History of Litchfield county, Connecticut, Part 94

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

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Mr. Tracy has been twice married, first to Caroline M. Bowns. She died June 2, 1858, leaving six chil- dren,-Morton, George, Edward (who died at eleven years), Cornelia, Cornelius, and Frances. Mr. Tracy was again married, to Lucia E., sister of the first wife. They were daughters of Jerry Bowns, who was the son of Joseph Bowns, who came from England before the Revolution and settled in Torrington, where the family still reside.

Politically Mr. Tracy is a Republican ; has held several offices of trust and honor in his town, among them assessor, selectman, etc. In all public matters he takes a deep interest; contributed liberally towards the construction of the Shepaug Railroad. During the war of the Rebellion he took an active part to sustain the government. He enlisted in the Twenty- third Regiment Connecticut Volunteers, and served for one year; was honorably discharged with the regiment in 1863.

WILLIAM H. FARNHAM.

William H. Farnham is a lineal descendant of John Farnum (as the name was formerly spelled), who emigrated from England and settled in Dorchester, Mass., at an early day. The Farnum coat of arms is still in possession of the family. He was made a freeman in that town May 13, 1640. At the organi- zation of the Second Church of Boston he was a member, and was made a deacon at that time. His children were Henry, Jonathan, Hannah, and Joanna. Henry Farnham was born 1636; he married Joanna Rutke; he came first to Windsor, then to Killing- worth, Conn. Their children were Peter and Eliza- beth. Peter married Hannah Wiliuxen ; their chil- dren were Joanna, Peter, Hannah, Nathaniel, Josiah, Phebe, John, Graves, and Loftus Newell. John was the first of the family in Litchfield County. He mar- ried Hannah Crittenden; moved to Gilford, Conn., from there to Litchfield South Farms (now Morris), about 1740. His children were John, born Nov. 24, 1726; Lucy, born Aug. 1, 1727; Ruth, born Sept. 12, 1731 ; Seth, born Sept. 28, 1733; Gad, born Aug. 10, 1736; Nathan, born June 19, 1738; Joseph, born Sept. 10, 1740; Benjamin, born March 1, 1742; Han- nah, born Jan. 4, 1746. Seth, fourth child of John Farnham, married Dinah Gibbs, Jan. 23, 1766. Their children were Louis, born Dec. 13, 1766; Benjamin, born March 31, 1768; John, born November, 1770;

ABEL C. TRACY.

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NEW HARTFORD.

Joseph, born July 10, 1773 ; Leman, born May 8, 1775; Seth, born May 17, 1777 ; Joseph, born Aug. 10, 1779 ; Leman, born May 8, 1781; and Sally, born Oct. 10, 1786.

Seth, son of Seth Farnham, married Asenath Brad- ley, Nov. 25, 1802. Their children were Emily C., born Dec. 10, 1803; Phebe M., born Dec. 22, 1805; Harriet B., born Sept. 8, 1809; William H., born Aug. 22, 1811. William H., only son of Seth Farn- ham, married Marinda H., daughter of Rufus Pickett, Sept. 8, 1837. She was born Dec. 17, 1811. Her father came from Danbury to Litchfield in 1816, settled at South Farms, where he raised a family of eight chil- dren,-four sons and four daughters ; all grew to adult age, and were respected and influential citizens.

Deacon Farnham is a farmer by occupation, and re- sides on the farm where he was born, and where his father settled soon after he was married. He received such educational advantages as were offered by the common schools and a boarding-school at Bethel, Conn. He united with the Congregational Church at Morris in 1831, and has been an active and con- sistent member since that time; has hield several important offices in the church, among them clerk, treasurer, superintendent of Sunday-school, and dea- con for many years. Deacon Farnham has always taken a deep interest in educational matters; was a member of the school board of education for several years. He has three children, all of whom have re- ceived liberal educations. The children are Rosetta M., Seth T., and Edwin P. The sons graduated at Brown University in 1876, and at Rochester Theologi- cal Seminary in 1877; both are Baptist ministers. Seth T. married Julia M. Austin, of Suffield, Conn. They have two children,-Mabel A. and Mary C. He is pastor of the First Baptist Church of Malone, N. Y. Edwin P. married J. Adelaide Mather, of Providence, R. I. They have one child, J. Alice. He is pastor of Friendship Street Church, Providence, R. I.

CHAPTER XXXIX. NEW HARTFORD .*

INTRODUCTION.

