USA > Connecticut > Hartford County > History of Hartford County, Connecticut, 1633-1928, Volume II > Part 24
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A few of the many incidents of the same general character down to the present generation may be cited to mark the contrast between the old and the new: The new church was built in 1830; Anson G. Phelps of New York gave $1,000 for the town's poor; Thomas Case of New York, in 1850, established a fund of $4,500 for the support of the ministry; in 1870 John J. Phelps of New York bequeathed $3,000 to the church; Amos R. Eno made sev- eral gifts, including the original "Sim" Woodruff house for a home for the needy; Horace Belden gave the cathedral windows and the window in memory of the ministers Dudley and Timothy Woodbridge, Samuel Stebbins and Allen McLean, and established a fund of $25,000; and further, in later years, L. S. Ellsworth gave a $5,000 fund and his wife another of like amount, and there have been a number of other gifts of from $1,000 up. A $20,000 chapel was built, mostly with a few large subscriptions, in 1920.
The Methodists held their first quarterly meeting in 1815 at Village Farms and built their church in 1840. Jeffery O. Phelps
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was a liberal supporter. In 1883 it received $14,500 as residuary legatee under the will of Mrs. Philomena Goddard, and there have been generous gifts since. The Baptists, Rev. Charles Willet the first pastor, built in Tariffville. When the church was burned it was rebuilt in 1876. During the controversies in 1740 some who left the parent society organized in Scotland (now North Bloom- field) the Episcopal parish of St. Andrew which in 1868 joined with the parish in Tariffville and built the present edifice. Rev. Luke Daly, in his extensive mission work around the county, brought the Roman Catholics together in 1847, and the church was built in Tariffville.
The present efficient school system, with its high school, Cen- tral School, South School and Tariffville School, began with the town vote in 1701 for a committee to arrange for a school and a teacher, who was John Slater. The schools were at the Plain and at Weatogue. The story of Westminster School is given in another section, devoted to the private schools of the county. The town, like so many others, developed its academy near the middle of the nineteenth century, but more accurately it was the select school which was kept by Rev. Samuel Stebbins to begin with and was continued by Rev. Allen McLean. Dr. Benjamin Farnam, doctor, lawyer, minister, town clerk and judge of probate, and publisher of a book on prophecies, conducted a school north of the Methodist Church. The most famous school of its time was Mc- Lean Seminary. Developed from the academy, it was opened in 1879 by Principal J. B. McLean, grandson of the minister, on the second floor of Hop Meadow schoolhouse, whence it was moved to the house long standing in the rear of the library but at that time near the probate office. In 1887 the McLean Seminary building was erected and the school continued till the high school plan was adopted in 1902.
The high school was so well established by 1905 that a large building became necessary and was forthwith provided, when S. P. Stockwell was chairman of the Town School Committee. The total cost was $55,000, of which $40,000 was contributed by one individual who would not allow the name to be known, and $13,000 by others, so that the town appropriation of $18,000 was rendered unnecessary except as an indication of public sentiment. A. T. Pattison was chairman of the building committee. The
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structure, of English Gothic architecture, is exceptionally hand- some, well located and finely equipped. It was opened Decem- ber 27, 1907, Hon. George P. McLean presiding at the exercises. Rev. J. B. McLean was superintendent of schools and Anson Wood Belding the principal.
The excellent free library, presided over by Miss Julia E. Pattison, dates back to 1873, when the young people meeting for mutual improvement felt the need of books and Amos R. Eno gave $3,000 for the cause. The following year rooms were procured in the Hop Meadow schoolhouse. Later the need of a place for more books, and for valuable historical relics, in which the town abounds, and for which there is the encouragement of an excel- lent historical society, caused Mr. Eno to give $10,000 for a build- ing well adapted for the purpose. This was dedicated January 29, 1890, Ralph H. Ensign, president of the board of trustees, pre- siding. William P. Eno, in the absence of his father, the donor, gave the deed and $5,000. The donor wrote: "We boys of old Simsbury had enough to do in our boyhood and no time for mis- chief, and that was to us a great gain. If we had any spare time, there was always the bush pasture challenging us in the field." Besides Mr. Ensign the officers were: Horace Bel- den, treasurer; A. G. Case, secretary; the trustees were the offi- cers and Rev. J. B. McLean, Rev. J. L. Tomlinson, Rev. C. P. Croft, William Whitehead, George C. Eno, and A. L. Eno, all of Simsbury, and Amos R. Eno, of New York. Mr. Eno also gave fourteen oil paintings and engravings. William Whitehead was librarian.
