History of Windham County, Connecticut, Part 54

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 54

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).

Episcopalians in Pomfret worshipped with the church at Brook- lyn in the "Malbone" church, until the year. 1828, when the parish of Christ church was organized. A church edifice was built during the following year. Reverend Ezra Kellogg offici- ated in this as well as in Trinity church at Brooklyn. Reverend Roswell Park assumed the sole charge of Christ church in 1843. At the same time he opened a select school, which gained a very high reputation. Doctor Park was a thorough scholar, a strict disciplinarian, and his nine years' incumbency left abundant fruits. Reverend H. C. Randall was in charge of the church a few years after that. The church is at present without a rector. The last one in charge was Reverend Fred. Burgess, who came to the church in May, 1883, and left it in May, 1889. The old site is occupied by a new and elegant church, which was erected in 1882, and consecrated in May, 1883. It occupies a beautiful site in a grove of evergreens, and is in part surrounded by an ancient but well kept burial ground.

548

HISTORY OF WINDHAM COUNTY.

The " Friends " gained a name in this town about the end of the last century and in the early years of the present century. Unobtrusive as their principles require them to be, their pres- ence was asserted by no booming demonstrations. A few Quaker families resided in the town at the time of which we speak, and a plain house of worship was erected for them by the Smithfield Conference. This worship was maintained in a quiet way for many years, but it has now long since died out.

Methodism, though nominally belonging at one time to Pom- fret, made but little headway except in the eastern part, where it joined other towns, and the history of its movements there will appear in connection with Putnam and Killingly, where the resulting churches centered. As early as 1793 a class was formed in the northeastern part of the town, then known as Cargill's mills, which grew until 1795, when the Pomfret circuit was formed, which included that and a number of neighboring sta- tions in northeastern Connecticut, the circuit comprehending altogether a membership of 169. Daniel Ostrander and Nathan- iel Chapin were then preachers, and Jesse Lee presiding elder. In 1801 this circuit was included in the New London district, and in the following year in the New York Conference. In 1804 it was joined to the New England conference. Daniel Ostrander had then become presiding elder, and John Nichols and Samuel Garsline were preachers on this circuit. Meetings were held in the press rooms of Cargill's mills and in the Perrin House at what is now Putnam. The Methodists, true to their reputation, were active and alive. Meetings were held in private houses. Mr. and Mrs. Elijah Bugbee, Noah Perrin and Mrs. Lucy Perrin were prominent leaders and exhorters. George Gary, a nephew of the last named, began preaching at an early age. The first Methodist camp meeting in Windham county was held in Per- rin's grove in 1808, and was largely attended.

Beginnings of Roman Catholic worship were made in Pomfret a few years ago. Mass was said in Pomfret Hall previous to the erection of a church. A Sunday school was also held. In the early part of 1885 the foundations of a new Catholic church were laid in the northeastern part of the town, a mile or more from Pomfret street. In 1886 this region was made a part of the par- ish of Mechanicsville, and placed under the pastoral care of Rev- erend Father Flannagan. The church was so far completed that services were held in it on Easter Sunday in 1887, and it was dedicated a few months later.

549

HISTORY OF WINDHAM COUNTY.

In the southeastern part of the town lies a settlement which gives evidence of business in earlier days, but which evidences are fading into the appearances of desertion, while in other directions new life is springing up. A large building stands in the heart of the settlement known as Pomfret Landing, which was once a cotton factory, but for long years has been abandoned as to that use, and a part of it is still used as a grist mill. A store and a few houses, and a handsome school house, make up the appearances which art has given to adorn a landscape which nature left in so rich a condition of beauty as to need but little more to make it one of the enchanting nooks of this almost fairy land. We might dwell at length upon the beauties of Pomfret Landing-a rich, cool glen in the green valley of the rippling, rambling, laughing Mashamoquet. But while the din of the cot- ton mill is no longer heard, and the rock ribbed hills no longer give echoing answers to the shrill whistle of the " brick steam- ers " plying the river, yet new signs of business life and social prosperity are not wanting here. A creamery was started here in 1885, which is now in a flourishing condition, its success fully warranting all the sanguine expectations which were put forth in regard to it. The cream is received into large vats, holding 300 gallons each, where it is brought to the desired temperature, and thence it goes into swing churns run by steam, in which it is converted into butter. A wagon is run out daily, which gath- ers the cream from about 400 cows. About 1,800 pounds of but- ter a week are made during the best part of the season, and the market demand for this butter is ahead of the supply, at good prices. A 12-horse power steam boiler is used to run the ma- chinery and regulate the temperature.

