USA > Connecticut > Litchfield County > Torrington > History of Torrington, Connecticut, from its first settlement in 1737, with biographies and genealogies > Part 19
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In the accident which occurred a little above Thomaston, on the eleventh of May 1876, by which a coach heavily loaded with pas- sengers, was thrown into the river, by the breaking of an axle, he manifested such presence of mind in rescuing every person in safety, as to secure the approbation of all on the train, and also received a present of an elegant gold watch from the company. As to this ac- cident he has been heard to say that as he was standing on the plat- form and saw the coach (the last in the train) go down the banks, although the breaks were already on, "it seemed to him that the train would never stop." Very likely ! persons have sometimes lived ages in a moment.
He also knows the road on which he travels and looks ahead. Going down on a morning train, after a shower in the night, he said to his engineer, " when you reach such a place, before passing the curve, stop, and I will look at the track." The train stopped ; and in the waiting the passengers began to be uneasy and wonder what crazy fit had come over the engineer, or the conductor, or some body. The conductor passed around the curve and there lay a land slide covering the whole track. If they had proceeded as usual, the whole train must have gone into the river, and a coroner's jury would have rendered death to a score or more, caused by a land slide.
Behind a clear intellect is often wanted a heart to feel for humanity. Men often see the danger, but having no human sympathy, rush on, and a great calamity is the result. A rail road conductor needs a heart as well as a clear head ; and also he needs courage to ignore the jeers of a thoughtless company who would be the first to condemn him if an accident occurred.
The Naugatuck rail road hitherto has been very fortunate in its conductors.
Mr. Beers's eldest son, Herbert S. Beers, is conductor on the New Haven and Ansonia rail road.
His son Willie H. Beers, is shipping clerk for the Gilbert Clock factory at Winsted.
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HILAN M. ROGERS.
HILAN M. ROGERS, was born in Michigan January 10, 1838. His father, Orlando Rogers, was born at North East, Dutchess county, N. Y., in 1810, and died at Bridgeport, Ct., in 1871. His grand- father, Joel Rogers, was born at Fishkill, N. Y., in 1769 or 70, and removed to North East, Dutchess co., about 1775, with his father, Isaac Rogers, who was born in New Jersey, and removed to Fishkill. Mr. H. M. Rogers enlisted in the twentieth regiment Connecticut volunteers, in 1862, and was under General Hooker at the battle of Chancellorville and under General Mead at Gettysburg, and followed the rebel army to the Rapidan. His regiment was soon transferred to the army of the Cumberland, and was under General Sherman in his grand march through Georgia to the Atlantic and northward. At Bentonville, N. C., he was wounded with a minie ball through the right thigh, March 19, 1865, in Sherman's last battle. He was sent to the hospital in Goldsborough, N. C., and thence to Newbern, from there to Fort Schuyler, and arrived at New Haven the night before the news of President Lincoln's assassination. He was discharged from the New Haven hospital in the latter part of June following.
Mr. Rogers engaged as clerk in the service of the rail road in 1865, and was located at Ansonia, where he remained three years, but act- ing as agent on the road in different offices. In 1868, he took charge of the station at Seymour, where he remained until May 1870, when he was made agent at Wolcottville where he has remained since.
EDWARD KELLY.
EDWARD KELLY came to Wolcottville in 1849, and commenced work on the rail road as track repairer, and continued in that work one year. He then became baggage master and freight agent at the depot, in which position he continued until 1871, a term of twenty- one years. Since that time he has held the position of truck and express man, and is about as well known as any other man about Wolcottville. Regularly and as faithfully as the days come and go he is on his truck or express wagon delivering goods, and although he is servant of all yet he rules the town according to the law of a certain book he carries, as thoroughly as though he were King Edward the First.
CHAPTER XVI.
INTEMPERANCE AND TEMPERANCE.
