USA > Connecticut > New London County > New London > History of New London, Connecticut, From the First Survey of the Coast in 1612 to 1852 > Part 37
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" We pray the mighty King of kings to preserve your sacred majesty from all the attempts of open and secret enemies-to bless and prosper your arms, and to clothe your enemies with confusion, that your majesty may be long con- tinued to reign over us and then be received to reign in eternal glory, Amen."
1 The committee to prepare this petition were Joseph Coit, Richard Durfey, Ed- ward Robinson, Jonathan Prentis, Solomon Coit.
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HISTORY OF NEW LONDON.
Of the fate of this petition nothing further is known ; it is never heard from again, either town-wise or otherwise. The records of the town are from this period entirely silent in regard to the war, which' it may be remembered, continued four years longer and was termina- ted by the treaty of Aix la Chapelle in April, 1748. In the mean time the noted expedition to Cape Breton intervened, and though the records contain no allusion to it, a few facts, gleaned from other sources will be given, in order to show the connection of the town with that great adventure of New England enterprise.
The General Assembly, by a vote of Feb. 7th, 1744-5, ordered 500 men to be immediately raised in Connecticut by voluntary en- listment, to join the forces of the other New England colonies in the expedition against Cape Breton. The premium offered was large, viz. ten pounds in old tenor bills, one month's wages paid before embarking, and an exemption from all impressments for two years. The sloop Defence was to be equipped and manned and to sail as a convoy with the transports. The land forces were ordered to New London to embark, and to return to New London to disband. Roger Wolcott was appointed commander-in-chief; Andrew Burr, colonel; Simon Lothrop, lieut. colonel ; Israel Newton, major.
The men were divided into eight companies, under the following captains :
David Wooster,
Robert Denison,
Stephen Lee,
Andrew Ward,
Daniel Chapman,
James Church,
William Whiting, Henry King.
Of these captains, Lee, Chapman and Denison were from New London, as were also John Colfax and Nathaniel Green, lieutenants. Capt. John Prentis commanded the Defence. Col. Saltonstall was one of the committee to superintend the concern-Jeremiah Miller was the commissary of the forces. Alexander Wolcott, resident at New London, went out as surgeon's mate.
The troops began to gather at New London the last week in March. The tents were pitched in a field north-west of the town plot, which has ever since been known as the Soldier lot. It is between the Nor- wich and old Colchester roads.
April 1st, Gen. Wolcott arrived and was welcomed with salutes from the fort and the sloop Defence. His tent was pitched on the hill at the south-east corner of the burial place. On Sunday the 7th Mr. Adams preached to the general and soldiers, drawn up on the meeting-house green. On the 9th the commissions were published
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HISTORY OF NEW LONDON.
with imposing ceremonies. The eight companies were arranged in close order on the green; and the throng of spectators covered the hill. Through them, Gen. Wolcott, supported right and left by Col. Andrew Burr and Lieut. Col. Simon Lothrop, marched bareheaded from his tent to the door of the court-house, where the commissions were read.1 The troops embarked Saturday, April 13th, and the next day at 1 o'clock, P. M., the fleet sailed. It consisted of the colonial sloops of Connecticut and Rhode Island, four other sloops ; two brigs and one schooner. The Defence carried Gen. Wolcott and 100 men.
Two months of anxious suspense to the country, and eager thirst- ing for news, succeeded. The 24th of April was kept through New England as a public fast for the success of the enterprise. On the 19th of June the mournful tidings arrived that our forces had been defeated in an attempt upon the Island Battery with a loss of 170 men. Major Newton of Colchester and Israel Dodge of the North Parish, were among those who had fallen victims to disease. Soon afterward, Lieut. Nathaniel Green of New London, came home sick. New recruits were demanded. In this vicinity 200 men were speedily raised and marched into town, from whence they were taken by transports sent round from Boston, which sailed for the seat of war, July 6th. The next day, a special post from Boston, came shouting through the town-
Louisburg is taken !
On the 18th of July, the Middletown transport, Capt. Doane, arrived in the harbor with General Wolcott and eighty soldiers, mostly sick. The 25th of the same month, was the day of public thanksgiving for our success.
