USA > Connecticut > Hartford County > History of Hartford County, Connecticut, 1633-1928, Volume II > Part 39
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In September of this same year a stone and bronze memorial in honor of Capt. Zebulon Bidwell who was killed in the first battle with Burgoyne was unveiled near his birthplace at the junction of Bidwell and Tolland streets, on land given with the memorial to the town by Daniel D. Bidwell-himself a naval veteran of the Spanish war. Zebulon Bidwell was captain of the Fourth Company of Col. Thaddeus Cook's Regiment of Connecti- cut Militia which was thrown in to check the advance of Bur- goyne's right. A boulder in his memory was placed on the battlefield in 1924. The regiment brought back to Hartford 128 prisoners. Both the Sons and Daughters of the American Revo- lution and veterans of the World war, with other patriotic bod- ies, took part in the ceremonies at the unveiling in East Hart- ford, afternoon and evening.
In the militia period after the Revolution some of the local
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men held high rank and there was a regimental drill-ground in East Hartford Meadows. The town was represented in both the War of 1812 and in the Mexican war. In the Civil war nearly all the men of military age and condition were in the service, the town being one of those which exceeded their quota with a total of 261. Joseph Jordan was captain of Company A of the Twen- ty-first in which were a number of East Hartford men. A sol- diers' monument was erected in Center Cemetery in 1868. In the Spanish war George W. Ripley, whose residence is in South Wind- sor, was first lieutenant of Company F of the First Connecticut Infantry. For the World war there were men in the One Hundred and Second Infantry, in the Machine-Gun Battalion, in the navy and in the National Army. Those who could not serve in the United States forces formed a company of the First Infantry, Connecticut State Guard, with officers at different times in the four years being Maj. Lewis B. Comstock, Capt. George W. Rip- ley and Lieutenants H. S. Stengle and H. D. Foster. Warren B. Hale, son of Henry B. Hale and a Trinity student, after studying in an aviation school in Italy, was transferred to the United States forces as first lieutenant. He received the decoration of the Golden Eagle from the Italian Government. Maj. George Rau who gave his life as described in the general history was at one time an East Hartford man. Wallace H. Brown and Corporal Maurice Landers with sixteen others also made the supreme sac- rifice and the local post of the American Legion is named after them. Dr. Edward H. Truex who was a captain in the Medical Corps in France and Italy is acting chairman of the committee that is raising a fund for a memorial for the men who were in the war. The women have organized an auxiliary of the Legion, with Mrs. Joseph Bidwell as president. Mrs. Samuel Wells of Hartford is county president.
For the rapid changes which came in the World war period the original streets were none too wide and the form of govern- ment none too strong, while the Chamber of Commerce has had to be constantly active. The great Main Street, through the cen- ter, has to be denuded of its magnificent elms which, in splendid line between two roadways, have been the glory of the town for many years-so many, indeed, that unfounded tradition tells of
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their having been set out by the French soldiers. The trees had been badly mutilated by electric wires during the march of prog- ress and the street had to be paved and every inch be made avail- able for the heavy traffic toward the great bridge. The East Hartford Fire District, now covering about a third of the town, had been incorporated in 1889 and enlarged in 1899 and 1909 with commission government. There also is a Meadow Fire Dis- trict in the western portion of the town but not with commis- sion form of government. Effort for consolidation is being made. In the Silver Lane section there is a fire and lighting district, and at Willow Brook a sewer association. Large buildings are replacing the lines of residences on the more important streets and new streets are being opened for new houses. There are post offices in the main district, including Burnside, and at Hock- anum and Silver Lane. The population is approaching 20,000; the grand list, $33,000,000, an increase of $11,000,000 over the last previous year. Wells Hall as a town hall has been out- grown; pending the erection of a new one, arrangements for space in the neighboring building of Henry B. Hale are contem- plated. Community Hall has been of much service the past year, for one thing offering refuge for those in the Meadow District who were driven out by the great flood.
The erosion of the Connecticut's eastern bank has become a serious matter. Simultaneously extensive fills have been made along the Meadow Ridge immediately east, intensifying the cur- rent, thus threatening to create too shallow water for steamboat navigation between the "knoll" and the mouth of the Hockanum. A special town meeting in 1928 voted $365,000 for two more elementary schools, one on Silver Lane and one on Livingstone Road, and an addition to the high school. Since the voting for hose, carts and houses and the organizing of a fire department, of which Judge E. O. Goodwin was the first chief, the depart- ment has been well developed. The town's water supply is from the eastern slope of East Glastonbury.