HE opinion or judgment of the early settlers of Torring- ton was, in common with all the early settlers of New England, that spirituous and malt liquors possessed pro- perties of beneficence to the human race ; that the race had always thus judged, and that it was not only consistent, but also in accord with the highest wisdom, thus to use them. Intoxication was regarded as not only a wrong use, but a criminal use of a bene- ficent gift to man. Under these opinions, liquors of these kinds were from the first brought to this country, and were, so far as skill and ability would allow, produced in this country, for the benefit of society. The early fathers of Connecticut, judging thus, that a proper use was both Christian and wise, proceeded to enact laws to restrain and prohibit men from the wrong, or excessive use of these drinks, and proposed to treat the excess in this matter, the same as any other excess should in their judgment be treated.
Hence the general court of Connecticut, enacted, in 1650, only fourteen years after the first settlement was made in the colony, the following restrictions of the sale of these liquors :
INNKEEPERS.
" For as much as there is a necessary use of houses of common entertainment in every commonwealth, and of such as retail wine, beer and victuals, yet because there are so many abuses of that law- ful liberty, both by persons entertaining and persons entertained, there is also need of strict laws and rules to regulate such an employment."
I The need of houses of entertainment is seen from the following law made in 1650 : " It is ordered by this court and authority thereof, that no master of a family shall give en- tertainment or habitation to any young man to sojourn in his family but by the allowance of the inhabitants of the town where he dwells under penalty of twenty shillings per week. And it is also ordered, that no young man that is neither married nor hath any servant, nor is a public officer, shall keep house of himself without the consent of the town for and under pain or penalty of twenty shillings a week."- Col. Rec., 1, 538.
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"It is therefore ordered by this court and authority thereof, that no person or persons licensed for common entertainment shall suffer any to be drunken or drink excessively, viz : about half a pint of wine for one person at a time, or to continue tippling above the space of half an hour, or at unseasonable times, or after nine o'clock at night, in or about any of their houses on penalty of five shillings for every such offence. And every person found drunken, viz : so that he be thereby bereaved or disabled in his understanding, appearing in his speech or gesture, in any of the said houses or elsewhere, shall for- feit ten shillings, four pence ; and for continuing above half an hour tippling, two shillings six pence ; and for tippling at unseasonable times, or after nine o'clock at night, five shillings, for every offence in these particulars, being lawfully convicted thereof; and for want of payment, such shall be imprisoned until they pay, or be set in the stocks, one hour or more, in some open place, as the weather will permit, not exceeding three hours at a time : Provided, notwithstand- ing, such licensed persons may entertain sea-faring men or land travelers in the night season when they come first on shore, or from their journey, for their necessary refreshment, or when they prepare for their voyage or journey the next day early [if there] be no dis- order amongst them ; and also strangers and other persons in an orderly way may continue [in] such houses of common entertain- ment during meal times, or upon lawful business what time their occasions shall require.
" And it is also ordered that if any person offend in drunkenness, excessive or long drinking, the second time they shall pay double fines ; And if they fall into the same offence the third time they shall pay treble fines ; and if the parties be not able to pay their fines, then he that is found drunk shall be punished by whipping to the number of ten stripes, and he that offends by excessive or long drinking, shall be put into the stocks, for three hours, when the weather may not hazard his life or limbs ; and if they offend the fourth time they shall be imprisoned until they put in two sufficient sureties for their good behavior."I
From these provisions of law it will be seen that drinking intoxi- cating liquors made people drunken from the earliest days of the settlement of the colony, and hence the oft repeated remark that the people who used to drink liquors, did not get drunk, is historically untrue, and that too, in the best of communities. Nearly every man and woman who came early to this colony was a professed Christian, and yet there were " so many abuses of that lawful liberty," that is, so many that " be drunken or drink excessively " that laws were enacted
I Colonial Records, vol. I, p. 533. Some of the provisions of this section were enacted in the court May 25, 1647.
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to restrain men from drunkenness. Not to restrain them from drink- ing, for that was thought to be proper and advantageous to health.
