USA > Connecticut > New London County > Norwich > History of Norwich, Connecticut: from its possession by the Indians, to the year 1866 > Part 28
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William Backus,
Solomon Tracy,
Joseph Reynolds,
Stephen Gifford, Samuel Lothrop, Chr. Huntington,
Th. Leffingwell,
Joseph Lothrop, Simon Huntington,
Joseph Bushnell,
John Elderkin, Samuel Griswold,
Richard Bushnell, Esq.
Caleb Abell,
Nathaniel Backus.
Josiah Reed,
These, and fifteen others received into the church by Mr. Woodward, composed at this time the male members of the church.
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HISTORY OF NORWICH.
Mr. Lord merited the praise accorded to him, of being "a Repairer of breachies and a Restorer of paths to dwell in." For twenty-seven years after his settlement, the pastor, church and congregation acted harmo- niously together, like brethren in unity. "So that [using his own words] from a Massah and a Meribah, a place of Temptation and Strife, this in a good measure became a Salem, a place of Peace."
April 30, 1767. Voted to maintain the ministry not by a rate but by contributions to be taken up by the deacons on the first sabbath of every month.
The two deacons of Mr. Fitch's church were Thomas Adgate and Hugh Calkins. The latter becoming aged, Simon Huntington appears to have been associated with them, probably about 1680. After this the deacons are presented in pairs,-a younger pair being chosen for assistants as the elders advance into the vale of years.
Simon Huntington, the son of Deacon Simon, and Christopher, the son of the proprietor Christopher, constituted the second generation of dea- cons. In 1718, Thomas Adgate, 2d, and Thomas Leffingwell, were cho- sen assistant deacons. Mr. Leffingwell died in 1724, Christopher Hunt- ington in 1735, and Simon in 1736, leaving only Deacon Adgate in office.
On the 18th of January, 1737, a fourth set came into office, viz., Hez- ekialı, son to the late Dea. Christopher Huntington, and Ebenezer, son to the late Dea. Simon Huntington.
No other deacons were appointed until 1764, when Simon Huntington, son of Deacon Ebenezer, and Simon Tracy, Esq., were chosen and intro- duced into office, with great solemnity. Hands were imposed, and Dr. Lord preached on the occasion from 2 Tim. 3 : 8-10. [Aug. 31.]
The venerable Deacon Adgate, born in the eighth year of the settle- ment, lived to be ninety-two years of age. His existence nearly covers the whole space from the settlement to the Revolution.
Note .- René Grignon.
Capt. Grignon was one of the company of protestant exiles, or Huguenots, that settled in the town of Oxford, Mass., about the year 1686. That settlement having been broken up by the Indians in 1696, the exiles were dispersed into various parts of New England. Capt. Grignon came to Norwich, first as master of a trading vessel, but he afterward settled in the town as a goldsmith, and was received to the privileges of a regular inhabitant in 1710.
His will is dated March 20, and proved April 12, 1715. He appointed Richard Bushnell executor, and bequeathed to him his "silver-hilted sword, double-barrel gun, and case of pistols." After small legacies to Daniel Deshon, James Barret, and "Jane Jearson, alias Normandy," he gives the remainder of his estate "to my dear and well- beloved friend Mary Urenne." These persons were all probably members of his fam- ily. His wife had deceased a short time before him, and in the inventory of his estate her apparel is estimated at ££32.
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HISTORY OF NORWICH.
His honse, barn, and interest in mills was set down at £630.
A negro woman and her child, £40.
Horse, £25. Books, £23.
Many debts were however to be paid, and the residue was small.
This estimable French Captain and his wife were undoubtedly interred in the Hunt- ington burial-ground, but no memorial points out the place.
Daniel Deshon, afterward a well-known citizen of New London, was a Huguenot youth in the family of René Grignon, and is thus remembered in his will :
"I give to Daniel Deshon my goldsmith's tools, and desire that he may learn the trade of some suitable person in Boston, and have ten pounds when he comes of age."
The youth was accordingly placed with John Gray, a goldsmith of Boston, with whom he removed to New London, where Gray died in 1720.
To James Barret, an apprentice to Capt. Grignon, the will relinquishes the remain- der of his time.
19
CHAPTER XIX.
THE ROGERENE EPISODE. PAPER CURRENCY.
