USA > Connecticut > Hartford County > History of Hartford County, Connecticut, 1633-1928, Volume II > Part 43
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42-VOL. 2
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each officer a sword, epaulets and cockade, a red and black feather and enough fine broadcloth, with trimmings, for a uniform at a nominal price of four guineas. But a few of the names from the town's long list of officers have here been given but even they are enough without those of the privates to show that the same fam- ily names have continued prominent in the history of town and state through these succeeding generations.
Barnabas Deane was one of the first to suggest privateering, in a letter in 1775 to his brother Silas in Congress, saying several were ready to start. The moment authority was granted he pro- cured material for building a ship at Rocky Hill; until captured British ships filled in the needs, the yards there and at the cove were busy. Silas Deane was chairman of America's first naval committee, before there was an actual navy. Of the sea captains from Wethersfield who early gained distinction was William Gris- wold of Stepney Parish, descendant of Michael the settler. He was a partner of Barnabas Deane. Moses Tryon of the navy afterwards was in command of the Connecticut, making a name for himself and his ship in the Barbary war.
In the moment of rejoicing over the end of the war all the col- onies were discussing a murder that had been committed in Weth- ersfield by William Beadle, a merchant and a deist. Depreciation of currency had ruined him. In an account of his crime which he wrote before committing it he said he was guided by a dream his wife had about herself and her four children as corpses. He killed her and the children and then himself. Clergy preached on the topic and a book was published by a Wallingford writer.
Neither the War of 1812 nor the Mexican War appealed greatly to Connecticut, and Wethersfield was not largely repre- sented. Following the disposition of the state again, the town furnished more than its quota in the subsequent wars. In the Civil war the number of men was 234 of whom twenty-eight died of disease or were killed. In the lists are many of the names familiar in the previous wars. On Broad Street Green there was constant drilling-a rendezvous for recruits. A number of men enlisted in Hartford and New Haven counties. Edward G. Wood- house was a lieutenant in Company B of the Twenty-second Regi- ment. In the Spanish war several men were members of the First
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Regiment. In the World war the roll of honor is a long one but not yet complete since there have not been added the names of those assigned from training camps to organizations from the states as a whole, under the intensely national system then adopted. Richard W. DeLamater is a veteran of both wars, as a sergeant in the First Connecticut Volunteers in 1898 and as a captain in the World war till discharged for disability and then becoming major in the State Guard-later an officer in the Na- tional Guard and subsequently in the Foot Guard. The local company of the First Regiment, Connecticut State Guard, drilled in Academy Hall and on the green. The local officers were Major DeLamater, Maj. T. J. Coombs, Capt. James L. Noble, Capt. Bur- ton A. Harris and Lieut. Wilfred W. Savage. The hall had been used from 1866 to 1870 as an armory for Company F of the Old First Regiment, Connecticut National Guard. On the return of the World war veterans, a post of the American Legion was. formed and the Baptist Church was made over for a hall for it. The post was named after Russell K. Bourne, Battery C, One Hundred and Third Field Artillery, who was killed in October, 1918. The Distinguished Service Cross awarded him was given to his father, Howard T. Bourne of Smith & Bourne, Hartford.
In the field of education, Wethersfield has been no less notable. William James, from New Haven, was the first schoolmaster. His successor, Thomas Lord, was withal the best bonesetter in the colony. The first schoolhouse was next south of the Silas Deane house. Eleazer Kimberly, the third teacher, interrupted his long term of service to be secretary of the colony. New parishes pro- vided their own houses. Three districts were formed in 1772 after a third building had been erected on High Street. In this building was the library. The brick school which succeeded it was built in 1862. Buildings of brick and of wood were placed and replaced, including the one on the highway, Broad Street. Griswoldville section grew out of a division of the First School Society in 1835, forming the sixth or Southwest District. The brick schoolhouse on Thomas Griswold's land was built in 1852.
The "academy" dated from 1801 when Col. John Chester started a subscription for the brick building, on the basis of £300 plus £230 by town tax. It was to have on the first floor separate rooms for the sexes and a room for general purposes above. At.
