History of New London county, Connecticut : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Part 120

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 120

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The following anecdote is related of him: At a meeting of the Council of Safety in Lebanon, near the close of 1776, when the prospects of our success looked dark, two members of the Council, William Hillhouse and Benjamin Huntington, were quartered at the house of Mr. Williams. One evening the con- versation of the three gentlemen turned upon the gloomy outlook. Mr. Hillhouse expressed his hope that America would yet be successful, and his con- fidence that this in the end would be her happy fate. " If we fail," said Williams, " I know what my fate will be. I have done much to prosecute the war; and one thing I have done which the British will never pardon, -I have signed the Declaration of Independence : I shall be hung." " Well," said Mr. Huntington, "if we fail I shall be exempt from the gallows, for my name is not attached to the Declaration, nor have I ever written anything against the British govern- ment." "Then, sir," said Williams, turning his kind- ling eye upon him, "you deserve to be hung for not doing your duty !"

David Trumbull, the third son of the war Governor, was born in Lebanon, Feb. 5, 1751 ; married Dec. 6, 1778, Sarah Backus, of Norwich, sister of Eunice, the wife of his brother Jonathan.

The services which he rendered to the cause of his country in her trying struggle for liberty, though less conspicuous, were as devoted and patriotic, and even more constant, than those of either of his brothers. He was the only son reserved by his father to aid and counsel with him in the discharge of the herculean task which the war devolved, in raising and equip-

1 Ilinman's War of the Revolution, p. 89.

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ping troops and furnishing and forwarding supplies, etc., not only to the land and naval forces of the State, but to the whole Northern Army. The minutes of the Council of Safety, or "War Council," show him to have been not only "the right hand" of his father, but of the Council also, as the able, ready, and trusted exec- utive of their important measures. His duties were indeed omnifarious,-now acting as commissary, now as paymaster, quartermaster, prize-agent, etc., wher- ever most needed. He it was who, as one of a com- mittee in 1776, was to buy up all the pork in the State, and hold it for the use of the State and Continental armies ; and if parties refused to sell at fair market price, they were to be prosecuted and made to "pay the price of the pork." He it was who, in 1777, was to procure axes and augers for the Continental army, by order of Congress; to take sixty thousand dollars sent to his father by Gen. Washington, per order of Con- gress, and pay off the Northern Army ; to procure the purchase of eight hundred pounds worth of army clothing ; to secure and store one hundred barrels of powder ; to go to Boston for a quantity of clothing ; to receive and have repaired all the old firearms sent to Lebanon from Albany; to send teams to East Hartford for five hundred stands of arms, and take them under his care at Lebanon ; to take one hundred barrels of powder to Farmington, or as much farther as Gen. Washington might direct, for the use of his army ; to receive at Boston from our State agent in Massachusetts, for prizes, such quantities of prize goods, taken by our ship "Oliver Cromwell,"-wine, tea, and clothing,-as would load his teams then going there, and keep them under his care in Lebanon for the army use; to supply the Northern Army with five hogsheads of rum, and as much sugar as would load his three ox-teams; to purchase and put up three hundred barrels of pork and one hundred barrels of beef ; to send twenty ox-teams to Boston for such army clothing as Col. Joseph Trumbull had bought there for the State, and for salt ; to settle all the ac- counts and expenses of bringing into the State the pris- oners taken in the "Antelope" and the "Weymouth," and pay the same. These few items are given as in- teresting samples, to show the wide scope and divers- ity of his labors during the war. For these constant services, rendered often by night as well as by day, he seems to have received no regular compensation, only his expenses were paid, except in a few special cases, where it is noted in the minutes that he was "to be paid the same as others were paid for such services." He served also for some time as assistant commis- sary-general of the United States, under his brother Joseph while commissary-general, for which latter service his widow Sarah afterwards received a pension.

His after-life was spent in Lebanon in the general occupation of a farmer ; always active in all the local affairs of the town, and twice its representative in the General Assembly. He died in Lebanon, Jan. 17, 1822, and his wife, Sarah, died June 2, 1846.

