USA > Connecticut > Hartford County > History of Hartford County, Connecticut, 1633-1928, Volume II > Part 20
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There was Baptist preaching in the town as early as 1790 but not till 1827 was the first pastor ordained, Rev. Gurdon Robbins. The present church was dedicated in 1874, during the pastorate of Rev. Russell Jennings.
The Second Congregational Church was organized in Wap- ping, after sundry trying experiences. "Winter privileges," to be sure, had been secured by the little band of settlers west of the Podunk back in 1761, fifty-six years after any one had ventured there to live. These settlers were particularly notable in history because they established their little government on a military plan and became known as "Wapping Soldiers." Sergt. Samuel Smith was lieutenant commanding and Edward C. Grant ensign at the time they went to the Assembly with complaint, in 1771. Affairs had been conducted in "peace and good order" till an ecclesiastical controversy arose. Grant headed one faction and Smith the other. When there were men enough for a company, Grant, "contrary to expectation," got thirty-four votes, a majority of one, and that one was cast by Rouse, a newcomer, "a stranger of no interest." A new election was asked for, but apparently the request was not granted.
Moses Tuthill held services here for a time after graduating at Yale in 1745, and married Rev. Timothy Edwards' superbly intellectual daughter Martha. When he had requested of her father the privilege of becoming a suitor, the great dominie, aware of her eccentricities, ventured a doubt as to the suitability of the match.
"Why," exclaimed the ardent young man, "has she not experi- enced religion ?"
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"Ah, she surely has, Brother Tuthill," was the solemn reply, "but you must know that the grace of God will dwell where neither you nor I could."
The half-way parish continuing, no church was organized till 1830; the building for services was begun in 1801 by inhabitants without regard to creed, Congregationalists to buy out the others whenever they saw fit. The structure was not completed till 1832 when the first regular preacher was Rev. Henry Morris. The Baptist Church was organized in 1823, three years after Rev. William Bentley had begun preaching there. While the Congre- gationalists were building their new house in 1846, they wor- shiped in the Baptist Church and thereafter united in the new structure. The Episcopalians in 1864 to 1866 shared in this com- munity of interests. Among the early preachers was V. Osborn whose vehemence for Methodist principles was so strong that he was expelled. Forthwith he gathered eight sympathizers who established the Methodist Church of Wapping, building a meeting- house in 1833.
East Windsor Hill is a unique feature of South Windsor. It is a plateau only half a mile in length between the Scantic and Taylor's Brook, traversed by a straight, wide street beautifully shaded. It always has been graced by fine residences, and in for- mer days there were Capt. Aaron Bissell's tavern, notable stores, the academy, and the theological institute which was to become the Hartford Seminary Foundation of today. One of the finest resi- dences was that of John Watson, merchant.
Within a radius of a few miles, the whole territory, glorious with fertile fields and noble trees, is rich in tradition and his- torical reminiscence. Samuel Grant, son of Matthew, early moved to this side of the river, building near the ferry and then in 1697 erecting the house now standing in South Windsor Street where he died in 1718. It is the ell of the house Ebenezer Grant built in 1757 and has remained in the family down through the years. Capt. Ebenezer Grant, graduate of Yale in the class of 1726, was one of the most enterprising of the many who engaged in foreign trade, owned his ships and built not a few of them at the mouth of the Scantic. He survived Rev. Timothy Edwards by many years and continued active in church work. His second wife was the widow of Capt. David Ellsworth, mother of Chief Justice
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Oliver Ellsworth. His fortune was wiped out by the Revolution- ary war. Noah Grant, great-grandfather of President Grant, was born in this house and lived here till he removed over the eastern hills to Tolland. Capt. Roswell Grant, son of Ebenezer, married the granddaughter of Governor Roger Wolcott. Maj. Fred W. Grant did much to preserve and beautify the old place.
Less than a mile below the Grant "mansion," on the east side of the street, was the parsonage of Rev. Timothy Edwards. On the Grant estate of 1680, on the west side of the street, is the house of Dr. Matthew Rockwell (physician, clergyman and deacon ) built in 1750, a type of the most substantial houses of these prosperous people. To the south and on the opposite side of the road is the Gov. Roger Wolcott place, south of the road that crosses the main street from the east and continues to the river, formerly known as "governor's road," leading to the ferry which in 1735 had been granted him as a favor. (Sketches of the Wolcotts are in the preceding chapter on Windsor).
