USA > Connecticut > Hartford County > History of Hartford County, Connecticut, 1633-1928, Volume I > Part 14
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Again from the beginning, it was perceived that the General Court could not assemble to meet the oft-recurring judiciary re- quirements, so a "Particular Court" was appointed for the trial of the less important cases. Later it was the "Quarter Court," meeting quarterly. The grand jury system was inaugurated in 1643. In 1647 it was ordered that the trial court should consist of the governor, deputy-governor and two magistrates, or of three magistrates if the executives were absent. Town courts, for minor cases, consisted of from three to six men chosen yearly -later the selectmen, with a moderator to preside.
With the advent of the charter and the formation of the coun- ties, Hartford, New Haven, New London and Fairfield, the Court of Assistants succeeded the Quarter Courts, the members being composed of "assistants," formerly known as "magistrates," to meet semi-annually. In 1685 came the County Courts, each com- posed of three assistants and two commissioners or "justices of the peace," appointed by the Assembly. From 1698 to 1821 there was one judge and from two to five justices of the peace for the County Courts; till 1839, three judges; in 1839 and till 1853, when County Courts were abolished, a county commissioner was added. In this latter year the make-up of such courts was one judge and two or three commissioners.
The Superior Court succeeded the Court of Assistants in 1711, to meet in each county, the governor as chief judge sitting with four of the Council. In power it became a step higher than the
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County Court. By 1784 it was found necessary to establish a Supreme Court of Errors for decision of questions of law and equity coming up from the Superior Court. For this the lieu- tenant-governor and council were named and the governor later was made a member. When cases became too numerous, the Superior Court judges were ordered to assume the duties of the Supreme Court, originally with one chief judge and a number of assistants which was changed from time to time, till 1865 it was. made four and is now six, and fifteen in the Superior Court itself, with election by the Legislature for terms of eight years, on nomi- nation by the governor, retirement compulsory at age 70. Wil- liam Pitkin of Hartford was chief judge in 1713; his son, Gov- ernor William Pitkin, in 1754, and his son, Gen. William Pitkin, in 1789.
The first special structure for a state house was decided upon in 1717 when it was voted to sell ungranted lands for the purpose, and in 1719 an appropriation of £500 was made, after the contro- versy over the location of Yale College, as previously men- tioned. This was to be expended by William Pitkin, Joseph Tal- cott and Aaron Cook as a committee, for a building on the west side of Meeting-house Yard, seventy feet long and thirty feet wide and twenty-four feet between joints, Hartford County to pay £250 toward finishing it. There were to be chambers at each end for the respective houses of the Assembly, with a twelve-foot hall between them and a stairway "into the garrets," and on either side a lobby to the Council chamber. With gambrel roof it was the last word in the architecture of that day, serving till the "Bulfinch" State House was built in 1795. When New Haven became joint capital in 1701, a state house was built on the green there.
The Capitol fronted on Queen Street, now Main Street; State Street was then King Street. The public market, open and pro- vided with stalls, was on the south side of the yard where it was continued for many years. The meeting-house to the east of the yard had a hip roof and a tower in which was the bell which had been brought from Newtown. The bell broke in 1725 and was sent to England for repairs. Queen Street was much wider than the present Main Street; beginning with John Talcott's permis- sion in 1644 to build a cart house in front of his house lot (near
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CONNECTICUT'S FIRST STATEHOUSE
Drawn from descriptions preserved in the records
STONE ARCH BRIDGE, MAIN STREET, HARTFORD
One of the first arch bridges in the country. Farmers would not risk it. In distance, old Daniels grist mill and first dam in the county. Looking west on Park River. (Ancient sketch by J. W. Barber.)
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the present corner of Talcott Street) encroachments had con- tinued till the Assembly took action as the town had done in 1683. But encroachments on the yard, which originally covered the area from Grove Street to Kinsley Street, continued. The pair of stocks which the law in 1706 required every town to maintain were located in the yard near the church, as likewise the some- what gnarled log, mounted on four legs, known as the "wooden horse," astride which culprits had to sit. For perjury, a guilty man who could not pay the heavy fine was placed in the stocks an hour with his ears nailed. In 1785, for horse-stealing a man had to ride the horse half an hour, receive fifteen stripes, pay £10, go to the workhouse for three months and on Monday mornings of the first month, ride the horse and be whipped.