, IN 1878 the writer of the following sketch became greatly interested in the early history of New Hart- ford, concerning which no compilation had ever been made. At that time proposals were received from a journal in the State to furnish for its columns a series of historical articles. With that object in view, care- fuł study was given to the matter, and material col- lected for carrying the history of the town to the be- ginning of the present century. The pressure of other cares and duties prevented the completion of the

articles for publication, though the matter collected received additions from time to time.

Since consenting to prepare the sketch for the Litch- field County compilation the material has been newly digested, and research carried down to the present time. That portion treating of the "Early Settlement of the Town" remains substantially as first written ; in the others it has been the aim of the writer to condense the information given into the fewest possible words, with no attempt at elaboration or literary effect. A history of such limited proportions must necessarily be the bare skeleton of facts, with but little filling and embellishing of anecdotes and supplementary inci- dent. Some material has been held in reserve, but nothing which could be ascertained has been omitted that was necessary to a reliable outline history of the town. Every care has been taken to verify dates and statements, that a true narrative might be presented.

The writer acknowledges courtesies and assistance received from Messrs. Charles J. Hoadley, State libra- rian, and Addison Van Name, assistant librarian of Yale College, from Rev. William H. Moore, of Me- morial Hall, from Hon. John Boyd, of Winsted, and from the custodians of the Connecticut Historial Library. Much that is valuable concerning his native town has been gleamed from the MSS. of Rev. Frederick Marsh, late pastor of the Congregational Church at Winchester, kindly loaned by Messrs. Ed- ward Marsh, of New Hartford, and George M. Car- rington, of Winsted.

Grateful acknowledgments arc due to those who have furnished church records, to Deacon J. C. Kcach, the courteous town clerk of New Hartford, to Mr. Ashbel Marsh, whose recollections have been in- valuable, to Messrs. Wait Garrett, Darius B. Smith, Edmund Watson, and to all others whose personal recollections or family records have in any way con- tributed to this history.

The public will pardon an acknowledginent to one within the writer's own family circle, to Capt. Henry R. Jones, without whose assistance and encourage- ment these pages could never have been compiled.

To the descendants of the pioneer settlers, to whom trust in God and love of country were vital principles of life and action, who with persevering industry planted the seeds of civilization on these rugged hills, and to all who are now reaping in the bean- tiful town of New Hartford the harvest sown in toil and privation a century and a half ago, this sketch is hereby dedicated. S. L. J.

NEW HARTFORD, April, 1881.

EARLY SETTLEMENT OF THE TOWN.

We were wandering one bright autumn day in the old cemetery on Town ITill, when a friend remarked, pointing to a moss-grown slab, "There is the grave of the first white person ever buried in New Hartford." Interest and curiosity were at once aroused, and kneeling before the ancient brown stone, which had

* By Sarah 1 .. Jones.

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HISTORY OF LITCHFIELD COUNTY, CONNECTICUT.

preserved its perpendicular while others of more modern appearance had yielded to frost and storm, with but little difficulty the following inscription was deciphered :

Here lies the Body of Mr Stephen Kelcy who died April 2 1745 in ye 71 Year of his Age as you are so was we as we are you must be.

The " we" in the couplet doubtless included " Mrs. Dorothy," his wife, who lay beside him, but upon whose tombstone the inscription was so nearly effaced that little was legible but the name and year of her death, 1746.

The adjoining plot of ground seemed to have been · the family burying-place of the Kelcys, or Kelsey, as the spelling occasionally varied, for three generations of the name here repose side by side. Curiosity and interest deepened, and would not rest without some information concerning this pioneer tenant of the silent city. Who was he? Inquiry was made among the oldest inhabitants, but no one knew aught con- cerning him, and no representative of his name is now a resident of the town. Trumbull's "History of Connecticut" disclosed, among a few scanty bits of information, the name of Stephen Kelsey in a par- tial list of the first settlers of the town; meagre but encouraging was this, and the web which romance had begun to weave about the old man fastened on an ancient copy of the town records. On the very first page within the time-darkened parchment covers was the name of Stephen Kelsey as moderator of the first recorded town-meeting in New Hartford, Dec. 19, 1738, and the first business of the meeting constituted him one of three selectmen ; the others were Deacons Martin Smith and Jonathan Marsh. Farther on, he was named, with others, a committee to secure a min- ister to settle in New Hartford,-church and town business went hand in hand in those days. The old manuscript held us with a spell, like a voice from the buried past; we read on and on, then, following out a train of investigation, we begged a sight of the old proprietors' book, a ponderous volume with the corners of its heavy pages thumbed into rags. One link led to another still farther back in the chain of events, until, to use a well-worn simile, Stephen Kelsey proved the pebble which we had at first somewhat aimlessly dropped into the stream of research, but around which the circles had widened and widened until they reached Plymouth colony and the " Mayflower," and, could we follow them so far, might have spread into the great ocean of history until they touched Christopher Columbus himself.

