USA > Connecticut > New London County > Norwich > History of Norwich, Connecticut: from its possession by the Indians, to the year 1866 > Part 8
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* He died Sept. 16, 1741, in the 80th year of his age.
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HISTORY OF NORWICH.
Miscellaneous Details. The early houses of our country covered a large area, but they were seldom thoroughly finished, and the upper rooms of course were cold and comfortless. A snug, well-finished house, adapted to the family and circumstances of the owner, is an improvement of modern times. These old houses were generally square, heavy build- ings, with stone chimneys that occupied a large space in the center. The posts and rafters were of great size and solidity, and in the rooms heavy beams stood out from the ceiling overhead, and projected like a low, nar- row bench around the sides. The floors were made of stout plank, with a trap-door leading to the cellar. A line of shelves in the kitchen, called the dresser, often displaying a superb row of burnished pewter, performed the office of side-table and closet. The best apartment was used for a sleeping-room, and even the kitchen was often furnished with a bed. The ceilings were low, and the fire-place, running deep into the chimney, gaped like an open cavern. But when the heaped-up logs presented a front of glowing coals and upward-rushing flame, while storms were raging with- out, or the heavy snow obliterated the landscape, such a fountain of warmth not only quickened the blood, but cheered the heart, inspired gratitude, and promoted social festivity. Such scenes have made the fire- side an expressive type of domestic happiness. There is certainly a charm in the very phrase, old-fashioned comforts.
Yet these large fire-places were not without their disadvantages. They required a constant current of air from without to force the smoke up the chimney, and this kept the room cold. They were often made eight feet wide, and two or three feet deep. Wood was cut four feet in length, and the rolling in of a log was a ponderous operation that made all the timbers creak and crushed the bed of burning coals upon the hearth into cinders. Even if wood were as abundant as formerly, we should still be compelled to acknowledge that the reduction of fire-places and the introduction of other modes of warming rooms, are great improvements of modern house- keeping, promoting at once comfort, economy, and symmetry.
Norwich, in its beginning, was a step in advance of most settlements. The people had built their first habitations at Saybrook, or elsewhere, and on this chosen spot, at the outset, laid firm their foundations and furnished themselves with respectable homes. No record or tradition favors the notion that huts or log-houses preceded the spacious and comfortable houses of the first proprietors. The builders must have had some tempo- rary shelter, of booth or wigwam, but it is probable that in most instances families were not removed until the houses were at least framed.
Towns were not built in those days like a factory-village, all at once and after one model. At Norwich, especially, if considered in its whole extent, great diversity in the form and position of the buildings was dis- played. Here a house stood directly on the town street; another was
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HISTORY OF NORWICH.
placed at the end of a lane; a third, in a meadow by a gurgling brook ; and others were scattered over side-hills, or sheltered under jutting ledges of rock. Some were only of one story, with two rooms; but the better sort presented a wide, imposing front of two stories, ending in a very low story in the rear. Two large rooms, often twenty feet square, viz., a great room, as it was called, but meaning a best or company room, and a kitchen, with a bed-room, and a capacious milk and cheese pantry, usually covered the ground-floor. The windows were small and few, most of them fur- nished with panes of diamond glass, cased in lead .* The rooms were supplied with chimney-closets, both over the fire-places and by their sides. In the chambers, and sometimes even in the garret, large closets might be seen diving here and there into the chimney, or occupying the space be- tween the chimneys. Occasionally one has been found having a winding course around the chimney, or a turn in it like a corner ; others have had the door inconspicuous, suggesting the idea that they were made for places of concealment. As the houses decayed, these closets became receptacles for rubbish and vermin. Often in later times, the wrecks of discarded furniture, old snow-shoes and wooden-clods, moth-eaten buff-caps, broken utensils, and sometimes books and pamphlets, or written papers, discolored, tattered, nibbled, till they were worthless, have been dragged from these dusty reservoirs.
Among articles of furniture distinctively belonging to old times, we may notice the high chest of drawers, reaching nearly from floor to ceiling, and its multitude of drawers graded in size from a button-box almost to a trunk.
Whether any of the first settlers owned a clock or watch, is unknown. Perhaps Mr. Fitch or Major Mason had this convenience; but in general, the only time-pieces must have been the universal noon-mark in the window, and the dial in the garden,-both useless when the sun was obscured. After a time, as wealth increased, the great house-clock, with its radiant, moon-like face, made its appearance in a few houses. In the kitchen, the high wooden settle was never absent,-now used as a screen, and now receding to the wall, to give full exhibition to that grand recept- acle of cheering coals and flame, the wide-mouthed-fire-place.
