USA > Connecticut > Hartford County > History of Hartford County, Connecticut, 1633-1928, Volume II > Part 41
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came pastor of St. James' and Rev. W. J. Doolan of St. Bridget's. There is a parochial school and convent on Park Street in con- nection with St. James'.
Again, in the north part of the town there is the substantial Second Congregational Church, built in 1888 to replace a more ancient type by one better adapted for modern needs. The society was organized in 1850 and Rev. George E. Hill was the first minister. In this section also, the North Methodist Church was a distinct contribution to the architecture of the community, its great white-pillared portico and its New England-Methodist steeple without spire being effectively typical of the old days. The Methodists had begun their much-disapproved services in the house of Thomas Spencer and had built their first place of worship in 1794, on Spencer Road. After being sixteen years in construction, the second church was occupied in 1836, standing a little east of the Center Congregational. This one at the north end was built in 1851 by members who wanted one nearer their homes. The mother church society built at the corner of Main Street and Hartford Road in 1854, an edifice which only recently has been moved to make room for the present large stone struct- ure, the fund for which was raised by subscription; one of the 700 members, A. Willard Case, contributed about one-third.
St. Mary's Episcopal parish has had an eventful career, dat- ing back to 1839 when the services were held at the north end. In 1846 Cheney Brothers built a church for the communicants at the Center. Interest languished; the church was sold and moved to a site opposite the North Congregational, to be used as a tene- ment house. Rev. Enoch Huntington, retired, aroused the par- ish and held meetings in a room in the Central Academy Hall. Rev. Beverly Warner came as rector in 1878 and in 1883 a new church was built, on a Church Street site given by Cheney Broth- ers, since which time there has been such constant growth that the stone structure recently completed became necessary. The old church was moved to the rear of the new one. St. Mary's Young Men's Club was founded in 1890 and built on a site furnished by the Cheneys.
Another beautiful church is that of the Swedish Evangelical Lutheran Society on Church Street. The society was organized in 1881 and a church built in 1886. The newly completed brick
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structure was designed by the pastor, Rev. P. J. Cornell. The Swedish Congregational Church was organized in 1892 and the church was built the next year on land donated by William H. Childs. In 1893, also, the Evangelical Lutheran Zion Church was built on a Cooper Street site presented by Cheney Brothers in 1910. The Concordia Congregation built in 1896 on land given by the Cheneys on Garden and Winter streets. Aided by a gift from the same source, the John Wesley Pentecostal Society built the Church of the Nazarene in 1898, on Main Street.
The Salvation Army overcame opposition and in 1908 built its handsome citadel on Main Street.
Stores, some of which were to cater successfully even for Hartford trade, came with the rapid development of the town, and, naturally, banks. The Manchester Trust Company and the Savings Bank of Manchester were established in 1904 and 1905 respectively, in the old Watkins store building. In 1921 a building was built in the heart of the business section. The Trust Company, of which R. LaMotte Russell is president, has resources of considerably over $2,000,000. The savings bank, of which Mr. Russell is treasurer and Frank Cheney, Jr., the head of Cheney Brothers, president, has deposits of $6,200,000.
The Home Bank and Trust Company, well located in the Waranoke Hotel building, was incorporated in 1920 and has for directors several men prominent in both Hartford and Man- chester affairs. Its capital is $50,000 and its commercial depos- its amount to nearly $400,000; the amount of savings deposits is $250,000. George W. Strant is the president.
The Manchester Chamber of Commerce was organized in 1901, largely through the efforts of Clarence G. Watkins, as the Business Men's Association. A salaried executive, George Rix, was installed as secretary in 1923.
Among the clubs, the Community Club is charmingly housed. The Country Club, incorporated in 1917, has members from several towns, including Hartford, drawn by the excellence of the links and the beauty of the surroundings.
The history of caring for the poor is much like that of Hart- ford. The Town House was built in 1870. It was replaced by the present building on Middle Turnpike in 1912.