In 1686, when King James II. of England had de- termined to annul the colonial charters of New Eng- land, the General Assembly of Connecticut, fearing that Sir Edmund Andross would sequester all the un-

occupied lands of the colony, made a hasty convey- ance in trust to the proprietors of Hartford and Windsor of the lands " bounded north by the prov- ince of the Massachusetts Bay, east by Farmington and Simsbury, south by Woodbury and Mattatuck, and butting west on the Ousatunnack River." No need to repeat the familiar story of the "Charter Oak," where the charter of the colony was secreted when Sir Edmund came to Hartford in person to demand it, in 1687. In 1689, Andross was forced by the inhabitants of Boston to seek the safety in flight which had been forced upon his tyrannical master, King James, across the sea. The colonial government was again established, but, possession being nine points in law, after holding these western acres for a term of years, the Hartford and Windsor proprietors were loth to give them up, and after much litigation and trouble in the matter, in May, 1726, the General Assembly, wishing as far as possible to preserve the public peace, made a com- promise, by which the lands in controversy were di- vided between the colony and the towns, the former to have the western portion and the latter the eastern portion. The eastern division had the advantage in location, and embraced the following towns, given in order of settlement: Harwinton, 1731; New Hart- ford, 1733; Torrington, 1737; Hartland, 1753 ; Bark- hamsted, 1746; Winchester, 1758; Colebrook, 1765.

Deeds of partition between Hartford and Windsor, in 1732, gave to the former the territory now em- braced in Winchester, New Hartford, Hartland, and the eastern part of Harwinton. At a meeting of the proprietors of these "four parcels of land, lying in that tract of land commonly known as the Western grant," at the State-house in Hartford, April 6, 1732, a valuation was placed upon them, as follows: The southeast portion, now New Hartford, containing by estimation twenty-three thousand nine hundred and forty-two acres, was placed in the list at fifteen shillings an acre; Winchester and East Harwinton were valued at ten shillings, and Hartland at only seven shillings and sixpence per acre. Each tax-payer of Hartford on the list of 1720, or his heirs, was pro- prietor of an undivided share in some one of these townships in proportion to his list. New Hartford fell to the share of one hundred and eighty-two pro- prietors. A committee was appointed to set off lands to such as wished to settle thereon, and all who en- tered their names for settling were obligated, "in two years next ensuing their agreement with the commit- tee, to build a tenantable house of sixteen feet square on said land, and break up two or three acres of said land, and in one year more after said two years are expired personally to inhabit by themselves or family on said land, and to be obliged to continue inhabiting on said land for the space of three years longer after the first three years are expired."

A committee appointed to view the land in the southeast part of the four parcels and report how it would be best to lay it out to form a township, reported

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NEW HARTFORD.

that a "certain hilly piece of land, northerly of a mountain called the Yellow Mountain, which is about a miłe in width and between two and three miles in length, was the most suitable land in the whole tract to lay out home-lots to accommodate the proprietors, and that what land might be wanted more than said hill contained to lay out home-lots was near said hill, enough to accommodate the whole of the proprietors." According to this recommendation, sur- veys were made, and home-lots laid out half a mile in length and twenty rods wide on the easterly and westerly sides of a highway sixteen rods wide; also short lots, eighty rods long, where suitable land could be found as near as possible to the hill. In May, 1733, a committee appeared for the proprietors before the General Assembly, praying for some action to en- courage and promote the settling of the township, and that a name might be given it, when an act was passed calling it New Hartford. In December, 1733, the home-lots were drawn by the proprietors at the State-house in Hartford ; the rest of the land was laid out in divisions, and the proprietors took up or lo- cated their second, third, or fourth pitches in the same way after the home-lots were appropriated, the last division being drawn in 1742.

