USA > Connecticut > New London County > Norwich > History of Norwich, Connecticut: from its possession by the Indians, to the year 1866 > Part 56
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70
The commerce of the Thames ceased at once. Sails were taken down, hulls packed together like logs, keels left to decay. The blockade of the river continued about two years, and was strictly enforced. It was a period of anxiety, depression, and gloom. The large force displayed by the enemy kept New London and other places on the Sound in constant apprehension of an assault. A British seventy-four, with an accompani- ment of frigates or sloops of war and smaller craft, maintained a strict guard at the mouth of the river, and there being no creeks or side chan- nels by which an entrance could be effected, it was not easy to elude their vigilance. The blockade was adequate and effective. Many valuable prizes were taken by the enemy, and in the course of a few months the coast was swept clean of all American craft.
Experiments were however occasionally made, of running through the fleet with a fair wind, or of slipping by in the night, which were often successful. In 1813, the schooner O. H. Perry, 267 tons, built by Sam- uel Story, and just completed when the news came of Perry's victory on Lake Erie, dropped down to New London, and one night in November, passing by the blockading squadron, in nine hours reached New York in safety. But on her first voyage to St. Domingo the next spring, she was captured by the frigate Endymion.
36
562
HISTORY OF NORWICH.
The privateer schooner Marmion, built by S. Clark, ran out in safety in March, 1814, and went to sea under Capt. Bingley. Another privateer, launched from Edgerton's ship-yard nearly at the same time, was equally fortunate in eluding the vigilance of the enemy. Escape and capture alternated in this game of running the blockade. Capt. John Doane, in a fishing vessel called The Bee, and Capt. Jonathan Lester in the sloop Richard, were captured during the winter of 1813-14. The sloop Three Brothers, Erastus Davison, in entering New London harbor, Dec. 22, was fired at four times by the British frigate Statira, but came safely up the river with a full cargo.
The 4th of July, 1814, brought with it but little festivity. A pleasant incident, however, occurred at Norwich. A house on the river, near Bushnell's Cove, about a mile below the city, was kept as a public house, and called the Thames Hotel .* It was at this time rented by Capt. Christopher R. Perry, the father of Commodore Perry. On the day of jubilee, a party of gentlemen from the city had a public dinner at this hotel, and just before sitting down to the table, the heroic Commodore himself unexpectedly arrived from the lakes on a visit to his father. Great was the cheering, and never were cheers bestowed more cordially. The joyous acclamations reached the dismantled squadron below, where the few officers in charge were dining on the deck of the Macedonian, and the river was enlivened with a succession of responsive cheers and salutes.
In August, 1814, the enemy made a bold but unsuccessful attack upon Stonington. Had they succeeded in gaining possession of this foothold, there is little doubt that the stroke would have been followed by a sudden descent upon Norwich. There was no other place that they could hope to reach, which offered such temptations as this.
Three ships of war were lying helpless in the river; the harbor was crowded with dismantled merchant vessels, and the town contained a pub- lic arsenal for the manufacture of gun-carriages, and several valuable mills for the production of paper and cotton and woollen cloth. These were strong inducements for the enemy to make a raid into the country, and sweep over the city in vengeance and destruction. The situation of the town was therefore considered very critical, and the inhabitants were filled with anxiety and fear.
A petition was forwarded to the commander-in-chief of the State troops for a military force to be stationed in or near the place for its protection, and on the 15th of September the citizens assembled in town meeting for the special purpose of considering what should be done in the way of defence against the enemy.
* Built by Thomas Bushnell, and after the war the residence of Capt. Appleton Meach.
563
HISTORY OF NORWICH.
A Committee of Safety was appointed, with discretionary power, the members of which may be taken as representatives of the various inter- ests of the town.
Theodore Barrell,
Capt. Augustus Lathrop,
John De Witt,
Capt. Jonathan Lester,
Gen. Zachariah Huntington,
Major Joseph Perkins,
Charles P. Huntington,
Capt. Charles Rockwell,
Ebenezer Hyde, Jun.
Capt. Eleazar Rogers,
Newcomb Kinney,
Capt. Benjamin Snow,
James Lanman, Ezra Lathrop,
Col. Samuel Tyler.
Under the direction of this committee, several volunteer companies were organized, equipped, and held ready for sudden emergencies.
A regiment was about the same time drafted in Norwich and the neigh- boring towns, and sent to the coast to take the place of the Third Brigade, which had been on duty at New London and Stonington, and was now discharged.