They had the following children : Sarah; born Sept. 7, 1779, married her cousin, William T. Williams, of Lebanon, son of William the "signer ;" Abigail, Jan. 7, 1781, married Peter Lanman, of Norwich ; Joseph, Dec. 7, 1782, afterwards, in 1850, Governor of this State, and the third of this illustrious family-father, son, and grandson-whom this town has had the high honor of contributing to the gubernatorial roll of the State ; John, Sept. 19, 1784; Jonathan, Dec. 27, 1786, died in infancy ; and Jonathan G. W., Oct. 3, 1789.

John Trumbull, the fourth son and youngest child of the Governor, though, like all of the family, highly distinguished for patriotic zeal and labors in the cause of his country in the war of the Revolution, became afterwards more widely renowned as the most success- ful and celebrated of all our American painters. He entered Harvard in 1772, at the age of sixteen, and graduated the next year, giving token even then of that love and genius for the art for which he was des- tined to become so famous. In April, 1775, when under nineteen years of age, he joined the First Con- necticut Regiment, stationed at Roxbury, just after the Lexington alarm, as adjutant. He soon after attracted the attention of Washington, on his arrival there to take command of the Continental army, and was employed by him in sketching the enemy's position, and was appointed his aide-de-camp. In August, 1775, he was appointed major of brigade, and in 1776 adju- tant-general on Washington's staff. Same year he was sent to the Northern Army for the invasion of Canada, and joined Gen. Gates at Crown Point, to whom he had been appointed adjutant-general, and at once applied his brilliant and magnetic military abilities in bringing order into that discomfited and demoralized army.

In 1777 he returned to Boston, and with the appro- bation of his father, of Gen. Washington, and other friends, resumed there the study of that art which had ever been the passion, and destined to be the glory, of his life, but still holding himself in readi- ness for any pressing emergency in the service of his country, as notably, for example, in 1778, when he volunteered as aide to Gen. Sullivan in the attempt to dislodge the British army and navy from Newport. His bravery on this occasion, the cool valor and dar- ing with which he led his troops into the most deadly of the fierce encounters of that unequal contest, com- manded not only the admiration but the astonishment of Gen. Sullivan and all who witnessed it. In one of these encounters he found a Massachusetts brigade in hopeless confusion from loss of its commanding officers, and utterly mixed up and disorganized. His ringing voice at once inspired the mass. Almost in an instant he reorganized them, assigned new officers, and mounted on his own "noble bay," as fiery as himself, led them so steadily into a charge against a larger body of the enemy that they were surprised, routed, and scattered from the field. Gen. Sullivan,

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seeing the order, rapidity, and effect of this movement, exclaimed to his staff, "That movement would do honor to the ablest regiment in the army, under its ablest leader." High praise this for a veteran general to apply to a young aide-de-camp only twenty-two years of age.

His cool daring and exposures this day gave him the reputation of "bearing a charmed life." Early in the day he had lost his hat, and with only a hand- kerchief tied over his head, he had been a conspicu- ous and marked object in every part of the field. "Your escape has been most wonderful," said Gen. Sullivan. " Your preservation," wrote Gen. Mattoon, "in each of these most daring enterprises I have ever considered little short of a miracle, and a most remark- able interposition of Providence for your safety."

He was the natural and pre-eminent military genius of the family, and had fate led him to follow the pro- fession of arms, would doubtless have been renowned as a military chieftain, but it was otherwise ordered that his future fame should rest upon a more peaceful and permanent foundation.

In 1780 he went to London, under assurances of safety as a non-combatant, to become a pupil there under the celebrated painter, Benjamin West, his friend and countryman; but soon after, under the excitement caused by the execution of Maj. Andre, he was arrested and imprisoned eight months. He then left England for Holland, where he assisted largely in raising a loan for the American Congress, which his father was then, by his agents, negotiating there. After the war he returned to London and pur- sued his studies under West. His first great histori- cal picture, "The Battle of Bunker Hill," was pro- duced in 1786 ; soon after, his " Death of Montgomery before Quebec"; and his next was the " Sortie of the Garrison of Gibraltar." In 1789 he returned to Amer- ica to procure likenesses of Revolutionary officers and heroes for his contemplated series of American national pictures. In 1794 he again went to England as secretary of Mr. Jay, the American minister, and in 1796 was appointed a commissioner in the execu- tion of the seventh article of Jay's treaty. The duties of this office occupied him till 1804, when he returned to the United States and pursued his art, producing portraits of Washington, of whom he painted several copies, and other notable officers, and many other historical pictures.

