USA > Connecticut > Litchfield County > Plymouth > History of the town of Plymouth, Connecticut : with an account of the centennial celebration May 14 and 15, 1895 : also a sketch of Plymouth, Ohio, settled by local families > Part 5
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* Written by the late Rev. E. B. Hillard.
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THE " WILDERNESS" AND INDIANS.
wilderness." Rev. Benjamin Wadsworth, afterwards president of Harvard College, who accompanied commissioners from the New England colonies to meet the " Five Nations" of Indians at Albany, in 1694, describes the journey as being through ** a hideous prowling wilderness." Bears abounded, and fiercer wolves roving over the mountains and through the woods, waked the silence with their howlings. As late as 1747, the town of Goshen "voted to pay Timothy Stanley thirty shillings. old tenor, for killing a wolf." Still later, Jacob Beach, in the same town, killed four wolves in one year, for which he received in bounties sixteen pounds. The same man, in another year. cap- tured in traps and otherwise, seventeen bears. In May, 1783. the General Assembly, "the town of Harwinton being of late greatly infested with wolves," awarded "a bounty of forty shillings to Frederick Phelps, of said town for killing a full- grown wolf." Deer also were common. In Simsbury, " venison. for many years was a cheaper food than pork or beef or mutton." An old Indian of Harwinton, whom Leverett Smith remembers. used to complain that the white hunters had scared away all the game by the noise their guns made, saying that with bow and arrows he could go into the woods, and in an hour, get game enough to last for days. The last deer known to have been killed in Plymouth was shot by David Luddington on the meadow east of the "Spruces" below Thomaston, in the hard winter of 17So, he firing across the river at the deer on the east side. That winter was so severe, the snow lying four feet deep in March and earlier, travel being possible only on snow shoes, that many deer perished from inability to get food, and this one had, probably, come in search of it to the spot where he met his fate. Nor were wild beasts the only terror of the " Wilderness." Hostile Indians from Canada came down through the forest, keeping the early settlers in alarm. During the latter part of the seventeenth century and the early part of the eighteenth, England and France were at war, and the French, having pos- session of Canada, instigated these attacks.
Before the settlement of Litchfield, Waterbury was a frontier town, and so specially exposed to such savage incursions, scouts were employed, sentinels were stationed on elevated places which overlooked the village and the meadows where men labored during the day, and " forts " or fortified houses were built as places of refuge in case of attack. April 9. 1700. the town "voted to fortify Ens. Stanley's house, and if it should prove troublesome times, and the town see they have need, two more should they be able." "Att ye same meeting. ve town agreed by voate for ye building ye fort about Ensign Standley's house, that the town go about it forthwith, al men and boys and teams yt are able to work, and to begin to-morrow." This means that Ensign Stanley's house should be fortified by being surrounded by "palisades," that is a high fence of posts set upright, close to each other, which could not be easily scaled. " March 25, 1704, ye town agreed to fortify Mr. Southmaid's hous,"-they meant to have the minister safe-and " February 31.
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HISTORY OF PLYMOUTHI.
1706, the town agreed to build the foert that is at left. (lieutenant) standlis (the 'ensign' has been promoted) strong." At the same meeting the act was passed to " build a nue foart." " June ye 23, 1707, ye town by voate considering our troubles and feere of an enemie do agree to lay a sid cutting busshies (that is on the highways and common pastures of the town) which was warned for this day, and this day forthwith to go about finishing and repayring ye forts, and to finish them by Wednesday next at night." Into these fortified houses in time of alarm, all the peo- ple resorted at night, returning again in the morning to their own homes and the labors of the day. Nor did the event prove these anxieties groundless. In 1710 a party of Indians killed a man named Holt, in the south part of this town, on a spur of Mt. Toby. About the same time another party captured Jonathan Scott and his two boys as they were eating their dinner in Hancock's meadow, now Waterville, and carried them off to Canada. In Woodbury, another frontier town at the time, during King Philip's war a watch was kept from sunset to sun- rise ; one-fourth of the men were kept under arms every day, taking turns; the watch was directed to call up every man in the town an hour before day-the usual time for Indian attacks- and each one was directed to arm himself, repair to his appointed ward, and there stand guard ready to repel attack, till half an hour after sunrise. Scouts on horseback were also sent into the woods each day, with directions to go only so far as to be able to return by nightfall. "Forts" or fortified houses were also erected, as in Waterbury. When later, in 1720, Litchfield came to be settled, it was in turn a frontier town, and as such most exposed to Indian attacks. From 1720 to 1730 five houses were surrounded by palisades; one in the center, one half a mile south, one on the east side, one on the west side, and one at South Farms, now Morris. Soldiers were stationed to guard the inhabitants, both while they were at work in the field, and while attending public worship on the Sabbath. In May, 1722, Capt. Jacob Griswold being at work in a field about a mile west of the center, two Indians rushed upon him from the woods, took him, pinioned his arms and carried him off. During the night following the first day's march, however, he managed to escape with the guns of his captors, with which, keeping them at bay during their pursuit of him the next day, he got back to his family. The next year Joseph Harris, while at work in the woods, was attacked by a party of Indians, and attempting to escape, they pursued him, and finding they could not overtake him, shot him dead and scalped him. This was only five years before Henry Cook, the first settler here, built his log cabin up the river, and thus founded the society of Northbury and the town of Plymouth; and I have sketched this outline of the region north and west, that we might be better able to realize the conditions under which the new community here was planted, and our fathers set up their early homes. It was no child's play. Away up here in the wilderness, among wild beasts and wilder savages, away from friends, amid hardships
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THE " WILDERNESS" AND INDIAN .
