USA > Connecticut > Hartford County > History of Hartford County, Connecticut, 1633-1928, Volume II > Part 26
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SARAH WHITMAN HOOKER HOUSE, WEST HARTFORD, 1740
CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH, WEST HARTFORD
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HARTFORD COUNTY, CONNECTICUT
their edifice, still their home, in 1858 on Farmington Avenue, a short distance west of the first sanctuary of the Congregational Church. Rev. Dr. Elisha Cushman, long editor of the Christian Secretary of Hartford, was called to be pastor. The present rec- tor is Rev. Ellis Gilbert.
Progress of the years has but emphasized the wisdom of the settlers in selecting the site for their church. Main Street ran toward Windsor on the north and New Britain on the south, cut here by the other broad highway from Hartford to Farmington. These four corners are just at the top of the rise of the land from Trout Brook on the east. The green to the south, on both sides of which Main Street runs, adds to the effect of expansiveness. The stone church on the southeast corner and the old one on the diagonally opposite one, and the post office and general store on the southwest corner, made a nucleus for public buildings being erected in these later years. To the south are the new town hall, connected with the old church, and down South Main Street, across Farmington Avenue, the Masonic Temple, St. James' Church and the William H. Hall High School; to the west, the Baptist Church, the theater and by next summer (1929) the new post office building at the corner of LaSalle Street; to the north the Noah Webster Library and near it, on Brace Street, the Fire Department building; to the east, across North Main Street, the appropriately designed new structure of the West Hartford Trust Company. This company was organized in 1926 with a capital of $100,000 and already has savings bank deposits of half a million and commercial deposits of a million, itself an evi- dence of the prosperity of the community whose income is largely from dairy farms and from the new mercantile establishments undreamed of before the war.
There is a fast-developing but remote manufacturing section, Elmwood, to which South Main Street leads. It is at the point where the railroad cuts through the town and, but for the Good- win Brothers' pottery plant, was long in changing at all from its pastoral character. Now it is held by the advance-guard of in- dustries moving down through Parkville from Hartford, along the line of the railroad. The New Departure Manufacturing Company of Bristol has established a large branch there, as have the H. B. Beach & Son boiler works of Hartford, and there are
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lesser concerns among the old florists' greenhouses and the dairy farms. The fine plant of the Jewell Belting Company which re- moved here from Hartford is now being abandoned, the historic corporation retiring from business. On the way to Elmwood and both sides of New Britain Avenue which intersects it are the large Charles M. Beach dairy farm and others.
The first school, 1745, was built at the northeast corner of Main Street and Farmington Avenue. In 1780 schools were built, one near the present Duffy farm on North Main Street, one beyond Albany Avenue which parallels Farmington Avenue to the north, and one at the south end. Consolidation of dis- tricts under town management was effected in 1884. The high school was organized in 1872 with William H. Hall as principal and for twenty-four years occupied one room in the Center School building near where the trust company's building is. In 1896 this school building was abandoned for the seemingly spa- cious one on Raymond Road for both the Center School and the high school. This was utilized wholly for the high school in 1910 when the new grammar school building was built close by. The demand for the modern and properly equipped high school build- ing, and with arrangement also for the junior high school, was met when the present structure was dedicated October 29, 1924, and was named the William H. Hall High School in recognition of what Mr. Hall had done for the schools. The educational plans call for the expenditure of large amounts in the immediate future.
Mr. Hall, now in his eighty-fourth year, with his associates carried through such plan of construction that, in addition to the high school, there are the James Talcott Junior High School in Elmwood with elementary department, the Fern Street School, the Beach Park School, the Charter Oak School on Flatbush Ave- nue, the Seymour Avenue School, the West School on Mountain Road and the Alfred Plant Junior High School, adjoining the old East School on Whiting Lane, now being doubled in size. Alfred Plant, member of the School Committee, had been active in pro- curing this school. Lloyd H. Bugbee, formerly principal of the high school, is now the superintendent, Mr. Hall having been re- tained as superintendent emeritus but by request continuing to
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WILLIAM H. HALL
For fifty-six years connected with the Pub- lic Schools in West Hartford, his native town
WILLIAM H. HALL HIGH SCHOOL, WEST HARTFORD
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act in associate capacity. George E. Jones, chairman of the School Committee, is also entitled to much credit for the great work that is being done.
