USA > Connecticut > New Haven County > Cheshire > History of Cheshire, Connecticut, from 1694-1840, including Prospect, which, as Columbia parish, was a part of Cheshire until 1829; > Part 7
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The forty-foot meeting house was probably completed in December, 1724, for there was a vote taken on "ye Ist of that
IThe name of "New Cheshier" bestowed upon the new village at Wallingford by the Assembly does not appear to have been so given to the village in response to any petition, or in consequence of any re- quest on the part of any of its inhabitants. It seems to have been de- termined by a vote of the Assembly in the same way that names were given to many other towns. In some instances, villages were given Indian names, which after a few years use were changed by Act of Assembly to the names of places in old England. As there was no town or village by the name of Cheshire in England, it is to be presumed that the Act of the Assembly proceeded from the usual course of business in such affairs.
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month, to put on the time they have on to the meeting house ;" and at the same meeting they "agree to seet the meeting house upon ye lists of 1723 and 1724, and consider Thomas Beach and Joseph Ives and John Cook for their age; they agree to seet the young men according to their age" and "to dignify the meet- ing house with the advice of Mr. Caner."I
The seating of a meeting house was one of the most important affairs of the time; and was pondered over and discussed by ministers and officials with great gravity. First : all those who bore titles or had borne titles as Civil magistrates or military officers, were disposed of ; then the rate list was taken up and high seats given to the men who paid high rates, down to those who paid low rates. Then came the single men and "sojourners" who were "accommodated" as occasion offered. The men were located upon one side of the church, and the women in the order of rank of their husbands or fathers on the opposite side. At times this seating business occasioned trouble, but the New Cheshire folks seem to have had less of it than those of neigh- boring churches ; and if they did agree "to taik out all heds but won (one) in order to seet the meeting house," these were junior difficulties that do not seem very important to us at this time.
The year 1724 did not close until the 25th of March, 1725, of our reckoning ; and to this date we should add eleven days, which would give us the 5th of April according to the way we, of the present day, compute the dates we find on all ancient records up to the year 1752, when the English Parliament enacted a law whereby the year (within her own possessions), should begin upon the first of January, and by a subsequent enactment struck off the eleven additional days. Bearing this in mind it is not
IMr. Henry Caner was a master builder from Boston, who had erected Yale College and was then building for Yale Trustees another building. To "dignify" meant a pulpit erection and an arrangement for the seats or pews for the magistrates and titled men, for which the advice of such an experienced church builder was desired by the West Society-and subsequently Mr. Caner was paid by the rate collector for his valuable services "in dignifying ye meeting house."
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unusual to find that the dates given in old records for certain events are sometimes a year before, or a year after the actual occurrence owing to the omission of the scribe to give a double date to the year ; and persons not conversant with "Old Style" chronology frequently get their dates mixed. The records of the New Cheshire Society are best interpreted by reference to particular dates, and as they had voted on the Ist of December to put on the "time that they have on the meeting house" it was to get the edifice ready for some ceremony soon to occur. They had voted to fill the lower part of the meeting house with conve- nient seats "except a plais for a pue", and then they voted to appoint the second Wednesday of December to be the day for the ordination. Sargent John Hotchkiss, Stephen Hotch- kiss and Timothy Tuttle were a Committee "to manage the affair of the ordination," and they "maid chois of Sargent John Hotch- kiss to entertain the ministers."
The Rev. Samuel Hall was duly ordained, as he says himself, "by ye Rev. Mr. Chauncy and Mr. Whittlesey, and [ye church] declared to be according to ye establishment of ye Government, 1676." The two first deacons were Joseph Ives and Stephen Hotchkiss, and the name of "Deacon Meadow Hill" was probably at that time conferred upon a hill to the westward of the "med- doe," owned or bounded in great part by the land of these two deacons. Deacon Joseph Ives, who had come to Cheshire in 1696, owned the farm (a large one) he had resided upon for many years, on the east side of the meadow east of the hill, a part of which farm is now owned by Thomas Hull. Deacon Stephen Hotchkiss, in addition to land given him by his father at Hopper's Meadow, had purchased in 1712, a hundred acres of land on the west and north of the "meddoe" bounded "east by a four rod hiway and west by town land." He came to live in Cheshire about the time the church was established. Both of the deacons were located about two miles south of the present town center, and Deacon Meadow Hill will be readily recognized as that emi- nence to the westward of the residence of the late Burritt Brad- ley. Both of these deacons served in the church for many years. The aged Deacon Stephen Hotchkiss died in 1755, having served
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thirty-one years. His son, Benjamin Hotchkiss, was chosen Deacon in 1766 and held the office twenty-one years ; a line of deacons fifty-two years long in one family-and it should not have been interrupted by the subsequent church and legal disci- pline administered to the latest of these two deacons.
