USA > Connecticut > New London County > Stonington > History of the town of Stonington, county of New London, Connecticut, from its first settlement in 1649 to 1900 with a genealogical register of stonington families > Part 12
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After the enactment of the law of 1795, giving the selectmen of the several towns of our State authority to lay out highways, the entire expense of which was to be paid by a tax on the polls and ratable estate of the towns, the larger number of our high- ways has been laid out by the selectmen subject to ratification or rejection by action of said town, in lawful meeting assembled.
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HIGHWAYS.
After the close of the Revolutionary war the mails between New York and Boston via New London and Newport were to be carried by mail stages and passed over this old post road until Long Point, now Stonington Borough, claimed and obtained a diversion in their favor, previous to which their mail matter had been mostly carried by coasting vessels. When the mail stages passed through Long Point, their route lay from the head of Mystic to the farm residence of the late Thomas W. Palmer, thence down to Long Point and over the highway to Pawca- tuck Bridge. In 1784 Dr. Charles Phelps and William Williams, Esq., represenatives of Stonington for that year, were instructed as agents of the town to prefer a memorial to the General As- sembly at New Haven, praying for a lottery scheme, to be granted said town, to raise three hundred pounds lawful money, to enable them to build a bridge across the cove, called Lambert's Cove, from Pine Point to Quanaduct; also voted at said meet- ing to instruct Messrs. Paul Wheeler, Phineas Stanton and Edward Hancox, to measure the highway from Long Point to New London, by the contemplated road, via said bridge, so as to enable Messrs. Phelps and Williams to show the Assembly the saving by the bridge route.
In 1785 the General Assembly of Connecticut passed the fol- lowing preamble and act as follows, viz. :
"Whereas the congress of the United States have directed that the public mails in future shall be carried by stages and it is necessary that the public roads be repaired immediately on the routes used by the stages; Therefore,
"Be it enacted by the Governor, Council and Representatives in general Assembly convened, and by authority of the same that the Selectmen of the several towns through which the stages charged with the mails pass; do immediately mend and repair the bridges and roads used by the stages and keep the same in good repair; and when complaint is made to the County Court of any neglect in either County such county shall order necessary repairs and grant a warrant against the Selectmen of the town where such neglect is found, to collect the sum to be expended in repairs from the selectmen of the town or towns so neglecting their duty."
The town of Stonington did not readily comply with the requirements of this law, nor did the towns generally through- out the State; the principal reason that induced this town to disregard its provisions were, that the stage route through this town was so circuitous that it was deemed advisable by some to lay and build a more direct road, for the stages from the head
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HISTORY OF STONINGTON.
of Mystic to Long Point; the necessity for such a highway had been previously considered by the town. The year before a committee was appointed to apply to the General Assembly for a lottery scheme to raise money to build a bridge over Lambert's. Cove from Pine Point to Quanaduct, which did not succeed .. The inhabitants living in the southern part of the town favored the new road, those residing in the northern part were opposed to it. Both sections agreed in one thing, and that was that the stages being the property of companies, they did not think it right to tax the people to build and repair roads for their benefit.
Aside from such considerations, the people at Long Point and Mystic felt the necessity of the proposed highway for common convenience and the general good. The difference of opinion relative to the repairs on the old post mail stage road, and the building of a new highway from Mystic to Stonington, resulted in a serious controversy between the inhabitants residing in the upper and lower sections of the town. Similar controversies arose from the same cause in other towns in the colony, and the result in general was that the stage routes were not much improved. The expense of building a bridge over Lambert's. Cove was the tug of war in this town, that prevented anything of consequence being done toward repairing the old stage route; other objections were but secondary considerations.
In 1794 another effort was made to procure a lottery scheme for building said bridge, which resulted in failure. The pressure was so great upon the General Assembly of that year and the. next, in favor of improving the stage routes, that a committee of three, consisting of Samuel Mott, Joshua Huntington and Simeon Baldwin, Esq., were appointed in 1795, to straighten by a new lay the great post road from New Haven by Dragon's Bridge eastward to New London Ferry, and so on to Pawca- tuck Bridge. This committee proceeded to discharge the duties of their appointment, and so far as their survey went, straighten- ing said road, it may be called a success, but nothing was ever done in this town or in pursuance of their survey or the act of the Assembly to straighten or repair the old post road or any other road, nor can their survey be found in our town records or files, or in our State archives.