Capt. Prentis in the colony sloop returned the latter part of Octo- ber. Of his crew of 100 men, not one had fallen by the sword, but a fourth part had died of disease. November 4th, two transports left the port with 150 recruits for Cape Breton. The next spring, the remains of the army began to return. On the 27th of June Capt. Fitch came home with a considerable party, and on the 2d of July a schooner brought in the last of the Connecticut troops, with the ex- ception of a few that had enlisted for three years.
Thus ends as connected with our port, this brilliant, but unprofita- ble expedition. Capt. Prentis in the sloop Defence, had made a part of the naval force, and was with the. fleet in actual service at the
1 Hempstead.
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HISTORY OF NEW LONDON.
time that the rich prizes were taken. In April, 1746, he accompa- nied Mr. James Bowdoin, of Boston, to England, to urge the claim of the provincial seamen to a share of the prize-money, which was with- held by Admiral Warren. The admiralty allowed the claim, and placed the British and provincial vessels on the same footing. But Capt. Prentis while awaiting the decision of the court, made an ex- cursion into Cornwall, to visit the Edgecombs of Mount Edgecomb, being invited thither to partake of the Christmas festivities. While absent on this tour, he took the small-pox ; of which disease he died, after his return to London, in January, 1736-7.
Scarcely were the wearied troops from Louisburg disbanded be- fore a flourish of drums and trumpets sounded through the country, demanding enlistments to go against Canada. On the 30th of June, 1746, a general muster of the five military companies of New Lon- don was called, in order to obtain volunteers for a new army, which like that of the previous year had its rendezvous at New London. The forces gathered in August, 700 in number, and encamped on Winthrop's Neck, about twenty days. The officers vied with each other in their tents, but that of Capt. Henry King of Norwich was acknowledged to exceed the others in the neatness and order of its arrangements. On the 12th of September, they broke up and em- barked for the scene of action.
On the 24th of September, 1746, news arrived in town by ex- press from Boston "that a French fleet of twenty-six men of war, and 15,000 land soldiers in transports, were seen off Cape Sables on the 10th instant."1
This article is only given as an instance of the uncertainty and exaggeration of rumor. The fleet seen was the celebrated armament under the Duke D'Anville, supposed to have been fitted out to recover Louisburg and Annapolis, to destroy Boston, and devastate the New England coast. It consisted of eleven ships of the line, thirty war vessels carrying from ten to thirty guns, and transports with 3,100, regular troops.2
Active exertions were made in all the colonies to defend the most important and exposed positions on the coast, and the troops raised were prepared to concentrate their forces wherever an invasion should be attempted. In Connecticut one-half of the whole militia was de- tached and ordered to be in readiness to march in case of an inva- sion. The issue is well known. A series of remarkable calamities
1 Hempstead.
2 Trumbull's Conn., vol. 2, p. 285.
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HISTORY OF NEW LONDON.
assailed the French fleet. Storm, shipwreck, failure of expected recruits and supplies, pestilential disease, divided councils, discon- certed plans, the sudden death of successive commanders, and a final destructive blow from a furious tempest, all concurred so oppor- tunely in the discomfiture of the French fleet, that they seemed like visible agents employed by Providence, to avert the danger from New England. Dr. Holmes in his Annals observes that the country was saved as in ancient times, when "the stars in their courses fought against Sisera."
[Note concerning Capt. Prentis. As it is a part of the business of the histo- rian to preserve all popular superstitions and traditions that illustrate the cus- toms and opinions of the age, we must here notice a story that probably grew out of the prolonged absence of Capt Prentis in England, and the anxiety of his friends concerning him. It was afterward currently reported, that the very day he died in London, a man on horseback, mounted on just such a horse as Prentis used to ride, came galloping into New London, before sunrise, and at each end of the town stopped at a house, and with loud knocks upon the door, gave notice " Capt. Prentis is dead !" He then disappeared, his transit having been so rapid that no one was able to discern his countenance, or identify his person.