The kitchen was the principal sitting-room of the family. Blocks in the chimney-corners were used for children's seats ; the settle kept off the air from the door; a tin candlestick, with a long back, was suspended on a nail over the matel, and the walls were adorned with crook-necks, flitches of bacon and venison, raccoon and fox skins, and immense lobster claws. Afterwards, as fears of the Indians died away, and weapons of warfare were less used, occasionally a musket or an espontoon might be
* As late as the year 1810, windows of this kind were remaining in the old Post house.
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HISTORY OF NORWICH.
seen suspended transverse from beam to beam, and bearing as trophies, reserved for winter use, strings of dried apples, chains of sausages, and bunches of red peppers. A small open recess for books was usually seen on one side of the fire-place, a little below the ceiling, where even the cleanest volumes soon acquired a dingy hue. Venerated were these books, for they came from the fatherland, and were mostly of that blessed Puritan stamp whose truths had inspired the owners with courage to leave the scenes of their nativity, to find a home in this distant and savage land. This little recess, displaying its few books, often appears in the back- ground of ancient portraits ; for example, in that of Col. Dyer, of Wind- ham, formerly among the pictures in the Wyllis mansion at Hartford.
In these houses the Family Bible was never wanting. It occupied a conspicuous station upon the desk or best table, and though much used, was well preserved. It came from home, for so the colonists loved to call the mother country ; it had voyaged with them over the billowy waters, and was revered as the gift of Heaven. One of these blessed volumes, long preserved as a precious relic in the Lathrop family, and now depos- ited in the archives of the American Bible Society, merits a particular notice. It is in the old English text, and of that edition usually called Parker's, or the Bishop's Bible. It was preserved in the family of Mr. Azariah Lathrop, grandson of the second Samuel Lathrop of Norwich, with the tradition that it was brought from England by an ancestor, who, reading one night in his berth, fell asleep over the book, when a spark escaped from his lamp, and falling upon the leaf, ate its way slowly through a large number of pages, committing sad havoc in the sacred text. The owner afterwards with great neatness and patience repaired the ravage with his pen, restoring the text to each of the inspired leaves, as may be seen by inspecting the venerable relic.
The Rev. John Lathrop of Barnstable, Mass., a devont lover of the Sacred Book, was the emigrant ancestor of the Lathrop family : to him, therefore, the above incident may with some probability be referred. But the volume is found among the descendants of his son Samuel, the ances- tor of the Norwich Lathrops, and the latter, though only a lad at the time of his emigration, may nevertheless have been the sleeping student who came so near to the losing of his treasure. All that can be asserted on this subject is, that the repaired Bible, with this interesting tradition con- nected with it, comes down to the present generation in the line of Mr. Azariah Lathrop.
There is no account that the planters ever experienced any scarcity of food, or were ever deprived at any time of the real comforts of life. On the contrary, they seem to have had abundant harvests, and to have been generous livers. Though their modes of cooking were more simple than
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those now in vogue, the variety of sustenance was nearly as great. To obviate the necessity of going often to mill, pounded maize, called by the Indians samp, or nasaump, which resembles hominy, was much used. Hasty-pudding was a common dish, the usual supper of children. Out of New England this article was called mush and suppawn. The coarse meal of those days required at least an hour's cooking to make the pud- ding good ; the name hasty is therefore entirely inappropriate, the special pleading of Barlow to the contrary notwithstanding :
" In haste the boiling cauldron, o'er the blaze, Receives and cooks the ready-powdered maize."
A true hasty-pudding, that is, one which can be properly made in a short time to meet a sudden emergency, requires a different grain from maize. The minute-pudding, so called, made of rye or buckwheat, is of this kind, justifying its name by the haste with which it can be prepared.