THE Rogerenes, or followers of John Rogers, were a small religious sect that originated in the vicinity of New London before the year 1700. Their history does not belong to Norwich, and will be no further intro- duced than is necessary to give a clear statement of certain events that took place in the town on the 26th and 27th of July, 1725,-events of minor importance in themselves, but of considerable notoriety at the time. Both parties having made printed statements of the affair, we have the aid, or rather the perplexity, of opposite lights in reviewing the scene.
The Rogerenes esteemed all days alike in regard to sanctity. To destroy priestcraft and the idolatry of Sunday, were special objects of their leader's mission, and his disciples, at several distinct periods of enhanced zeal, devoted themselves to the same task. To produce any effect, aggressive movements were necessary, and they made various attempts to break up the worshiping assemblies of their neighbors. They were accustomed, on the Sabbath, to separate into small bands, and go through the country, entering the meeting-houses in time of divine service, and by various noises and other provocations, interrupting the worship. They made several visits to Dr. Lord's meeting-house, but that excellent man always treated them with great lenity. John Rogers himself, the founder of the sect, beset Dr. Lord one Sunday morning, as he came out of the house, to go to meeting, and followed him thither, inveighing and shouting against priestcraft, as was his usual custom. Just as the venera- ble minister reached the porch of the meeting-house, and taking off his hat displayed an august and graceful white wig, Rogers exclaimed in a loud voice, "Benjamin ! Benjamin ! dost thou think that they wear white wigs in heaven !"*
After the death of their founder in 1721, there is no account of any Rogerene visit to Norwich, till Sunday, July 26, 1725, when a party of eight persons were arrested and committed to prison for traveling on the
* One of the Rogerene elders on horseback, passing through Norwich, saw a certain deacon with whom he was acquainted, in a field, mowing. Dismounting and leaning over the wall, he called aloud, "Deacon ! will you stop mowing awhile, and argue ?"
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HISTORY OF NORWICH.
Sabbath. They were tried the next day. One of them was a woman, Sarah Culver by name, called by them a singing sister. They stated that they were on their way from Groton to Lebanon, to baptize a person, or see him baptized by others, as circumstances should be. One of their party, named Davis, they declared vested with apostolic commission and authority to preach and baptize. Some of this sect had previously been taken up in other parts of the county, and fined five shillings per head for breaking the Sabbath, and they now traveled in defiance of the law and its penalty, boasting that they could buy the idolators' Sabbaths for five shillings apiece. But on arriving at Norwich, they found, as Mr. Justice Backus observed, that they had risen in price, for, being taken before the said justice, they were sentenced to pay a fine of twenty shillings per head, or to be whipped ten or fifteen lashes each. Not being able to pay the fine, they were obliged to submit to the latter punishment.
According to tradition, sticks of prim were used, and one of the com- pany had warm tar poured over his head and his hat put on in that state, as a reprisal for his contumacy in refusing to take off his hat in court. These are legendary exaggerations. The accounts published at the time say nothing of the tar, and they distinctly state that the strokes were inflicted with a whip-cord .*
The party being released, proceeded to Lebanon, where the next Sab- bath they were again arrested on a similar plea of desecrating the day, but their fines were paid for them by some compassionate citizens. They then challenged the ministers of Lebanon, Messrs. Platt and Williams, to a public debate, at which, says Mr. Backus, they were completely foiled.
The Hon. Joseph Jenks, deputy-governor of Rhode Island, took the part of the despised Rogerenes, and issued a proclamation respecting the arrest at Norwich, which he caused to be posted up in various parts of his own State, in order, as he stated, that the people might see what was to be expected from a Presbyterian government in case Connecticut should succeed in the efforts she was then making to obtain the jurisdiction over Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. In this document the case is briefly stated that a peaceable company of Rogerenes "were going on the First Day of the Week to a religious meeting at Lebanon in order to bap- tize, or see a person baptized and were all apprehended as malefactors and unmercifully whipt."
* It has been a current tradition that prim hedges were once common in Norwich, but that withs of prim being used to whip the Quakers, they began immediately to decay, and it has since been difficult to make the plants flourish. We can not ascertain, how- ever, that the Quakers were ever arrested and punished in Norwich, except in the instance above related. Nor does it appear from any authentic source that a scene of tarring and feathering,-that odious exhibition of popular indignation,-was ever en- acted within the limits of the town, either against the despised Quakers of old, or the defiant tories of the Revolution.
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HISTORY OF NORWICH.