The beautiful street was further graced when six years later, on land given by Jeffery O. Phelps, the Casino was built by sub- scription, facing the library.
In every way Simsbury has helped maintain the record of the colony and the state. Her men were at Crown Point in the French and Indian war and at the capture of Montreal. Noah Humphrey was in command of a company in General Lyman's regiment on the costly Havana expedition; his brother Nathaniel was an ensign in the same command. At Lexington alarm in 1775, a company of 100 men under Maj. Elihu Humphrey
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marched to Cambridge, and on the regular call Capt. Abel Petti- bone's company of seventy-five responded. Of the 1,149 men in the Eighteenth Regiment of Militia, commanded by Col. Jona- than Humphrey, 267 were in the Continental army in 1777; Simsbury contributed more than three-quarters of that regi- ment, and in 1778 all the men were under Wolcott in the New York campaign. Another company was raised by Capt. Noah Phelps, later major-general. The account of the departure of the first company for the war is given in the general history. In the War of 1812 Capt. Sereno Pettibone's artillery company did service at New London. In the Civil war the enthusiasm and loyalty were reflected in the accounts published in the Hartford papers. In all about 200 men were enrolled. Joseph R. Toy, captain in the Twelfth Connecticut, died in the service. The local post is named in his memory. Capt. C. W. Morse of the Sixteenth was wounded at Antietam and he and First Lieut. Alonzo G. Case, with other Simsbury men, were among those captured at Plymouth. In the Spanish war Simsbury was rep- resented in K Company of the First Connecticut Infantry. On the formation of the Connecticut State Guard, just as America was entering the World war, the Simsbury company under Capt. John E. Eno was one of the first to be enrolled and was one of the most enthusiastic in its drills. Other officers were Lieuten- ants George E. Pattison, lately senator from this district, and Henry E. Elsworth. Most liberal support was given the Red Cross and the Liberty Loan movements. Men who saw service overseas were in the One Hundred and Second Infantry and the One Hundred and First Machine Gun Battalion.
For industries the Farmington River at this point furnished remarkable water power, yet Simsbury was not predestined for a manufacturing center. Thomas Barber put up a grist mill on Hop Brook in 1679. Samuel Higby first in 1728 and Rev. Tim- othy Woodbridge some years afterward, as elsewhere related, came near giving the town the distinction of making iron into steel. It was twelve years after Higby's failure that Thomas Fitch and others, Mr. Woodbridge as scientist, almost but not quite succeeded. When England's attitude compelled Americans to manufacture or go without necessities, wire-making was car-
TYPICAL TOBACCO PLANTATION
From surrounding hills these net-covered acres look like chains of lakes
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ried on at the falls in the river, and more of that kind of industry, supplemented by the card mills of Elisha Phelps and others, was developed on Hop Brook. Clark & Haskell and Thomas Case were engaged in the manufacture of cards. Tinware for peddlers in the earlier 1800s made good business for Titus Barber.
The mining of copper in Granby and the subsequent utilization of the plant as Newgate Prison, narrated further on and in the Revolution part of the general history, gave the original town prominence but the greatest benefit Simsbury itself ever derived from it was the Ensign-Bickford establishment of today. It requires a moment of thought to realize what the invention of a safe fuse for the setting off of a blast meant to humanity. The number of lives that had been lost and of enterprises that had had to be abandoned through lack of proper device was many at the time William Bickford of Cornwall, England, in 1831, invented a fuse that served the purpose and through improvements by his successors became one of the boons of modern industry. The manufacture in this country began at Newgate in 1836, under the direction of Richard Bacon, who eventually sold his interests to Rev. Joseph Toy of the English Cornwall and the works were removed to the site of the present large plant on Hop Brook in Simsbury. The company was known in England and America as the Toy-Bickford, with product much in demand. In 1863 Ralph Hart Ensign, descendant of Joseph Ensign of Hooker's party of founders and of William Whiting, long one of the colony's chief advisers and governor in 1709, went with the company, after having had experience in the tobacco business in Suffield and Tariffville. He married the daughter of Mr. Toy and in 1870 became a member of the firm, the name of which was changed to Ensign, Bickford & Company in 1887 with a branch in California and doing the largest fuse business in America with Mr. Ensign as manager. On the death of Mr. Ensign, who also was president of the Hartford County Mutual Fire Insurance Company and a director in other institutions in Hartford, he was succeeded by his son, Joseph R. Ensign, the present president and a contributor to the town's welfare.