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Altogether the summary of Manchester's history attests that no community has been more dependent upon the ways of peace than Manchester. And yet, this history further reveals that no community ever was more zealous in being prepared for defense or more ready to sacrifice when the call came. It has been not only patriotic but bravely patriotic. Pre-eminently is it true of this community that the wars that have come have been most untimely for its welfare. At the outbreak of the Civil war, the town was just beginning to find itself-to realize the reward of hard endeavor. But at the call, as in those previous wars and in those that came later, men of high place as well as those in humble station were among the first to respond. And never then nor since has there been stinting of funds, either public or private, and no idle moaning on the part of the women. In 1861 the voting population was but 658, with many men above the age limit. Not counting non-residents, the number who volunteered for the war in the different regiments was 241, and twenty-seven were drafted. Of the volunteers, forty-eight were killed or died of disease and as many more were incapacitated by wounds or by disease. Manchester was a worthy part of the county whose record has been detailed in the general history.
In the first company (Hawley's) of the first regiment to go were William Berry, Alfred R. Fuller and Henry W. Robertson, and in Infantry Company A at the same time, William Annis, Charles Avery, George C., Chadwick and Philip W. Hudson who was promoted to a captaincy in the Tenth Regiment in which were a number of Manchester men, including Second Lieuten- ants John L. Otis and Chauncey Hodge. Otis succeeded Hudson for a time, was wounded twice, was promoted to be major and then colonel in 1863 and brigadier-general by brevet in 1865. Arthur F. Slate was a first lieutenant in Company G. Frank W. Cheney, as told in the general history, went out in 1862 as lieutenant-colonel of the ill-fated Sixteenth and was incapaci- tated by wounds received on the fearful field of Antietam. On his recovery he continued at home the work-work he could no longer do in the army, and later in industrial, financial and pub- lic affairs became one of the foremost men of the state. Capt. Frederick M. Barber of Company H was mortally wounded in that battle. Henry T. White and Edgar E. Strong were second
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lieutenants in that company, and there were many Manchester men in the ranks.
The Spanish war found Manchester with a military reputa- tion the equal of any in the state. For it had maintained a com- pany in the National Guard which at that date was G Company of the First Regiment, a former commander of which had been Col. Philip W. Hudson. In quarters furnished by Cheney Broth- ers and rented by the state, the company had been a good train- ing school. John Hickey, who later was to be a captain in the army in the Philippines and after that colonel of the First In- fantry of the state, was major of the regiment which volunteered. The company officers in the war were Joel M. Nichols, captain; J. Davenport Cheney, first lieutenant, and Lewis J. Doolittle, second lieutenant. In the ranks was Ward Cheney, whose subse- quent career and sacrifice are cited in the general history. Aus- tin Cheney, later on the regimental staff, was a member of the Yale Battery. Sherwood A. Cheney, a recent graduate at West Point and later a colonel in the World war, as told in the general history, was an officer in the Engineer Corps of the Regular Army. Frank L. Pinney was ensign in the navy. William F. Madden, who lost his life a few years later while doing brave duty as a police officer when desperadoes were robbing the silk company's cars, was a corporal in Company G during the war and afterwards its captain.
At the time of the call for duty on the Mexican border in June, 1916, G Company was in command of John J. Holmes, and William E. Newman was second lieutenant. William C. Cheney was colonel on Governor Holcomb's staff. Clifford D. Cheney was first lieutenant of Troop B, Cavalry, succeeding Capt. J. H. Kelso Davis in command after the return from the border. On the state roster at the time of being called and drafted (March 25 to August 5, 1917) into the federal service, upon America's entrance into the World war George W. Cheney was first lieu- tenant in Troop L. This troop, with the rest of the cavalry, was transformed into the One Hundred and First Machine-Gun Bat- talion with which he served overseas. William C. Hascall was major, in the First Infantry. Harry B. Bissell, now colonel and assistant quartermaster-general, was in command of Company G with John J. Holmes and William E. Newman as lieutenants.
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Captain Bissell's large company had to go through the winnow- ing process, as did all companies, when he took it into the One Hundred and Second Regiment of the American Expeditionary Forces. Philip Cheney was a captain in infantry overseas and there were several who received commissions in training camps and served in the different divisions. The man-power census in March, 1917, showed 6,000 adult males in the town, including 1,600 aliens.
When Governor Holcomb, before war was formally declared, called for the State Guard to protect Connecticut industries and homes, the former officers and men of the local company who were not acceptable for army service or who were otherwise exempt, quickly organized, under the old company title, for the First Infantry, Connecticut State Guard. Ward Cheney Camp, Spanish War Veterans, enrolled as a body and when mustered into the state service there were 134 on the rolls, drilling almost every night. Capt. Clifford D. Cheney (now colonel of the Three Hundred and Sixteenth Cavalry, U. S. A.), was a member of the regimental staff till he was appointed lieutenant-colonel in the Ordnance Department of the army and was sent overseas.
