History of Litchfield county, Connecticut, Part 149

Author: J.W. Lewis & Company (Philadelphia, Pa.)
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Philadelphia : J.W. Lewis & Co.
Number of Pages: 1532

USA > Connecticut > Litchfield County > History of Litchfield county, Connecticut > Part 149

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" I therefore, the said Abijah Holbrook, do by these preseots freely and absolutely emancipate the said Jacob and Gione, and they are hereby discharged from all authority, title, claim, control, and demand that I, the said Holbrook, now have or ever had in or unto the persons or ser- . vices of theos, the said Jacob and Ginne, and they, from and after the date hereof, shall be entitled to their liberty and freedom, and to trans- act business for themselves in their own names and for their own benefit and use.

" To witness whereof I have hereuoto set my hand and seal this 18th day of August, A.D. 1798.

" ABIJAH HOLBROOK."

JOHN BROWN.

John Brown, known to history as " Ossawattomie Brown," was born in this town,-in the house an en- graving of which is herewith shown,-May 9, 1800.

HOUSE WHERE JOHN BROWN WAS BORN.

The history of this in some respects remarkable man is so well known that no extended notice is deemed necessary in this connection. Sufficeth it to say that he carried his Quixotic attempt to liberate the serfs of American bondage into the heart of slavedom, and met his tragic fate by hanging at Charleston, Va., Dec. 2, 1859.

CHAPTER LX.

TORRINGTON (Continued).

Wolcottville-Its Inception-United Movements-The Village in 1819- In 1836-In 1881-Seneca Lodge, F. and A. M .- Wolcottville Savings Bank - Brooke Brothers' Banking-Office -Physicians- Attorneys- Torringford-Holbrook's Mille-Hart's Hollow-Torrington Hollow- Wrightville-Burrville.

VILLAGES AND HAMLETS. WOLCOTTVILLE .*

"THE first business transaction that led the way of all others in building Wolcottville as a village was

* Name changed to Torrington in 1881.

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TORRINGTON.

the purchasing by Amos Wilson of the proprietors of the town the mill-privileges on Waterbury River, west branch, in March, 1751,-the site known since as that of Wilson's mill. He was then twenty-five years of age; had been in the town less than a year; was the owner of fifty acres of land given him by his father; and by this transaction started himself in business for life. His brother Noah had been in the town seven or eight years, and was the owner, at this time, of two or three hundred acres of land. The next step of progress was the formation of the stock com- pany, and the building of the mill soon after, prob- ably the same year. The company bought at different times various portions of the pine timber-land, and Noah and Amos Wilson bought for their individual possession strip after strip, as the owners were willing to sell, until a considerable part of the pine-timber was under their control. In October, 1752, Amos Wilson married Zerviah Grant, daughter of William Grant, one of the proprietors of the mill,-a transaction with a foresight to business as well as domestic felicity,- and made his home west of the mill, near the present residence of Mr. Burton Patterson.

"The next enterprise of Amos Wilson was a stere and a shoe-shop. His account-book, still preserved, reveals the extent of this department of usefulness, as well as the work done at the mill. The earliest date in this book is 1759, and the hook shows that there had been another previous to this, kept by Amos Wilson.

" It was this saw-mill that was to clear the pine- timber from the swamp and open the way for a beau- tiful village. This timber was valuable. Mast Swamp has been represented as a worthless piece of territory, so much so that the committee, in laying out the town, could scarcely devise a plan to dispose of it, whereas it was reserved during all the other divisions, for the reason that it was of such value that every proprietor demanded his share in proportion to the amount of his list. For twenty years the proprietors, by various committees, protected the pine-timber, and ordered prosecutions in court, even at large expense, upon any person who should eut it, and for what reason ? Because it was so worthless? Any of the old pro- prietors would have laughed at the idea. They had houses and barns to build ; and they knew that pine- lumber was far preferable and more durable than hemlock for such purposes, and to suppose to the contrary is a disparagement of the keen-sighted cal- culations of the fathers of Torrington. Many of the . farmers cut this timber as they needed it; hired the use of Wilson's mill to saw it, and worked at the mill night and day to that end, and then used it at their homes ; and after this process had been going on fifty years and more, they sold their lots with what re- mained on them, some of them, as the deeds show, for sixty dollars and over per acre. Between 1790 and 1800, Roger Wilson and Roswell Wilson bought, in company and separately, between twenty and 40

thirty of these lots, paying the above prices for a number of them.

