USA > Connecticut > Litchfield County > Norfolk > History of Norfolk, Litchfield County, Connecticut, 1744-1900 > Part 43
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"Land of my birth; mine early home, Once more thine airs I breathe; I see thy proud hills tower above, Thy green vales sleep beneath. Thy groves, thy rocks, thy murmuring rills, All rise before mine eyes; The dawn of morning on thy hills, Thy gorgeous sun-set skies; Thy forest, from whose deep recess A thousand streams have birth, Gladdening the lonely wilderness, And filling the green silentness With melody and mirth."
"I wonder if my home would seem As lovely as of yore! I wonder if the mountain stream Goes singing by the door! And if the flowers still bloom as fair, And if the woodbines climb,
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As when I used to train them there In the dear olden time! I wonder if the birds still sing Upon the garden tree, As sweetly as in that sweet spring, Whose golden memories gently bring So many dreams to me.
"I know that there hath been a change,- A change o'er hall and hearth; Faces and footsteps new and strange About my place of birth. The heavens above are still as bright As in the years gone by, But vanished is the beacon light Which cheered my morning sky. And hill, and vale, and wooded glen, And rock, and murmuring stream, Which wore such glorious beauties then, Would seem, should I return again, The record of a dream.
"I mourn not for my childhood's hours, Since in the far-off west, 'Neath summer skies and greener bowers, My heart hath found its rest. I mourn not for the hills and streams, Which chained my steps so long; But still I see them in my dreams, And hail them in my song. And often by the hearth-fires blaze, When winter eves shall come, We'll sit and talk of other days, And sing the well-remembered lays, Of my green mountain home."
"Who that has been a sojourner in a land of strangers can fail to appreciate the beauty and pathos of these exquisite lines? Thousands of hearts have felt all that the writer has here por- trayed, but who could have expressed those feelings so well? At such times how naturally the winged thoughts fly back to our fatherland, reviving the scenes hallowed by early associations, and re-uniting long-severed links in the chain of youthful companion- ship. And how natural it is in our search after happiness, to turn
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from the joys of the past to the joys of the future! The beautiful and quiet picture of domestic felicity which the writer has drawn in the concluding stanzas, will be admired in every kindred mind, and few will read it without a heartfelt sigh that the gifted spirit must so soon have taken its departure from earth, even though we rejoice in the full assurance that she has found "a home of rest" in a purer and better world. As our eyes rested upon the scenes which had once been so dear to her, and which she was wont to look back upon with feelings of interest from her new home in the far west, it was sad to reflect upon the changes which a few years had wrought, not only "o'er hall and hearth," but in the absence of many of those simple ornaments which, during her residence there, had helped to make up the attractions of the spot. The woodbines, which then almost covered the dwelling, soon missed the fostering care of her who
"Used to train them there In the dear olden time."
The flowers which once adorned the doorway and garden walks, no longer attract the admiration of the passer by.
Yet still "The mountain stream goes singing by the door." And now as then, "The birds still sing upon the garden tree," though she is no longer there to listen to their melody."
In the same volume from which the above sketch is taken, "Biographical History of Litchfield County, Conn., by P. K. Kil- bourne," are several more of Mrs. Thurston's Poems, which show her unusual talent as a writer, and are worthy of a place in this volume, did space permit.
References to Mrs. Thurston, substantially the same as the foregoing, have been published in "The Female Poets of America," by Rufus W. Griswold; in "Dictionary of Authors," by Allibone, and in "Appleton's Cyclopaedia of American Biography."
REV. REUBEN GAYLORD.
For at least a generation, Norfolk was honored in being most efficiently represented by one of her sons, a faithful, able missionary, and Agent of the American Home Mis- sionary Society. A brief sketch of Rev. Reuben Gaylord will be given.
The first of this name in America was William Gaylord, a descendant of Huguenot refugees from Normandy in France, to England; removed from Devonshire, England, to
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Dorchester, Massachusetts, with his family of four sons and one daughter, in 1630.
The grandson of the above of the fifth generation, Timothy Gaylord, married Lydia Thompson of Goshen, and settled in Norfolk about 1760, where he died September 9, 1825, aged ninety years and four months.
