History of New London county, Connecticut : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Part 117

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton)
Publication date: 1882
Publisher: Philadelphia : J.W. Lewis & Co.
Number of Pages: 1317

USA > Connecticut > New London County > History of New London county, Connecticut : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men > Part 117

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They were organized, had their officers, meetings, and records. They performed acts of ownership of the land in this street, as of other common, undivided land in the purchase; and in 1808 (by William Wil- liams and the second Governor Trumbull, as their representatives) gave to Deacon Samuel Buckingham a deed of a portion of the common in front of his premises, and received of him forty dollars as the price. They had meetings at a still later date.

The actual settlement of the plantation began in 1695, and its increase appears to have been rapid, the number of grants and allotments bearing date No- vember of that year being more than fifty. The Five- mile purchase evidently came then to be fully open for occupancy, and settlers rushed in. They came from different quarters, some from Norwich, others

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HISTORY OF NEW LONDON COUNTY, CONNECTICUT.

from Northampton, still others from other places in this colony and in that of Massachusetts.

Lebanon has been spoken of as originally a depend- ence of Norwich. No part of its territory was ever embraced in the Nine-miles square, which constituted the territory of Norwich, or was ever under the juris- diction of Norwich; and there is no evidence that a majority of the early settlers came from that town,- the Clarks, the Deweys, the Trumbulls, the Strongs came from other places.

The inhabitants held a meeting in 1698, and the earliest record of the town or settlement, as it was properly called, was then made.

In 1697, under the direction of the first four pur- chasers and proprietors, a lot was set apart for a minister, to be his, when in an orderly way he should be settled among them, and, as worthy of note, it was one of the best lots through the whole length of the street, near and directly opposite the spot which had been selected as the site of the meeting-house. It was the land which the Lyman family and Mr. Asher P. Smith now occupy. And in a house which stood a little south of Mr. Smith's dwelling the first minister, Joseph Parsons, from Northampton, Mass., is supposed to have lived.

The first inhabitants, of course, had to struggle with the inconveniences and hardships of a new country. Where these dwellings and gardens and farms now are all was forest, and, as we infer from the moisture of the soil and from other evidence, with a thick undergrowth.

It serves to indicate their condition that in 1700 they took action in reference to a grist-mill, and the plantation offered Mr. Joseph Parsons, of Northamp- ton, afterwards of Norwich, as we infer, the father of the minister, as an encouragement to build such a mill, one hundred and twenty acres of land, provided he would maintain it ten years. From the fact that the road running west from the brick church was cnt to this mill, the conclusion is warranted that it was built near where the present mill on that road stands. The first saw-mill was built a little below where Hinckley's mill now is, in a tract called " Burnt Swamp."

In 1699, four years after the settlement of the planta- tion really began, the General Assembly, at its May session, " ordained and appointed a committee to view the lands at Lebanon, and to consider what quantity may be allowed for a plantation there, and to make return to the General Court in October next." There were various "lands"-not a few tracts here-held under different titles and with uncertain boundaries. Though the inhabitants had met to consider their interests, and had their officers, they had not been legally organized, and had not been recognized as a town.

At the fall session of the General Court there is made a record of this sort: " Whereas differences be- tween Lebanon and Colchester hath proved much to the prejudice of both places, and impedimentall to

their comfortable proceedings in the settlement thereof, these proposals are the nearest that can be agreed unto which here follow." The bounds are then given as agreed upon by Joseph Parsons for Lebanon, Na- thaniel Foot and Michael Taintor for Colchester. The line thus determined was " approved and con- firmed to be the standing divident line between the above-named towns, the rest of the bounds to be according to the return of the committee in 1699."

And further, "This Assembly doth grant to the in- habitants of the town of Lebanon all such immunities, privileges, and powers as generally other towns within this colony have and doe enjoy." There is then an order as to the rates for defraying the local charges in the town, and the record proceeds : "Free liberty is by this Assembly given to the town of Lebanon to embody themselves in church estate there, and also to call and settle an orthodoxe minister to dispense the ordinances of God to them, they proceeding therein with the consent of neighbor churches, as the lawe in such cases doth direct."

The people acted on these grants of privilege, and the town was formally organized in 1700. The church was embodied November 27th of the same year, and Mr. Joseph Parsons was ordained pastor of the church and minister of the town. A military company, called a "train-band," was also formed, yet I find in the public records no mention of any officers commis- sioned until the May session of 1702, when Lieut. John Mason is appointed captain of the "train-band" in Lebanon, Ensign Jeremiah Fitch to be their lieu- tenant, and Mr. Joseph Bradford to be their ensign, and to be commissioned accordingly. In 1708 there was a second train-band here, I conclude in that part of the town now called Goshen.

