USA > Connecticut > Hartford County > History of Hartford County, Connecticut, 1633-1928, Volume II > Part 28
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 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49
1100
HARTFORD COUNTY, CONNECTICUT
Mark Twain residence in Hartford. Later he built on the hill opposite.
Of artists whom Farmington has produced the most widely known was Robert B. Brandegee (1849-1922). A native of Ber- lin, he was one of "Hart's School boys." After studying art in France he had a studio in New York for fifteen years. He was instructor in art at Miss Porter's where he was like one of the family. As a portrait painter he had few equals. He took spe- cial interest in the Connecticut Society of Artists and was closely associated with Charles Noel Flagg in advancing the welfare of the Connecticut League of Art Students. He was the originator of the Farmington Magazine. One of his many pupils was Miss Helen F. Andrews of Farmington, whose Italian and Farming- ton landscapes vie with her portraits. Harold W. Douglas who came from Hartford is another local artist.
Winthrop M. Wadsworth, who had dwelt on the freehold in possession of his lineal ancestors since 1682, died in 1891 aged seventy-nine. He had been selectman and representative. He was the first president of the Connecticut Dairymen's Associa- tion, president of the Farmington Creamery Company (the first creamery in New England), president of the Union Agricultural Society of Farmington and vice president of the Connecticut Agricultural Society. He was the father of Borough Warden A. R. Wadsworth.
Amasa A. Redfield, the first senior burgess, was born in Clyde, N. Y., coming to Farmington after he had retired from law practice in New York in 1880. He was a member of the Constitutional Convention in 1902 and died that year.
Another adopted son was Alfred Atmore Pope (1842-1913) who was born in Vassalboro, Me. He was a wool manufacturer in Cleveland, O., under the firm name of Alton Pope & Sons, and was president from 1877 until the firm was dissolved. He also was interested in iron and at his death was president of the National Malleable Castings Company. At one time he was head of the Eberhard Manufacturing Company of Cleveland. He held membership in the Royal Society of Arts in London and in the American Historical Association. The love for Farming- ton on the part of his daughter, Theodate, now Mrs. John Wal- lace Riddle, artist and architect and founder of Avon Old Farms
-----
1101
HARTFORD COUNTY, CONNECTICUT
College in Avon in memory of her parents, caused Mr. Pope to remove here after his retirement from his more active duties and to create his estate, Hillstead. It was on his land that the remains of the mastodon were unearthed in the early 1900s.
Judge Edward H. Deming (1857-1928), descendant of Wethersfield and Farmington settlers, was born in Northamp- ton, Mass., but as a boy came to dwell in the Deming homestead in Farmington. After experience in business in Pennsylvania and here and as postmaster, he became assistant treasurer of the Farmington Savings Bank and treasurer in 1910, holding that office till his death. Also he was president of the Farmington Valley Mutual Fire Insurance Company, of the Union Electric Light and Power Company and of the Farmington Water Com- pany, and a director in the Phoenix State Bank and Trust Com- pany of Hartford. He was senior burgess and had served as selectman and judge of probate.
Winchell Smith, the playwright, is one of the adopted sons. He is a son of William Brown Smith, a nephew of John Brown, and of Virginia Thrall Smith, one of the founders of the Home for Crippled Children in Plainville. He was born in Hartford in 1871 and made his debut on the stage with William Gillette in "Secret Service." He began in 1906 writing plays (Brewster's Millions" first) which have increased in number almost every year and have been very popular on both sides of the water. His special delight is in the estate he has built up here.
Brian Hooker, the author and composer, of Farmington an- cestry and living here part of the time, was born in New York in 1880, received his degrees at Yale, including M. A. Honoris causa, and has been lecturer and instructor in English at both Columbia and Yale and literary editor of the New York Sun. He is best known for his poetry and musical compositions. His operas, with music by Horatio Parker, have won in the Metro- politan Opera and the American Opera Association competitions.