The East Hartford Trust Company was incorporated in 1916; the capital is $150,000. Its savings deposits were practically $2,000,000 and commercial deposits $680,000. Edward S. Good- win is the president. Its new building is one of the ornaments of the business section. Masonic Temple and Odd Fellows Hall are others. Long established newspapers are the Weekly Gazette
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of Henry B. Hale and the American Enterprise of James A. Martin which periodically has issued illustrated editions of his- torical value. The former was established in 1885 and the lat- ter in 1888.
Gracefully prominent on Main Street, nearly opposite the original church, is the Raymond Library. A library had been in existence many years when this building was erected. In 1885, using the books of the old library which were being kept in the Congregational Church parsonage under the care of Rev. C. S. Nash, the institution was formally established. This excellent building was made possible through the bequest of Albert C. Raymond (1819-1881). Mr. Raymond was born in Montville, Conn. At one time he had a large farm near New Britain. Sell- ing this in 1860, he bought the Solon Olmstead place in East Hartford. After living in Hartford from 1869 to 1874, he re- turned to East Hartford and built a residence at the corner of Main Street and Central Avenue where he lived the rest of his life. His wife was the daughter of Ozias Roberts. He was one of the organizers of the Village Improvement Society. He left $10,000 for a library at Montville and the same amount for one here, and $10,500 for maintenance. The trustees allowed the fund to accumulate till there was enough to build this exception- ally well designed structure in 1888 on land directly across Cen- tral Avenue from the Raymond residence, which residence even- tually was made over for the Masonic Lodge. H. R. Hayden was the first president of the library company, Dr. Everett J. McKnight, who became one of Hartford's most skilled physi- cians, the vice president, Joseph O. Goodwin secretary and Pat- rick Garvan, one of the largest paper dealers in the state with residence in East Hartford for many years and business in Hart- ford, treasurer. Among the historical volumes are Secretary Goodwin's history of the town and John H. Stoughton's histories under the titles of "Windsor Farmes" and "A Corner Stone of Colonial Commerce." The librarian is Miss Jessie W. Hayden. There are branches in the Meadow, in Hockanum and in Burnside.
Mr. Stoughton (1818-1915) was a native of East Windsor. After graduating at Yale Law School in 1874, he opened a law office in East Hartford where he was judge of the local court for
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three years and the first judge of the probate court-from 1886 to 1906.
Another who was much interested in the development of the library was Henry L. Goodwin (1821-1899). He was born in Litchfield. His father, Oliver Goodwin, was a native of Hart- ford where he was a member of the firm of Hudson & Goodwin, publishers of the Courant. As a '49er, the son arranged a postal service among the gold-seekers in California and also a water supply, after which he returned home. In 1862 he took up farm- ing in East Hartford and had a park-like home at Burnside. His interest in the public affairs of the town and the state, and espe- cially in the New York, New Haven & Hartford road, was punc- tilious, sometimes annoying but always unselfish and frequently reforming. As elsewhere told he won his suit to prevent the town's paying its share of the lawyers' bills for placing the care of the Connecticut River bridge on the state. He was a member of the Legislature three times. Among the reforms he brought about were several in the postal system.
Governor Richard D. Hubbard was a ward of Ozias Roberts and received his early education in the local academy. He was representative in 1840 and 1842. Denison Olmsted, who died in 1859, a well-known writer of text books and a professor at Yale, at which college he was graduated in 1813, was a son of Nathaniel Olmsted. Anthony Dumond Stanley, Yale 1830, and for sev- enteen years professor of mathematics there, was a son of Mar- tin Stanley. James F. Comstock (1808-1896), a native of Hock- anum, went to St. Louis where he amassed a fortune in the shoe business and in 1874 returned to the estate which had been in the family over a hundred years. William E. Bidwell (1846- 1895) was born in Burnside. He served in the Sixteenth Regi- ment, Connecticut Volunteers, in the Civil war and afterwards had a jewelry store at Exchange Corner. Removing to Brook- lyn, N. Y., he built up the largest jewelry firm in the United States. He left two sons, William E., Jr., and Harry F.