"A highway through the swamp was laid at the time of the first division, in 1734, half a mile north of and parallel with the Litchfield line, and crossed the West Branch some distance above Wilson's mill, pass- ing eastward a little north of the present Congrega- tional parsonage, and was a traveled road very early. It was, indeed, the only road through the swamp for twenty or more years. In 1752 a highway was laid through the swamp, near the middle, from north to south, twenty feet wide, which is now Main Street. In the same year another one was laid frem the mill- place 'east, twenty feet wide, until it comes into the other road.' That is now Water Street. The other highway, known new as South Main Street, was made at a later date. The first road leading to Waterbury began at the west end of the bridge above Wilson's mill, and passed down on the south side of the river, crossing the brook below the park, and was called the New Haven road. The old Litchfield road came down the ravine into the New Haven road near this brook. On the east side of the river a highway was laid in 1752, from the Litchfield line running north as far as the pine-timber division of land. This road was ex- tended south into Litchfield, and became a traveled road quite early, and several dwellings were standing en it before 1800.

" On the New Haven road there were settlers long before any houses were built in Wolcottville. Paul Peck had his hermit's house near this road some time before 1776. Samuel Brooker owned his hundred acres of land in this vicinity, and built his house near the site of Mr. Charles F. Church's present dwelling, about 1785. Below this dwelling resided a Mr. Elwell and Solomon Morse. Capt. Perkins lived in a house on the site of Mr. Frederick Taylor's present home- stead. On the Litchfield road, some distance west from the New Haven road, were the homes of Thomas Coc, Asahel Wilcox, Chester Brooker, and others. Some of the land along this New Haven road and near the river has been under cultivation longer than any in the original town of Torrington. It was in this vicinity or up the Litchfield road that Josiah Grant resided in 1734, when he hired four or five acres of land then 'broken up on Waterbury River,' within the territory of Torrington. A carding and clothi-dressing mill was built opposite Wilson's saw- mill, on the river, at an carly period. Joseph Blake dressed cloth at this mill many years, and is said to have come to the town for this purpose. Amos Wil- son's account with Mr. Blake begins in 1769, and therefore it is probable that the mill was built before that time. This mill was gone in 1794. It is likely that when it began to decay, Joseph Taylor built the one that stood near the rock on the south side of the river, some fifty reds below Wilson's mill, and that Joseph Blake continued .to work for Mr. Taylor nt this second carding-mill, which became a flax-mill,

622

HISTORY OF LITCHFIELD COUNTY, CONNECTICUT.

then a turning-mill, and was finally consumed by fire.

"Wilson's new grist-mill was built in 1794, below and adjoining the saw-mill, where now the Messrs. Hotchkiss' planing-mill stands ; and the old saw-mill continued some years until rebuilt.

"Several dwellings were built very early on the road east of Waterbury River, opposite the present Valley Park, and in one of these John Brooker and his wife Jerusha began housekeeping after their mar- riage in 1783. They afterwards lived a number of years in the house said to have been built by Ambrose Potter, a little east of the foundry, now owned by Turner, Seymour & Company. Mr. John Brooker built a house where Mr. L. W. Coe's dwelling now stands in 1803, which was the first frame raised in Wolcott- ville. Benoni Leach built a house the same summer opposite Mr. Brooker's, east side of the Waterbury road, there being a strife as to which house should be raised first. Mr. Brooker won the day by about a week.