§ UNIONVILLE
Unionville, the industrial section of Farmington, is in the northwestern corner of the town, on the same side of the Farm- ington where it is flowing southeasterly before making its turn
1102
HARTFORD COUNTY, CONNECTICUT
northward at Farmington. It began to develop as a separate village in 1830, at the time of the canal. The Farmington River Manufacturing Company was chartered that year by Joseph Cowles, Thomas Youngs, John T. Norton and Abner Bidwell, with $200,000 capital. The Patent Wood Screw Company was incorporated the next year. This became a clock factory. The paper industry was introduced in 1837 by William Platner and S. Q. Porter. The Cowleses increased the water power and later sold power to users who organized a power company. A. S. Up- son and George Dunham made bolts, the latter, under a profit- able patent, organizing the Union Nut Company which after 1883 was the Upson Nut Company with Andrew S. Upson as president. It became one of the leading concerns of that sec- tion. The Standard Rule Company began in a small way in 1872, to be absorbed later by the nut company. The Ripley Man- ufacturing Company in 1872, taking the old screw plant, put its paper plant in operation. The Upson & Hart Company made table cutlery. A. Willard Case of Manchester, who established paper-making plants at Highland Park in South Manchester and at Burnside, made the Case Manufacturing Company a substan- tial part of his combined organizations. Charles W. House & Sons was brought here from New Jersey by the founder, Mr. House, the original manufacturer of woven felt. Being the only manufacturer in America in this line, the plant had to execute heavy orders during the World war for washers for time fuses of bombs-washers of a kind that would burn through with precision.
This the second voting district of Farmington was incorpo- rated as a borough in 1921. It was too far from Farmington borough to be dependent upon it in civic matters. Around its Tunxis Square it was a busy community in itself with little except old-time history in common with its neighbor. It had its own town hall, schools, churches, library (one of the Carnegie system, organized in 1902 as the West End Library), fire appa- ratus and police service. With the Case plant and the plant of the American Writing Paper Company, paper-making has con- tinued to predominate as an industry through the changes that have taken part in these later years. In addition to the Case plant, the Hart Manufacturing Company is making high-grade cutlery and plated ware and the Case National Patent Reed
1103
HARTFORD COUNTY, CONNECTICUT
Company is flourishing. The grand list of the borough by itself is over two and a half million dollars.
The Congregational Church was organized in 1841 and Rev. Richard Woodruff was installed the following year. The first edifice was on the park. This was succeeded by a larger one at another site; the present stone structure on Tunxis Square was built in the '80s, during the pastorate of Rev. C. S. Lane. The Episcopal parish of Christ Church was organized in 1845 but there was no rector till 1868 when Rev. E. K. Brown was in- stalled. The church was built in 1871, on Tunxis Square. The Methodists built their first church in 1865 and have just com- pleted their new stone structure and parish house. Roman Cath- olic services were held first by Rev. Luke Daly. The mission was continued as a part of St. Mary's (Farmington) parish till Rev. B. O'R. Sheridan came in 1870 and the edifice of St. Thomas was dedicated in 1876. Rev. Patrick O'Dwyer was assigned as pas- tor in 1856.
cos
AVON : TALCOTT MOUNTAIN TOWERS
Northington, the northern parish of Farmington, was incor- porated as the town of Avon in 1830, one of the gems of New England. The Talcott Range rises to the east, the meandering Farmington is its western boundary,-Burlington in 1845 having given its portion between original Avon and the river. Canton and Simsbury are to the north. The town comprises only thirty-three square miles, mostly level and fertile. The river itself turns back into the town after having described the boundary line and runs north again into Simsbury. The Talcott Range rises to its highest point in the northeastern corner of the town which has been marked by a tower since 1810 by those who appreciated that the view from the top was one of the most enchanting in America. Whittier, when living in Hartford, often sought this locality and wrote a poem in which he said of Monte Video :
"Beautiful mount! with thy waving wood,
And thy old gray rocks like ruins rude
And hoary and mossy in masses piled,
Where the heart had thrilled and the dark eye smiled -. "
1104
HARTFORD COUNTY, CONNECTICUT
Near the top of Talcott Mountain (called in colonial days Mount Philip) is a natural lake of clearest water, about a mile in circumference, some 800 feet above the Connecticut River level. Building an architecturally quaint mansion of solid ma- sonry on a western knoll that slopes down to the lake, Daniel Wadsworth, the Hartford philanthropist so prominent in the county history, here established in 1810 a summer estate which he named Monte Video. On a rocky rise to the north of it he erected a tower to command the superb view-to the east the long and romantic valley of the Connecticut, now dotted with towns and cities, the bluffs of Meriden in the southern distance and of Mounts Tom and Holyoke, either side of the river in Massachusetts, to the northward, a sweep of sixty miles in length and fully half that much to the Bolton Hills east of the river; to the west, a marvelous panorama almost from New Haven to Deerfield in Massachusetts, a good ninety miles, the charming fields of Farmington, Avon and Simsbury in the fore- ground, watered by the winding Farmington which cuts through eleven distinct towns in finding its way to the Connecticut. Mount Everett of the Berkshires, between Massachusetts and New York, is visible to the northwest. Professor Silliman of Yale wrote of Monte Video that "it is quite without parallel in America, and probably with few equals in the world." The first tower was blown down; the second one was burned and rebuilt in 1840.