The history of one family of the town embraces a consider- able part of the history of the town and of the state. The Wil- liam Pitkin (1635-1694) who came from England to Hartford in 1659 and tarried on the east side of the river was a lawyer by profession and soon was appointed King's attorney. For many
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years he was continued in office as a member of the General Assembly, treasurer, member of the Council and commissioner in affairs of state. His wife was the daughter of Ozias Goodwin, progenitor of the extensive and prominent families of that name ever since his day, and his sister the wife of Oliver Wolcott- under circumstances related in the South Windsor section. Wil- liam's son and namesake was no less distinguished, rising step by step to the chief-justiceship, he meantime, prior to 1706, founded for his sons William and Joseph the mill seats on the Hockanum. His younger brother Ozias was likewise prominent in the Legislature and on the bench, and a still younger brother, Capt. Roger Pitkin, was the local military leader and selectman. In the third generation, Joseph Pitkin was selectman, repre- sentative, judge of the County Court and colonel of the First Regiment, and his successive wives were the daughters of Rich- ard Lord of Hartford and of Col. John Chester of Wethersfield, and the widow of Governor Jonathan Law of Milford. In this third generation also, William, 3d, trained in the clothiers' busi- ness by his brother, attained eminence in business, in the Legis- lature, in military, where he was colonel of the First Regiment, at the bar, where he became chief justice, and in affairs of state, being governor from 1766 till his death in 1769,-elected on the Stamp-Act issue by a majority so large that the votes were not counted, according to the Connecticut Gazette. John Pitkin, another son of the second William, became colonel of the First Regiment, which was sent on the Crown Point expedition in 1755, and was representative for many years. William, 4th, gained distinction as major in Abercrombie's army in 1758, later was colonel of militia, sheriff, representative, member of the Council 1766 to 1785, member of the Council of War in the Revo- lution, congressman and judge of the Superior Court for nine- teen years. His brother George was in command of the Fourth Regiment of Minute Men at Roxbury and later was representa- tive. Colonel Joseph's son Elisha, a Yale graduate, was major in the artillery, prominent in the Legislature and superintendent of the first Sunday School of the First Church. His son, Sam- uel L., a graduate of West Point, was town clerk, representative, major-general in the militia in 1837 and adjutant-general in 1839.
39-VOL. 2
LX
THE MANCHESTERS
HARTFORD'S ORIGINAL "FIVE MILES"-MANUFACTURING GENIUS FROM THE BEGINNING-CHENEY BROTHERS AND THEIR SILK INDUSTRY, THE CASES, CHILDS AND OTHER PROGRESSIVE MEN-EXCEPTIONAL FORM OF GOVERNMENT-STRONG EDUCATIONAL AND RELIGIOUS DEVELOPMENT-WAR RECORDS.
Manchester, which has maintained a novel development, was the hinterland of the Podunk Indians whose history is given on other pages. Their territory extended from the Connecticut to Bolton Hills, but their villages in Manchester were only stopping places in winter, the chief ones being on the land of the late James B. Olcott, on West Center Street and on Brush Hill. The last Indians who lingered in these parts lived on Minnechaug Mountain, south of Manchester. For the period before man, Manchester has been an interesting study because of the evi- dences of earliest animal life. Prof. O. C. Marsh of Yale de- clared it the "most notable bone locality in the Connecticut Val- ley." Remains of prehistoric saurians obtained by him are in the Peabody Museum at Yale. They were found in the Buck- land (or "jambstone") quarries. Unfortunately part of one of the best specimens, before Maj. Charles H. Owen came upon it, had been quarried away and part of another had been cut out and built into a bridge.