" The night after Mr. Brooker's house was raised, a large company of men engaged in raising a high pole ornamented with rams' horns and the like; and named the place ' Orleans Village.' This is the name used in most of the deeds for ten or fifteen years afterwards. After Mr. Brooker finished his house, he made it his home for a few years only, keeping it as a tavern.

" Daniel Potter, of Johnstown, N. Y., bought in 1804, of Mr. Brooker and his wife, land where the Coe furniture-store now stands, and built a store building on it and a dwelling, which buildings were occupied by his brother, Ambrose Potter. When this dwelling was raised one of the sides fell, killing one man and hurting a number of others, which fact was indelibly fixed upon the mind of a young girl, and hence re- membered to the present day. Mr. Potter sold this property to Ephraim Sanford, of Newtown, Conn., who took possession and went on with the store, and also bought the tavern, and about a year after Mr. Sanford was on his way to New Haven with a load of cheese, when the horses ran away and he was killed. His executors sold the store to Russell Bull and Fred- erick Robbins, of Wethersfield, in 1808. Mr. Bull, soon after, bought Mr. Robbins' half, and continued the store a number of years. Ambrose Potter built the tavern on the site of the American House for his brother Daniel, and afterwards owned and occupied it several years as a tavern. Between 1804 and 1812 a number of dwellings were erected in the village, and in 1814 the school-house, which stood on the east side of Main Street, where the present Register print- ing-office stands.

" When John Brooker was making plans to build his house, which became a public-house, Joseph Tay- Jor was arranging to build a tavern where the Allen house now stands. His sudden decease in 1802 de- layed the enterprise for a time, but about 1819, Mrs. Taylor and her son, Uri Taylor, completed the house, and thereafter kept it as a publie-house for a number

of years. In the winter of 1813, Joseph Allyn, Jr., bought the water-power and privileges from Wilson's mill to the flax-mill of the following persons for two hundred and eighty dollars : Roswell Wilson, Ben- jamin Phelps, Norman Wilson, Lemuel North, Sam- uel Beach and his wife, Keziah Beach, Joseph Allyn, Jonah Allyn, Roger Wilson, and Guy Wolcott. He sold it in the spring for the same price to Frederick Wolcott, of Litchfield, and Guy Wolcott, of Torring- ton ; deed dated May 3, 1813. The Wolcotts pur- chased another plot, below the first, at the same time; and upon this they erected that year the woolen- mill. They purchased several other pieces of land, giving the owners until the next September to remove the timber. On the day of the raising of the woolen- mill, the Rev. Alexander Gillett being present, as well as a large number of the people of the town, pro- posed that the name of the place be changed ; in re- sponse to which a call was made: 'What shall we call it? Name it.' He answered, 'Wolcottville,' and to this all agreed, and Wolcottville it is.

" In 1813, Nathan Gillett, who married a daughter of Deacon Guy Wolcott, was residing in the house north of the bridge, on the west side of Main Street. This house he built about 1808 or 1809, and occupied it until 1817, when he removed West.

"There were two or three houses built on the north side of the river between 1806 and 1810. At the northwest part of the village there were probably but two or three dwellings before 1800 within the territory now regarded as Wolcottville.

"In the Gazetteer of the States of Connecticut and Rhode Island, printed in 1819, we have the following description of this village :

" ' Wolcottville, a village of eighteen houses, has been built principally since 1802, and is an active, flourishing place. Its growth has been chiefly owing to the establishment of an extensive woolen-factory, which now is owned principally by His Excellency Oliver Wolcott. It is one of the largest establishments of the kind in the State, employing about forty workmen, and manufacturing from twenty-five to thirty-five yards of broadcloth daily, of an average value of six dollars per yard. The cloths made have a substantial texture, and are manufactured in a style scarcely inferior to the highest finished English cloths.'

