History of Windham County, Connecticut, Part 21

Author: Bayles, Richard M. (Richard Mather)
Publication date: 1889
Publisher: New York, Preston
Number of Pages: 1506

USA > Connecticut > Windham County > History of Windham County, Connecticut > Part 21

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Doctor Orin Witter, the younger, was born in Chaplin, April 25th, 1835. After completing his academical course, he com- menced the study of medicine under the tutorship of his father, and attended lectures at Yale Medical College and the College of Physicians and Surgeons of New York city, graduating at the latter institution in the year 1859. He was married to Helen A. Utley, daughter of James R. Utley, May 26th, 1864, and they have had two children, a daughter who died at four years of age and a son who is still living. After graduating, Doctor Witter commenced the practice of medicine in Chaplin with his father, and has continued in that field until the present time. He has never sought political honors, but being pressed by the solicita- tions of friends, consented to be once nominated and was elected to represent the town in the assembly in the year 1877. In the town he has held the office of registrar of births, marriages and deaths for a number of years.

Doctor Hiram Holt, who for nearly fifty years was a physician in active practice at Pomfret, was the son of Nehemiah Holt and Mary Lanphear, his first wife, and was born at what is now the

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town of Chaplin, then Hampton, January 31st, 1798. He was a descendant of Nicholas Holt, the ancestor of the most numerous branch of the Holt family of New England, who sailed from Southampton, England, on the ship " James," of London, and landed at Boston, Mass., in 1635. His name appears on the ship roll as Nicholas Holte, of Romsey, tanner. He settled at And- over, Mass., where he died in 1685.

His grandson, George Holt, removed in 1726 from Andover to a part of the town of Windham, then known as the Canada Soci- ety. There Doctor Holt's ancestors continued to live, and there he was born. His grandfather was a soldier in the French war of 1756, and his father in the revolutionary war. His ancestors from the time of Nicholas Holt were all farmers, and he was reared on the old homestead in Chaplin, working as a farmer's boy until he was nearly of age. Then, by teaching school, he saved money enough to support himself while studying med- icine. He went to Pomfret in 1821, and became a student with Doctor Thomas Hubbard, then the leading physician in eastern Connecticut and later a professor in the Medical School of Yale College. Doctor Holt attended a course of medical lectures at that school, but was not able to complete the course; he how- ever received an honorary degree of M. D. from Yale in 1834. He then settled in Pomfret, where he continued to reside and actively practice his profession until his death, with the ex- ception of a short period about the year 1843, during which he resided at Mexico, Oswego county, New York. He died at Pomfret, November 30th, 1870, in his seventy-third year. He married, in 1828, Marian Chandler, of Pomfret, who died in 1857. He subsequently married Martha S. Cotton, of Pomfret. Three children of the first marriage are living.

Doctor Holt had, for a country physician, a large practice and a high professional reputation. He was especially fond of surg- ery, for which a natural ingenuity and cleverness in the devising of appliances and the use of instruments of all kinds naturally fitted him. He always kept a complete set of carpenter's tools and other mechanical implements, the use of which, in repairing and making all kinds of household things, was one of his princi- pal recreations, and his natural ingenuity in repairing fractures and dexterity in using instruments made all surgical operations fascinating to him. Outside of his profession he was a man of force in various respects. He had by nature a strong and log-

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ical mind, with a masterful will and an unusually retentive mem- ory. He could quote by memory whole pages from favorite authors, particularly from Scott's poems. Antiquities and local history particularly interested him, and his knowledge of the ancestry and family relations of the people of eastern Connec- ticut was minute and accurate. He was a capital talker, having a great fund of odd and entertaining information, and was an especially good story teller, with a keen sense of fun and ad- mirable imitative powers. He was a man of unusual energy and activity, fond of labor for its own sake. Personally he was a good specimen of the old type of Windham county men. He was of a large and powerful frame, fully six feet high, with the massive head and strong face that one sees in the pictures of the continental generals and the New England men of that time. Mrs. Caroline F. Corbin, herself a native of Pomfret, in a novel published some years ago called " Rebecca, or a Woman's Secret," introduced Doctor Holt, under another name and a thin disguise, as a character in the book; and the portrait which she there draws of him is, in some respects, an accurate picture, not only of the little ways and mannerisms which were characteristic of him, but also of the essentially good and just character of the man.

