USA > Connecticut > Hartford County > History of Hartford County, Connecticut, 1633-1928, Volume I > Part 17
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45
Governor Franklin of New Jersey, stepson of Benjamin Franklin and somewhat like a white elephant in the keeping of
198
HARTFORD COUNTY, CONNECTICUT
the colonists, was here and in various other places at times, and also other distinguished individuals like Mayor Matthews of New York and the mayor of Albany. Members of Burgoyne's com- mand were brought into the county after his surrender, and near the close of the war, when Newgate mines in Granby had been made a general prison, the government was arranging to have many of the soldier prisoners sent there. In all there were nine- teen of Burgoyne's officers living in East Windsor, with forty- three servants, and forty-three Hessian officers with ninety-four servants, all on parole and under the observation of Capt. Ros- well Grant of Maj. John Roberts' command. Among the officers was Brigadier-General Hamilton with four servants, quartered at Edward Kilbourne's and very highly respected.
There were but few executions, the most notable being that of Moses Dunbar of Bristol for high treason. Dunbar married Phoebe Jerome of that town, whose family were tory sympa- thizers. They attended Rev. James Nichols' Episcopal church and their four children were baptized there. On the death of this wife, Dunbar married Esther Adams. His neighbors held him under a suspicion which was confirmed soon after this mar- riage. He had been mobbed for talking too freely, had been sent to jail once and had fled to Long Island, prior to his marriage, to escape arrest. While at that tory refuge a second time he ac- cepted a commission as recruiting officer for the King's army. The chaplain of his regiment was Rev. Samuel Seabury, after- ward the first bishop in America. On his return he secured one recruit before he was betrayed by James Smith and turned over to Justices Strong and Whitman of Farmington who committed him to the Superior Court, then in session, January 23, 1777. There he was convicted under a law passed the previous October. There were several other trials under this statute but only Dun- bar was executed. Before the date of his execution March 19, 1777, Elisha Wadsworth helped him escape, for which Wads- worth was imprisoned for one year. Dunbar was recaptured and the sentence carried out, on Gallows Hill, on the bluff west of where Trinity College now stands. According to the Courant, a "prodigious concourse" of people witnessed the execution. Rev. Abraham Jarvis, afterward bishop of Connecticut, preached for him in the jail, and Dunbar sent his children a powerful appeal to lead godly lives. His pregnant wife rode with him to the gal-
199
HARTFORD COUNTY, CONNECTICUT
lows. She went within the British lines, later returned to Bris- tol and married Chauncey Jerome, Jr., brother of Dunbar's first wife. They made their home in Nova Scotia till peace was de- clared.
Lafayette made occasional vists back of the lines. It is pos- sible that published recollections of a visit of a number of days to South Windsor in the spring of 1778 are correct, though it scarcely could have been later than May, when the alliance with France was being made known, when Lord North-two years late-was making a peace gesture by sending commissioners, when Howe was acknowledging his weakness by turning the army at Philadelphia over to Clinton, and when the despicable Lee was inviting if not promoting disaster for Washington's little band just prior to the battle of Monmouth. Earlier in the year, Gates had been trying to win the young Frenchman, not yet 21, to his cabal by planning a conquest of Canada, and Lafayette had been to Albany. Immediately after that scheme fell through, Burgoyne was pushing his complaint that the stipulations at the time of his surrender had not been lived up to and an indignant Congress had postponed the sailing of his army till it could get formal approval of surrender conditions from England itself. Lafayette may have wished to talk with some of Burgoyne's officers and hence have come to South Windsor. That Washing- ton called upon him there is hardly compatible with the special obligations then devolving upon Washington at Valley Forge and around Philadelphia. Yet the recollections are specific as detailed in Doctor Gillette's "Sketches."
According to these reminiscences, Lafayette made his head- quarters at the home of Nathaniel Porter whose son acted as the general's secretary till stricken with smallpox contracted when carrying a letter to Washington. On the occasion of Washing- ton's visit, Lafayette requested Lieut. Alexander King of East Windsor to report to him with a mounted escort. The escort appeared without horse equipment and the men carrying sticks in place of sabres. Lafayette introduced them to Washington as the "Old Testament Light Horse." Justus Grant of Wapping sometimes was in the general's party when trips were made around the state. Grant told of wrestling bouts he had with the young marquis, but at fencing the marquis was always the vic- tor. The Hessian prisoners were set at planting trees along the
200
HARTFORD COUNTY, CONNECTICUT
highway, on suggestion of the marquis, and he and the younger Porter held the rope for the alignment. Horse-racing was one of the amusements of the prisoners, the course being from La- fayette's quarters to the Fitch house. The sword of Colonel Bray- man of Burgoyne's army came into the possession of John Gil- lette of East Windsor, and is now in the Connecticut Historical Society's rooms, as also the small-sword and cane of Lieutenant Fyfe who was quartered in South Windsor.