The site of the birthplace of John Fitch, who first employed steam for the propulsion of water craft, is very near the East Hartford line. The story of the life of this great genius is given in the general history. The town also was the birthplace of Eli Terry, the renowned Plymouth clockmaker, and of Daniel Bur- nap whose clocks were very popular.
Dr. William Wood, who was born in Waterbury in 1822, mar- ried the daughter of Erastus Ellsworth and was long a practi- tioner here. As a taxidermist and a writer on ornithology he had a national name. It is in his memory and his wife's that the Wood Memorial Library, with community and exhibition rooms, given by their son, William R. Wood, was dedicated this year, 1928. The address of presentation to Trustee Robert A. Boardman was made by Judge Ralph M. Grant, one of the most public-spirited of the descendants of the pioneers. The portraits of Mr. and Mrs. Wood which hang in the library are by Albertus E. Jones of the Hartford Art School, a native of South Windsor. The library itself was established in 1898 and is now under the charge of Miss Elizabeth Pelton as librarian and an enthusiastic committee.
Walter Loomis Newberry of Chicago, who left $4,000,000 to establish the Newberry Library in that city, was a descendant of Capt. Amasa Newberry, and was born here in 1804.
OLD GRANT MANSION, EAST WINDSOR
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The North or Scantic Parish had been organized in 1752 as the sixth Windsor society, becoming the third in East Windsor, when Ancient Windsor was divided in 1768, Ellington being the second (1735). When Ellington was incorporated as a town in 1786, the North Society became the Second of East Windsor, and when South Windsor Society was set off from East Windsor, in 1846, it became the First of modern East Windsor. A bronze tablet in memory of its pastors was unveiled at its one-hundred and seventy-fifth anniversary this year, 1928. The great-great- great-granddaughters of the first two ministers, Rev. Thomas Potwine and Rev. Shubael Bartlett, did the unveiling. The pres- ent pastor is Rev. William W. Evans. This parish was formed by those Windsor pioneers who had sought eastern territory far- ther from the river. Matthew Allyn had been permitted to push up into the "Ketch" Meadow in 1664 and in 1688 Samuel Grant, Sr., and Nathaniel Bissell were setting up a sawmill on Ketch Brook. A party of Irish, led by Rev. Mr. Mckinstry, gave the name Ireland Street to the northeast corner of East Windsor or Scantic Parish, about 1718-Thompson, McKnight, Harper, Gowdy and Cohoon among them. Today their descendants live on the land these settlers cleared for them. All journeyed far, north or south, for church; at funerals, the corpse had to be carried on shoulders of the literal bearers seven miles.
When the church society was organized in 1752 and Mr. Pot- wine-the son of a Hartford goldsmith-was called from Cov- entry, a rude church was built. In 1802 opposition to the build- ing of an addition was followed by an incendiary fire which destroyed the church. During bitter recriminations, a new church was built, under guard. Mr. Potwine died that year, broken- hearted. His successor, Mr. Bartlett, served till 1854.
This rural village has sent forth many men whose names have been known far and wide. Among them was Rev. David Ely Bartlett of the American School for the Deaf at Hartford, Loren Andrews, Horace Belknap, Henry Newton Bissell, Dr. Samuel Robbins Brown, (who translated the Bible into Japanese, married Rev. Shubael Bartlett's daughter, and on his return from his mission in China, brought home the first Chinese students to study in America), Dr. Thomas Stoughton Potwine, Dr. Increase N. Tarbox, and Rev. Dr. Samuel Wolcott. Azel S. Roe, the author,
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lived here from 1848 till his death in 1886 and wrote his famous stories for boys.
The town of East Windsor has had a library since 1849 when eighteen men associated and each took a share of stock and paid annual dues. The books were kept in the house of the librarian, in early days at Edwards A. Potwine's, later at the house on the corner known as the Spencer house, at Samuel Bartlett's and then for many years at the home of Samuel Bissell, whose son, S. Wol- cott Bissell, is the present librarian. About twenty-five years ago the surviving stockholders gave the books to be the nucleus of a public library and they were moved into the present library room. In the days before the library was receiving state and town aid, it was in effect a public library, for non-stockholders could have the privileges for a small fee. The early list of books shows how progressive the people were and how deeply interested in intel- lectual no less than material things.