President Olds of Amherst when conferring upon him the de- gree of master of arts in 1887 said of William Hutchins Hall that he was the most-loved man of West Hartford. Son of Ed- win Hall, he was born on a Fern Street farm in 1845 and at- tended the Center School, the old academy which stood on South Main Street, the Monson Academy in Monson, Mass., and Am- herst College till failing health compelled him to desist. His work for West Hartford began with his appointment as princi- pal of the Center and the high schools in 1872 and also as acting school visitor. At the death of his father, he gave up teaching but continued on the board, of which he became president. As superintendent he served from 1897 to 1922. He was a member of the Legislature in 1878 and later of the Constitutional Con- vention. Withal he was prominent in Sunday School organiza- tion around the state and editor of the paper devoted to the cause. As secretary of the Council of Religious Education (today a de- partment of the Hartford Seminary Foundation), he lectured and traveled, attending national and international conventions. Also he was associated with schools in Maine and Massachusetts for religious training. For ten years he urged the wisdom of bringing all the West Hartford schools under town control and when he saw that brought about in 1884, he counted it as sure promise of what today is seeing achieved. At the present time he teaches local history to the pupils of the fifth grade and civics to those of the sixth.
Noah Webster was a promoter of the first library. It was a community association with paying members and strict regula- tions. Judging by the records, the secretary of the association never had seen Webster's Spelling Book. The beneficence of James Talcott of New York, a native of West Hartford, provided suitable quarters at the Congregational Church. It became a free library in 1883. In the early 1900s the Daughters of the American Revolution agitated the subject of a building in mem- ory of Noah Webster and the building previously referred to was the outcome. There are some 10,000 volumes in the library, under the charge of Miss Margery Burditt.
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The birthplace of Noah Webster is located on South Main Street.
Elizabeth Park, Charter Oak Park and several of the institu- tions of Hartford are in West Hartford, as has been seen. Many acres are utilized by golf clubs. The latest one to be organized within the town is the Rockledge Country Club on Sherman Acres, South Main Street. There are children's playgrounds at Fern Street and Seymour Avenue schools. Mr. and Mrs. Fred C. Rockwell in 1927 made a conditional gift of four acres for a park along Trout Brook, north of Farmington Avenue.
West Hartford's part in the wars is, in main, included in Hartford's, given elsewhere. Especially interesting, in the Rev- olution period, is the account of the detention of Governor Skene of Vermont at the Sarah Whitman Hooker House on New Britain Avenue which Mrs. Ralph E. Gerth has given to the town to be restored and devoted to the use of patriotic organizations. In the old North Cemetery is a boulder provided by the Sarah Whitman Hooker Chapter, D. A. R., to the memory of men of Rochambeau's forces who were stricken with smallpox when marching through to New York and died at quarters provided for them on Talcott Mountain. In the Civil war, Assistant Sec- retary of the Navy William Faxon was of an old West Hartford family. In the World war over 300 were enrolled, credited to this or to other towns from which they went. Leonard H. F. Wessel, son of A. C. Julius Wessel, was awarded the Distin- guished Service Cross. He was in the One Hundred and Four- teenth Infantry and, as a runner at Verdun in October, 1918, performed duty for three days under heavy shell fire without rest, continuing to carry messages after the relay stations had been wiped out. The post of the American Legion, which as an organ- ization is doing excellent civic service and is planning to have a building near the corner of Seyms Street and Isham Road, is named after Waldo C. Hayes of the One Hundred and First Ma- chine-Gun Battalion, who was killed in action, and Francis Vel- hage of the navy, who also gave his life. The company formed for the First Infantry, State Guard, drilled first in the old town hall and then in the cavalry armory on Farmington Avenue. Oliver R. Beckwith was captain and W. J. Craig and H. J. Swey- gartt were lieutenants.