Connecticut had but two regiments in the Burgoyne battles, Cook's and Latimer's, both of which were thrown in at a critical moment and brought their state much credit. Capt. Zebulon Bid- well of East Hartford commanded one company and Captain Wadsworth another, made up of men from the immediate vicin- ity of Hartford. Both of these captains were killed in the first battle, September 19, 1777. A fitting memorial has been erected to Captain Bidwell by his descendant, Daniel D. Bidwell, who served in the navy in the Spanish war and is a widely known newspaper man. The impressive tablet stands between Bidwell Street and Tolland Street, near the site of the captain's home. The terror struck by Burgoyne's plan to cut New England off from the other colonies caused every able-bodied man to prepare in response to the call sent out through New England. Some reached Bennington in time to help Ethan Allen, Seth Warner and other Vermont sons of Connecticut check Burgoyne's prog- ress, and the Hartford company of the Governor's Foot Guard was on its way to Gates' army under its first and only orders to leave the state in time of war, but was turned back by the news of the victory at the second battle of Saratoga. Capt. Thomas Y. Seymour of Sheldon's Dragoons, who was serving on Arnold's staff, was detailed to escort Burgoyne to Boston, and so agree- able were his services that the general presented to him his leop- ard-skin saddle-cloth which frequently was seen in later days when Seymour was in command of the Governor's Horse Guard.
Part of Gates' forces in October, 1778, camped in North Mea- dows and in West Hartford. On November 3, Governor Trum- bull gave an entertainment for them. There was a parade by an artillery company and a dinner at 3 o'clock at the Bunch of Grapes. Two of Gates' regiments camped here while en route in 1779.
In December, 1777, Col. Samuel B. Webb of Wethersfield was
- -- -
!
=
THE WEBB HOUSE, WETHERSFIELD
203
HARTFORD COUNTY, CONNECTICUT
captured in a raid he was making on Long Island. He had been an aid on Washington's staff till Congress had made its first call for three-years men, with eight regiments for the colony's quota. Then he was given command of one-half of the "additional" regiment that Congress had asked for. The colonel was ex- changed soon after his capture. Captain Buckland of Hartford was in the First Artillery with a company of Hartford men on this first organization of the "Continental Line." At the time of the battle of Saratoga the Connecticut line for the most part was supporting Putnam at Peekskill to prevent the enemy's get- ting through from the north. Webb's regiment was at Valley Forge the winter of 1777-8 and with Putnam at Redding, Conn., the next winter, when incidentally a brigade threatened to march on the General Assembly to demand its pay but was stopped by Putnam. Enos' regiment was in the battle of Monmouth in 1778. Noadiah Hooker of Farmington commanded one of six battalions held in reserve. Capt. Jarius Wilcox of Wethersfield commanded a company of artificers in some of the campaigns.
In that agonizing winter of 1778, the Assembly voted £60,000 more and laid a 2-shilling tax. A bounty of $200 besides land was offered to rank and file. And Congress, still unable to do much financially, was urging every colony to pay its way so far as it could. No colony did this as well as Connecticut was doing ; hence, after the war, no colony recovered more rapidly. The con- gressional articles of confederation in 1778 did not meet with the approval of the Hartford County town meetings.
In February, 1779, Capt. Titus Hosmer of Hartford, com- manding a Redding outpost, detected the approach of Tryon's men for a raid and notified Putnam who was not far away just in time to enable him to escape and to return with reinforce- ments enough to drive the expedition back. Maj. Benjamin Tall- madge of Wethersfield (Sheldon's Dragoons) raided Lloyd's Neck, Long Island, captured 500 and broke up a nest of raiders. Calls for men had been coming frequently when early in 1779 Washington asked Trumbull for 12,000 to join in an attack on New York; the order would have been filled had not Washington been compelled to abandon the plan through lack of support. Putnam himself, half-sick, returned with the Connecticut men who had started, and on his journey back to the front was pros- trated in Hartford. The utmost the town could do for the great
204
HARTFORD COUNTY, CONNECTICUT
character was done, but his military career was ended. He lin- gered till May 19, 1790.