The schools of the east-side parishes of Windsor went through about the same experience as those of other communities. The Academy on East Windsor Hill was opened about 1800 and in the regime of Principal John Hall, later the founder of the famous Hall School in Ellington, drew pupils from far as well as near. Eleazer T. Fitch, afterward Professor of theology at Yale, suc- ceeded him in 1809. Other principals included John H. Brock- way of Ellington who became a congressman, Gen. Nathan John- son of Hartford and Judge William Strong of the Superior Court. What with the instruction given at the new theological institute, elsewhere described, the number of pupils diminished and the academy was discontinued.
Tobacco-raising continues to be the chief source of income throughout this section of the Connecticut Valley. Marcus L. Floyd of East Windsor Hill, who died in this year 1928, was the first in the state to raise shade-grown tobacco. He came here as a government expert in 1901 and as manager of the Connecticut Tobacco Corporation, installed the first tent-growing system in this state. Not long afterwards he served as special agent under the direction of the Bureau of Corporations of the Department of Commerce and Labor in making investigations of the American Tobacco Company, the so-called trust, which resulted in the prose- cution of the company by the government. To cope with the short-
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age of unskilled labor in these parts twelve years ago, Mr. Floyd was the main mover in bringing Negro workers from the South to Connecticut tobacco fields.
Ellington's present territory to the east of East Windsor and in Tolland County was bought of the Indians by Thomas and Nathaniel Bissell in 1671 and by authority of the General Assem- bly was included within ancient Windsor's bounds. Much of this section in 1713 was mistakenly conceded to Massachusetts in the boundary controversy, as likewise a section which Windsor had bought in present Suffield. Windsor asked for an equivalent of land elsewhere, according to agreement. After six years a grant of land was allowed straight east of the Tolland line beyond Rock- ville, including Ellington. A half century passed before the Ell- ington land was taken up, but the Windsor settlers of this "Wind- sor Goshen" or the "Great Marsh" were loyal to the Windsor church, their own being organized about 1735. The plea for a separate town was not heard till 1786.
In further reference to the part played by original East Wind- sor in the Revolution it is to be said that as Connecticut was known as the "Provision State" for the American armies, so East Windsor was the "Provision Town." Samuel Wolcott, assistant commissary, scoured the state on horseback for cattle which were slaughtered on his premises by droves. At the same time he was obtaining large quantities of grain to be turned into flour for the fleet and army at Newport. One statement in account with the state in 1780 was for nearly £6,000. For beef alone in East Windsor for the Continental Army, the amount paid was over $23,000.
It was an East Windsor man, Israel Bissell, who made a ride as impressive historically as that of Paul Revere. A post rider between New York and Boston, he was chosen by the Massachu- setts Provincial Congress to carry throughout the colonies the news of the attack upon Lexington. Leaving Cambridge at 10 o'clock Wednesday morning while the fight was still on he had covered the thirty miles to Worcester before noon, was in New London Thursday evening, in New Haven early the next after- noon-in New York Sunday noon, carrying the message of the committee at Cambridge endorsed by committees of all the towns through which he had passed. Other messengers bore the docu-
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ment to Philadelphia, reaching there at 5 o'clock Monday after- noon, and from as far away as that, determined men were on the march to Cambridge.
While Governor William Franklin of New Jersey, stepson of Benjamin Franklin, who had been deposed in a popular uprising in 1776, was here as a prisoner before his exchange in 1778, he was quartered at Lieutenant Diggins' house with a juvenile guard over him. He was accompanied by several servants.
Lafayette stopped at the home of Nathaniel Porter in 1778. Dr. Horace Gillette in his "Sketches" speaks of Washington's visit to him there and says that Lafayette made trips around the state with a mounted escort, and that Mr. Porter's son was his private secretary.
In the Civil war, modern East Windsor, with a grand list of $1,214,000, sent 236 officers and men to the front out of a total of 1,500 listed men, and gave $46,000 for support of families, commutations and bounties, and South Windsor, $35,350. The latter's grand list was $1,212,000. Its volunteers numbered 188, including seven commissioned officers, six were killed and eighteen died of disease. The most distinguished officer, as seen in the general history narrative, was Col. Albert W. Drake. Many of the men from both towns were in the first three regiments and in the Twenty-first and Twenty-fifth. In the World war, there having been no local military companies, men were recruited for the One Hundred and Second and those taken in the selective draft were sent to the National Army. There were most generous responses to all calls for Red Cross material and for Liberty Loans.