Religious services have within the past year been inaugurated at the school house, no denominational organization existing, but a sort of union service being maintained.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.

WILLIAM IRVING BARTHOLOMEW .- William Bartholomew, sec- ond generation in America (see record of Bartholomew family), born in Ipswich, Massachusetts, in 1640-41, was united in mar- riage to Mary Johnson. Their son, Joseph3, a native of Bran- ford, Connecticut, where he was born in 1682, married Elizabeth Sanger, of Woodstock. Benjamin4, a son by this union, born in Woodstock June 23d, 1723, married Martha Carpenter, one of

550

HISTORY OF WINDHAM COUNTY.

whose children was Leonard5, born in Woodstock in 1758, and married to Sarah Perrin, of Pomfret. Their three children were William®, Margaret and Mary. The birth of William Bartholo- mew occurred in Woodstock on the 23d of June, 1797. He was in 1820 married to Abigail G. Buck, of Killingly. Their children are: Edward Leonard, Simon, Annis Buck and William Irving'.

The last named and youngest of these children was born Feb- ruary 7th, 1831, in Pomfret, on the homestead farm, where he still resides. Like the farmers' sons of that day he had no ad- vantages other than those offered by the common schools, with two or more terms at a neighboring academy. The twelve suc- ceeding years were spent mainly in teaching, after which this call- ing wasabandoned for the congenial labor connected with the man- agement of his attractive " Locust Hill Farm." The attention of Mr. Bartholomew was early called to the science of chemistry as applied to agriculture, and the analysis of soils and the food of plants was made by him a special study. The knowledge thus gained very soon established him as a local authority on all mat- ters connected with that subject. He ardently embraced the idea of discovering the ingredients of soils and the needs of crops by the use of chemical fertilizers, and soon became a careful student of these subjects. He instituted, under the aus- pices of the state, a series of experiments each year for several years, to verify the truth or fallacy of prevailing theories. Some of these experiments have occupied considerable space in the reports of the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station and other periodicals. An eminent authority alluded to them " as decidedly the most valuable ever made to his knowledge in this country." They were translated into German and appeared in the station reports of that country. Mr. Bartholomew has always taken a prominent part in the Pomfret and Woodstock Farmers' Clubs over which he has presided, and in the various agricultural ' societies of the county. He has frequently been called to address farmers in different parts of the state on subjects pertaining to agriculture. He was in 1887 appointed a member of the State Board of Agriculture.

He has not only been a close student, but an active citizen in matters pertaining to his town. He has for years been a justice of the peace and selectman, and as a republican represented his constituents in the Connecticut house of representatives for two years. He early became a member of the Methodist Episcopal

If. I. Bartholomew

ARTOTYPE, E. BIERSTADT, N. Y

551

HISTORY OF WINDHAM COUNTY.

church of West Thompson. Mr. Bartholomew on the 29th of April, 1858, married Mary J., daughter of Joseph S. Hassard, of Putnam. Their children are: Ada Louise, wife of Arthur H. Strahan; Anne H., married to. David Chase; Abby Alice, and Mary Maud.

CHARLES AND BENJAMIN GROSVENOR .- John Grosvenor, the earliest representative of the family in New England and the progenitor of all who bear the name in America, was born in 1641, and died in 1691 in Roxbury, Massachusetts, where his burial occurred. His wife, Esther Clark Grosvenor, a woman of great strength of character and self-reliance, came with her fam- ily, consisting of five sons and one daughter, to Pomfret, where she engaged in the management of her landed property, and added the practice of medicine to her other attainments.