It may be further seen that drunkenness or excess in drinking, or "to continue tippling " and lounging about the tavern or inn, was a disgrace and dishonor that the community could not, and would not suffer to exist, and whatever may be said of the temperance principles of those days, they had one principle that they thought something of, namely, that drunkenness should not stalk abroad at noon-day, and its profanity and obscenity be a matter only of jest and sport for young and old through all the streets.
Another item is worthy of notice ; that the seller and drinker were both punished ; they had both committed a trespass against the com- munity, and there was manliness enough in the people to see that both were properly, and if need be, severely punished : " And if they offend the fourth time they shall be imprisoned until they put in two sureties for their good behavior."
Such were the ideas of the people of Connecticut in regard to intemperance, nearly one hundred years before Torrington was settled, and seventy-five years afterward as well, and there was some virtue in law, in those days. And they went further still, and ordered that no " innkeeper, victualer, wine drawer, or other, shall deliver any wine, nor suffer any to be delivered out of his house, to any which come for it, unless they bring a note under the hand of some one master of some family and allowed inhabitant of that town." And fearing that some interested persons might take advantage of some part of these statements, they added : " neither shall any of them sell or draw any hot water to any but in case of necessity, and in such moderation of quantity as they may have good ground to conceive it may not be abused."I
In 1659, it was further ordered, " that if any person be found drunk, and convicted so to be, in any private house, he shall pay twenty shillings for every transgression of this nature, unto the public treasury, and the owner of the house where the person is found and proved to be made drunk shall pay ten shillings."2
As early as 1670, the use of cider and the sale of it, became a subject of restriction among the new settlers ; it had been prohibited
I Col. Rec., vol. 1, 535-
2 Ibid, P. 333.
26
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HISTORY OF TORRINGTON.
in sale to the Indians in 1660, and in some respects was prohibited much earlier than that.
It is therefore historically true that cider and malt and distilled liquors, however pure, have produced drunkenness all along the life, or the existence of the American nation, and they have ever been, as a beverage, to say the least, a terrible curse, a burning, blighting shame on every community, and destroyers without equals, in any considerations under the sun.
It was under this impression, that these drinks, as such, were beneficial to the community, that the early settlers of Torrington planted their thousands of apple-trees, and built their cider mills and brandy stills. Torrington soil grew apple-trees with great rapidity and thrift and hence in thirty years after the building of the Fort, the town was flooded with apples and cider, and cider brandy. In 1775, there must have been from twelve to fifteen cider mills in the town at a low estimate, and one brandy still. Not long after this Abner Loomis erected another still. Dea. Whiting's account book indicates the making by his mill about one hundred barrels a year for ten years from 1773. Noah North's, about the same. The number of in- habitants in 1774, was 843. There was made then, on a small esti- mate, one barrel of cider a year, to every man, woman and child in the town. Thrall's brandy still was no small affair, and Abner Loomis's was such that he boasted of its mighty producing power. A barrel of brandy was brought from Windsor to the hill, a little north of Dr. Hodge's home, and thereby that hill from Capt. Abel Beach's north, was called Brandy hill ; but when Abner Loomis's still had acquired its majority years, the hill on which his house stood was called Brandy hill. It should have been Brandy hill junior, or number two. When a frame was raised for a house on the corner north of Rev. Alexander Gillett's house, a jug of brandy was thrown from the top of the frame, on a heap of stones and thus consecrated that hill to the shrine of Brandy.
A tradition says the first brandy distilled in the town was effected by a woman (on some emergency of sickness or calamity), then living on the farm now known as the Palmer farm, a mile and a half north- east of Wolcottville, and that it was made in a common iron dinner pot. A number of old account books, preserved, all, so far as they show the progress of intemperance, or the regular use of intoxicating drinks as a beverage, agree as to one thing ; the free use of cider
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from 1760, emerged into the free use of brandy about 1790: the difference seeming to be gallons of brandy in the place of barrels of cider. Hence brandies and imported wines, and other distilled liquors, constituted an important part of the sales in all the stores during fifty and more years. And this kind of merchandise bore fruit, such as the night after the rasing of John Brooker's house in a place called The Horns, but named that night Orleans village,1 and such scenes as at the anti-slavery mob in Wolcottville in January, 1837. Without this liquid fire, no such scenes would ever have dis- graced this beautiful valley, nor these charming hills. Nor is it quite elegant to suggest that it was because of some "rough fellows from Harwinton " and some wild cat " fellows from Goshen," who made the row ; nor Arabs from the desert.
