USA > Connecticut > In olde Connecticut; being a record of quaint, curious and romantic happenings there in colonial times and later > Part 4
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).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12
.
59
Saybrook and Guilford, 1880
almost half a century in the gay city, courted and caressed by its highest society, he returned, as old age crept on, to bear its burdens and share its pleasures with the friends of his childhood, under the same old elms that had sheltered him in in- fancy, and here he continued to live until his death in 1867. The poet's grave and monument are shown in the neat Alderbrook Cemetery on the Madison road, about a mile east of the village. The monument is of granite, and bears on its north panel the simple inscription :
Fitz-Greene Halleck, 1790-1867.
with a couplet from his "Marco Bozarris,"
"One of the few, the immortal names . That are not born to die."
On the east panel:
Maria Halleck, 1788-1870. Nathaniel E. Halleck, 1792-1793.
On the west panel :
Israel Halleck, 1754-1839. Mary Eliot Halleck, 1762-1819.
On the south panel is a monogram showing the harp and pen united.
-
60
In Olde Connecticut
It is probable that the poet received his poetic instinct from his mother. The Hallecks, I am told, were of Dutch extraction, and were a cold, phlegmatic race. The Eliots are an old Connec- ticut family, the same that produced the famous Apostle to the Indians, and are described as quick, fanciful and imaginative.
1
CHAPTER V
KILLINGWORTH AND ITS BIRDS
W E were seated on the sunny side of a big bowlder in a huckleberry patch. Below, the bushy hill dropped down to some rocky meadows and cornfields, while southward, over many rocky hills and bushy plains, we saw the blue waves of the Sound, populous with sails, and crossed here and there by the steeple of some ancient hamlet or summer village on the shore.
"Why do you call it Killingworth ?" I asked.
"It was Kenilworth originally," he replied, "named after the English Kenilworth, in War- wick, from which it is said the early settlers came. It was founded by its Indian name, Hammonasset, and so continued to be known until 1667, when it was changed to Kenilworth. In October, 1663, I may explain, the General Court of Connecticut issued its fiat that ' there should be a town at Ham- monasset,' and that same month twelve planters took up their abode here, in obedience, as we sup-
62
In Olde Connecticut
pose, to the dictum of the Connecticut lawgivers. How Kenilworth was gradually changed to Kil- lingworth in the vernacular, and then in the writ- - ten records, until it was adopted as the town's official name, would make a curious study for a philologist."
We had spent the morning driving leisurely through the old town of Killingworth, over brown heathery hills, through patches of forest showing more russet than gold now, beside the winding Indian River, and through thrifty, well-kept farms. In Killingworth village, about five miles from the sea, we had lingered longest. We found here a fine old street, of noble width, a mile and a half long, lined with substantial dwellings and country seats, some of them with that air of antiquity which assures one that generations have come and gone under their roof-trees. We strolled about the village pelted by the falling leaves, and came at length to the burying-ground, whose molder- ing Hic jacets suggested to my friend much in- teresting gossip of some of the once famous char- acters of the place. He began by reading from a mossy monument:
"In memory of Dr. Benjamin Gale, who after a life of usefulness in his profession and a labori-
63
Killingworth and Its Birds
ous study of the prophecies, fell asleep May 6, A. D. 1790, æt. seventy-five, fully expecting to rise again under the Messiah, and to reign with him on earth. 'I know that my Redeemer liveth and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth and my eyes shall behold him.'
"Dr. Gale," said my friend, "was one of the first of that peculiar sect whose vagaries concern- ing the second coming of Christ have made much amusement for the thoughtless. His zeal carried him to great lengths on some occasions, tales of which still linger about the village. He was not so well balanced a man as his contemporary, the Rev. Jared Eliot, D.D. This gentleman was a grandson of the famous apostle to the Indians, and besides being an able divine was an excellent physician, an adept in all the natural sciences so far as they were then known, and who wrote several treatises on agriculture for the benefit of farmers. Perhaps his most important discovery was that the fine black sand found on the shores of the Sound, and in greater abundance on Block Island, was in effect iron ore; after many attempts he succeeded, in 1761, in smelting some of it, for which he was honored with a medal by the London Society for the Encouragement of the Arts.
64 .