Joseph Backus, Esq., the justice that officiated on this occasion, issued a reply to the proclamation, in pamphlet form. He states that the traveling party timed their arrival in town so as to meet the people coming from their morning worship ; that they called out loudly to some of them, and when brought before a magistrate, acknowledged that they knew it to be against the law to travel on that day, but that they did it in defiance of the law. The stripes, he said, did not exceed ten, except in the case of the most obstinate of them, viz., Davis, who received fifteen; that the instrument was a single cord, without a knot in it; and he adds :
" By their resolute choice they constrained me to order this punishment or disregard the law."
" Moreover some of the people freely offered to some of them to pay their fine for them. But they refused the kindness with disdain, and saying in such significative expressions that they would not take up a pin from the table, or give the dust of their nails to be discharged, and would not miss of the stripes for a great sum."
John Rogers, son of the founder of the sect, and one of the suffering party at Norwich, published a rejoinder to Mr. Backus. His statement is, that they were passing through Norwich, along the country road, in an orderly manner, and were onward the best part of a mile beyond the meeting-house, when they were arrested and made prisoners by a consta- ble and a rude set of young men, who offered great abuse to some of the company.
He acknowledges that they traveled in defiance of the law, but it was a law "set up by man to prevent people from serving God according to their consciences." The cord used, he says, was too large to admit of a knot; the wounds it inflicted were terrible, and the marks would remain in the bodies of the sufferers till the grave should hide them.
" The martyrs chose the flames as much as we chose the whip; for neither they nor we chose either the flames or the whip, but as we were compelled thereto by our cruel persecutors."
In reference to their rejection of the proffered kindness of paying their fine, he says :
"Some at Norwich talked of paying the fine, but did not do it ; but at Lebanon, the next week, under similar circumstances, they actually paid it."*
* The eight persons of this Rogerene party were John Rogers, John Bolles and Jo- seph Bolles of New London, John Culver, Andrew Davis, James Smith, John Water- house and Sarah Culver from Groton. They were going to Lebanon at the request of Mary Mann of that place, " who sent us word," said John Rogers, "that she desired to be baptized by our Society." She was baptized after they arrived in Lebanon, and a few days later they baptized Elisha Mann. On the 25th of August a public dispute was held at Lebanon, between the Rev. Mr. Whiting and Josiah Gates, a Sabbatarian, respecting the First-day Sabbath.
293
HISTORY OF NORWICH.
PAPER CURRENCY.
Mr. Lord's salary had been fixed at £100 per annum. In 1726 a present was made him of £25, and the next year twelve contributions were granted him, to be taken up on the first Sabbath of every month. These gratuities were to compensate for the depreciation of the currency.
The first paper money, or Bills of credit, emitted in Connecticut, had the date of July 12, 1709. The emissions were repeated in small parcels, at intervals, afterwards. For many years no redundancy of the circulating medium was apparent, and the depreciation of the bills was of course tri- fling. The issues were generally employed to defray the expense of some warlike expedition, and were both a convenience and an advantage to the community. When the bills came back to the treasury in payment of taxes, they were destroyed.
The greatest difficulty attending the issue of these bills, was the ease with which they could be altered or counterfeited. In 1735, so large an impression of counterfeit bills was in circulation, that the Assembly ordered an issue with a new stamp, to the value of £25,000, to be ex- changed for the old ones.
In 1740, on account of the war with Spain, bills were emitted to the amount of £45,000, and several smaller sums afterward. These were called Bills of the New Tenor ; all before this took the designation of Old Tenor.
Until the emission of the New Tenor, the credit of the old bills was tolerably supported. The depreciation now ran on with rapid strides, and confusion in accounts, perplexity and want of confidence in the dealings of man with man, suspension of activity and pecuniary distress were the con sequences. The clashing of old and new tenor rendered the currency mazy and uncertain. Prices were greatly enhanced, but fluctuating ; impositions frequent, and speculation triumphed over honest industry. It was a difficult thing to graduate price to value, with a currency so vague and fluctuating. At this time a bill of twenty shillings would scarcely balance an ounce of coined silver, though professing on the face of it to be equal to three ounces, silver being reckoned at 6s. 8d. per ounce .*
* The exportation of sterling coin from Great Britain was prohibited by acts of Par_ liament, and this coin never became the common currency of New England. The place was supplied by Spanish coinage. Accounts were kept in pounds, shillings, and pence, but Spanish dollars, or pieces-of-eight, as they were then called, though only four shillings and six pence sterling, were valued in the New England colonies at six shillings. In 1683, the General Court of Connecticut ordered that all pieces-of-eight, Mexico and pillar pieces, should pass at six shillings apiece. Pieces-of-eight were identical with the Spanish milled dollar, and received their name from being of the value of eight rialls, or nine-penny-pieces. Most of the specie currency of New Eng- land consisted of Spanish coins and the Massachusetts pine-tree money of three valua- tions, shilling, six-pence, and three-pence.