A thriving concern which dates from relatively remote an- tiquity is that of Woods Chandler & Company. It is the direct successor of the grist mill which Amos Tuller obtained privilege
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to establish in 1670. The property passed from the family in 1844 when E. B. Goodwin and Norris Case bought it. They sold it to Joseph R. Toy and after his death in 1864 it came into the hands of Ralph H. Ensign and since 1918 has been the property of Woods Chandler & Company.
The tremendous water power at Tariffville, where the Farm- ington, after its long search along the Talcott range to find an opening, forces its way through the hills in its rush toward the Connecticut, has turned the wheels of several industries and now contributes to the strength of its rival, electricity, through the power house of the Hartford Electric Light Company. In 1827 a prosperous carpet company was established by H. K. Knight. This was succeeded by the Hartford Carpet Company which had its main plant at Thompsonville. The factory, burned in 1865, was rebuilt by the Connecticut Screw Company of which Ezra Clark of Hartford was president. In 1880 the Hartford Cutlery Com- pany was utilizing the power. When that failed the Hartford Silk Company took over the works and continued till wrecked by T. F. Plunkett in 1886. Frank Wilkinson of England bought the plant in 1891 for the manufacture of plush goods and shawls. There is today the Tariffville Oxygen and Chemical Company, but the chief industry is tobacco raising.
One of the American Sumatra Tobacco Company's plantations is in Tariffville, the P. Lorillard Leaf-Top Company has a branch in East Granby, and there are the A. T. Pattison Farms at Terry Plains. Ariel Mitchelson was a promoter of tobacco culture in Tariffville. Mr. Mitchelson, who traveled extensively, made one of the most valuable coin collections in the world which, at his death in 1924, was given to the State Library.
The Simsbury Bank and Trust Company, token of pros- perity, was incorporated in 1917 with a capital of $75,000. It now has savings deposits of $1,058,000 and commercial deposits of over $310,000. Woods Chandler is the president and George E. Pattison is the secretary and treasurer.
Simsbury proper comprises 20,000 acres, has a population of 3,000 in its one voting district, 1,000 school children, a grand list of nearly $10,000,000, no debt, a tax rate of only 12 mills, and stations of the Central New England and the New York, New
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THE PHELPS MANSION, SIMSBURY
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Haven & Hartford Railroad. From its Talcott Range and the river on the east to its rolling hills on the west, it is parklike everywhere. Between Weatogue and West Simsbury, near the center of the town, is Simsbury Forest, which now has been offi- cially designated a state preserve of 130 acres. Descending the mountain road from the east, one beholds the wonderful pan- orama of the valley and, crossing the river, finds himself in the quaint original village of Weatogue, its somewhat obsolete rail- road station, post office, lunch room and former homesteads or summer residences of wealthy people all in an unpretentious New England harmony. Here is the soldiers' monument and on the village green a memorial to Dr. R. A. White, the physician of the town for more than fifty years. The road winds slightly up the hill through Simsbury Main street (the station to the southward), on by the public buildings and homesteads northeasterly to Tariff- ville and the Granbies, parallel with the river. Side roads lead to McLean's Hill, to Phelpscroft and to other delightful locations, each with its own charm of woods and fertile fields.
In Weatogue was the residence of Rev. D. Stuart Dodge, an estate two miles across with miles of picturesque drives. Chinook Lodge, residence of his eldest son, Walter Phelps Dodge, adjoined this, with a wonderful view of the old homestead, birthplace of William Walter Phelps, who was the brother-in-law of Rev. Mr. Dodge. Frank Phelps Dodge, another son, built his house there in the mid-'90s, restoring enough of the old mansion to serve as an antiquity. He had assisted his cousin, Miss Grace Dodge of New York, in establishing the home "Woodside," where tired teachers might rest. This was formerly the Deacon Wilcox place. Rev. Charles P. Croft lived in his wife's ancestral house, the home of her grandfather, renewed and beautified. Across from the rail- road station was the old Pettibone tavern, later the summer home of Appleton R. Hillyer of Hartford. Rev. Mr. Croft bought the old Humphrey homestead near it and restored it. Miss Antoinette Phelps of Hartford had her summer home on the "street" with a delightful retreat on the mountainside. Sally Pratt McLean, writer of "Cape Cod Folks" and other popular novels, lived at her father's home.