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times private and at times graded schools were here conducted, and finally it became the town hall, with library and the town clerk's office. Of the successful private schools, that of Frederick K. Butler was the first in the village. Mr. Butler, whose son, Thomas B., became chief judge, wrote histories. Rev. Joseph Emerson opened his female seminary in 1824, conducted after his death by his widow at her home.
Chauncey Rose, born in Wethersfield but residing in Terre Haute, Ind., in 1866 gave $6,000 for maintaining a high school in the town. The school was opened in the academy building the next year. J. O. Hurlburt of East Hartford was the principal for many years. The regular high school building, on High Street fifty rods south of the Congregational Church, at a cost of $4,000 for the land and of $15,000 for the building, was dedicated in 1894. The cornerstone of the present handsome high school building on Church Street, to cost $285,000, was laid December 17, 1927. J. Stanley Welles was chairman of the School Board and A. G. Hubbard, A. G. Stronach and E. O. Buck were the building committee. It is both a junior and a senior high school, under charge of Principal G. H. Parks,-Wilson Geer was super- intendent of schools. The Parent-Teacher Association is in co- operation. Two earnest workers for the schools have died this year, 1928. J. Stanley Welles, who was chairman of the board that was instrumental in securing the new high school, was one, and Leslie Emerson Adams, who had been active in school work for forty-seven years and treasurer of the library for thirty-nine years, was the other.
How Wethersfield, thanks to the outstanding ability of Rev. Elisha Williams-the "rector-colonel" of history whose life was one of continued domestic affliction through the deaths of his chil- dren but who nevertheless gave of his services, civil, military, re- ligious and educational, here and in England, till exhausted-had a part of Yale College in 1716 is told in the general county history.
A library was founded in 1783 by Col. John Chester, Judge Stephen Mix Mitchell, Joseph Webb and Ezekiel Williams. The time one could keep a book depended on the size of the book. The 416 volumes in the upper part of the High Street School all had book plates. This library was closed and the books sold in
(Photo by Jared B. Standish )
THE MICHAEL GRISWOLD HOUSE IN BACK LANE, WETHERSFIELD Built about 1730 and is the oldest house in Wethersfield
ACADEMY HALL, WETHERSFIELD Now occupied by Library, Town Clerk and as Town Hall
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1850. When Chauncey Rose was giving for a high school in 1866 he also gave for a library which was then being formed, both money and books, thereby laying the foundation of the present library. It was named after Mr. Rose and became the Wethers- field Free Public Library in 1893. That year a state commission was appointed by the State Board of Education under authority of the new law, which had been proposed by the Connecticut Library Association, to try to secure a library for every town in the state. The commission allowed $500 for clerical expenses. Rules governing libraries, drawn up in Wethersfield, were used as a model for other towns: the public library to receive books from the library association, the books subject to recall; three local directors were also to be directors of the association. In two years twenty-five towns were under this supervision. By subse- quent law the state allowed these towns $100 worth of books, or less if appropriation were less. The rooms are in the historic Academy Hall-the building so full of history and so picturesquely harmonious with its ancient surroundings. The librarian is Miss Frances D. Shedd. The first home of the library was in a build- ing just south of the Congregational Church and in 1872 in the chapel of that church till removal to Academy Hall.
From the time in 1634 when John Oldham tested the soil and found it good, Wethersfield has seemed to have been foreordained for agricultural industry. Its onions themselves brought it fame for several generations, and since then the crop has been varied, while enterprising men find good business in supplying the rest of the world with seeds. Silas W. Robbins, who served as senator and was on the directorates of Hartford banking and insurance institutions, was one of the most noted breeders of fancy stock in the United States, and the farm was carried on after him by his son-in-law Wilfred W. Savage who also found time to assist in town affairs. Mr. Robbins and his brother, Richard A., conducted the general store and later did a large seed business throughout the country, incorporated as Johnson, Robbins & Company. Rich- ard was the father of Edward D. Robbins of New Haven, for- merly an instructor at Yale, and latterly one of the foremost law- yers of New England. The town's ambition in the field of ship- building and commerce was checked by the wars from 1775 to
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1815, but there has been the adjoining town of Hartford in which genius of any sort could find play. The story of the town so far carries the implication that the people were rather more well- to-do than those in most towns. And in 1928 ancestral estates are fast increasing in value as building sites for those with city business who delight in the natural beauties of the town.