Colonel Elisha Tracy of Norwich held the place of deputy-commissary and general agent of the government during the war.
George L. Perkins was brigade-inspector and paymaster of the Con- necticut and Rhode Island troops, with the rank of major in the regular army.
J. Bates Murdock of Bozrah, and Joseph Kinney of Norwich, well- educated and promising young men, enlisted early in this war, and were soon promoted to the rank of captains.
Recruits from Norwich, and other towns in this part of Connecticut, were assigned to the 25th regiment, commanded by Major Jessup. This regiment was on the Niagara frontier in the campaign of 1814, and in the hottest part of the fight during the severe engagements at Chippeway and Bridgewater. This last battle,-known also as the battle of the Cataract, and of Lundy's Lane,-was then considered the most desperate battle ever fought in North America: the loss on either side amounting to nearly one- fourth of those engaged .*
Capt. Kinney fell in this battle,-shot through the breast just at the close of the engagement, and died upon the battle-field. He was a gallant officer, with a fine person and soldier-like bearing, popular with the army, and a favorite in society. His sad fate excited a deep sympathy in the community at home.
* One of the survivors of the campaign of 1814, (Asa Manning, drummer, now janitor of the Free Academy,) says : "There were some 45 of us Norwich boys, who fought at Lundy's Lane, some of whom laid down their lives on that bloody field, and all fought with courageous gallantry. We brought off our flag, though it was shot from the staff and riddled with 30 or 40 bullet holes." Mr. Manning's father, Diah Manning, was in the war of the Revolution, and one of Washington's body-guard.
564
HISTORY OF NORWICH.
The following inscription is on the family monument at Norwich :
Joseph, son of Newcomb and Sally Kinney, entered the U. S. Army as Lieutenant at the commencement of the war with Great Britain in 1812, was engaged in several severe skirmishes, besides six sanguinary battles, the last of which was at Lundy's Lane, Bridgewater, July 25th,,1814, where he was killed commanding the 2d division of the 25th regiment of U. S. Infantry, in the 27th year of his age.
Buried in Buffalo, N. Y.
Very few reminiscences can be gathered of this war. It was unpopular in New England, and its deeds of heroism were not laid up as treasures of the memory by sympathetic admirers.
Notwithstanding the inventive genius of our people, and the facility with which they contrive substitutes when deprived of customary comforts and conveniences, the privations consequent upon the war were numerous and perplexing. We had too literally followed the advice of some of our statesmen, to keep our work-shops in Europe. Articles of steel and iron, for instance, were all of English production. Even pins had not then been made to any extent, if at all, in this country, and during the war were upwards of a dollar per paper. Out of many hundred articles which constituted the retail assortment of the largest hardware and furnishing store at that time in Norwich, only four were manufactured in this coun- try, viz., steelyards, cut nails, bed-cords, and screw-augers. These last were an American invention.
The war gave to the manufacturing interest of Norwich a decided impetus. The following mills in and around the town originated in the exigencies of the time, and went into operation between 1813 and 1816.
Cotton-mill of Goddard & Williams, at the Falls : John Gray, agent. Fanning cotton-factory at Jewett City ; Christopher Lippitt, agent.
Bozrahville cotton-factory ; Erastus Hyde, agent.
Cotton-factory at Lisbon ; LaFayette Tibbitts, agent.
Nail-factory at the Falls ; Wm. C. Gilman, agent.
Scholfield's woollen-factory at Jewett City.
Woollen-factory of Cleveland & Allen, near Lord's Bridge.
As illustrative of the sudden changes that the tide of war often makes in domestic history, the following incidents merit notice :
The flag-ship of the blockading squadron at New London was the Ramillies, on board of which was an impressed American seaman named John Carpenter, a native of Norwich. His father, an aged and respect- able man, ascertained this fact, and, provided with suitable vouchers, went off to the squadron with a flag of truce, and applied for his release. Com- modore Hardy, after patiently examinining the case, freely gave the sea- man his discharge, with certificates to show that he had served faithfully for more than five years, and was entitled to $300 wages and $2000
565
HISTORY OF NORWICH.
prize money. The father met his son, whom he had not seen for more than eight years, on the deck of the Ramillies, and they came home together.
Capt. Asa Hosmer of Norwich had been five years separated from his family, engaged in trade upon the coast of South America. He was re- turning home in 1812, a passenger in a merchant vessel, and was within fourteen miles of the coast, when an English man-of-war came in sight, and the vessel was taken as a prize.