The territory, as has been noted, was not included in the original Hartford purchase from the Indians. Hartford's east boundary was three miles from the "bog wall" on the Connecti- cut River marshes. More or less romance attaches to the exten- sion of five miles through what had been called "the wilderness," establishing the "Five-Mile" section, in 1672. The romance in- volves the traits of a sachem, the regulations of the General Assembly and the acquisitive power of that colonial pillar, "the worshipful" Maj. John Talcott. In the affair of Burnham, told
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in the East Hartford history, the General Court had ordered in 1660 that thereafter no man should buy land of the Indians direct. The purpose was to avoid misunderstandings, if nothing worse, which would make the natives resentful against the white men. Three years after the General Court had authorized the five-mile extension, Major Talcott and Hartford and Windsor men in partnership made their purchase of Sachem Joshua, famous third son of the great Uncas. Joshua had married a daughter of Sachem Arramamet who had given her as a dowry a goodly portion of all the territory from the East Hartford limit to far into present Windham County. Joshua died in 1676 before the deed was signed. By his will in 1676 it was revealed that he had distributed lands somewhat freely and there was confusion worse than the General Court could have conceived of -with the white men as the aggrieved parties. One result was the "squatter-sovereignty" quarrel on the Willimantic River and the riot and jail delivery recounted in the general county his- tory. Major Talcott, for his portion, after a series of conten- tions, was permitted to give the heirs the sum stipulated in his bargain for the "Five Miles" and it was provided that all the section should be disposed of "to the General Court's ordering, to make a plantation of." Five Miles thus was deeded to Hart- ford in 1682, that town having voted to give the administrators the amount to be paid to the heirs.
Yet no one seemed to want the land. In the long years be- fore it was definitely laid out for disposal among the Hartford proprietors, sections were voted to individuals in recognition of meritorious service, as in the case of Corporal John Gilbert who had been one of four in 1666 to speed to Albany to "attain cer- tain understandings concerning the motion of the French." He received 200 acres on Hop Brook which was passed on to his sons and they deeded half of it in 1707 to Thomas Olcott, Jr., in whose family part of that acreage remained. Thus on the rec- ords began to appear family names as familiar today as they were then. Others took land without authority till twenty-nine leading men agreed to destroy fences or markers set up by usurpers. The orderly layout was completed in 1753. There was a reservation of 200 acres for the first minister when he should come and also of land where there were signs of cop- per ore.
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More trouble was to ensue when it came to fixing the western bounds of Five Miles, for when they began measuring off hold- ings from the Bolton Hills, they found that they overlapped Hartford's eastern line. The reason was that that line had been moved east twenty rods when the present East Hartford Main Street (so fortunately) had been widened six rods. The dispute being referred to the General Assembly, that body gave Man- chester (or Five Miles) five miles and a half. In his digest of early probate records, Manwaring turns aside to observe that "this seems to have been an unjust act of the General Assembly." It was nearly half a century before East Hartford ceased to complain.
Lieut. Thomas Olcott's house of public entertainment, per- mitted by town vote in 1713, was a popular place during these strenuous days and, still in the family name, long prospered. Gilbert had built a sawmill at Hop Brook and John Allen had another on Saw Mill River (the Hockanum) with grant of land that included present Hilliardville and part of Bigelow Brook. The road between these two sawmills has ever been known as Love Lane. Such was the labor in clearing the wooded lands that vigorous war had to be declared upon the thieving crows, a penalty being imposed upon every citizen who did not kill at least a dozen annually and a bounty paid on all killed above that number.
If it had been difficult for East Side residents to get over to church in Hartford, it was still more so for the Five Miles people, but the few put up with the inconvenience for seventy- eight years after East Hartford secured a degree of indepen- dence in 1694. Meanwhile, their number having increased to upwards of a score, they humbly petitioned for "winter privi- leges" and a decade later they secured them. Services were held under an elm on present Spencer Street. The privileges for five months in 1704 were gradually extended till in 1772 a regular church society was permitted, to be called Orford Society-the fourth society of Hartford. The General Assembly's choice of a site for the church outraged the easterners, represented by Tim- othy Cheney, Richard Pitkin and Ward Woodbridge, but the Assembly adhered. The society's first meeting was held August 13, 1772, Capt. Josiah Olcott the moderator. Timothy Cheney,
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Richard Pitkin and Robert McKee were the finance committee. The site of the edifice finally was about where the church now stands, considerably nearer the "Green" than the other side. And the Green was to become the center of the community. The war and other demands upon the few people made progress in building so slow that it was not till 1794 that it was voted that if the pew doors were well hung and the front painted red, the result of the joint labors would be considered satisfactory.
The church for the Methodists was under way at the same time. Land was sold to them first by Thomas Spencer at whose house the six original Methodists had worshiped. Their church at the corner of Main and Center streets was not built till 1822. Their third one, in the progress toward their fine structure of today, was built in 1853.