But there have been mills. The first Leonard Chester had his in operation on Mill Brook shortly after the settlers arrived. It was for grinding corn. Its successors were built near the same romantic spot, the last one coming into the possession of Theron Welles at the beginning of this century. Dr. Gershom Bulkeley, as remarked, made a success of his grist mill at Divi- dend. Thomas Harris of Hartford in 1668 built the first saw- mill-on the Hockanum in present Glastonbury. Present Wol- cott Hill was formerly known as Windmill Hill, suggestive of the preference at one time for wind over water as a power. Brick mills were almost as common as in Windsor and Berlin. Pipestaves were the backbone of commercial industry. They were rived out of oak and, under town inspection, had to be four feet long, four inches wide and one inch thick for the manufac- ture of hogsheads in the West Indies whither so many of them
went. When by law Hartford and Windsor were limited to 20,000 a year, Wethersfield was permitted 50 per cent more. Jacob Griswold had one of the first woollen mills in the country. Fulling, carding and weaving establishments (the chief ones being conducted for years by the Griswolds), rope-making, stocking-making and the like all had their day. Elisha Wolcott made hats for the army. Sophia Woodhouse, who married Gur- don Welles, turned out such remarkable braided-grass hats that she won prizes in London and her product was in great demand. A number of well-known books from 1830 on were published here. William Boardman introduced the grinding of coffee and spice, the beginnings of the enduring house of William Board- man's Sons of Hartford and the first of its kind in Connecticut. Plows were turned out and edged tools, tinware, pins (the first in America, made by Leonard Chester in 1775), drop-forging's by Billings & Spencer, and at Rocky Hill and Dividend also sea- bread, carriages, gin and mattresses. There are forty-five trades and professions in the town.
The state prison for a period furnished a considerable mar-
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ket for garden produce. It was built here in 1827 after the un- pleasant experiences at Newgate in Granby, largely through the efforts of Judge Martin Welles, on land of the family of Gov. Thomas Welles. The cell buildings were of Portland sandstone, the workshops of brick and the encircling walls of sandstone. The value of the property today is $850,000; the number of in- mates, 550. Henry K. W. Scott is the warden.
The Legislature incorporated the village of Wethersfield in 1822. With the exception of Litchfield it is the only town in the state to have this form. The powers confirmed are not exercised, the dependence still being upon the town form with commissions. It was the second town in the state to have a chartered fire com- pany, the petition to the Legislature being granted in 1803. At that period Wethersfield had two hand engines. A fire which burned five buildings in 1831, starting in John Williams', and another in 1834 which destroyed a warehouse of Lockwood Bel- den, predecessor of the present Comstock, Ferre & Company, and several adjacent buildings caused the forming of a new fire com- pany and the acquisition of an old engine from Hartford. Build- ing and equipment were burned in 1872, after which the present department was organized and more up-to-date equipment pro- cured. There is a fire district at Wolcott Hill as well as at the center and extra tax is paid in the districts. The Business Men's and Civic Association has taken steps toward procuring a char- ter at the next session of the Legislature, providing for a town council and manager. It has been demonstrated that it must be this or a new town hall large enough to accommodate the num- ber who wish to attend. At present the town meetings are held in Legion Hall.
The railroad station at Newington (1839) was the only one for Wethersfield till the Connecticut Valley road was put through in 1872 when a station was provided at South Wethersfield. The horse-railroad from Hartford came in 1862 and the electric road in 1888. Water, gas and electricity are supplied from Hartford. The post office has done business since 1794 when it was opened by Thomas Chester, and now there is another at South Wethers- field. The News is the weekly newspaper, successor to the Farmer. The population is about 7,000 for the 8,600 acres and the grand list $9,000,000.