In Olde Connecticut
"A man of as great inventive powers as Con- necticut ever produced was born and reared in this village. The story of Abel Buell reads like a romance. A few years previous to the Revolu- tion, he was apprenticed to Ebenezer Chittenden, the old goldsmith in whose shop on the main street yonder were made solid gold and silver ware of all sorts for the village dames. The boy's taste and skill is said early to have made him a favorite with his master. At nineteen he married; at twenty he was detected altering the five-pound notes of the colony into those of larger denominations. The neighbors, it seemed, had frequently seen a light in his window at uncanny hours, and finally a village Paul Pry procured a ladder and climbing up to his window detected him in the very act. So cleverly was the work done by this amateur, that the raised notes could only be detected by comparing them with the stubs on the colony book. Then, of course, there arose a hubbub. Matthew Griswold, afterward the famous governor and statesman, was then King's Attorney, and con- ducted the prosecution; but the prisoner's youth and previous good conduct pleaded so powerfully for him, that the case was pressed as slightly as possible, and a light sentence, for those days, was
65
Killingworth and Its Birds
passed. He was condemned to be imprisoned, cropped, and branded. This sentence, too, was very lightly carried into effect in the following manner: A small piece of his ear was cut off, which was kept warm on the tip of his tongue till it could be placed on the ear, where it soon grew again. The branding was done high up on the forehead, and consisted in holding a hot iron, shaped like the letter F (Forger) against the skin, until the culprit could say "God save the King."
"Buell was imprisoned first at Norwich, but after a while the influence of his friends secured him the limits here at Killingworth. He improved the opportunity to make 'a lapidary machine, ' the first, it is said, ever constructed in this country, and by means of it produced a beautiful ring, con- sisting of a large stone set about a number of smaller ones, which he presented to Matthew Griswold as a token of respect and gratitude. This ring, it is said, procured him his pardon- at least, he was soon a free man. Soon after, about 1770, he removed to New Haven, probably in order to begin unknown a new career. Ber- nard Romans, the earliest American map-maker, was then engaged on his map of North America, and at once enlisted Buell in his service. The
E
66
In Olde Connecticut
west coast of Florida was entirely unknown then, being still under Spanish rule, and Buell was sent to Pensacola to survey and map it. According to Buell's story, the Spanish Governor received his mission with suspicion, and quietly laid a trap for him. One day a merchant whose acquaintance he had made, after complimenting his skill, asked him to show him how to break the Governor's seal, open the letter, and then seal it up again so as to escape detection. Buell unsuspiciously com- plied, and was summarily arrested and imprisoned on an island. Here, however, he succeeded in building a boat, and with a boy for his sole com- panion put to sea, and after a voyage of several days succeeded in reaching one of our southern ports. The map was engraved by Buell and Amos Doolittle, and printed at New Haven during the Revolution from types cast by Buell himself. His work on the map led the Legislature to restore him his civil rights, and after the close of the war he was employed in coining copper pennies for the new Government. A machine he constructed for this work, capable of coining one hundred and twenty a minute, is said to have been the progen- itor of those now in use. He was in England early in 1800, and in one of the interior towns found
-
67
Killingworth and Its Birds
the city fathers in a high state of excitement over an iron bridge recently built, which, through some error of construction, was rendered useless. Buell stopped a few days, and, by introducing some slight changes, remedied the whole matter. He received for his skill, it is said, a purse of £100. He died friendless and alone in the New Haven Almshouse in 1825."
Seated in the huckleberry patch we made some inquiry whether the old town was the scene of one of Longfellow's most charming poems. All read- ers of the poet are familiar with his "Birds of Killingworth," one of the tales told at the Way- side Inn. The legend, it will be remembered, is that the farmers of Killingworth in town meeting assembled put a price on the heads of birds. The poem describes the convening of the town meeting, the preceptor's fruitless plea for the birds, the scenes of destruction that followed the passage of the act, and its sad results, which ended finally in the revocation of the cruel edict; the whole be- ing prettily interwoven with the love of the pre- ceptor for "fair Almira in the upper class, " and its fortunate issue. We asked our friend if the poem was founded on a literal fact, and as he could give us no satisfaction, we applied some
68
In Olde Connecticut
time after by letter to Mr. Henry Hull, the ven- erable town clerk of Killingworth. Mr. Hull's reply was as follows:
- "I received your letter in due time, and as soon as I could, looked in the record of town votes, supposing the town gave a bounty for killing cer- tain birds and animals, but I did not find any vote. One thing I know by actual knowledge: When I was young, say fourteen years, the men in the northern part of the town did yearly in the spring, choose two leaders, and then the two sides formed. Their rules were: The side that got beaten should pay the bills. Their special game was the hawk, the owl, the crow, the blackbird, and any other bird considered to be mischievous in pulling up corn and the like. Also the squirrels, except gray squirrels, and all other animals that were considered to be mischievous. Some years each side would bring them in by the bushel; it was followed up only a few years, for the birds began to grow scarce. This was probably the basis for Mr. Longfellow's poem."