In addition to the appointment of officers to raise loans, the Assembly had made effort to secure systematic supplies for the troops, following a vote of £60,000 in credit bills. The collection of supplies was pitiful in amount but very large as a burden upon the givers. Women and children were still doing the field work for which the men periodically returning from the front were mostly unfitted. They knew another call would be published within a short time, perhaps tomorrow, and the man who would hold back would be no better than the despised Tories. In April, 1779, the demand for flour had become so imperative that the Assembly requested a committee to make a census, with returns by householders under oath before May 6, the surplus to be sub- ject to orders for public use. Attempts to sell to commissaries at an unreasonable price would mean surrender of one's surplus ; those revealing a deficiency could get permission to buy what they needed, endorsement of amount and price paid to appear on the form which had to be returned to the town. A similar law the next year covered salt, rum, salted beef and pork. It was further provided that commissaries finding themselves unable to buy at reasonable price, could get warrants from justices of the peace for seizing such amounts as were required, giving a state- ment to be used in adjustment with the government. Attempts to remove any of these commodities should subject them to confis- cation. (Doctor Primus, a popular colored "doctor" who had lived with Dr. Alexander Wolcott added to his statement: "Awantum; sufficet.") The hardest was to get beasts of burden that could bring in supplies.
§
The year 1780 saw the British victories in the South but also the end of the cabal against Washington and the first military results of the French alliance. On September 21 Washington, Lafayette and Alexander Hamilton held their first conference with Rochambeau at Hartford. This was Washington's second appearance in this vicinity and the narrative must be interrupted long enough to note the contrast and to include the more momen- tous third visit. The first visit was on June 30, 1775, when the Virginian, just appointed by Congress, had been dispatched to
I
205
HARTFORD COUNTY, CONNECTICUT
take command of the army at Cambridge and to try to bring order out of chaos. Worthy as his record already had been, he was little more than a name among New England people. Maj .- Gen. Charles Lee and a small escort accompanied him. To Mrs. Silas Deane of Wethersfield he brought a letter of introduction from her husband, then in Philadelphia. The Deane residence (significantly-where the Ticonderoga plot had been hatched) was-and is-next to the house of Joseph and Col. S. B. Webb, already known locally as "Hospitality Hall" because of the charm of Mrs. Abigal Chester Webb, the mistress of it. Either of the houses would add distinction to any of the typical Connecticut villages, then or now. At this visit there was no time to arrange social entertainment and the generals hurried on after brief refreshment through Hartford, where little note was made of their coming by a people stunned by the events of the preceding weeks.
This the second coming was a matter of universal moment for it was with the purpose of conferring with the loudly heralded Rochambeau, commander of the new French forces whose voyage all had acclaimed as the hope of salvation, and with him Admiral Ternay. With their ships and 6,000 good soldiers they had sailed into Newport Harbor July 10, 1780-and there they had been bottled up by the fleet of Clinton, gloating in New York over his conquests in the South. Washington's companion at the outset of this journey had been his old friend Benedict Arnold, who even at that moment had arranged with Clinton the surrender of the one stronghold in the North, West Point, and in doing so was at one with others in his belief that the cause of independence was lost. Washington could see in the faces of the women and chil- dren who cheered him in every town he passed through-the men being absent in service-that that cause was not lost; pressing the hand of one of his suite he paused to say: "We may be beaten by the English in the field; it is the lot of arms; but see there the army which they will never overcome."
On his approach to Hartford, Washington stopped at the home of Capt. Nathan Stillman of Wethersfield, once captain in Wash-
206
HARTFORD COUNTY, CONNECTICUT
ington's Life Guard, embraced him and brought him to Hartford in his suite. His destination was the home of Col. Jeremiah Wadsworth, where the Atheneum now stands. On the approach of the French group, he was escorted by Governor Trumbull and the Governor's Foot Guard to meet them as they came up from the ferry. Of the conference there is no record; at best it must have been solemn. But one writer puts it: "The interview was a genuine festival for the French, who were impatient to see the hero of liberty. His noble mien, the simplicity of his manner, his mild gravity, surpassed their expectations and gained for him their hearts." It was on Washington's return, as he was approaching West Point, that he learned of the treachery of Arnold, the officer he had befriended at the risk of his own repu- tation.