The church establishment being disposed of, and the Assem- bly, at the session of May, 1725, having appointed and commis- sioned John Hotchkiss, Captain; Joseph Thomson, Lieutenant ; Thomas Brooks, Ensign ; "of the Train band at the parish of New Cheshier," the settlers turned their attention to matters more near- ly concerning them, as they procured from the town liberty to establish a pound for imprisoning stray cattle. One of their most serious troubles was the encroachment on their highways and the cutting of timber on the undivided lands. Parties looking for desirable building material would come from the center at Wallingford to the woods on the west side of the river and fell timber growing in the twenty rod highways or on the public land and drag it off regardless of the protests of the men whose land adjoined the timber that was being taken. Then, too, the men of New Cheshire, where a number of new houses were being erected, were not always particular about where they cut timber. In consequence many town meetings were held, and frequent votes taken to prosecute encroachers, and the unlaw- ful taking of timber from the public lands.
Some of the New Cheshire inhabitants were severely "fyned," and then some of the men from the east side of the river were put on "tryall," only to be let off with nominal forfeitures, plead- ing in bar the undetermined line of bounds between the "Old society" and the "New Society on ye west side of ye river." These difficulties soon became so serious that the proprietors held a meeting and ordered all owners of land to "either by grant or purchase renew their boundary marks, and where there is none, shall set them up by aid of ye survaer." They ordered this to be done by the first of May next "as the law directs," and they appointed a committee to "take ye law on any man who shall refuse, and on all who should encroach on either public
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lands or hiways." The assembly had passed suitable laws, which were, however, more honored in the breach than in the observance; and the well housed townspeople at Wallingford Center always turned out to vote for the prosecution of the out- side farmers, while the latter almost invariably voted against the appointment of committees to take up or punish encroachers. The New Cheshire inhabitants wanted to be "let alone" by the parent town, and so they usually voted against any stringent measures. It is by an inspection of these votes and from other sources equally reliable, that we are enabled to give the follow- ing list of persons as either having houses or homes within the limits of the New Cheshire society at the beginning of the year 1725.
A
John Atwater, Nathaniel Andrews, Daniel Andrews.
B
Matthew Bellamy, Timothy Beach,
Thomas Brooks,
Samuel Brockit,
Nathaniel Bunnil, Nathan Benham, John Beecher,
Elnathan Beach, Thomas Beach, Caleb Beach, Stephen Brooks.
C
Samuel Cook, John Cook, Joseph Curtis Josiah Clark, Silvanus Clark, Joshua Culver, Ephraim Cook,
David Cook, Henry Cook, Thomas Curtis, Samuel Curtis.
D
John Doolittle, Joseph Doolittle, Abraham Doolittle, Benjamin Dutton.
G
John Galard.
H
John Hitchcock, John Hodgkis,
Francis Hendricks, William Hendricks,
Dr. John Hulls,
Caleb Hulls, John Hall, Jr.,
Josiah Hodgkis, Stephen Hodgkis, Samuel Hall, Mathias Hitchcock.
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HISTORY OF CHESHIRE.
I
R
Joseph Ives, Nathaniel Ives,
Thomas Ives.
Samuel Royce, Joseph Royce, Nehemiah Royce.
J
Ebenezer Johnson, Jacob Jonson, John Johnson, Jr.
S
Abraham Sperry, Daniel Sperry.
M
T
Thomas Matthews, Senr.,
John Merriman,
John Moss, Jr.,
Isaac Moss,
Roger Tyler.
Thomas Matthews, Jr.,
Caleb Matthews.
W
P
Joseph Parker,
Thomas Welsheare.
John Parker.
Total-65.