When Joseph Taylor was elected to the office of ensign in the military company, about 1790, he gave a dinner, as was enjoined on all persons elevated in those days to such distinguished offices. Five hundred took dinner the first day in the yard at his house, and those who could not attend that day came the next morning. He provided for the occasion a barrel, forty or more gallons of liquor, and the next morning, in order to treat those who took breakfast, he sent and bought nine gallons more.
And other fruits there have been of this cider graduation into brandy, some of them so shameful that no pen has the courage to write them, and if written none but a bloated face could read them without a blush of horror.
The young man who, of all in the town, started in life with the most money and the fairest prospects, before the year 1800, built a tavern and kept it, and died in the poor house. He was not a be- sotted drunkard, but even the selling of liquors, tends to poverty.
A long list of idiotic children appeared in the town in the midst and towards the latter part of the brandy period and were an expense
" The night after the raising of Brooker's house was made hideous by the carousals of the crowd who had gathered from far and near to share in the frolic. Persons still living, speak of it as absolutely fearful, from the noise, profanity, and rowdyism which prevailed. A little later, when the tavern was opened, a company of guests from Litchfield, after ordering supper, drinks, and other supplies to their full desire, being somewhat inspired by what they had received, took the landlord to a third story window, and put him out, head foremost, and held him by the heels until he promised to make no charges for their enter- tainment .- Rev. Dr. Perrin's Centennial Sermon, page 12.
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to the town for a long list of years. Set this down to the account of brandy.
More than a hundred of the finest sons, of a noble ancestry in this town, have gone to the close of life's short day, under a cloud : put it down to brandy ! And what sorrow, shame, ruin and death has it not perpetrated in this town ?
The climax in the production of cider was reached about 1833, when one farmer from his own orchards made three hundred barrels and more ; since that day cider has been in a glorious decline.
The time was, also, when there were in great and small from one to two score brandy stills in the town, and quite a number of these are still standing. Let the traveler, as he passes the farm houses in the back parts of the town look around, and if he sees a small out house, a little distance from the dwellings, or down by the brook, with a chimney rising from the roof, put it down as one of the olden time brandy stills, and ride on ; the times he will be mistaken in his judg- ment will not be worth counting.
About the year 1800, there were eleven taverns in the town ; five in Torringford, two in Newfield, and four in the southwestern part of the town ; two large brandy stills, and two stores where liquors were freely sold ; and in 1810, there were two more taverns, and one store added, making eighteen houses for the public and free sale of intoxicating drinks.
TOBACCO AND INTEMPERANCE.
TOBACCO is so intimately allied, in its qualities, effects and social relations, with intemperance, that it may properly be denominated, its forerunner. All persons who use tobacco do not drink intoxicat- ing drinks, but so many do, and so many use tobacco first and then come to strong drink in consequence of the appetite created by the tobacco, that the weed may very properly be said to be the forerun- ner of the drinking, and certainly of the two the drinking is the more cleanly and elegant habit until men get into the ditch. It is there- fore important for every temperance person, or every person who values temperance principles, to weigh well and seriously, whether the use of tobacco is not a responsibility so high as to preclude all possibility of a safe investment in the matter.
The history of intemperance is very far from complete with the subject of tobacco left out.
The deleterious effects of the use of tobacco were recognized by
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the fathers in the early settlement of the colony. In the May session in 1647, the court considered the subject and made the following order : .