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HISTORY OF NORWICH.
In 1741, Mr. Lord had an allowance of £200 in addition to his nominal salary. After 1746, the fixed rate of O. T. currency was 45s. to a dollar of N. T. 6s .- that is, seven and a half to one.
It may be interesting to note the prices of a few articles in the early part of the century, when trade was carried on by barter, by specie, and occasionally paper money, but before the latter had lost any of its nominal value.
Wheat, 5s. per bushel.
Cheese, 4d. per lb.
Rye, 3s.
Tallow, 5d.
Indian corn, 3s. "
Sugar, 6d. and 8d.
Oats, ls. 6d.
Molasses, 2s. 4d. per gallon.
Turnips, 1s.
Quire of paper, 2s.
Milk, lad. per quart.
Pane of glass, 2s. 3d.
Wool, 1s. 4d. per lb.
Pair of shoes, 5s. and 5s. 6d.
Beef, 2d. per lb.
Day's work of laborer, 2s. and 3s.
Pork, 3d. and 3}d.
Day's work with a team, 6s.
Butter, 6d.
Town Clerk's salary, £1 10s.
A bowl of toddy, 6d.
A bell-rope, 3s.
A meal of victuals at a tavern, 6d. or 8d.
A barber's charge for once shaving, 2d .- a year's shaving, £1.
" A fals tail," (copied from a barber's account,) 3s.
The fluctuation of the currency is strikingly displayed in the varying expenditure of the town.
In 1736 the town expenses were £84, of which one item was a charge of Dr. Perkins for attendance on the poor, £24 1s. Yet the next year, the whole amount of expenditure, including the doctor's bill, amounted to only £14.
In 1738 the hitherto unexampled sum of £105 was expended by the town, but nearly half of it was consumed in prosecuting the law-suit with Preston respecting boundaries, which was still left undecided.
Town expenses in 1744, £120.
In 1750, £187.17.9. 1751, £171.3.
In 1752, £751. A large proportion of this sum was for laying out highways.
In 1753, £286. 1754, £351.
In 1755, £887. This included the sum paid for seventy pounds of powder and twenty hundred-weight of lead to supply the town with ammunition.
1756, £100. 1757, £51. 1758, £14. 1759, £22.
Down to 1730, the usual rate levied for town expenses was a half-penny on the pound. In 1740, it was three farthings ; in 1752, four pence'; in 1754, seven pence. In 1757, it went back to three farthings.
The burden of a depreciating currency falls unequally upon a commu- nity. Clergymen, orphans, widows, charitable funds, all that depend on
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HISTORY OF NORWICH.
annuities and salaries, suffer from the diminution of income. Trade and all kinds of business depending on credit and extension, become confused and restricted. Clergymen are peculiarly liable to suffer loss. If there is a disposition to wrong them, they have few means of redress; but it is evident that in justice they ought not to be compelled to receive in pay- ment of their salary, bills of credit beyond their current value.
In the case of Dr. Lord, equity prevailed, and an annual compensation was for several years made to him in order to balance the low value of money. In 1753, he received £850 as an equivalent for £100 lawful money. The bellman's salary was then £40 per annum.
This uncertain currency was not confined to Connecticut. The other New England colonies suffered in like manner. In Boston, besides the Old and New Tenor currency, they had "Land Bank Money," a kind of Old Tenor bill first issued in 1714, "Province bills," and "Last Emission" paper.
The reimbursement granted the Colonies by Parliament for the capture of Cape Breton, being paid in silver, was the happy occasion of bringing back a silver medium. The colonial authorities called in their bills and exchanged them for silver. In Massachusetts the reimbursement consisted of 635,000 ounces of silver and ten tons of copper, which was received in September, 1749 .* This being the largest share, and Massachusetts the earliest to be relieved from the incubus, it obtained for a time the enviable designation of the Hard Money Colony.
In 1751, Parliament enacted a law prohibiting the American Colonies from issuing Bills of Credit, except for the current expenses of govern- ment, or in case of invasion by an enemy, and these were never to be considered legal tender for debts. This prohibition, with the supply of silver that had been received, soon put an end to the paper money system which had so long perplexed and weakened the country.