The officers in the local company, during its period of four years of duty, were Arthur Balthasar and Harry W. Keeney captains and M. W. Park, John Pentland, H. W. Seymour, Oliver F. Toop and R. O. Cheney, Jr., lieutenants.
The Chamber of Commerce gave much aid in getting the numerous war gardens started, a branch of the Red Cross was established under the leadership of C. Elmore Watkins, the Boy Scouts were busy everywhere, the quota for Liberty bonds was largely exceeded, Registration Day under the Selective Service Act was memorable for its display of patriotism, the Exemption Board-E. L. G. Hohenthal, Clayton W. Welles and Dr. F. H. Mayberry-worked indefatigably. The first 100 of the selective service men left September 19, provided within and without with every evidence of the town's good cheer. They were for the National Army. Each carried a silk flag of the attractive kind being turned out by Cheney Brothers by the thousand. Mean- while Company G was encamped with the regiment in New Haven, after doing guard duty around Hartford armory, sailing
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in September on a transport which sprang a leak and then in October on the Adriatic. The state campaign to encourage people to make sacrifices in the interest of economy, of increase in food supply for the armies and of encouragement for manufacturing was under the leadership of Howell Cheney, federal director of War Savings. The War Bureau, a center of activities, was orga- nized in December, 1917, and Americanization work and child welfare work was pushed under the direction of Mrs. C. W. Cheney and Mrs. H. O. Bowers. Out of a population of 17,000, 11,000 were enrolled in the Red Cross which raised nearly $200,000.
Rev. Dr. C. E. Hesselgrave of the Center Church conducted a Y. M. C. A. hut near the front line with a bravery that won him the devotion of all the men. In the army and allied activities, the Manchester roll was 1,242. The Croix de Guerre and Dis- tinguished Service Cross were awarded to Capt. Allan L. Dexter of the Howitzer Company. Distinguished Service crosses were awarded also to Private Joseph Dilworth (posthumous), Ser- geant Herbert Ratenburg and Sergeant James H. Roberts and the Croix de Guerre to Capt. Thomas Ward, a Yale student in the aviation corps. Forty-three men gave their lives, for each of whom a tree has been planted. And a very notable item is this that soon after the armistice a meeting of citizens voted to raise a fund of $150,000 for a hospital as memorial for the men and women who had served their country during the war. In one week over 5,000 contributors had given $195,000 and the hospital was opened on Armistice Day, 1920.
Immediately after the return of the men from overseas, the festive welcome had taken substantial shape in the form of the Soldiers and Sailors Club building on Main Street, presented by President Frank Cheney, Jr., of Cheney Brothers.
With all its glorious military record it was not till after the war, in 1926, that the state provided an armory for the local company, G of the One Hundred and Sixty-ninth Infantry, N. G.
October 1 to 7, 1923, the centennial anniversary of the in- corporation of the town was celebrated with a series of events including an historical pageant which was admired by thousands. An admirable history of the town was written at that time by Mathias Spiess and Percy W. Bidwell.
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No account of the distinctions which Manchester won in many ways would be complete without reference to the life of James B. Olcott (1830-1910), descendant on both sides from the earl- iest settlers including Thomas Hooker and Thomas Olcott. After going to California with the '49ers, he toured the world and made a study of grass. On returning to a farm in Manchester he devoted his time to his turf garden which contained specimens from all parts of the world, and he became an authority whose work was recognized and encouraged in Washington. Specimens of his turf were shipped to all parts of the country while thous- ands came to Manchester to study his gardens.
In public life the past few years there have been several who have gained more than local prominence. Among them. was Arthur E. Bowers (1855-1925) who worked his way through Yale, graduating with the class of '83. On retiring from the position of advertising manager for Munsey's publications in New York, he devoted himself for several years to developing in North Manchester one of the most attractive farms in the county. He was drawn into politics to the extent of giving ser- vice of high quality at different times as representative and as senator. His brother, Herbert O. Bowers (1867-1927), was graduated at Yale in 1892 and at the law school. He was the first judge of the town court, established in 1895, and was town counsel at the time of his death. Interested in all the affairs of the town, he gave particular attention to the schools. W. S. Hyde, a graduate of Trinity and now high in the legal profes- sion, was labor commissioner from 1915 to 1923, and after that judge of probate.
