USA > Connecticut > Fairfield County > New Canaan > Landmarks of New Canaan > Part 38
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David Stevens, Sr., the homestead's first oc- cupant, was born in 1690. He was the fourth son of Obadiah Stevens, and the grandson of Thomas Stevens, who owned land in Stamford in 1649. David and his first wife, Jerusha, were
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both members of the Stamford side of the Par- ish. David had ten children-four sons and six daughters-and he was married twice.
According to the records, in the spring of 1761, David Stevens, Sr., sold his corner 60- acre farm, buildings, and fruit trees east of the Noroton River and north of the Mill Road to his third son, Joseph, for 100 pounds. In the fall of the same year, Joseph-for 110 pounds- gave his father 10 acres near the Clefts, and the use of the "west half of the Mansion House, and the east half of the barn . .. excepting only and reserving to myself the liberty to pass and repass to and from and to improve as there shall be occasion the east half of the dwelling house and the west half of the barn."
At this period the house and barn were seemingly shared by the families of both father and son, since Joseph had married Sarah Lock- wood in 1760.
At the time of Rev. Drummond's visit in 1772, he recorded that in the "Mansion House" of octogenarian David Stevens, Sr., were "Tab- itha, (his second wife) and Hannah Scofield, residenter." Joseph Stevens, by then, lived farther north and east on Bell's Ridge with his wife Sarah and six children.
David Stevens, Sr., lived to be almost 90, having spent over 60 of those years in the "Mansion House."
In 1800 Edward Smith bought the gristmill and sawmill and dwelling house standing near the mill dam and, also, a little over two acres just east of the mill pond.
It was from this Edward Smith that Deodate Waterbury, at the age of 38, bought the mill and adjoining home in 1801. After he took pos- session, Deodate moved the house to its pres- ent site and enlarged it. It is from this time that we find more factual details concerning the house. It has been described as "thick-tim- bered, fastened together with wooden spikes. The hinges on the doors are hand-hammercd, some 17 inches long, and the old chimney, of large stones, was put together with plaster from oyster shells."
Deodate, a Revolutionary War veteran of the Continental Army Coast Guard, was a man
of many talents and activities. Grinding oyster shells and converting them into lime and plas- ter was one of his occupations. At one time he kept a grocery store in the west room of his house.
He ran the sawmill, did carpentering; was a cabinet-maker, coffin-maker, undertaker and inventor. He ran the gristmill and designed an elevator run by waterpower to save his cus- tomers carrying grists upstairs to be bolted. He also invented the "first portable hay-press with windlass," and according to the account of Mrs. Margaret C. Merritt, his great granddaughter, his invention was used in the United States for years, virtually as he designed it.
He built some weave-shops across the road from the old mill, where his daughter, Mrs. Betsy Waterbury Weed, wove woolen and satinet cloth. "In the attic of the Waterbury Homestead, bales of wool were stored-with a hole in the attic floor to throw down these bales of wool." The spinning-wheel and card- ing wheel used in Deodate's business are still owned by Waterbury descendants, and one of his descendants owns linen sheets woven by the family from flax prepared by them.
Deodate and his wife, Mary Wardwell Wa- terbury, were members of the Darien Con- gregational Church. Deodate, it is said, "was a good singer and a good looking old gentleman; of medium height and portly figure, his eyes were black, his face round and clean-shaven; with white hair, though a little bald."
He had seven children: Isaac, Rachel, Jesse, Betsy, Anna, Deborah and Charles. Jessc was the great grandfather of the homestead's pres- ent occupants, Helen and Irving Merritt.
When Deodate was incapacitated by ill health, his sons Isaac and Jesse took over and enlarged the business, and finally the "Water- bury Mills" were sold to Isaac, whose sons eventually in turn ran the business until they sold it during the Civil War.
It is said Deodate Waterbury was sitting at a window in his home watching his son Char- les' house being built next door when he died on September 22, 1830, at the age of 67. His wife died 14 years later.
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The Waterbury family ownership of the homestead still continues as it has for 148 years. Since fire destroyed the old picturesque red frame Jelliff Mill on March 11, 1949, the Stev-
ens-Waterbury-Merritt House, so close, and so often closely connected with the mill, is now the remaining one of these historically-related landmarks on the Jelliff Mill Road.
