USA > Connecticut > New London County > Norwich > History of Norwich, Connecticut: from its possession by the Indians, to the year 1866 > Part 30
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1751. Voted that the district for highways at Chelsea be divided as follows-Begin- ning at the water, south of the westerly corner of Daniel Tracy Jr's house at the Land-
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ing place, thence a straight line to where the highway goes across Waweecus hill, thence to the N. E. corner of Jolin Bliss's land-thence a straight line to the parting of the paths on the Little Plain, at Oliver Arnold's corner-thence a straight line to the N. W. corner of Joshua Prior's dwelling house .*
The common lands and flats upon the Cove, extending as far up as "Elijah Lathrop's Grist Mills," were laid out in 1760 or near that period. The shares were divided into tenths, and each tenth into eight several par- cels or lots, as the sheep-walks had been.
From the General List of 1757, it appears that there were then eighty- seven resident proprietors of rateable estate in "the society of New Chel- sy," and twenty-five non-residents.
* " Oliver Arnold's corner " was at the head of the plain, just where the streets part at the present day. Joshua Prior's dwelling-house is supposed to have been near Col. Huntington's oil-mill.
CHAPTER XXII.
COMMERCE AND THE FRENCH WAR.
THE year 1760 may be taken as the era when the commerce of Nor- wich, which at two distinct periods, before and after the war, became important, received its first great impulse. A foresight of this prosperity was obtained by the fathers of the town, in 1751, when they made the following declaration :
" Whereas, the town did formerly grant to Mr. Joseph Kelley, shipwright, to build vessels at the Landing-place, where he is now building, during the town's pleasure, and would give him twelve months notice, do now declare that their will and pleasure, as to his building in said place, is at an end, the place being much wanted for public im- provement, and do now give him notice thereof accordingly, and order the selectmen to notify him by sending him a copy of this act."
From this period onward, the interest in navigation continued steadily to increase. John Rockwell of Preston, who died in 1753, refers in his will to "my vessel now at sea," and occasional glimpses are obtained of sloops and freight-boats, with now and then a schooner plying up and down the river. In the "New London Summary," the first newspaper issued in this part of the colony, which began in 1758, advertisements of the Norwich vessels were frequently inserted. As in August, 1760 :- "For Menis or Chignecto, the sloop Defiance, Obadiah Ayer, master ;" also, "The sloop Ann, Stephen Calkins, master, lying at Norwich Land- ing, ready for freight or passengers."
Nova Scotia was then open to emigrants, and speculation was busy with its lands. Farms and townships were thrown into the market, and adven- turers were eager to take possession of the vacated seats of the exiled Acadians.
By the treaty of peace in 1763, this territory was confirmed to the English. The provincial government caused it to be distributed into towns and sections, and lots were offered to actual settlers on easy terms. The inhabitants of the eastern part of Connecticut, and several citizens of Norwich in particular, entered largely into these purchases, as they did also into the purchases, made at the same period, of land on the Delaware river. The proprietors held their meetings at the town-house, in Norwich.
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and many persons of even small means were induced to become subscrib- ers, in the expectation of bettering their fortunes.
The townships of Dublin, Horton, Fahnouth, Cornwallis and Amherst were settled in part by Connecticut emigrants. Sloops were sent from Norwich and New London with provisions and passengers. One of these in a single trip conveyed 137 settlers from New London county. The second Capt. Robert Denison was among the emigrants.
Norwich, as well as other towns in Connecticut, was taxed with the support of a certain number of the French Neutrals, a harmless and much-abused people, who in the year 1755 were driven from their seats in Acadia or Nova Scotia by their English conquerors, and forced to take refuge in New England. Many of them subsequetly returned to Canada. Capt. Richard Leffingwell, in the brig Pitt, carried 240 of these French peasants with their priest to Quebec in 1767.
A baek country of some extent made its deposits in Norwich, and its citizens were induced to enter largely into commercial affairs. Chelsea was their port, and instead of exhibiting, as heretofore, nothing but ship- yards and ware-houses, fishermen's cabins and sailors' cottages, it now began to show some respectable buildings. Let us suppose ourselves walking through its streets about this period. We might see lying at the wharves, perhaps departing or entering, the coasting sloops, Defiance and Ann ; the London packet, Ebenezer Fitch, master; the Norwich packet, Capt. Thomas Fanning ; the brig Two Brothers, Capt. Asa Waterman ; sloop Betsey, Capt. William Billings; the Nancy, Capt. Uriah Rogers ; the Charming Sally, Capt. Matthew Perkins, &c.