Another dish which the Indians taught the English to make, was succa- tash, a mixture of tender Indian corn and new beans, forming a delicious compound, still a great favorite all over New England. They also learned of the natives to bake corn-cakes on the hot hearth, under the ashes, form- ing a sweet and wholesome bannock; and to pound their parched corn and eat it with milk or molasses. This was called in their language, Yo-ké-ug .* The first planters were also famous for baked beans and boiled Indian puddings,-dishes that have been perpetuated by their de- scendants, with considerable spirit and pertinacity, though they have ceased to be peculiarly characteristic of the place .; The beans were put into the oven early in the morning, crowned with a choice portion from the pork-barrel, and having been kept all day seething and brown- ing, appeared upon the supper-table, hot and juicy, and with their respect- able accompaniment, the slashed and crispy pork, gave dignity to the best tables. This was the universal Saturday night treat ; so that wits would say the inhabitants knew when Sunday was coming only by the previous dish of baked beans; and that if the usual baking should at any time be omitted, the ovens would fall in. There can be no doubt that the name Bean Hill was bestowed on a part of the town-plot from the prevalence of this Saturday night treat. Bean-porridge was also, in those early days, a common breakfast dish.
* Nokehick, in the idiom of some tribes.
"Nokehick, parched meal, which is a readie wholesome food." (Roger Williams.) The English sometimes called it No-cake.
It has been said that baked beans is not an old English dish, yet from its preva- lence in Norwich and some other places, so soon after the settlement, we should natu- rally infer that the cmigrants brought with them their relish for this dainty of the table. They certainly did not find it among the Indians.
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HISTORY OF NORWICH.
In other places, peas were more generally cultivated than beans. In a list of the principal productions of the Colony, made out in 1680, peas are mentioned, but not beans. Perhaps the inhabitants of Norwich were par- ticularly prominent in bringing the latter into common use, and hence arose their local renown in connection with them. The beans and pud- dings of Norwich were, however, only a popular way of representing tables bountifully supplied with substantial food.
With respect to the puddings, it is reported that they were frequently made of such size and solidity as to carry ruin in their path if the pyra- mid chanced to fall .* An extra-good housewife would put her pudding in the bag at night, and keep it boiling until dinner-time the next day. The carving commenced at the top, and as the pile lowered to the center, the color deepened to a delicious red. One can not help being curious to know whether these local customs could be traced back to those parts of England from which the planters came.
Potatoes were then unknown in the country, and not introduced until after 1720. Turnips were a common vegetable. Pumpkins were so abundant in New England, that wits seized upon them as a symbol of the country. A chubby boy astride of a large pumpkin, and blowing the hollow stalk of the vine for a trumpet, is at least an emblem of some sig- nificance. Pumpkin johnny-cake, made of corn-meal and stewed pump- kin, baked before the fire upon the trencher, and turned to give a brittle crust to both sides, was an article for the table in high estimation.
The drink of our ancestors consisted chiefly of pure water from the well or fountain ; but they had also beer, cider, and metheglin, and they made great account of syrups concocted from the juice of berries, and cordials distilled from mints.
In addition to the flesh afforded by the flocks and herds which they fed, the bounty of Providence furnished them with rich supplies. Deer at the time of the settlement were not infrequent ; wild fowl, especially pigeons, were at the proper season very abundant ; all the smaller game, such as squirrels, foxes, woodchucks, and rabbits, might be caught in snares at the very doors of the houses, and the rivers and brooks around them furnished
* A sportive story was formerly current, that on a certain festive occasion, a conical pudding was set in thereenter of the table, in monumental dignity, but losing its bal- ance at the first insertion of the carving-knife, it fell and knocked down three men. Whereupon the townsmen made a regulation that no pudding should henceforth con- sist of more than twenty coombs of corn, that is, about four bushels.
The Norwich puddings were played by the local humorists against the New London dumplins. The latter, it is said, were often made so large and hard that it was neces- sary to chip them up with a pick-axe. The remains of a great dinner being at one time thrown into the river, near the town, the Isle of Rocks, a noted fishing ledge in the harbor, was formed, and is still by some of their neighbors called the New London Dumplins.
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first-rate bass, innumerable shad, fine lobsters, delicate oysters, and highly- prized trout. Such were the dainties spread upon their board.
The annual Fast was kept with great strictness : no food being allowed between sunrise and sunset. Thanksgiving was then, and has ever since been, the great festal day of the year,-the day for family gatherings and heart-greetings ; for the noonday feast, and the evening spent in eating nuts and apples, telling stories, and playing blind-man's-buff,-simple ele- ments of pleasure, but great in their productive result. These two memo- rial seasons have been called the saint-days of New England, or, as ex- pressed by a domestic humorist, the festivals of St. Stuff and St. Starve.
