History of Litchfield county, Connecticut, Part 41

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 41

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"Not a single mountain, lake, or river bears an In- dian name. The flint arrow-head is occasionally found on the intervale lands, and in considerable numbers along the south shores of Long Lake, to- gether with some other stone implements, indicating a resort there for fishing and hunting. There was also a cleared spot around a copious spring of water on the east shore of the lake, on land of Deacon Joseph W. Hurlbut, where numerous arrow-heads have been found."

The oldest conveyance of land recorded in Win-

chester bears date Nov. 28, 1729, by which John Kil- bourn, of Hartford, conveys to Jonathan and David Hills, of Hartford, "all (his) right, title, share, and in- terest in and to a large Tract of Land, commonly known as the Western Lands, belonging to the towns of Hart- ford and Windsor, as it abuts on the Towns of Wood- bury and Litchfield, west on the Colony Land, north on the Colony line, and east on Farmington and Sims- bury, or however butted and bounded."

The first road through this town was the trail fol- lowed by the settlers en route to the lands at Goshen, Norfolk, and Canaan. Where it was located is un- known, but for a long time it continned to be the traveled path to the West.

" The General Assembly, at its May session in 1758, ' being advised that the road or way now often trav- eled through the towns of Simsbury, New Hartford, and Norfolk, to and through the northwestern parts of Canaan, towards Albany, is in many respects ill- chosen and unfit for use, and that some new and better road through said towns, or some of them, or the towns adjacent, may probably be discovered more direct and convenient, as well for carriages as traveling, to the great accommodation and benefit of his Majesty's sub- jects, and especially in time of war, occasionally trav- eling or marching, either from the eastern or central parts of the colony ;' therefore

" Resolred, That Col. John Pitkin, of Hartford, Setlt Wetmore, of Mid- letown, Mr. Wells, of Glassenbury, and Col. David Whitney, of Canaan, be appointed a committee, as soon as conveniently may be, to repair to and through said towns (and towns adjacent if need be), and with all care and diligence to view and observe said roads now used ; and also, with the utmost care to explore and find out how and where any other shorter and better way, in whole or in part, may be practicable, and their full description thereof, with their opinion thereon, to make report to the Assembly at their session in October (then) next."t

" This committee," says Mr. Boyd, "at the May ses- sion in 1759, reported a new line of road, not depart- ing in any instance more than two miles from a straight line, extending from the court-house in Hartford to Col. Whitney's in Canaan, and a plan of the intervening towns, with the line pricked thereon.

"The Assembly accepted this report, and directed the committee 'to lay out and make plain and certain the said new country road from the mansion-house of Samuel Humphrey, in Simsbury, to Col. David Whit- uey's in Canaan.' In May, 1760, the committee having discharged their duty, the Assembly ordered the way to be cleared and made passable for traveling before Nov. 20, 1761, by the towns and proprietors of town- ships through which it ran, and in case of non-com- pliance by any such towns and proprietors, the com- mittee was to take such other measures to that end, at the expense of the delinquents, as would without fail accomplish the service before May 1, 1762.

" This thoroughfare, known to a former generation as 'The North Road,' and now almost a myth, had in its day an importance and renown which justifies

* Boyd's History.

+ Colonial Records, vol. ix., pp. 94-95.

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WINCHESTER.

our detailed history of its origin and progress. Ac- cording to tradition, it was a wonder of the age that a direct and practicable ronte could be found and opened through the jungles and over the succession of steep rocky hills and mountains of the Green Woods for travel, and the movement of troops and munitions between Hartford and Albany. It soon became, and continued until 1800, the great and almost the sole thorough fare of the colony in the direction of Albany. Continental troops passed over it for frontier service. Detachments of Burgoyne's army, as prisoners of war, marched over it to the quarters assigned them.

" There is a tradition that Col. Ethan Allen, while on military service in the Revolutionary war, pre- sumed to desecrate the Sabbath by traveling over this road, instead of spending the day in sacred medita- tions at the hostelry of Landlord Phelps, or Roberts, on Wallen's Hill, or of Landlord Freedom Wright, further westward, when a little bushy-headed grand juror of our town emerged from his log cabin on the roadside, seized the bridle-rein of the colonel's charger, and attempted to arrest him as a Sabbath- breaker. The colonel, sternly eyeing the legal digni- tary, drew his sword, and flourishing it aloft, irrever- ently exclaimed, 'You d-d woodchuck ! get back into your, burrow, or I'll cut your head off!' Grand Juror Balcomb, finding what a Tartar he had caught, prudently abandoned his captive and retired to his cabin.