The third visit to this vicinity marked the beginning of the victorious end, though few but Washington could see it. One need picture a culmination of all the hardship and suffering of the previous days to realize the situation, from the people's stand- point, in May of that next year, 1781. But Gates had been re- deeming his reputation in the South and Washington had just received secret information that Clinton was about to send fur- ther reinforcements to Cornwallis in Virginia. So far as the world could see, England was victor in the European war, hinging on the rights of the seas, and the American situation was causing her no anxiety; troops were plenty and generals were doing well. She was counting without the American spirit as typified in Washington, and the American cleverness which had won such campaigns in the French-Indian wars as had been won.
Familiar to all readers is the glamor of this third meeting- the entertainment at "Hospitality Hall;" Governor Trumbull's reassurance of backing; the breaking of the religious Saturday evening calm of Wethersfield when the cavalcade attending Washington, General Knox and General Duportail of the French, stopped at the Stillman tavern; the attendance at the church with the beautiful spire on Sunday; the sermon by Rev. Dr. Marsh and the singing by the choir who repaid Washington's compli- ment by giving him a special concert the next night; the booming of guns on Monday and the escort by the Foot Guard and militia under the command of Capt. Frederick Bull when Rochambeau
207
HARTFORD COUNTY, CONNECTICUT
and his following, including Chevalier de Chastellux (Admiral de Barras having been detained by another British threat) marched up from the ferry through a cheering multitude; the march back to Wethersfield for the dinner at the tavern, many members of the Assembly in the procession. Then the conference Tuesday, thus summarized by Washington in his diary: "May 22 .- Fixed with Rochambeau the plan of campaign." A dinner was given at Collyer's tavern the night before Rochambeau left. Before Washington's departure on the 24th, he sent letters to all the New England governors to complete their battalions in the Continental line-for three years or the war if possible-and to Massachusetts a request for a loan of powder. It would have to be borrowed; a bushel of Continental money would hardly buy a keg.
Briefly, the campaign "fixed" was that they should threaten New York to prevent Clinton's sending aid to Cornwallis, that the fleet meanwhile should make off toward southern waters, and that the armies should be ready to seize any chance to slip by Clinton, reach Cornwallis first and crush him. With its startling elements of boldness and desperation, that plan "fixed" American history.
Washington's next visit to Hartford was in 1798 after he had sought private life, and the people improved their opportunity to express their love for him. On that occasion there was the Gov- ernor's Horse Guard, led by Maj. John Caldwell, to join in the escort with the Foot Guard.
Lafayette, impressed with Connecticut's loyalty as shown by her furnishing nearly half of the twenty New England regiments remaining with the Continental army, wrote his wife: "No European army would suffer one-tenth what the American troops suffer. It takes patience to support hunger, nakedness, toil and want of pay, which constitute the conditions of our soldiers, the hardest and most patient to be found in the world." That is a picture of the situation when Washington and Rochambeau were consulting.
The march of the French through the state was a blessed revelation to inhabitants who never had seen a large body of uni- formed men and whose knowledge of the French forces had been gained only from the hateful French-Indian wars. It was an
208
HARTFORD COUNTY, CONNECTICUT
encouraging spectacle, and the conduct of every officer and man, inspired by the noble commander, was such as to win the endur- ing respect of the cheering populace. While a body of 600 hussars and infantry marched as flankers from winter quarters at Leba- non by way of Wallingford and New Haven, the main body of 4,000 effective troops took the road from Providence, the four regiments proceeding with intervals of one day's march between them so as not to overburden the towns where they encamped each night. The commissariat had been arranged in advance. Rochambeau reached East Hartford, by way of Bolton, on June 24 with the first division and left on the 25th, and the others in order of arrival. The officers wore white uniforms; the men, according to regiment, white, white and green, black and red, and the artillery blue with red facings. The Courant was enthusi- astic over them as had been President Stiles of Yale when he saw them at Newport. The officers were pressed to accept the hospitality of various homes, while the rations of beef and pork for the men were eked out and served by the women of the towns with delicacies they had vied in preparing. In East Hartford, there was another surprising feast for long unaccustomed eyes when silver coins were taken from kegs to pay the soldiers, and the road at that place from that day unto this has served as a memorial to that great event by bearing the name of "Silver Lane." (The location was marked by boulder and tablet, with patriotic ceremonies, in 1928.)