From 1817 to 1824 he was engaged in painting, by order of Congress, his four great national pictures, viz. : the " Declaration of Independence," the "Surrender of Burgoyne," the "Surrender of Cornwallis," and the " Resignation of Washington" at Annapolis, cach on royal canvas, eighteen by twelve feet in view, and for which Congress paid him thirty-two thousand dollars. Afterwards, for many years, he was engaged in finishing his former sketches, and in painting copies of his na- tional pictures on a uniform scale of nine by six feet. Many of these, together with portraits and several

copies from the old masters, fifty-four pictures in all, he finally gave to Yale College, where they were de- posited in the " Trumbull Gallery," specially erected for their reception. The " Wadsworth Gallery," at Hartford, contains also fourteen of his paintings, viz. : the "Battle of Bunker Hill," the " Declaration of Independence," the "Battle of Trenton," the " Bat- tle of Princeton," and the "Death of General Mont- gomery," all of heroic size of nine by six feet open view ; three portraits, two views of Niagara Falls, and six pictures of classical subjects. The five national paintings at the first glance instantly seize and fix a wrapped attention, and hold the visitor spell-bound. Every townsman of this great artist who will visit this gallery will feel a new and special glow of pride and admiration in the magic power of his pencil.

He was president of the American Academy of Fine Arts from its foundation, and spent his later years in New York City, where he died, Nov. 10, 1843, aged eighty-seven, and was buried at New Haven, be- neath the gallery bearing his name. Sarah, his wife, died April 12, 1824, aged fifty-one, and was buried in the same place. They had no children.

Col. Trumbull, in his autobiography, notes the fol- lowing among the reminiscences of his boyhood in Lebanon. A Mohegan Indian, Zachary Johnson, " Old Zach," as he was called, once one of the trusted counselors of his tribe, but for many years debased and degraded by drunkenness, had been often em- ployed by his father, as a hunter and trapper, in col- lecting furs. In those days the State elections at Hartford and New Haven were made the occasions of great ceremony and display, and the Indians used to gather in great numbers and stare at the Governor and the soldiers and the crowds of citizens as they marched through the streets. On one such occasion Old Zach had started from Mohegan, and, as usual, had stopped at Lebanon on his way to Hartford to dine at the house of his old employer. A short time before, aroused by a keen sense of his degradation, and suf- fering from his besetting sin of drunkenness, he had suddenly and resolutely broken off from all intoxi- cating drinks. Young John, then about ten years old, had heard of this, and having but little faith in such reform by an Indian, in a spirit of boyish mis- chief determined to test it. Upon the table, as was the family custom of that day, stood a foaming tank- ard of strong, home-brewed beer. This the mischiey- ous boy kept sipping, smacking his lips with feigned gusto, and extolling its merits, but the Indian was silent. At length the lad pushed the tankard towards the old man. "Zachary," said he, "this beer is ex- cellent : won't you try it?" The knife and fork dropped from the hands of the Indian, he leaned for- ward with a stern intensity of expression, his dark eyes, sparkling with indignation, were fixed upon the young tempter. "John," said he, "you don't know what you are doing. You are serving the devil, boy ! Don't you know that I am an Indian ? I tell you

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that I am ; and if I should taste your beer I could never stop till I got to rum, and become again the drunken, contemptible wretch your father once knew me. John, while you live never again tempt any man to break a good resolution."

" Socrates," continues Trumbull, "never uttered a more valuable precept. Demosthenes could not have given it in more solemn tones of eloquence. I was thunder-struck; my parents were deeply affected ; they looked at each other, then at me, and then with feelings of deep awe and respect at the venerable In- dian. They afterwards frequently reminded me of it, and charged me never to forget that scene."

It is recorded in history1 that Old Zach never after allowed a drop of intoxicating drink to pass his lips, regained his former standing with his tribe, became one of its "regents," and died at Mohegan in the one hundredth year of his age.