Mr. Wadsworth sold the property in 1849 to David C. Col- lins, one of the founders of the Collins Company of Collinsville. After the death of Mr. and Mrs. Collins the estate was bought by Dr. Henry L. Sheldon of the United States Navy. The Wads- worth tower was burned again in 1864. Mr. Bartlett, whose health had been impaired in the postal service during the Civil war, and Charles A. Kellogg tried to buy the tower site, failing in which they erected just north of it, in 1867, Bartlett's Tower which for many years was a famous resort for people around the state. A road was built by way of Weatogue Gap and Royal View. In 1868 Mr. Bartlett's brother, D. W. Bartlett, bought Monte Video and got the right of way for the south road running east of the lake, from the Albany pike. He sold to his brother in 1873. Monte Video later became the property of H. C. Judd of
-
ORIGINAL TOWER ON TALCOTT MOUNTAIN Monte Video in foreground. From drawing by Daniel Wadsworth, the first owner
----
1107
HARTFORD COUNTY, CONNECTICUT
Hartford who occupied it till about 1888. After that Robert Hoe of New York, of printing-press fame, bought much of the territory on the mountain but did not carry out his plans beyond tearing down the old tower and laying out a road from the Sims- bury highway. In 1889 M. H. Bartlett built a tower seven miles north, at Tariffville. Owen F. Roberts of New York, who came into possession of Monte Video, while retaining the original Wadsworth house, has greatly beautified the place. In 1913 Gilbert F. Heublein of Hartford bought the rest of Mr. Hoe's many acres and built the present massive stone tower near the site of the last previous one, or just over the Simsbury line. It is purely for the pleasure of his friends and his family, lavish in its details for comfortable living and equipped with an elevator to the chamber floors and to the observatory room at the top. Above this room is a powerful light under a reflector which throws the rays down into the well-kept groves for 300 feet around the base of the tower.
The church was organized in 1751, after the customary period of "winter privileges" from Farmington. Rev. Eben- ezer Booge was the first minister and preached for sixteen years. The number of years of the pastorate of his successor, Rufus Hawley, was fifty-six and peace was unbroken till in 1818 there came disagreement over a site for a new church. The result was the formation of the "United Religious Association of Farm- ington" with a church in East Avon, those of West Avon re- building theirs, after it had been burned, on the present site. Rev. Bela Kellogg was the first minister. The Baptists built in 1817 but did not organize till 1831 and the society was dissolved in 1855. The Roman Catholics, organizing under the influence of Rev. Luke Daly, established St. Ann's Parish.
At the time of the incorporation of the town, the building of the canal had aroused great expectations. Francis Woodford built the first of three hotels and buildings for commercial pur- poses went up over night. There were attempts at manufactur- ing but without success except in the line of fuses. The Climax Fuse Company, formed by Albert F. Andrews in 1884, eventu- ally merged with the Ensign-Bickford concern in Simsbury and its prosperity continues. In agriculture and stock-raising the
1108
HARTFORD COUNTY, CONNECTICUT
town today is more than ever among the leaders. One of the first and most notable breeders of Jerseys was Richard S. Ely of New York who established Deer Cliff on the southern portion of Talcott Mountain which is now popularly called Avon Moun- tain. Joseph W. Alsop, who has held many public offices and who was one of the foremost civilian workers in the state during the World war, bought a farm not many years ago which by good management and progressive methods he has developed into Wood Ford Farm, one of the largest and most successful in the state.
As told in the section of the history on private schools, Avon is the home of Mrs. Riddle's Avon Old Farms college for boys.
Yung Wing, Yale '54, leader in the movement elsewhere de- scribed for educating Chinese youths in this country, married the daughter of Judge of Probate Bela C. Kellogg who was the son of Rev. Bela Kellogg. David W. Bartlett, son of Rev. John Bartlett, pastor of the West Avon Church, was a well-known writer, and became American secretary of the Chinese Legation in Washington.
Chester R. Woodford (1814-1921), a native of Avon who lived to be one hundred and seven, whose mother lived to be ninety-seven and whose grandmother died at one hundred and two, was the first practical tobacco-grower in Avon. He also did a large dairy business, and was at different times selectman and representative.
LV ON TO NEW BRITAIN
"GREAT SWAMP" NOW THE "HARDWARE CITY" OF THE WORLD- INGENUITY OF FOUNDERS OF PRESENT INDUSTRIES-FIRST NORMAL SCHOOL-WORLD WAR MEMORIAL-FATHER BOJNOWSKI'S ACHIEVE- MENTS-ORIGINAL STANLEY QUARTER NOW PARK LAND-ELIHU BURRITT AMONG THE DISTINGUISHED CITIZENS-BERLIN AND NEWINGTON.