Doctor William Witter was born in Canterbury in 1804, and died in 1851 at the age of forty-seven. He was the fifth in line of descent from Deacon Ebenezer Witter and his wife, Dorothy, who settled in Preston, Conn., before 1699, having come thither from Scotland, though the family is understood to be English at a more remote period of its history. The line of descent is as follows: Deacon Ebenezer Witter, farmer and founder of the family in this country, born 1668 and died in 1712. His son, Ebenezer Witter, farmer, born 1700, lived in Preston and died 1790. He was the father of fifteen children, and, as an old ac- count quaintly says, " He was also very punctual in family wor- ship, and when confined to his bed with a broken limb and on his back he led the family in prayer morning and evening." His son, Deacon Asa Witter, farmer, born 1744, married Joanna Kinne in 1765, lived at first in Preston, but after his marriage removed to Canterbury, and died in 1792. He was a justice of the peace, a representative in the legislature of the state, and a " councillor " among his neighbors. His son, Ebenezer Witter, farmer, born 1777, married Eunice Bass in 1799, lived in Canter-

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bury, died in 1833. His son, Doctor William Witter, subject of this sketch, was born in 1804 and died in 1851. He married Emily Bingham in 1829, lived in Canterbury, studied medicine, graduating at the Medical School of Williams College, Williams- town, Mass., and settled as a practicing physician in Willimantic, where he lived thenceforward. He was a learned man in his profession, and enjoyed in the latter part of his life a surgical practice extending into the larger cities and towns of the state, was a prominent citizen, a representative and senator at times, and found time even in the midst of pressing professional duties to exercise the interest he naturally took in the cause of public education. Many young men who afterward became leading physicians, studied medicine in his office, and he seems to have been willing also to devote time to this work. He was a man of sterling integrity and uprightness, and was highly respected by all who knew him, and he especially had the love and esteem of all his many students as well as patients, toward whom he was uniformly kind and considerate, and by whom he was im- plicitly trusted. On his maternal side he was a descendant of the Waldo family. His grandfather, three times removed, was Cornelius Waldo,who, coming from England, settled in Ipswich, Mass., in 1654, and was the grandfather, twice removed, of Ralph Waldo Emerson. His more ancient ancestry includes Peter Waldo, the reputed founder of the sect of the Waldenses, who died in 1179.

The wife of Doctor Witter was Emily Bingham, a descendant of Captain John Bingham of revolutionary memory. Of this union were born eight children, six of whom survived early youth. These were as follows: Frances, married Hubert Foot, whom she survives with an only daughter, F. Huberta Foote : Maria, married Joseph Watson, and in second nuptials Thomas Turner, whom she survives, both of Willimantic; Emily, mar- ried Timothy Ingraham, and they have one daughter, Gertrude, who married Ezra Sanders of Cleveland, Ohio; Anne, married Herbert F. Palmer, and they have one son, F. Herbert Palmer, a graduate of Columbia College; William Clitus, the only son, was born in 1842, entered Brown University in 1861, served in the United States army, 10th Rhode Island Regiment as a non- commissioned officer, during the college vacation of 1863, re- turning entered Yale College and graduated in 1865, graduated from Columbia College Law School in 1867, studied law in the

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office of William M. Evarts in New York city, and is now senior member of the law firm of Witter & Kenyon in that city, mar -. ried Florence Wellington, of Boston, Mass., in 1871, and they have one child, Florence Waldo, born January 17th, 1887; Hor- tense, the youngest of the six of Doctor Witter's children, mar- ried Edson Lewis, and died in 1875, leaving one daughter, named. Hortense. Some years after the death of his first wife, Doctor Witter married Cynthia Barrows, daughter of Daniel Barrows, of Mansfield, Conn.

Henry R. Lowe was born at Mercer, Maine, January 20th, 1849. His early life was spent on the farm until arriving at the age of twenty-one, meanwhile receiving a common school education. He afterward attended the Eaton Family and Day School at Nor- ridgewock, Maine, four years. He commenced the study of medicine in 1876 with William S. Robbins, in his native town, and later attended Dartmouth Medical College, from which he graduated in the fall of 1882. He commenced the practice of medicine at Worcester, Mass., in the spring of 1883. He was married to Mrs. Exoa Stanton, of Shrewsbury, Mass., January 1st, 1884, and removed to Woodstock Valley, Conn., in the spring of 1885, where he continues to practice medicine at the present time.