What today is called the "Ancient Cemetery" was suffering from neglect, even as it was to do before its final restoration late in the nineteenth century. It became necessary in 1712 to adopt a regulation prohibiting driving over the grounds, and, after vegetation thus had gained an opportunity, it was fenced in as a convenient place for keeping sheep and calves. Forty-four years later it was fenced again and the vote ordered that it be kept up with as little expense as possible. The brick school building, else- where referred to, was erected at its northeast corner in 1771.
In the first quarter of the eighteenth century and on, the Little River problem assumed proportions as distressful in their way as those immediately antedating the building of the present Con- necticut River stone bridge. The first ferry for many years had been a private enterprise. Bissell's ferry at Windsor, used for the Boston route, had enjoyed the encouragement of the General Court, and Edward Stebbins and Thomas Cadwell were doubtless conducting a similar business at Hartford, especially after the beginning of the cultivation of the East Side meadows. Produce and livestock had to be transported. The "proprietors," it is known, owned in common one large boat. In 1715 there was a boat on each side. The town had voted for a public ferry in 1681 and Thomas Cadwell had been given the franchise for seven years. He had a warehouse at the landing at the foot of Ferry Street. His widow and then his son continued the business. The one complaint was about the disturbances caused by those who had to come from the East Side to attend church services in Hart- ford prior to the granting of the petition for a church on the East
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Side in 1694. The charge for the franchise, which was held thirty- seven years by the Cadwells, was £10 a year. Daniel Messenger secured the rights at £13 in 1726. The following year the town began importuning the General Assembly for a lease, but in vain. The privileges now went to the highest bidder, and he could afford to pay well because of the liquor traffic at the landings. Another ferry was opened to the southward by the then lessee, in 1757, yet competition sprang up. The town committee was authorized to make a lease in 1769, inhabitants to have free passage to and from church and on public business. Till the bridge was built in 1810, there was sufficient traffic to support more ferries.
A similar problem of these times and during the great agita- tion and expense of the colonial wars (to be considered further on) was that of the passage over Little River for people of the North Side and South Side who were finding more and more in- terests in common. When the town established its first grist mill near the palisado on the north side of the "rivulet" by buying Edward Hopkins' mill east of the ford, in 1666, and building one beside it, the only certain means of crossing was at the ford on the rocky ledge still visible near Hudson Street and by a crude ferry further down-stream. That was the beginning of the mill center along both sides of the stream, rights in which were con- spicuous in financial and industrial history till a recent date. A kind of bridge had been built there earlier but could not with- stand the high water and was therefore a heavy expense. When the Second Church was erecting its edifice on the south side, its members urged a better and more enduring bridge nearer the Main Street line. In the distractions of the day, matters dragged. Much as in the case of the great stone bridge over 200 years later, they were brought to a head in 1672 by the burning of what then served as a bridge. Two men were charged with arson but escaped conviction; there was no popular lament. The bridge that took the place of this one went out with the next flood. Its successor followed it. By 1728 exhausted patience insisted upon a more pretentious structure at a cost of £300. Good work was done but the series had to be continued, and that, too, despite an especially strong one built by lottery money in 1804. The destruc- tive power of Little River when reinforced at flood-time by the set-back of the Connecticut River defied the engineers, and the
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items of repairs and rebuilding continued to appear in the reports of town meetings. It was not till 1832 that the seemingly extrava- gant ideas of the most advanced engineers prevailed and the first stone-arch bridge of the country was built, as good today as it was the day it was dedicated, fearful as were the farmers for many years to drive their loads across it. It was twenty feet east of the site of the earlier bridges and it was necessary to raise the highway five feet at the north end to make a proper level. The vicinity was a more popular business resort than ever.
Largely for the purpose of meeting the frequent outlays for bridges at this point, the town began leasing land on both sides of the stream. In the 1700s these leases were for about twenty years; after the Revolution, they were for 999 years. In 1824, when inducement was being made to locate Washington (Trinity) College in Hartford, and eight years before the expensive arch bridge was constructed, the decision was won for Hartford by quit-claiming its rental and fee to the amount of $5,000 to the promoters of the institution.