Her son, Thomas, born in 1687, married Elizabeth Pepper, and was the father of Amos, who married Mary Hutchins, and set- tled as a farmer in Pomfret. Among his children was a son, Benjamin, born in 1771, who married Chloe Trowbridge, to whom were born eight children, the two eldest sons dying in early life. John William, the third son, whose birth occurred in 1806, died in 1862, in Pomfret, where his life was spent in the pursuits of a farmer. He married Phebe G., daughter of Charles Spaulding, of Plainfield. Their children are: Hannah, deceased, wife of C. P. Grosvenor; Julia E., deceased; Charles W., born May 11th, 1839; and Benjamin, whose birth occurred September 21st, 1841.

Charles, the elder of these two sons, entered the army in 1862, during the late rebellion, as sergeant of Company D, Eighteenth Connecticut Volunteers, participating in all the important en- gagements in which his regiment bore a part. Mr. Grosvenor, as a republican, has twice represented his native town in the state legislature and once in the senate. On the 7th of March, 1866, he was married to Miss Elizabeth, daughter of George B. Mathewson, of Pomfret. Their children are three daughters, Mary M., Julia E. and Louise P.

Benjamin, the younger of the two sons of John William, was born in Pomfret, where his life, with the exception of five years in Nebraska, has been spent. In 1871 he purchased his present home in Pomfret. Finding pleasure in the pursuits of business and the ownership of land, he has from time to time added to his original property, until now he has over 700 acres under cultiva-

552

HISTORY OF WINDHAM COUNTY.

tion. He was married December 23d, 1867, to Miss Anna, daugh- ter of George B. Mathewson, of the same town. Their children are a daughter, Charlotte M., and a son, John P.

Pomfret having through all its history been a farming town, has within the last twenty years, through the energy and ability of the Grosvenor brothers, preceded by that of their father-in- law, George B. Mathewson, made rapid material progress. Com- mencing with small things it has become a favorite resort for summer guests, and so rapidly has the popularity of the place in- creased that Mr. Grosvenor has had occasion repeatedly to enlarge his quarters, adding successive buildings and cottages to his do- main. Attracted by the natural beauty of the adjacent country, the salubrious air, and the improvements constantly progres- sing, much capital has been invested in summer homes in the vicinity.

RUFUS S. MATHEWSON .- The name of Mathewson has for sev- eral generations occupied a prominent place in the annals of Windham county. Joseph Mathewson, the grandfather of the subject of this biographical sketch, married Mary Bowen. Their son Darius, whose wife was Mary Smith, became the father of seven sons and three daughters, of whom the eldest son, Rufus S. Mathewson, was born September 14th, 1802, in Brooklyn, and received his elementary training in the schools of his native town. He fitted for college with the intention of entering Yale, but yielding to the solicitations of his father, abandoned his pur- pose with reference to a classical education and devoted his life to the pursuits of a farmer. He also gave some attention to the study of medicine under Doctor Hubbard, of Pomfret, but relin- quished this also in obedience to the filial devotion which influ- enced his future career. Joseph Mathewson, his grandfather, purchased the historic farm, formerly the home of General Put- nam, where the subject of this biography was born and for eleven years resided. He afterward removed to Woodstock, where for.thirty-three years he followed an agricultural career. After a year spent in Mississippi, Mr. Mathewson became a resi- dent of Pomfret, where his death occurred on the 29th of May, 1886.

He occupied many positions of honor and trust, both of a civil and political character. ' His habitual adherence to principle rather than policy sometimes provoked opposition, but left no room for doubt as to the strength and integrity of his character.

€

WW Preston & C.N.Y.

Rif. Mathewson

553

HISTORY OF WINDHAM COUNTY.