and exposures of every kind, it required a degree of courage and fortitude and endurance that we know little of, and for which we should the more supremely honor them. At no small price was purchased the inheritance which we so freely enjoy.
The "Standley Farm," mentioned in the next chapter as being given to Cephas and Enos Ford, by their father, Barnabas Ford, was part of the territory conveyed by the Indians to John Stanly and others of Farmington by the " black lead mine deed." and the confirmatory deed of 1714. It lay in, and embraced the lower part of the village of Thomaston. The surveys of it are in the Farmington records, Book III, p. 229. "Bear Hill" is the hill which you go up past the house of Mr. Grilley, Sen .. the " settlement " farm of Rev. Mr. Todd, the first pastor, lying on it ; the place known as the " Williams place," where Thomas Kelly now lives, being the old parsonage spot. In " the lot laid out for ye sake of a mine," reappears the phantom of mineral wealth, which in the shape of the supposed black lead mine, led to the first investment in the territory by the discoverer from Farmington, and which has haunted the region ever since ; the delusion reaching the crown of amusement, in the reservation which the third John Sutliff made, in all the deeds of land given by him in his later years, of " all mines contained therein," with special designation in one of them of the " lot" (lying on the side-hill north of where Mr. Ransom Sutliff now lives) " known as the Dimon mine ;" the precious metals alone not making up the wealth of the region, but it being rich also in precious gems. The account of the "Common" or "undivided lands" men- tioned in the will, and to which perpetual reference is made in the early land documents, is as follows: The entire territory of the town of Waterbury, with the exception of the eight-acre "homelotts" set off at the outset to each of the first settlers to build his house on, was owned originally in common by the company of those first settlers, who were called " proprietors," and the ownership of each in the common territory his " pro- priety," or, as in Mr. Ford's will, "right." Of the original proprietors, the share owned by each in the common territory was proportioned to the amount he had subscribed towards the settlement of the town, as the purchase of the land of the Indians. and other initial expenses. The total amount of those original subscriptions was nearly £2,600, being exactly £2.5So. Towards this amount, one had subscribed fioo-no one was allowed to subscribe more than this, to guard against monopoly in the ownership of the territory-another £90, another £65. and so on; and accordingly, of the original 2,5So shares in the territory, a pound subscription representing one share in the land, he who had subscribed £100 owned 100 shares, he who had subscribed £90 ninety shares, and so on ; that is the " right" or "propriety " of each settler was proportioned to the amount of his original subscription. The land thus owned in common, the "proprietors" distributed from time to time, in varying lots, among themselves, as there was a demand for it in the market. the allotment in each distribution, to each, being proportioned to
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HISTORY OF PLYMOUTH.
Two Views of Jack's Ledge.
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THE "WILDERNESS " AND INDIANS.
