling thread in this country. It was dyed all colors, on the premises, by Charley Bauer, who went to Hartford and set up a wine store on Market Street. He used to go over to Germany to buy his wines.
Plucart, who came after Bauer, lived in the second house east of the factory. Word came to him from his home in Prussia that a large fortune had fallen to him there. He was greatly elated, and when he started off for his native land, to take possession of his inheritance, he promised to come back and make Ralph Sage and all of his other Berlin friends rich, He never returned.
William Bevans, who succeeded Douglass as foreman of the thread mill, lived in the house now occupied by F. H. Shaw. The boys used to call him "Old Campfire" because of the way he pronounced the word.
His son William learned the wagon maker's trade of John Graham. Then he went, with others of his family, to New York, where he became a doctor.
Names remembered of other Bevans children are Sarah and Frances. The Rev. R. McGonegal, who preached here in the Methodist church, married Frances. Their young daughter, Althea, who died in New York City of consumption in 1867,
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begged that she might be buried in the country under a tree. She and her two little brothers, who had died previously, were brought to Berlin and laid between two maple trees in the South Cemetery, where the MeGonegal monument may be seen.
In 1850 Charles Blair came to Berlin from Collinsville and established a business for the manufacture of steel rakes, plan- tation hoes, axes, chisels and carpenters' draw shaves. His name, which has been used by anticipation, was at that time first given to this north pond and factory on Belcher brook. The property was deeded on October 14, 1850, by Elishama Brandegee, to a joint stock company, incorporated under the name of the Blair Manufacturing Company. The capital stock, mostly subscribed by the business men of Berlin, was $20,000, which seemed unlimited in those days. $15,625 were paid in.
Elishama Brandegee headed the list of subscribers with a hundred shares. Norman Porter held sixty shares, Norton and Arnold sixty. Other subscribers were: Timothy Board- man, S. C. Wilcox, Elisha M. Hall, Henry Norton, Norris Peck, E. A. Deming, Benjamin R. Fanning, Norman Porter, Jr., Joseph Alston Wilcox, Charles Blair, Shubael Risley, Joseph Whittlesey, Philip Norton, and Erastus J. Bassett. Doubtless there were names, not at hand, that should be added to this list. Norman Porter was president of the company, Timothy Boardman secretary. Samuel C. Wilcox was one of the directors.
For a time great things were expected from the new enter- prise, but the water-power, especially in summer time, was insufficient to carry the heavy machinery. In order to store the water and to increase the power, a second dam was built south of the bridge, which flooded the land back as far as Risley's. A vain hope. The company struggled on, losing money, until the spring of 1856, when an assignment was made for the benefit of the creditors.
The only incident reported from Blair's was the bursting of a grindstone five feet in diameter, which flew through the side of the factory and out into the lot a hundred feet away. No loss of life.
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Mr. Blair, who, with his estimable family, had lived in the Dr. Gridley house, returned to Collinsville, where for many years he filled the position of superintendent of the extensive factories of the Collins Axe Company.
After the assignment the interest of a majority of the stock- holders was taken by Philip Norton and E. J. Bassett. The tools in process of manufacture were completed, and, with the movable personal property, were sold at auction, by Colonel Bulkeley. Several days were required to complete the sale. Finally, after all outside business was finished, the title to the property was vested in Philip Norton, who sold to Frank Hart, brother of Walter Hart, a wood turner. Then Edward A. Deming bought the factory and set Burt Brothers up in busi- ness, as wood turners. They made a combination ladder and chair, upholstered. One of those chairs is still in use on the porch at the house of the late Albert G. Warren. Mr. Bulkeley has one of the Blair plantation hoes now, in his barn. It is too broad for New England soil. Besides the tools mentioned, pickaxes were made at Blair's, and pikes for John Brown, whose "soul goes marching on." Last of all the Burt Brothers, or some one else, ran a cider mill on the premises. Then the old factory stood idle for a time. One of the additions was sold to George C. Austin, the carpenter, who tore it down and used the lumber in his new house up on the hill north of the village, but the principal building remained. Naughty boys broke in the windows and did other damage. Some were arrested, convicted and fined.
One evening in the fall of 1885, Mr. Deming, who then lived in the house now occupied as a parsonage, looked out from a window and saw a great light in the south. He mounted his horse and galloped away to see where the fire was. Yes, it was the Blair factory, all in flames, and not a cent of insurance.
The premium was high, and when the policy expired, he declined to renew. He said he had paid out money all his life for insurance, and had never received anything in return, and he would take his chances on the factory. Moral ?
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Since that time, the two houses that stood cast of the factory- the good boarding house and the Plucart house-have been destroyed by fire.
Old Charley, the horse that Mr. Deming rode to the fire, was worthy of mention. He was raised from a colt, over on the Deming farm in Christian Lane, and lived to the age of thirty- six. He never served his master a mean trick. Mr. Deming's daughter, Mrs. Stowe, thinks that Charlie's mother, "Old Kate," was also raised by her father, and that she lived to be thirty.
Mr. Deming died suddenly, June 15, 1896, in his ninety- second year. Only two or three days before his death he drove his horse from Cromwell to Hartford and back. One of his last requests was that Charley should be shot and buried with his hide and shoes on. Mrs. Stowe thought it was a dreadful thing to do, to kill so good a horse, so fat and nice.
Before Mr. Blair's time, the road running west from the Hosford place terminated at the factory, and there was closed by bars. A narrow laneway extended thence, west to the Ken- sington road, and was used by farmers who wished to carry grist to and from the mill. It is said that Mr. Blair paid Elton $350 for a strip of land along one side of the laneway to widen it, so that teams might pass and have room to turn around.
The house next west of the factory, now owned by William Luby, was the home of Nathan Elton the clothier, and of his son, Lemuel W. Elton, the miller.
The north half of this house was the shoe shop of Samuel Bishop, drawn here from the east yard of the E. I. Clark place, at Bishop's corners. A little farther along, the road, as it comes from the south, turns a sharp corner toward Ken- sington. Long ago there was a square here with a road on all sides of it. A house was moved up the south road on its way to Kensington, and was left on this square over night.
Peleg Chapman, the man with nineteen children, was in search of a home. He bought that house on wheels, left it on the square of land where it stood, and lived in it many years. Then it was occupied by a family of evil repute. One night the neighbors formed themselves into a law and order league, and tore the house down, over the heads of its inmates.
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