When the New York and New England railroad was projected he was appointed to the difficult task of appraiser of property along the route, while his services were invaluable in the offices of administrator and trustee, where soundness of judgment, no less than probity and rectitude, are invaluable qualities. No influence brought to bear was sufficiently strong to cause him to swerve from the line of duty or depart from his convictions. Mr. Mathewson represented his town in the Connecticut legisla- ture in the years 1861-62, and was often called to the office of selectman and to other positions of trust. He was for many years bank examiner of the state, and one of the incorporators and a director of the Putnam Bank. He was actively interested in the Masonic fraternity as a member of Putnam Lodge No. 46. In early life he united with the Congregational church, to which he gave his firm allegiance and support, and contributed in a spirit not less of duty than of liberality.

Mr. Mathewson, on the 10th of March, 1828, married Faith Williams Mcclellan, daughter of John McClellan, of Woodstock, and granddaughter of General Samuel Mcclellan and Hon. William Williams, one of the signers of the declaration of inde- pendence. Their children are: William Williams, Harriet Cor- delia, wife of Dwight M. Day; Mary Trumbull, married to Colonel Alexander Warner; John McClellan, deceased; Arthur, now residing in Brooklyn, New York, and Albert, deceased.

CHARLES HENRY OSGOOD is the grandson, on the paternal side, of Winthrop Osgood, of Pomfret. His maternal ancestor was John Holbrook, of the same county and town. His parents were Charles and Lucy Holbrook Osgood, whose children were: Mary M., Charles Henry, John H., Frances L. and Ellen E. The eld- est of these sons, and the subject of this sketch, was born in Ab- ington, in the town of Pomfret, June 3d, 1841, and received his education at the public and private schools near his home. He has been, during the greater part of his business life, identified with the county in an official capacity. He first served as dep- uty sheriff, and was in 1871 appointed to fill the unexpired term as sheriff of Windham county. Mr. Osgood was later elected to the same office, of which he was the incumbent for a period of sixteen years. In politics he has been and is an advocate of the principles of the republican party. He is connected with Quine- baug Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons. Mr. Osgood was in 1878 married to Miss Anna E. Hart, of Brooklyn, New York.

554

HISTORY OF WINDHAM COUNTY.

COLONEL ALEXANDER WARNER .- Asahel Warner, the grand- father of Colonel Warner, was a native of the state of Rhode Island, and later in life removed to New York, from which point he migrated to Connecticut and engaged in agricultural pur- suits. His children were seven sons and one daughter, Mary, who became Mrs. Ross. The sons were: Asahel, Stephen, Thomas, John, Sabin, Benjamin and Daniel. Thomas of this number, also a native of Rhode Island, established himself as a manufacturer in Woodstock, where his death occurred in June, 1877. By his marriage to Amy Collins, of Rhode Island, were born children: Sarah A., wife of John Lake; Harriet S., married to Salem L. Ballard; Alexander; Mary F., wife of Samuel M. Fenner, and Edward T.

Alexander Warner, the eldest son, was born in Smithfield, Providence county, Rhode Island, January 10th, 1827, and at the age of eight years accompanied his parents to Woodstock, where he became a pupil of the Woodstock academy. He then entered the academy at Wilbraham, Massachusetts, and before complet- ing his preparatory collegiate course was summoned to the assistance of his father in his business enterprises. . Subse- quently becoming a partner, the firm was, at the outbreak of the late war, engaged in the manufacture of cotton twine. When the bombardment of Fort Sumter called the North to arms, Colonel Warner was among the first to offer his services to the state. Enlisting as a private he was appointed by Governor Buckingham major of the Third Regiment Connecticut Volun- teers, and participated with his command in the first battle of Bull Run. He was afterward made lieutenant-colonel of the Thirteenth Connecticut Volunteers, joined the Department of the Gulf, and shared in most of the important engagements. Ill health compelled his temporary retirement from active ser- vice, when, reporting for duty, he was ordered by General Emery, commanding the Department of New Orleans, to raise and organize the Fifth Louisiana Regiment for the defense of New Orleans, which he commanded during that important crisis and until continued ill health compelled his retirement from the service. He was subsequently appointed by Secretary Chase special agent of the Treasury Department at New Orleans, and held the office until his return to the North, on which occasion he tendered his resignation.