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The colony did not encourage manufacturing and England naturally objected strongly to it. Each house was its own factory and the women were the "hands." The house-lot grass of a morn- ing was covered with bleeching linen, the meadows with rotting flax and the sunny walls of the house with strings of sliced apples to dry. They represented only a moderate surplus of the good- wife's work by candle light the previous evening. In the daylight hours, after meals had been cooked over the open fire, the butter churned, the cheese squeezed dry, the washing done at the big bench by the back door in water drawn by bucket from the well, the tallow poured into candle molds, the lye set to drain from the chiseled stone slab, the flax hetcheled and spun, skeins of wool and flax hung on the walls, other skeins reeled off for use on the big looms which some one must keep in almost constant operation to supply clothing and blankets and sheets and curtains, and the cows milked, there was a few moments' respite for supper and then the evening routine, the prayer and Bible-reading at 9 o'clock usually supplementing those of the early morning. Customarily the reading was consecutive, chapter by chapter, verse by verse, "begat" by "begat." Between planting and harvest, the black-
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smiths were hammering out the hoes, shovels, axes, scythes, plow- shares, and shoemakers were on their neighborhood rounds.
Copper ore, much of it in the bog, was found in Windsor, Granby, Simsbury and Bristol, but supplies were not large and facilities and laws were discouraging. Deposits of feldspar in South Glastonbury were yet to become valuable. Alluvial deposit produced crops which by 1750 put the tax rate at 15 shillings an acre as against less than half that in other counties. This was the soil which by 1845 was to rank first in production of tobacco (90 per cent), Indian corn, rye, fruit and hay. The first charter privileges for mining in America were granted for works at present East Granby in 1709 where mining had been going on for six or seven years. The ore shipped to London showed 20 per cent copper with admixture of gold and silver but it was difficult to separate the quartz, and as England would allow no smelter and the hazard and expense of transportation counted heavily, the mine was closed by attachment. Such was the beginning of the famous Newgate mine and prison, elsewhere described. Sam- uel Higby in 1728 obtained a ten-years' monopoly on the manu- facture of steel by a "curious art" he had discovered "to trans- mute common iron into good steel." He finally abandoned this, as also did Thomas Fitch and others who took up the enterprise later.
William and Edward Pattison of Ireland, who had settled in Berlin, might be considered the founders of Connecticut sales- manship-the first "Yankee tin-peddlers." In 1740 they began making tin kitchen utensils after the fashion they were familiar with at home. The delight of their neighbors led Edward to quit farming and go on the road with such pans and pails as he could accommodate on his horse's back. Thus an enterprise was started which gave Connecticut fame to the most remote sections of the colonies and a principle of salesmanship established which was to put America in the lead among the nations. Carts and four- horse covered wagons in turn succeeded the saddled mare, supply stations throughout the land were constructed, while the glitter of the wares and the rattle of the pretentious vehicles were the substantial advertising equivalent of printer's ink today, good workmanship being the foundation.
Enough activity in ship timber enabled the General Assembly in 1715 to increase revenue (for wars and other purposes) by im-
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posing a tariff by the hundred pounds on all importations by non- residents. Twenty years later, there being fears of deforestation and, perhaps, incidentally, an increasing need of revenue, an ex- port duty was placed on pipe (hogshead) staves, clapboards and tar, and in 1741 the size of staves was fixed by law, with inspec- tors in every town. So pressing did the needs become that in 1747 a tariff was imposed on all imports of over £15 in value from other colonies and also from England and Ireland. A tariff on lumber had been suspended because of protest.
Whereas in 1680 there was but one ship of ninety tons regis- tered in the colony, and in all there was an even score of petty merchants, and in 1730, four vessels of from thirty-five to sixty tons burthen were made in the North Meadow Brook; in 1750 there were seventy registered vessels. The number of ratable persons in 1654 was 177; in 1761, by the selectmen's census, there were 868 whites and sixty-eight blacks in Hartford North Side, and 720 whites and sixty-eight blacks South Side; 1,158 all told in East Hartford and 653 in the Western Division, a grand total of 3,938 in the town. Windsor and Farmington were somewhat larger.