Horace White (1801-1893), familiarly "Uncle Horace," a native of Buckland but in later years living near the station and a stockinet manufacturer at the Green, was a fine example of the old school. At one time and another, he filled practically all the offices in the town and served in the Legislature and as county commissioner. Lucien Parker, whose name was given to Parker Village, died in South Manchester, 1885, after a long career as a cotton manufacturer, a business which he learned from Peter Dobson of Dobsonville and which was carried on by his son, Rienzi B. Parker, later president of the Hartford Life Insurance Company. Frank Cheney, Sr., the last of the original Cheney
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brothers, born in 1817, died in 1904. He was the father of Frank and Paul H. Cheney and uncle of Col. Frank W. Cheney, long the head of the firm and wise counsellor in the republican party of the state and nation. George W. Cheney, brother of John S. and James W., had died the previous December, aged sixty-eight, leaving a name in charitable work. Knight D. Cheney (1837-1907), son of Charles of the original family, was the one who developed the ribbon business in the Hartford fact- ory and was president from 1894 till his death. His five sons followed on in the business. A. Willard Case (1840-1925) started his paper mill at age twenty-one, with his brother Fred- erick, on a capital of $135. He was treasurer of Case Brothers at Highland Park and president of the allied A. Willard Case Company, president of the Case Manufacturing Company of Unionville and director in the Case & Marshall Company of Burnside. Miss Marjory Cheney is one of the women pioneers in politics and has given efficient service in the Legislature. Judge Olin R. Wood, now in his eightieth year, was judge of the probate court twenty-nine years till he reached the age limit in 1918, has been clerk of the court since then and was prominent in the Legislature during the terms he served.
Manchester is exceptional newspaperwise. The Weekly Herald, started by Elwood Starr Ela in 1881, a Wesleyan student and son of a Methodist minister who had come from Decatur, Ill., had developed into the daily Evening Herald by 1923, the year of his death. It was carried on by the late E. Hugh Crosby and Thomas Ferguson who has become chief owner, and has been treasurer and managing editor many years. The publishing company is now removing from the north end to Knights of Columbus Hall, built in 1920 in South Manchester. The weekly News was established by William J. Flood in South Manchester in 1893. In 1922 Mr. Flood was succeeded by his son, Joseph W. Flood. The paper was made a semi-weekly and, in 1923, a daily, but it suspended publication the following year.
And this Manchester, with its population of approximately 25,000, a grand list in 1927 of nearly $53,000,000, with indebted- ness of only $790,000 and a tax rate of only fourteen mills, is not a city nor yet a borough. It is one of the very few communi- ties of its size that still has town government, so arranged under
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charter granted in 1907 that it might be called semi-commission government. Instead of the traditional three selectmen it has seven, serving for $100 a year-the chairman for $200. There are park and police boards but the rest of the customary com- missions are made up of the selectmen. Originally there was minority representation on the board; with view to more effici- ency that feature was dropped. The author of the plan was Horace B. Cheney who as chairman was able to report at the end of the very first year an astonishingly long list of improvements. The list continues to lengthen.
LXI CONSTITUTION TOWN OF WETHERSFIELD
JOHN OLDHAM'S CHOICE IN 1634-ITS SHARE OF TROUBLES AT THE BE- GINNING-THE PEQUOT MASSACRE-PROMINENCE IN THE EARLY WARS-HOME OF LEADERS-REVERENCE FOR HISTORY-ROCKY HILL SHIPPING INDUSTRIES AND SUBURBAN ATTRACTIONS.