It is worthy of notice that though the town was or- ganized in 1700, and invested with all immunities, privileges, and powers of other towns, it did not send deputies to the General Assembly until the May ses- sion of 1705, the reason being, doubtless, that it had not been required by the colonial government to bear any portion of the public expense until a tax was levied on the inhabitants for that purpose at the Oc- tober session, 1704. It was at that time distinctly recognized and a cherished principle that representa- tion should accompany taxation, and "no taxation without representation" at length became the war-cry of the Revolution.

Though the town was now fully organized, with church and minister and train-band, and about to take its place by its deputies in the General Assem- bly with the other towns of the colony, its settlement was hindered. The bounds and titles to lands were in a very unsettled condition, and growing out of this were uncertainties and controversies and frequent ap- peals to the Assembly for relief. In 1704 the public records say " there were great difficulties and trouble among the inhabitants of Lebanon through the un- settledness of their lands," and they appointed a sur-

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veyor to run the south or southerly line of the Five- mile square purchase. The boundary between this town and Colchester was not yet settled, and in 1705 several of the inhabitants of the town of Lebanon made complaint of sundry difficulties and inconveni- ences under which they were laboring respecting the purchasing of a tract of land five miles square of Oweneco and the four proprietors.

It is not surprising that there was this uncertainty as to bounds and titles when we consider that gifts and cessions were made by Indian chiefs, and Sir Ed- mond Andros said their deeds were so indefinite and contradictory as " to be worth no more than the marks of a cat's paw," and that these chiefs, as to ownership, were in controversy among themselves, while the set- tlers had gained a variety of titles from them. In 1705 the General Assembly passed a broad healing act. Referring to the deed of Oweneco to the four proprietors, Mason, Stanton, Brewster, and Birchard,. and to the deed of these proprietors to fifty-one pro- prietors, most of whom were residing there, the act is to this effect: "And the same recited deeds or con- veyances, and the grants, sales, and bargains therein contained, are hereby allowed, approved, and con- firmed to be firm and effectual to all intents and pur- poses, according to the true meaning and intent thereof, as shall be construed most favorable on the behalf and for the best benefit and behoof of the grantees and purchasers (heretofore named), their heirs and assigns forever." And by this act a degree of satisfaction and quiet seems to have been established.

At the May session of the Assembly, 1705, Mr. William Clark was deputy from this town to the General Assembly, the first whom it sent ; at the Oc- tober session Mr. Samuel Huntington was deputy. Lebanon was "listed"-i.e., the property was put into the grand list to be taxed for general purposes-for the first time in 1704. In the roll of persons and es- tates presented to the General Assembly in 1705, em- bracing thirty-three towns, Lebanon is rated at £3736, and is the twenty-first in the list; it has ninety tax- able inhabitants, perhaps indicating a population of 350. The next year it stands £4390 and 105 taxable persons ; and this year this town sent two deputies, viz., Ensign John Sprague and Mr. William Clark. The town sent as deputies the same persons repeat- edly, the number from which selections were made from year to year being small, in strong contrast to the present practice of rotation, and never more than one term for the same person.

The next year, 1707, Lebanon stands £5179 and 135 taxable persons. For a few years the settlement of the town appears not to have been rapid. Priva- tions and hardships must have been endured by those who came here; their dwellings must have been log houses among the trees and bushes, with here and there a clearing, and all uncertainty as to the bounds and titles of lands had not ceased to perplex and em- barrass.

That there was a great amount of danger or annoy- ance from the Indians does not appear, the Indians of this section being friendly to the English, in league with them, and very much dependent on them.

There is a tradition that some Indians of a tribe at war with the Mohegans-perhaps from a remnant of the Pequots, possibly from the Narragansetts, still farther east in Rhode Island-took a Mohegan child from the house of Mr. Brewster, who lived on the Brewster place, near where Hon. Edwin M. Dolbeare now resides, and killed it, dashing its head against the garden-fence. This tradition comes reliably from one who lived near the time of the alleged event, and who spoke of it as a fact well known. There is also a tradition that the Abel house, which stood where Mr. Robert Peckham's house now stands, was a sort of fort (stockaded, I conclude), to which the inhabitants fled in times of danger.

