USA > Connecticut > Fairfield County > New Canaan > Landmarks of New Canaan > Part 40
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The national parks in those days lacked not only guards and hotels or other accommoda- tions of any sort but even roads by which they could be entered. Unable to induce Congress to provide the funds, he persuaded a wealthy friend to join him in buying a privately owned road across a part of Yosemite National Park, which had been built by a mining company be-
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fore the creation of a park. He travelled far and wide, describing the wonders and the re- creational possibilities of the parks and mobil- izing the parks' friends and putting them to work to spread the gospel. At his own expense he took writers and photographers to the parks and then turned them loose as converts. He also persuaded the railroads to contribute a sum of money with which he published a hand- some portfolio of pictures, of which a hundred thousand were distributed. In Sequoia Na- tional Park he purchased large privately owned tracts with his own funds and deeded them to the government. In several other parks he per- suaded well-to-do-friends to do likewise. He found that few members of Congress had ever visited the parks; each summer thereafter he conducted parties of them into the wilderness. After several of these Congressional excursions his battle was substantially won, since Con- gressmen became champions of the work.
There remained the tremendous task of pro- viding transport and shelter for the hordes- now the millions-that annually visit the parks. This was done largely by private capital, at rates fixed by the government. Finally he had to face and defeat enemies who tried to have him ousted because he refused to allow the Grand Canyon to be exploited for private gain -in which case he was vindicated by the Supreme Court. Finally, after fifteen years of work, his health forced him to resign, after serving under three presidents, Democratic and Republican, and five Secretaries of the Interior. Today, in each of the National Parks, there is a bronze plaque commemorating the memory of the great public servant who made them really available to the public as they are today.
The house, "properly modelled after the usual style of New England architecture," with a central chimney and two stories and an attic, has the usual symmetrical facade with four
windows and a central door on the first floor and five windows on the second. It now has two substantial wings which are well subordin- ated so that the original house retains its com- plete identity and integrity. Few changes have been made inside the house. The two front (south) rooms on the first floor are now parlor and dining room, respectively, with original corner cupboards and original panelling in the dining room. In the parlor is an attractive pine grandfather's clock, that belonged to Deacon Joseph, while the highboy in the dining room has already been mentioned. The kitchen, with its gigantic fireplace, occupied the central por- tion of the rear of the house, with a small room adjoining it to the east end and the "borning room" to the west. The latter, kept warm by its nearness to the great fireplace, was where every child born in the house has been born- and, incidentally, where most of the deaths in the house have occurred. The borning room has now been made into an entrance hall, while the kitchen and small east room have been thrown together to make a long attractive living room with low, beamed ceiling.
On the second floor are bedrooms in each of the front corners of the house-one containing a maple canopy bed that was part of the orig- inal furnishings of the house. Behind the chim- ney was a long, narrow and largely unfinished room the length of the house, which served as guest room and, on occasion, apparently as dormitory.
Stephen Mather Road, which used to be the farm cow lane, runs in front of the house. A short distance across Brookside Road to the southeast-where in earlier years, before so much of the adjoining land went back to the Indians, the Sound used to be plain sight-is the Mather family burying ground, where many of the family "lie awaiting the Resur- rection Day."
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HOUSE OF WILLIS N. MILLS
ESTHER MILLS, Author
WILLIS N. MILLS, Artist
[January 19, 1950]
When we purchased our land from the New Canaan Country School, we knew that it had been one section of the apple orchard of the Grace Church Farm. Not until we started the search for the history did we discover that there had been a house here before the American Revolution. The house was owned by various members of the Seely family, a family whose names have been found in the lists of those who served in the Pequot Wars down through the Revolution.
In 1630 a Robert Seely came from England on the "Arabella," bringing with him his wife, Mary, and two sons, Obidiah and Nathaniel. A Stamford debt record places the son Obidiah in this region in 1649, and he also is mentioned as receiving some land in return for his services in the wars against the Indians. Some of his descendants gradually moved out to Ponasses
Ridge, and we believe that it was John Seely (1693 to 1756) who first built on this land.