JOHNNY GRUELLE AND HIS RAGGEDY ANN Being a Christmas fantasy rounded out by facts
MARJORIE KNIGHT MACRAE, Author
JUSTIN GRUELLE, Artist
[December 22, 1950]
It was Christmas Eve!
Here in New Canaan, and for miles around, an extraordinary thing was happening. For, out from nursery and playroom windows that were conveniently open-and even from door- ways that people had, purposely or otherwise forgotten to lock on this night of magic- trouped hundreds of odd little doll creatures.
Some came softly down from attics, making no sound on the creakiest of stairs; some dropped just as noiselessly from the highest of shelves in closets and by some means managed to open those doors which in well-run house- holds are always tightly closed; and one came out of a dog house where it had been carried by its devoted admirer, a great shaggy dog, and with whom it had been living a sheltered yet perilous life for no one knew how long.
Down the roads marched the dolls, singly and in groups of twos and threes, and then in larger numbers as they met at crossroads and joined forces on the way. They talked and laughed among themselves as they went and the sound of it was like wind in the trees- sometimes a low murmur and sometimes high- pitched with excitement.
There had been snow during the day so that the hillside and roads were covered with its whiteness. Behind them, the dolls left foot- prints in the snow-skipping, running and walk-
ing footprints of precisely the same size-and the long lines of round prints threaded care- fully along each road and wavered joyously across the fields.
The moon shone brightly on this Christmas Eve, on the dark satin of frozen streams, on silvered icicles bedecking the fir trees, on the dots of the footprints that criss-crossed the tracks of rabbits and of other small furry things out late on Christmas Eve. It picked out, now and then, the brightness of the orange-red hair that flopped abandonedly about the round smil- ing faces of the dolls, gleamed in the intent shoe-button eyes, and turned the blue printed calico dresses to such a depth of darkness that even the smudgiest of aprons upon them seemed snowy white. And the snow, itself, powdered the black cotton shoes and the red and white striped stockings as the little crea- tures wound their gala way in pilgrimage to- ward the Silver Mine River, and to the big rock hard by it, which was known as Tweedeedle's.
Joining hands, the dolls made a double and then a triple gigantic circle on the grassy slope above the rock. Joyously, they danced around and around in the bright light of the moon. Some of them were old and some were new but all of them were well-loved. And from the depths of their constant cotton hearts they sang in piping voices a special song to Johnny Gru-
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elle who had immortalized them, and to Johnny's own little girl, Marcella, who had played there in the sunshine years of her liv- ing. It was a very special song-a birthday one -for Johnny had been born on Christmas Eve.
You can well imagine that all this was an amazing sight, yet no one was abroad to see it, save two or three startled rabbits and one be- wildered field mouse. And whether they, look- ing up from their places close by the river, saw how the Christmas star, now low in the sky, made a steady birthday candle flame for the top of the snow-iced rock, no one will know.
At any rate, it is certain that the dolls might all still be there if it had not been for the magic of Christmas and of Santa Claus. The good man had paused on a hillside for breath and a comforting bite of Christmas cake of which he is inordinately fond. He heard the birthday song long before he caught sight of the dancing dolls below him. Together with the unwinking moon, he could scarcely believe his eyes.
He, it was, who bundled them into the cracks and crannies in his Christmas sleigh, and those who could not possibly fit in rode one behind another on the backs of the fleet reindeer. One by one, each Raggedy Ann was brought safely back to her own home-even to the one who had been the dearest companion of the great shaggy dog.
That was the year when the children, on Christmas morning, found their Raggedy Ann dolls sitting happily among the new Christmas toys. You may remember it, for it caused a good dcal of comment.
Johnny Gruelle was born in Arcola, Ill., on December 24, 1880. He moved with his family to Indiana when he was very little and grew up near Indianapolis in a thoroughly artistic atmosphere. His father, Richard B. Gruelle, was a landscape and portrait painter of the Hoosier group, and wrote articles on art and philosophy; his friends were legion and he came to correspond with people all over the
world. In this respect, as in others, Johnny fol- lowed closely in his father's footsteps.
Johnny began his career as a newspaper car- toonist for two or three Indianapolis papers, among them the Indianapolis Star; then to the Cleveland Press as sports and political car- toonist and for NEA in Cleveland. He married Myrtle Swan in Indianapolis and their first child, Marcella, was born there. Two sons, Richard and Worth, were born here and in Norwalk.