the size of his " propriety," or the number of shares he owned in the total property, the order of choice in the distribution being determined by lot. Thus, if it was agreed to distribute 10,000 acres, to the f100 proprietor was alloted a share of one twenty- sixth of the total amount, and to each lesser proprietor his pro- portionate share. The share of each thus distributed, was issued to him in the form of a " land note" so called. Thus if the share of one, in a particular distribution, was sixty-five acres, he had a land note issued to him of sixty-five acres, which he might take up in his turn (decided by lot) anywhere in the township, of land not yet taken up, or "laid out," as the term was. This allotment he might then sell in quantities to pur- chasers, each particular sale being endorsed on the land note by the " proprietors' measurer," as the surveyors employed for this purpose by the proprietors were called, and so continue to do till the whole amount of land expressed in the note had been sold, in other words till the endorsements on the note amounted together to the face of the note, when, one distribution thus being disposed of, another would be made. Such purchase was called a "lay out," because "laid " or measured out by the " proprie- tors' measurer," who gave to the purchaser a certificate that he had laid out such an amount to him on the order of such a pro- prietor, and the certificate, containing the measurements and bounds of the piece, constituted the purchaser's title to the land. as in ordinary land transactions does the deed. The following is a land order, or " note " of this kind :
" To the Town measurers in Waterbury these may Certifie you that there may be Laid out in the undivided Land of s'd Waterbury to Barnabas Ford Six Acres of Land on John South- mayd's property on the Division Jan. 3d 1738 provided he Lav It Joining to his other Lands, he haveing purchased So much of sd. Southmayd, and may be laid out on the fifteenth of January 1740.
Signed JOIIN SOUTHMAYD, Clerk."
Endorsed : "laid on this note, six acres of land to barnabas ford by me.
WILLIAM JUDD, measurer."
The following is a full " lay out," in the handwriting, save the signature, of Mr. Todd :
" April ye 25th 1740 laid out for Barnaba ford two acres 76 rods of land a litel west of andreses medow beginning at a white oake tree owne of his former Corners then running northward 44 rods to ye first Station butting east upon the highway West on his owne land north on Mr. Sam'll Todd's land laid upon Mr. John Southmayd wright upon ve Deuition granted January ve 3 1739 laid out by me WILLIAM JUDD measurer."
In these "lay outs," each purchaser selecting his land where he pleased, and in such shape as he pleased, only so that the specified amount was included, it happened that certain
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HISTORY OF PLYMOUTH.
undesirable parcels, as rocky side hills, and ledges corners between different lay outs etc., would fail to be taken up by any one, as in that time practically worthless, and thus it has come to pass that there remain in town several pieces of "common or undivided land," which have never belonged, and do not now belong to any individual owner, but are still the property of the original owners of the town or their heirs. Such a piece lies on the hillside south of the late Chas. Adkin's house, and others else- where. The custom is, I understand, for adjoining owners to cut off the wood, which has now value, in turn, and unless some of the ghosts now being disturbed in the old graveyard in Thomaston, appear to challenge them, they are probably safe in so doing. It is somewhat singular, that, after all the changes in the town, certain pieces of land remain in the same condition as to ownership which they were in when Henry Cook built his log cabin here one hun- dred and fifty-four years ago. These remaining pieces of " com- mon land," and the still remaining timbers of the frame of the old first "School hous" will do to go together in our museum of town antiquities. The last "measurer" in this society was Oliver Todd, father of the late Samuel Todd. In the later days of the old measurers, young men, not proprietors' measurers, would do the actual work of survey, and certifying it to the legal measurers, they would sign the lay outs, and thus constitute them legal titles. Apollos Markham did much of this proxy work in his earlier years, and we may be sure did it well.
One of the most interesting sights in the town of Plymouth is the old Indian cave near the Wolcott line, about four and a half miles from Plymouth Center. Jack's Ledge, as it is called, is known to only a few of the older inhabitants with the excep- tion of those living near it. The name Indian Heaven, by which this section was formerly called, is now obsolete. As late as 1830 there were three Indians still in possession, and among them Indian Jack, from whom the ledge has taken its name. The large boulder, which was very likely at one time a part of the main rock, weighs, as near as can be ascertained, about one thousand tons. It forms two entrances to the cave. The open- ing was protected from storms by making a roof of trees and brush. On entering, there is a passage at least twenty feet long and about ten feet wide, leading into a solid rock room which was used for a sleeping place.
CHAPTER V.
SOME OF THE PIONEERS.
Sketch of Henry Cook, the First Settler, Together with Other Biographies of His Followers who Petitioned to Make Northbury a Separate and Distinct Parish. Location of Their Homes, Value of Estates, and What Disposition was Made of Them.
T HE earliest roll of Northbury is the list of subscribers to the petition to the town for winter privileges, bearing date of September 29, 1736, and is as follows :
Henry Cook, John Sutliff, Thomas Blakeslee, Barnabas Ford, John How, Johnathan Cook, John Sutliff, Jr., Johnathan Foot, Samuel Towner, Samuel Frost, Ebenezer Elwell, Gideon Allen, Isaac Castle, Daniel Curtis, John Humaston.