Of the many fine residences along the "street," the Phelps
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home is one of the most noted. On the east side, north of the crossing, it was built in 1771 by Elisha, brother of Maj .- Gen. Noah Phelps. Till 1850 it was a hotel and its fame spread far. Jeffery O. Phelps, 3rd, grandson of Judge Jeffery O. Phelps, inherited it in 1879. He was born in the house in 1858, one of a family which includes today Mrs. Harriette P. Eno, Mrs. James K. Crofut and Mrs. Joseph R. Ensign. He served in the Legis- lature, as did his father, was state commissioner on domestic ani- mals, was one of the first to raise pure Jersey herds on his dairy farm, and was judge of probate for twenty-one years at the time of his death in 1928. In Hartford business, he was president of the Blodgett & Clapp Company. The old house is remarkable for the way in which it was built and as the scene of many festivities. One of these was the occasion of four weddings at the same time. Gen. Charles T. Hillyer was one of the grooms. Grooms at other weddings there were Jonathan Pettibone, William Mather and Frederick Jewett.
The estate of Senator McLean, extending toward the north- west up to the region of Granby's Barn Door hills, embraces 280 acres of actual dairy farm and 4,000 acres of reserve, with trout ponds and waterfalls in among the hills and rocks, for the senator is a great lover of nature and of animals. He proposes to spend his life here after his term in Washington expires in 1929-by his own choice. He was born on the place in 1858, son of Dudley B. McLean and grandson of the minister so greatly beloved. In his early days he was conspicuous in legal and political circles in Hartford, was representative and senator, United States district attorney and governor. His first term in the United States Senate began in 1911. But his chief joy has been in this estate. His herds include some of the most valuable animals in the country and he says:
"It doesn't cost any more to raise healthy cows, and they don't eat any more. And besides, it's a little more fun. It's as thrilling as a horse race. There's always the chance of producing a heifer that will be a world-beater-of course we never do-but there are always more coming."
The senator's residence was built in 1895 among the maples his father set out and close by the ancestral home.
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O
HOME OF SENATOR GEORGE P. MCLEAN, SIMSBURY
SENATOR GEORGE P. MCLEAN AT HIS HOME, SIMSBURY
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Mrs. Antoinette Eno Wood lives on her beautiful estate, her residence facing on the "street." She is a daughter of Amos R. Eno. Like his cousin, John J. Phelps, Mr. Eno began his career in the store of Caleb Goodwin in Hartford, whence he went to New York and in partnership with Mr. Phelps became a leader in the commercial life of the country. Both showed their devotion to the home town, as have their families. Mr. Eno's wife was Jane, daughter of Elisha Phelps, and his children, besides Mrs. Wood, were Amos F., Mrs. Mary Pinchot (mother of Governor Gifford Pinchot of Pennsylvania), Dr. Henry C., John C. and William P. Eno. Mr. Eno, whose benefactions have been noted, left $25,000 for a monument here and $7,000 for the Congrega- tional Church.
Mrs. Arthur M. Dodge, who died when visiting her son in France in 1928, had a residence here. Daughter of Marshall Jewell of Hartford, who was minister to Russia, postmaster-gen- eral and governor, she was much with him in his public life, was prominent in New York circles where she was president of the Jewell Day Nursery and nationally prominent in that field of endeavor, and for some time was president of the national associa- tion opposed to woman suffrage.
Rev. Charles E. Stowe, son of Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Rev. Horace Winslow, chaplain of the Fifth Connecticut Volun- teers in the Civil war, were of the clergymen who were drawn to Simsbury. Among names remembered with pride are those of Maj. Elihu Humphrey of the French and Indian wars; Col. David Humphrey, Washington's aid (cited in the chapter on "Hartford Wits" in the general history) ; President Heman Humphrey of Amherst College (1823-1845) ; George Hayes, ancestor of Pres. Rutherford B. Hayes; Oliver Brownson, composer and teacher of sacred music, and his son, Chief Judge Greene C. Brownson of the Supreme Court of New York; Bishop Alexander V. Griswold of the Episcopal Church; Congressman Elisha Phelps; Secretary of the State and Historian Noah A. Phelps; J. C. Eddy, leader among pomologists, and Governor and Congressman John S. Phelps of Missouri.