Capt. Prentis left six children under nine years of age ; five of them were daughters. Previous to his voyage to England, he had bought up the claims of his crew to their share of the prize-money. This money was allowed by the admiralty, and transmitted to Boston, but from some delay, the causes of which are not now understood, it was not paid over to the heirs of Prentis for many years; not indeed until after the marriage of all his daughters. It was finally obtained through the exertions of Richard Law, Esq., who had married one of the daughters. Business matters were not then so generally settled by attor- neyship and proxy as at present, and on the occasion of the payment of these arrears the family train, consisting of the younger John Prentis and his five sisters, with their respective husbands, all went to Boston together, to receive their dues. The females had never before been so far away from home, and almost every incident was to them a novel adventure. Two days were occu- pied in going, and the same in returning ; the intermediate night being spent at a tavern in Plainfield. Each of the men was a character of peculiar stamp. Among them were a lawyer, a mechanic, a merchant, a farmer and two sea- captains, one of thein of Irish birth. Capt. William Coit was particularly original in his manner. He was blunt, jovial, eccentric ; very large in frame ; fierce and military in his bearing, and noted for always wearing a scarlet cloak. The populace of New London called him the great red dragon. We can readily imagine that this journey would be full of strange scenes and occur- rences. Could it be faithfully described no fanciful embellishments would be necessary to render it a rare descriptive sketch.1]
1 The author may be allowed to name an esteemed friend, the late Captain Richard Law, as the source from whence this and other vivid pictures of past scenes, are derived.
CHAPTER XXI.
Schools .- Ferries .- Mills .- Wolves .- Great Snow of 1717 -The Moving Rock .- Amusements .- Memoranda.
HAVING brought the general history of the town to the year 1750, we may now return and gather up the fragments that have been drop- ped by the way, or set aside, in order to be arranged as topics.
Schools. For the first fifty years after the settlement, very little is on record in respect to schools ; and from the numerous instances of persons in the second generation who could not write their names, it is evident that education was at a low ebb. Female instruction, in particular, must have been greatly neglected, when the daughters of men who occupied important offices in the town and church, were obliged to make a mark for their signature. Yet the business of teaching was then principally performed by women. The school- ma'am is older than the school-master. Every quarter of the town had its mistress, who taught children to behave; to ply the needle through all the mysteries of hemming, over-hand, stitching and darn- ing, up to the sampler; and to read from A, B, C, through the spelling-book to the Psalter. Children were taught to be mannerly, and pay respect to their elders, especially to dignitaries. In the . street, they stood aside when they met any respectable person or stranger, and saluted them with a bow or courtesy, stopping modestly till they had passed. This was called making their manners. In some places in the interior of New England, this pleasing and rever- ent custom still maintains its ground. A traveler finds himself in one of these virgin districts, and as he approaches a low school-house by the way-side, he is warned by eye and ear, that he has fallen upon forenoon play-tide. The children are engaged in boisterous games. Suddenly every sound ceases ; the ranks are drawn up on each side of the road in single file ; the little girls fold their hands before them
396
HISTORY OF NEW LONDON.
with a prim courtesy, and the heads of the boys are uncovered with a grotesque swing of the hat, or buff-cap. Who is not inly delighted with this primitive salutation ? It is like finding a clear spring of water gushing out of a rock by the way-side.
Peculiar reverence was paid to the minister. Bold was the urchin who dared to laugh within his hearing. That reverend personage was accustomed to catechise them once a month in the meeting- house, and to accompany the exercise with many a stern reproof, or grave admonition.
In the year 1673, Robert Bartlet, a lonely man living near Ga- briel Harris, on Close Cove, died ; and by a nuncupative will, made in presence of some of the selectmen and other respectable persons, bequeathed his estate to the town, to be improved for the education of children. The records of the county court attest that this will was accepted and recorded at the June session, and administration granted to the five gentlemen specified therein ; viz., Rev. Simon Bradstreet, Edward Palmes, Daniel Wetherell, Charles Hill and Joshua Raymond. It may be presumed that Bartlet had no chil- dren, no relatives, no intimate friends with him, or near him, and that he acted by the advice of those around him, to wit, the minister and the magistrates.
The oldest books of wills belonging to the county, were destroyed in the burning of the town by the British, in 1781; and neither the original will of Bartlet, nor any copy of it, has been found. But it is ascertained from various legislative acts and town votes, that the main purpose expressed, was the support of a school, where the poor of the town might be instructed. No other specification is mentioned, except a request that Gabriel Harris might be requited for the kind- ness shown him in his sickness. To this the administrators faithfully attended, and by deed of Dec. 19th, 1674, conveyed to Harris two acres of land at Mamacock, as a compensation for his care of Bartlet.