To these is to be added the name of Elnathan Taylor, who was among the signers to a second and successful petition to the same town meeting at which the first was refused. These six- teen men were the pioneers of the town of Plymouth, and, as honoring their memories, we wish to know of each all that can be known.
Henry Cook, whose name heads the roll, was the first set- tler in the town, coming here from Branford, in 1728. He was the son of Henry, of Wallingford, who was the son of Henry, of Plymouth, Mass., before 1640; the earliest settler of Plymouth, Conn., being thus a grandson of one of the earliest settlers of Plymouth, Mass., from which town, doubtless, our town took its name. The English ancestors of the Cooks were from the county of Kent, and were of the Puritan stock. Henry, of Wal- lingford, was one of the original proprietors of that town, coming to it unmarried, about 1674; his brother, Samuel, having pre- ceded him by four years, signing the fundamental articles of the town in 1670. Henry was a farmer, and frequently elected to offices of responsibility and trust by his townsmen. He married in Wallingford, and died there in 1705, aged fifty-one years. Of him it is recorded in the Wallingford records, under date of February 19, 1689-90, " Hennery Cook cast lots (with others) for the Falls Plaine." The town of Wallingford at that time included the present town of Meriden. and " the Falls Plaine"
* Written by the late Rev. E B. Hillard, in 1882.
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HISTORY OF PLYMOUTH.
was what is now South Meriden or Hanover. Henry of North- bury, was born in 1683, and thus was about seven years old when his father made his home in Hanover. He was first married October 8, 1709, and his wife dying within the year, he again married, the next year, Mary, daughter of John and Mary Frost, of Branford, and went there to live; coming from there, as has been said, to Northbury, eighteen years later; Samuel Frost, another of the pioneers, being likely a relative of his wife. He had five children, all probably born in Branford : four sons, Johnathan, who signed the petition of 1736 with his father, and whose name is thus in the roll of the pioneers, Ebenezer, Samuel and Henry; and one daughter, Thankful, the thankfulness of the parents for the gift, perhaps, determining her name. Three of the sons, Johnathan, Ebenezer and Henry, settled in North- bury. Of Samuel I can get no trace. Johnathan married, June 15, 1735, Ruth, daughter of William Luttington, then of North Haven, who followed his daughter to Northbury two or three years later, his name first appearing in the petition to the General Assembly of May, 1738. Ebenezer married, May 10, 1744, Phebe, daughter of Moses Blakeslee, one of the first two deacons of the Northbury church, being chosen to the office at the time of the organization of the church in 1740. They had eleven children ; the mother, who was married in her twenty-second year, being herself one of a family of fourteen children. Two of their children graduated at Yale College ; Justus, the second son, in the class of 1779; and his brother Rozell, seven years younger than he, two years before him, in the class of 1777. Rozell studied for the ministry ; was licensed to preach by the New Haven East Association in 1778, and was settled as the third pastor of the church in Montville, June, 1784, where he remained till his death in 1798.
Henry, Jr., married Hannah, daughter of Nathan Benham, of Wallingford, November 7, 1745, and had seven children. Of these, the fifth, Lemuel, mentioned in Chapter VI, as the last survivor of the revolutionary war.
The founder of the Waterbury American, Edward Bronson Cook, was the great-great-grandson of Samuel, the brother of Henry, Sr., of Northbury.
Mark Leavenworth, grandson of Rev. Mark Leavenworth, third pastor of the Waterbury church, married Anna, great- granddaughter of Samuel, the cousin of our Henry, Sr., and her daughter became the wife of Green Kendrick, Esq., Sr., of Waterbury.
The site of Mr. Cook's house cannot now be positively determined. Two considerations had influence in deciding the location of the homes of the earliest settlers. First, they must be near natural supplies of good drinking water, for use before wells could be dug; and second, it was desirable that they should be within easy reach of natural meadows from which hay could be procured for the use of the cattle in the winter, before there was time to clear up and stock artificial meadows. Accordingly we find that the earliest settlements were, as the
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SOME OF THE PIONEERS.
rule, in the valleys, where, from the overflow of the streams killing the trees, natural meadows were formed. This was the case in the settlement of Hartford, Farmington, Waterbury, and Northbury. These natural meadows were often formed by the overflow from beavers' dams; that below Lyman D. Baldwin's saw mill being one of this kind; the dam which the beavers built, nobody knows how long ago, being still plainly visible at its foot, constructed on the most scientific principles, an arch built in the narrowest part of the outlet, curving up against the stream. In cutting a ditch through it some years since, the logs were found, standing on end, leaning up stream, embedded in the mud which the native builders had packed about them, and with forms still preserved. Many of the homes of the early set- tlers in Northbury also were established near springs of water, as those of Barnabas Ford, Caleb Humaston, John Warner, Daniel Potter, and others.