Their next night's encampment was at the south end of Farm- ington, across the brook that flows from Diamond Glen. On the green in that town a bronze tablet has been set in honor of "our French allies," with exercises described in the history of the town in another part of this work. Thence the route was through Middlebury and Southbury to Dobb's Ferry and Washington's camp. After the surrender of Cornwallis October 19, 1783, the French were on duty in Virginia till the next fall, when they marched to Boston to embark, passing through Farmington and Hartford in two columns the last days of October.
The right of the line against Cornwallis had been given to Lafayette. Ten of his thirty-six companies were from Connecti- cut, two of them in Lieut-Col. Alexander Hamilton's battalion of four companies on the extreme right, the place of honor. Among the officers were Maj. John P. Wyllys of Hartford and Capts.
209
HARTFORD COUNTY, CONNECTICUT
Jonathan Hart of Farmington and Roger Welles of Newington. Webb continued in the service till late in 1783, even after the Connecticut line had been reduced to three regiments, and was made brigadier in September. Capt. Elisha Hopkins of Hartford led one of the companies on the evacuation of New York, Novem- ber 25, 1783.
Connecticut had furnished 31,959 men of the Continental army, not including those who enlisted in other states, or 14 per cent of the total, a larger percentage than any other state on a three-years basis. The state's population in 1790 was 238,141 out of a grand total of 4,000,000 for the country. Her expenses had been $20,199,531; the Government in course of time reim- bursed with $2,445,679, leaving the state's net contribution $17,753,852, actual public expenditures only. The state had been loyal but it had reserved the right to criticise and to resent in- fringement of state rights, as seen in resolutions adopted in Hart- ford town meeting in 1783 for the Assembly. They resented all encroachments of Congress upon the sovereignty and jurisdiction of the states and every assumption of power not expressly vested in the Articles of Confederation. In particular the resolutions desired investigation as to whether Congress was authorized to give half pay for life to officers or commutation of five-years' full pay, and if such right had been obtained, it should be taken away. Protest was made against the appointment of an ambassador to Europe-an unbearable expense under prevailing conditions. Finally, the resolutions called for removal of placemen, pensioners and all superfluous officers of government, and the publication of the yeas and nays upon every important question in the House.
The peace celebration, locally, was not so disastrous as that on the occasion of the repeal of the Stamp Act, but seriously threatened the State House. The small cupola on the modest building caught fire and was destroyed, never to be replaced.
The Governor's Horse Guard, to which reference has been made, was authorized as an escort to the governor by action of the Assembly in 1788. Several of the signers of the petition had been charter members of the Governor's Foot Guard. Capt. Thomas Y. Seymour was the moving spirit, succeeding Major Caldwell in command in 1792. It was the first uniformed cavalry
16-VOL. 1
210
HARTFORD COUNTY, CONNECTICUT
organization in the state and out of it was to grow the present-day cavalry.
The celebrated Newgate prison, one of the historical features of the state, visited by thousands each year, was on the highest point of land in East Granby. There the first copper mining in America was begun in 1705. Ten shilling on each ton had to be paid to the town. Part of this went to the support of Yale. Three ministers named Woodbridge, of Springfield, Simsbury and Hartford,-John, Dudley and Timothy, Jr .- conducted the busi- ness for a period of time. As England would allow no smelting in America, the ore had to be shipped to London. In the 1730s com- panies in Boston, London and Holland put in much money there. Samuel Higley's mine where were made the copper tokens marked "I am a good copper" and "Value me as you like," so highly prized by collectors today, was half a mile to the south- ward. The General Assembly took over the property for a prison in 1773 and named it Newgate after the famous English prison. The first convict escaped in two weeks, and thereafter there was a series of uprisings, escapes and fires. In 1777 all the prisoners were taken to the prison in Hartford. In 1780, however, the prison was rebuilt, only to be abandoned again in 1782 and then rebuilt in 1790 and to be used till the prison at Wethersfield was completed in 1827. The wall around the yard was built in 1802. At night the inmates were confined in the watery substructure where also was a treadmill. After passing into the possession of private owners, mining was tried again several times up to 1859. Today it is in the hands of Col. Clarence W. Seymour, of Hart- ford, who is carefully preserving it for its historical associations, aside from charm of wonderful scenery. (Other details are given in the Simsbury and East Granby section).
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.