Of his many children, one Abijah Seely (born 1733) is mentioned in family letters as having "lived in the old homestead on Ponus Street." Abijah attended church not only on Sundays, but on all Church Holy Days and, having been in the Stamford parish, he was naturally glad to see the establishment of a branch of the Episcopal Church in New Ca- naan, and served on the first committee to en- gage a minister in 1791.
Fortunately there are copies of two of his letters written to a son, Thomas, who had moved to Ohio. In addition to urging his son to keep to a Christian way of life, he gives us a small picture of the times in 1797. He writes of the winter as being difficult: "Money is hard to get and stock is low. We have had a hard
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long winter," but with summer coming he is more optimistic and mentions that "the car- penter business is in good demand, and like to continue." He describes a new set of mills be- ing built on Bishop Cove in Stamford and the need for ship builders.
We deduce from these same letters that one son and namesake, Abijah, 2nd, was engaged in one of these trades (having sold his plow and left the farm). Fondness for the Episcopal Church brought this same son back to Ponus Street. In 1790 he married Johanna Bates, and later, according to letters "rebuilt the old homestead of his father, although the property was reduced in size after a brother, Simeon, and sister, Abigail, had adjoining farms, parts of the original purchase from the Sachem of the Toquams" (Stamford Herald, June 29, 1881).
In 1802 Abijah, 2nd, attempted to settle the claims and ownership records of his large and complicated family, he was one of ten children. He purchased or made exchanges of land with his brother Simeon. In one of the land records, reference is made to the six acres remaining to him "together with my right to the buildings standing thereon, except that part of the dwell- ing set to the widow (his mother) and reserv- ing to myself the east end of the barn and the - right to take away the same."
Of the eight children of Abijah, 2nd, and Jo- hanna, some married and moved away; others married and lived nearby with relatives. One son was reported to have been lost at sea so there was only one unmarried daughter who remained at home with her mother after Abi- jah's death in 1839.
She took care of any nearby relatives who were ill or in trouble, and provided a home for her nieces and nephews when she could. One of these grateful nieces was Sarah Ann Seely, a teacher well known in Stamford. It is from the family records and letters kept by Sarah Ann Seely that we have been able to gather most of the information we now have about the land.
Back in 1938, however, when we bought the land, there was no visible indication of this long history. The foundations of the old home-
stead had been covered over, the apple trees were old and beaten, and the stone walls were a tumbled mass. No, it was not history, but an answer to their particular requirements that led the architect and his wife to these two fine acres at the west end of Frogtown Road.
What they wanted was privacy on the ter- race and garden side of the house. They also had an eye for a short driveway, having had experience with a snow shovel in a New Eng- land winter. If possible they wanted a slope and view to the southeast so that the terrace would be shaded by the house from the hot afternoon sun and still catch the pleasant morn- ing light. The property seemed perfect. It lay on the south side of Frogtown Road and ful- filled all of the "musts" with a few fine shade trees thrown into the bargain.
The house is sited close to the road on the north side, under the spread of a noble ash and behind a clump of leaning birches. This face of the house shows only a few windows, ex- cepting the studio where the large area con- trasts sharply with the grey beaded redwood siding. The west end of the house comprises the service entrance, garage, vegetable garden and orchard. The south and east sides have large glass areas and open onto the flower gar- den and outdoor living area.
Most of this can be seen and enjoyed from the sheltered terrace on the east end of the house. This is shielded from the north by a wall, but is open to the garden and lawn, and affords a pleasant and ever changing view to the northeast over the rolling Connecticut hills. An open fireplace on the porch makes it a popular spot during chilly evenings in autumn and spring and also affords a convenient place for outdoor cooking.
The rather compact flower garden extends eastward from the terrace. It is separated from the road by a high hedge of hemlock and vi- burnum and terminates in a vine-covered per- gola and a few fine trees at the east end. The garden was planned at the same time as the house in order to present a planned picture from each window and to reinforce the outlook and orientation of the house itself.
The windows on the south and east sides are
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topped with a cantilevered cypress trellis now covered with a vigorous growth of purple and white wistaria. This lends an efficient and col- orful protection from the hot summer sun and still admits a maximum of welcome winter sun- light after the leaves have fallen.