The first minister in Orford parish was Rev. Benajah Phelps who, born in Hebron and graduated at Yale, had gone to a church in Cornwallis, N. S., from which he had been driven dur- ing the Revolution. He retired in 1793 and died in 1817. Rev. Samuel King succeeded him in 1800. After eight years he went to the frontier and left the church without a pastor. From 1813 till the separate town was incorporated, the East Hartford town meetings were held alternately at the parish church and at the East Hartford church.
The first school (without a building) was in 1745 and Josiah Olcott the whole committee. Soon after (1751) when the Hop Brook School was built, there were four schools, faintly indi- cating the modern districts. One was near the Olcotts, one at Jambstone Plain, one near Elizabeth Webster's, one at the cen- ter and one near Doctor Clark's. The formal districts were des- ignated in 1772, corresponding closely with the order of 1859: 1, Northeast (Oakland) : 2, East (the Green) ; 3, Southeast (Porter) ; 4, South; 5, Southwest; 6, West; 7, Northwest (Buck- land) ; 8, North (North Manchester) ; 9, Center, including South Manchester. With the order of the General Assembly, the first school society met October 31, 1796, presided over by Deacon Joseph Lyman. Need of a classical school being recognized and causing dissension in the matter of location, there were two academies within a mile of each other, at the Center. Of these the East Academy or Manchester High School counted among its supporters Horace Pitkin and Deodatus Woodbridge of the
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family that had made the Woodbridge tavern famous. The school's prospectus read that "young gents" were to apply to the principal, Norman W. Spencer; young ladies to the preceptress, Electra H. Buckland. The school did not survive the Civil war period.
In the survey of both church and schools one sees that the Revolution was especially untimely for the little parish. Yet out of the less than a hundred voters, twenty-five men and boys enlisted. On the Lexington Alarm, seven men named Buckland mounted their horses and hurried away. Officers who served in the campaigns were Capt. Timothy Cheney who was detailed back to the county to assist in making powder, Captains Ozias Bissell and Richard Pitkin and Lieutenants Simeon Gains and Nathaniel Olcott. But one of the results of the conflict was the incentive to manufacture at home much that had been imported, thereby diverting attention from the field of agriculture to which they had been committed. And the ban which the mother coun- try had put upon such industries as Col. Joseph Pitkin's iron works in 1747 at Woodland had been lifted; indeed the succes- sor to that plant made guns while smaller mills around it made powder. The Pitkin family established this industry which was continued through years, as already told, till the Hazard Com- pany was absorbed by the Duponts in modern times. The Pitkin men themselves turned aside for a while in 1775 to profit by their fourteen-years exclusive grant from the Assembly to make snuff, but they resumed powder-making later.
The paper industry which was to be so extensively developed in this section had its start in present Union Village with the mills of Ebenezer Watson and Austin Ledyard in 1775. After the loss of the plant by incendiary fire in 1778, the Assembly was petitioned for aid for the widows of the founders, whose loss was given as $5,000, and the statement was made that the con- cern had supplied the Courant with 8,000 sheets a week, had furnished most of the paper used by the state and also had sup- plied the Continental Army. The Assembly granted the right to raise £1,500 by lottery. William and Elisha Pitkin and Sam- uel Bishop of East Hartford in 1783 got a twenty-five years mo- nopoly from the Assembly to make glass. Robert Hughes of Boston was secured for superintendent and ambition was high
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since the English supply had been cut off. Hughes proving a failure, the Assembly was asked to permit a £400 lottery in com- pensation for losses. The lottery was successful but not the plant for the time being, to the regret of Jonathan Stanley, the town clerk, and to Elisha Pitkin and Gen. Shubael Griswold, selectmen, who were the managers.
Samuel Pitkin in 1794 established at what is now Union Vil- lage one of the first cotton mills in America, making velvets and fustian. Richard Pitkin built another, at Manchester Green, and to the northwest of it John Mather in 1808 put up a cotton mill and a powder mill. Richard T. Jones in 1780 built a paper mill on the site later occupied by Peter Adams' mill, and in 1800 Charles Bunce and his six sons started a like business, to run for sixty years, on Hop Brook.
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