Here is the mercantile establishment (1765) of Jacob De Witt, who has just settled in the place ; that of Gershom Breed, (whose shipping-store, then newly-erected, is still extant and now occupied by his grandson) ; that of John Baker Brimmer, who keeps a little of every thing, and gives "cash for ox-horns, old pewter and hopps;" that of Ebenezer Colburn, iron- monger and cutler, at the sign of the Black Horse; that of Isaiah Tiffany, who keeps "ribbons, fans, calicoes, lawns and china-ware, just imported from London ;" and that of Nathaniel Backus, Jr., at the corner where is now the Norwich Bank. This was the most conspicuous position in Chel- sea. The step-stone at the door, broad and high, served for a horse-block, where females from the country, who came into town for shopping, mounted and dismounted from their horses.
Some of the merchants, from the first beginnings of their commerce, imported goods directly from Great Britain, either in their own vessels, or in packages landed at Boston and New York and consigned to them. The invoice value ranged only from a few hundred to three or four thou- sand pounds each, annually, but the fact displays a creditable degree of enterprise and commercial aptitude. From 1760, onward to the Revolu-
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tion, there were four or five of these importing merchants in the place. During the long wars with France and Spain, the risks at sea from cap- ture were great, and insurance ran high,-varying from five to fifteen guineas per cent. The latter high rate was demanded in 1758, and again in 1762. In ordinary times it was but one and a half or two per cent. After 1770, the importations increased in amount, and the Norwich im- porters usually owned the vessel and paid the insurance themselves. The goods were consigned direct, and the duties paid at New London.
The invoices comprised many articles that might easily have been man- ufactured at home, but for the parliamentary restraints. Felt hats, for instance, were then a common article of importation, the colonists being forbidden to make them, even for their own use. Nails, paper, loaf sugar, snuff, spices, were all imported from Europe. Ribbons, crapes and laces, though enormously high, were in demand, and we find also upon the invoices such articles of fancy as " Barleycorn necklaces," "London dolls," and "London lettered gartering." Printed linens, chintzes and damasks made a great show upon these old counters. Plain linens were staple articles, imported largely, and occasionally a piece of Holland cotton inti- mates the beginning of a trade in cotton cloth.
At this period the best assortments were all up town, and the ladies of Chelsea were as much accustomed to go thither to do their shopping, that is, if dry goods or fancy articles were wanted, as the ladies of the town now are to go to Chelsea.
The goods in the retail stores of that day were somewhat oddly assorted. For instance, one man advertised sheep's-wool, codfish, West India prod- ucts, and an assortment of European dry goods.
"N. B. As the subscriber has an interest in a still-house at Chelsea, he expects to have New England rum constantly to sell."
This was rather a descent from the usual select phraseology which · offered for sale, " Choice Geneva just from Amsterdam."
The nomenclature of dress-goods was as diversified as at the present day. In addition to the general terms of satins, modes, crapes, calicoes, and broadcloth, we find hum-hum, wild-bore, elasticks, moreens, durants, calimancos, tammys, royal-rib, shalloons, erminetts, stockinetts, satinetts, russeletts, German serge, duffles, taffety.
William and Peter Lanman, Jeremiah Clement, merchant, and after- ward first deacon of the church, Capt. Thomas Fanning, ship-master and merchant, Jabez Dean, Asa Peabody, Ephraim Bill, Gershom Breed, and Prosper Wetmore, are some of the fresh names engrafted into the history of the town about the middle of the century.
The Lanman brothers were merchants from Plymouth, Mass. William died in 1756. The business was continued by Peter, and the firm remained
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in his name and that of his son, Peter Lanman, Jr., as partner and suc- cessor, for more than fifty years.
Prosper Wetmore was from Stafford. He settled at Norwich in 1747, on his marriage with Anne, daughter of Hezekiah Huntington, and from that time till his death, in 1788, took an active part in town and church affairs. For many years he was sheriff of New London county. His wife died in 1754, and he married Keturah Chesebrough of Stonington. Sheriff Wetmore's house was on the bluff near the extreme end of Rocky Point, afterward the residence of Dr. Lemuel Boswell.