The town in 1796 remonstrated in the most solemn manner . against said lay, appointing a committee of their ablest men to-
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oppose and defeat the same if possible. Uniting with other towns similarly situated, they defeated it and succeeded in creat- ing so strong a current of feeling against the mail stage com- panies that no further direct action was taken by the Assembly to compel the towns to build and repair highways for their special benefit. Some of the mail stage companies had by this. time petitioned the Assembly for liberty and authority to lay out and construct highways of their own, with the right to place turnpike or toll gates thereon. During the latter part of the year 1796, Elijah Palmer and others of this town made applica- tion to the County Court, for a new road from Long Point to Mystic, now Old Mystic, which did not succeed. Stonington as a whole did not favor said road, for the town at a legally warned meeting thereof, appointed a committee to oppose said application, and also directed the selectmen to view the road from Mystic River to Pawcatuck Bridge, for the purpose of straight- ening and repairing the same, and report their doings to the next town meeting. To what town meeting they reported is not known, but in the year 1800 the town voted in legal meeting assembled, to expend the sum of four hundred dollars on the road used by the mail-stages from Old Mystic to Pawcatuck Bridge via Stonington Point, and directed the selectmen to straighten the same, which they did and reported their doings to the town, without stating how much of the appropriation they had used in straightening and repairing said mail stage route, through this town.
The mail stage companies or the town were not satisfied with the proceedings of the selectmen. The stage companies gave up their efforts to compel the town to keep up their route here and turned their attention to the construction of a turnpike road for the use of their mail stages. But the controversy over the Mystic Road and Pine Point Bridge over Lambert's Cove was continued with unabated energy. In 1801 a petition was pre- ferred to the Court of Common Pleas, signed by Noyes Palmer and others, for a highway from the Baptist meeting-house in Stonington Borough to the old post road, at the town landing at Old Mystic. The court ordered an investigation of the matter in question, and appointed Benjamin Coit, John .G. Hill- house and Ezra Bishop, Esq., to hear and report upon the feasibility of the proposed road. The protracted sickness and
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HISTORY OF STONINGTON.
death of Mr. Bishop delayed the proceedings of the committee until the next year, when the court appointed Mr. Joshua Hun- tington in the place and stead of Mr. Bishop, who upon a thorough examination of the proposed route for said highway, and evidences pro and con relative to the same, proceeded to lay out a road from the Borough of Stonington to Mystic, sub- stantially as the road is now travelled, except near the head of Mystic, where a subsequent change, placed it where it now is. The remonstrances of Mr. Joshua Brown, and a plea for a jury to re-assess damages to him occasioned by the lay of said road over his premises, delayed the proceedings in court until 1803, when the layout thereof was accepted and declared by the court. The opposition to this road by the inhabitants of the north part of the town increased to such an extent that an effort was made to divide the town, which did not prevail at the time. The opponents of the road were in the majority, and pending the proceedings connected with the layout of the same, the town re- monstrated again and again in the most solemn manner and petitioned the General Assembly to interpose in its favor, but all to no purpose. The town repeatedly asked the Assembly for a lottery scheme to defray the expense of building the bridge over Lambert's Cove and finally obtained one which from bad man- agement resulted in a failure and was finally sold for a mere trifle. Some of the inhabitants headed by Mr. Amos Wheeler associated themselves together and petitioned the General Assembly for a Ferry charter over Lambert's Cove from Pine Point to Quanaduct. After a full hearing thereon the petition- ers were given liberty to withdraw. But their defeat before the Assembly did not abate the opposition to the building of the highway and bridge, but rather increased it, and to such an extent that it resulted in the division of the town in 1807.