" It should not be inferred from the amount of travel that this road was an Appian Way. On the contrary, direct as it was, it went up and down the highest hills, on uneven beds of rocks and stones, and passed marshy valleys on corduroy of the coarsest hemlock log texture. Commencing at the North village in New Hartford, it ran westerly up a steep hill, then turned northwesterly through the Bourbon region, crossing the Green Woods turnpike a little west of the toll-gate; then northerly by zigzags to the top of a lofty hill; then over Wallen's Hill, by the northeast school-house, down to Still River, near Daniel Wil- son's ; then up Dishmill Hill and onward by the Row- ley Pond to Colebrook, and onward through Cole- brook Centre to Pond Hill, in Norfolk, and thence by Norfolk Centre and Canaan toward Albany.

" Another bridle-path entered the township from the vicinity of Burrville and passed northwesterly by Landlord Mott's tavern to the south part of Norfolk before any settlement was made. In 1762 a commit- tee of the Assembly, previously appointed, reported a highway along this route, 'beginning at a rock about three rods west of the fore door of the house belonging to Rev. Mr. Gold in Torringford, and running in a northwesterly direction a little more than a mile to Still River, about a hundred rods south of Yale's mill (at Burrville), thence in a northwesterly direction, by Spectacle Pond and Mott's house, to a stake and stones in Norfolk line.'

" This was the South road, by which emigrants

from the southeastern towns wended their toilsome way to the western townships, in process of settle- ment. It was so 'hard a road to travel' that good Landlord Burr, living near the Hayden brickyard, used, as it was said, to detain his traveling guests until after morning worship that they might have the benefit of his prayers in aid of their arduous efforts to get up the old dug-way road, west of Burrville, an aid greatly needed.

" The first of these roads was for many years the only way of access from the east to the Winsted section of the town. By the second, many, but not all, of the immigrants came into the 'Old Society.' Several of the earliest pioneers came in from Torring- ton and Goshen, at the extreme southwest corner of the township, and located in Hall Meadow and the Blue Street region."

The first settler within the present bounds of Win- chester was Caleb Beach, who purchased lands in May, 1750, and erected the first house in the town. This pioneer dwelling stood on the east side of the Hall Meadow road, about one-half mile north of the Torrington line, and near the line of Goshen.

In the proprietors' vote of January, 1758, ordering the survey and allotment of the first and second di- visions of land, the committee were instructed "to lay out to Mr. Caleb Beach, or his assignees, his share or allotment in the division where his house now is, so as to take in his house, barn, and orchard, if his allot- ment shall be wide enough to take [them] in." The lot set out to him or his assignees under the instruc- tions is a lot of sixteen and two-thirds acres, within Lot No. 6, in the first division. He conveyed away his right to this allotment March 18, 1756, and prob- ably soon after moved back to Goshen, where he died Jan. 13, 1760, aged sixty-one years. His will was probated and recorded in the Litchfield Probate Court, and contained the following bequests of his earthly possessions:

" Imprimis, to my present beloved wife, launch, I give and bequeath one chest and one bed, and one grent spinning-wheel, and one double spinning wheel, to be her own and ot her dispose.

" Item, To my eldest daughter, Sarah Andros, the wife of Elon Andros, of Wallingford, I give and bequeath to her, out of my estate, but five shillings ; she having received her portion of my estate before.

" Item, To my sons Caleb and Hezekiah Beach, of Goshen, I give and Lequeath my plough-irons, and drug teeth, and plow-chaine, viz : to my oklest sun, Caleb, two-third party, and to llezeklah one-third part, to be their own and at their dispose.

" Item, To my son, Joel Beach, of Torrington, I give and bequeath three steel traps, with the chains belonging to them, and my shusing-kulfe, to be his own and nt his distwo.

" Item, To my daughter, Margit Beach, I give and bequeath three chests, one table, six puter plattors and plates, three puter basins, four puter porringer, one pair of tungs, ono fre-shovel and one tramel, one pulr of andirons, one brass warming pan, one brass skillet, a brass ket- tle, one Iron kettle and three frun puts, to be her owu and at her dis-

Mr. Beach was grandson of Thomas Beach, an early planter of Milford, son and youngest child of Deacon John, of Wallingford, and brother of Deacon John, of Goshen, from whom Beach Street took its name. He was born at Wallingford. in 1699, where

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HISTORY OF LITCHFIELD COUNTY, CONNECTICUT.

he married the first of his three wives. Thence he first removed to Goshen, and afterwards to Winchester.