If the Indians did not seriously trouble the settlers the wild animals did. So late as 1730 the town offered a bounty of ten pounds for every full-grown wolf that should be killed. Col. James Clark, of Bunker Hill celebrity, who died Dec. 29, 1826, ninety-six years of age, used to relate to his grandchildren, who are now living, that in his boyhood, as, coming from Norwich in the evening, he reached the low ground near where Mr. Jeremiah Mason now lives, he drew his feet up upon the saddle to protect them from the wolves, which he often heard barking and howling in the thickets on each side of the road. Deer and wild turkeys were abundant. The first settlers had common corn-lots, which they joined in clearing, fencing, and guarding. I have queried whether they had the fever and ague, and I am sure they had, and must have shaken soundly with it, but probably it did not frighten people away, for it must have pre- vailed in all the new settlements.

After about 1707 the number of taxable persons ceased to be given in the public records, and only the property list is noted. The list continued steadily to increase, and to gain on the lists of other towns in the colony. In 1730 it was £19,972; 1733, £23,803, and was in amount the eighth in the colony. In 1740 it was £31,709, and was the fifth among the forty-eight towns in the list, and more than that of Hartford or New London; in 1748, £35,570.

From 1730 to 1760 Lebanon must have gained rap- idly in population and wealth. The colony of Con- necticut had greatly prospered. In 1730 the number of inhabitants, according to a census then taken, was 38,000, and about 700 Indian and negro slaves and 1600 Indians. In 1756, twenty-six years later, the population of the colony, consisting then of seventy- nine towns and settlements, was 130,612, an increase of 90,312, and Lebanon then had a population of whites, 3171, and blacks, 103; total, 3274. Only five towns in the colony had a larger population, viz. : Middletown, the largest, 5664; Norwich, 5540; New Haven, 5085; Fairfield, 4455; and Farmington, 3707 ;

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HISTORY OF NEW LONDON COUNTY, CONNECTICUT.

Hartford had only 3027. In 1774, the year before the battle of Lexington, there were but seventy-six towns and settlements in the colony, some of the smaller settlements having been given up; the popu- lation of the colony had increased to 198,010. The population of this town was then, whites, 3841 ; blacks, 119; total, 3960, the largest population the town has ever had. Only six towns in the colony then had a larger. In 1784 the population of the State had grown to 208,800, and Lebanon had, whites, 3837, 4 less than ten years before ; blacks, 94, 25 less than sixty years before ; total loss, 29. Only eight towns then had a larger population, New Haven having the largest, 7960.

In 1775 only eight towns had a larger grand list than this town, it being then £41,600, equal to $130,- 300, the pound then being $3.33}. The grand list in 1876 was $1,185,047. Though the population has di- minished, the grand list has largely increased.

The population of the town in 1870 was 2211, an increase on that of the two preceding decades; in 1804, Columbia, with a population of about 600, was set off from this town; it now has a population of 891; add this to the present population of the town and the total is 3162, showing a total diminution of 798 since 1774 within the territory then constituting Lebanon.

As we have said, the thirty-five or forty years pre- vious to 1774 were a period of great prosperity to the town. Men of character and enterprise came in and grew up here. Capt. Joseph Trumbull came here from Suffield about 1704, evidently without any con- siderable means, for when he bought the place which had been occupied by Rev. Joseph Parsons he mort- gaged it for the sum of three hundred and forty pounds. He had vigorous traits, became a planter and trader, and at length had a ship which carried cargoes of his own, or belonging to his family.

A fact which comes to us on good authority illus- trates the temper of the man. His business often called him to Boston, and sometimes he went as a drover; and he would meet Rev. Mr. Wells, who had been pastor here, whose parishioner he had been, and who now lived in Boston. Mr. Wells was a little shy of him, and evidently avoided him now and then, in his plain and perhaps dusty attire, as not quite in trim to be familiarly recognized by a Boston gentleman. When Mr. Wells came here, where he still owned property, and (meeting Mr. Trumbull) accosted him as an old acquaintance, the latter refused to shake hands with him, and turned away, saying, "If you don't know me in Boston, I don't know you in Leba- non."

Trumbull's son, the future Governor, after being graduated at Harvard College in 1727, went into busi- ness with his father and became a merchant, and en- gaged extensively in commerce, the War Office, now standing, being his store. He and the firms to which he belonged owned ships which traded with London

and Bristol, England, Hamburg, Germany, and the West Indies, and took in their cargoes at New Lon- don and Stonington, and at Haddam, on the Connec- ticut River.

All the trades were carried on here, and it became an important business centre. Cloth, leather, boots and shoes, saddles and harness, axes, hoes, scythes, and barrels were made here. Among the town offi- cers appointed every year was an inspector of leather.

The town appointed Jonathan Trumbull to obtain from the General Assembly leave to hold and regulate fairs and market-days, and they were held twice a year. These streets now so quiet were a place of concourse and bustle, of exhibition and traffic, which the people of surrounding towns frequented, and to which traders came from a distance, Trumbull being engaged in wide commerce and large business.