Of the locality of Mr. Cook's home this only is known. Bronson, in his history of Waterbury, published in IS58, says : "He had a farm on which he lived, on the west bank of the river, not far from the Litchfield boundary." There was a very early settlement up the river. Jeremiah Peck, the first deacon of the Northbury church, living there, and having a daughter Ruth, whom Rev. Mark Leavenworth, then lately "called." a young man, to Waterbury, but not yet settled. used to go up there courting, and preaching in the neighborhood on his visits -- taking for his texts, doubtless, the "new commandment," and parallel passages-thus killing two birds with one stone, and " bagging " at least one of them, for he married the fair Ruth, February 6, 1740, a month before his ordination. Mr. Peck and Mr. Cook doubtless were neighbors, and as we have seen, their families became united in after years by marriage.
Mr. Cook, it seems probable, died not far from 1740. In 1737, Mr. Cook's property was entered in the Waterbury Grand List at £66, standing the fortieth, in amount, in the town, and the seventh among the early settlers of Northbury.
The following is a fac-simile of his signature as appended to the petition of 1736 :
Henrycook
in which, it will be seen, his hand already began to tremble from approaching age. His autograph is the most marked and distinctive of all the early signatures, and denotes strength and independence of character.
He was buried, doubtless, in the old burying ground in Thomaston, though no stone remains to mark his grave.
Taking him all in all, from what we can learn of him, Henry Cook was a man of whom the town has no occasion to be ashamed as its first settler and pioneer founder.
John Sutliff was the second settler in the town, coming to it
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HISTORY OF PLYMOUTH.
as early as 1730; his name being mentioned, with that of Henry Cook, in the vote of the town, dated December 14, 1730, relating to the "school money." Mr. Sutliff was born in 1674; where it is not known. He came here from " Haddam quarter," a part of the original town of Haddam, which was annexed to Durham in 1773. The earliest we learn of him, he was in Branford, where in the records of the church he is enrolled as a member, joining in 1708, and the baptisms of his six oldest daughters (he had eight), viz., Hannah, Mary, Lydia, Abigail, Elizabeth, and Deborah are entered under dates of 1699, 1701, 1704, 1706, 1708, 1710 respectively ; and of his son Abel in 1720. From Branford Mr. Sutliff went to Durham among the first settlers of that town, being appointed a town officer at the first town meeting in 1706; and being one of the inhabitants to whom the patent of the town was granted by the legislature in 1708-going still to Branford to church, and having his children baptized there, till a church was organized in Durham some years later. He had a brother Nathaniel, who was with him in Branford, and went with him to Durham, being also appointed a town officer, viz., constable, at the first town meeting of the latter town. At the same meet- ing it was voted "that the pound be between Nathaniel and John Sutliff, on the E. side of the street," by which it appears that the brothers lived on adjoining farms. On the granting of the patent of the town (1708) John was appointed on a com- mittee with two others, to run the town lines, and the next year, " the town made choice of Sergt. John Sutliff to go to Guilford and elsewhere, to gather what money ye gentlemen that have farms within the town will contribute towards the building of the Meeting house." The explanation of this vote is the follow- ing: The territory of Durham was supposed originally to be embraced within the limits of the adjoining towns; but when their lines came to be surveyed, it was found that there was a tract left, not included in them. This still remaining the prop- erty of the colony, it became the custom, when a citizen had rendered any distinguished public service, as that of Capt. John Mason in his campaign against the Pequots, to reward him by the gift of a farm in the common tract. These owners did not, in many instances, become residents, and accordingly when the town came to be settled, there were no resident citizens repre- senting their property, and so, when the inhabitants came to build the meeting house, though non-residents, they were applied to for aid, and being gentlemen of distinction, it is a token of the high standing of Mr. Sutliff among the early settlers of the town that he was chosen to represent them in their application. His brother, Nathaniel, was also one of the foremost citizens of the new town. In the Durham records, the brothers are mentioned as "of Deerfield," from which it is likely that that town in Massachusetts was their birthplace. There is also a power of attorney, dated " Durham, Oct. Ist, 1715," given by Nathaniel to his brother John, empowering him to collect any debts due him from any persons "within the province of the Massachusetts Bay, and particularly of John Plimpton of the town of Medfield
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