Capt. Hosmer suffered a long detention with the blockading fleet, hov- ering day after day and month after month in sight of his native coast, before he was released.
The same enterprising mariner and trader was subsequently immured during three years and nine months in a Spanish dungeon at Havana. He returned home from this exile July 25, 1820, and immediately resumed his maritime pursuits, but died on the coast of Honduras in 1824.
The news of peace came so suddenly, that it threw the whole country into transports of joy ; all was enthusiasm and ecstacy, and the rejoicings exceeded any thing ever before witnessed in America. The grateful tidings reached Norwich, Feb. 13, 1815, and the citizens gave vent to their boundless joy in mutual congratulations, shouts, cannonades, and illu- minations ; rockets flew up from the hills, salutes were fired from the ships in the river, and these were echoed from the fortresses at New London, and those again were responded to from the British blockading squadron at the mouth of the river, till the whole adjacent country was made glad with the tidings.
The winter had been distinguished as a season of severe frost ; loaded sleds traveled on the bosom of the Thames in perfect safety ; and for sev- eral weeks persons might skate all the way from Norwich to New London upon the river. But as soon as peace was proclaimed, preparations were made to revive business.
Admiral Hotham's blockading squadron, which had long been keeping watch at the mouth of the river, put to sea March 11th.
The dismantled ships in the river made haste to resume their gear ; the Macedonian, the last to leave her moorings, went down to New London April 4th.
The brig Dove, Walter Lester, was the first merchant vessel to start on a voyage. She cleared the last of April for St. Vincent, with horses and cattle. The Dove was also the first to arrive from a foreign port. She brought in a valuable cargo in August ; duties, $9,832.
Brig Fame, J. S. Billings, sailed in June for Guadaloupe. Brig Hope, George Gilbert, cleared in December. Very few, however, of the mer-
566
HISTORY OF NORWICH.
chants and ship-masters resumed their former correspondence with the Islands .* A voyage was now and then made with fair success, but before 1820 the regular West India trade of Norwich seems to have tapered into extinction. Capt. Walter Lester was one of the last engaged in it.
Norwich had been so thoroughly depressed in its mercantile interests by the war, that the restoration to prosperity could not be otherwise than gradual and slow. The general stagnation of business arrested the growth of the city, and kept it for nearly the first quarter of the century without advance or improvement. For twenty years or more, no buildings of any importance, except the dwelling-houses heretofore mentioned in Washing- ton street, were erected in Chelsea. The hotel of Reuben Willoughby, since much altered and enlarged, and now known as the American House, was built in 1803-4. From 1800 to 1820, the population of Norwich increased only 148. Thomas Robinson built on Main street in 1825; Russell Hubbard on Broadway the next year. Mansfield's brick row, erected in 1831, was a decided indication of reviving enterprise.
In 1806-7, the clearances for foreign ports from the whole New Lon- don district exceeded 100 each year. In 1819, only 24 are recorded; in 1820, only 16. These facts are striking evidences of the decline of for- eign trade in this district.
But the era of steam navigation had now commenced. On the 15th of October, 1816, Capt. Bunker in the steamboat Connecticut ascended the Thames. The Norwich Courier, in its issue of that day, circulated the interesting intelligence through the town.
2 o'clock P. M .- " We stop the press to announce the arrival at this port of the new Steam Boat Connecticut, Capt. Bunker," &c.
This was the first steam trip to Norwich, and people from the neigh- borhood rushed to the place to behold the prodigy that science had pro- duced,-a ship wafted safely over the waters by fire.
A small steamer called the Eagle, 85 tons burden, and raising 38 lbs. to the inch, was soon afterward constructed at Norwich by Gilbert Brews- ter, an ingenious mechanician then living in Norwich. It was furnished with a small engine, and what was called a wooden boiler, but consisting mainly of an iron cylinder cased in wood. It went down the river on its first or trial trip, July 1, 1817, and met on the way the steamboat Fulton, Capt. Law, with streamers flying and music playing, in honor of James Munroe, President of the United States, who was on board. The Presi-
* Several of the veteran sea-captains found ready employment in other ports. In 1820, Capt. Colver made a voyage to Archangel in the barque Sarah Lonisa ; Capt. Whiting went to Trieste in the ship Garonne, and Capt. Tracy to London in the Lon- don Packet,-all from New York. These ship-masters and several others, though sail- ing for many years from other ports, had their homes in Norwich.