And yet there were those who believed the colony was headed toward bankruptcy, and all because of these women whose daily labors have just been referred to. Thus wrote a correspondent in the Courant in 1765:
"Who without the most melancholy apprehension can be- hold in this poor colony a thousand ladies, each of whom costs not less than £30 per annum in board, clothing and at- tendance, half of which she does not earn? Here is a clear annual loss of more than £15,000, which together with the ill example of about 1000 pairs of idle hands gives us a too sure presage of speedily obtaining the appellation of a bankrupt colony."
A western post ran from Boston through Connecticut and New York to Pennsylvania once a week in summer and fort- nightly in winter, a vast improvement over the haphazard service from Boston established by the Penny Post in 1694. In 1755 there was a post rider between New Haven and Hartford each week-end. John Walker, with office on Main Street not far from the State House, was local postmaster in 1764, and New London was added to the postal list three years later. The first formally commissioned postmaster was William Ellery, appointed by Ben-
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jamin Franklin and Thomas Foxcroft, postmasters-general by royal appointment, in 1768, or four years after the Courant was born. The post office store was near the Little River (or "Great") bridge. There was only one mail a week till 1786. Ellery was postmaster most of the time till he resigned in 1777. Thomas Hilldrup's succeeding administration was marked by so many changes of location as to create ridicule. After the inaugu- ration of the national post system in 1790 and the appointment of Ezekiel Williams, the location was more certain, at about the corner of Main and Grove streets, and conduct of business more systematic. In 1717 Capt. John Munson was allowed the mo- nopoly of carrying goods and passengers by coach between New Haven and Hartford for seven years, running once a week ex- cept in winter. Stage coaches began running to Boston and New York in 1752.
Of the colored population enumerated in the selectmen's cen- sus only a few were slaves; what there were were retained in the families, there being no traffic, and under the law owners were obliged to care for them in their old age. The imitations of white men's doing furnished much amusement. They held their regu- lar "training days," under the command of an elaborately equipped "general" and the men in the ranks were uniformed grotesquely. From 1770 till about 1820 they elected and pre- tentiously inaugurated a "governor," usually an outstanding Negro whose word was law among his constituents and whose henchmen were "justices of the peace." The punishments in- flicted at the South Green were enough to hold the careless in re- straint. After Governor Philip Skene of Skenesborough, Vt., was brought here as a prisoner in the Ticonderoga campaign of 1775, his body servant Cuff gained popularity. His election as "gover- nor" created no little alarm for he was accused of giving aid and comfort to the enemy, the tories, and it required a serious investi- gation to dispel the fears. "Old Boston," who held the high office several times and was in every way a good citizen, was buried in the First Church cemetery.
The election and training days of the whites were already be- ginning to indicate what they would be in the next century. After the last French-Indian war, when tension grew less, flow of good fellowship was unrestrained and there were forerunners
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of tavern balls of later days. At the same time there was organi- zation for charitable work and higher appreciation of citizenship.
In 1762 the time was ripe for the first Masonic charter. It was issued for St. John's Lodge, No. 4, and John Townley was the first worshipful master. The first meetings were held at the taverns of Hezekiah Colyn and Mrs. Sarah Flagg till a hall was prepared in the Black Horse tavern. Israel Putnam was a fre- quent visitor. The Grand Lodge was formed in 1769, a lodge in Farmington in 1787 (afterwards located in Plainville) and one in Berlin in 1791. From these have sprung all the others in the county. Washington Commandery, Knights Templar, was or- ganized in Colchester in 1796, removing to Hartford in 1844, now the oldest in the country.
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It is left for a summary of religious conditions in the eighteenth century to indicate the effect upon the people of the anomalies-of the great change that had come over them in the interrupted progress toward better things. In the study of the successive revolutions, social and ecclesiastical, one must keep ever in mind the flesh-and-blood warfares. Could the state save the church? Could the church drag down the sorely troubled state? Could either survive the changes in sentiment? Should they live separately?
