USA > Connecticut > New London County > Norwich > History of Norwich, Connecticut: from its possession by the Indians, to the year 1866 > Part 44
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Dr. Elisha Perkins of Plainfield was the celebrated inventor of the metallic Tractors. This was a method of curing diseases by rubbing the patient in a certain manner with small pointed pieces of metal, steel, or brass, which were thought to extract the pain by a kind of magnetism.
Dr. Perkins was a man of great purity of character, skillful and indefatigable in his profession, with great kindness of heart, and that winning cordiality of manner which secures the ardent attachment of friends. Such was the vigor of his constitution and his physical activity that he regarded a ride on horseback of sixty miles a day as only pleasurable exercise that gave him no sensible fatigue.
Hon. Calvin Goddard said of Dr. Perkins, "I believe there are few men in the world more public-spirited, more hospitable, and more free from all guile, than Dr. Perkins. Whether the tractors are valuable or not, I have never doubted that the doctor fully believed in their efficacy."
Dr. Perkins conceived that powerful antiseptics, used in the first stages of the yellow fever, would conquer the disease. Impelled by a profound conviction of duty, he re- solved to go to New York while the disorder was prevailing there, and test the value of the theory. He went, but unfortunately took the infection, and died Sept. 6, 1799.
Dr. Perkins was the father of the late Henry B. Perkins of Salem, Ct., and of Rev. George Perkins, who died at Norwich in 1852.
Dr. Elisha H. Perkins of Baltimore is his grandson.
444
HISTORY OF NORWICH.
Jabez Perkins, the other Perkins founder of Newent, married June 30, 1698, Han- nah, daughter of Samuel Lathrop, who died in 1721, and he was united the next year to Charity Leonard of Middlebury. He had a son Jabez by each wife. His will recog- nizes teu children and the heirs of his oldest son Jabez deceased. He was the ancestor of Capt. Erastus Perkins of Norwich, of Col. Simeon Perkins of Liverpool, Nova Scotia, (the grandfather of J. Newton Perkins of Norwich,) and of the brothers Francis A. and George L. Perkins of Norwich.
The above-named Simeon Perkins removed to Liverpool, N. S., in May, 1762, and remained thenceforward a loyal subject of the British crown. In the course of a long life he sustained with ability and popularity the various offices of justice, judge of pro- bate, town clerk, chief justice of the county courts, and colonel commandant of the militia. He was also member of the Provincial House of Representatives for nearly thirty years. The inscription on his grave-stone at Liverpool states that he was born at Norwich, Ct., Feb. 24, 1735, and died at Liverpool May 9, 1812. After his death a tablet was framed and suspended in the court-room where he had presided, containing an inscription of grateful respect, dedicated to his memory
"By the Justices in Session."
Seventh Society, or Hanover.
This was incorporated as an ecclesiastical society in 1761. It included a small portion of Canterbury and Windham. A fund of £1400 was raised by subscription for the support of the ministry, and a church of fourteen members gathered May 13, 1766, under the temporary ministry of Rev. Timothy Stone. A house for worship was erected about the same time. Rev. Andrew Lee, the first pastor, was ordained October 26, 1768, and continued in office, fulfilling its duties without special assistance, for sixty-two years. In 1830, the Rev. Barnabas Phinney became his colleague. Dr. Lee died Aug. 25, 1832, aged 87. Mr. Phinney was dismissed the November following.
Dr. Lee was a man of generous impulses, candid and liberal in senti- ment. Mr. Nelson, his friend and neighbor, said of him, " He was made originally on a noble scale, and his faculties were finely developed by careful and diligent culture."* He published a volume of sermons, and various separate discourses, which display vigorous thought and nice dis- crimination. He was, however, deficient in pulpit oratory, his delivery being heavy and monotonous.
He was a son of John Lee, of Lyme, and born in 1745. His mother was Abigail Tully. Though a graduate of Yale College, he received the degree of S. T. D. from Harvard.
Since the dismission of Mr. Phinney, the church has had the following pastors :
Rev. Philo Judson, installed June 6, 1833; dismissed in December, 1834.
* Sprague's Am. Pulpit, p. 671.
445
HISTORY OF NORWICH.
Rev. Joseph Ayer, installed in September, 1837; dismissed in June, 1848.
Rev. James A. Hazen, installed in December, 1852; died Oct. 29, 1862, aged 49.
POPULATION OF LISBON.
1800-1158
1840-1052
1810-1128
1850- 938
1830-1161
1860-1262
The new town of Sprague takes away the north-west part of Lisbon, leaving the old town only one hundred and fifty voters and a grand list of about $200,000.