They settled on the old Winchester road, east from Beech Flats, and from this family, Gaylord hill received its name. Their son, Reuben, married Mary Curtiss ;- one of a family known and honored here since the early settlement of the town. Her father, Thomas Curtiss, was killed in the Revo- lutionary army in 1776. Reuben Gaylord, the father of the subject of this sketch, was a man of marked decision of character, energetic, kind, benevolent, earnest and consist- ent as a Christian citizen. He died September, 1843, aged 73. The mother, Mary Curtiss Gaylord, was a woman of rare worth. She lived to the great age of ninety-three years and four days; "fell asleep, December 20, 1867." A large number of persons still living remember her. At her funeral Rev. Dr. Eldridge said :
"Mrs. Mary Gaylord was born in this town in 1774, while Con- necticut was still a colony of Great Britain. She was endowed with a physical constitution of great vigor, and during her long life was remarkable for the industry and energy with which she performed whatever her hands found to do. Her mind corresponded with her physical frame ;- strong, active, and enduring. Her affections were tender and strong, exhibiting themselves rather in deeds than in words. She became a Christian in the great revival of 1799 and 1800. She united with the church in 1800; consequently was a member of it sixty-seven years, and for all that period the pros- perity of the church was the great desire of her heart, and the subject of daily and unceasing prayer. Especially during the latter part of her life she was a great reader of books and papers of a religious nature. The 'Evangelical Magazine' was a periodical in which she found great and unfailing delight. The only time she was ever late at church, she had taken up a volume of that work and became so absorbed in it that she did not hear the bell. As long as she could get to the weekly prayer-meetings of the church, she was there and in season. She began to plan her affairs on Monday morning so that she might attend the prayer-meeting, and when the time came there were no obstacles in the way. Her piety
MRS. MARY GAYLORD. MOTHER.
REV. REUBEN GAYLORD.
SON.
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prompted her to aid, as far as she could, every Christian enter- prise by liberal and continuous contributions. I have been assured that nine-tenths of what came into her hands the last twenty-five years of her life was given to religious and benevolent objects."
Such were the parents of Rev. Reuben Gaylord, who was born April 28, 1812, in the unpretentious farm-house, not far from the summit of Gaylord hill. As a boy he was healthy, active, full of play, quick to learn, and generally obedient to his parents. His first teacher was Miss Louisa Welch, daughter of Dr. Benjamin Welch, and afterwards the wife of Rev. Ira Pettibone. To her care and instruction he was committed when but little more than four years old, and during her life he remembered her with affectionate interest, and felt that he had sustained a personal loss when she passed away.
In the winter of 1827, during a season of religious inter- est, he became a decided Christian. His pastor, in view of his intellectual abilities, and the love of God implanted in his heart, desired that he should devote himself to the Christian ministry. His parents had planned otherwise for him, but they did not oppose him, and he was fitted for College under the tuition of his beloved pastor, Rev. Ralph Emerson. He graduated from Yale College in 1834; taught school in New Preston the following winter, and com- menced his labors as instructor in Illinois College, at Jack- sonville, Illinois, in the spring of 1835. He taught here for two years; made the journey from Connecticut, and returned on horseback; was, as he wrote, just five weeks on the way, and from his letters it is apparent that he en- joyed the long journey, seeing the broad expanse of coun- try, visiting Niagara Falls, and other places of interest.
In the fall of 1837 he commenced his theological studies at the Yale Seminary; June 12, 1838, he was licensed to preach by the South Consociation of Litchfield County, and at once was invited to supply the pulpit in New Preston, which invitation he accepted for a short time.
On July 4, 1838, he addressed the following to the Secre- taries of the American Home Missionary Association :-
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"I now present to your Board my application for a commission to labor in the work of the gospel ministry in the Territory of Iowa. It is my purpose to leave for the west not far from the 20th of next month. The place which I have in view is Mt. Pleasant, the county seat of Henry county."
The following day he wrote to a friend, "I find my mind more and more interested in the west, especially in the enterprise in which I have enlisted. Our College Association wish to establish upon a firm basis a college for the future state of Iowa, to assist in the establishment of academies, and to lend a helping hand to the interests of education in the common school department."