Lient. Gershom Breed was a descendant of Allen Breed, who emigra- ted to this country about 1630, and settled in Lynn, Mass. John, a grand- son of the first emigrant, removed to Stonington, where he married Mercy, . daughter of Gershom Palmer, and united with the Stonington church in 1690. Gershom, his tenth and last child, married Dorothy McLarran, a grand-daughter of Dea. Joseph Otis of the North Parish of New London, and settled as a merchant in Norwich about the year 1750.
"Trumble, Fitch & Trumble,"* was a business firm in Norwich, formed in 1763. The partners were Jonathan Trumbull, his son Joseph, and Col. Eleazar Fitch, all of Lebanon. The elder branches of the firm had for several years transacted business in Norwich. The junior partner, Joseph Trumbull, who had been to England and established business relations with several mercantile houses in London, was now the resident acting partner in the concern. This firm had the agency of vessels trading at Barbadoes, Ireland, Liverpool, and London. A series of heavy losses at sea, not only in the mercantile line, but in the whaling business, upon which they had entered, caused the failure of the house in the course of a few years, but the business was continued, though within a narrower com- pass, until the war for liberty broke up all regular commerce and called upon the two Trumbulls to devote their energies to the service of their country. In that conflict Col. Fitch disagreed both in opinion and action with his former partners. He espoused the royal cause, and became a . refugee.
In 1774, the three men who paid the highest tax in Chelsea were Jere- mialı Clement, Joseph IIowland, and William Coit. Thomas Coit was also for many years engaged in trade. Jedidiah and Andrew Huntington were men of business in the town-plot. Dudley Woodbridge from Ston- ington had opened a store in the same quarter. Hubbards & Greene, commission merchants of Boston, had a branch of their business in Nor- wich. In 1766, the "London Packet" was advertised to sail from Nor- wich to England.
* Investigations made by Joseph Trumbull while in England, led to a change in the spelling of the last syllable of the family name. The revised form was adopted about the year 1766, before the elder Trumbull became Governor.
Stuart's Life of Trumbull, p. 118.
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Of the French war with respect to its influence upon the town, nothing is found on record but in the way of reference and hint. Between 1755 and 1763, in the registry of deaths, in accounts and settlements of estates, occasional allusions may be noticed to one who went to the wars, or died in battle, or of camp-fever. The preamble to the will of Joseph Johnson of Preston, made June, 1757, and proved May, 1758, has this passage : "Being called by Providence to go forth against the common enemy and to jeopard my life upon the high places of the field," &c. We infer at once that such persons were victims of the frontier service.
Again, sloops and schooners left the port with provisions, bound to Albany, and the evidence is presumptive that they carried supplies to the New England forces in the field.
It was an exciting period. The whole country resounded with tidings of Indian depredations and rumors of savage cruelty. The few newspa- pers of the day were filled with thick coming reports of the barbarities practiced in the pioneer settlements. In western and northern New York and through the fertile interior of the Middle States, at that time a vast overshadowed wilderness, hordes of Red men, with or without French instigators or French leaders, came out of their haunts, with a sudden sweep upon villages or single farm-houses, upon men at work or children at play, howling as they came, and marking their path with fire and slaughter. New England has no page of its history so stained with the slaughter of the helpless as this. Philip's war had a more limited sphere, made fewer victims, and displayed less ferocity.
Norwich, remote from the scenes of strife and danger, sitting amid her hills, could only sympathize with her frontier kindred in their perils, and send her quotas to their defence. This they were often called to do, and we may be sure that prayers and tears were mingled in many families at those times, when such notes as the following were registered in almanacs or private diaries : "Ten stout men drawn for Canada." "Six of our . neighbors pressed to go against the Indians." "More soldiers to be raised," &c.
In 1756, four regiments were raised in Connecticut for frontier service ; and one of these under Col. Nathan Whiting was drawn chiefly from New London county. In 1758, Col. Samuel Coit commanded a regiment raised in Norwich and its neighborhood, which wintered at Fort Edward. Col. Eleazar Fitch, Col. William Whiting, Capt. Robert Denison and Capt. Samuel Mott served in these campaigns against the French. Dr. Jona- than Marsh was with the northern army as a surgeon in 1756 and 1757, and Dr. Philip Turner in 1758.