These pages have followed the stormy Half-Covenant days and the sealing of the union of church and state by the Saybrook Plat- form. Plans of wise men had failed to foresee three important factors in the immediate future, and so there must be still more groping and experiment, more agony of soul. The three factors were: Change in character of population ; loosening effect of the Half-Way covenant and the immoral effects of the wars. As early as 1714 the parental General Assembly was compelled to recognize the increase in irreligion and immorality. The com- mittee of the General Association of the church reported lack of Bibles, contempt for church, family degeneration, educational in- difference and intemperance. Among a naturally devout people were mingling freebooters and camp-followers; the people them- selves were becoming piratical in disposition under the series of wars, and, to go deeper, many of the strong were yielding under
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the depression caused by the currency and financial distresses concomitant with war.
The Assembly had but one recourse by the system that it had built up. It must itself adopt warfare against organizations, in- dividuals, against clergymen themselves when they ignored regu- lations, preached outside of their jurisdictions or allowed others to preach within them, no authority having been granted. Tax collectors and constables joined in the fray. By sad yet sequen- tial fatuity, a law was passed in 1717 welding church and town, the minister to be elected by town vote.
It was an era of madness when only a great awakening could be hoped for as the beginning of a basic reformation, which came but was not to be complete for a hundred years. Legislative enactment did not produce it. Jonathan Edwards, in world his- tory forever as one of America's greatest theologians, modest and mild of manner out of the pulpit, burst forth at this juncture with what to the unsophisticated of later days was the most nerve-rasping sensationalism since the horrors of the Inquisi- tion. It is not realized by such as they that he broke down the slovenly Half-Covenant, that as a metaphysical writer he moved Europe as well as America and that such a book as "The Free- dom of the Will" is among the world's greatest. He went to the church at Northampton, Mass., in 1727, from Yale, where he had graduated and had remained as a tutor, and continued at the church till dismissed after denouncing church members who read widely circulated immoral books from overseas. Chosen presi- dent of Princeton College, he died of smallpox in 1858, before he had entered upon his new duties. His son, of the same name, fol- lowed him closely in character and career even to college presi- dency and early death.
He himself was the son of the hard-hitting Rev. Timothy Edwards of South Windsor where he was born in 1703. His first hell-fire sermon in 1734 had its effect throughout New England. His own church experienced a revival despite animosities aroused, and thence he went forth to preach by request in other churches. The result became known as the "Great Awakening."
But the converted, though strengthened by George White- field, fell away. The spirit of the old days and the politics thereof had changed for the spirit of the new as represented by men like Franklin. Bitter quarrels were uncontrollable. Separatists or
(Engraved by R. Babson and T. Andrews) JONATHAN EDWARDS (1703-1758)
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the new Congregationalists and New Lights and Old Lights fought each other; application of law was severe but ineffective. Town was divided against town, family against family; homes were sold by tax officials, husbands and wives parted and, in in- stances, ministers went to jail. The laws had relaxed to allow Episcopalians, Quakers and Baptists to have churches and not pay for Congregational ministers, and the new Separatist Con- gregational churches found themselves outside these provisions. Nor was there relief for them when men like Roger Wolcott, Jon- athan Trumbull and Thomas Fitch in 1750 revised out the old persecution enactments but not the Saybrook Platform. The King was appealed to. At that dangerous moment, however, President Clap of Yale initiated a movement to get back to early church freedom, and by 1791 all churches were allowed to incor- porate. By 1818 and the new Constitution, non-church members also were relieved from contributing to the support of the once Established Church. John Smalley of New Britain was one of the more eminent ministers who preached and trained others to work for the timely reforms.
With it all, in 1797, after the worst of the wars in the field, there was needed-and came-a genuine revival of Christian grace. Hartford's old Hooker Church was furnishing a compar- atively mild illustration of the need. Rev. Nathan Strong with his brother-in-law Reuben Smith, was running a distillery not far from his historic church and also was dealing extensively in real estate and other property having to do with the adjuncts of the whiskey traffic. President Timothy Dwight, the elder, of Yale inaugurated the revival which this time worked a more lasting reform throughout the state.
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