USA > Connecticut > Hartford County > History of Hartford County, Connecticut, 1633-1928, Volume I > Part 9
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
An incident of the war was the commissioning of Captain Underhill by the Providence Plantation to proceed against the Dutch and his coming to Hartford where he posted on the door of the House of Hope a placard declaring that he had seized it and its land in the name of England. His assertion later was that he had acted with the permission of the General Court then in session in Hartford, but the court disallowed this in 1654 and sequestered the property three days before peace was declared. By the terms of the peace the English retained possession. There may have been some truth in Underhill's assertion for later the colony had claim only to the site of the fort while Underhill sold the "bouwerie" and adjoining land to Richard Lord and William Gibbons, and the fort site the court sold to John Gilbert. At the time of Underhill's sale the court, replying to his petition for re- dress, said it would maintain its own seizure "till more appears," that there was no warrant for Underhill's seizure and that it would not allow or approve of his selling. The entries of the sales are on the town records.
In 1852 the burial ground of the Dutch, to the west of the fort, was accidentally uncovered. Two years later Col. Samuel Colt built the great dike for the protection of his factory prop- erty and in reclaiming the property, named the streets after prominent ones among both the Indians and the Dutch. In 1918 the Hartford Electric Light Company, previously having ac- quired Dutch Point (north of Park River) for the site of one
--- -
1
93
HARTFORD COUNTY, CONNECTICUT
plant, bought the fort site for a still greater station and in so doing set aside a piece of land on Vandyke Avenue a hundred feet away as a site for a memorial, not yet utilized. As will be seen later, the city is now about to build a longer dike for re- claiming more of the South Meadows, last village of the Sequins, and improving the city's aviation field.
It being concluded that the Congress of the United Colonies was no further needed the last annual session was held in 1664, but in 1670 new articles were drawn up. Power in time of war was delegated to the legislatures, and the chief debates were on the question of apportionment of troops and supplies. The real way to make one out of many had not yet been found.
VIII SCHOOLS
THE HANDICAP AND HOW IT WAS OVERCOME-FOUNDING AND DEVEL- OPING THE HARTFORD PUBLIC HIGH SCHOOL-HOPKINS FUND-EMI- NENT FAMILIES.
A major problem was education. The severity of this for col- onists of this type cannot be over-stressed, though often it is wholly lost sight of in the analysis of conditions. Again it should be recalled that the majority of these river-town people, who in their stubbornness-if you will-had gone forth into the more distant wilderness, had come from long-established comfortable homes in England where they had been well nurtured and also well educated according to a tradition there already old. Here new tradition must be created, and there was little with which to create. They were different from any other class of pioneers who had come from any country to a new country, then or ever in the world's history. Regard for learning was innate, a sine qua non. Good private libraries had been left behind-there was only here and there a book some one had clung to, and the popular new book, the understandable version of the Bible. The Bible, whether or no, had to be the rock of the educational foundation. It may have been well for the cultural future of the colonies that this was so; for it was to continue the foundation rock for Eng- lish literature through the ages.
John Higginson, later chaplain at Saybrook Fort down- river, son of the prominent Rev. Francis Higginson of Salem whose widow had lands allotted to her in Hartford, was a teacher in the year 1637-8, pressed into service by the eager desire of the over-busy settlers. He was succeeded by Rev. Wil- liam Collins from the Barbadoes, who had come to Salem in 1636 and was one of the first settlers in Hartford, though he had no house lot. He was "established" in 1640. Land which he ac- quired he sold on his removal to Guilford the next year where he
94
1
95
HARTFORD COUNTY, CONNECTICUT
was colleague of Rev. Henry Whitefield whose daughter he mar- ried. Subsequently he joined the heretical movement of Anne Hutchinson and was murdered with her and her family by the Indians near Greenwich at the time when certain of the Dutch were encouraging border warfare.