Names. Our ancestors displayed but little taste in the way of names- giving, either to persons or places. The Christian names bestowed upon sons and daughters were often quaint and whimsical, sometimes even harsh in sound and inconvenient of utterance. Shadrach, Jephthah, Abinadab, Aquilla, and Zorobabel, are to be met with upon the records. Others were chosen from some implied principle of association, in defiance of all fitness ; such as, Consider, Friend, Preserved, Retrieve, Yet-once. But these are the extremes in this line, and none more ungainly, such as are often and perhaps falsely attributed to the old Puritans, are found in our Connecticut registries.
Female names of a descriptive class were very common, such as Thankful, Mindwell, Patience, Experience, Temperance, Obedience, Re- membrance, Deliverance, Desire, Submit, Faith, Hope, Love, Charity, Silence, Mercy. Many of these, however, far from being uncouth, are euphonious and appropriate, worthy of perpetual repetition.
Many local names that were current in the early stages of the settle- ment, have become obsolete. Such are-
Connecticut Plains,-a tract within the bounds of the nine-miles-square, on what was then called the path to Connecticut, that is, the old road to Hartford.
Little Lebanon,-at the end of Yantick, or just beyond Yantick. Little Lebanon Hill and Valley, mentioned 1673, before the settlement of the present town of Lebanon.
New Roxbury,-now Woodstock.
Nicholas Hill,-south of the Yantic, since called Nick's Hill.
Little Faith Plain,-south of Wawekus Hill.
The first names given to a new country are usually descriptive, embody- ing some prominent characteristic that shall bring the place directly before the mind. Thus we find on the early records of Norwich --
The Crotch of the Rivers.
The Hook of the Quinabaug. Hammer Brook. Stony Brook.
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HISTORY OF NORWICH.
Kimicall [Chemical] Spring,-in a grant to Capt. Fitch, 1687.
The White Rock upon Plain Hill,-a land-mark.
Scotch Cap Hill,-near the point where the present bounds of Norwich, Franklin and Bozrah meet.
Huckleberry Plains.
Great Beaver Brook.
Ising-glass Rock.
Little Beaver Brook.
Wheel-timber Hill.
Wolf-pit Hill.
Hearth-stone Hill.
Saw-pit Hills. Great Cranberry Pond.
Butternut Brook.
Stonie Hollow, (now East Chelsea.)
Clay Banks of the Great River.
The Great Darke Swampe.
Dragon's Hole at Kewoutaquek.
The Rocky Hill, called Wenaniasoug.
If any dependence can be placed on names and traditions, the Indians had at least three rude forts within the present bounds of Norwich. One at the Landing on the brow of the hill, which on this account was called at the first settlement, Fort Hill. This was probably the citadel of Wa- weequaw, the brother of Uncas. Another, upon Little Fort Hill, between the Landing and Trading Cove, belonging to Uneas himself. And a third, more aneient than either of these, on the south-western side of the Yantic, below the junction of Hammer-brook. This stood upon a rugged platform of rock, surrounded and overshadowed with woods. It was a barren and secluded spot ; but the tradition has been current, particularly among the Hydes and Posts, who first owned the spot, that here was an ancient Indian fortress. It consisted of a high stone wall, inclosing an area upon the brow of the hill, and must have been designed only as a hiding-place, to which to retreat in times of invasion. The stones had been broken by the Indian builders -into portable size, and about the year 1790, were removed and used in the building of a cellar and for other purposes by the owner of the land.
6
CHAPTER VI.
EARLIEST TOWN OFFICERS. COURTS. TRAIN-BANDS. MAGISTRATES AND SCHOOLS.
ACCORDING to the best writers on New England polity, the four important institutions that lie at the foundation of our prosperity are the towns, congregations, schools, and militia. Upon these as a basis, com- munities spring rapidly into thrift and importance, and become the pillars of nations. The first of these institutions in order, and that which em- bodies the first element of a commonwealth, is the township. Formerly, in Connecticut, this included also the second branch, the parish, or con- gregation, which was co-extensive with the town, and the minister not only the religious head, but the political counsellor, of the people. The schools were quiet and insignificant, partly domestic and partly municipal. The train-bands, on the contrary, were indispensable and efficient, being the town itself, in its wisdom and strength, armed for defence.
The Connecticut Constitution, the oldest of the American State Con- stitutions, makes no allusion to the king .* It regards the people as the only source of power; deputies represent the will of the people; towns select the deputies and impower them to act in their behalf. Towns are older than states, and the fountains of political power.
Townships are therefore the foundation-stones of American liberty : accepted inhabitants are identical with free citizens, and municipal inde- pendence opens the way to all other liberal institutions.