William A. Lewis, M.D., was born in Greenwich, R. I., in 1829. He received his education at East Greenwich Academy, in that state, and studied medicine with Doctor Nathan S. Pike, of this county. He graduated at Harvard Medical College in 1851, and since that time has been a practicing physician of this county. He is now located in the town of Plainfield, his post office address being at Moosup. He was married in November, 1864, and has one daughter, now twenty-one years of age. Doctor Lewis was a member of the Connecticut house of representatives in 1873, and was state senator from the 13th Senatorial district from 1880 to 1882.

Isaac B. Gallup, M.D., of Willimantic, was born in West Greenwich, R. I., August 16th, 1846. After receiving an educa- tion in the usual common and select schools of the time, he read medicine with his father, Alvan W. Gallup, M.D., attended two full courses of lectures at the Eclectic Medical College of Penn- sylvania and graduated in the winter of 1870-71. He immedi- ately located at Scotland in this county, where he practiced medi- cine several years. In February, 1878, he removed to Willi-

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mantic, where he has since remained. In the winter of 1885-86 he attended lectures at the Eclectic Medical College of New York city. He also attended, in the winter of 1888-9, a post graduate course at the New York Polyclinic (regular), visiting meanwhile the various hospitals of the city. He married Miss Marietta C. Hebard, of Scotland, Conn., September 16th, 1879, and has two children: Inez M., born July 8th, 1880, and Bertha C., born April 19th, 1883.

CHAPTER XIII.

ANECDOTE AND LOCAL STORY OF OLD WINDHAM.

BY MISS JANE GAY FULLER.

The Mystery of Cates .- The Battle of the Frogs .- Revolutionary Anecdotes .- That Little God Bacchus .- The House the Women Raised .- The Black Sheep. -A Character .- " Tea-total."-Doctor Cogswell and Phyllis .- An Old Family of Scotland .- The Story of Micah Rood .- " No blood relation of mine."-The Fine .- Story of Abijah Fuller .- Sabbath Breaking .- Strong minded Women .- The First Locomotive .- Windham Wags .- Old Time Pedagogues.

A N impenetrable veil enshrouds the name and fame of Wind- ham's first settler, a veil in which many threads of ro- mance are interwoven with dark lines of adversity. An English refugee, after long years of wandering and exile, found a resting place at last in the wild woods of Connecticut. He was a gentleman of culture and wealth, accustomed to all the refinements of civilization, the companion of rulers and states- men. A Puritan of the Puritans, firm and indomitable as their great leader, he had rode with Cromwell and his valiant Iron- sides to battle in the defense of Protestantism. But a storm cloud darkened the sky of England. The sudden death of the protector shook her political fabric from its foundation and planted another Stuart on the throne. "Blood for blood " was now the royal mandate, and the Cromwellian leaders were forced to flee from home and country to escape the block or gibbet. Everywhere throughout the Old World and the New were posted directions for the seizure and arrest of all persons known or sus- pected of being implicated in the fate of Charles Stuart. How many of these fearless men who dared affix their signatures to the death warrant of their king escaped to this country will never be known with any degree of certainty. That the first set- tler of Windham was one of them there is little reason to doubt, as tradition speaks of long journeys through the wilderness to

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meet former associates, several of whom were known to be in adjoining colonies. But as simple John Cates he preserved his secret inviolate to the end. We only know for a certainty that after more than a quarter of a century of weary wandering, everywhere fearing the minions of the king, he came to Norwich and thence through an untrodden forest to his final retreat.

With a faithful negro attendant whom he had purchased in Virginia, he dug a cellar in a rocky hillside a little north of the present village of Windham, and in that forlorn spot spent the long winter of 1688-9. That he had silver and gold remaining after so long an exile subsequent events fully proved ; but miles and miles from a human habitation, it could at first have con- tributed little to their comfort. Game was abundant, however, and the faithful Joe ever on the alert ; so the winter wore away in safety and spring dawned happily for the colonies and thrice happily for the exiles. The vindictive monarch had been de- posed and William and Mary were seated on the throne. The infamous Andross was driven from the country, and the royal offenders could now emerge from their rocks and caves and breathe in comparative security.