In 1642 an appropriation of £30 a year was voted to the school from the scanty treasury. While up to that time there had been teaching in church and in private homes, now a building was erected at the present southwest corner of Sheldon and Governor streets, near an already famous oak which the Indians had asked the settlers to spare because of their traditions. The building was called the "town house" because within it were stored guns and ammunition, as in the church. William Andrews, a con- stable in Newtown and an original proprietor in Hartford, was chosen by the people in 1643 to "teach in the school," where six- teen pupils assembled. Continuing till his health failed in 1656, he was the first real teacher. He also was town clerk from 1651 to 1658, the year preceding his death. The position of Mr. Hooker himself was hardly more important than his. He intro- duced the horn-book and the song method of reciting. At home as well as at school the little ones were trained in the catechism with examination by the church leaders every Sunday. The Ten Commandments were recited faithfully, and never a thought of the questions concerning them which would get into vogue 300 years later. Meantime there were private schools for the young- est. Widow Mary Betts conducted such an one at her home near the foot of Trumbull Street on the bank of Little River.
Governor Edward Hopkins early displayed that interest which was to count so much for this and other towns. In 1649 he was instrumental in putting through town meeting a vote for £40 to be raised by tax to go toward building a new school, pro- vided "any other shall make such an addition to the sum that the work may be carried on and finished," the building to be wholly for a grammar school like that which Mr. Andrews was conducting. The existing house, near Mr. Hopkins' residence, was inconvenient and uncomfortable. At the time there was no result from this unless one counts Mr. Hopkins' increasing inter- est a result, and it was a great one.
Altogether Hartford was doing its best when the Ludlow code of 1650 directed that every town of fifty householders appoint a
96
HARTFORD COUNTY, CONNECTICUT
teacher in reading and writing and every town of a hundred a grammar school to prepare youths for the college at Cambridge (old Newtown) which had been endowed with £700 by Rev. John Harvard. The idea as expressed was "to provide that learning may not be buried with the fathers in church and commonwealth" and contributions were made for the maintenance of those who had not sufficient means of their own. Both study and pulpit in the little church were available for the more progressive stu- dents; Doctor Barnard has said that that church may well be re- garded as the first theological seminary in Connecticut.
In 1652 the town voted £20 for the erection of "the" school- house and soon after added £40, all to be expended under the direction of Elder William Goodwin. He and Governor Hopkins had in mind a certain lot on present Main Street between Little River and present Buckingham Street, but because of the ob- stinacy of one who had interest in it, the innkeeper, Jeremy Ad- ams, they were obliged to give it up. When in 1654 the town de- manded that something be done, Mr. Hopkins, the patron who had been looked to, had returned to England, the considerable sum he had thought to give had gone with him and Elder Goodwin was constrained to give back to the town what had been raised. Two years thereafter came the friction in the church, and school matters were temporarily lost sight of. The schoolhouse was ordered sold. John Talcott in 1659 provided in his will that £5 be devoted to maintaining a Latin school, "if any be kept here." The next year William Pitkin came as teacher, in a private house and without town appropriation. Elder Goodwin and the other "withdrawers" from the church had gone to Hadley, Mass. It is a matter of record that pupils in the "grammar school" in- cluded those learning the alphabet and there were no public schools in Hartford except grammar schools during its first thirty years.
Governor Hopkins, of notable antecedents, came to Boston and then to Hartford in 1637 as an original proprietor. He was elected deputy governor in 1639 and governor in 1640, after which he served alternately in those offices with John Haynes till he went back to England in 1652, having been named warden of Cromwell's fleet on the death of his uncle. When he died in 1657 he left a fund in trust for "breeding of hopeful youths in a way of learning, both at the grammar school and college." For trus-
97
HARTFORD COUNTY, CONNECTICUT
tees he named Theophilus Eaton and John Davenport of New Haven and John Culick and William Goodwin of Hartford. Eaton was his father-in-law and was promoting a plan for a col- lege in New Haven. The General Court became absorbed in the church controversy in Hartford. When finally Goodwin, after the death of Eaton and Culick, offered the colony £350 for the Hartford school, it was refused and the large Hartford property of Hopkins was sequestrated, but the action eventually was re- scinded. This property in 1660 had been inventoried at £545, at which time it had been proposed to give half for a New Haven college and, since conditions in Hartford were adverse, part to the new plantation at Hadley and the balance to Harvard. After the sequestration had been removed, the trustees agreed upon £400 for Hartford and the remainder, including £500 of which Mrs. Hopkins was to have life use, to be divided between New Haven and Hadley, Harvard to receive £100 out of Hadley's share. And the trustees desired that the school in Hartford be located on the lot Mr. Goodwin and Mr. Hopkins had favored in 1649. In reality the lot chosen was the second one west of the place where the first had stood. The committee also obtained the Hopkins farm of fifty-six acres in Hockanum together with Mr. Hopkins' rights in all future distribution of grants.