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It is worthy of particular note that as the town has grown, the newcomers have joined in delving into history and in plans for the preservation of reminders of old days. The Village Im- provement Society, before it was outgrown, gave attention to the ancient Broad Street Common which was the place for herding sheep and later geese, in addition to live stock, by the colonists who lived along its borders, and always was a drill-ground. The society's work of improvement began soon after the World war and the ideas will be carried out by the town after pressing ne- cessities are cared for. Across the road on the east side is the famous largest elm in the country. The Deane house where the plan for the capture of Ticonderoga was worked out is Congress- man E. Hart Fenn's. The Webb house where the final campaign of the same war was worked out is, as elsewhere told, in the keep- ing of the Colonial Dames. The fine old Standish house across the street from it, built for a hostlery by Henry A. Deming, a local merchant, in 1790, and long famous as the Village Hotel and later as a store before it became the property of Capt. James Standish in 1852, whose sons carried on business there and had a stage-coach office, has been bought recently of the Standish heirs by the town as a possible town hall or library site. On the place stands the original post office building which had been moved about 1844 from across the street, together with its huge stepping stone bearing three prehistoric animal footprints. The property was left by Nancy Wells Standish, spinster, as part of her estate at her death at age ninety-nine. James Standish, one of the sons of Captain James, died in 1902, aged seventy-five. He was the father of Thomas, Wyllys W., J. Edward, Jared B., Dr. J. Herbert and Emma L. Standish and of Mrs. Clarence L. Hart and Mrs. Arthur W. Howard. If the place is used for pub- lic purposes, the buildings will have to be removed.
Another park, at the north end of the town, on Hartford Avenue, has been provided. It will memorialize Thomas Stan- dish, supposedly a son of Miles Standish, to whom was awarded, for his services in the Pequot war, a wide strip of land on the south side of Fort Street. He was the keeper of the "strong house" or fort on the high ground on the south bank of Goose Pond on the common, to which Fort Street led. At the time of King Philip's war six houses in the town were "forts." His de-
(Photo by Jared B. Standish )
MAIN STREET, WETHERSFIELD Silas Deane house at left, Squire John Williams' place and famous church spire in distance
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LARGEST ELM IN THE UNITED STATES, LOCATED NEAR THE WETHERSFIELD COMMON Spread, one hundred forty-seven feet; circumference, twenty-nine feet; age, two hundred fifty-five years
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scendants have been prominent in the town's affairs. The first road opened westward to Newington from Hartford Road was known as Standish Lane, now Nott Street. The land in the vicin- ity of Hartford Avenue has been known as North Brick Green, from the fact that the old North District brick schoolhouse was located there. The Standish family have improved and beauti- fied their part of the land. A portion of it was given to the town after Nott Street was straightened and now the family have sold the rest to the town with understanding that it shall always be for park purposes. The town named it Standish Park. Across Nott street from it is a part of the original Standish grant which Ida Welles deeded to the town. On this a granite-boulder war memorial given by the late Frederick W. Warner of the mercan- tile firm of Warner & Bailey of Hartford, was dedicated on Me- morial Day, 1927, to bear bronze tablets giving the names of the soldiers of all the wars. It was on this portion that the school- house stood. Another park is located at the junction of North Main Street and River Road at the upper common around the basin of the old Goose Pond. This the Town Plan Commission has named Hanmer Park in honor of a family that was well rep- resented in the wars of the eighteenth century and in civic life ever since.
Masonic Hall, on the corner of Main and Church streets, built five years ago by Hospitality Lodge, is used largely for social gatherings and entertainments. Grange Hall, also on Main Street south of the town hall, the largest grange hall in the state, is a place for social functions. The Wethersfield Cove Yacht Club has its quarters at the cove which furnishes an excel- lent harbor. The Wethersfield Country Club has particularly attractive links. The Business Men's and Civic Association is especially watchful that the remarkable historic atmosphere shall be retained and the town be kept attractive. Through its influence most of the town has now been zoned and is in the single residence class.
Today the Wethersfield Bank and Trust Company is being organized. The incorporators are Col. Howard P. Dunham (who is state insurance commissioner), William Shew, Alfred W. Hanmer, Ernest Spencer, Edward O. Buck, E. R. Woodhouse, Charles G. Hart, Albert G. Hubbard, William E. Morris and Henry G. Griswold, whose names are given not for informing
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their fellow townsmen but as another item of that feature calcu- lated to make this entire history of special value to students of New England colonizing and heredity, inasmuch as most of the names of the men thus engaged are the names that recur con- stantly in the history of the town or neighboring towns from early times. It is a most noteworthy peculiarity, it must have been observed, of all the towns developed from the original Three Constitution Towns.