In East Windsor there also are the post offices of Windsorville, Melrose, Broad Brook and Warehouse Point. Windsorville was originally Ketch Mills. Timothy Ellsworth and Thomas Potwine had a distillery there and after it was burned in 1842, Ellsworth built a woolen mill which later was sold to Henry Hollister. The mill was burned in 1889. Methodists of the town formed a society and built their church in 1829. It was burned and replaced in 1879. Melrose, now an agricultural center, and like East Wind- sor and Broad Brook on the Springfield branch of the New York, New Haven & Hartford railroad, was somewhat like Windsor- ville in its origin. Col. Francis Gowdy, who died in 1894 at the
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age of 73, with his father and John Stiles formed the firm of Gowdy, Stiles & Company for the manufacture of gin. After the Civil war all three retired with fortunes. Later Colonel Gowdy established the Francis Gowdy Distillery Company. When through with this he removed to Clinton where he died.
Broad Brook, located on the Scantic, had only fifty people in 1816-250 in 1840. In 1842 the Phelps Manufacturing Com- pany built a woolen mill which later merging, became the well- known Broad Brook Manufacturing Company. Hartford capital was much interested and prominent Hartford men, like Pres. George Beach of the Phoenix Bank, held official positions. Homer Blanchard, born in Delhi, N. Y., in 1806, the first man in America to classify wool for the manufacturers, was president of the com- any for thirty-five years. From the beginning the concern has maintained its reputation by the selection of its material and the character of its employees. The first church society was that of the Episcopalians. In 1849 the Methodists, who had organized, joined with them in building a church. The Congregational soci- ety was organized as a mission in 1851, and, membership increas- ing, an edifice was built in 1853. The present pastor is Rev. Charles H. Peck. The Broad Brook Trust Company was organ- ized in 1921 with a capital of $25,000 and in 1927 had commercial deposits of nearly $75,000. Harry C. Brook is the president.
Warehouse Point, on the main line of the New York, New Haven & Hartford railroad, is where Founder Pynchon of Spring- field, as told in the general history, built his warehouses to hold goods preparatory to being poled up the Enfield falls, the only obstruction to navigation on the way to Springfield. Until the coming of the canal and the railroad it was a busy shipping center. The Leonard Silk Company, now the Warehouse Point Silk Company, manufacturers of silk thread, established in 1874, is the chief industry. In 1802 the Episcopalians began holding readers' services. The present St. John's edifice was erected in 1809 on the common, facing north. It was considered unofficially as Union church and consecration was postponed till 1833. Gen. Charles Jencks, who had been a generous contributor, objected to the Methodist meetings there and the vote for consecration was two to one in favor of it. Then in 1844 the church was moved to its present site. The land on which the building stood was
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given to the church by Epaphras L. Phelps in 1848 and in 1863 he deeded to the parish the rest of the fine property. The Meth- odists, at the time of the consecration of the Episcopal Church, built their own.
In Warehouse Point is located the County Temporary Home where 250 children are being cared for, under the charge of Superintendent F. M. Godard. The value of the real property is $314,000. There is a school building in connection with it, to accommodate sixty children.
§
WINDSOR LOCKS: INDUSTRIOUS, PROGRESSIVE
While Ancient Windsor's large family of communities was slowly spreading out on the east side of the river, her neighboring Pine Meadow, on her own side, was waiting to commemorate with a new name the great navigation enterprise, described in the general history, which should bring commercial in addition to industrial prestige. From its situation on the Connecticut it always had had close affiliation with the towns on the east side, especially with Warehouse Point directly opposite.
A colonial tragedy was the first incident in the town's history. The territory, included in the original generous grant to Windsor, was bought about 1660 of Nehano Sachem by George Hull, Hum- phrey Pinney, Thomas Ford and Thomas Lewis for settlers among whom distribution was made. It was supposed that Great Island -somewhat further north in the river-was included in the pur- chase, but there was a series of misunderstandings about that, as will appear in the Suffield section of this history. The dis- tribution of the nearly 5,000 acres was to Governor Haynes of Hartford, who had bought a small right, John and Thomas Hos- kins and Nicholas Denslow. William Hayden and Henry Den- slow, son of Nicholas, were among the few early settlers. At the outbreak of King Philip's war, Denslow took his wife and children back to Windsor for safety. The next spring, 1676, he went up to see about his farm and was killed by renegade Indians. The site of his house today is marked by a boulder appropriately inscribed. His wife and children lived there for twelve years after his death, with Hayden their only neighbor, two miles away. The son
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remained there all his long life and his descendants continued on at the old farm. One of them, Capt. Martin Denslow, was in the French-Indian wars. The family names of other settlers recur on the rolls of all subsequent wars.
