History of Litchfield county, Connecticut, Part 46

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

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In the records of Winsted Society, under date of Dec. 27, 1784, we find a vote that the districts set off for schooling by a committee chosen for that purpose be established according to their doings, but no rec- ord of the districts so established is to be found. Oct. 5, 1785, a tax of " one penny halfpenny" on the pound was laid for the " use of schooling," but was reconsidered and annulled at an adjourned meet- ing on the 26th of the same month. Dee. 8, 1788, Ebenezer Rowley and Ensign Eleazer Kellogg were appointed school committee. No further reference to school matters is found until Dec. 8, 1794, when it was voted to divide the society into school districts, and a committee was appointed for that purpose, who reported Jan. 12, 1795. The report was accepted and placed on file, but not recorded, and the file is not to be found.

The following are extracts from the early reminis- cences of Mrs. Nelly M. Swift, daughter of Dr. Jo- siah Everitt, born in 1786, which illustrate the school customs and mental culture at the period referred to, from which we extract her notice "of the great day of examinations and exhibitions, when eight district schools assembled in the large, unfinished meeting- house, in the winter of 1793-94 :"

" The reading and spelling of the schools occupied the forenoon, and the afternoon was devoted to dramas, comedies, orations, etc. One cor- Der of the church was inclosed in enrtaios, and each school took its turn behind the scenes to prepare for their special exhibitions on the stage.

" The late Deacon Levi Platt was the teacher of the school to which I belonged. Well do I remember the directions given by bim to the little girls as to dressing their hair for exhibition, viz .: tbe night previous our mothers were to wet our heads with home-brewed beer, and our hair was to be combed and braided very tightly before going to bed; in the morning, the last thing after we were dressed for the exhibition, the braids were taken out, and the hair lay in waving lines all over our shoulders.

" Among the variety of things he taught us was the practice of spell- ing a whole sentence all together, or more particularly the first class. The sentence to be publicly spelled was ' Abominable Bumble Bee with his tail cut off ;' but Mr. Platt thought best to shorten it to ' Abominable tail cut off.'

"Imagine, if you can, in soberness, a large, thoroughly-trained school class spelling or chanting before the assembled families of the town, in this wise :

"'A- there's your A.

"+B-O- there's your Bo, and your A-bo.

44 M-1- there's your Mi, and your Bo-mi, and your A-bo-mi.

" ' N-A- there's your Na, and your Mi-na, and your Bo-mi-na- and your A-bo-mi-na.

"+ B-L-E- there's your Ble, and your Na-ble, and your Mi-na-ble, and your Bo-mi-na-ble, and your A-bo-mii-un-ble.

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WINCHESTER.

"'T-A-I-L- there's your Tail, and your Ble-tail, and your Na-ble- tail. and your Mi-na-ble-tail, and your Bo-mi-na-ble- tail, and your A-bo-mi-na-ble-tail.

"'C-U-T- there's your Cut, and your Tail-cut, and your Ble-tail- cut, and your Na-ble-tail-cut, and your Bo-mi- na-ble- tail-cut, and your A-bo-mi-na-ble-tail-cut.

"O-F-F --

there's your Off, and your Cut-off, and your Tail-cut-off, and your Ble-tail-cut-off. and your Na-ble-tail-cut- off, and your Mi-na-ble-tail-cut-off, and your Bo-mi- na-ble-tail-off, and your A-be-mi-Da-ble-tail-cut -- off.'

" In the afternoon each school had its oration, poem, dialogue, comedy, or tragedy. One of our dialogues was called ' Old Gibber,' in which the late Abel McEwen, D.D., of New London, took the part of Old Gibber; his wife was Charity Bronson. Oliver Marshall, Seth Hills, Joseph Cuit, and myself had parts.

"First Scene .- Old Gibber and his wife talking about the war; wife stirring the hasty-pudding; daughter Betty (myself) setting the table; Juhn, the son, just home from the war, etc.

" Another scene is a bar-room, with such talk as we may suppose would take place there during the war of the Revolutiun.

" The boys of this period were remarkable for their successful imitations of every kind of business.

" The late Samuel Ilurlbut, Sr., was justice of the peace. Samuel Stanley (son of Dr. Everitt's third wife, who died young) was a lawyer, also Sylvester Griswold. Lemuel Ifurlbut was constable, etc. Mock courts were held in my father's long kitchen. Writs, attachments, and execu- tions were all made ont in due form. A statute book of laws was com- piled, specifying a great variety of things contrary to law, for which cul- prits would be arrested, tried, and punished by imprisonment for so many hours, etc. Witnesses were summoned, examined, cross-examined, and impeached, etc.