Caleb Beach was born at Wallingford in 1699; died Jan. 13, 1761. He married, first, May 26, 1726, Eunice Tyler. She died Jan. 10, 1733. He married, second, Oct. 4, 1733, Margaret Thompson. He had a third wife, named Hannah.

Joel Beach, third son of Caleb, and inheritor of his traps and shaving-knife, came into the town with his father at about fifteen years old, and is named as of Winchester in the record of his first marriage, in 1757. He afterwards lived in Torrington until 1761, when he purchased his lifelong residence on Blue Street, a little south of the stone school-house.

He is described by a cotemporary* as "a conserva- tive of the first water,-conservative in his dress, in his food, and in all his habits,-six feet four or five inches high, gaunt and erect, with a pock-marked, weather-beaten face, large hands and feet, clothed in butternut-colored coat, vest, and small-clothes, gar- nished with long pewter buttons, stockings of black and white sheep's wool, cow-hide shoes of enormous size, crowned with a broad-brimmed, round-topped hat of dubious color; his customs on week-days, Sun- days, and training-days were always the same, from early manhood to extreme old age. His fare was simple, consisting of bears' meat, venison, and wild turkey, when game abounded, and beef, pork, and mutton in after-years, with toast and cider, mush and milk, and bean porridge as his only luxuries."

He was, withal, a mighty hunter, never failing to bring down the deer, fox, or wild turkey with his six- foot shooting-iron.

He was also a fish fancier, and had stoned up a tank around a copious spring on the side of the road in front of his house, in which he kept a speckled trout of great size. There is another legend that a neighbor, with a long hooked nose, tinged at the end with deep red, coming along the road one day stooped down to drink from the tank. The trout, seeing the red protuberance as it touched the water, and fancy- ing it a gandy insect, sprang upwards and seized it. The nose recoiled, but too late. The fish was drawn out of the water, and dropped on dry land. Great was the rage of the man of the nose for a few moments, but as he surveyed the poor floundering fish, and reflected that he had got the worst of it, pity superseded wrath. Looking around and seeing no witness of his successful angling, he kindly restored the fish to the water and went on his way a happier man for his magnanimous act.

Mr. Beach's wife was also a dead shot. One day, near sunset, she discovered a panther in a tree near the house. Her husband was away, but his loaded gun was at hand. She seized and primed it, took deliberate aim, and lodged a bullet in its brain.

Mr. Beach died Nov. 28, 1820, aged eighty-four,

leaving his original farm neither increased nor di- minished by a single acre.

Samuel Gilbert, from Coventry, became a land- owner and resident of the town in 1752.

Ebenezer Preston, from Wallingford, and Joseph Preston, from Farmington, became owners of an un- divided right of land in 1754, under which they en- tered upon and improved a small tract of land adjoin- ing Torrington line, extending from Blue Street road eastward to the north, and South road in the second tier, which, under a vote of the proprietors, was allotted to them in the division of 1758. Here was their first dwelling-place. They afterwards lived, in various parts of the town, to a good old age, leaving sons and daughters.

Joseph Preston, Sr., died in 1774.

Joseph Preston died in. Winsted in 1824, aged eighty-five. He is believed to have been son to Joseph, the pioneer. He and his wife, known as "Uncle Joe" and "Aunt Keziah," lived early in this century in a log shanty on Sucker Brook. They were a simple-minded couple, who lived by basket-making and renovating splint-bottomed chairs. They once lost the day of the week, and made Sunday a day of labor. They started for meeting on their old pillioned horse on Monday, and learning on the way their unintended desecration of the Sabbath, returned home and spent the rest of the day in penitential and devotional exercises.

Jonathan and John Preston, father and son, from Waterbury, were here in 1767.

Samuel Preston, son of Ebenezer, owned and occupied a part of his father's land in 1768, and after- wards, until 1790, lived in the extreme southwest corner of the town.

THE PIONEER TAVERN.

Landlord Adam Mott, originally from Windsor, erected his hostelry on the bridle-path that preceded the old South road as early as 1754. It stood oppo- site the Hurtbut Cemetery, and on or near the site of the house of John Neth. The building was neither imposing nor spacious. Its walls were of unhewn logs, its roof of hemlock bark, with an opening in the ridge for the escape of smoke from the capacious stone chimney which ascended to the level of the garret floor. The landlord had two strapping boys who slept under the roof, and occasionally worked off their superfluous animal force by a wrestling mateli before getting into bed. One cold winter night, when the hearth was all aglow with coals and embers of the consumed firewood, the boys, in their shirt tails, grappled for a trial of strength. They struggled long and vigorously. At length one of them got the dead lock of the other at the edge of the yawning chimney. Both of them went leadlong down the crater into the coals and embers in the fireplace. Whether the fare of the next day was called pork or bear's meat tradition does not say. It is presumable, however, if it was of the last night's roast that it was done brown.