"Barber's 'History of Connecticut,' published in 1836, says,-

"' Wolcottville, the principal village in the town of Torrington, is situated in a valley near the southern boundary of the town, at the junc- tion of the two branches of the Waterbury or Naugatuck River, twenty- six miles from Hartford, forty from New Haven, and seventeen from the New llaven and Northampton Canal at Avon. The village consists of ahout forty dwelling-houses, a handsome Congregational church, a three- story brick building used as a house of worship by various denomina- tions, and also as an academy, four mercantile stores, two taverns, a post-office, and an extensive woolen-factory. The Congregational church stands at the northern extremity of the village, but, owing to the limited extent of the engraving, it could not be introduced. The brick building used for a house of worship is on the left, over which is seen the Litch- field turnpike, passing over the heights westward. The woolen-factory is the large building with a spire. This factory went into operation in 1813. One of the principal owners was the late Oliver Wolcott, Esq., formerly Governor of the State; the village owes its rise principally to this establishment. A short distance westward of the factory an estab- lisliment for the manufacture of brass is now erecting : it is believed to he the only one of the kind at present in the United States.'

623

TORRINGTON.

" Wolcottville now contains thirty stores of all va- rieties, two hotels, four churches, a town-hall, a town clerk's office, a graded school building, the granite block, containing Wadam's Hall, a large hall for public assemblies, one bank, two daguerreian gal- leries, a post-office, one printing-office, issuing a weekly paper, and eight copartnership manufacturing com- panies, employing a capital of seven hundred thousand dollars.

" Its professional men are four settled pastors, five practicing physicians, and two lawyers. The graded school has a gentleman as principal, and six lady teachers."

SENECA LODGE, F. AND A. M.

This lodge was chartered June 13, 1817, with the following members: Chauncey Humphrey, Samuel and Leonard Hurlbut, Drake Mills, Henry Palmer, Aaron Smith, Amos Bradley, Hugh Kearney, William Crum, Lemuel Hurlbut, Truman S. Wetmore, John McAlpin, Daniel Phelps, Jr., William Bunnel, Ste- phen Fyler, Joseph D. Humphrey, Charles Andrus, John Wetmore (2d), Elisha Hinsdale, Raphael Mar- shall, Russell C. Abernethy, Asahel Smith, Edward Taylor, Samuel Bradley, Norman Wilson, Israel Coe, Christopher Pierce, James Green, Miles Beach, George Lyman, Norman Fowler, Alanson H. Kimberly, Jo- seph R. Judson, Phineas Reed, Ichabod Loomis. The lodge met at the dwelling of Stephen Fyler, at New- field, until 1823, since which time it has been located at Wolcottville. There was no communication of the lodge from June, 1833, to December, 1836, after which they renewed and continued them until 1840, and then surrendered the charter to the Grand Lodge. In 1860, upon the petition of the following persons, the charter was returned : Samuel Burr, Russell C. Aber- nethy, Rev. J. F. Covell, Allen G. Brady, Henry J. Allen, Sr., William H. Moore, George B. Fish, Uri Taylor, James Palmer, Isaac C. Palmer, Edward Pier- pont, James Ashborn.

The first officers were Truman S. Wetmore, W. M .; Russell C. Abernethy, S. W .; John McAlpin, J. W .; Aaron Smith, Treas .; Daniel Phelps, Sr., Sec. ; Carl- ton IIumphrey, S. D .; Alanson Kimberly, J. D .; Ichabod Loomis, Tyler.

The present officers are J. W. Brothwell, W. M .; Charles Alldis, S. W .; James Bell, J. W .; James Alldis, Treas. ; O. R. Luther, Sec. ; John D. Bishop, S. D .; Herman W. Huke, J. D .; Albert L. Tuttle, Tyler.

THE WOLCOTTVILLE SAVINGS BANK

was organized in 1868, with Francis N. Holley, Presi- dent; Joseph F. Calhoun, Vice-President ; and Frank L. Hungerford, Secretary and Treasurer. The present officers are as follows : Joseph F. Calhoun, President ; Isaac W. Brooks, Treasurer ; Joseph F. Calhoun, Ran- som Holley, Bradley R. Agard, Lyman W. Cee, Elisha Turner, and Isaac W. Brooks, Directors.