It was in 1910 that Johnny's father, mother, his sister, Prudence, and younger brother, Jus- tin, moved to New Canaan. They had come to live in New York, for a time, on West 23rd Street, where Mr. Gruelle had a studio.
In those days the Eden Musee with its hor- rendous waxworks, rubbed elbows with staid publishing houses on 23rd Street. There were private homes with iron-railed pocket-hand- kerchief bits of grass in front of them, and there were a number of studios. Addison T. Millar, who was one of the pioneer artists to come to New Canaan, had a studio on 23rd Street. After the Gruelle family had left New York and gone back to Indiana, he kept in touch with them and it was he who suggested they look into a beautiful piece of property that might be bought from Fred Buttery. The property lay along both sides of the Silver Mine River. Up- on the west side stood a very old house from which a precipitous flight of rough stone steps led through a stone wall immediately and swift- ly down to the river road, and on the run, so to speak, one crossed the road to what was known as the old "furriers' mill," overhanging a sizable mill pond.
The Gruelle family settled happily in the old house.
The following year Johnny and Myrtle came to visit. They liked it so well that they came back later to stay, moving into the upper story of the mill, which was in good and staunch condition, despite its antiquity. It must have made an excellent studio.
The mill and the old house went far back in New Canaan history and it is sad that neither is there now to be a part of the present. The
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Justin, C. Gruelle.
Tweedeedle's Rock on the Silver Mine River
mill, as the other old mills on the river, had a varied and colorful career. And all of them have been subjects for numerous paintings. Mr. Buttery's sawmill has graced many an ar- tist's canvas. It is a fascinating place. At the moment it is producing, of all things, oak floors for trucks in far off Venezuela.
On April 19, 1762, Jacob St. John gave to Samuel Hayden for {48, ten acres of property "in consideration of Samuel Hayden's build-
ing himself a good corn mill and dam on ye river running to my sawmill, which being built to my full satisfaction, do give and grant, etc.," says the old deed. And a good corn mill the old "furriers' mill" was, and, without doubt, most important to the wellbeing of man and beast in this community.
Although I am given to understand that this applies to one of the lower mills on the river, it has been said that later on the old mill was the
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source of wooden doorknobs which it turned out prophetically for the opening of many a local door to opportunity. At any rate it did, later become a furrier's mill, but the fur con- notation is not exactly what one might expect and be wondering about. For here, fine furry felts were processed under the expert advice of a Mr. Blanchard who was an Englishman and had learned the latest processing methods abroad. And Mr. Blanchard, having come to New Canaan for this special purpose, brought a Mr. Roche, who was likewise experienced, to help him.
Actually there were some real furs involved in the old furriers' mill, for it dealt with the dyeing of sable and fox, the water in the stream being found to be particularly good for that operation.
The Historical Society has in its possession a quaint old hat box upon which is lettered "New Canaan Hat Factory." Despite the fact that it is small, I shall always like to think of it as being at one time a place of safe keeping for one of those beautiful, tall "beaver" hats such as stalk majestically or with gay insouciance through the pages of Dickens. At any rate, Jus- tin Gruelle says he remembers the old drums that were still in the mill, in which the "furs" were tumbled around in some stage of their preparation for the hat makers.
At the time Johnny Gruelle came to live on the Silver Mine River, the artists colony had grown in numbers. And the forerunner of the Silvermine Guild was in existence. It was known as the Knockers Club and its members met each Sunday for a rousing session of joyous jollity and candid criticism. Its members were all portrait and landscape painters, and illus- trators of note. One also had to live in the Silver Mine district to be eligible for member- ship. Johnny's father, Richard Gruelle, was a member.
William F. Weed, who had studied painting under Pyle, but was interested in photography, had a studio in what was the old St. John's ob- scrvatory on St. John's Place and which stood where J. H. Bailey's stone house now is. Mr. Weed and Harry Crissy, both native sons of
New Canaan, organized a group which was called the New Canaan Society of Artists.
Mr. Crissy lives now in Stamford. At that time he lived on Ponus Street. He was a land- scape painter with a flair for beautiful metal craft work. The first exhibition, a combination hanging of paintings and photographs, was held in Mr. Weed's studio. There were yearly exhibitions, some at the Red Barn studio of Maxwell Albert-and one was held in the His- torical Society room in the New Canaan Li- brary. Richard Gruelle joined this group and Johnny was welcomed as a well-known car- toonist.