Mr. Gaylord received his commission to preach the gospel in Henry County, Iowa; to receive four hundred dollars for the year, and forty dollars for travelling expenses. In August he was regularly ordained a Congregational minis- ter, in Plymouth, Connecticut. He left for the west August 20th; was four weeks and two days on the way, arrived at Round Prairie, Iowa, September 18, and at once com- menced his work, and for seventeen years, until 1855, he labored in that state, night and day, in summer and in winter, overcoming all obstacles and discouragements in his one purpose to establish the church of Jesus Christ and schools in the new settlements of that far western country. He was pastor of a church at Danville, and in addition did a vast amount of missionary work in destitute communities, and was often sent for to assist disheartened or weakened churches, to encourage and strengthen them, and to aid pastors in special efforts.
In the autumn of 1855 Mr. Gaylord made a tour across the state of Iowa. Impelled by a desire to see the Missouri Valley, and to learn the particulars of the sickness and death of his nephew, Myron Gaylord, son of his oldest brother, Timothy C. Gaylord, he drove to Council Bluffs, and crossed the Missouri river to the Nebraska shore. His nephew went out from Norfolk, and built the second house in Omaha, in 1854. This house was located near where Burt street is now crossed by Twenty-second street. His nephew had married, but after a year or so sickened and died, and finding his physician, he learned the particulars of the sad event.
1
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Of this, his first visit to the state of Nebraska, Mr. Gay- lord afterward wrote :-
"I was deeply impressed from what I saw, with the feeling that Omaha was a point of great importance, and that the Lord had a great work there for some one of his servants to do. On arriving at home, I laid the matter before my wife, and conferring with some of my brethren, they expressed their uniform conviction that the point should be occupied at once, and gave reasons why I could go, better than any other one of our number."
After due deliberation Mr. Gaylord felt convinced that this was a call for him to go forward and occupy this new field, and accordingly a council was soon called to dissolve his pastoral relation with his dear church. He afterward wrote :-
"I was dismissed November 7, 1855. The next Sabbath preached my farewell sermon, and then bent my energies to preparation for our journey of three hundred miles across the state of Iowa. After the first day we encountered rain and mud, then snow and intense cold. It was often difficult to find any place to stay at night. In western Iowa were unbridged streams with high, steep, icy banks; water running in the channel but frozen at the sides. Twenty miles before reaching the Nodaway river we were warned that there was no possibility of crossing it, but we kept on, and succeeded with great difficulty in driving across without accident. We expected to be kept and carried safely through every difficulty, and we were. We reached Council Bluffs December 21, riding against a piercing northwest wind the last half day. The hotel was full to overflow- ing, and Mr. Gaylord walked the streets until eleven o'clock to find a lodging place. The private houses were small and crowded with their own occupants."
It would be of interest to follow Mr. Gaylord and his family during the months and years of his labors, self- sacrifice, and hardships, as during the remaining twenty- five years of his life his one purpose was, "to lay the founda- tions of the Christian religion deep, broad and strong in that new and undeveloped portion of our country, with Jesus Christ Himself as the chief corner-stone;"-but we can only mention in a brief way here and there an interest- ing fact. May 4, 1856, Mr Gaylord organized the first Con- gregational Church in Omaha, with nine members, "this
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being the first fruits of the home missionary enterprise in Nebraska." Soon after, at a place called Fontanelle, begun in the autumn of 1854 by a colony from Quincy, Illinois, he organized a church with twenty-three members.
Near the close of Mr. Gaylord's first year in Nebraska, 1856, he wote :-
"We have been able to erect our house of worship, 27 by 36 feet, of brick, substantially built, in good style, with a basement room 19 by 24 feet, pleasant and inviting. We expect to finish the house as early as we can get materials; I believe we shall see it completed, paid for, and dedicated by the first of June next. It has cost your missionary much labor and anxiety to raise the funds, make the contracts and attend to the general superintendence of the building."
This Mr. Gaylord wrote to the Home Missionary Society, who sent him a commission to labor in the territory of Nebraska, guaranteeing him $600, for his support for one year, which he said was not one half of what it actually cost to maintain his family. Of the expense of living in Omaha at that time he wrote :--
"I have now secured a more comfortable dwelling. It has two rooms; one of good size, the other small ;- no cellar, well, or other conveniences. For this we pay $21 a month. Flour is $8.50 a hun- dred pounds. We deny ourselves the luxury of butter. Sugar is 12 1-2 cents a pound, and other groceries in proportion."