BROOKS BROTHERS' BANKING-HOUSE.

This is a bank of discount and deposit, established by John W. and Isaac W. Brooks in 1872.

PHYSICIANS.

The following physicians have practiced in this town :* Erastus Bancroft, William Bostwick, Stephen E. Calkins, Adelbert M. Calkins, Jarvis Case, Isaac Day, Penfield Goodsell, Edward M. Hatch, Thatcher Swift Hanchett, Elkanah Hodges, Erasmus D. Hud- son, Gee. O. Jarvis, Elijah Lyman, Jeremiah W. Phelps, Bela St. John, Joel Soper, Samuel Wood- ward, Elijah Woodward, L. H. Wood, Gideon H. Welch, Edward A. Kunkle, and - Cole. The oldest settled physician is Dr. T. S. Hanchett, who was born in Canaan, Conn., Nev. 8, 1838. He com- menced the study of medicine with Dr. Homer Dar- ling, of East Douglass, Mass. He subsequently at- tended at the Medical Department of Harvard, and after remaining there one year entered the United States navy as hospital steward on the " Wamsutta." After leaving the service he returned to Harvard, later spent one year with Dr. A. W. Bennett, of Ux- bridge, Mass., and in 1864 graduated from Bellevue Hospital, New York. He was an assistant of Dr. Wm. Welch, of Norfolk, one year, and in 1865 settled in Wolcottville, where he has since resided.

TORRINGFORD.

"Shubael Griswold's tavern was probably the first institution of a public character in Torringford. It is possible that it was something more than a tavern, for he may have kept articles of merchandise answer- ing to a store, such as teas, indigo, sugar, and farm productions, as did Amos Wilson, Jolin Whiting, and Noah North, on the west side of the town. Not long after Mr. Griswold's tavern became established, Ben- jamin Bissell opened a house of entertainment a little farther north, on Torringford Street, east side of the road, which was in full operation in 1776, for it is stated that during the Revolution the women of the eastern part of the town, whose husbands and sons were in the army, assembled at this tavern at certain times to obtain information from or concerning the soldiers and the army. Afterwards David Soper kept a tavern near the First meeting-house, which he con- tinued a number of years. Another tavern was kept near the Greenwoods.

" William Battell, of Woodbury, bought ten acres of land, adjoining Rev. Samuel J. Mills' house on the south, on the 9th of Detober, 1783, giving for it three hundred and five pounds. On this land he erected a store building, and in it kept a store for many years. Mr. Battell was about thirty-five years of age when he settled in Torringford, and entered upon his mer- cantile business with energy and good judgment, as is indicated by the location he chose for himself. There was but one store in the town at the time, that

· The list is given in alphabetical order, not in order of settlement.

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HISTORY OF LITCHFIELD COUNTY, CONNECTICUT.

being Dr. Hodges', on the west side, and Torringford was fast becoming a populons region by immigration and the growing up of the young people of the fami- lies of the first settlers. Dr. Samuel Woodward had recently established his home here as a practicing physician, and the place needed just such a store as Mr. Battell opened to the public ; and although he was under the necessity of transporting his merchandise to Hartford and New Haven at first with ox-carts, yet he succeeded well, and his store became the place of a large amount of business transactions. He bought and shipped all kinds of farm produce,- grains, butter, cheese, pork, beef, eggs, and flax,-and brought in return all the articles usually sold at conn- try stores in those days,-dry-goods, including silks and satins, imported broadcloths of costly style, gro- ceries, hardware, drugs, shocs, and leather. All thic various kinds of mercantile goods that at the present day are found by visiting a dozen stores were then crowded into one and called a country store. Such a store was not complete without a choice variety of wines, brandies, and liquors of all kinds, imported and of home manufacture; and this was not all : the people drank liquors by the gallon and barrel, and some of them made themselves drunk, and wallowed in the mire like beasts, as well as at the present day. The familiar pretense that persons did not become in- toxicated and stagger in the streets, swear and fight and run horses and carouse, just like drunken men, is too shallow to be repeated by intelligent people. It may go for par a thousand years hence, but not quite yet. It was not a peculiarity of one store nor of one community to sell and use intoxicating drinks, but was the practice of a great portion of both stores and communities throughout the United States be- fore and many years after the year 1800. Mr. Battell had also a manufactory of potash, which was an article of extensive sale in those days.