In 1918, the Knockers Club was reorganized and became the Silvermine Guild, extending its boundaries for membership in more ways than one. And so, the New Canaan Society for Artists disbanded since there was then no need for its continuance.
Some little time after Johnny Gruelle had become a part of New Canaan, the Herald Tribune Sunday supplement offered a $1,000 prize for a comic strip to take the place of Little Nemo. Johnny submitted two strips and when all the thousands of entries were sorted and weeded out, the decision came to rest, at length, upon two. Both of them were Johnny's.
They were sent to Paris to James Gordon Bennet, who owned the Herald Tribune, and he decided upon the prize winner. It was "Mr. Tweedeedle," which ran as a full page feature for a number of years. The other was "Jack the Giant Killer," which was also used. The story for Tweedeedle was straight fairy tale and in all probability paved the way for the eventual Raggedy Ann books.
Johnny loved the outdoors and was an ar- dent devotee of both hunting and fishing. When the telegram arrived announcing that he had won the Herald Tribune prize, it took the combined Gruelle family, together with a number of his friends to find him, for he was far afield, ahunting, and no one knew where.
Johnny built himself a house a little further up the river road and on the far side, around the bend from the old mill. It is now the Telva- Jones house. It sits back from the river with a
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wide and deep grassy slope whose river edge is pointed up dramatically by an enormous moss and fern encrusted rock overhanging the river. This came to be known as Mr. Twee- deedle's Rock. And it was here that Marcella played with her dolls and her little friends un- til she was 13.
Johnny was immensely popular. Everybody liked him. He was a great humorist, a splendid mimic, very good at acting and could play al- most any musical instrument. But he loved the piano and strummed away at it incessantly, playing everything by ear. There were many gay parties at Johnny's house and, when every- one had gone home, he would settle contented- ly to work and continue on in the quiet and hush of night until daylight. It is said that he rarely worked at any other time.
He illustrated one or two children's books and then wrote and illustrated two of his own. "My Very Own Fairy Tales," and "Friendly Fairies." John Martin asked Johnny for stories for the John Martin Book. He wrote and illus- trated stories for children for the Woman's World and did a series of illustrated fairy tales for Good Housekeeping magazine.
James Whitcomb Riley had been a very dear and old friend of Richard Gruelle and Johnny, Prudence and Justin had known him well as children. Many, many years later Riley's poem about "the raggedy, raggedy man" came to be the lilting sound inspiration for Raggedy Ann.
And so the Raggedy Ann stories began. Johnny wrote them and did the illustrations, using as models many of the dolls that had been his own little girl's. The books are a poig- nant and very beautiful memento to Marcella, who did not live to see them, nor actually ever to hear the stories, but who will live on in them, always. The dolls were her dolls, for the most part, and had been carefully christened by her. Uncle Clem, for instance, just naturally fell heir to his name because Marcella thought he looked exactly like her grand-Uncle Clem. The little Dutch Doll and Henny were among her treasures, and so on through the list of these gay, romping little characters.
The first Raggedy Ann book was published
in 1918 and was followed by a large series of them, including a song book which was done by Johnny in collaboration with William Woodin, Secretary of the Treasury under the first Franklin Roosevelt administration. The tunes and words of these songs are familiar to most of us who have children. They are color- ful and full of rhythmic gaiety and sensitive- ness. They are available, as well, on records. And all of us are familiar with the Raggedy Ann dolls. At the beginning of their popularity, Fred Stone incorporated them delightfully into his Stepping Stones Revue, with specially writ- ten songs and music.
Johnny sold his house and the beautiful river property he had acquired from Mr. But- tery, to John Byard and from thence it went to Mme. Telva-Jones, the Metropolitan con- tralto. It was too full of memories of Marcella, apparently. And later on the Gruelle family sold the old house and mill which, unfortunate- ly, were torn down by the subsequent owners, so that all that remains is a pair of steep stone steps leading abruptly up to an ancient founda- tion. And across the road is a mill pond quietly mourning its companion piece, the old "fur- riers" mill. Adeline Hawkes' book, "Broom Be- hind the Door," has in it a story about the old mill as well as a great deal of fascinating local lore covering that whole section along the Silver Mine River.
Johnny's brother, Justin, lives in Silver Mine. He is a portrait painter and an illustrator. Some of his murals are here in New Canaan, one set being in the High School building and another in the Little Red School on Carter Street.