John Oldham, shrewd adventurer, after having passed by the future sites of Windsor and Hartford was probably drawn to Wethersfield, in the summer of 1633 and again with others when he planted in 1634, by the "great meadow" and the "great" and "little plains." Because of the large expanse of open field, the Indians called it Pyquaug. Most of the fields were south of a great bend in the Connecticut, no longer existing, which cut them off from Suckiaug (Hartford). Oldham found the soil good. Strangely out of keeping though he was with the class of found- ers we have been studying, Oldham was developing worthy points. At times he was written as "Mr." He had come to Plymouth in 1623. Twice he was expelled from the colony, after most severe and humiliating punishment, because of his roughness and ob- streperous conduct. At Nantasket he was well received till he broke up their fishnets. Sailing for Virginia, his experience in a great storm filled him with grief over his ungodly ways and Plymouth received him back with such confidence that it sent him to England with a trouble-making prisoner. There he so offended the Governor and Council of the Massachusetts Bay Company, with a patent which the company believed to be fraudulent, that a warning was dispatched to the Bay, where he was planning to locate. In 1631 he was a seemly church member in Watertown, won official recognition for overland trip to the Connecticut, showed skill in dealing with the Indians, was chosen representa- tive to the General Court in 1634 and was in many ways a useful though not devout citizen. He and his small party in 1634 prob-
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ably made the trip in a boat which he subsequently used in trad- ing with the Indians along the shore of Long Island Sound. There was a supply of the Wethersfield corn in it when he was murdered by the Indians off Block Island in July, 1636. His was the first will to be probated in the colony. It showed that he had property in various places, and for the Wethersfield property John Raynor was appointed to look after his crops as "he hitherto had done," and also after his two mares which were the colony's first.
When the General Court named this "Wythersfield" in 1636, the purchase from Sachem Sowheag of the Wongonks was sup- posed to be six miles square the west side of the river, and on the east side from Pewter Pot (Indian Pontopaug) Brook south to the present Middletown line and three miles into the eastern wilderness. In 1646 thirty miles additional to the east was bought. Oldham's companions supposedly were Abraham Finch and his three sons, Robert Seeley (sergeant, promoted to be lieu- tenant in the Pequot war), Nathaniel Foote (ancestor of distin- guished men), Sergeant John Strickland, John Clarke, Andrew Ward, Robert Rose and Leonard Chester, "gentleman" and rela- tive of Thomas Hooker by marriage, whose tombstone is the oldest one in the ancient village cemetery. They came from Watertown, Massachusetts Bay Colony, where Sir Richard Saltonstall and Rev. George Phillips had organized a church on their arrival from England with the Winthrop party in 1630. In common with the Newtown and Dorchester settlements, whence the founders of Hartford and Windsor came, petition of Watertown people to mi- grate to Connecticut was granted in 1635, but Oldham's men were "adventurers," impatient, who had not waited for action by the church body. The first name for the settlement was Watertown. In May, 1635, Rev. Richard Denton, Rev. John Sherman, Robert Reynolds, John Strickland, Jonas Weede, Robert Coe and Andrew Ward of the church followed the "adventurers." The same year the Dorchester and Newtown first settlers arrived in Windsor and Hartford. They were under the provisional government pre- scribed by the Massachusetts General Court till the adoption of the Fundamental Orders by the three plantations.
Permission was granted by the General Court in 1636 to this latter group (Rev. Richard Denton not included) to form a new church. Governor Winthrop, able recorder, set it down three
1
CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH, WETHERSFIELD
FRO CHESTEC /NAGRA,LATE OFTHAT CHANGE CLARY AID SEVERALL OTHER LARCUPS NI LEISTERCHEFE DECEASED /WETHERSFEILD ANTI DOMINUGAR ÉAUS 37
THE "LEONARD CHESTER" TABLE-STONE, SHOWING THE INSCRIPTION
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years later that the number was seven and that there was dis- agreement. This number may have included Rev. Mr. Denton or Rev. Henry Smith who came at about that time. What the troubles were or why other Newtown men did not join the colony there are no records to show because the early records were taken to Hadley, Massachusetts, by the "separatists" in 1663 during one of the periodical disagreements, and other records had been taken to Stamford by a still earlier group of malcontents in 1640. The records might throw light on the early firebrand from Mr. Hooker's plantation, "Ruling Elder" Clement Chaplin, "proud and wealthy," who had removed hither in 1636. With it all, how- ever, Chaplin was colonial treasurer in 1638. And the quaintly (perhaps unwittingly) humorous Winthrop, to whose diaries all New England owes so much, recorded in 1639 that the fight had been kept up; that four had fallen off from the church; that the Watertown church had vainly sent pacifiers, and that a proposi- tion that one faction or the other go elsewhere had been accept- able to both, but each for the other, each claiming to be the orig- inals and the four asserting their "multitude."
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