Three Robert Bartlets are found among the early emigrants to New England, between whom no connection has been ascertained : one arrived in 1623,1 in the vessel called the Anne, (which came next after the Mayflower and Fortune,) and is known to have con- tinued in or near Plymouth, where he left posterity.2 A second of
1 Davis' New England Memorial.
2 Savage, (Ms.)
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HISTORY OF NEW LONDON.
the name is found among the first settlers of Hartford, and is men- tioned by Trumbull as suffering a severe penalty in 1646, for an in- fringement of the old Connecticut code. This person removed to Northampton in 1655, and there died in 1676, leaving several chil- dren.' The third of the name is our Robert Bartlet, of New Lon- don, who was the brother of William Bartlet, one of the earliest set- tlers of the place, whose property he inherited about 1658. Very little more is known of him. He appears to have lived with his brother's widow, and to have taken care of her till her death. In a deposition of Feb., 1664-5, his age is stated to be sixty-nine or there- abouts, which would make him seventy-eight at death.
The estate which Bartlet bequeathed to the town, consisted of his homestead on Close Cove, a farm of two hundred and fifty acres on the river, north of the town, various divisions of out-lands, and the rights of an original proprietor in the commons. Nothing was done with it for many years.
In 1678, the law of the Assembly requiring that every town of thirty families should maintain a school to teach children to read and write, was copied into the town book, and a committee of five men chosen, " to consider of some effectual means to procure a school- master." This is the first town action respecting a writing-school ; and from this period it may be presumed that one was kept during a part of each year, but perhaps for not more than three months.
The first Bartlet committee was appointed in 1698-Thomas Bolles, Samuel Fosdick and Richard Christophers, who were direct- ed to look after the estate, and see that it was faithfully improved according to the will of the donor.
" Dec. 14, 1698.
" Voated that the Towne Grants one halfe peny in mony upon the List of Estate to be raised for the use of a free Schoole that shall teach Children to Reade Write and Cypher and ye Lattin Tongue, which School shall be kept two-thirds of the yeare on the West side and one third part of the yeare on the East side of the river. By Reading is intended such Children as are in theire psalters."
In May, 1701, the vote was reiterated that a grammar-school should be established ; the selectmen to agree with a teacher; to employ the stipend allowed by the country, (40s. per £1,000,) and the revenue of the Bartlet estate-the latter for the benefit of the
1 Judd, of Northampton, (MS.)
34
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HISTORY OF NEW LONDON.
poor-and parents and masters to make up what more should be necessary.
Here, then, at the beginning of the century, we may date the estab- lishment of the first regular grammar and Latin school of the town. The first masters whose names have been recovered, were Denison in 1708, Burnham, 1710, and John Gardiner, of the Isle of Wight, (Gardiner's Island,) in 1712.
In 1713, application was made to the General Assembly for per- mission to dispose of the Bartlet lands ; this was granted. By a spe- cial act of May 14th, the Assembly vested the title of those lands in certain feoffees, to wit, "Richard Christophers, Jonathan Prentis, John Plumbe, John Richards, and James Rogers, Jun., and their heirs forever, for the use of a public Latin School in the town of New London."
We can not but observe, that this appropriation of the legacy spe- cially to a Latin school, appears to be swerving from the will of the donor, which was understood to regard principally the instruction of the poor in the common branches of learning.
This committee made sale of most of the Bartlet donation ; five parcels of land on the Great Neck, some lots at Nahantick and Nai- wayonk, and the farm on the river ; the latter was purchased by John Richards, for £300. This measure was a present benefit, but gained at the expense of a greater future good. Every year was enhancing the value of the lands, and had they been retained a century, using only the yearly rent, they would have been ample endowment for an academy.
The same year, (1713,) a school-house was built, twenty feet by sixteen, and seven feet between joints-expense defrayed by a town rate. This building, the first school-house in town of which we have any account, stood on what is now the south-west corner of Hemp- stead and Broad Streets. This spot was then the north-east corner of an ecclesiastical reservation ; the street running west had not been opened beyond this point, and the school-house stood at the head of it. When the lot was sold in 1738, the deed expressly mentions that it took in the site of the old school-house. To this school it is under- stood that girls were not admitted promiscuously with boys ; but at- tended by themselves on certain days of the week, an hour at a time, at the close of the boys' school, for the purpose of learning to write.