" A newspaper was edited and published weckly by Samuel Stanley, before meotioned. It was ruled in columns, had editorials, news, anec- dotes, advertisements, etc. These boys, at that time, were none of them over twelve years old !"

For the present condition of schools, see the Gen- eral History.

THE WINCHESTER INSTITUTE.

In 1856-57 the late Samuel Hurlbut, Sr., had a partial plan for endowing a literary institution in this płace, but died without making any provision for it. Soon after, Theron Bronson, Esq., took up the matter, and besides contributing liberally himself, collected considerable money from others. With these funds and his own private property Rev. Ira Pettibone erected the building known as the Institute, at an ex- pense of nearly $10,000. It was first occupied for school purposes in the spring of 1860, and was for- mally set apart for educational uses in September of the same year, with an appropriate address by Rev. Dr. Eldridge, of Norfolk, and other suitable services.

For some years it was successfully managed by Mr. Pettibone as a boarding and day school, with a large attendance of pupils. Afterwards it was controlled by his son, Col. Ira W. Pettibone, who had previously been associated with him in the school. Col. Petti- bone graduated at Yale College in 1854, was colonel of the Tenth Regiment Conneetient Volunteers, and resigned in November, 1862. He remained at Win- chester until 1871, when he became a professor in Beloit College, where he continues to the present time. Ilis successor was J. Walker Macbeth, A.M., a graduate of Edinburgh University, who, after two or three years, was succeeded by James Cowles, A.M., a graduate of Yale College in 1837. He continued

teaching until 1877, when he removed from town, and since that time no school has been kept np. In 1869 the private ownership in the Institute building and grounds was purchased by Mrs. Jonathan Blake and her daughter, Mrs. Mary Ann Mitchell, and by them given to seven trustees and their successors "for the purpose of sustaining, carrying on, and maintaining a seminary of learning similar to the institute now and heretofore carried on in the conveyed premises, and to possess all the powers necessary for that pur- pose."

THE WINSTED PRESS. THE WINSTED HERALD

was established in 1853, making a creditable début as a six-column folio on the 14th of May of that year. For the first five years of its existence its title-page bore the caption of Mountain County Herald, which, at the commencement of the sixth volume, was changed to that it now bears.

The Herald was founded by Thomas M. Clarke and Stephen A. Hubbard, and for eight months was pub- lished by them under the firm-name of Hubbard & Clarke. In February, 1854, Mr. Clarke withdrew from the paper to accept the editorship of a new weekly journal ( The Leader) just at that time estab- lished at Bridgeport. The editorial tripod he vacated came into the possession of Mr. Edmund C. Stedman, then a youthful but promising journalist, but who at that time was comparatively unknown in the liter- ary world. For fourteen months the Herald was pub- lished by Hubbard & Stedman, at the end of which time Mr. Clarke returned to Winsted and became Mr. Stedman's successor, and from that time until the fol- lowing July the names of Hubbard & Clarke appear as publishers. At that date Mr. Hubbard (the present well-known managing editor of the Hartford Courant) retired from the paper to engage in other business, and for the following ten years,-until November, 1865,-Mr. Clarke was sole editor and proprietor, when he sold his establishment to a new joint-stock corpo- ration known as the Winsted Printing Company. The new organization called to the editorial department Theodore F. Vaill, of Litchfield, who had just sheathed his sword after a three years' service in the war of the Rebellion as adjutant of the Second Connectient Heavy Artillery, popularly known as the Litchfield County Regiment. Mr. Vaill presided over the col- umns of the Herald nearly ten years, until his death, which occurred in February, 1875. He was succeeded by his brother, J. H. Vaill (the present editor), who since 1868 had been in charge of the business depart- ment of the paper. In 1876 an additional chair was set in the sanetum, which for about two years was acceptably filled by F. H. Giddings,-his entree in the journalistic arena, -from whenee he was called to edi- torial service on the Springfield Republican, and later to the Berkshire Courier and Paper World.

The Herald started out on its career as n six-column folio. With its twenty-fifth issue it was enlarged to

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HISTORY OF LITCHFIELD COUNTY, CONNECTICUT.

seven columns, which size it retained until December, 1866, when it was again enlarged, this time to eight columns. Its press, however, refused to properly print a sheet of that size, and after an eight months' trial the former size of seven columns was adopted. At the opening of 1874, a new and larger press having found its way to the Herald office, the paper was again enlarged, this time to a nine-column folio. A year later, Jan. 1, 1875, still another enlargement was un- dertaken, the style being changed from four to eight pages, six columns to a page. This form and style was continued until April, 1880, when the Herald re- turned to its former more generally acceptable size and style,-an eight-column folio.