This letter was sent to Mr. Ernest Longfellow, with a request for information on the subject, and elicited the following reply from Mr. Samuel Longfellow, the brother of the poet:
-
1
·
69
Killingworth and Its Birds
" CAMBRIDGE, October 21.
" DEAR SIR: My nephew has handed me your letter enclosing Mr. Hull's in regard to my broth- er's poem, 'The Birds of Killingworth.' I can- not say whether the writer of the poem had ever heard the story of the crusade against the birds which Mr. Hull relates. I found among his pa- pers a newspaper cutting-a report of a debate in the Connecticut Legislature upon a bill offering a bounty upon the heads of birds believed to be injurious to the farmers, in which debate a mem- ber from Killingworth took part. The name may have taken his fancy, and upon this slight hint he may have built up his story. You will observe that in the poem he throws back the time to a hundred years ago. But I cannot speak with cer- tainty upon this matter."
-
CHAPTER VI
NEW LONDON, AN OLD NEW ENGLAND SEAPORT*
A S one glides into the quaint old port of New London, in Southeastern Connecticut, over one of the many coves that form a feature of its harbor, one may get a glimpse, between the an- tiquated warehouses, of several old hulks fast to their piers, and as disconsolate in appearance as anything well can be whose work in life is accom- plished. Nature is slowly breaking them up,- doing what their owners lack the courage to do. Their spars, broken from their fastenings, hang at every conceivable angle above the decks; their cordage is frayed and rotten; flakes of paint have peeled from their seamy sides, and down in their great empty holds the bilge-water ripples an ac- companiment to the murmur of the waves that lap their sides as the tides come and go. These are the whaleships, the agents that brought prosperity and even opulence to the little provincial town.
* From "Lippincott's Magazine." January, 1888.
71
New London
Mare Liberum is the legend on the city seal, and never was a more expressive motto penned. The town is one of the favored few so situated that they must seek their fortune on the seas or not at all. It is prettily built on a bluff or headland having a little plateau at the base, which is in- dented with several small bays or coves, thus giv- ing it a magnificent water front. On the east is the Thames (river it is called, but really an estuary of the Sound), extending inland fourteen miles to the busy city of Norwich, and navigable half its length for vessels drawing twenty-five feet of water. The harbor is the best on the coast, sheltered, capacious, with no bar, no swift currents, no ice, and furnished with a natural breakwater in the hills and vales of Fisher's Island, eight miles from its mouth.
But two avenues of employment were open to the early colonists,-agriculture and commerce. Debarred the first by the rocky and sterile nature of their soil, the men of New London turned with generous confidence to their neighbor, the gray old sea. Unlike the men of Nantucket, however, they were seamen from the first, not mere fishermen. With the aid of good Master Coit they built pin- naces and shallops of twenty and thirty tons' bur-
72
In Olde Connecticut
den, and set out on trading voyages along the coast. They even rounded the Cape of the Cod, and sailed proudly into the port of Boston with their cargoes of peltries and wampum, to be ex- changed for clothing, household goods, powder and lead. A little later, grown bolder, they ex- tended their voyages to Newfoundland, and de- lighted the blue-nosed Gauls of Reynolds' and Petty Harbor with their stores of country-cured beef and pork and other provisions. Their en- terprise also led them southward. They early made voyages to New York, stopping for traffic at every considerable town along the coast, and even ventured as far down the stormy coasts as Virginia and the "Menbadoes" in quest of tobacco, dry hides and buckskins. But these were mere efforts of the fledgling trying its wings, skirmishings along the outskirts of the great field which later they were to occupy in force.