The entire Gruelle family were and are ar- tistic. Johnny's father and mother loved music, and Mother Gruelle, not to be outdone by her artist husband, dabbled merrily with paints. Prudence began writing at the outset, doing a series of bedtime stories for King Features Syndicate, and wrote several children's books. It was only later on in life that she "took to painting." She lives in Florida, now, and makes her living at art work specializing, delightfully enough, in Christmas cards. Justin's wife, Ma- bel, brought more artistic richness to the fam-
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ily. She came from Indianapolis and is both musician and artist. With a well-trained voice, she sang professionally at Chatauqua and in churches. She now conducts a ceramics and applied design class at the Bridgeport Art League.
Justin Gruelle commutes regularly to New York where he is on the art staff of RKO. He il-
lustrates at home, and both he and Johnny Gruelle's son, Worth, have done illustrations for some of the new editions of the Raggedy Ann books. Myrtle Gruelle, Johnny's wife, and his two sons, Worth and Richard, live in Flor- ida and visit here occasionally, so the associa- tion with New Canaan has never been severed.
THE ST. JOHN-BUTTERY-H. M. LEE HOUSE
MARY WATKINS CUSHING, Author
KEITH WARD, Artist
[December 29, 1949]
In the heart of colonial Silver Mine, set four- square on what was then the Huckleberry Path (now Silver Mine Road) just before it turns the corner to plunge downhill over the Norwalk line, stands one of the most enchanting of our ancient houses. It is small, unpretentious, neat and self-respecting. It has stood so long upon its bit of earth that it seems to have been driven down and firmed there by some gigantic, be- nevolent hammer.
But so pleasing is this aspect, so eloquent of solidity, honesty and true homeliness, that it is quite impossible to pass it by without a smile and a nod of friendly recognition for its partic- ular quality. Even Samuel Chamberlain, con- noisseur of New England antiquities, has chosen it for his collection, "A Little House in the Sun," as a nearly perfect specimen of the pre-Revolutionary gabled cottage.
Obviously, by its architectural features one of the oldest dwellings in the district, it re- mains nevertheless something of a mystery house, for no one knows exactly when it was built or who first owned and lived in it. It seems fairly certain, however, that it was one of the St. Johns, probably Nehemiah (1719- 1804).
These St. Johns, we all know, comprised the great founding family of Silver Mine and orig- inally stemmed from a certain Matthias who came to Massachusetts from England in 1631. His son, another Matthias drifted to Norwalk before the turn of the century and fathered the patriarch, Ebenezer, he who became the first big land owner in the Silver Mine district.
That Ebenezer's grandson Nehemiah was the builder of this little house seems clear enough, through a very simple piece of deduc- tion. When the vast acreage in this part of town which was owned by Ebenezer's son Daniel was parcelled out by will to his chil- dren, Nehemiah is the only one of them not geographically located in the document.
As this bit of land likewise escaped tabula- tion and as it is established that Nehemiah certainly built somewhere thereabouts at that time, what is easier and more logical than to bestow it upon him in our imagination and be- lieve, as do all elder residents of Silver Mine today, that this was indeed his original home- stead?
Apparently it was right from the beginning a small individual holding, never just a cottage on a part of a larger farm. It was not even a
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KEITH WARD
The St. John-Buttery-H. M. Lee House
little farm itself, in the sense of the other fam- ily places around it, although it was always productive in its humble way. Within the mem- ory of living neighbors potatoes and corn covered the front and side yards, and other vegetables and herbs crowded around the old grape arbor at the rear.
It always had, besides, the best "well of sweet water" in the whole of Silver Mine, for the refreshment not only of man and beast, but to the great benefit of all growing things. There has always been a profusion of old-fash- ioned perennials and flowering shrubs hem- ming the house in, with lilac thickets at the corners, and garnitures of climbing roses and wisteria with stems as thick as a man's arm. Commerce has touched it, too, for during the
middle of the last century, when Silver Mine was a thriving little industrial community, the house served a term as a shoe and cobbling shop.
A plain little work-a-day house, not even considered important enough-or perhaps not roomy enough-to be a "Visitation House," al- though in 1772 when the Rev. Drummond made his rounds it was most certainly stand- ing and already well aged. It makes no great pretensions, other than the simple facts of its wide hearths, its Dutch oven, its summer- beam, the picturesque irregularities in its floor levels, its wide apple-wood boards, and the un- shakeable solidity of its chamfered and dow- elled frame.
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