The town of Stonington did not give up the idea of defeating this new road, after their northern neighbors had left them alone to fight it. They continued to oppose it by remonstrance, and by every conceivable obstruction that they could invent they de- layed its opening until 1815, when it was in part built and opened by the sheriff of the county. So from 1784 to 1815, this town was more or less engaged in a bitter contest about this road and bridge. It was traversed by the hated mail stages as soon as
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HIGHWAYS.
opened and gave them a more direct and level route from Mystic to Westerly.
The bridge first built over Lambert's Cove was barely wide enough for a single team to pass, with a long wooden span, in the middle; subsequently it was widened and a middle pier constructed, leaving two spans. Those interested in the mail stage companies, in 1816 petitioned the General Assembly for a turnpike charter from Groton Ferry to Westerly, designing to pass over the new road.
The town did not oppose the grant of the charter, it only asked that the committee appointed to lay out the turnpike road should not be confined to any particular route through this town. Owing to a variety of causes, the charter for the said turnpike company was not granted until 1818, when the request of the town was complied with, giving the committee appointed to lay out the road, liberty to select any route they might prefer. The committee, after examining the proposed route defined in the petition, and other routes, concluded to follow the direction of the old post road, in the town of Groton, changing it for the better in several places. But when they reached the head of Mystic, now Old Mystic, instead of following the new mail stage route through Stonington to Westerly as prayed for, they turned to the left, following in part the country road from the town land- ing at Mystic to North Stonington, until they reached Wolfneck, thence turned easterly through Stonington and North Stonington to Hopkinton city, connecting with a turnpike from thence to Providence, R. I. When the turnpike road was completed, it became the through mail stage route from New London to Providence and Boston, carrying also passengers to the full extent of their ability.
The construction of the new road from the head of Mystic to Stonington Borough, and the turnpike road from Mystic to North Stonington and Hopkinton city, deprived the old post road of its importance as a postal route, though post riders carried newspapers and private mail matter over its long beaten tracks for a good many years, and until the railroads and steamboats diverted the transmission of such matter to other routes. The old post road was first laid along the track of the Indian path, between Narragansett and Pequot (now New London).
It was followed by Capt. John Mason and his famous seventy-
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HISTORY OF STONINGTON.
seven men in 1637, until they reached Taugwank Hill, where they held their council of war, the afternoon before the battle. After leaving Taugwank they deployed to the north somewhat to avoid Quaquataug Hill, for fear of exposing themselves to the keen eye of the Pequots on Mystic Hill and fort in Groton. It was on the north side of this road at Anguilla that Canonchet, after refusing to treat with the English for peace, was executed by the friendly Indians acting under the orders of the English officers. The layout of the town lots on both sides of this road on Agreement Hill in Stonington, and the erection of the meeting-house there in 1673-74 made it the business center of the town, and in consequence thereof it received the name of the Road, which is still applied to the region around the town hall and the present meeting-house there. It was at the Road in the first meeting-house there, that the King's commissioners met repeatedly to hear and determine the matter of jurisdiction between Rhode Island, Connecticut and Massachusetts. The commissioners to hear and report to the king the evidence in the celebrated case between the colony of Connecticut and the Mohegan Indians as supported by the Mason family, relative to various land titles, met and held their sessions for several days in this meeting-house in 1704. Such Commissioners' Courts were called the King's Courts and were regarded with great respect and consideration and the occasion of their sitting drew together almost the entire population of the town at the time to witness their proceedings.
The General Court of Connecticut in recognition of the gallant services of Major John Mason in the Pequot war of 1637, granted him in September, 1651, an island in Mystic Bay, then called Chipachaug (now known as Mason's Island), with one hundred acres of upland and ten acres of meadow, near Mystic River, where he should make choice.