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ROCKY HILL
Rocky Hill was long a part of Wethersfield but with an indi- viduality indicated successively by the names "Lower Commun- ity," Lexington and Stepney Parish. It became a parish in 1722 and received its name in 1723. In 1826 its boundaries were ex- tended over all the eastern part of southern Wethersfield and in 1843 it was incorporated as a town. Prominent in securing the incorporation was Gen. James T. Pratt, for many years a leader in the State Militia and adjutant-general, senator in 1852 and congressman in 1853-5. It is called Rocky Hill because of a trap-rock hill running from south of Goffe Brook to the Connecti- cut River landing,-a wonderful place for a view but with no obvi- ous right to bestow its name upon such a sweep of meadow and stream. The first meeting-house was built in 1722, the second in 1808-today with its restored interior one of the most typical New England edifices. Rev. Daniel Russell was identified with the church and community their first thirty-seven years. Rev. Burrage Merriam was pastor from 1776 and Rev. John Lewis of Southington to 1792. The fourth was Rev. Dr. Calvin Cha- pin, widely known and secretary of the American Board of Com- missioners for Foreign Missions. Rev. Morris E. Alling, now minister at the Connecticut Agricultural College, was pastor during the World war and was chaplain of the First Regiment, Connecticut State Guard. Rev. Richard T. Elliott is the present incumbent.
Archibald Robbins, one of Rocky Hill's many seamen, was a member of the crew of the Commerce, who were sold into cap- tivity by Barbary pirates. After his return he conducted a
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store in the famous old Grimes sail-loft near the busy landing. He permitted the first Methodists, in their days of persecution, to hold their meetings there in 1830 and for twelve years there- after. The Methodists bought a building at the end of that time and moved it to the site where they built their own house in 1859. The first formal pastorate was that of Rev. John Love- joy. The church was burned and immediately another was built in 1895. West Rocky Hill Congregationalists put up a church of their own in 1843, with Rev. B. Redford as pastor. Rev. John Ryan of Cromwell brought the Roman Catholics together at the Center schoolhouse till their church was completed in 1881.
The town boasted its library from early times. First was the Social Library from 1794 to 1847. Doctor Chapin was the first regular librarian. Two years after this was started another was opened, known as the Free Library, and the total of subscribers to the two was 165. Neither had a permanent home. Consolidation was effected under the name of the Social Library in 1820. With the purchase of book Number 508 in 1847, the institution came to an end. It was revived in 1855 under its original name by Rev. Mr. Rockwood. A lyceum had its run from 1860 to 1864 and the books it accumulated went to the Social which in 1887 became the Rocky Hill Library Associ- ation. A building erected in 1899 added to its prestige. Dr. Rufus Griswold, the town's first historian, remarks of the people: "There was evidence to me perfectly plain that they had access in the early days to the best English literature of their times, and their intellectuality was enlarged and stimulated thereby."
While the ecclesiastical life of the community ran its even course there was a romantic side almost as pronounced as that of a seacoast town. The river-front grant south of Meadow Brook to Samuel Boardman had been acquired by Jonathan Smith prior to 1730. One of his daughters, Abigail, wife of Hezekiah Grimes, kept her part of her father's estate and that of her brother Nathan was added to it at his death. It is felt that to the desire of the Grimes family to retain possession of the northern two-thirds of the old grant is attributable the fact that Rocky Hill did not become an important port. The concerns
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engaged in shipbuilding, in commerce and to some extent in manufacturing were mostly on leased land.
The original ship-yard reservation covered five acres. The river then ran much nearer the foot of the hill north of the ferry landing. The town granted lots on the ship-yard property and then, when the railroad came in 1871, what was left became West Side. Building was brisk north of the landing from 1750 on through the Revolutionary war. There was some activity at the south side and apparently some north of the brook where the concern of Seabury Belden and his son Eugene was established in 1873. What with the French and British interferences with trade from 1798 to 1814, industry waned and was a disappoint- ment by 1820. Doctor Griswold, who went into the subject thor- oughly, says that, except for a few ships turned out by John Wil- liams' yard at Hog Brook and two or three in the section still known as Dividend, "the old ship-yard was the cradle of ship construction all down the years." All workmen participated at each launching and shared in the festivities afterward.
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