The proprietors of the tract that had afforded an asylum for the English exile began to take measures for its immediate settlement. Cates came forth from his hiding place, purchased land, and with his servant built the first house in the nameless township. Already advanced in life, with a constitution im- paired by hardship and privation, he lived for several years to be the firm ally and prudent counsellor of the youthful settle- ment. His name is often seen in the early records of the town, and the interests of education and religion lay near his heart. The first minister, Reverend Samuel Whiting, became his warm friend, but not even to him nor to his trusty housekeeper was his identity ever revealed. Only occasional allusions to his past fell from his lips, and he died as he lived, unknown.

To the church, of which he was one of the earliest members, he bequeathed a service of plate and two hundred acres of land in trust for the poor. He also gave two hundred acres as a per- manent school fund to his adopted town. To his friend, Mr. Whiting, he gave a bed, a chest and his wearing apparel, also the trusty servant who had been the companion of his dreary solitude. That he had been a kind master the inconsolable grief of Joe fully attested, and the poor fellow did not long survive

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him. Both were buried near the place of their first concealment, and a rough stone, rudely initialed, marked for a time the spot. When the first cemetery was laid out the body of Cates was re- moved thither and a stone, ample for the times, bore the fol- lowing inscription :

IN MEMORY OF MR. JOHN CATES. HE WAS A GENTLEMAN BORN IN ENGLAND, AND THE FIRST SETTLER IN THE TOWN OF WINDHAM. BY HIS LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT HE GAVE A GENEROUS LEGACY TO YE FIRST CHURCH OF CHRIST IN WINDHAM, IN PLATE AND A GENEROUS LEGACY IN LAND

FOR YE SUPPORT OF YE POOR. AND ANOTHER LEGACY FOR YE SUPPORT OF YE SCHOOL IN SAID TOWN FOREVER. HE DIED IN WINDHAM JULY YE 16th, A. D. 1697.

The stone is mossed with age, and it seems but just that the several towns, that for nearly two centuries have shared his munificent bequests, should now unite in the erection of a more lasting monument to the memory of their generous benefactor- the stranger and exile.

THE BATTLE OF THE FROGS.

" The direst fray in all that war To shake King George's crown, Was when the Bull-frogs marched at night Against old Windham Town."

A few years since, while traveling in the Northwest I met a party of Eastern tourists at the Falls of St. Anthony. Among them was our honored historian, George Bancroft. After a pleas- ant introduction he exclaimed, " From Windham, Connecticut ! A Bullfrog !" "Yes," I said, " I acknowledge the Frog! Here is

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one perched on one of our bank notes. It is the Windham coat- of-arms;" and the note was handed round with much merriment. Most of the party were familiar with the story of the frogs, but for the amusement of those who were not, it was briefly re- peated.

It was the summer of 1758, during the memorable French and Indian war, when bloody incursions were being made all along the northern boundary. Windham was then a frontier town, the most important in eastern Connecticut. Colonel Eliphalet Dyer, a prominent citizen and one for whom the enemy so loudly clamored, had just raised a regiment to join the expedition against Crown Point, and many of the bravest men of the town were already in the field with General Putnam, battling with the savages. Rumors of massacre and bloodshed were in the air, and doubt and apprehension had taken possession of every heart. No wonder the inhabitants were filled with alarm when, one dark, foggy night in July, they were aroused from midnight slumber by sounds such as no mortal had ever heard before. Parson White's negro, returning from a nocturnal carousal, ap- pears to have been the first to hear the startling clamor. Rush- ing frantically to his master he exclaimed, "O Massa, Good Lordie Massa, don't you hear dem coming-de outlandish ?"

Sure enough the parson heard and raised an alarm that brought from their beds as incongruous a mass of humanity as can well be imagined. Women and children shrieked and cried and ran hither and thither, adding to the general din and hubbub ; while men armed themselves valiantly to meet the foe. The night was pitchy dark and the direction of the sounds not easy to de- termine. At first they seemed to fill the whole heavens, which led many to believe the day of judgment was at hand; but a wise old darkey declared " de day of judgment couldn't come in de night."

Distinct articulations were at length imagined, and there was no longer a doubt of their source. An army of French and In- dians was at hand calling loudly for " Colonel Dyer and Elderkin too "-their prominent lawyers. Every man who had a gun, sword or pitchfork rushed up the eastern hill whence the clamor now seemed to proceed, but no foe was met and darkness covered all. "Borne through the hollow night," the dreadful sounds continued, while the dauntless pursuers, utterly confused and bewildered, stood with their arms awaiting the dawn. The so-

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lution of the mystery was then made clear. A mile away to the east of the town was a marshy pond, the home of thousands of batrachians, large greenbackers and mottled little peepers, such as often make night hideous. A drought had reduced their pond to a narrow rill, and for this the poor thirsty creatures had fought and died like Greeks at the pass of Thermopylæ. Tradi- tion says thousands of the dead frogs were found the next morn- ing on both sides of the rill, and the terror-stricken Wind- hamites turned their prayers to praises for so gracious a de- liverance.