When Mr. Gaylord arrived in Omaha he commenced preaching in the Council Chamber of the Old State House. There was no church organization there, except a Methodist class of six members.
Of his work Mr. Gaylord wrote :-
"Seeing the land all unoccupied, I continued to act the part of a bishop for the territory of my adoption, and at the same time cared for the church at Omaha until November, 1864."
He visited, by special request, places near and far, and organized churches, continuing in this work without rest for many years.
The spring of 1864 found Mr. Gaylord with health seri- ously impaired by excessive labor. He afterward wrote :-
"In 1864 I found myself so worn down with the labor of all these years, pursued without cessation, that my church voted me a
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vacation of four months for rest and travel. May 23 Mrs. Gaylord and myself left Omaha for the east, stopping in Illinois among old friends in pioneer home missionary work. . It was a rare privilege we enjoyed, listening to such men as Dr. Storrs, Dr. Bud- ington, Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, Dr. Thompson of New York, and others. . . . But the most precious and tender of all was my visit to Norfolk, my birth-place, the home of my mother, who still lives to pray and labor, at the advanced age of ninety. We wept, and re- joiced, and prayed together. With memory perfect, and faculties unimpaired, she waits joyfully the coming of her Savior to take her to Himself. I was sent back in the autumn to act in the capacity of agent of the American Home Missionary Society for Nebraska, and two tiers of counties in Western Iowa."
He resigned his charge as pastor of the first Congrega- tional Church in Omaha, and for the remainder of his life labored without ceasing throughout the great territory of Nebraska, in establishing churches and Sunday Schools.
One of the things which he did was to name a town "Nor- folk" in a promising locality in Madison County, Nebraska, in grateful remembrance of his native town. Norfolk has grown to be a prominent city in that great western state.
Mr. Gaylord, early in January, 1880, was prostrated by a stroke of paralysis, which he survived but a few hours, when his freed spirit passed on to its heavenly home, and he rested from his labors, at the age of 68 years.
Another very important work in which during his entire life in the west Mr. Gaylord was exceeding active and efficient was the founding of schools and colleges.
During the early years of his labors in Iowa, the Congre- gationalists, among whom he was the leading spirit, founded a college at Davenport in that state.
In the early years of his labors in Nebraska he with other pioneers laid the foundation of a college at Fon- tanelle, in that state, which, years afterward, was re- moved to Crete, and became the strong, flourishing Doane College.
In the "Nebraska Congregational News" not long after his death it was well said of him :-
"Rev. Reuben Gaylord was the acknowledged pioneer of both educational and religious work in this state. His work should be
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counted the first chapter in the history of Doane College. Its suc- cess is but the realizing of the ideas, the carrying out of the plans, under another name, which Mr. Gaylord began at Fontanelle. The work is one; the history is one, and will be one. . . . College men point with pleasure to Rev. Reuben Gaylord as the pioneer college builder of our order in Nebraska. Breadth of mind, scholarly ability, and high appreciation of the value of Christian education characterized his utterances. He had an untiring energy, and a de- votion that knew no bounds. More heroic or successful service has rarely been rendered."
Such, very imperfectly sketched from his "Life and Labors," was Rev. Reuben Gaylord, a native of Norfolk.
XXVIII.
PHYSIOGRAPHY AND GEOLOGY -THE FLORA OF NORFOLK.
The geology of Norfolk has been carefully studied by members of the United States Geological Survey, in con- nection with the preparation of a geological map of west- ern New England.
The part north of the village was examined by Professor B. K. Emerson of Amherst College, and the remaining por. tion of the township by Professor William H. Hobbs of the University of Wisconsin.
This sketch has been prepared by Professor Hobbs.
"The township of Norfolk has the shape of a parallelo- gram, and includes a little more than forty square miles. Its surface is everywhere hilly, but there are no elevations which project much above the general level of the hill- tops. In the south central part of the town is the dome-like Moses or Dennis Hill (1600 ft.), the water-parting from which, streams flow north to the Housatonic, south to the Naugatuck, and east to the Farmington Rivers.
The north-south valley of the upper Blackberry River,- the Norfolk valley,-is the only considerable depression in the township, the land rising to rounded hills having an
INE R.R. STATION.
THE GYMNASIUM.
FOUNTAIN, CHURCH, CHAPEL ST
LOVERS LANE
THE LIBRARY.