Sprague. This town in the rapidity of its growth resembles the changes that often take place in western clearings. Lord's bridge, where the She- tucket was spanned to unite Lisbon and Franklin, and near which the Lord family had dwelt in quiet agricultural pursuits for more than a cen- tury,-father, son and grandson living and dying on the spot,-was a secluded nook, without any foreshadowing of progress, or visible germ of enterprise. A grist-mill, a saw-mill,-coevals of the first planters,-a respectable farm-house, with its sign-post promising entertainment, (the usual appendage of a bridge,) and two or three smaller tenements, consti- tuted the hamlet. Only the casual floods and the romantic wildness of the river banks interfered with the changeless repose of the scene.
Suddenly the blasting of rocks and the roar of machinery commenced ; hills were upset, channels were dug, the river tortured out of its willful- ness, and amid mountainous heaps of cotton-bags the rural scene disap- peared, and Baltic village leaped into existence. In the course of five years, more than a hundred buildings, comprising neat and comfortable houses, several shops, a church, and a school-house, grouped around the largest mill on the western continent, had taken possession of the scene: the whole spreading like wings each side of the river, and linking together two distinct towns.
These changes commenced in July, 1856, when the elder Governor Sprague of Rhode Island purchased 300 acres of land on the Shetucket, and laid the foundation of the great cotton-mill. In October of that year the projector and proprietor of this grand enterprise was removed from his work by sudden death, and it was feared that his magnificent schemes would never be realized. But his son and nephews continued the work without intermission, filling out his plans, and even enlarging the sphere of operation, till Lord's bridge became the site of a mammoth factory and the center of a new town.
446
HISTORY OF NORWICH.
The great mill is 954 feet long, 68 feet wide, and five stories high. The motive power is furnished by six water-wheels, each over thirty feet in diameter. In 1864, more than 1800 looms had been put in operation, and 1400 persons were employed by the company .*
In 1861, the new town was incorporated by the name of Sprague. It comprises about twelve square miles of territory taken from Lisbon and Franklin, the Shetucket running through it from north to south. It is intersected also by the Hartford, Providence and Fishkill Railroad, which gives it the advantage of direct and easy transportation. Within its bounds, besides the villages built up by the Spragues, it includes the greater part of Hanover society and the Eagleville manufacturing village on the east side of Lovett's bridge. At Hanover center, and on Beaver brook, woollen factories have been in operation for many years. Sprague is therefore pre-eminently a collection of mill villages.
The first town-meeting in Sprague was held June 10, 1861, and this was celebrated as the birth-day of the town. Col. Ethan Allen of Han- over, moderator of the meeting, was chosen the first selectman. The mileage, as fixed by the Legislature, is 62 miles to New Haven, and 38 to Hartford.
Lovett's bridge and Lovett's grist-mills are old familiar names origin- ally belonging to Norwich. After the name of Lovett passed away, the fine mill situation in this neighborhood became the seat of the Tarbox cotton-factory. In 1852, the place was purchased by Mr. John Batchel- der and his associates, and the old mill being soon afterward destroyed by fire, a large brick building was erected on the site and devoted to the manufacture of seamless cotton bagging. Before the war, this mill gave employment to seventy or eighty persons, men, women, and children. It has since been purchased by a new company, the building enlarged, the machinery changed, and the whole transformed into a woollen-mill, under the agency of the Messrs. King, late of the firm of Wm. Elting & Co., Norwich.
This place is now within the limits of Sprague, and is the seat of the Lisbon post-office, but is currently known as Eagleville.t
* At the present time (1865), preparations are making for the erection of a new mill by the side of the other, of sufficient capacity for 3000 looms.
t This name is said to have been suggested by the lighting of an eagle upon the cupola or summit of the belfry, just before the mill was completed, which the work- men hailed as a favorable omen, and named the place in honor of the royal bird. There is, however, another factory in the eastern part of the State, called Eagleville, and it is proposed to give to this village the name of Buckinghanı.
447
HISTORY OF NORWICH.
Fifth or Long Society, sometimes called East Norwich.
This ecclesiastical society comprised a long and comparatively narrow strip, lying east of the rivers Shetucket and Thames. Well might it be called Long, for it originally extended over the whole eastern border of the nine-miles-square, from Plainfield to Poquetannock, and this line of the original purchase, in its liberal measurement, was probably ten or twelve miles.