The first floor plan is dominated by an ell shaped living and dining room served by a compact kitchen at the west end. A studio workroom opens from the hall on the north. This room doubles as an efficient guest room, when necessary, by the inclusion of a bed which folds into the wall and is counter bal- anced for easy operation by an amazing assort-
ment of springs contrived by the architect and the builder. A wide lighted stair behind the glass blocks on the north side leads to four bedrooms and a sleeping porch on the second floor. The house was built by Ernest Greene of New Canaan.
While the house was being built in 1938, and when it was first finished, it attracted the stares and amazed comments of New Canaan. Eleven years later, in 1949, it is considered a slight variation from the traditional or-what it was always intended to be-a simple frame house suiting the owner's purpose and taking every advantage of the land.
PLATT-CASSELL HOUSE
ISABEL D. LEE, Author
JOHN H. CASSEL, Artist
[January 26, 1950]
The Cassel house stands on the upper side of River Road, a little south of the Buttery Mill and about midway between the bend of the river and Silvermine Tavern.
The house is built into the side of the hill, three stories in front and two in back. Retain- ing walls, paralleling the road, hold back the ground in a pattern of levels which are like ex- tensions of the house, and the rounded top of the hill and open woodland form the back- ground.
A sawmill once belonged to this house, and the land ran down to the river, known as the West Branch. The six acres, "be it more or be it less," were deeded with "an incumbrance of a driftway on the east part thereof." River Road was simply a right of way, giving access to the mills.
This was a productive valley. The river ran high and clear, furnishing plenty of power to turn the mill wheels. A man could get his fur cap from Blanchard's factory, and his wife her
cotton cloth from Joseph Crocker's cotton mill. The valley supplied corn meal and flour, made ship's timbers and wooden knobs; and down at the slitting mill, Nathan Beers and William Glover forged machine parts. Fifty years ago, you would have seen their stamp, B-G, on the iron dogs in the Buttery Mill, which held a log down so that it wouldn't jump under the im- pact of the old-fashioned up-and-down saw.
Mills, as a rule, were owned jointly, with fre- quent trading in shares, and sometimes a mill would be converted to the making of a new product, Whitney's grist mill becoming a paper mill, for example. Business reached its peak in the 50s and 60s, then declined, bringing this chapter of the Silver Mine story to a close some- time around the turn of the century.
The next chapter, which is being written to- day, began with the coming of the Silver Mine artists, and one of the early arrivals was the noted cartoonist, John Cassel. A member of the staff of the New York World for 14 years, and
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of the Brooklyn Eagle for 12 years, Mr. Cassel drew the political cartoons for the editorial pages of these papers. He is also well known for his illustrations of books and magazines and for drawings contributed to the American Legion Monthly.
It was the sculptor, Solon Borglum, who sug- gested Silver Mine to the Cassels, and they bought the Webster Austin place in 1913. The house stands back a few paces from the road, and the front door opens into a long, low, brick- floored room-formerly the kitchen, as witness the huge fireplace and Dutch oven. Here are Windsor chairs, hutch and trestle tables, and a big pewter dresser. Outside on the right and framed by stone walls, lies, the level green garden which was once the family's vegetable plot.
Root crops would have been stored in the space behind the kitchen, which is in effect a cellar, since it reaches under the brow of the hill, and it is here that Webster Austin kept his applejack. He sold it by the jug or by the glass, with a warning, "Don't drink too much of that- it's 140 proof."
Webb Austin was a stocky man with ruddy complexion and whiskers, and this house was his home for 40-odd years. He ran his sawmill, did some carpentering, and down on the river -where the water was handy for distilling-he had his cider-press. This last was no doubt the most profitable of his ventures, judging by the comment attributed to an old chap named Eli Dickens, who used to come from the other side of the river for a nip of applejack. For it is said that on one of these visits, having had his drink, Eli took out his money to pay for it and drawled, "Webster, if there was one apple growing in Fairfield County, you'd make a liv- ing out of it."
In those days, people of the neighborhood went to the Methodist Church on Silver Mine Road. Times werc more puritanical then, and the consumption of alcohol frowned upon by the womenfolk, particularly when a revival was in full swing. It may be supposed that Webb Austin had to take his share of hard words, for it is related that when approached by a member of the congregation who said,
"Webster, now I'd like to get some spirits," he replied, "You'll have to ask my lady about that -she's a beauty!" If this remark reached the ears of Mrs. Austin, and it surely must have, we may believe she accepted it as a compli- ment, as any wife would in such a situation, if she is wise.