Now a number of people desiring a Main Street location secured a vote in 1666 for land on the highway "abreast of the Adams lot"-or the one Governor Hopkins had desired. It could be had gratis, after the custom of putting a public building in a highway. Eventually the building was so relocated. The Hop- kins arms were hung on the walls. A town committee managed the school affairs. Tuition was free and the town paid part of the teacher's salary. Rev. Caleb Watson was the teacher from 1673 to 1705. However, as this was the only public school and children of all ages attended, Governor Hopkins' purposes were not being fulfilled. Acts of the General Assembly in 1678 strengthened the laws for lower-grade education and decreed in 1690 a free school in New Haven and one in Hartford, the colony to aid the towns in eking out the necessary revenue; and all elementary schools, as distinct from the "free school," must be in session six months a year. The standard of admission to the free school was ability to read the psalter.
The grammar school in Hartford now became the free school.
9-VOL. 1
98
HARTFORD COUNTY, CONNECTICUT
It was then that the old building proved inadequate and the new building was erected in 1690 in the highway-as it then was-a little south of present Linden Place. In 1749 Thomas Seymour was given permission to move the building to twenty rods from Little River, thus giving him a driveway to a house he had built at the west end of what was to become Linden Place. The build- ing was small and the teachers were changed often. Prior to 1760 the town had ceased to supervise schools in East Hartford and West Hartford divisions, they thereby losing the advantages of a grammar school, but they had schools of their own. In 1753 the town had arranged to have two elementary schools in the two parishes, in accord with the law which required a school in every town of seventy householders. This took the elementary pupils from the grammar school. Then it was enacted that the income from lands and rents be given the committee for maintaining the grammar school "according to the proper use or uses of the orig- inal donation."
The town in 1760 secured from the General Assembly formal permission to make two districts. Little River was the dividing line. While awaiting the decision, the First Church Society pro- prietors, in 1759, built their house, of brick, on the east side of the Meeting-house Yard. During the celebration of the repeal of the stamp act, in 1766, munitions stored in it were exploded, many were wounded and six prominent young men died of their injuries. In 1771, a brick house was built at the northeast cor- ner of the first burying ground. This was sold in 1814 and another was built near where the police headquarters building now stands. The South District built its house on South Green in 1769. The Second North District was set off in 1770; it built near the junction of Ann and Main streets.
Meantime need of the grammar school had become pressing and a building was erected on a site given by Mrs. Abigail Wood- bridge, which is now covered by the east portion of the Municipal Building. The highway along Little River was named School Street, now Arch Street. Land grants by the General Assembly had increased income when, on representation of the districts, one-fourth of the school moneys was paid to the districts as against three-fourths to the grammar school. John Trumbull in 1798, by direction, secured the incorporation of the grammar school committee and the number of pupils was limited to forty
99
HARTFORD COUNTY, CONNECTICUT
boys. In 1808 the old school property was sold to Daniel Wads- worth and a building on the Seymour estate on Buckingham Street was taken and remodeled. Despite enlargement the struc- ture became inadequate. Enoch Perkins was given authority to erect a brick house fifty-two by thirty-eight feet, two stories, a little south of the south line of Linden Place, looking towards the Thomas Y. Seymour house, then known as the Welles homestead. The city recently had opened what is now Capitol Avenue, di- viding the lot. The next step in this the early history of the Hart- ford Public High School was the action of the trustees approving the plan of the First District in 1847 to unite for the purpose of maintaining a high school.
As has been said, the cause of education was handicapped from the beginning. If it should be remarked that secondary schools in America did not begin to approach the standards of European countries till the middle of the nineteenth century, the existence of this handicap should not be forgotten, nor yet its continuance through the nearly two centuries of intermittent warfare in addition to pioneer building, to be followed by other distractions and other warfare of a more or less interrupting character up to the present. If it is replied that the European nations also suffered from war, the obvious answer is that they had a more solid foundation in the fundamentals of education and that such deterrents as have been mentioned are bound to have more effect in a newly created nation.
Deprived of facilities, the decision of the first colonists here- abouts was that all children should learn something, and they were moving on well to the second step which, in the natural prog- ress of appreciation and will power, might have brought them even superiority, when those events occurred, within as well as outside their own circle, which hampered and delayed. For years they voiced their desire for higher standards but they lacked the power to attain them. In the nineteenth century there was still the desire for a little for the many ; it was not till the present cen- tury that there was a real awakening to the need of more quality along with the quantity-a more definite realization of what "ed- ucation," in homes, schools and colleges, must mean if this nation is going to hold its own.