The Connecticut bills disappeared by degrees. Several years elapsed before they were all considered as redeemed. A small amount of interest- bearing bills was issued in 1755, and occasionally afterward; but they suffered no depreciation, and were soon redeemed.
In 1757, the currency was flowing once more in its old channel. Mr. Lord's salary was reduced to £66 13s. 4d. lawful money, and twelve con- tributions ; the bellman's to £3 10s.
There were no more emissions of paper money in Connecticut until January, 1775, when the Revolution resorted to bills of credit for its sup- port, and the flood of Continental currency began to spread over the land.
* Great quantities of the old paper bills were burnt by a committee of the Legisla- ture, and the plates destroyed. The reimbursement was in whole and half pistareens, at the value of 14gd. the pistareen.
Felt's Mass. Currency, p. 124.
CHAPTER XX.
ANIMALS.
IN addition to droves of neat cattle and swine, and flocks of sheep, the inhabitants at one time turned their attention to the keeping of goats. Herds of these troublesome animals roamed at large, until they became an intolerable nuisance. No law of the colony then existed for their restraint. Joseph Tracy, in 1722, having taken up a herd of fifty-four goats trespassing upon his land, impounded them; whereupon their owner, Joseph Backus, brought a suit against him before Mr. Justice Bushnell, which was decided as follows :
" This Court having heard and considered the pleas on both sides in this action, and also the law quoted to, and finding in the last paragraph in said law it is said, 'all neat cattle and horses taken &c. shall pay 8d. per head, and swine 12d. and sheep ld. per head,' and nothing in said law concerning goats, this Court cannot find any thing al- lowed in the law for impounding of goats, and therefore this Court consider that the plaintiff shall recover of the defendant his cost of prosecution."
Nothing further appears upon record respecting goats, but the following action of the town, which relates to an act of the Legislature, by which goats had been made impoundable :
" At a General Court at Hartford May 15, 1725, the representatives of Norwich hav- ing laid before this Court that the act respecting Goats, October last, is very grievous to their town, this Court grants liberty to said town to except themselves out of said act :- This town do now by their vote, except themselves out of said act."
The lands upon the Yantic, at the time of the settlement, were greatly infested with wolves and foxes. Long after the settlement, bears or wolves were occasionally seen, coming from the woods towards their old haunts, and on finding themselves near the habitations of man, they have rushed forward, terrified and causing terror, till they found a secure refuge in the uncleared swamps that still in some places skirted the river.
In the early stages of the settlement, therefore, the craft of the hunter, the trapper and the sportsman was pursued from necessity instead of pas- time. A wolf-hunt was not an uncommon winter sport until after 1700. The report that howls had been heard, issuing from some lonely swamp
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HISTORY OF NORWICH.
or thicket, or that a flock of sheep had been attacked, would soon bring out an intrepid band of sportsmen, eager for adventure.
Depredations upon the fold and the barn-yard were often made, not only by the animals named, but by another popularly called the Woolla- neag,* or Sampson Fox; the same animal that figured in the annals of witchcraft under the name of the Black Cat. Naturalists call it the Fisher or Pekan, [ Mustela Canadensis ] It is still occasionally seen in the wilder parts of New England. But these and all the smaller mischievous quad- rupeds were in a few years either entirely driven away, or reduced so greatly in number as to be seldom troublesome. Birds and snakes were not so readily vanquished, and it was necessary to offer rewards and boun- ties for their destruction.
A half-penny and at some periods a penny per head was granted for each and every blackbird and crow killed, their heads to be exhibited by the claimant to one of the townsmen ; and two pence apiece for all rattle- snakes killed between the first of April and the fifteenth of May, the tail and a joint of the bone to be received as evidence. The first fifteen days of May was the season generally appropriated to hunting the rattlesnake, and the people turned out for this purpose in large parties.
Notwithstanding the smallness of the bounty, so many birds and snakes were killed every year that it became a considerable item in the town expenses. Twenty snakes and a hundred birds were at one time brought in by a single person. The bounty for killing a wolf was 10s. 6d. ($1.75.) This appears to have been claimed but once after 1700, viz., by Samuel Lothrop.
No better haunts for rattlesnakes could be found than among the rocks and glens of Norwich. Imagination still associates the idea of these formidable reptiles with many a dark ravine and sunny ledge. There are certain rocks and declivities that even yet are known by such names as Rattlesnake-den and Rattlesnake-ridge. These serpents grew here to the size of a man's wrist, and to the length of three and four feet.
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