According to the records, highways were laid out, taxes levied, and lands surveyed with as great dis- patch as possible, considering that the country was an unbroken wilderness infested by wild beasts and Indians. The summer of 1734 probably saw the set- tłers busily at work breaking ground and building their "tenantable houses," six feet square. New Hartford was the only one of the four townships colonized by the original proprictors. The pioneers of the town were. with very few exceptions, either proprietors or sons of proprietors, members of re- spectable and well-to-do familics in Hartford, hence the peculiar propriety of the name New Hartford. The first settlers, as accurately as can be ascertained, were sixteen heads of families, as follows : Stephen Kelsey, Jonathan Marsh, Martin Smith, Zebulon Shepherd, Samuel Douglass, Eleazer Goodwin, Cyp- rian Watson, his son Zachariah, John Watson, Thomas Oleott, Noah Merrill, Joseph Merrill, John Merrill, John Andrus, Israel Loomis, Matthew Gillet, John Seymour .*

These pathfinders were soon followed by Elijah Flower, Isaac Kellogg, Joseph Gilbert, Daniel l'er- sons, Samuel Wells, John Spencer, Samuel Benham, Jonah Richards, David Ensign, William Steel, John Edgecomb, Thomas Bidwell, Daniel Shepherd, Jona- than Merrill, and others.

The proprietors in Hartford took a fatherly interest

in the little colony. They gave them a very liberal highway grant, most of which was sold from time to time for the benefit of the town, or exchanged for more convenient highways; also eighty acres for the support of a "gospel minister," and eighty more for the support of a school; also twenty acres as a gift to the first minister who should settle in town, and a grist-mill privilege.

To return to Stephen Kelsey, he purchased property in the town to the value of one hundred and nineteen pounds, forty-five pounds right of which he deeded to his sou Ebenezer, of Waterbury, who came to occupy it at an early day. During the few years of his stay with them all the settlers deferred to Stephen Kelsey ; he was moderator of almost every town- and society-meeting, agent to present the town interests to the General Assembly, and member of all com- mittees, whether to covenant with a minister or to settle the town boundary. In December, 1743, one pound was " voted to Stephen for perambelating the line between New Hartford and Farmington." This is the last mention of his name upon the town records. In March, 1745, the town voted " to purchase a decent cloth for a burying cloth ;" and as Stephen Kelsey died on the 2d of April, we can but infer that it was in view of his approaching end that such an appro- priation was made.

"Perambelating" the boundary line mentioned must have been too much for the old man of seventy in the severe weather of December, and for more than a year previous to his death he was laid aside from the service of his fellow-townsmen, in which he had been so active, and in which his zeal had overrated his powers of endurance. We have no record of his funeral, the first in the little settlement,t but we can picture the mournful procession, the coffin covered with the "de- cent burying cloth," followed by the bereaved colony, perhaps one hundred adults in all, to its final resting- place when the snows were beginning to melt on the thickły-wooded hillside.

INDIANS.

There are on record but few deeds or conveyances of lands from Indians to the first settlers of New Hart- ford. A portion of this territory was probably in- cluded in that sohl by Sequassen, or Suncquasson, sachem of Suckiage, now Hartford, in a deed of sale to the English settlers, which embraced "the whole region westward, including the territories of the Tunxis, as far as the country of the Mohawks."t Prior to 1750 the territory now embraced in New Hartford was used rather as an occasional resort for fishing and hunting than a permanent dwelling-place by the Tunxis Indians.

* Trumbull'e history gives Joseph Gillet; he was an original proprie- tor, father of Matthew, but the earliest town reconits indicate that he munt vory soon havo returned to Hartford, while caroful search makes It evllent that Joseph and John Merrill, Israel Loomis, and John Seymour were ploneore. John Seymour brought with him four sons,-Willlam, Uriah, Hozekinh, and Eliae.

t Noah Merrill died In 1739; his descendants In town are of the opinion that his romains were carried to Hartford for burial, but that scome hardly probable in the state of the country at that tinie.

[ The original deed is lust, but this salo la confirmed in a renewal deed given by the successors of Sequassen in 1670 to the white settlers of Harl- ford.

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HISTORY OF LITCHFIELD COUNTY, CONNECTICUT.

In a note-book of Rev. Jonathan Marslı is an entry to the effect that in 1739 there were but three families of Indians living in the town. These were probably families who were sufficiently civilized to come under Christian influences.