Toward the close of the sixteenth century Mas- ter Coit was succeeded in his shipyard by his son James, and his two sons-in-law, Hugh Mould and John Stevens. These master builders constructed three fine barques. With the largest of these, the "Endeavor," under his command, a brave sea-
Goodwin Morgan ances drive 7/433-5 Com Probatão /118, 60% .
73
New London
man, Captain Samuel Chester, bearing in mind, no doubt, the couplet, that
- - Little ships should keep near shore, But larger craft may venture more,
determined on a voyage to the West Indies. Very quietly he laid in a cargo of provisions, pork and beef well cured, cooper's stock, and several tough, hardy ponies, bought from the neighboring farm- ers, which he judged would find a ready sale on the plantations; then, with his papers duly signed by Master John Smith, the first customs collector of the port, he sailed away around the Fisher's Island headlands and out to sea. Twenty-eight days sufficed to lay his vessel alongside the quay in the tropical island of Barbadoes,-an island prolific of flowers, fruits, and sweets, the lower- most of the pretty group of the Caribbees.
Captain Chester found the planters quite ready to open a trade with his colony, and was home again in less than two months, the hold of his little vessel well filled with sugar and molasses, and, half hidden by the barrels and hogsheads, a cask of rum, shipped by the dons with a view to opening up a trade in the article. Unfortunately for them, however, the magistrates of Connecticut
74
In Olde Connecticut
had observed the bad effects of the Barbadoes ar- ticle on the people of the Massachusetts Planta- tion and, shortly before the "Endeavor's " arrival, had sent down to Master Smith an order sternly interdicting the landing of "Barbadoes liquor, commonly called rum, kill-devil, and the like," in any place in their jurisdiction, under pain of forfeiture to the commonwealth. Captain Chester had, therefore, the pleasure of deliver- ing the precious cask to the authorities, and probably of seeing it knocked down to the high- est bidder on government account, although he lived to see the obnoxious article the most impor- tant and lucrative item in the trade of the two colonies.
As the barrels and hogsheads, bubbling over with sweetness, trundled up from the "Endeav- or's" hold, they opened the eyes of the shrewd, calculating skippers who crowded the wharf, and of the portly, linen-clad merchants whose office windows overlooked the busy scene. From this moment a spirit of unrest, of shadowy hopes and ambitions, seized upon the little community. People began to talk in warehouse, office, store, of the fortunes to be made in the West India trade, and several firms were not slow to embark in it.
75
New London
1
Captain John Jeffrey, a master shipbuilder, was induced to come over from Portsmouth, England. Land for a shipyard was given him in Groton, on the opposite bank of the Thames, and both yards were kept busy supplying the eager demands of the merchants. Docks were constructed, and great barn-like warehouses, which still remain to show how well men builded in those days, were erected, while streets blocked with drays and piers cumbered with merchandise attested the growing commerce of the town.
The palmy days of the West India trade ex- tended from 1720 nearly to the period of the Rev- olution. The annals of few seaport towns portray such pleasant scenes of bustle and animation as were to be witnessed in the port during this era of prosperity. A glance at the map will show that north and west of the town is a large extent of country, of which it is the natural outlet. Its cargoes for export were mostly drawn from this region, which also absorbed the larger share of its imports. These goods were transported to and from the town in heavy, capacious goods- wagons drawn by horses, and sometimes, if the distance was short, by oxen. It was no uncom- mon sight of a summer morning-four vessels
76
In Olde Connecticut
perhaps then loading at the docks for Barbadoes or Martinique *- for a hundred of these creaking, lumbering vehicles to pass in procession down the village street, each drawn by its team of four or six horses, attended by suffocating clouds of dust, and presided over by a red-shirted, sombrero- crowned teamster, bronzed and muscular, and armed with a long whip, which ever and anon he flourished about the ears of the leaders with a re- port like that of a pistol. The wagons were laden with as varied a stock of commodities as their points of departure had been different. There were wheat and pease in bags, and kiln-dried corn in barrels, tierces of hams, barrels of pork and beef, pots of butter, round, savory cheeses from the green pastures of Lebanon and Colchester, and -pleasing break in the uniformity of the line- piles of pipe-staves of aromatic spruce, and hickory hoops neatly shaven in remote country work- shops.