In the autumn of 1865, Colonel Warner purchased in Madison

Otrol. H. Ongood

ARTOTYPE, E. BIERSTADT, N. Y

555

HISTORY OF WINDHAM COUNTY.

county, Mississippi, a plantation embracing several thousand acres. Many other northern capitalists, attracted by the superior productiveness, had also located in the same neighborhood, and the energy, courage, sagacity and apparently exhaustless re- sources of the subject of this biography, caused him to be rec- ognized from the beginning as a leader of the northern element. He employed at regular wages a large number of freedmen, which exasperated the natives, who were unwilling to realize the fact that slavery was ended. His innovations were denounced as certain to disorganize the labor of the country, and still deep- er resentment was aroused as agent for the Freedmen's Bureau, when he compelled on the part of the native planters, the fulfill- ment of the contracts made with the blacks. During this tran- sitional period his life was often threatened, and always in dan- ger, but he never faltered in the line of duty, nor hesitated to extend to the oppressed the full protection of the law. Colonel Warner was appointed secretary of state by the military com- mander, was trustee and treasurer of the State University, six years a member of the state senate, and part of that time its pres- ident and ex-officio lieutenant-governor, four years chairman of the republican state committee, and three times a delegate to the national republican convention. As chairman of the Mississippi delegation at the convention which first nominated General Grant, he cast the vote of the state, with the sentiment, " Mis- sissippi, the home of Jefferson Davis, casts her unanimous vote for U. S. Grant," amidst tremendous applause.

In 1877 Colonel Warner, on returning to the north, purchased " Woodlawn," in the town of Pomfret. embracing a highly cul- tivated and productive farm from which the blooded stock was a well known feature of the various fairs throughout New Eng- land. He, later, removed to "Sunnyside," the former home of Mrs. Warner's family in the same town, where he now resides. The Colonel was in 1876 commissioner from Mississippi to the centennial exposition in Philadelphia and again from Connecti- cut to the exposition of 1887. He was in 1888 commissioner to the Ohio centennial, and in 1889 to that held in New York. He was elected and served as state treasurer for the years 1887 and 1888, was a member of the state board of agriculture and has been appointed by the several governors to various national agricultural conventions. He was president of the Windham County Agricultural Society, and has held various local offices.

556

HISTORY OF WINDHAM COUNTY.

He has extensive interests in the West and is president of the Baxter Bank, of Baxter Springs, Kansas. As a Mason he is con- nected with Putnam Lodge, No. 46, and Montgomery Chapter. He is a member of Loyal Legion Commandery of Massachu- setts.

Colonel Warner was married on the 27th of September, 1855, to Mary Trumbull Mathewson, daughter of Rufus Smith Mathew- son and Faith Williams McClellan, of Woodstock. Mrs. Warner is the great-granddaughter of William Williams, one of the signers of the declaration of independence. Mr. Williams mar- ried Mary Trumbull, daughter of Jonathan Trumbull, the first colonial governor of Connecticut, the friend of Washington, and prominent during the revolutionary period. Colonel and Mrs. Warner have had two children-Benjamin Silliman, who was born September 24th, 1856, and Arthur McClellan, whose birth occurred April 13th, 1860, and his death September 4th of the same year. Benjamin Silliman, who is a resident of Baxter Springs, Kansas, in 1886 married Sarah L., daughter of Edward Trowbridge, of Brooklyn, New York, and has one son, Arthur Trumbull.

W. W. Preston & CO N.Y.

Hexander

yra

CHAPTER XXIV.

THE SOCIETY OF ABINGTON.

Organization .- Settlers .- Schools .- Church Progress .- Congregational Church. -Church of the Messiah .- Second Advent Church .- Libraries .- Hall .- Man- ufacturing .- Charles Osgood.