But to come back to the Cassels and the present. The second floor in back-and this is the dining room-opens on the level of ground which leads north to the big weathered barn. Alongside the dining-room fireplace, the wall is of white panelling, a section of which opens at Mr. Cassel's touch, disclosing a steep de- scending stairway. We peered into the semi- darkness, wondering-was this once a hideout? Concealment for a fugitive? An underground station for runaway slaves? The prosaic but tantalizing answer is that the secret stairway has no story, or anyway none that's known.
Fine old mahogany furnishes this room, and overlooking all, an ancient grandfather's clock, which came from Mr. Cassel's family in Ca- naan, and was, in fact, fetched down in the Cas- sels' open car. Soon it began to rain, and Mrs. Cassel raised her umbrella in a desperate effort to keep the clock under cover. The big clock traveling under an umbrella was greeted by hoots of laughter and wisecracks whenever the car passed through a small town, and there was one wit who shouted: "Hey-why don't you get a watch?"
In front of the dining-room, are living-room, and adjoining bedroom, with its four-poster and old hand-quilted cover in the tulip pat- tern. More bedrooms are on the top floor. This is a snug house, not too small, but not very large either. One wonders about Joseph Platt, who lived here in the early 1800s and had 12 children. Where did they all sleep? And how many to a bed? Joseph was known as “Gov- ernor," a title implying a certain dignity, a cer- tain position in the community. Of his wife, who was Nancy McAllister, we know nothing save that she had an exacting and arduous life. Her first child was born in 1800, her last in 1832. After her death, Joseph married Mrs. Olive Gregory, who survived him.
A century ago, or more, or less, they were
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The Platt-Cassell House
lumbering in the woods around here, and the logs hauled to the mill on the logway to the north. The rhythmic blows of the axe and the occasional crash of a falling tree were familiar sounds from the land behind the house, while in the valley one heard saws buzzing, water splashing over the dam, iron striking iron in the blacksmith shop, the creaking wheel of a passing wagon. Not much traffic traveled the rutted road-perhaps a load of skins for the fur shop, of corn for a grist mill, of lumber bound for Norwalk-men walking to work, children going to or from the 9th District School, where, in the 70s, the Austin children learned their 3 R's from John Light, successor to Ebenezer Crofut.
Schoolmaster Crofut would have taught the children of John Lynch, who had the house be- fore Webb Austin, and his lifetime lease was signed in 1852 by Olive Platt X Her Mark. John Lynch agreed "to keep the fences up and to keep the house in rentable repair and to pay the taxes." He furthermore agreed to pay
the rent in four regular installments a year, the sum of which was $20.
Before John Lynch, Alfred Platt lived here, and his children were Giles, Amanda, Cor- nelius and Caroline. Alfred Platt was the old- est son of Joseph.
Did Joseph Platt build the house? The ques- tion was asked of Frederick Buttery, owner of the famous red sawmill which dates from be- fore the Revolution. Mr. Buttery, who knows Silver Mine way back, said that was what he thought: "Joseph had the land from John Platt (his father), and I think he went down there and built his own sawmill-he'd have had the water rights from Wilton-and then he built the house. He owned over half of our mill, but he couldn't get it all, and after he got his own mill, he sold those shares to David St. John."
This opinion is confirmed by the Land Rec- ords, in which is found Joseph's deed to the six acres, bounded east by the West Branch. Most, if not all, of his millshares also came from his father, who in 1784 bought from the Tory,
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Thomas Fairweather, 'for consideration of 15 pounds lawfull money ... } of a sawmill near David Whitney's mill"; and in 1787, 1% of the same mill from the estate of Samuel Lockwood. Mill proprietors had the use of plant and equip- ment according to shares held-the owner of 4, for example, working the mill every fourth day-but each proprietor was required to pro- vide his own saw and file.