* Rev. Abel McEwen, D.D., of New London.

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WINCHESTER.

How a tavern could be sustained in this uninhab- ited region is hard to conceive. Landlord Mott, however, took courage and made the best of his business. To an inquiry as to how he succeeded in retailing his first keg of rum, he replied that he was doing remarkably well ; that hunters, when they came along, would fill their bottles, and that nearly every day he bought a glass of tanzy bitters of his wife, and that she would then buy one of him with the same fourpence-halfpenny.

The bark-roofed tavern, in the course of years, gave way to a red lean-to mansion of the old Windsor order of architecture, and this in its turn to a pleasant modern cottage, drawing its water from the original well.

Landlord Mott became poor, and died in his native Windsor. He had children (as appears by deeds on record) : Jonathan, Adam, Jr., Lent, and Eunice, wife of Aaron Neal, of Farmington, and may have had others.

Jonathan Mott, son of Adam, Sr., came into the town with his father, and lived in a house on the slope of the hill, southeast of the tavern, which has long since disappeared. He died in 1818, aged one hundred and three, and was buried at the town's charge.

Adam Mott, Jr., succeeded his father in the home- stead until 1767, and afterward lived west of the old Everitt tavern. He went to Ticonderoga in 1775, in Capt. Sedgwick's company ; served in Capt. Beebe's company in 1776, at Long Island, and was in other service during the Revolution. He removed to Ver- non, N. Y., in his old age, where he was frozen to death at the age of about one hundred years.

Lent Mott, son of Adam, Sr., had land from his father near the old Everitt tavern, on which he early resided. He served in the Northern campaign, in 1775, and probably did other service.

Loammi Mott, son of Adam, Jr., married, April 18, 1795, l'olly, daughter of Samuel Clark, of Winchester, and moved with his father-in-law, about 1800, to Stock- bridge, Mass.

Ira Mott, son of Adam, Jr., owned land on the Brooks Street road in 1784, and on Blue Street in 1788.

Moses Miller and Joshua Merrills were here prior to 1758, and owned land on Hall meadow.

William Filley, called in the deed "late of Tor- rington, now of Winchester," bought in 1761 seventy aeres of land on Hall meadow, which included the land and house previously occupied by Caleb Beach, the first settler. He was drowned in a deep pool called the tub, in the West Branch, Aug. 3, 1774, aged thirty-nine.

Deacon Abraham Filley inherited a portion of his brother William's estate, and resided in the town most of his life. In 1772 his homestead was a part of the Col. Ozias Bronson farm. In 1774 he was of New Hartford, whence he removed to Winsted and

had charge of Doolittle's mill; and afterwards lived and died in Old Winchester. He is said to have made a wooden clock with a penknife. In his later years he became a maniac, and was confined in a de- tached building.

Remembrance Filley, brother of William, also lived here, and served in the Revolutionary war. Thomas Hosmer, Jr., came into the town soon after 1761. Cornelius Merry and John Smith, Jr., were also here about this time.

David Austin, Jr., built and resided in the house adjoining the pond outlet.

Benoni Hills was born in Suffield in 1701; re- moved to Durham in 1724-25; to Goshen about 1740; afterwards to Torrington, and finally to Win- chester, where he died, "ripe for Heaven," June 24, 1793, in his ninety-second year. Several years before his death he selected two rough stones of mica slate, and shaping them to his liking, engraved in rude letters on one of them, "Benoni Hills, this is my house ;" and on the other, "O eternity, death is come ;" to which is added, "June 24, 1793, B. II. æt. 93." Working at these stones was the special enjoy- ment of his leisure hours. He brought them with him from Torrington, and gave special directions to have them placed over his grave, where they now stand, in the old Winchester burying-ground.

Seth Hills, " of Winchester," is grantee in a deed of Oct. 9, 1765, conveying to him fifty aeres bordering on Torrington, in the third tier, first division, which he had probably occupied earlier. Mr. Ilills was first deacon of the church, and first representative of the town; a man of hardy constitution, indomitable energy, sound, good sense, and sincere piety ; his in- tegrity without a stain. He served as wagon-master in the Saratoga campaign ; was present at Burgoyne's surrender, and assisted in clearing the field of the dead and wounded when the battle was ended. He died at Vernon, N. Y., June 3, 1826, aged nearly ninety years.