The Trumbull tomb at Lebanon was erected in 1785, soon after the death of the great "war Gover- nor," by his three then surviving sons, Jonathan, David, and John. Within this family mausoleum rest the sacred ashes of more of the illustrious dead than in any other in the State, or perhaps the coun- try. Here rests the remains of that eminently great and good Jonathan Trumbull, Sr., the bosom friend and most trusted counselor of Washington ; of his good wife, Faith Robinson ; of his eldest son, Joseph, the first commissary-general of the army under Wash- ington ; of his second son, Jonathan, Jr., paymaster- general of the same army, private secretary, and first aide-de-camp to Gen. Washington, and afterwards Speaker of the United States House of Representa- tives, member of the United States Senate, and Gov- ernor of this State, and by his side his good wife, Eunice Backus ; of his third son, David, commissary of this colony in the Revolution, and assistant com- missary-general under his brother in the army of Washington, and by. his side his good wife, Saralı Backus; of his second daughter, Mary, and by her side her illustrious husband, William Williams, one of the signers of the immortal Declaration of Inde- pendence, and many others who have from these de- scended. What a tomb is here! What a shrine for patriotic devotion!

CHAPTER L.2 LEBANON-(Continued).

Proprietors' Meeting-Town Street Title-" No Taxation without Repre- sentation"-The Five-mile Purchase-Deed from Owaneco-Litigation with Abimeleck-Indian Schools.

THERE is in existence a "Proprietors' Book," con- taining a record of the officers and meetings of the original proprietors from 1706 to 1786; and there is

preserved a record of a meeting as late as Feb. 28, 1810, when William Williams was chosen moderator, and Eliphalet Metcalf clerk and treasurer, in the room of the late Governor Trumbull, deceased [the second Governor Trumbull, who died Aug. 7, 1809], and sworn according to law by William Williams, justice of the peace.

PROPRIETORS' MEETING, FEBRUARY, 1810 .- Transcripts.

"It was voted that Eliphalet Metcalf, Esq., Maj. Zabdiel Hyde, and Col. Jacob Loomis be of the Committee, together with the survivors of the former Committee (William Williams and William Huntington), to warn Proprietors' meetings, and to do and perform all the services and business proper for the Committee of said Proprietors, and for which the former Committees have been chosen, that is needful and expedient to be done."

TOWN-MEETING.

"At the annual town meeting, Nov. 8, 1809, the selectmen were em- powered to sell to adjoining proprietors all such land in the high way as is not necessary for the accommodation of the public. Jan. 31, 18IO, the town instructed the select men to dispose of the land they had surveyed between the meeting houses,-which they thought not necessary for the public travel." To this action of the town the proprietors presented the protest which is found below, dated Feb. 8, 1810.

PROPRIETORS' MEETING.

" Whereas the inhabitants of the Town of Lebanon, at a meeting held by them on the 31st of Jan. last, did without law, or right, as we appre- hend, vote and agree to take up, discontinue, dispose and sell, for their own benefit,-part of the land called and used for high way, being the Town Street so called, which has from the beginning, down to this pres- ent day, been used for high way, and common land, for pasturage and feeding for the poor, and also sundry other pieces of land for high ways."

"Now therefore we the subscribers, original Proprietors of the common and undivided land in the 5 mile property in sd town, and legal repre- sentatives of such proprietors, in behalf of themselves and with the pre- sumed and certain consent of the rest, who are scattered and removed into various Towns and Places, do object, declare and protest against su vote, as inexpedient, improper and unlawful and for reasons assigned."

" First, that sd Town street land is not, nor ever was the property of sd town or the inhabitants thereof, very few individuals accepted, who may legally represent the said original purchasers and proprietors, and say that s& Town street was never laid out for high way by order of the Town or any Select-men, but was originally reserved and laid (out) by a Comt of their own body, and sd proprietors always considered it as their own property, all that was unnecessary for high ways; and ever kept mect- ings, clerks, committees, treasurers, and Records of many doings of theirs, respecting sd town street and many high ways, and the disposition of many strips of land : sd laying or reserving sd wide street, was before the town was incorporated, and any name or office of any Select men existed here, so that the Town would have no right to discontinue or alter it, or any part of it, but if necessary to be done, it must be by order of the County Court; and the avails of it belong to the Corporation or Person to whom the fec of the land did belong."