" Forasmuch as it is observed that many abuses are committed by frequent taking tobacco, it is ordered that no person under the age of twenty years, nor any other that hath not already accustomed himself to the use thereof, shall take any tobacco until he have brought a certificate, under the hand of some who are approved for knowledge and skill in physic, that it is useful for him, and also that he hath received a license from the court for the same. And for the regulating those who either by their former taking it, have to their own apprehensions made it necessary to them, or upon due advice are persuaded to the use thereof. It is ordered, that no man within this colony, after the publication thereof, shall take any tobacco publicly in the street, nor shall any take it in the fields or woods, unless when they be on their travel or journey at least ten miles, or at the ordinary time of repast commonly called dinner, or if it be not then taken, yet not above once in the day at most, and then not in company with any other. Nor shall any inhabitant in any of the towns within this jurisdiction, take any tobacco in any house in the same town where he liveth, with and in company of any more than one who useth and drinketh the same weed, with him at the time ; under the penalty of six pence for each offence against this order, in any of the particulars thereof, to be paid without gain saying, upon conviction by the testi- mony of one witness that is without just exception, before any one magistrate."
Thus did the fathers indicate their judgment against the use of tobacco, and if the law they enacted could have been carried into effect in the practice of the people, it is very possible that a large proportion of the drunkenness which has been experienced would have been avoided, for the perpetual and universal use of tobacco by those who drink liquors as a beverage, is such an acknowledged his- torical fact, and that with these, the use of tobacco began first, that the voice of history is, if tobacco had not been used, vast multitudes of drunkards would never have been drunkards. Tobacco and strong drinks are not only associated together in men's mouths, but in a large degree in the public markets. Where liquors are sold there, always nearly, tobacco is sold, and those who drink liquors are always expected to smoke or use tobacco, and those who use tobacco with a few exceptions, comparatively, will drink liquors. Then also the accompaniments of tobacco selling and using are in a large degree the same as those around liquor selling. Very few places used for the one purpose of selling liquors can be found without indecent
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pictures of women, posted so as to be gazed at while the deadly poisons are swallowed. It is also well known that during twenty years past, the brands of tobacco most sought after have been those put up in boxes, on the inside of the covers of which were the highest perfected pictures of gay women, scantily dressed.
Then again, it is almost an impossibility for a lad, or young man to learn to use tobacco without learning to swear, or use profane lan- guage. It is a legitimate consequence that the tongue, having become physically unclean, should become morally the same with comparative ease.
According to the best information obtained tobacco was very little used during the first thirty years after the commencement of the settling of the town. The account books which reveal the sale of tobacco, inform us that the demand for this commodity began to prevail about the year, 1770, and then demand for cider increased. Men having smoked until thirsty, drank cider to quench the thirst ; and thus smoking and drinking became a prevailing custom. At first there was very little of the chewing of tobacco ; this was rather the consequent of the smoking and drinking.
When the men had fallen into the prevailing habit of smoking and drinking ; filling their dwellings with the clouds of smoke and the perfumes of both, the women, out of a proper inclination to take part in social entertainments, and partly out of self defence, began to take part in the smoking, as well as the drinking ; and thus whole families, of men and women engaged, especially on social occasions, in smoking tobacco as well as drinking cider and stronger drinks. Some women chewed tobacco as well as the men, nor was this all, the use of tobacco was followed by the use of snuff, especially by the women, until many voices retained no natural sound. It used to be said that such people talked through their noses, but the fact was that the nose became so closed, and thus became a kind of sounding board, for throwing out a dull, snuffy sound, that was as unmusical as it was unnatural, and hence many persons could not sing because of the use of snuff.
Another consequence of the use of tobacco and snuff, was the use of opium. The men, after the free use of tobacco and cider, resorted to brandy and strong drinks ; the women to the eating of opium ; and hence fifty years ago, there was probably a score of times more opium taken, for narcotic effects than at the present day, in propor- tion to the number of the people in the rural parts of the country.
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The raising of tobacco has been a prolific source to the introduction of the habit of using it. Considerable tobacco has been raised in Torrington, and that of a very good quality, as reported by those who deal in it, but at present very little is here produced ; the reason being, not the diminishing of the use of it, but the increase in its pro- duction in other parts of the country.
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