F
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NOAH WEBSTER (1758-1843)
NOAH WEBSTER'S BIRTHPLACE, WEST HARTFORD
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HARTFORD COUNTY, CONNECTICUT
The population of the town at its incorporation was about 4,000. Solomon Flagg was the first selectman at that time and John Whitman, clerk. Leonard Buckland, postmaster and store- keeper, was clerk from 1861 till his death in 1895. Mr. Whit- man's nephew, Henry C. Whitman, held the office thirty years up to the present year of 1928 when he announced that he would not again be a candidate. His service covered a period of great changes. The population figure which had been falling away advanced from 1,900 in 1890 to 3,200 in 1900 and today is about 18,000. A considerable portion of the citizens are retired busi- ness men or are engaged in business in Hartford. That it has become so popular for suburban residence has been due not only to its attractive home-sites but to its form of local government. The number of building permits the first six months of 1928 was 608, representing $3,300,000. The grand list is $53,000,000. Periodically for several years there were petitions for annexa- tion to the mother town of Hartford, between which and Hart- ford's choice residential section the boundary line is no longer distinguishable. But latterly, with the development of the schools, fire department and policing, the coming-in of stores and places of entertainment and the alertness of the Chamber of Commerce, less is heard of merger further than to become a part of the proposed Metropolitan District. Much of the Hart- ford reservoir system is in the town which gets its own supply from that source, and there is community of interest in sewer- age, lighting and traffic details. There are sixty-two miles of improved streets; indeed, under A. C. Sternburg, in the early '90s, it was one of the first towns in the state to indulge in macadam.
In 1919 it was the first town in the state to adopt the town- manager form of government which two years later was changed to the still more novel form of council-manager government. Benjamin I. Miller has been the manager from the beginning. He had been first selectman, judge of probate and member of the School Board in Avon for several years, and he was chairman of the largest division of the Hartford County Draft Board in 1917. The various civic departments have been well conducted. The only question has been as to the method of election of the council. Self-announcement of candidacy and nomination on pe-
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tition, it has been held by many, is theoretically good but is not so practical as caucus nomination and party organization. By vote of the council the subject was laid before the people at No- vember elections in 1928 with the result that 4,822 voted for the change and 3,508 against it.
FARMINGTON : UNIONVILLE
Farmington is and always was pretty nearly one of the three "River Towns" of history. Close relatives of the founders of Hartford established it in orderly fashion and it became the mother of Avon, Bristol, Burlington, Plainville, Southington, New Britain (in part), Berlin, Bloomfield (in part), Harwin- ton and Wolcott, the last two now outside the county. Before the Constitution was drafted, explorers going westward beyond the West Division had found the fertile fields the other side of the mountain range, enclosed by the Pequabuck and Tunxis (Farm- ington) rivers at the point of their junction nearly at the center of the present town. In January of the year of the Constitution the "inhabitants" of the river "plantation" had asked the Gen- eral Court for enlargement of territory in that direction and a committee was sent to survey the "Tunxis Sepus" land. Sev- eral were attracted by the conditions so that as early as 1640 the charter had been granted and by 1641 William Lewis had been appointed a grand juror and by 1645 others, namely John Por- ter, Thomas Orton, William Smith and Anthony Howkins. On the east bank of the so-called Tunxis, the band of Indians by that same name, who had moved back from the presence of the white men along the river and had been allowed a reservation in this region at the time of the purchase by the Hooker party, had their main village, extending southward to the confluence of the Pequa- buck. The white men, with their blunderbusses, were welcome as defense against the Mohawks of the West, to whom the valley Indians paid tribute. Further south were the Mettabesetts.
The tract of land staked off for the Indians was the best, nor did the settlers hold the natives to the agreement to let them have the hay. The agreement, or deed, was signed by Pethus and Ahamo for the Indians and by Governor Haynes for the whites. In addition to the "Indian Neck" plot, 200 acres of upland and
TOWN HALL AND NOAH WEBSTER LIBRARY, WEST HARTFORD
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HARTFORD COUNTY, CONNECTICUT
£3 were given in 1673, at request of the Indians. The town's boundaries were carefully measured by both Indians and set- tlers,-ten miles south from Round Hill, eight west, three east and five north. Then in 1681 Massacope of the Metabesetts, for valuable considerations, gave a quit-claim deed of all the region, he himself making the rounds, and full peace was established.