During recent years the Herald has been the medium of a greater amount of local news (of which it makes a specialty ) than any other paper in the county, having probably a larger corps of regular local correspond- ents than any paper in the State. Though nominally Republican in politics, it pays but little attention to political matters, except during regular campaigns, believing that the best and most acceptable service it can render is in the dissemination of local intelli- gence and the discussion of matters chiefly of local in- terest.

THE WINSTED PRESS.

The first number of the Winsted Press bears the date of July 5, 1873. The paper was started by Henry A. Bills, a politician, and Lucien V. Pinney, a journey- man printer, and was published by the firm of Bills & Pinney until the early part of October of that year, when Mr. Pinney bought Mr. Bills' interest in the concern, and, as editor and proprietor, has con- tinned the publication of the paper up to the present writing (January, 1881). The Press began its career as a Democratic paper, its Democracy being defined by the Democratic State Central Committee of Con- necticut, but at the close of the year 1874 the paper, though still adhering nominally to the Democratic party, began to show signs of apostasy to Democracy as defined by the State Central Committee, and to ad- vocate what was afterwards known as the " greenback doctrine,"-i.e., government paper money as against bank paper currency, Mr. Pinney defending himself as a Democrat in so doing by the action of certain of the Western Democrats at the time. As the probability of the adoption of the greenback policy by the Demo- cratic party of the nation diminished, the advocacy of that policy by the Press increased in earnestness, until it became the leading feature of the paper. With one exception, this was at that time the only journal published in New England in pronounced opposition to national banks and "hard money." The Greenbackers of the State held their first conven- tion at New Haven on the 9th of March, 1876, and . organized a third party, putting a State ticket into the field. Mr. Pinney was placed in nomination for Secretary of State, a nomination which has been ac- corded him at each successive State convention since

that time, and the Press pulled down its Democratic flag and hoisted the Greenback banner, under which it is still sailing, having given vigorous support to two Greenback candidates for the office of President of the United States,-Peter Cooper (whom its edi- tor, as delegate from Connecticut, helped nominate at Indianapolis, Ind.), in 1876, and James B. Weaver, in 1880. The paper has been very free in the discussion of religious subjects, and by its pronounced opposi- tion to the prevailing Christian sentiment of the time and locality has earned the reputation of being "the wiekedest paper in Connecticut,"-a distinction of which its publisher seems rather proud than other- wise. It is peculiar in its frequent disregard of public sentiment, and its apparent inclination, other things being equal, to take the unpopular side of public questions, rather than the side which has commended itself to public favor. Started as a five-columu quarto, the Press was, after the first year, changed to an eight-column folio, in which form it is still pub- lished every Thursday, at the original office, in a building on the corner of Main and Bridge Streets, opposite the Clarke House, Winsted.

THE WINSTED NEWS

was started in 1874 by Mr. Henry A. Bills, and has had a wide circulation throughout this vicinity as the leading Democratic paper of the county. In Septem- ber, 1880, it was purchased by W. A. McArthur, formerly editor and proprietor of the Ludlow (Ver- mont) Tribune, and a native of Salisbury, Conn. Un- der his management it has lost none of its political character, and has devoted more attention to local and vicinity news, making it more valuable as a family paper. After its change in proprietors the office was removed to North Main Street from its old stand on the Flat, and has since been known as the Times and News, each village now having a post-office and a newspaper. It is an eight-page quarto, and has a cir- culation of about twelve hundred.

POST-OFFICE TROUBLES .**

In 1833, on application of inhabitants of the West village, the General Assembly granted a borough charter to comprehend the part of the borough of Winsted lying west of the second tier line. Conser- vatism again took the alarm, and at the first meeting for choice of officers a ticket was elected not favora- ble to the objects contemplated by the charter. A small tax was laid for purchasing a fire-engine and organizing a fire company. Payment of the tax was refused by some of the tax-payers, and there was not found sufficient vitality in the corporate body to en- force the payment. The bantling had a paralyzed ex- istence of two or three years, and then expired. Its primary object was to secure an efficient fire organiza- tion, but behind this there was a plan for securing a

* From Boyd's History.

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WINCHESTER.

second post-office in place of the original office, which had been recently transferred to the East village, the two villages being then distinct communities, sepa- rated from each other by a wide space of land not then obtainable for building purposes.

In this connection a sketch of post-office changes, and the almost perpetual dissensions growing out of them, which have given to our community an evil fame, scems appropriate as an element of our history. Indeed, to ignore them would be like performing the play of Hamlet with Hamlet himself left out.