" The sd Proprietors have ever considered it as their own property, and have exercised many acts of ownership of the same, more than 100 years, as by the book of records may appear, which never was questioned until now. And at their meeting in March, 1758, the elder Govr Trumbull, moderator (as of all the meetings in his day), they voted and agreed to divide the common land lying in the woods, with all such small strips as may be found lying within this Propriety, save only the common land lying in the main Town street, from Capt. Samuel Huntingtons to Mr. John Popes. And it was provided by law that whatever part or interest the aforesd Proprietors, by custom as well as deed, have in any common or undivided land in any Town, which they have not by their free con- sent as before expressed, or otherwise disposed of, or suffered to be divided or disposed of, shall be allowed and taken to be their proper estate, and that no person whatsoever, by becoming an inhabitant of such town, or by any other means against and without the consent of such Proprietors, shall be taken or esteemed to have any estate, title, right, or interest therein."

" Further, all the laws. which mention the subject are clearly in our favor ;- So that it was the opinion of Govr Trumbull the elder, who was always clerk or moderator in their meetings, and of the late Goyr Trum-

I Foster's "Indians of Connecticut," p. 479 ; Barber's " Historical Col- lections of Connecticut," p. 300.

2 For the information contained in the following chapter the author is indebted to Rev. Orlo D. Hline and the late Nathaniel H. Morgan.

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bull, who was till his death clerk of sd meetings and of all others,-that the right of said Proprietors could never be taken away.

" And we would caution any, if any there be, willing to purchase any of st land, not to proceed; for their title 'will surely be contested.

" William Williams,

Israel Loomis,

W'm. Huntington,

Samuel Bailey,

Comfort Brewster,

James Bayley,

Eliphalet Metcalf,

Simon Loomis,

Caleb Abel, jant,

John Loomis,

Zabdiel Ilyde,

Isaac Gillet,

David Trumbull,

John Clark,

William Lyman,

James Clark,

Daniel Dewey,

Eliphalet llunlington.

" Feb. Sth, 1810."

TOWN MEETING.

" Feb. 19, 1810, nt a special meeting the town voted to rescind tho votes passed at its former meeting respecting selling and disposing of certain portions of land in the highways. And this was the sole business done at the meeting."

"No Taxation without Representation." -- None of the older towns in Connecticut were ever organized under any formal act of incorporation. The carly settlements, during the first century, were made by a few pioncer families in such new places as seemed to offer the best advantages for a plantation. The new settlers, being thus removed beyond the protection and jurisdiction of the older settlements, were com- pelled, for their own safety and good order, in their isolated condition, to become "a law unto themselves." In many cases these new plantations, from one cause or another, proved to be failures, and after a few years were abandoned; but when successful they attracted new-comers, and the permanency of the settlement became better assured.

One of their earliest desires was to secure the ad- vantages of religious instruction and the offices of a Christian minister among them. The next was, usu- ally, to obtain authority to choose certain civil officers ; and as they increased in numbers they desired that a certain territory, of proper size and description of boundaries, should be assigned to them and invested with "town priveleges." Application for each of these was made from time to time to the General As- sembly as they were severally needed, and they were usually approved, the permission given, and the priv- ilege granted by a short and simple "Order" of the Assembly.

Take the case of Lebanon as a common example of the simple brevity of these important proceedings :

Oct. Session, 1697 .- " Ordered by this Court that the new plantation situale to the westward of Norwich bounds shall be called Lebanon."

Oct. Session, 1700,-" Free liberty is by this Assembly granted to the inhabitants of Lebanon, to embody themselves in church estate there; and also to call and settle an orthodoxe minister to dispense the ordi- mances of God to them; they proceding therein with the consent of neighbor churches, as the laws in such cases doth direct."

Same Session, 1700 .-- " This Assembly doth grant to the inhabitants of the town of Lebanon, all such immunities, privelidges and powers, ns generally other towns within this colony have and doe enjoy."

But these embryo settlements were never at first called upon to contribute any share of the public expense of the colonial government, even although invested with "town priveleges." The settlers were mostly poor in property, and surrounded and envel-

oped as they were by an unbroken forest, it required all their powers and energies to win from the unsub- dued soil even the common necessaries of subsistence. In a few years, as the clearings were enlarged, the til- lage increased, and crops became more abundant, the General Assembly would inquire, by a committee, whether they were not able to bear a portion of the public burdens, and if they found they were, an as- sessment of their property was ordered and a tax levied thereon, in common with the other towns. Take again the town of Lebanon as a common ex- ample of the ordering of the General Assembly in this matter, and note that at this date the town had been organized with full powers and privileges for four years, and yet never taxed.

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History of New London county, Connecticut : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Part 120

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