There are those in any body of civilized people who are bound to rise superior to handicap. What circumstances would put be-
100
HARTFORD COUNTY, CONNECTICUT
yond their reach, if given the right impetus they obtain; not all may be scholarly, but they succeed in applying and in transmit- ting their talents. Descendants of the founders of Hartford County are, to a remarkable degree, in this class. There are living instances of it today-names that have been prominent throughout the three centuries and names that were on the last honor rolls of war as they were on the first. In illustration a few families might be cited whose fame has gone beyond the old colony limits. John Webster, deputy governor and in 1656 gov- ernor, was the ancestor of Noah Webster. John Talcott, for many years colonial treasurer, was the father of Major John of King Philip's war and grandfather of Joseph, governor from 1725 to 1741. William Edwards of Hartford was the ancestor of Rev. Timothy Edwards of Windsor (East Side), of Rev. Jona- than Edwards and of both President Dwight and President Wool- sey of Yale. Descendants of William Pitkin of Hartford included William, Ozias, Governor William and Colonel George. The an- cestor's sister was the wife of Simon Wolcott, and seven of their descendants were governors. Andrew Ward of Wethersfield was ancestor of Aaron Burr. Henry Wolcott of Windsor is said to have had more governors, statesmen and judges among his de- scendants than any of the founders; the family roll of his great- granddaughter Ursula, who married Matthew Griswold of Lyme, alone includes twelve governors and thirty-four judges. Matthew Grant of Windsor was ancestor of Ulysses S. Grant.
M.W. El-Sawy
IX RELIGIOUS DISSENSIONS
HOOKER'S DEATH-GOODWIN'S DEFECTION-CHURCH SPLIT BY HALF- WAY COVENANT -SAYBROOK PLATFORM -TOLERATION - WITCH- CRAFT HORRORS.
While taking his place in history as the leader of his people to free government, Rev. Thomas Hooker was a stalwart in other ways. Of robust build, of energetic spirit and strong temper on occasion, and with power of invective as well as of exhortation, it would be easy to picture him as a romantic crusader in the days of such. In a period when adroitness was more effective than sword and buckler, a man who should be chosen head of a group like that which came to Newtown had to have other quali- ties than those of a pastor. He was the one particular preacher of that day for whom Archbishop Laud sent his minions. "Hook- er's party" kept on with their plans, and their faith that he would join them was confirmed.
Not only did he inaugurate and put through the movements of three towns toward the Connecticut River, not only did he guide and direct the colonists in peace and war, but he was in demand wherever there was need of persuasive argument or calm judicial function. At times his strength was severely taxed. Governor Winthrop, the elder, with all his bits of sarcasm and sometimes sharp disagreement, admired the man; there are as many evidences of laudation as there are of criticism in his written comments. Of these one may be cited. At the time the federation of the colonies was under discussion in Boston, Hooker was called upon to deliver a sermon before a distin- guished audience in that town. Winthrop records that he had spoken with glowing eloquence for fifteen minutes when he sud- denly stopped and said God had deprived him of both "his strength and matter" and withdrew. In half an hour he returned
101
102
HARTFORD COUNTY, CONNECTICUT
to the platform and "went on to very good purpose about two hours."
In a summer of pestilence, 1647, he was stricken and after a few days of suffering died on July 7. He was only 61. He had lived to know of Laud's incarceration, in 1641, and of his execu- tion, in 1645-to enjoy the success of his ecclesiastical theories and to witness the happy development of his design to secure government of and by the people.
Mr. Hooker's children, many of whose descendants continue to live within a short radius of his first meeting-house, were: Johanna, wife of Rev. Thomas Shepard of Cambridge, who died the year before her father; Mary, wife of Rev. Roger Newton, Farmington's first minister and later at Milford where she died in 1676; Anne and Sarah who died in childhood in England; John, who in his father's will was forbidden "from tarrying in England" after he got his education at Oxford but who did tarry and became rector of Lechampsted before his death in 1684; Samuel, graduated at Harvard in 1653, a preacher at Plymouth, who married the daughter of Capt. Thomas Willet, afterward first mayor of New York, was ordained in Farmington in 1661 and died there in 1697; and Sarah, wife of Rev. John Wilson of Medfield, Massachusetts.