There was a time, strange as it may seem to the present generation, when the Post-Office Department was conducted without reference to party politics ; when the postmaster-general was not a cabinet officer; when the ruling question in the appointment of a deputy postmaster was, is he honest, capable, and acceptable to the community? when the best in- terests of the public and of the Department were the sole considerations applied to questions of location of offices. These principles were recognized and acted on not only in the days of Washington and Jefferson, but onward through the administrations of Monroc and the second Adams.

Abont 1806 the only post-office in Winchester was held by a zealous Democrat, in the Widow Hall house, on the turnpike beyond the eastern border of the pres- ent borough of Winsted. The West village had then become a business centre, and also more central to the whole town than any other point on the mail-route. On a representation of these and other considerations to Postmaster-General Granger, a removal of the otlice to the West village was ordered, and a high-toned Federalist was appointed to the place of his Demo- cratic predecessor.

It is a rule, with scarcely an exception, that when rival villages exist in close vicinity cach to other, a feeling of jealous rivalry grows with their growth, and if they are both within the same post-office delivery this feeling is liable to become highly intensified. To this rule Winsted has been no exception. Prior to and during the war of 1812 the Federal element pre- dominated in the West village and the Democratic in the East. Efforts were made from time to time to change the politics of the postmaster and the location of the office, withont avait until the resignation of the Federal inenmbent in 1830, when, on an er-parte hearing of an application from the East village, an unexpected appointment was made, and the location of the office transferred to that section. A second- class carthquake could scarcely have produced a greater sensation. The West village at once sent a deputation to Washington, accompanied by a Hart- ford Times editor, and, on a second ex-parte hearing, the Department ordered the office to he reopened in the West village; but it could not be made to stay there. Within six months, on another er-parte hear- ing, the department ordered it back to the East vil- lage. Remonstrances flowed in so thickly that in

about a year an oily-tongued official, rejoicing in the name of Barnabas Bates, was sent to investigate the case. Nearly three days were devoted by him to a public hearing of the contending parties. He re- ported to the Department, in substance, that both parties ought to have it, but as they could not, it had better be located at an intermediate point, half a mile distant from each village centre, where next to no- body then wanted it, and, as a consequence, it rested in the East village until after the Harrison campaigu, when, under a new postmaster, it again returned to the West village, leaving a branch office for receiving and delivering letters in the East. Two years after, under Capt. Tyler's accidental reign, the office went back to the East village, and the branch office to the West, and so continued through the administration of President Polk.

By this time the nomination of postmasters within a congressional district had by usage become the unquestioned prerogative-not to say perquisite-of the sitting members. Our member acted honestly and wisely by obtaining the establishment of a new office in the West village, and leaving the old office where it then happened to be, and appointing two new post- masters. With this arrangement the land had rest for some years, but in the mean time cach village had encroached on the intermediate vacant space. The Naugatuck Railroad was opened in 1849, and the two villages became one. But this one village had three sections instead of two,-the East, the West, and the Flat. The Flat, being the central point and the railroad terminus, naturally looked to a speedy preponderance over the other sections. A consoli- dated post-oflice seemed easy of attainment. Senator Dixon, like Barkis, " was willin'" and ready to help by " ways that are dark and tricks that are vain," and Representative Hubbard was befogged, and, like a thunder-clap in a clear sky, the announcement came that the West office was defunct, and the East office was transferred to the Flat. Fearful was the indig- nation of the outlying East- and West-enders. Their reciprocal heart-burnings, the growth of a half-cen- tury, dissolved into thin air. The whitom combatants became loving friends, and turned their combined bat- teries upon the new victor. The Department, finding itself in a quandary, sent another political scer, named Nehemiah D. Sperry, to look into the matter, and see what was expedient to be done in the premises. Nc- hemiah heard the parties publicly and privately, by daylight and with a dark lantern. He, too, got into a quandary, and betook himself to secret negotiations and quack nostrums. The result was a restoration ot the two offices, a very imperfect healing of the new sore, and a general impression that Nehemiah was a wonderful negotiator. The two offices remained as they were until a new muddle grew out of the manip- ulations of a defeated candidato for Congress in tho Fourth District, who got the Republican nomination, " but could not get votes enough to elect him. His

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HISTORY OF LITCHFIELD COUNTY, CONNECTICUT.

successful Republican colleagues, sorrowing for his defeat, conceded to him the bestowment of the post- othices in the district. The people, it seemed, were not suited with his nominations for the post-offices, and a delegation of them went to Washington and had a hearing before Postmaster-General Creswell, who appointed two meritorious soldiers to the places. "It would be a wrong conclusion to draw," Mr. Boyd continnes, "from this detail of sectional squabbles, that our community is wholly given up to them, or that the feelings engendered are very deep or bitter. The question at once settled, general good feeling is soon restored, and the combatants return to their business, and, with accustomed energy and cordiality, unite in promoting unsectional measures of improve- ment or benevolence."