Elijah Huntington (son of Isaac, one of the estimable recorders of Norwich,) served in the frontier army through three campaigns, 1758-60 and was in the service when Canada surrendered to General Amherst.
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The seanty records of the time leave it out of our power to enter into details, or enlarge this slender list of individuals.
In 1761, according to a certified list of Joseph Hull, the collector of the royal customs at New London, the whole number of vessels sailing from Connecticut district was forty-five. Only one of these was over 60 tons burden, viz., the brigantine Mermaid, 68 tons. Four were armed. The whole amount of tonnage, 1668; number of men employed, 387 ; number of guns, 40.
This comprised at that period the whole shipping of Connecticut. After the peace of 1763, there was a great increase of trade. Fishing and trad- ing vessels of small capacity and light draft, but pliant and sea-worthy, continued to multiply and keep all the northern coast lively with their enterprise, till suddenly checked by the Revolutionary war.
Two of the earliest grave-stone memorials within the bounds of Chelsea perpetuate the names of ship-masters. One of these was erected in mem- ory of Capt. John Culver, who died in 1757, at the age of 60, and was interred in the Episcopal Church-yard; the other is in remembrance of Capt. Daniel Tracy, whose death occurred in 1760, in the 52d year of his age. Capt. Tracy was interred in the Society burial-place, which was opened in 1755. Earlier than this, no interments appear to have been made at the Landing. The oldest grave-stone that has been found in Chelsea, bearing the name of a man of mature age, is one in this ceme- tery that points out the resting-place of William Lanman, the young mer- chant heretofore mentioned, " who," according to the record, "lived a sober, virtuous life, and died in hope of a happy immortality," in the 30th year of his age, 1756.
CHAPTER XXIII.
THE NEW LIGHT EXCITEMENT. SEPARATIST CHURCHES.
DR. LORD was considered an earnest evangelical preacher, and his ministry was eminently useful and successful. His style of delivery was impressive. One of his contemporaries said that "he seemed to have an inexhaustible fund of proper words, pointed sense, and devout affections." When he settled in 1717, there were about thirty male members in the church, and as many females. In the first fifty years of his ministry, 330 were admitted.
"When I first came here," said Dr. Lord, speaking of his congregation, "there was a beautiful sight of venerable aged fathers, and many of them appearing much of the right Puritan stamp,-the hoary head found in the way of righteousness."*
At the time of his settlement the whole town was but one parish. Long before the end of his pastorate, it comprised eight societies, with each its church and minister, of the Congregational order, also five socie- ties of Separatists, and an Episcopal organization.
In 1721 there was a revival in his church, coincident with one in Wind- ham, ten miles distant, under the ministry of Mr. Samuel Whiting, who admitted eiglity persons to church membership in six months.j The era of revivals had not then commenced, which made the interest manifested in these two churches the more worthy of note. But these examples were not diffusive ; and for many years all New England seemed sunk into worldliness and formality, exhibiting no spiritual growth, and little if any fervent religious emotion.
In the midst of this general declension, the only hopeful sign of which seemed to be that Christians were aware of it and deplored it as a calam- ity, a wonderful manifestation of spiritual activity was suddenly developed in Northampton, in connection with the preaching of the Rev. Jonathan Edwards. It began in 1733, and continued for two or three years. In the spring of 1735 it was estimated that in Northampton alone there were thirty conversions in a week for six weeks in succession.
* Half century Sermon.
t Backus' Church History. Trumbull's Conn., Vol. 2.
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Mr. Lord of Norwich and Mr. Owen of Groton were so deeply inter- ested in the reports of this work, that they made a journey to Northamp- ton in order to witness its effects and obtain from Mr. Edwards himself an account of its beginning and progress. They returned declaring that the half had not been told them. Their report and the increased energy of their subsequent ministrations had an awakening influence upon their own people, which was communicated to other churches in the neighborhood.