567
HISTORY OF NORWICH.
dent was on a tour through the Northern States, and having arrived that day at New London, Capt. Law was making an excursion on the Thames to give him an opportunity of viewing the river; and the trip of the Eagle had been undertaken as a pleasure excursion, to meet and salute the Pres- ident of the United States, while at the same time testing the character of the new boat. Capt. John Doane, a well-known packet-master, com- manded, and fifty persons purchased tickets for the occasion.
The passengers, fifty in number, were in the cabin, in the rear of the boiler, when it was announced that the Fulton was approaching ; upon which they hastened to gain the deck, and just as the last of the company was ascending the stairs of the gangway, a terrific explosion took place. The end of the boiler was forced out, and sweeping through the cabin, went out at the stern, leaving scarcely a wreck of the partitions, furniture, and contents of the cabin behind. Even timbers and heavy planks were wrenched from their places, and scattered in fragments.
Had the passengers remained but a minute longer in the cabin, all must have perished. Fifty citizens of Norwich came within a minute of being swept together into eternity.
Some of them were wounded by flying fragments of wood, or bruised by being thrown down by the shock, but one of the crew, who was last upon the stairs, was the only peason scalded, and he but slightly.
Notwithstanding this first calamity, the Eagle, as an early specimen of steamboat construction, reflected credit upon its ingenious builder. After- wards fitted with a safe boiler, and its name changed to the Hancock, it made a serviceable freight-boat, and was employed for some years on another part of the coast.
The regular line of steam communication with New York commenced in 1817; the Connecticut and the Fulton forming the line, and stopping bothı at New Haven and New London. The packet system from that time lost its patronage and importance. The old days of uncertainty, in which, when a person started for New York, he ran the risk of being a week on the voyage, gave place to three trips per week comparatively certain. One of the last of the better class of packets, fitted to accommo- date passengers as well as to carry freight, was the Ann Maria, Capt. W. W. Coit. In 1820, Capt. Coit went into the Sound steamboat line, run- ning at first the General Jackson. Three other steamers on this route, viz., the Norwich, Huntress, and Worcester, were built for him,* and each
* The early steam navigation of the river was much indebted to the enterprise of Capt. Coit. He has since been interested in the building of several large steamers, to run on different routes. One of these, named the W. W. Coit, built for him at Mystic in 1864, and immediately chartered by Government, was the vessel from which Gen. Gilmore landed and took possession of Charleston, Feb. 18, 1865,-her ensign being the first Union flag hoisted on Sumter after the surrender.
568
HISTORY OF NORWICH.
in succession was for several years under his command. He retired from the line in 1831.
Other commanders from Norwich, who were early connected with the steamboat line to New York and New Haven, were Charles Davison of the Fanny, and Euclid Elliot of the Maria.
Notes from the Town Record .*
Oct. 14, 1800. In Town Meeting-Voted that the Select Men be requested to write to the Representatives of this town at the General Assembly now sitting at New Haven to use their influence in obtaining a resolve or an Act of Assembly prohibiting the mi- gration of negroes and people of color from other states into this state.
In August, 1818, a convention of deputies from all parts of the State met at Hartford and agreed upon a Constitution for the State.
Previous to this the laws and government of the State had been based upon the Charter of Charles II., granted in 1662. The new Constitution was submitted to each town separately, and being accepted by the majority, was ratified.
It was laid before the town of Norwich in October. The votes in favor of it were 194; against it, 74.
October, 1826. Resolved, to encourage a project of opening a canal from the tide water at Norwich to Worcester Co., Mass., along the Quinabaug river.
1835. Voted, that the old book of records of births and marriages be transcribed by the clerk, Alexander Lathrop.
June 2, 1837. Resolved, That as it is the duty of every good citizen to diseounte- nance seditious and incendiary doctrines of every sort, we do deny entirely the use of the Town Hall or of any other building belonging to the town for any purpose con- nected in any way with the abolition of slavery.
1837. Voted to use the interest of the deposite fund of surplus revenue for schools and other purposes of education.
Jan. 2, 1841. Resolved that no license be granted for selling wine or other spirit- uous liquors, except for medicinal purposes, during the year.
This was moved by Charles W. Rockwell, Esq., and was reiterated by him and confirmed by the town at the beginning of several succeeding years.
* Nathaniel Shipman, Esq., presided as moderator at a large number of public assemblies. Between 1798 and 1820, he was oftener than any other person called to the chair.