HIGHLAND PARK.

Though hardly within the province of a merely historical and biographical work, a distinguishing fea- ture of Winsted, Highland Park, demands notice here, since it is not only a remarkable spot in the topogra- phy of the county (everywhere picturesque when less than grand), but, touched by the hand of landscaping art, is a rich testimonial of the march of the estheti- cal in taste among the severe, practical progeny of the old, still severer Puritan stock which settled Litchfield County, and to whom, as agriculturists, fell the duty of delving out a living among the for- ests, and from rocks covered with but little fertile soil, and who could not afford to indulge to much extent whatever of the love of the beautiful they may have possessed.

The Park is the glory of Winsted, the resort in sum- mer days of throngs of its people, and is surpassed in wild and varied beauty, and in the grandeur of the views from its summit, by but very few spots, if any, in the whole country. Landscape artists find here choice pictures for the pencil and brush which re- mind them of the most recherche places among the Adirondacks, the White Mountains, the Alleghanics, and the Blue Ridges of Virginia. "There is every- thing here which the lover of wild and beautiful na- ture need have, or might think he would like, except marine scenery, and that would add but little to the grandeur one beholds from Mount Case," is the testi- mony of an artist of extensive travel and national celebrity ; and it well expresses the general delight of tasteful people who visit this spot, and, though the Park has been open to the public only since the summer of 1879, vast numbers of people from all parts of the land have visited it. It covers, with its imme- diate adjuncts, several hundred acres of forests, open and picturesque grounds, formerly pastures, etc., sur- mounted by Mount Case (so named in honor of the memory of its once owner, and the former owner of the domain of the Park proper, the late Dr. Lyman Case, a leading and greatly-esteemed citizen of Win- sted), from the top of which, some fourteen hundred

feet above the level of the sea, the eye surveys a vast territory of remarkable mountain peaks and pictur- esque valleys. Well up the mountain-sides of the Park excellent carriage-roads have been made, and everywhere through the forests (or " woods," in New England vernacular) romantic footpaths have been opened and graded, and here and there vistas cut with an exquisite art-hand, making delicious effects and surprises. The forests of the Park contain a great variety of trees, singularly tall, beautiful, and umbra- geous, and in consequence of that variety present in the autumn a wonderful blending of gay colors, heightened in effect by the deep green of hemlocks, which everywhere abound in groves, groups, and in single majesty. Great aggregations of bowlders (some of them of huge size), massive ledges, tall, perpendicu- lar cliffs, flowing springs of pure water, and acres of ferns (of fourteen species) are some of the important features of this charming tract of land. This park lies mainly in the town of Winchester, but partly in the borough of Winsted, its northern gate being only about six rods distant from the tracks of the Nanga- tuck and Connecticut Western Railroads, making it easy of access from Bridgeport and Hartford, and is provided with dancing platform, ladies' parlor, various "retreats," etc., for the pleasure and comfort of pic- nicers and tourists, together with an astronomical tower on Mount Observation. It is expected that in time a considerable portion of it will be covered with summer cottages, most delightful sites for which it contains in great number. Winsted is singularly blessed in its park, so adjacent to its business centres. It requires but a few minutes to withdraw from the busy village, with its humming factories and bustling railway stations, into the cozy nooks of beautiful groves and forests. The great rocks, cliffs, and peaks, and the pathways of the Park have all been given classic and romantic names, and upon the top of a giant ledge, called, from its shape, "Tarpeian Rock," is posed a neat log cabin, which can be seen from some twenty miles distant, and overlooks a delightful valley, in which lies the eastern portion of the village of Winsted. Within the cabin is fitted up with ap- propriate taste, and contains many rare curiosities and relics, and, with its books, is the rustic summer " library" of the tasteful proprietor, and, in fact, pro- jector and artist of the park, Mr. Lyman W. Case, a middle-aged gentleman of rare powers and extensive culture in science and literature, and withal, formerly a professional man, an able lawyer in New York, an honor to his native town, and one of those rare men of disciplined tastes and catholic hearts of whom too few are found in any part of the world, and who would richly merit a high place in the history of the county for his public spirit in opening Highland Park, and the unsurpassed taste aud skill which he has displayed in developing it, without consideration of his accomplishments as a scholar and polished man of the world.

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History of Litchfield county, Connecticut, Part 46

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