The above is the simplest and we believe the only authentic account of the most wonderful, and at the same time the most ludicrous event in our early history. The occurrence certainly made old Windham famous, but it does not appear that the ac- tors in the comedy very much enjoyed the merriment at their expense. The Windham wits had long been the terror of the county. Their practical jokes are traditional. The tables were fairly turned upon them now, and as the story flew, gathering increased strength in its flight, fresh outbursts of retaliatory fun were borne in upon them from every quarter. Rhyme and dog- gerel circulated freely, and ballads of the frog fight were sung both in high places and low. Even grave clergymen conde- scended to banter, and a letter from the Reverend Mr. Stiles of Woodstock to his nephew, a Windham lawyer, is still extant, in which the spirit of fun is manifest, while its puns are atrocious.

It is related that once, when Colonel Eliphalet Dyer was sent as a delegate to the first congress held in the city of New York, his arrival was greeted with shouts of laughter. Alighting from his carriage he found a big bull-frog dangling from the hinder part, hung there, presumably, by some wag en route. Whatever may have been his feelings at the time, the inhabitants of Wind- ham have long since ceased to be sensitive in relation to the affair. The story is their own and they love it wherever it is told, and they love the old pond, with its fragrant lilies, which vandal hands are attempting to drain and destroy.

Of all the exaggerated accounts of the above, the most mar- velous and untruthful is that of the Reverend Samuel Peters in his "General History of Connecticut," which President Dwight unhesitatingly called " a mass of folly and falsehood." He stated that "one night in July the frogs of an artificial pond three

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miles square and five miles from Windham, finding the water dried up, left in a body and marched, or hopped, for the Willi- mantic river. Taking the road through the town which they entered at midnight, bull-frogs leading, pipers following with- out number, they filled a road forty yards wide for four miles in length, and were several hours in passing the town." This is a fair sample of the whole book, and proves its author a very Mun- chausen for veracity.

As we have stated before, the frog-fight was the theme of many ballads, some founded on Peters' narrative, others on a more truthful statement of facts. All are amusing relics of the times, and worthy of being preserved as curiosities of his- tory as well as of literature. The following, believed to be the most ancient, is said to have been composed by a youthful son of Lebanon, who was undoubtedly glad to have a hit at his rival townsmen, and Windham's numerous lawyers. It bore the following lengthy title :

"A true relation of a strange battle between some Lawyers and Bull-frogs, set forth in a new song, written by a jolly farmer of New England."

LAWYERS AND BULL-FROGS.

" Good people all, both great and small, Of every occupation, I pray draw near and lend an ear To this our true relation.

" 'Twas of a fright, happened one night, Caused by the bull-frog nation, As strange an one as ever was known In all our generation.

" The frogs, we hear, in bull-frog shire Their chorister had buried; The saddest loss and greatest cross That ever they endured.

" Thus being deprived, they soon contrived Their friends to send to greeting, Even to all, both great and small, To hold a general meeting.

" Subject and lord, with one accord, Now came with bowels yearning, For to supply and qualify, And fit a frog for learning.

" For to supply immediately The place of their deceased: There did they find one to their mind, Which soon their sorrow eased.

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" This being done, the glorious sun Going down, and night advancing, With great delight they spent the night In music and in dancing.

" And when they sung, the air it rung, And when they broke in laughter, It did surprise both learned and wise, As you shall find hereafter.

" A negro man, we understand, Awoke and heard the shouting. He ne'er went abroad, but awaked his lord Which filled their hearts with doubting.

" They then did rise, with great surprise, And raised the town or city, Although before unto the poor They never would show pity.

" With one accord they went abroad, And stood awhile to wonder, The bull-frog shout appears, no doubt, To them like claps of thunder.

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History of Windham County, Connecticut, Part 21

Author: Bayles, Richard M. (Richard Mather) Publication date: 1889 Publisher: New York, Preston Number of Pages: 1506

Author: Bayles, Richard M. (Richard Mather)
Publication date: 1889
Publisher: New York, Preston
Number of Pages: 1506