November 15, 1651, the town of New London gave him a grant of one hundred acres of land to adjoin his colonial land. Major Mason located both of those one hundred-acre grants of land on the main land east and northeast of his island. The layout thereof by the town surveyor was very liberal and em- braced more land than is now contained in the large farms of Mr. Nathan S. Noyes and of the heirs at law of Mrs. Mary Fish, deceased. Subsequently the town of New London gave him a
4
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HIGHWAYS.
right of way to the then contemplated meeting-house in Ston- ington, which was afterwards erected on the west slope of Palmer's Hill. This right of way was laid out to Major Mason sixteen rods wide, beginning at Pequotsepos Brook, a little way below the old county road, east of the village of Mystic, thence easterly along the south side of Capt. George Denison's second grant of land in Stonington, now known as the south boundary line of the farm that belonged to the late Mr. Oliver Denison, deceased; through the field next north of Mr. Jefferson Wilcox's dwelling-house, following the south line of said Denison land to Mistuxet Brook above where it falls into Quiambaug Cove, thence still further east over Palmer's Hill, leaving south of it one hundred and two acres of the late Deacon Noyes Palmer and other lands, passing just south of the Palmer burial place, and on east to Blackmore's Head (a rock so called), a short distance southerly of the junction of the Flanders with the old Stonington and Mystic road.
This sixteen-pole rightofway was bequeathed by Major Mason to his sons, Hon. Samuel Mason and Lieut. Daniel Mason. That part of it between Pequotsepos Brook and the land of the em- igrant, Thomas Miner, was held by Mr. Samuel Mason, his heirs and assigns. That part of said way, from the west side of the said Thomas Miner land to Blackmore's Head, was held by Lieut. Daniel Mason, his heirs and assigns.
It has hitherto been claimed that this sixteen-pole highway, with slight variations, furnished a tract for the highway now leading from the village of Mystic to the Road meeting-house, but such a claim is a wild guess, for the only place where said highways ran along together was a short distance between the Pequotsepos Brook and a point a few rods east of the old school-house site. Nor did the sixteen-pole highway extend west of this brook into the village of Mystic. The present high- way from Mystic to the old meeting-house at the Road, with slight variations made therein by the town of Stonington, is a county highway, laid from Pistol Point to the old Road meeting- house, which stood at the time a few feet west of the present church edifice there.
2
BRIDGES AND FERRIES.
Stonington being situated between Pawcatuck River on the east and Mystic River on the west, required bridges to enable people to travel east and west therefrom. The first bridge was built over Pawcatuck River as early as 1712, the funds to pay the cost thereof was raised by Capt. Joseph Saxton of Stonington and Capt. John Babcock of Westerly. The Governor and Council of Connecticut, sitting officially at New London April 8th, 1712, gave their consent for the erecting of the bridge as per the subscription briefs of Capts. Saxton and Babcock, which provided for its completion in eighteen months. In 1720 this bridge began to need repairing and the Connecticut Assembly sitting at New Haven, in October of that year passed an order :
"That there be paid out of the Public treasury the sum of ten pounds towards the good repairing of the west half of said bridge between the towns of Stonington and Westerly, in such manner in specie as the rates of this Colony for defraying the public charge shall hereafter be paid in, and the remainder of the charge of the repairing of the said one half shall be paid by the town of Stonington; and that the selectmen of said town shall take effectual care that the said half part of said bridge be well repaired forth- with.
"And whereas the town of Stonington are at no great charge about the bridges in the county and within their own town, in comparison of what many other town are, 'tis therefor ordered by this court, that after the said half part of the bridge is well repaired, it shall always be maintained, and kept in good repair by the said town, untill the Court shall order otherwise."
The town of Stonington not relishing the idea of being con- pelled to keep the bridge in repair, and believing it to be the duty of the colony and not the town, neglected to repair it, nor did the colonial authorities move in the matter at all until the October session of the General Assembly of 1721, when they passed this act :
"Whereas this Assembly has been certified that the bridge between Ston- ington and Westerly is so far gone out of repair, that the limbs and arms of travellers are endangered thereby, notwithstanding the provision made for-
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merly by this Assembly for repairing it in conjunction with the Government of Rhode Island, upon which nothing has yet been done, and whereas the Governor upon Correspondence with the Government of Rhode Island, for that end has received a letter from Isaac Thompson, Esq., of Westerly, a justice of the peace, signifying that the Assembly of Rhode Island has offered fifteen pounds to be drawn out of the Treasury of that colony for repairing half the said bridge, and that he has the order of that government to cause the said money to be applied to that service, if this government shall agree to repair the other half of the same. It is therefore ordered that fifteen pounds in the whole shall in like manner be drawn out of the Treasury of this Colony for the said end, and that it shall be put into the hands of Mr. John Noyes and Mr. Stephen Richardson of Stonington, who are hereby empowered to apply the said money to the said end, in conjunction with the said Thomp- son, or any other person who shall be empowered, to apply the like sum to the repair of the said bridge on the behalf of the Government of Rhode Island.