Of the towers on the mountain mention will be made in the section of the history devoted to Farmington and Avon.
25-VOL. 2
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THE GRANBIES
Salmon Brook, the two considerable branches of which draw from the many springs in the northern section of the original Simsbury, gave its name to the region which was the least invit- ing for the pioneers. Aside from the salmon in the streams, there was little to attract and much to repel, not only in the ungracious topography and forbidding rocks and chasms-now so popular with lovers of scenery-but in the predatory acts of the natives on the remote outskirts of Simsbury. It was a case of the survival of the fittest which largely accounts for the fact that the chief product of the section ever since has been able men. The terri- tory was all a part of the belongings of John Griffin of Windsor and his associates. Griffin's lodge in 1664 was at the "falls," now in East Granby, a mile north of Tariffville. Among those who braved the wilds were Joseph Sanford and the storied Daniel San- ford who, sitting by his tavern door in his autumn of life, enter- tained his listeners with the account of his capture by the Indians, his being driven to Canada, his running the gauntlet, his being sold to a Montreal Frenchman, his buying his freedom and his return to Granby and his astonished family after an absence of seven years. He died in 1756 and his grave in Salmon Brook Cemetery is marked.
By 1836 the number of families had increased to about thirty or what they considered enough for two ecclesiastical societies, the Northeast and the Northwest of Simsbury, or Salmon Brook and Turkey Hills, and there was also the "Falls." Reason for the name of "Turkey Hills" has not remained so obvious as the reason for the picturesque landmark "Barn Door Hills" in the southern part of the town. Church-building, as with most other societies in the land where freedom-of-thought was the shibboleth, was the apple of discord. After "winter privileges" were obtained be- cause of the long and toilsome trail to the mother church, the loca- tion of a site the shortest distance from the greatest number be- came a fine question ; objection to compulsory travel through the woods two miles suddenly became as keen as aversion to going through snowdrifts eight miles or more. As not infrequently, the General Court's arbitrators had to determine the site, and their divining rod pointed to what in time was called Seminary Hill, at Salmon Brook; in 1775 the building was removed to a site desig-
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SWEET FARMHOUSE, HOTEL AND STORE, GRANBY, 1875 A typical New England country center of that period yielding to the new order
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nated by more arbitrators, ten miles to the north, and that had to yield to a third, in 1834, the site of the present First Society's house. Rev. Joseph Strong was not settled till 1752, but even that was before the site matter was decided. Joseph Holly suc- ceeded him, 1784 to 1793, and then Isaac Porter, pastor and like- wise disciplinarian for thirty-eight years.
The South Society came into existence in 1872, at Salmon Brook, by reason of the undebatable fact that the two-mile road to the sightly First Church was execrable; new churches and not smooth roads which lead the motorists from the sanctuary marked the stage of progress in that century. The new society utilized the building of the Granby Library Association. This association, typical of the kind of men and women Granby was maturing, had grown from a sort of sewing-society beginning and had been fostered both by those who had remained at the old elm-shaded homesteads and by those who had risen in the outside world till, at about the time the church society was formed, a good two-story building had been erected, and in this was ample room for the society's early meetings. It was established as a public library in 1887.
The actual incorporation of the town was in 1786-26,000 acres taken from Simsbury. Neither steam whistle nor trolley rattle has disturbed it, but its roads are on the favorite line of many motorists today. Its grand list, by farms, is $1,300,000.
The fighting instinct, developed in the days when all had to defend themselves in the old block-house of 1708, "Shaw's Fort," on Salmon Brook Street, was strong throughout the almost con- tinuous wars of that century. For the Havana expedition in 1762, the section furnished fourteen men of whom only Andrew Hillyer of East Granby and Dudley Hays lived to return. For the Ticonderoga expedition several marched with Captain Phelps and continued in the service. A goodly number of men went forth for the Civil war. In 1868 a brownstone monument in honor of the soldiers was erected at the northern end of Salmon Brook Street. The story of the World war is made a part of the general county history of the time. Especially reminiscent of the old spirit was the drilling of the company of the State Guard, under Capt. James Lee Loomis of high position in the office of the Con- necticut Mutual Life Insurance Company and now its president,
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with Lieutenants F. H. Kendall and P. E. Devnew. Bus trans- portation was always in readiness for any part of the county.
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