Rev. Jonathan Mitchell was invited to succeed Mr. Hooker in 1649. After him as a candidate came Michael Wigglesworth occasionally in 1653 and 1654, John Davis in 1655 and John Cot- ton, son of John Cotton of Boston and formerly of the "Hooker party," in 1659. Meantime Teacher Stone and Elder Goodwin were conducting the affairs of the church. These two, so useful under Hooker, had such a falling-out over the candidacy of Wig- glesworth, whom the elder favored, as nearly to disrupt the settle- ment. To Mr. Stone's refusal to allow the society to vote on Mr. Wigglesworth, Goodwin took exception and started the breach. Mr. Stone sent in his resignation yet continued to discharge his functions and went so far as to have the church appoint a moder- ator, which in effect was the discharge of the ruling elder. Mr. Goodwin and his faction immediately withdrew. Ecclesiastical councils were held throughout New England, the Massachusetts churches appointed days of humiliation and prayer for Hartford, the interference of the General Court made matters worse, Mr.
-
1
T
FIRST CHURCH OF CHRIST, HARTFORD
105
HARTFORD COUNTY, CONNECTICUT
Stone went to Boston as though he would remain there whence he wrote letters, and finally a council held in Boston in 1659 de- cided that Elder Goodwin and party were doing nothing wrong in withdrawing to Hadley, Mass.,-whither they were accompa- nied by a few Wethersfield people-and that Mr. Stone should continue.
The year following this settlement, Rev. John Whiting, who was born in England in 1635 but had come to America as a boy and had graduated at Harvard in 1653, was chosen for Mr. Stone's colleague. He was the son of Maj. William Whiting, one of the foremost men of the colony from its founding till his death in 1647. Mr. Stone died July 20, 1663. His epitaph calls him "New England's glory and her radiant crowne;" the last line reading :
"Hartford, thy richest jewel 's here interred."
He also was only 61. When Mr. Stone's first wife died in 1640 Mr. Hooker wrote to Rev. Mr. Shepard that she "smoaked out her days in the darkness of melancholy." His son by her was graduated at Harvard and later received his degree at Cam- bridge, England. His son Samuel went to Harvard and after- wards was colleague of Rev. Gershom Bulkeley in Wethersfield, preached in Simsbury and Middletown, became dissipated, haunted Hartford taverns and in 1683 fell into Little River after a carouse and was drowned-according to Rev. Mr. Whiting's letter to Increase Mather. Mr. Stone's daughters married well.
Again it should be kept in mind that no special incidents of the colonial days should be taken from their settings. The hand- ful of immigrants had not conquered the wilderness in the first twenty or sixty years. Life was drab. A new element was sought to help in the physical labors; there had to be a lowering of "admission" tests. Reference has been made to the strength- ening of the liquor laws and to the development of the house of correction. There were the beginnings of the evils which were to sweep the new Eldorado and constitute a problem of varied guise today. If there is any opportunity for comparison in mod- ern ages, it must be with the development of the western regions and California, somewhat to the advantage of the eastern sec- tions.
106
HARTFORD COUNTY, CONNECTICUT
Intellectually and ecclesiastically, it should also be remem- bered, the original colonists had come to America for freedom of thought, and they intensively cultivated freedom of expression. The church convulsion which shook every town and hamlet in New England the latter half of their first century is as difficult to analyze correctly as certain of those today will be 300 years hence. The "Half-way Covenant" uprising can be set forth in volumes by theological writers when recurring to such excite- ment as there was in Hartford-and the same with the "New Lights" in the following century. For ordinary purposes of his- tory, however, the whole may be summed up this way: The old church conception was that those baptized in infancy could be- come church members when old enough to profess their faith and to be examined by the church officials. In 1650 to 1660 the idea spread that children of such members could be baptized-indeed, would be baptized-and then when older could be admitted to membership without the old formality; they could own the cov- enant without giving proof of baptism. To the conservatives this had the appearance of a political device originating in Mas- sachusetts where church membership was the qualification for suffrage, and there was surprise that such a notion could gain ground in free Connecticut. In 1664, the new conception had gained sufficient ground to warrant the General Assembly in urging its adoption by all the churches, though not all followed such respected advice.
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.