The sparse sandy plains among the trees to the westward and the small amount of open land near the river, crossed by two sizable brooks, Kettle Brook (of boundary fame) and Pine Mea- dow Brook, had no special attraction for Windsor men. Ephraim Haskell and Seth Dexter of Rochester, Mass., were willing, how- ever, in 1769, to give £340 for all of the present business portion of Windsor Locks. They turned over the land to their sons, Ephraim Haskell and Seth Dexter, and thereby gave the region an enviable start in the world. Harleigh and Harris Haskell and Seth Dexter were among the most prosperous citizens the first half of the next century and contributed generously for the church, and Charles Haskell Dexter built and ran the great Dexter paper mill till his death, serving the cause of the church all the time meanwhile. One of the early enterprises was a distillery. When Rev. Mr. Rowland of Windsor learned of it, he said, "I am glad to hear what Mr. Haskell is doing-it will make such good market for the farmers' grain."
Charles H. Dexter's experiment around 1835 in paper-making, using manilla for the first time for pulp, contributed a large share to making Hartford County one of the great paper centers of the country, and, always combining genius with industry, the concern still known as C. H. Dexter & Sons (now A. D. and H. R. Coffin) has outlived most of its old associates in various lines. Samuel Williams' paper-mill in 1832 was the first of the several that Windsor Locks has had. The Windsor Locks Paper Mills, the Windsor Paper Company and the F. Whittlesey Company along with the Dexter Company help advance the town's special industry.
Of the earlier paper-mills, the Seymour Company for years had one of the best water power privileges in New England. In 1893, the plant was under lease to Coogan & Pusey as a wool- scouring mill-a business first conducted in America by E. N. Kellogg & Company with whom Gen. H. C. Dwight of Hartford was connected. The business was made unprofitable by English competition. In 1893 Col. William C. Skinner of Dwight, Skinner
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& Company of Hartford bought the plant for his firm and organ- ized a company for the manufacture of special kinds of paper- W. C. Pusey, who formerly had been superintendent of the H. C. Coffin mills, to continue as manager. When in 1899 the Say- mour Company went into the hands of a receiver, it was succeeded by the previously mentioned Windsor Paper Company, largely through the influence of Ezra B. Bailey, long one of the town's most public-spirited men and holder of federal office in Hartford, being collector of customs. The new company, backed by Spring- field and Unionville men and run in connection with the Platner & Porter mills in Unionville, brought 300 hands.
Again recalling the old names-Haskell & Hayden's silk mill in the '30s was a most successful excursion into a then new field. Its achievement was largely due to the keen observation and experience of a member of the old family of Hayden. Jabez H. Hayden, who was born at Hayden Station in 1820, had had three years' experience in Hartford with the Connecticut Silk Company, a concern that had been subsidized by the state at the time of the silk mania. He became a power not only in the industry but as a progressive citizen. He did not retire from the business till 1880 and lived to be eighty-two, devoting much time to historical reminiscence. He was one of the founders of the Congregational Church, a member of the Connecticut Historical Society and an incorporator of the local savings bank.
To the enterprise of Windsor Locks men is due the introduc- tion into Connecticut of a very useful industry, that of cloth- dressing. Seth Dexter built the first mill for it on Kettle Brook in 1770, and so well received was the product that it flourished for half a century, carding machinery and other improvements being added.
The first factory on the canal bank was built in 1875 for Jon- athan Danforth of New York, manufacturer of butts for doors. As the years went by, the factory was used for sewing machines and other products. A concern founded in 1864 by W. G. Medli- cott, the name of which is known throughout the country, is the Medlicott Company, makers of underwear. An iron foundry was put in operation in 1844 by J. P. and H. C. Converse of Stafford, later the A. W. Converse Company. The J. R. Montgomery Com- pany, which was to become the largest manufacturer of woolen
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