569
HISTORY OF NORWICH.
1842. Voted that measures be taken to have Norwich made a whole shire town, in order that all the Courts of New London County be held here.
May, 1847. Voted to oppose with the utmost vigor, the petition of New London to bridge the Thames, as such a measure would be very injurious to the interests of this town.
The sum of $5000 was appropriated to carry out this vote.
The Norwich Channel Company was incorporated in 1805 "for improv- ing the Channel of the river Thames," and a lottery granted to raise a fund of $10,000 for this object. Three classes were drawn in 1805-6. The managers were Simeon Breed, Joseph Perkins, Dwight Ripley, Peter Lanman, and Jabez Huntington.
When the company should have succeeded so far that vessels drawing eight and a half feet of water could advance to the head of the river, they were authorized to demand a certain rate of toll. Very little improve- ment was effected by this company, although at one time they reported nine feet of water, at common tide, the whole distance from Norwich to New London. In 1825 the stock was merged in the Thames Bank.
The dredging machine used by the Channel Company was the patent of Stephen Culver, and a suit was brought against the Company for in- fringing his rights, but the patent could not be sustained. It was proved to be a machine formed on the same principle with one that had been used in France, and especially in the harbor of L'Orient, forty years before.
The patentee was then dead. He had been a packet-master, bridge- builder, and machine-maker, and no doubt honestly considered himself the originator of the patented machine. But from early youth he had fol- lowed the seas, and it was shown that in his boyhood he had been carried a prisoner to France, and left for a while at this very harbor of L'Orient, and probably retained some vague idea in his mind of the principle of the machine, which in after life he worked out and put into operation.
CHAPTER XLVII.
MISCELLANIES.
Controversies.
TOWNS, like nations, have their inward sectional conflicts and their out- ward hostilities, by which society is often moved to its depths and rendered turbulent and dark, though the difficulty may never result in acts of open violence. It is by no means a pleasant task to chronicle outworn disputes, and it might be well to leave all such themes in the oblivion of decaying records, if by suppressing the truth we did not lead to a false estimate of the peace and happiness of past days, compared with the present. We are prone to think that social life in the time of our fathers was not beset by those contending claims and passionate prejudices that now so often disturb the repose of small communities. The unjust inference is there- fore drawn, that the old was better than the new, and that in the virtues of justice, moderation and good neighborhood we have declined from the high standard of our ancestors. But the glass of history often presents us with a view of the past which seems but a reflection of the present, with even an aggravation of the darker tints. Local feuds, interminable lawsuits, abusive language, threatening denunciations, aggressions sectional and municipal, were quite as frequent and apparently more causeless and infuriated in former times than at the present day.
Location of the Courts.
A sectional jealousy between the Town-plot or First Society and Chel- sea began to make its appearance soon after the Revolutionary war. As the two societies drew towards a balance in numbers and influence, the points of collision multiplied, and the jar was nearly continuous. Almost every election was marked by high excitement, if not with absolute strife and contention.
In 1798, after a long and sharp contest, a vote was obtained that the town meetings should thereafter be held alternately in the First and Sec- ond Societies. The first town-meeting in Chelsea was held in 1800, in the Congregational meeting-house, and this marks the period when the
571
HISTORY OF NORWICH.
two societies were most equally balanced. Yet the predominating influ- ence still remained with the Town-plot. In the year 1800, the Mayor, Elisha Hyde, the four Aldermen, Thomas Fanning, John Turner, Samuel Huntington, and Simeon Thomas, the town-clerk, Benjamin Huntington the city clerk, Charles Lathrop, and half of the common council, were of the First Society.
The contest for the possession of the court-house and the court sessions was still more acrimonious. The Ancient Town could not resign these privileges without a last struggle to retain them.
Early in the year 1809, a vote was carried to cede the court-house to the county for the use of the county courts, provided it should be removed to Chelsea Plain at individual expense. The defeated party claimed that this result had been gained by surprise and from partizan motives. Fresh meetings were summoned ; the vote was reconsidered, rescinded, and finally passed a second time. The county accepted the cession, but before the deed of conveyance had been legally confirmed, the storm of opposition grew so intense that it was not executed. Dec. 18th, a second vote of cession was carried, and a new committee appointed to assign the prop- erty. But on the 30th of the same month, another town meeting revoked all former proceedings whatever, relating to the removal of the courts and the conveyance of the house to the county.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.