" Oct. 1, 1716. Voted that Mr. Jeremiah Miller is well accepted and ap- proved as our School-master."
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HISTORY OF NEW LONDON.
Mr. Miller graduated at Yale College in 1709. He was engaged as principal of the grammar-school in New London, in 1714, and continued in that situation for twelve or fifteen years. After this we find the following masters mentioned before 1750 :
Mr. Cole, in 1733. Jeremiah Chapman, 1738.
Allan Mullins, 1734. Thaddeus Betts, 1740.
Nicholas Hallam, 1735. Jonathan Copp, 1747.
The designation, " Bartlet School," was not used until a very re- cent period. During the whole of the eighteenth century, it had no name but "New London Grammar School."
" In town meeting March 5, 1721-2.
" Whereas the town by the settlement thereof doth in great part consist of farmers which, many of them are not able to go through the charges of keeping their children to school in the town plot :- And whereas the school in the town plot hath been a very considerable charge, being a Grammar school, so that the town hath not been so well able to maintain two schools :- but whereas now Providence hath so ordered that we have got our 600 acres of school land set- tled, which was given by the country to the grammar school, which if sold with the interest of that money and the interest of the money left by Mr. Bart- lett to our school, which sd Bartlett did desire that the estate left by him might be improved for the help of the learning of children that their parents was not well able to learn them, and this town considering the great necessity of educa- tion to children, both for the advantage of their future state and towards their comfortable subsistence in the world, and being satisfied that if the school land were sold, we may set up a school or schools among our farmers, doth appoint the deputies of the town to make application in the name and behalf of the town to the General Assembly in May next, that they would be pleased to grant this town liberty to appoint trustees of the school, who may have power to sell the land, and let the money upon interest for the use aforesaid."
This application to the Legislature failed of success. A school was nevertheless commenced in the North Parish, and a rate appro- priated for its support. It produced, however, great strife and con- tention ; the inhabitants of the town plot set their faces like flint against paying taxes for the support of schools among the farmers. The town was reduced to a dilemma, and repeated their petition to the Assembly for liberty to sell the school land. They expressed an earnest desire that the children of the town should be taught "read- ing and other learning, and to know their duty toward God and man," for the furtherance of which ends they had "settled another school in the remote part of the town, which goeth on with good success," but which, they say, can not be kept up and the peace of the town preserved, unless the land is sold. This petition was granted. The
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HISTORY NEW LONDON.
600 acres had been laid out in the North Parish, on the borders of Lyme. It was purchased by Mrs. Mercy Raymond and Mr. John Merritt. The school money received from the fund now established, was in 1725, £120. The town decided that one-half should be re- served for the grammar-school, in the town plot, and the remainder divided among the quarter, or circulating schools, established in dif- ferent districts.
It was at this period that the people of the North Parish, aided by their proportion of the fund, established a grammar-school in their district. Mr. Allan Mullins was engaged as the principal for eight years, "to teach reading, writing, grammar and arithmetic." His salary was £25 per annum, with a gift of ten acres of land in fee, for- · ever. At the expiration of his engagement in 1734, he took the grammar-school in the town plot, which paid a salary of £20 per quarter.
The committee chosen to organize a regular system of schools for the town, took unwearied pains to arrange them in a just and equal manner, that not a single family should be left out of the calculation, and all parties might be conciliated. They were not able to accom- plish their designs. In 1726, the quarters were in a state of great excitement. The special cause of disturbance does not appear; but in the main it was a struggle on the part of the farming districts to obtain an equal participation in the Bartlet and other school moneys.
A town meeting was summoned June 27th, by Capt. Rogers, the first townsman, but his colleagues not concurring in it, the measure was illegal. Hempstead observes: "The farmers universally were there, in order to gain a vote to their mind about the schools, but lost their labor."
The annual town meeting for the choice of officers was held De- cember 26th, and the diarist records, "The farmers came in roundly, and the town mustered as well to match them, and a great strife and hot words, but no legal choice." The only entry concerning the meet- ing, on the town book, was this :
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