T HE Society of Abington, comprising the western part of Pomfret, was chartered and described by the assembly May 2d, 1749, the act, in part being as follows: " Resolved by the Assembly that an ecclesiastical society be, and is hereby, erected in the west part of said township, and that the bounds thereof be as follows: Bounded north on Woodstock, westerly on the line dividing between said town of Pomfret and Wind- ham, so far south as to the parish already made partly out of said Pomfret, and partly out of Canterbury and partly out of Mortlake; thence by said parish eastwardly to Mortlake west side; thence by Mortlake to the south westerly of the Rev. Ebene- zer Williams' farm-saving also all the lands and persons that are west of said Mortlake to said parish, that hath been made as aforesaid, that are already granted to said parish; and from said Williams his said corner, the line to run northerly to the south- west corner of Jonathan Dresser's land; from thence to run be- tween J. Dresser's land and the land of Benjamin Allen to Mash- amoquet Brook; from thence to run northerly, so as to include the dwelling house of Ebenezer Holbrook, Jun., on the west; from thence to run northwesterly until it comes to the road which crosses the Mill Brook at one hundred and fifty-five rods distance, as the road runs easterly from said brook; from thence to run north nine degrees easterly to Woodstock line, including those fami- lies that live within said town of Pomfret, which were heretofore allowed by Act of Assembly to take parish privileges in the sec- ond society of Windham, and that the limits aforesaid be limits of one ecclesiastic society, with all the powers and privileges of the other ecclesiastic societies in this Colony. And that the said parish be called and known by the name of Abington."

558

HISTORY OF WINDHAM COUNTY.

Abington then numbered about fifty families. The inhabi- tants met June 19th, 1749, at the house of James Ingalls " to form themselves into a society." Captain Joseph Craft was chosen moderator; Edward Goodell, collector. It was voted "to accept of the house of James Ingalls to have preaching in;" also, " that the committee shall provide a good minister." Ap- parently no minister was engaged for the winter, as a rate was granted to pay the schoolmaster and other necessary expenses, but none for preaching. Services were probably held in James Ingall's house, a little south of the present Abington village. In April it was voted to hire a school dame three months. The minister at last provided was Mr. Daniel Welch, afterward pas- tor of the church in North Mansfield. January 14th, 1751, John and James Ingalls, William Osgood, Daniel Trowbridge and Ed- ward Paine were chosen a committee " for setting up and build- ing and finishing a meeting house forty-eight feet by thirty-nine." Twenty pounds, old tenor, were allowed to Zachariah Goodell for one-half an acre of land for a building site, and a rate was ordered to pay the minister and schoolmaster. In the summer of 1751 the meeting house was raised and covered, and though still very incomplete, made ready for occupation. A three months' school was ordered at Solomon Howe's, in the south, and another at John Sharpe's, in the north of the society. Mr. Jabez Whitmore preached through the winter, and made him- self so acceptable that he was invited to settle April 23d, 1752. Failing in this attempt, the society next secured the services of Mr. David Ripley, of Windham, a graduate of Yale College, and he was ordained February 21st, 1753, Mr. Devotion, of Scot- land, Mr. Ripley's early pastor, preaching the sermon. March 14th the church chose, as suitable persons to serve as deacons, Samuel Craft and Samuel Ruggles. The interior of the meet- ing house was now made more complete. The heavy land own- ers were allowed to build pews for themselves, to be done within one year. The pew spots were drawn or distributed to different ones in the following order, after Mr. Ripley and his family had been granted the pew by the pulpit stairs: Caleb Grosvenor, John Shaw, James Ingalls, Edward Paine, John Ingalls, William Osgood, John Sharpe, Daniel Trowbridge, Captain Craft, Cap- tain Goodell, Nathaniel Stowell, Richard Peabody, Jonathan Dana, Edward Goodell, Ebenezer Goodell.

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.

History of Windham County, Connecticut, Part 54

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