Bitter arguments must have arisen over the breakage of machinery or parts. Scarcity of money set a high value on every piece of prop- erty; made a man, perhaps, a bit tight-fisted. So when Abram St. John sold his interest to James Sillick, the shrewd Abram had it speci- fied in the deed that James Sillick should have the right "to the premises with the utensils thereto belonging except the crank now in the mill, the broken crank out of the mill being the one intended for the sale of the X part."
Joseph was 37 when he began work on his mill, with "the privilege granted by the Town of Wilton." The lumber he would have sawed in the Buttery Mill, and raised the building probably with the aid of his brother, Jonathan, who owned land to the south, and with some help from the boy, Alfred, now coming into his teens. The mill site, being below the dam, is on shallow water. Joseph overcame this difficulty by means of a canal 500 feet long, which he dug in the river bank, constructing a dike of stones and mud for its inner wall. The canal, with a gate at the top, by-passed the dam and assured a head of water deep enough to turn a big mill wheel.
After the mill, came the job of clearing the wooded hillside, the shovelling away of the slope to give level space, the laying of founda- tion and retaining walls, the raising of the great center chimney, and finally the construction of house and barn. The whole project complete- and it would have been years in the making- Joseph must have looked forward to a pros- pcrous future, secured by his milling business. It could not have been so, for following his death in 1844, it was necessary to sell the mill for funds to pay off his debts.
Attempts to trace back the ownership of the land led into a haze of uncertainty. Who had it
before John Platt? How to stay on the back- ward trail of the adjoining properties which identify a tract? "You're pondering the ques- tion the way Hanf Weed did," said Mr. But- tery, "and he couldn't answer it either." The words were of some solace to this amateur in research, for Hanford Weed with a skillful title searcher. However, to suggest the line of greatest probability, this does seem to lead to the St. Johns.
Before 1750, Jacob St. John owned a lot of land in the vicinity of Buttery Mill, of which he was the builder and sole owner until the time when he sold the first shares to Thomas Fair- weather. Jacob laid out the paths, the logway and the driftway which crossed Joseph Platt's land. Abram St. John, Jacob's son, inherited his father's property. A veteran of the Revolution, married and living in Fredricksburg, N. Y., Abram naturally disposed of his Connecticut inheritance. In 1781, he sold to John Platt, "three certain pieces of laand scituate in Silver Mine." One of the three was six acres of wood- land on the west side of the West Branch. De- spite the uncertainty of boundaries, this looks like the piece on which Joseph built his saw- mill. Jacob St. John would have had it from his father, Ebenezer, who had it from the com- mon land.
Joseph Platt's father was the fourth John Platt, originally a Norwalk man and a master carpenter who helped to build St. Paul's Church. He married Charity Moorehouse, ac- cording to the historian Selleck, and "from this union descend the so-known Silver Mine Platts." John, 4th, in the purchase of 1781 which included the woodland piece, had from Abram St. John "a part of my homestead land contain- ing 15 acres and 27 poles with the buildings thereon." The property was bounded north and east by the highway, which places it diagonally opposite Silverminc Tavern, and the house is the one later owned by the Raymond family.
John Platt, 4th, was a member of St. Mat- thew's in Wilton and on the Wilton School Committee-part of Wilton came into District 9-and he was the great grandson of the first John Platt, an early settler of Norwalk, called "Deacon John." This John crossed from Eng-
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land when a boy, landing at New Haven in 1638 with his brother and sisters, and his par- ents, Richard and Mary Platt. The family set- tled in Milford, and John came to Norwalk to live as a young man. The early Platts, John and his sons, were public spirited men, leaders in the town, active in town meetings and in the affairs of the church, and also traders in land.
Deacon John, whom Selleck calls "one of the most noted men in Norwalk history," served as deputy to the General Court and assisted in the planning of Wilton and Danbury. Captain Joseph Platt was one of his sons, a justice of the peace, and the owner of large tracts in New Canaan, one of them in the White Oak Shade district.
Joseph, at 25, defended the town when In- dians attacked, according to a record of 1698. "Granted unto Joseph Platt, as he was a soul- dier out against the common enemie, the Town as a gratitude for his good service, do give and grant unto him ten acres of land, to take up a mile from the town and where it lyes free not yet picht upon by any other persons."
In middle age, Joseph became active in the Congregational Church and is frequently men- tioned in the annals of "ye ancient Prime So-
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