In 1740 the flame burst forth afresh, and the way being in some degree prepared, not a few churches only, but hundreds, were aroused and vivi- fied, brightened as it were with a new light, and awakened to a new life, so that this period is distinctively called the period of the New Light excitement, or Great Awakening. In the three churches of Norwich the work began early, and soon became deep, strong, and enthusiastic in its exhibitions. Lebanon, Windham, Canterbury, New London, Groton, Stonington, and in fact all the eastern towns of the colony, were pervaded with the new light and exalted into a state of gospel fervor. The Rev. Mr. Tennent, celebrated as an evangelist, Dr. Wheelock of Lebanon, Mr. Parsons of Lyme, Mr. Pomeroy, Mr. Davenport, and other fervid exhort- ers of the day, went from place to place, preaching with great power, and every where breaking up the torpid surface of society with the hammer, fire, and two-edged sword of the gospel.
The great success of these eminent men led many other ministers into a course of itinerant and often erratic service. In Norwich, as well as in most other places where conversions were numerous, the beauty of the work was marred by gross irregularities. Outeries, ecstacies, and some instances of infuriated zeal were exhibited, which seem to have had an effect in cooling the ardor of Mr. Lord, deadening his sympathy for the enthusiasts, and keeping him in a conservative position.
The Rev. Isaac Backus, one of the converts of this period, who after- wards seceded from Mr. Lord's church, observes :
" The work was so powerful, and people in general so ignorant, that they had little government of their passions. Many cried out and fell down in meetings."
In addition to these shoutings and bodily writhings, which rendered the meetings, to say the least, disorderly, many of the converts displayed in their harangnes a self-confident boasting of their own state and a censori- ous judgment of others, that grieved and offended the less excited part of the community. The old meeting-house on the hill, then somewhat dilap- idated, and soon to give way to a successor, witnessed some transcendent exhibitions of that mingling of earth and heaven, of the fresh regenera- tive power of the gospel with the extravagance of fanaticism, that are too often displayed in times of religious excitement .*
* Hovey's Life of Backus, p. 37.
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The clergy, as a body, frowned upon all bodily transports and ranting exhortations, and some of them carried their disgust so far as to condemn the revival itself. The Legislature deemed it necessary for the civil au- thority to interfere and take cognizance of these irregularities. An act was passed in May, 1742, restricting ministers to their own pulpits, and interdicting all itinerant preaching, as well as the public teachings of lay- men. These restrictions were regarded by those against whom they were directed as intolerant, and instead of repressing disorders, they roused the enthusiasm of the zealots to a fiercer flame.
Notwithstanding all these drawbacks, the deep spiritual benefits of the revival were perceived by the wise and good, and its purifying, renovating influence acknowledged with devout thanksgiving. In June, 1743, twelve ministers, belonging to the counties of New London and Windham, con- vened at Norwich for the purpose of acknowledging the goodness of God in this revival, and in a public declaration gave their testimony in its favor, "as a great and glorious work of divine grace, and a great reforma- tion of religion." Among the signers to this document were three minis- ters of Norwich, Benjamin Lord, Daniel Kirtland, and Jabez Wight.
These acknowledgments were not, however, designed to sanction the errors connected with the revival, and the civil authority was generally allowed to take its course in dealing with those who violated the statute, or were transported by excessive zeal beyond the bounds of charity and decorum. Fines, seizures and imprisonments were indeed of frequent occurrence, to be remembered only with grief and condemnation, but in most instances the indictment was made under the old laws against non- payment of rates and non-attendance upon the worship of the Sabbath. It was just a continuation of the old list of actions, with perhaps a sharper look-out and a more rigorous enforcement of the letter of the law on the part of officials.
It does not appear that any arrests were made or fines imposed in Nor- wich, for lay-preaching, or attendance on Separate meetings, unless those meetings were tumultuous and disorderly and the language used by the exhorters unjustifiable and slanderous. Doubtless, however, both parties were in fault. Men were sometimes prosecuted with great pertinacity for slight offences, but on the other hand the language of denunciation was used to a revolting extent, accompanied with great contempt of the legal authorities.
An instance of this violent fanaticism which occurred in January, 1742, and was established by the testimony of three witnesses, is found recorded among the papers left by Dr. Lord. A fierce exhorter, in the midst of his convulsions, using terms the most baneful and appalling in the lan- guage, expressed the delight it would give him to witness the everlasting destruction of certain persons whom he mentioned by name. At the same
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time he called upon God to witness that he was speaking under the influ- ence of the Holy Spirit. Dr. Lord appends to this evidence the remark that at these meetings "such kind of dreadful expressions" were often used. These performances excuse in some degree the rigors of ecclesi- astical judgment, and almost justify the interference of the magistrate.
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