Tradition, however, has brought down stories that have passed current with all their distortions. Horrible pictures have been painted of how Selectman John Hart returned home one night in 1669 (1657 or 1656 according to different writers), to find his whole family murdered and his house in flames (the town records destroyed with the rest), as penalty for which the enraged white men compelled tribute of eighty fathoms of wam- pum annually for seven years. The story by way of Boston was that in 1657 a white woman was murdered and the murderer was executed. The facts appear to be that in 1657, according to mention in the General Court records, there was a "horrid mur- der" and Masapano, an Indian from a troublesome northern tribe, was later apprehended at Hadley, Mass., and executed in Hartford. Because the Tunxis tribe had permitted the presence of "strange" Indians, contrary to warnings, its members were required to furnish eighty fathoms of wampum for eight years. To the west and north the wilds were wholly unexplored and thence marauders continued to appear. Not far from the church itself there was what originally was a small village of some in- definite tribe or mixture of tribes which became troublesome. Supposedly it was one of these who killed a woman and her serv- ant and, according to the diary of John Hull, was put to death "as a butcher fells an ox." There is no contemporary mention of the massacre of John Hart's family and the town records were not burned.
In the more alarming period of King Philip's war, the colony provided a patrol from Farmington to Litchfield and the settlers themselves prepared for defense. In 1708 "guard seats" were built in the church for details of from ten to twenty men. Desig- nated houses were provided with double doors and narrow win- dows as "forts." As further precaution, there was a check-up of the tribesmen every morning for a considerable period at the home of Deacon Lee before whose daughter the Indians passed
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in review-not at all unwillingly. In the 1730s, money was ap- propriated for "dieting" the boys who by that time were attend- ing school; each of them was allowed a shilling a week. The prospects were encouraging when a band from Stockbridge, Mass., advanced upon the Tunxis village. Unaided by the whites, the Tunxis men went north two miles to join battle. Driven back, they rallied at their burying-ground, and, their women attacking on the flanks, destroyed their enemy. After that the numbers of the Tunxis tribe began to diminish, their village was moved from the east to the west side of the river, game became scarce and the main body migrated northward and westward as did the Podunks, whose story is told on another page. Yet there' are incidents to mark that their final history was very different from that of the red men in any other town. The effort to edu- cate them was sincere. In 1733 Rev. Mr. Whitman supervised the school in which they were taught and the interested General Assembly still contributed to their support. Reciting their prog- ress in education, members of the tribe memorialized the Assem- bly and asked for a copy of the laws to guide them. At that time Joshua Johnson, a Mohegan, was the teacher, afterwards' an ordained minister in New Hampshire and instrumental in the removal of the remnants of the tribe to New York state. In 1680 the tribesmen asked for a committee to protect them in selling their property as they were about to remove to Oneida on invita- tion of the Six Nations. Their lands included about 140 acres (Indian Neck), between the river on the east and south and the Wells and Daniel Lewis farms on the north and west, which lands were divided among the thirty-seven individuals, men and women, to be disposed of. The last surviving male in Farming- ton died in 1820. The bones of many Indians were found in their old cemetery when the canal was dug in 1826; the School Society in 1840 erected a monument in the new burial-place on the banks of the river, properly inscribed in memory of the tribe and the battle.
In the list of names of original land owners appear those of several of Hartford's leading men who also held or bought rights in other new towns. Few of them removed thither. Elder Wil- liam Goodwin, after his removal to Hadley, spent his last days
THE WEST HARTFORD TRUST COMPANY, WEST HARTFORD
CENTER, WEST HARTFORD
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HARTFORD COUNTY, CONNECTICUT
here. Permission for a separate church was not secured till 1652. Roger Newton, son-in-law and pupil of Thomas Hooker, preached till he removed to Milford. His successor, from 1671 till his death in 1697, was Thomas Hooker's deeply revered son Samuel, father of a large family and ancestor of many who have gained eminence. With all its seemly beginnings, however, Farmington did not escape certain of the ecclesiastical worri- ments of the colony. Disagreement over Mr. Hooker's successor necessitated the calling upon the General Court which appointed a clerical commission the same way it was appointing the town officers, and the minister chosen by the commission must be guar- anteed a year's salary. Immediately thereafter the people be- came so eager to procure Rev. Samuel Whitman of Boston that they offered 100 per cent repayment on the shillings that should be loaned to cover expenses of messengers, and the inducements offered were exceedingly liberal. Mr. Whitman held off till the next year when the offer was increased to £200 settlement and £100 salary.