The town of Cheshire from its earliest occupation by those who first erected houses here, seems to have been initiated by a series of neighborhood settlements, and the first of these is known to have been at the south and east end of the present town, and to that part our attention is directed by the "voat" which, in 1692, ordered a road to be layed out to "John Cook's, Joseph Ives', and Benjamin Beach's." A year or two later we find that John Hitchcock, one of the men selected by the town to lay out this road, had "liberty to exchange" some of his home land, for lands on this side of the river, and in 1696 he had one hun- dred and eleven acres of land at "Hoppers Meadow," bounded South by Samuel Cook. Samuel Cook owned a large farm which later on included Cook Hill. John Cook was his son, to whom he gave land, bounded south by Benjamin Beach. Jo- seph Ives (afterward the Deacon) had land adjoining .Cook, and Benjamin Beach was son-in-law to John Hitchcock. In 1697 the town gave Benjamin Beach "25 akers of land where
John Tyler,
Timothy Tuttle,
Joseph Tomson,
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HISTORY OF CHESHIRE.
he can find itt, nere Joseph Eives." From an old account book, that still belongs to descendants of Deacon Ives, we learn that the Deacon probably built a house and settled on his place some time in 1696, and as he married in 1697 there is good reason to believe his house was one of the earliest. We know that John Hitchcock had built a house in that part of the town, and also that his son-in-law, Benjamin Beach, who was married in 1695, had built a house near his father-in-law. Mr. John Hitchcock was frequently chosen by the town to serve it in various capacities, but, as he, in 1708, conveyed 78 acres of land "joyning to Samuel Cook, with appurtenances, in consideration of fatherly love, etc., to John Hitchcock, Jr.," we know this son continued at the south part of the settlement and no doubt lived in the house built by his father. We may therefore honestly infer that at least four houses were erected as early as between 1695 and 1700 in the south part of Cheshire, in a neighborhood near which, before the year 1713-14, a dozen or more other houses had been erected.
These houses were not log cabins; they were framed and substantial structures, not many of them perhaps of more than one story and a large attic, but sufficient for these newly married young men, viz., Cook, Ives, and Beach, while perhaps that of John Hitchcock was of two stories and more pretentious, as became an older man with a large family. It must be remem- bered that New Cheshire was the granddaughter of New Ha- ven, which had then been established seventy five years, and the New Cheshire settlers were most of them derived from that town, where house building had always been modeled upon those erected in England, and possibly very much better struc- tures than some of the houses built across the water, because of a greater supply of cheaper building material.
Among the inhabitants of Wallingford there were many ex- cellent carpenters, blacksmiths, masons and other workmen ; and of these there were quite a number who had become settlers within the precincts of the Society of New Cheshire. Besides these, nearly every able-bodied man, old or young, could take a turn at some part of the work needed in the erection of a
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HISTORY OF CHESHIRE.
house. The skilled men laid out the frames, and superintended the pinning of them together. The less skillful nailed on the boards, and put on the shingles, which had long since, in Wal- lingford and other towns, taken the place of the easily combustible and rotting hay and straw coverings, or thatch, still used on dwellings in England. Months previous, the timbers had been gotten out in the woods, and drawn to the place where they were to be used, and where the boards were to be sawed and the shingles riven. The process for sawing boards was crude but effective. A rough frame work of logs was erected seven or eight feet high; and upon this logs were laid for a platform. Upon the platform was placed the log to be slit into boards. Two men armed with a long double-handed saw were required for the operation necessary for slitting. One man stood on
top and the other on the ground below him. The top man was paid sixpence per day more than the pitman, and the two to- gether would saw out in one day about one hundred and fifty white oak boards ten or twelve feet long by eight or ten inches wide. These men were paid the equivalent of fifty cents of our money for a day's work, their rate of pay being regulated by the "Generall Courte," which also fixed the price of boards at the saw pits at four shillings and sixpence per hundred, while plank cost only a trifle more. In the early days clapboards and shingles were sometimes riven from the log with sharp wedges, and to this day there is a house on Cook Hill almost en- tirely covered with this kind of "clabbords."
Cellars were almost unknown in these early times. Founda- tion stones were laid, and perhaps a pit four or five deep by eight or ten feet long was dug at one end of the house. This pit or cellar was to be entered after the house was floored, by a trap door in one of the ground floor rooms. Before the frame was raised a chimney had been built of rough stones plastered with clay at the bottom ; where it was usually a mass of boulders eight or ten feet square, which rose up to the ceiling of the first story, divided into a huge fireplace, and ovens. The rest of this chimney was built of suitable stones held together by
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HISTORY OF CHESHIRE.
such tenacious lime mortar that masons of the present day have been heard to say the "secret of it has been lost." The lime mortar was no doubt made from oyster and clam shells at New Haven where there were many lime kilns constantly burn- ing. These chimneys frequently stood for a year or two awaiting the frames that were to be put around them.