* In proof that my picture is not overdrawn I cite the following extract from the annals of the port: "On the 7th June, 1717, Prentiss, Christophers, and Picket, in their several vessels, arrived from Barbadoes. They left the harbor together, arrived out the same day, sailed again on their return voyage the same day, and made Montauk Point together."
77
New London
Although the wagons now appeared in contin- uous line, they had begun their voyaging at widely scattered points. Some bore the products of Put- nam's rocky farm at Pomfret; others had gathered their stores along the shores of Gardner's Lake and the romantic banks of the Yantic; one had rumbled down from Norwich, perhaps from the near vicinity of the little drug store where Bene- dict Arnold weighed out potions and meditated a military career; while its neighbor had journeyed from Coventry, and was laden, perhaps, with the products of the pleasant homestead which nour- ished Captain Nathan Hale through infancy and youth and imparted the elements of such noble manhood. There were few towns in what are now Tolland, Windham and New London coun- ties but had their representatives in the group. Behind the wagoners frequently came the drovers, with horses and cattle for the plantations. The passing of this motley procession, the creaking, lumbering vehicles, the oaths and gesticulations of the drivers, the clouds of dust, and the occa- sional stampede of frightened colts or steers, at- tracted groups of sightseers, and presented ele- ments of the picturesque that one might go far in these degenerate days and not witness. The
78
In Olde Connecticut
teamsters formed a not inconsiderable guild at this time. In connection with the drovers they had a tavern of their own near the water front, at which they always put up, and where their teams were stabled. Their cargoes sold and unladen, they would assemble at the tavern and indulge in merry carousals, and after large quantities of vile tobacco and viler Barbadoes liquor had been consumed would parade the streets in noisy bands, to the no small dismay of the order-loving citizens. On these occasions, if they fell in with an officer from one of his Majesty's cruisers lying in the harbor home-faring from a visit to some fair Juliet of the town, it generally happened that he found himself and his smart uniform rolled in the gutter. But such breaches of the peace were neither frequent nor flagrant. In the morning, their orgies ended, they shipped their cargoes of sugar, molasses and rum, and returned to their distant homes in much the same manner as they had come.
But the golden days of the West India traffic passed with the closing of the colonial era, never to return. The war of the Revolution closed the port and put a stop to all commercial operations. The town was vastly patriotic during the war, but fought best where she was most at home,-on the
F
79
New London
seas. Her ships were turned into privateers, and, manned by her seamen,-accounted the best and bravest privateersmen that ever floated,-scoured the ocean in all directions in search of the enemy's merchantmen. Many were their adventures, trag- ical and otherwise, many their deeds of prowess; and were it not that the writer's pen is set to record the more peaceful exploits of the merchant marine, he could a hundred moving tales relate in which they figured as chief actors,-tales of attack and repulse, chase, flight, capture, reprisal and strat- agems innumerable,-and how now and then a privateer sailed proudly into the home port, the captured enemy vessel following in her wake with the British lion on her ensign, floating heels up- ward, and the docks lined with eager patriots, who greeted the conquering heroes with salvos of huzzas.
The period that followed the war extending down as late as the year 1819 is one not pleasant to contemplate; those loyal to the city speak of it with a species of pain, and gladly pass it by to present brighter phases of its history. For this entire period, with the exception of transient bursts of activity in 1795 and 1805, the business of the port was at a standstill. There was literally
80
In Olde Connecticut
no inducement for ventures on the ocean. Be- cause France and England chose to be at war, neutral commerce must perforce be swept from the seas, and, in the case of American commerce, at least, this dictum of the powers was fully carried out by the almost insane acts of our own Govern- ment. New London suffered in those days more than many of her sister ports, her trade having been largely with the rival powers and their de- pendencies. The quiet of a rural town settled upon her streets, the brown sea-moss gathered on the unused wharves, great ships lay idly at their moorings until they fell to pieces with age, the rat and cockroach domiciled in the empty warehouses; only the croakers were busy going about the streets and writing "Ichabod!" on the walls.
The first faint waves of the whaling excitement reached the town in 1819; why at this particular juncture rather than before it is difficult to deter- mine. Undoubtedly destiny controlled the mat- ter, for the opportunity had long lain in the city's grasp. Whales had been seen in the Sound from the earliest times, and captured by boats from the shore. Those curious in the matter will find in the records of a General Court held at Hartford, in May, 1647, an order giving Mr. Whiting and
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.