1
The first humble edifice was built on the green-then a spa- cious field, later greatly infringed upon; the second, completed in 1714, on the same grounds, had a cupola for the drummer who in 1731 was replaced by a bell, and a clock was added in 1738. The Boston method of Psalm-singing created a disturbance which culminated in 1827 in a vote for the old method. Elisha Cowles and Fisher Gay were tuners when Watts' Hymns were intro- duced in 1757. At Mr. Whitman's death in 1751 Timothy Pit- kin of East Hartford was called, son of Gov. William Pitkin, a graduate of Yale, member of the corporation there and son-in- law of President Clap of the institution. He laid the Half-way Covenant ghost with one bold stroke but became introspective and insisted upon dismissal in 1785. His feeling at his death, in retirement in 1811, was that he had outlived his generation.
Mr. Pitkin's era was marked by the erection of the present noted edifice, the admiration of architects ever since. Col. Fisher Gay, merchant, and Capt. Judah Woodruff, architect and mas- ter-builder, selected the choicest lumber from a Maine supply in Boston. The interior and the windows were changed in the prog- ress of years, but, as in the Wethersfield instance, the spire, after the Peter Wren pattern, has most fortunately remained as con- ceived. The structure was ready for occupancy in 1772. The pastorate of Allen Olcott and the attempted pastorate of Dorr
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Griffin, the talented "New Light," were stormy. Joseph Wash- burn was the incumbent from 1795 till his death at sea in 1805. His successor was Noah Porter, 1st, whose labors for sixty years made history that was more than local. The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions was organized at his house. Also he established the Sunday School Society of which he was president from 1818 till it was turned over to the church in 1837. Levi L. Paine, who came as his colleague, re- mained as the pastor from 1866 to 1870. The standard was maintained through the succeeding years, the rolls bearing the names of James F. Merriam, Edward A. Smith (father of Ernest Walker Smith and Herbert Knox Smith), George L. Clark, James Gibson Johnson and Quincy Blakely, pastor since 1905.
St. James' Parish of the Episcopal Church began as a mis- sion in charge of Rev. Edward R. Brown, established largely through the efforts of Charles L. Whitman. The first services were held in the district schoolhouse in the fall of 1873. The next year a chapel was fitted up over the post office. The church was built in 1898. The Roman Catholic parish of St. Patrick began with a mission conducted by Rev. Luke Daly of New Britain. Recently it has dedicated a beautiful stone edifice on Main Street.
The town's present perfected school system had its incipi- ency in the vote for a school in 1683 with a rate of 4 shillings a pupil. In 1685 it was voted to hire for £30 a schoolmaster to teach children to "read and wright and to teach the grammer and also to step into the pulpit" should there be need. A building was put up on the church green in 1687 and notice was given that the school was only for "male children that are throw their korning book." Many of the towns where records are fairly complete bear out the evidence noted in the history of Hartford that up to the nineteenth century the emphasis was on male edu- cation ; girls were to spin, weave and in later days to embroider and paint.
The school society, formed under the legislation of 1795, adopted regulations drawn up by John Treadwell which after- wards were given legislative approval for the whole state. Many
THE WHITMAN HOUSE, FARMINGTON
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HARTFORD COUNTY, CONNECTICUT
of the small schools scattered around the town are in existence today, like the South School now owned by Mrs. John J. Curtin, the North School owned by D. Newton Barney and occupied by Charles Grimes, the Scott's Swamp School belonging to Miss Mabel Bryan and the East Farms School which only recently passed out of the possession of the Center District. The desire for a higher grade school found expression in 1816 in the action of an association which subscribed a thousand dollars to which the school society added some $700. The "academy" which was prepared accommodated the school for more than twenty years, during most of which time Simeon Hart was principal, or until he retired to conduct a boarding school, aided by Edward Lucas Hart. The Academy occupied only the lower room. When the academy closed, this room was used for town meetings and gen- eral purposes till the Ladies' Benevolent Society transformed it. It was known at one time as the chapel and then as the Society House. Miss Pope used it for a sewing and cooking school, after Miss Porter's pupils had founded Farmington Lodge Society in her honor in 1886 and had dedicated Farmington Lodge in her memory in 1901. The academy building has since been used as a meeting place for the grange.
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