Hartford men were the first to choose land in present New Britain, but the settlement was Farmington's. Though a con- siderable portion of the original Hartford settlers were explorers or seekers after more real estate, it is conceivable that Jonathan Gilbert and Daniel Clark, in 1661 and 1662, were moved by the Hartford church dissensions to seek a "lodge in some vast wilder- ness." In those two years Gilbert and Clark obtained grants in what ever since has been known as "Great Swamp" the waters of which, in small streams, make their way to the Connecticut at Middletown, to the Sound at New Haven and to a tributary of Hartford's Park River. The trap rock and the finding of the skeleton of a mastodon give indications of the geological history. This and the contiguous territory not having been included in any township, the General Assembly in 1687 gave it to the bordering towns of Farmington, Wethersfield and Middletown, for by that time it became certain that the neglected region was to be worth something to somebody.
Gilbert bought out Clark in 1662 and then sold all to his son- in-law, Capt. Andrew Belcher, a wealthy Boston trader who forthwith extended his belongings even into "Merideen," put land under cultivation and built houses to lease in the southern section. The section, embracing much of present New Britain and Berlin, was designated the Second or Great Swamp Society of Farmington, mother of townships, and in 1722 was named Kensington, following the annexation of Wethersfield's West
29-VOL. 2
1109
1110
HARTFORD COUNTY, CONNECTICUT
Society (in 1715) and Berlin (in 1718). Settlers of the Chris- tian Lane or northern portion, developed by Belcher, attended church in Farmington, eight miles away. Richard Seymour of Farmington was the first to locate in Christian Lane, near the southeast corner of present New Britain, followed by Capt. Stephen Lee, Sergeant Benjamin Judd, Isaac Lewis, Joseph Smith and others whose names have continued prominent in New Britain affairs. The latter group settled nearer Farmington, the others in the Great Swamp section between Stanley Quarter and Berlin. Great Swamp being extended included to the north a part of New Britain, and to the southwest a part of Kensington Parish.
In 1705, after the death of Rev. Samuel Hooker, Farmington consented to allow Great Swamp to have its own minister, and a church was set up in Christian Lane. By 1722, the boundaries of Great Swamp, or "Farmington Village" as it had come to be called, had taken in portions of adjoining parishes-including Beckley Quarter-and there were a large meeting-house and other requisites at the time of change of name to Kensington. Another church was needed. That caused discord. It split hearthstones and town meetings till in 1754 decision was made to incorporate a new ecclesiastical society, "New Britain," still a part of Farmington town and of what became Berlin but embrac- ing practically all of its present territory. Stanley Quarter had belonged to Farmington Society, the north part of East Street to Newington and the south part of the new society to Kensington.
John Clark, Daniel Hart and Thomas Stanley were conspicu- ous in Stanley Quarter. Stanley's son Noah kept a tavern. In East Side, Maj. John Paterson was the most important man. Capt. Stephen Lee of that section had died the year before the incorporating and had left his property to his eldest son, Dr. Isaac Lee of Middletown, and to his youngest son, Josiah, all passing eventually into the possession of Stephen, son of Doctor Isaac. To the southwest was the Hart Quarter, named after Josiah Hart, great-grandson of John Hart of Kensington. These three farming sections had developed prior to the development of the present center of the city. Nathan Booth made a clearing where the South Church now stands in 1746 and was followed by Joshua Mather, one of the Suffield and Windsor family by that name.
1111
HARTFORD COUNTY, CONNECTICUT
Deacon Anthony Judd located near Booth and Col. Isaac Lee, a son of Dr. Isaac Lee and one of the most picturesque figures of his generation, built near Dublin Hill.
Gold, copper, lead and asphaltum were found but not in work- able quantity. There was a copper mine on the Berlin road for a time, and in the Kensington Society bits of gold aroused the General Assembly in 1775 to send a committee to dig for it if it should prove worth while. The skeleton of the mastodon was found in 1850 near the center of the present city. While some parts of the center were rough, others were swampy. A stream fed by small springs crossed the present East Main Street near the south end of Hartford Avenue and supplied Judd's pond where was the chief sawmill. Across Main Street below South Church was a deep ravine, with intensely rough ground still farther south, while on the South Green was one of a number of high formations of trap rock.