The floor beams being laid, thick oak floor planks were pinned to them with wooden pins. Then the frame went up to a height for the first story of seven feet, where another floor was pinned down. The rafters were now set up and pinned to- gether, and bound with beams for a still higher attic if there was to be one. The roof boards were pinned on with wooden pins, and shingled, small wrought iron nails, costing one dollar a pound, being used. Six pounds weight of hand made nails were called "sixpennies," and there were always one thou- sand two hundred nails in the lot, which cost in our money $3.50, or nearly four nails for a cent. Of tenpenny nails there were 1200 to ten pounds in weight. From an account book kept in 1690 we learn that a carpenter was paid £3.12.00 ($10.80) for eighteen days' work, and in the same book there is a contract which reads: "this wrighting obligeth me: to get and shave four hundred good white oak clabords : five foot and five inches long: and of such a bredth: as will bare to lay out besides the lay: 5 or 6 inches :: the four hundred to be gott out of the two trees all redy falled." The same book informs us that the man was paid in rum at 40 cents (our money) a gal- lon, and he got three gallons and three quarts.
The house being roofed in and covered, the doors were made of two thicknesses of boards. The outer boards were vertical, and the inner boards placed at an angle of 45 degrees. The nails were then driven from the outside and clinched in such a manner as to make a diamond-like finish to the outside where the fancy, or rose headed nails, protruded. The front door was usually in two parts, opening outwardly, and when shut held by a wooden latch, lifted by a leather thong passing through a hole. At night these doors were barred and the latch string withdrawn. The windows of such "an house" were costly
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HISTORY OF CHESHIRE.
affairs. Glass in those days was imported from England, and sashes already made could be purchased. The Cheshire men preferred to get their glass and set it in their own way. The panes, six by eight inches, were sold by the score, or twenty panes for from four to six dollars. A score of glass was ordi- narily used for each window sash, which was hung to the casing, and opened inwardly like a door. Sometimes two of these windows were used to make a wider opening, but this was not common, and only well-to-do people could afford such a
luxury. The stairs were between the chimney and the front door, cased in paneled wood work, and not infrequently or- The namented with what the builders called "cut works." sides of the rooms were cased up horizontally three feet, and then vertically with either plain boards, or paneling. Some- times an ornamental board ceiling would be put in, but the ma- jority of these early housebuilders were satisfied with the beams and upper floor boards as sufficient ceiling to their lower rooms. There were usually three large rooms, and a big "buttery" on the lower floor. The kitchen, pantry and living room occupied one side of the chimney, while the "keeping room" or parlor, and a bedroom was on the opposite side of the house. Up- stairs were two large bedrooms, and two smaller, with a gar- ret space between the two latter. Hallways were very infre- quent, and seldom were there any fireplaces in more than two of the lower rooms. The early housebuilders in New Cheshire expended for one of these dwellings about $300 of our money, paying in wheat at 90 cents a bushel ; "Ry" at 65 cents and In- dian corn at 60 cents, computed at the money value of the same in our day.
A two story leanto house cost about double, and a commo- dious barn that was "raised and borded" upon "ye forth day of the week," in June, 1701, cost "two gallons of rum to ye neigh- bors; a roasted sheep; five loaves of ry bread; sum pies and £31.00.00 money." Less than a hundred dollars, to which should be added the labor of cutting and carting the timber, which was probably grown on the land where the building was erected. The paint may or may not have been homemade.
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HISTORY OF CHESHIRE.
It was usually of a red or blue color, and in New Haven at this time any other color except weather-beaten brown, would have probably called for official discipline.
The next house to be built in this vicinity was probably that of Matthew Bellamy. After him came Josiah and Stephen Hodgkis, who had bought over one hundred acres each, and who were "admitted upon land they had purchest." Josiah Hodgkis' land was "joyning to Hoppers Meadow," while Ste- phen Hodgkis had land part of which was on Mill river and part "nere Hoppers Meadow." They built, or at least one of them, Josiah, the uncle of Stephen, built a house about 1706 or 1707. His brother-in-law, Thomas Brooks, owned land here but no building, as he appears a resident of New Haven for many years after. Joseph Thomson had land "on ye parsonage plain" wherever that may have been. It was "bounded south by John Parker." Timothy Beach was located a mile and a half north of this locality, on the road ordered in 1697, and nearly a mile nearer the town than the others. He had married one of Cook's daughters.