The farmers on this side of the rivers petitioned the town as early as 1699, to be released from paying ecclesiastical rates in Norwich, on account of the great inconvenience they found in attending divine wor- ship, by reason of the ferry and their distance from the town-plot. After crossing the river at the old fording-place, it was necessary to traverse a tedious winding path around the Chelsea hills, to get into the town street, and pass on to the meeting-house. The desired permission was not then granted, but twenty-one years later they were freely allowed to become a distinct parish, and sixty acres of land set apart for their first minister.
The church was constituted in 1726, under the Rev. Jabez Wight, the first and only pastor ever settled among them. Mr. Wight was a native of Dedham, Mass., and a graduate of Harvard College. His wife was Ruth Swan; they had four sons, who became worthy members of society. He died in 1782, and the church seems to have died with him. No reg- ular public worship was held, and the meeting-house was allowed to decay and fall to pieces.
In 1786, Long Society was annexed to Preston, and instead of the designation 5th of Norwich, took that of 2d of Preston.
In the year 1817, a fresh attempt was made to establish a worshiping assembly in this old society. A new meeting-house was built upon the ancient site, which was opened to all denominations of Christians. The services were kept up for a time on the system of voluntary contributions, but could not be permanently maintained, and soon ceased altogether.
In August, 1837, still another effort was made, and at this time a small Congregational church was gathered with the assistance of Rev. Anson Gleason, who had been officiating as a missionary at Mohegan .* The communion plate belonging to the old church of Mr. Wight, which had not been used for forty years, was brought out on this occasion. The attempt to resuscitate the church, however, was not successful. The members soon disbanded, and in 1857 the edifice was sold to the town of Preston for municipal use.
* Mr. Gleason, for many years a missionary among the Mohegans and Choctaws, is now (1865) performing missionary duty in Brooklyn, N. Y. He was ordained at Mo- hegan, April 1, 1835.
448
HISTORY OF NORWICH.
The ancient burial-ground of Long Society lies around this building. Here we find the names of many of the early inhabitants,-Corning, Fitch, Giddings, Haskell, Harvey, Hillard, Pride, Roath, Truman, Wight, Williams, &c.
One of the oldest inscribed stones perpetuates the memory of the first deacon of Mr. Wight's church.
HERE LAIS THE BODY OF DEACON BENIAMIN FITCH DIED OCTR 19 1727 in ye 37th YEAR OF HIS AGE.
Inscription on the Grave-stone of Rev. Mr. Wight.
" Sacred to the memory of Rev. Jabez Wight, late Pastor of the Church of Christ in the 2d Society in Preston, who in the 56th year of his ministry and 82d. of his age, on the 15th day of Sept., 1782, Entered into the joy of his Lord.
Zion may in his fall bemoan, A Beauty and a pillar gone."
An obituary notice of Mr. Wight says of him :
"Fond of retirement from the bustling world, he was apparently never so happy as when travelling the road of an unnoticed humility."
Jewett City. In 1816, the northern part of Preston was made an inde- pendent town with the name of Griswold. This new township included a strip of land on the east side of the Quinebaug, south of Plainfield, which was originally a part of the Norwich purchase. The flourishing society of Jewett City lies upon this Norwich strip, and thus comes within our notice as an original part of the nine-miles-square.
Eliezer Jewett, to whom this beautiful village is indebted for its origin and its name, was not a man of finished education, or of any peculiar mental power, but active, persevering, and of a genial, kindly tempera- ment, happy in doing good and opening paths of enterprise for the benefit of others, without laboring to enrich himself. Beginning with only a small farm and a mill-seat on the Pachaug river, he lived to see a flour- ishing village spread around him, enriched with mills, stores, mechanical operations, and farms in an improved state of tillage, to which the public gave the familiar name of Jewett-City, a popular substitute for Jewett-ville or Jewett-farms.
449
HISTORY OF NORWICH.
He had at first a grist-mill, and to this he added a saw-mill, and sold out portions of land to induce others to settle near him. About the year 1790, he was joined by John Wilson, a clothier from Massachusetts, whom he encouraged to set up a fulling-mill .* We learn from Wilson's adver- tisement that he was ready at his mill to accommodate the public in De- cember, 1793.
In 1804, Elisha Rose had an oil-mill in the neighborhood, and the same year John Scholfield, Jr., set a carding-machine in operation upon the same stream, advertising that he had a complete set of machinery for picking, breaking and carding wool ; terms, 12 cts. per lb.