" He sold his store and the ten acres of land and the potash-works to his sons William and Joseph ; the latter being in Norfolk in 1808, and probably retired from business life. His son William continued the store until about 1830.

" Nathaniel Smith, of Milford, and later of Beth- lehem, came to Torringford a young man, and was clerk in the store of William Battell three years, when he engaged in the mercantile business for him- self in a store at Griswold's Corners, where he con- tinued until his death, in 1854, a period of forty-six years. Hc married Harriet, the daughter of Daniel Winchell, and built and resided in the brick house on the west side of the street at that place. He was appointed postmaster in 1812, and held the office with- out interruption forty-two years, a case probably with- out a parallel in this country, and was a very upright and careful business man, and highly esteemed among business men generally, his credit in New York and elsewhere being of the highest kind, and for a number of years he did a large business; but Wolcottville began

to be the market for farmers' produce, and hence also of mercantile trade, and especially after the railroad was established. Therefore Torringford, as to com- mercial life, must decline, while the valleys sur- rounding it should increase. Mr. Smith's son, Charles B. Smith, came to Wolcottville as a mer- chant, and the business at the old store was not great during the last few years that it was continued.

"Quite an extensive tannery and shoe-shop had been conducted in the early time of Torringford, on the corner where Nathaniel Smith built his brick house, and here also he set up, in the rear of his dwelling, a leach for the making of potash.

" The brick building a short distance south of the church was used some years, beginning about 1860, by Darius Wilson, as a wagon- and blacksmith-shop. He removed to Wolcottville, and then West. An- other wagon-shop stood half a mile east, and was a busy place a number of years, several. men being reg- ularly employed in making wagons, some of which were for the Southern market. This shop was started about 1840."

HOLBROOK'S MILLS.

" Abijah Holbrook came from Bellingham, Mass., to Goshen, and in July, 1787, bought, in company with Fisk Beach, land of Daniel Mills, of Goshen, at the place on Naugatuck River afterwards known as Hol- brook's mills, and later as Appley's mills. When Mr. Holbrook and Beach made the purchase there was a forge or iron-works on the land, an attempt having been made to obtain iron from the ore found in this region, but the quantity obtained was not sufficient to encourage this kind of enterprise. Mr. Holbrook and Beach built a grist-mill and saw-mill, and Mr. Holbrook erected the building that is now falling to the ground a little south of the mill. Its ruins show that it was once more than an ordinary honse. Mr. Holbrook was a man of wealth, and a 'polished gentleman, far in advance of his generation in that particular.' Elijah Pond, being brother-in- law to Mr. Holbrook, removed from Grafton, Mass., about 1790, and engaged in the mill and other enter- prises with his brother-in-law, and it is thought they had a purpose or intent to work the foundry, in con- nection with the iron mine on Walnut Mountain. Sylvanus Holbrook, a nephew of Abijah, came from Massachusetts very early in the present century, and resided some years in the vicinity of his uncle, and removed to Goshen, where he died. He did a mer- cantile business in Baltimore, which required his ab- sence from home some months of each year.

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History of Litchfield county, Connecticut, Part 149

Author: J.W. Lewis & Company (Philadelphia, Pa.) Publication date: 1881 Publisher: Philadelphia : J.W. Lewis & Co. Number of Pages: 1532

Author: J.W. Lewis & Company (Philadelphia, Pa.)
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Philadelphia : J.W. Lewis & Co.
Number of Pages: 1532