And after 1743 there was a renowned school here, ·which Trumbull was active in establishing, and was controlled by twelve proprietors, and which was kept for thirty-seven years by Master Nathan Tisdale. It became so widely known that it had scholars from the West Indies, from North Carolina and South Carolina and Georgia, as well as from the more northern colonies. At one time it had students from nine of the thirteen colonies. Tisdale was a genius in his profession, and carried the school to the high- est stage of prosperity which it ever reached. This helped the intelligence and high character, the ac- tivity and pecuniary thrift of the place.

As a result of this and other agencies, this town had for many years some of its sons in courses of liberal education, and one hundred and twenty-two are known to have received college degrees. The strong interest in education which long prevailed here accounts for the fact that so many of its sons and daughters have risen to eminence.

And from the first Lebanon has been active in military enterprises. While this town was never di- rectly menaced by the Indians, the frontier towns of this colony and of the colony of Massachusetts were, and this town was required to aid in the common defense. As early as 1709, Mr. Jedediah Strong, one of the original settlers, and an ancestor of the Strong family, which remained and still has representatives here, was killed in an expedition against the Indians near Albany. This colony sent troops to the defense of the county of Hampshire, Mass., in which, in 1704, the Deerfield massacre occurred, and which was ex- posed to the incursions of the French and Indians.

In 1709, in an expedition against Canada, in Queen Ann's war, the proportion of troops from this colony was one hundred and forty-seven, and the quota of Lebanon eleven.

In the wars in which the mother-country was en- gaged at this period the colonies were involved,-in the Spanish war of 1739; in King George's war ; a war with France in 1744, in which Louisburg, in Cape Breton, a very strong place, termed the Gibraltar of

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America, was taken; in the French and Indian war, which began in 1755, and ended in 1763 with the con- quest of the whole of Canada. During these wars the seas were infested with hostile ships, and the colonists were exposed on every side. The colonies learned how to raise troops, to equip and supply them, and to tax themselves in order to pay them, and thus were in most important training for the crisis now just before them. The drums used at Bunker Hill were the same which had been used at the capture of Louisburg.

Lebanon, as a town, was among the foremost in this colony in the part it bore in these enterprises and testings. In 1739, Jonathan Trumbull, then young, was commissioned lieutenant-colonel of a regiment raised for an expedition against Canada; he was afterwards colonel, and early had experience in re- cruiting, furnishing, and moving troops. The people of the town were patriotic and spirited.

On the surrender of Quebec, in 1759, they observed the general thanksgiving, and Dr. Solomon Williams' jubilant sermon on the occasion was published. He says, "For more than seventy years our enemies have been designing our ruin, and formed and pro- jected a settled design to encompass us, unobserved, with a string of forts from Canada to the Bay of Mexico." He regards " the conquest of Quebec, the capital of Canada, as of more importance than lias ever been made by the English since England was a nation." He states his reasons, and calls upon the people triumphantly to praise Him who has given such success.

Of course a people thus trained, in such a temper, and having such leaders as there were here in Jona- than Trumbull, William Williams, and others, were all ready, when the mother-country began to encroach on the liberties of the colonies, to resist and to main- tain their rights.

When, in October, 1765, Governor Fitch proposed to take the required oath to enforce the Stamp Act, and called upon his "assistants" to administer it to him, Trumbull was among those who resisted and re- monstrated. The Governor urged that their allegi- ance to the king, the oath of their office, the safety of the charter of the colony, and their personal safety demanded that they administer the oath and aid in the execution of the act. Trumbull was ready with the reply that the act was in derogation of the rights of the colony, in violation of the common privileges of English subjects, and that they had also sworn "to promote the public good and peace of Connecticut, and to maintain all its lawful privileges," and these they would treacherously sacrifice by submitting to the demand now made upon them.

When five (the requisite legal number out of the twelve) were found ready to administer the oath, Trumbull refused to be present to witness its admin- istration, and taking his hat hastened from the cham- ber, leading the six other assistants who, with him,

had stood firm. This, with other clear and courageous conduct, showed him to the colonists as fitted to be their first magistrate, and to have their interest in his hands, and he was chosen Governor in 1769. He already had large experience in public affairs. He had fourteen times represented his town as deputy tc the General Assembly, and had three times filled the office of Speaker; had been chosen assistant for twenty-two years ; had been for one year side judge, and for seventeen years chief judge of the County Court of Windham County ; had been for nineteen years judge of probate for the Windham district; had been once elected an assistant judge, and four times chief justice of the Superior Court of the col- ony ; and for four years had been Deputy Governor. He held the office of Governor fourteen years, and till within two years of his death.