The Scholfield establishment was subsequently purchased by Mr. Wil- son, whose enterprise assisted largely in the growth and prosperity of the village. He was a man of solid sense and dignified deportment; highly valued as a citizen. By a change of boundaries, and new acts of incor- poration, he became an inhabitant of three different towns, and at distinct periods was a selectman of Norwich, of Preston, and of Griswold, with- out changing his abode.
In 1820, Mr. Wilson sold the woolen-mill to J. G. W. Trumbull and John Breed. It was destroyed by fire in 1827, and not rebuilt by the owners. Slater's magnificent cotton-mill now occupies the site.
In 1814, the Fanning Manufacturing Company, consisting of four part- ners, Charles Fanning, Christopher Avery, Joseph Stanton and Joseph C. Tyler, erected a mill upon the river, not far from Scholfield's, and began the manufacture of cotton yarn and cotton cloth. Christopher Lippitt was their agent.
A house of worship was erected in the settlement in 1814, and a church gathered on an Episcopal basis, called St. George's Church. Its first and only Episcopal minister was Rev. Ammi Rogers, who proved to be a man of blighted reputation, unworthy to preach the gospel. When this became known, his congregation fell away, and he left the place in 1818.1
A Congregational society was organized in 1825, and the church was made over to them by the residuary proprietors of the building. This church has had five ministers :
Rev. Seth Bliss, ordained June 15, 1825.
Rev. George Perkins, installed Aug. 8, 1832.
Rev. William Wright, ordained Nov. 8, 1838. Rev. Thomas L. Shipman, installed April 5, 1843. Rev. Henry T. Cheever, installed May 29, 1856.
Since 1861, they have had no settled pastor.
* Mr. Wilson married Mr. Jewett's daughter. The late Increase Wilson of New London was one of his sons.
t New Year's Sermon by Rev. T. L. Shipman, 1856.
29
450
HISTORY OF NORWICH.
Of these ministers, the Rev. Mr. Shipman is most familiarly associated with the history of the church. His pastorate of ten years was the long- est, and since his dismission, by residing in the place and officiating as pastor whenever vacancies occurred, he has almost doubled that term of service.
Jewett City has also a flourishing Baptist church, which of late years has gathered within its sphere of influence a large proportion of the in- habitants of the village. The house of worship was dedicated in 1844.
Two factories on a grand scale have of late years been added to Jewett City, greatly enhancing the population and importance of the place; viz., the cotton-mill of John F. & W. Slater, and that of the Ashland Cotton Company.
These mills, with others that are projected, and the large amount of water-power in the vicinity, yet unexpended, afford presumptive evidence that Jewett City will become one of the largest manufacturing villages in the State.
In the burial-ground of the village, opened since the year 1800, a slab of red sandstone points out the grave of the founder and gives an epitome of his history.
In Memory of Mr. Eliezer Jewett, who Died Deer. 7, 1817, in the 87th year of his age.
In April 1771 he began the settlement of this village, and from his persevering industry and active benevolence, it has derived its present importance.
Its name will perpetuate his memory.
Mr. Jewett's ancestry has not been clearly ascertained. It is probable, however, that he was a native of Lisbon, and of the third or fourth gen- eration in descent from an ancestor of the same name who was an inhab- itant in 1702, and is supposed to have come from Rowley, Mass.
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CHAPTER XXXV.
THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH.
TRADITION is the only source from which any thing has been ascer- tained respecting the first rise of the Episcopal Church in Norwich. From this authority we learn that the first Church of England men in the place were Thomas Grist and Edmund Gookin, who were "allowed as inhabitants" in 1726.
Mr. Grist, according to report, was born in England, but came early to this country, settled in Norwich, and married in 1721, Ann, daughter of Samuel Birchard.
In 1734, Rev. Ebenezer Punderson, (a graduate of Yale College in 1726,) who had been four years settled over a Congregational church in North Groton, avowed his preference for the Church of England, and having obtained a dismission from his charge, crossed the Atlantic to be re-ordained. He returned with a commission from the Society for Prop- agating the Gospel in Foreign Parts, and had Norwich, Groton and Hebron assigned to him as a missionary circuit.
A small church was gathered at Poquetannock about the year 1738 by Mr. Punderson, who also held occasional services in Norwich, at the houses of Messrs. Gookin and Grist, the former living on Bean Hill,* and the latter not far from the Meeting-house Green. Gradually, and at first privately, a little band of ten or a dozen persons assembled on such occasions, to whom the ordinances of the Church were administered. In this part of the town they had no organized society, or house for worship, but the Gookin and Grist families, until their extinction, were faitliful and devoted adherents to the Church.