The history of the ecclesiastical society is the civic history of a colonial town. The first meeting of the New Britain Society was the first formal step after the General Assembly had given the name. The meeting was held June 13, 1754, with Benjamin Judd, Jr., as moderator, and Isaac Lee clerk. To avoid dispute, the site for the new church was left for the County Court to decide. There was respect for Rev. William Burnham, pastor of the parish before the division, but for the new parish there must be a new minister. Meetings were held at the small school- house on East Street or in barns, or, most frequently, at some one of the forty residences. The court fixed the site at the center -on the northern part of present Elm Street, near present Smalley Street, some half-mile northeast of the city square or Triangle, at what was also the center of rough terrain. Near the church was the burying-ground, today a part of the cemetery. East of the church was the training-ground. The county's South Congregational Association sent candidates for minister, but it was not till 1758 that Rev. John Smalley, just ordained in Litch- field County, was secured. The First Church of Christ of New Britain was formally organized April 19, 1758. Maj. John Paterson and Sergt. Elijah Hart were made deacons.
One element of success from the start was the cohesion among the parishioners. Many of the leading men were the heads of large families. In the East Street section, Seth Stanley had six-
1112
HARTFORD COUNTY, CONNECTICUT
teen children; Benjamin Judd, Lemuel Hotchkiss, Adonijah Lewis, and Nathaniel Churchill, twelve each; Col. Gad Stanley, Benjamin Hart, Jehudi Hart, and Ebenezer Steele, eleven each; and from eight to ten in most of the other families was the rule. There was withal social diversion and considerable intermarry- ing. Another element of success was Rev. Mr. Smalley, than whom the church would have no other till in 1809 he insisted upon turning back his salary, fifty-one years after his installation, and then continued to preach occasionally for two years longer. He was succeeded by his colleague, Newton Skinner, of East Granby, who continued till his death in 1825.
Doctor Smalley's pastorate had covered the trying period of the colonial wars, the county's share in which is described in the general history. Capt. Joseph Lee and Lieut. Noah Stanley were in the forces sent north in the early French war; John Paterson was a captain in the seven-years war and was at the capture of Havana in 1762, and Noah Stanley was a lieutenant there. Isaac Lee was colonel of the old Sixth Regiment of the militia. At the beginning of the Revolution, Gad Stanley, as captain and then as colonel, was among the first to lead his men to the field, and with Lemuel Hopkins was especially valiant at the battle of Long Island. Col. Selah Hart was among those captured in the fight- ing around New York in 1776 and was not exchanged till 1778. Then he served as brigade commander to the end of the war. Maj. Jonathan Hart continued in the army after the war and was killed in St. Claire's disastrous fight with the Indians in 1791. During the war, Nathaniel Churchill and Benjamin Wright were captains, and Dr. Josiah Hart a surgeon. Capt. Phineas Judd enlisted at the age of sixty-two. Elijah Hart, Jr., a captain at nineteen, was in the battles of Saratoga and Still- water.
One of the state's most distinguished sons and one whom Washington considered one of the best of his generals was a second John Paterson. After graduating at Yale in 1762 and taking up law, he married the daughter of Josiah Lee and re- moved to Lenox, Mass. He was a member of the first Provincial Congress in 1774-5, entering the service as colonel in 1775, a position for which his experience had fitted him. Winning honor in some of the more important battles, he was promoted to be
-
1113
HARTFORD COUNTY, CONNECTICUT
brigadier, did duty at Trenton, Princeton, Morristown, West Point, Saratoga and Monmouth, and was a member of the court that tried Major Andrè. In 1789, while living in Lisbon, N. Y., he was chief justice of the County Court and held many positions, including that of congressman, dying in 1808.
And it was in Pastor Smalley's regime that the parishes were incorporated into a town. This doubtless had been in the minds of the separatists in 1705, but there was little use in forcing the subject while population was so meagre. Another opportunity came when Worthington Parish was set off from old Kensington , in 1772, but the time was not yet ripe. Southington secured township separate from Farmington in 1779, and in December of that year the New Britain Society voted that Kensington, New Britain and Worthington ought to be a town by themselves. But it was not till 1785 that the General Assembly decided, and then it was to make the association of the three societies the town of Berlin, because Worthington, then named Berlin, was nearer comparatively populous Middletown, and all the chief business establishments and the post office were in Berlin. So the first town meeting was held at Kensington, June 13, 1785, Gen. Selah Hart presiding. Sylvester Wells was chosen town clerk, Selah Hart treasurer, Jonathan Belden collector, and General Hart, Elijah Hooker and Elias Beckley selectmen. Town meetings were held in the three societies in turn.
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.