William Williams was more impulsive and ardent, and fitted to inspire others with enthusiasm. With tongue and pen and estate he gave himself to the cause of the colonies. During the gloomy winter of 1777 he sent beef, cattle, and gold to Valley Forge, saying, "If independence should be established he should get his pay ; if not, the loss would be of no account to him."

With such men active here we are prepared to find on the town records resolutions like the following :

At a town-meeting held 7th December, 1767, a let- ter received from the selectmen of Boston, as to the oppressive and ruinous duties laid on various ar- ticles, and calling for union in some common meas- ures of relief : "Jonathan Trumbull, the selectmen, and others were appointed a committee by themselves, or in concert with committees from neighboring towns, to consider and devise such measures and means as may more effectually tend to promote and encourage industry, economy, and manufactures." Under these oppressions, bearing heavily on it as a port, Boston appealed to Lebanon, and this town came into full sympathy and concert with it.

At the freemen's meeting, Monday, April 9, 1770, on occasion of the " Boston massacre," which occurred the previous 5th of March, after the transaction of other business, "they met and voted, and passed a draft of resolves or declaration of the sense of the rights and liberties which we look upon as infringed by Parliament-and promoting manufactures, etc."

The following are the resolves, or declaration :

" The inhabitants of the Town of Lebanon in full Town-meeting as- sembled, this 9th day of April, 1770,-now and ever impressed with the deepest and most affectionate Loyalty to his excellent Majesty, George the 3d, the rightful king and sovereign of Great Britain, and of the English American Colonies,-and also being most tenderly attached to and tenacious of the precious Rights and Liberties to which, as English subjects, we are by birth and by the British constitution entitled, and which have also (been) dearly earned by the treasures and blood of our forefathers, and transmitted as their most valuable Legacy to us their children : In these circumstances, we view with the most sincere grief, concern, and anxiety the sufferings and distresses to which this country is subjected and exposed,-in consequence of measures planned by a few artful, designing men, unhappily of too much influence ; and adopted by the Parliament of Great Britain ;- the action and tendency of which is

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HISTORY OF NEW LONDON COUNTY, CONNECTICUT.

to deprive these Colonies of their free and happy constitutions, and re- duce them to a state of bondage ;- Measures which as the event will more fully show,-equally hurtful and pernicious to the British nation ;- par- ticularly we deplore the unhappy fate of the town of Boston, in being so long subjected to a grievious imposition of a standing army quartered upon them,-induced by the false and malicious representations of the late governor Hutchinson and others of odious and detestable memory ; which, though they have not been able, agreeable to the designs of our enemies, to awe the inhabitants or the country into a tame surrender of these liberties,-have been the authors of a great variety of Evils and Distresses to that most loyal people, and lately (the 5th of March last) of the barbarons Murder of a number of the inhabitants of that Town. But in the midst of these calamities, we have occasion to rejoice in the union and harmony which continues to prevail throughout the Ameri- can Colonies, and in their firm and fixed attachment to the principles of Loyalty and Liberty :- and Do hereby declare our high approbation and grateful acknowledgment of the generous self-denying and truly Patri- otic spirit and Conduct of the respectable Merchants throughout the Colonies,-in refusing to import British manufactures into this distracted and impoverished country, until it shall be relieved of these Burdens and Grievances,-of which we so justly complain ; and while we esteem and respect those who have made so generous and noble a sacrifice, as true friends and lovers of their country, We also abhor and detest the Principles and Conduct of the Few, who from sordid motives, have re- fused to come into so salutary a measure, and Do hereby declare and Re- solve that they and their merchandise shall be treated by ns with the contempt and Neglect, which their unworthy Behavior most justly de- serves: and We do further Declare and Resolve, that we will to the utmost of our Power incourage, countenance, and promote all kinds of useful manufactures in the country and among ourselves,-to the end that we may soon be able, by a proper use of the Bounties of Providence in the rich production of the American soil, to furnish ourselves with the necessaries and comforts of life,-without any longer depending for them on the Mother country ;- who are also putting it out of our power, and seem to have forgotten her relation; and to prefer the hazard of obtaining from us the forced and unnatural submission of slaves,-to the certain, durable, free, cheerful, and immensely advantageous De- pendance and subjection of Children."

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History of New London county, Connecticut : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Part 117

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton) Publication date: 1882 Publisher: Philadelphia : J.W. Lewis & Co. Number of Pages: 1317

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton)
Publication date: 1882
Publisher: Philadelphia : J.W. Lewis & Co.
Number of Pages: 1317