The earliest town records of Norwich are in the hand-writing of John Birchard, who had probably been the Town Clerk at Saybrook, before the removal. He discharged the duties of a Clerk or Recorder at Nor- wich, for fifteen or eighteen years, but there is no memorandum extant of his appointment to office. No town action remains of an earlier date than. Dec. 11, 1660, but from the fragmentary state of the oldest book, we may infer that several pages in the beginning have been worn away and lost.
The original grants were evidently not recorded, until reviewed and
* See Constitution of 1639 : Conn. Col. Rec., 1, 20-25. Also Code of Laws, ibid., 509.
.
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HISTORY OF NORWICH.
rectified by later surveys, and these, with subsequent grants and divisions of common land, were registered by Captain James Fitch.
The affairs both of the town and society, civil and ecclesiastical, were all recorded together, until the year 1720. The volumes are labeled, Town Books of Acts, Votes, Grants, &c. They contain also an account of the freemen, strays, cattle-marks, lost goods, and occasionally a record of a justice's court. Afterwards the town and society affairs were sepa- rated, and the latter kept by themselves in a volume entitled "The Town- Plot Society Records." In the first books, dates are confounded and sub- jects intermixed with a strange degree of negligence. Some of the rec- ords seem to have been made promiscuously, with the book upside down, or upright, as it happened; and forward or backward, wherever there was a blank space. The earliest notices relate to the granting of lands, appointing fence-viewers, erecting public pounds, gates and fences, stating highways, felling trees, and regulating the running at large of swine, rams, and other domestic animals. These were the first subjects of legis- lation, and the first officers were a constable and two townsmen, one for each end of the town. The townsmen were afterwards called overseers, and select-men, and varied in number, though seldom more than four were chosen. It was their business (according to a town vote in 1683,) "to order the prudentials of the town, and see to it that the wholesome town orders be attended to." They were empowered to call public meetings, to take cognizance of all offences against law, order, and morality ; to settle differences, and try cases of small value.
The imperfection of the early records leaves us without a complete list of early town officers. The following are all that have been recovered for the first twenty-five years of the settlement. Later than this, the officers for each year are, with rare exceptions, extant.
CONSTABLES.
1669. Robert Allyn.
1670. Ensign Thomas Tracy.
1671. Thomas Post.
1673. Samuel Lothrop.
1674. John Gager.
1675. Simon Huntington.
1678. John Baldwin, Sen.
Thomas Leffingwell, Jr.
1679. John Calkins. Richard Bushnell.
1680. Richard Edgerton.
Thomas Sluman.
1681. Solomon Tracy. Stephen Merrick.
1682. Samuel Lothrop. Joshua Abel.
1683. Thomas Bingham. Josiah Reed.
1684. Caleb Abel. Christopher Huntington, Jr., east of Showtucket. Thomas Tracy, Jr.
1685. Joseph Bushnell. Simon Huntington. Caleb Forbes.
1686. Stephen Gifford. John Calkins, Sen. Thomas Parke, Jr.
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HISTORY OF NORWICH.
TOWNSMEN.
1669. Thomas Leffingwell. Christopher Huntington.
1671. John Bradford. John Calkins.
1680. Capt. Fitch. Lefft. Thomas Tracy. Lefft. Leffingwell. Ensign Backus. Thomas Adgate.
1672. Hugh Calkins. Simon Huntington.
1673. William Hide. John Holmsted.
1681. Simon Huntington. Thomas Waterman. John Tracy.
1674. John Post. Thomas Adgate.
1675. Thomas Waterman. John Calkins.
1682. Ensign William Backus. Caleb Abel. Lefft. Leffingwell. Thomas Adgate.
1676. East End, Thomas Adgate. West End, Thomas Bingham.
1683. John Baldwin, Sen. Thomas Tracy.
1677. John Holmstead.
Lefft. Th. Leffingwell.
1684. Ensign Backus. Sergt. Waterman. Lefft. Leffingwell. Thomas Adgate.
1678. Simon Huntington. Richard Edgerton.
1679. Six Townsmen chosen : James Fitch, Jr.
Lefft. Leffingwell.
1685. Sergt. John Tracy. Stephen Merrick. Solomon Tracy. Samuel Lothrop.
Ensign Backus.
Simon Huntington. John Post. Thomas Adgate.
1686. Lefft. Leffingwell. Thomas Adgate. Ensign Backus. John Post.
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