Joseph Parker had some land "lying east of Samuel Cook" (given him by his father), and he may have built, and it is certain that John Parker had a house on this side of the river as early if not earlier than that of Deacon Ives, but this John Parker was no doubt located a mile nearer Wallingford. Jo- siah Clark, Joseph Thomson and Ebenezer Johnson built be- tween 1710 and 1714, and ex-miller John Lathrop, or a son of his, may have built a house "at the head of a small brook half a mile to the eastward of the Mill River." Joshua Culver was on the "east side of the Fresh Meadow brook," and William Mer- riam bought a house at the south end of the settlement in 1716.
Two miles or more north and a mile or more to the eastward of these dwellings, Timothy Tuttle erected a house about 1706, at the end of the road to the south side of Broad Swamp, and in the following year John Merriman adjoined him.
Two or three miles northeast of these last named men, we have ten or a dozen settlers, the chief of whom seems to have been Dr. Hulls, who is known to have always lived on his Wal-
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HISTORY OF CHESHIRE.
lingford home lot. His son may have put up a house at some early date, probably not before 171I. Abraham, John and Joseph Doolittle had land in 1710 "across a small brook that runs northward into ye ten mile river." John Atwater had land in 1698 on a brook running into Broad Swamp and is be- lieved to have built in 1700. Thomas Matthews was on "Hunnepot Brook" "thence down streme to ye River." This was in 1716. Before this he had sold his "house and fruit trees" in the south part where he had lived (near John Parker's), to William Merriam. Samuel Royce, was, as early as 1698, at the north part of the town. His lands were bounded by "Hunne Pott" brook and by Abraham Doolittle (who owned land here in 1687). John Moss, Jr., owned in 1694, 100 acres or more on "ye Tenn Mile river alongside an irremovable hill." William and Francis Hendricks had land in 1701 to 1705 bounded on Dr. Hulls'. Joseph Curtis in 1723 had land bound- ed north by William Hendricks. John Tyler was in 1693 on the "west side of ye river, above ye brod swamp rode." On the west side of "ye Fresh meddoes," individuals owned considerable land, but had not built houses there previous to 1711-12. At all events there is no record.
The building of houses, particularly at the south end of Cheshire, had been actively prosecuted for at least five years before the church was established. John Cook had moved over to the West Rocks, where the road now comes down from Bethany. Benjamin Beach had sold his house in 1714-15 and gone with his family to Morris County, N. J. Thomas Brooks had built his house, and his brother-in-law, Nathaniel Bunnill, had bought of Matthias Hitchcock, "four or five acres more or less, nere Hoppers Meadow ; bounded north to a poynt west on Decon Hull, his land : Eastward on Stephen Hodgkis' land : : South on John Hitchcock his land." Elnathan Beach (who came from Stratford), had succeeded to some property that had belonged to his Wallingford grandfather. He was a nephew of Benjamin Beach. Elnathan had a wealthy brother in Stratford, who was a shipbuilder and an owner of vessels, and who was largely engaged in trade with the West Indies.
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HISTORY OF CHESHIRE.
Elnathan Beach became interested in the shipping business with Captain Cook, of Wallingford, who was buying corn and pipe staves for shipment to Santa Cruz and other southern is- lands, receiving in return cargoes of rum, molasses and sugar. When in 1721-2 Elnathan Beach (then a young married man), came to Cheshire, he erected a storehouse on the plain or meadow "south of ye hiway that comes in from ye town." This warehouse stood for many years in the south part of New Cheshire, perhaps half a mile east of the present Ninth Dis- trict schoolhouse, and a few rods south of the highway. There is no doubt he built his dwelling house near by, and a house that was torn down in that neighborhood some years ago, is reported as having belonged to Elnathan Beach. It was known as having once been the property of some of Elnathan's de- scendants.
There were about the time the church was built, sixty-five "heads" in the families living within the boundaries of the "So- ciety of New Cheshire," and this fact makes it apparent, that the Legislature in conferring upon the village its name of New Cheshire, and its ecclesiastical powers, was satisfied that the in- habitants of the new society were abundantly able to carry on the work they had been entrusted with. The Assembly at the May Session, 1725, completed its work by commissioning "John Hodgkis, Captain; Joseph Thomson, Lieutenant and Thomas Brooks, Ensign of the Train band at the Parish of New Cheshire in the town of Wallingford."
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