The society at Chelsea grew out of this beginning. When it came to the question of embodying in church estate and building a house of wor- ship, it was decided that the center should be at Chelsea. There is no
* The Gookin honse was on the central plat of Bean Hill, " bounded southerly on the main road and easterly on the Green : " (now belonging to C. C. Williams.) The last of the Gookin family in Norwich was an ancient spinster, Miss Anna Gookin, who held a life interest in the house for more than thirty years, and died in 1810, aged about eighty.
452
HISTORY OF NORWICH.
record extant of the first organization of either the church or society. A piece of ground for the site of a church edifice was given by Capt. Bena- jah Bushnell, "at the north-east end of Waweequaw's hill, near the old Landing Place," and on the 7th of January, 1746-7, a meeting was held at the town-house, to decide matters relative to the erection of an edifice "for the service of Almighty God, according to the Liturgie of the Church of England, as by law established."
The officers appointed at this meeting were :
Rev. Mr. Punderson, Moderator. Capt. Benajah Bushnell, Treasurer. Capt. Isaac Clarke, Mr. Thomas Grist, { Mr. Elisha Hide,
Building Committee.
The funds for building were raised by subscription; 87 names being enrolled on the subscription list, and the sum obtained £678. The great- est amount by one individual was £50 by Andrew Galloway. The three gentlemen who formed the building committee subscribed £40 each. Mr. Punderson afterwards collected in Rhode Island, £138, and Capt. Bush- nell in Boston, £178. All this was probably Old Tenor money, or Bills of Credit, of reduced value.
The land and the church, when erected, were conveyed by deed to the committee, in trust-
"For the use of the 'Society for propagating the Gospel in foreign parts,' and their successors forevermore, to be appropriated for an Episcopal church and church-yard for the benefit of an Episcopal minister and members of said church, and for no other use, intent or purpose whatsoever."
This edifice stood upon the site now occupied by Christ Church. Ac- cording to tradition it was a substantial structure, but plain and unadorned, with neither porch nor spire, and a single granite block at the door for a threshold stone. It was completed in 1749. The number of pew-holders was twenty-eight ; they built their own pews and held them as their proper estate. The first church officers were :
Capt. Benajah Bushnell, \ Wardens. Capt. Joseph Tracy,
Capt. Isaac Clarke,
Capt. Thomas Grist, Vestrymen.
Capt. Daniel Hall, Elisha Hide, Clerk of the Church. Phineas Holden, Society Clerk.
Mr. Punderson had the prime agency in forming this church, and was its first officiating clergyman ; but in 1751 he was transferred by the soci- ety in England to New Haven, to take charge of an Episcopal society in
453
HISTORY OF NORWICH.
that place, and to perform missionary service in the neighboring parishes. He removed about ten years later to Rye, where he died .* His relict, Mrs. Hannah Punderson, died at Poquetannock in Groton, Feb. 23, 1792, in the 80th year of her age. She was interred at Norwich. The table- stone that covers her grave is directly in front of Christ Church, and bears the following record of her husband :
" Rev. Ebenezer Punderson, Founder and first minister of this Parish, died in 1771, aged 63."
After Mr. Punderson's departure, the Norwich church remained eleven years without a pastor, but was kept from extinction by the zeal of its members in holding lay services, and the occasional ministrations of Mr. Seabury of New London, and his successor, Mr. Graves.
In 1760, a subscription was raised in the society for Mr. John Beards- ley, "towards his inoculation and going to England for orders, that he may preach in the churches of England, at Norwich and Groton." An engage- ment was at the same time entered into with him, to pay the annual sum of £33 towards his support, when he should become their minister, which he did in the spring of 1763. The number of male communicants in the Chelsea church was at this time about twenty.
The Groton church mentioned, is the one already alluded to in the vil- lage of Poquetannock. That village lies at the head of a creek or cove, which runs out of the Thames about four miles below the Landing. It was early settled, being considered a fine location for fishing, building sea- craft, and exporting wood and timber. A part of it lies in Groton, and it was within the bounds of that town that the Episcopal church was built. It has been generally dependent upon the Norwich church for the admin- istration of the ordinances, but lias been sustained to the present time, and is the only church at Poquetannock ; no other denomination ever having gathered a church or built a house of worship in that village.
Mr. Beardsley, after his return from England, officiated as pastor of the Norwich church about five years. He was then transferred by the society under whose auspices he labored, to Poughkeepsie, N. Y.
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