Capt. John Hills was here Dec. 6, 1776, and doubt- less carlier. He lived in a house that stood in or ad- joining the Hurlbut Cemetery. He was a gunsmith by trade, and his shop stood near his house. He soll his homestead to James Atkins in 1781, and after- wards removed to Charlotte, Vt., where he died March 15, 1808, aged seventy-six. He was great-grandfather of Deacon Abel S. Wetmore, now a resident of this town.

Beriah Hills came into the town after 1769, and lived on Torrington line on the east side of the road, in the third tier, second division, running north from Fyler's. He was for several years appointed " to read the psalm" in the old meeting-house, and died March 25, 1778, in his fifty-second year.

Medad Hills, of Goshen, third son of Benoni, a gunsmith, who made muskets for the State during the Revolution, was a large land-owner in Winchester, and resided at one period in the Norris Coe house. He

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HISTORY OF LITCHFIELD COUNTY, CONNECTICUT.

had a son, Hewitt, who came into the town in 1788, and became one of its most prominent citizens.

Jesse Hills, son of Deacon Seth, lived on the farm recently occupied by Samuel Hurlbut (second), which he sold to Elijah Blake in 1798.

Chauncey Hills, second son of Beriah, a noted stammerer, lived in his father's homestead bordering on Torrington line until about 1802, when he sold out to Luke Case and William Bunnell, and removed to Litchfield, Herkimer Co., N. Y.

Benoni Hills, oldest son of Beriah, had no real es- tate during the life of his father.

In 1751, Capt. Josiah Avered, of Woodbury (Beth -* lehem Society), became the owner of undivided lands in Winchester, and was soon after disabled by the kick of a horse, and confined to his bed until his death in 1765. His property being almost exhausted during his protracted confinement, his widow, Mrs. Hannah (Hinman) Avered, or Everett, as now spelled, soon after his death removed with her aged mother and seven children to the wilds of Winchester while there were as yet but three families in the central part of the old society. They stayed in a house on the farm now owned by Deacon Abel S. Wetmore until a clearing had been made and a house erected on their land about two miles north of the Centre, on the old South country road, as it then ran toward Norfolk.

REMINISCENCES OF MRS. SWIFT.

" It is evident," says her granddaughter, Mrs. Swift, in her reminis- cences, " that my grandmother removed from Bethlehem in 1765; and with her children came ulso her mother, Mrs. Mary Noble Hinman, who died in Winchester at ninety-two years, of age. The date of her death is not known. Hler grave is on the left hand of her daughter's, as you face the headstone of the latter.

" She is said to have been born in Northampton, and to have removed to old Milford at the nge of sixteen, nud thint soon afterward, on a Sab- bath morning, she and her sister went into the forest to collect thorns with which to dress themselves in order to attend church at New Haven. This sister was ancestress of President Day.

" During the severe winters of that period the Iningry wolves howled in the little enclosure of my grandmother's cottage during the nights, and were seen to jump over the fence when any one opened the door. Many are the incidents related in my childish ears of the sufferings of the family during the Revolutionary war, particularly in the 'hard winter' of 1783.

" No grinding could be done at the mill ; snow fell every other day for six weeks, and the wind and drifting seemed only a continuation of the storm. Grain and corn were boiled for faonly use. Wood was drawn on the tops of the drifts on a hand-sled by my Uncle Andrew (the youngest sou) on snow-shoes, and received by his sisters through a window at the Unck of the house. My Uncle Noble at this period wasa chaplain in the army, and my father (Josiah) also awny getting his profession, and after- wards in command of a company on the Canada frontier.

" Duriog the hard winter a piece of check-woulen for soldiers' shirts was put into the loom, but it was impossible to weave it on account of the cold: so it was all wound out in balls, then doubled (one thread white and the other blue) and twisted on the 'great wheel' ; and thus prepared, my grandmother and her four daughters sat in n circle,-enclosed by blankets suspended from the joists overhead around the high fireplace- and knitted the yarn into stockings for the army. One night during these times my grandmother and her children sat up amid the how linge of the winter blasts in consultation whether they should break up house- keeping and each take care of themselves. After retiring and passing the remaining night sleepless, grandmother arose in the morning, and told her family that ' by the help of God they would keep together.'

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History of Litchfield county, Connecticut, Part 41

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