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average altitude of 1600 ft. Among these are Bald Mt. (1760 ft.), Haystack Mt. (1680 ft.), Dutton Mt. (1620 ft.), Pine Mt. (1560 ft.), and Dennis Hill (1600 ft.)
The uniformity of elevation of the hill-tops is not acci- dental, but indicates that they are the remnants of an ancient base level,-a nearly level plain which once stood near the sea level, but which has since been elevated about 1600 ft. to its present position.
The remarkably even sky line of the view from any high point in the neighborhood proclaims this ancient erosion plain, which extends throughout southern New England. The inclination of this plain by a few degrees to the south- southeastward accounts for the southerly course of most of the rivers toward the sound. The northward trending rectilinear course of the Blackberry river, the continuation of its direction in the southward coursing Haystack brook, and the abrupt turn of the main stream where the latter enters it, point to the existence of one or more faults or dislocations of the crust, which by directing their courses determined the channels of these streams.
The erosion plain, of which the hill-tops are the rem- nants, was raised and tilted subsequent to the Cretaceous age, and hence the present landscapes have been moulded since that time. The land sculpture is in part the work of water and part that of ice. By cutting deep their chan- nels the streams have entrenched themselves in the old plain. The ice mantle which during the Glacial period covered New England, has planed away projecting rock surfaces, deposited its waste in depressed areas, mantling and buttressing the hills with drift, and everywhere soften- ing the outlines into the Hogarthian line of beauty.
The direction of the advance of the ice across Norfolk was from northwest to southeast. On most ledges which have been protected by soil the record of ice invasion may be read in the planing, polishing and scoring of the sur- face. These scorings range in direction from N. 10 to 50 degrees west, the greater number being within the limits N. 30 degrees W. and N. 40 degrees W.
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During the northward retreat of the ice from the town- ship of Norfolk, its front closed the north end of the Blackberry Valley, damming the waters into a lake, and forcing them to find a new outlet into the Mad River Valley. In this pre-historic Norfolk lake, the ice deposited the delta-shaped terrace plain on the west of the present valley, at the north end of which are the "Norfolk Downs." The surface material of this plain is gravel or "drift," in which are a preponderant number of white quartzite boulders and pebbles, brought hither by the ice from Alum Hill, near Ashley Falls, as is clearly indicated by their charac- teristics and by the direction of ice movement. The level of the plain is approximately that of the Summit divide, as may be seen by its straight upper margin when viewed from the milk station at Summit. The kettle holes of its upper surface are of striking beauty near the "Norfolk Downs."
The rocks of Norfolk are throughout, crystalline gneisses and schists, of Cambrian and pre-Cambrian age, and ex- hibit great uniformity in their characteristics. The pre- vailing rock is a gray quartzose biotite gneiss, sometimes with straight but more frequently with much contorted banding. Over considerable areas, particularly west of the Norfolk valley, a somewhat similar rock occurs, but with abundant glistening scales of white mica, and nodules of feldspar and garnet; sometimes also muscovite, quartz, and fibrolite. On the weathered surface this rock presents a peculiarly knotted or knobby appearance. Associated with the gray biotitic gneiss are larger or smaller areas of hornblende gneiss or amphibolite, frequently abounding in minute red garnets, and at other times in magnetite. Even the larger areas of this rock are seldom over a half mile in length, as on Goodnow Hill, the east wall of Hall Meadow Brook, and in Bald and Haystack Mts. The or- dinary gray and the hornblende gneiss are often most in- tricately intermingled; the latter appearing within the former as bands or lenses, particularly near the junction of the areas of the two rocks. This is well shown just east
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of the summit of Goodnow Hill and also at the sharp bend in Grant street.
In the eastern wall of Hall Meadow Brook, a few hun- dred feet north of the Prentiss Clark place and quite near the Goshen line, a dike of talc serpentine rock with blades of actinolite occurs within a little area of the hornblende gneiss. This is one of a few localities where this rock has been found in Litchfield County. In veins or dikes cutting all the other rocks of the township, and hence itself the youngest of all, is a coarse granite or pegmatite, composed of pink orthoclase feldspar, white plagioclase feldspar, black and white micas, and occasionally also black tourma- line and magnetite. One of the largest exposures of this rock forms the pedestal of the Bridgman Mansion.
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