"And the said Mr. Noyes and Mr. Richardson are hereby ordered to use their best endeavors to cause the said repairs to be made as soon as may be, and in the meantime to endeavor that the said bridge may be so constructed at each end as to prevent the hurt which travellers are in danger of."
Though the government of Rhode Island had assumed the liability of repairing one-half of said bridge, yet the colony of Connecticut did not intend by the act of their Assembly to ex- pend more than ten pounds in repairing the bridge, so they supplemented their act of 1721 by the following proviso :
"And whereas it was ordered by this Assembly in October last, that the town of Stonington should be at all the charge for repairing one half of the said bridge above the sum of ten pounds, which was then ordered to be drawn out of the public treasury for that end.
"It is now ordered that instead thereof the townsmen or selectmen of said Stonington do raise, in the usual manner upon the inhabitants of said town the sum of five pounds in money, and cause the same to be paid into the treasury of this colony at or before the first of May next."
In obedience to the order of 1721, the selectmen of Stoning- ton, acting in conjunction with the Rhode Island authorities, repaired the bridge so as to make it passable. It was a slim concern, barely wide enough for a single ox-team to pass, but as all the travel of those days was on horseback (except by ox- team), it answered very well the purpose for which it was designed. The bridge then repaired lasted for about ten years. The town of Stonington still adhering to their belief that a bridge uniting two colonies should be erected and kept in repair by the colonies, and not by the town, that simply furnished the ground for the abutments thereof to rest upon, so they refused to repair
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HISTORY OF STONINGTON.
the west end of the bridge, until it became unsafe and almost impassable, when, in 1731, the General Assembly of the colony of Rhode Island passed an act relative to said bridge as follows : "Upon the petition of Capt. Oliver Babcock and Capt. William Clark, setting forth to the Assembly the necessity of rebuilding Pawcatuck bridge, which is now quite gone to decay, and ren- dered impassable either for man or horse; and praying that a sufficiency of money may be drawn out of the general treasury for rebuilding this government's part thereof. It is voted and enacted that there be allowed and drawn out of the general treasury a sufficiency of money for building the one half of said bridge, in case the colony of Connecticut will build the other half, and that the colony of Connecticut be acquainted there- with." This act of the Assembly of Rhode Island was trans- mitted to Connecticut, and at the May session of its General Assembly the following act was passed: "Upon consideration had on the act of the General Assembly of the colony of Rhode Island, respecting the building of a bridge over Pawcatuck River, ordered by this Assembly, that the secretary of this colony send a copy of that act of this Assembly to the secretary of the colony of Rhode Island, made at this session in October, 1720, wherein the town of Stonington is ordered for the future to keep in repair one half of the bridge over Pawcatuck River at their own charge; and that the town of Stonington take notice thereof and conform themselves accordingly." The town of Stonington did not readily yield to the act of the Assembly, nor did they repair the bridge as ordered for several years. They were strengthened in their position by the act of the General Assembly of Rhode Island in assuming the entire expense of one half of the bridge on the part of that colony. They reasoned that if the colony of Rhode Island should build or repair the east end of the bridge, then the colony of Connecticut should build and repair the west end of the bridge; but the colony of Connecticut thought otherwise; they said that because the town of Stoning- ton was subject to less expense than most other towns in the colony on account of bridges that they should build and maintain one-half of the bridge over Pawcatuck kiver, no matter what the colony of Rhode Island should do in the premises. The town of Stonington still refused to repair said bridge, but the colony of Connecticut was equally determined that they should repair
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