Among the Trumbull papers in Yale College library is a letter, bearing date 1813, from which Mr. Trum- bull gained information for the sketch of this town contained in his "History of Connecticut." The writer, Asa Goodwin, Esq., long town clerk of New Hartford, says,-

"The Indians in New Iførtford when it was settled were not numer- ous, probably eight or ten families; but from its being a frontier town apprehensions were entertained by the inhabitants of being surprised by other Indians, so much so that several houses were fortified with pali- Bades, to which the inhabitants used to resort for safety in the night, particularly the houses of Rev. Mr. Marsh and Deacon Smith .* There are to be seen to this day several caverns er pits from which the Indians used to dig cotton-stone, with which they made dishes or pots, in which they used to boil succotash and other food."

The house of Cyprian Watson, in the southwestern part of the town, was also fortified, and the early settlers carried firearms when at work in the field during the day.

Historical reminiscence locates the earliest settle- ment of the Tunxis Indians in New Hartford about half a mile southeasterly from the present "Kingdom" bridge, on the west side of the Albany turnpike, at Indian Hill (formerly in New Hartford, set off to Canton in 1806), so called to this day. This village embraced at one time perhaps eighteen or twenty wigwams, the sites of some of them having been visi- ble within the memory of the present generation ; the meadows in the vicinity were cleared and planted with corn and other crops. Articles of aboriginal manufacture have been found here,-pots, arrows, and hatchets, all of stone.

Another Indian settlement also grew up on the west side of the river, not far from Indian Hill, and this, after a time, was so recruited by negroes and renegade whites that, tradition says, it was the most populous portion of the town about 1780, and an asylum for criminals and evil-doers of all grades. From the law- lessness of its population, who lived by hunting, fish- ing, and stealing, this locality was called "Satan's Kingdom," which name it still retains. Such a com- munity, containing an indiscriminate mixture of the

blood of three races, could not long thrive, and by deaths and removals it was so rapidly diminished that in 1800 but two or three wigwams were left, and a few years later nothing but the ruins of the village re- mained. De Forest, in bis "History of the Indians of Connecticut," says, " At the present time (1850) they (the Tunxis) have all disappeared from their ancient home. One miserable creature, Mossock, still lives, perhaps the sole remnant of the tribe." This Henry Mossock, sentenced to imprisonment for life at Weth- ersfield for participation in the murder of Barnice White, of Colebrook, was a descendant of Solomon

Mossock, a Farmington Indian, who married the daughter of Chogham, chief of the Kingdom clan, and with others formed a small settlement about a mile above the gorge, near the confluence of the east and west branches of the Tunxis. A few Mohegans and Pequots came hither also. Among the former was one Oliver Delvon, whose wife, Mary, died some thirty years since, aged one hundred years or more. Rev. Samson Occom occasionally preached to his brethren in New Hartford, and it is said that several were converted through his labors to the Christian faith.

Early in the present century the Indians began to disappear from this settlement also. Humphrey Quo- mone, the last of the tribe, died years ago, and a few negro and mulatto squatters later on gave the locality its present name of "Niggertown."

There are on record deeds of sale of a portion of this property, one, in 1844, to the town of New Hart- ford, by heirs of Huldah Delvon, of thirty acres, for the consideration of ten dollars; another, in 1850, by selectmen of New Hartford, to Wilson B. Spring, of sixty acres, including the above-mentioned thirty, the other thirty having been taken by the town for the support of Mary Delvon in her old age.

ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY.

As soon as the town was organized sufficiently to proceed to any business, at the first recorded town- meeting, Dec. 19, 1738, a committee was appointed to secure a minister to settle in New Hartford in the work of the ministry, and four candidates were named to whom application should be made,-

" Mr. Baulden, and if the ed Mr. Baulden refuse to except of their caul, then to Mr. Robords, and if ye sd Mr. Robords Refuse then to Mr. Marsh sun to ye Rev. mr. Marsh of Windsor, and if he refuse then to Mr. Timo Woodbridge."

At the second town-meeting an agent was appointed to apply to the General Assembly for a committee to settle the place " for building a meeting-house for divine worship." Immediately following came in- structions to "treat further with Mr. Marsh concern- ing settling in the work of the ministry." So zealous were these pioneers to see a tabernacle arise in the wilderness that they could not wait the pleasure of the General Assembly, but voted, " It is needful to proceed, and we will proceed to build a meeting-house in the town of New Hartford for Divine worship;" and again an agent was appointed to petition the au- thorities to settle the place for the meeting-house.

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History of Litchfield county, Connecticut, Part 94

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