USA > Connecticut > Fairfield County > New Canaan > Landmarks of New Canaan > Part 42
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Joseph Scofield was born in Lewisboro, New York, on July 15, 1809. His father, who had the same name, was a carpenter in that villagc. The Scofield line goes back several generations in this country, and includes another Joseph, two Ebenezers, a John, and earlier still a Daniel S. Scofield who came to America from Lanca- shire, England. When he was 15 years old "our" Joseph Scofield left Lewisboro and came to New Canaan. He became apprenticed to Caleb Benedict, the shoemaker, and for six years he
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lived in the Benedicts' home on Brushy Ridge Road while learning the shoe trade.
On leaving the Benedicts in 1830, Joseph Scofield went to New York City, where he was employed as a clerk. He remained in the city only a few months, however, because of poor health, and then returned to New Canaan, tak- ing a job with Seymour Comstock in general store business. On May 4, Joseph Scofield mar- ried Abigail Griffin of New Canaan. The young couple lived in New Canaan until 1835, but we do not know the exact location of their first home. Next they moved to Pound Ridge, where Mr. Scofield set up a shoe factory and general store.
Four years later, in 1839, Joseph Scofield gave up these enterprises and with his wife re- turned to New Canaan, where he entered into partnership with his former employer, Sey- mour Comstock, in running a general store. It was this same Mr. Comstock who sold to Jo- seph Scofield the acre just east of the Episco- pal Church the very year that the Scofields re- turned to New Canaan. After one year in busi- ness with Mr. Comstock, however, Joseph Sco- field retired from this firm, and for the rest of his working life he was employed as a clerk in various stores in New Canaan.
Perhaps Mr. Scofield's frail health kept him from carrying the responsibility of a business of his own. He is described by those who re- member him as a thin, little man. As the years went by he seemed to shrink and shrivel up until in his 90's he appeared as fragile and dried up as an autumn leaf, ready to blow away on the slightest puff of wind. It is all the more sur- prising that Joseph Scofield lived to such a ripe old age. It is said that often while working as a clerk in the stores about town he felt so faint that he had to grasp the counter for support.
In 1902 when Mrs. Scofield died at the age of 89, Mr. Scofield felt certain that the end was near for him, too. Both had veen very ill with pneumonia. Mr. Scofield begged that his wife's funeral be delayed a day or two so that there might be a double funeral for the two of them. To the amazement of all, the frail old man ral- licd once more and lived to celebrate his 99th birthday.
In contrast to his physical weakness, "Uncle Joe," as Mr. Scofield was known to many New Canaanites, was a man of strong opinions. Hc worked hard for the temperance cause, both locally and in county and state organizations. He belonged to the Wooster Lodge of the In- dependent Order of Odd Fellows, and was gen- erally well liked throughout New Canaan. As an example of Uncle Joe's cockiness, the story is told of his standing up at a district school meeting, defying a much larger man, and even going so far as to strike his opponent over the head with an umbrella!
Of Mrs. Scofield less seems to be known. She was Abigail Griffin, born in Wilton in 1813, the daughter of Caleb S. and Charlotte G. Griffin. Like her husband, Mrs. Scofield was an ardent supporter of the temperance cause. She was active, too, in church work and at the time of her death she was the oldest member of the Congregational Church in New Canaan. The Scofields had no children, but apparently they were a congenial, contented couple through- out their many years of married life.
During their latter years, however, the Sco- fields attained special prominence in New Ca- naan. One might almost say that as they grew older they became the "darlings" of the town. In January, 1899, a reporter from the New Ca- naan Messenger made two trips to the Sco- fields' home to interview the aged couple. These interviews, written up in the paper and entitled "New Canaan 75 Years Ago," arc of special value to the local historian in the pic- ture they give of New Canaan in 1824.
At the time of these interviews Joseph Sco- field was 90 years of age-the second oldest resi- dent of New Canaan. (Seymour Comstock, six years his senior, was still living.) Despite his advanced age, Mr. Scofield's memory was rc- markably clear. He first gave the reporter some autobiographical details and then launched into a very illuminating account of New Ca- naan as it appeared the year when he first came here as a young apprentice.
These articles give us a list of streets, houses, shoe factories, stores, churches and schools which made up New Canaan in 1824. Signifi- cantly enough, Mr. Scofield did not mention
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any house just east of the Episcopal Church at that time. This is one of our most valuable clues to the dating of his house.
New Canaan was proud of Mr. and Mrs. Scofield as its oldest married couple and eager to defend their record for long term marital partnership. In October, 1899, the Philadel- phia Inquirer published an article claiming that Mr. and Mrs. Adam Dayett of Wilming- ton, Del., who had just celebrated their 68th wedding anniversary, had been married longer than any other couple in the United States. New Canaan's newspaper was quick to deny this claim, pointing out that Mr. and Mrs. Jo- seph Scofield of Main Street had celebrated their 68th wedding anniversary five months earlier than had the Dayetts. Moreover, both Scofields were described as "hale and hearty," attending church, walking about town and do- ing their housework.
Two years later, on May 4, 1901, Mr. and Mrs. Scofield celebrated their 70th wedding anniversary. This was an event of considerable interest to New Canaan. An article describing the occasion and pictures of both Mr. and Mrs. Scofield appeared in the Messenger. Through- out the day many friends and neighbors called on the Scofields at their home, bringing them gifts and good wishes to commemorate the re- markable event.
The following month, in June, 1901, New Canaan celebrated its Centenary. One of the many special events was a parade through town. Mr. and Mrs. Scofield, as New Canaan's oldest married couple, were among the nota- bles in this parade, riding with much dignity in "an old vehicle." Their many years of mar- ried life were soon to end, however. Only a few months later, on April 23, 1902, Mrs. Sco-
field died, and six years later on September 16, 1908, Mr. Scofield died two months after his 99th birthday.
In the 42 years which have passed since Mr. Scofield's death, the little house just east of St. Mark's has known eight different owners. When Mr. Scofield died the house passed into the hands of Benjamin P. Mead, who had held a mortgage on the house for several years. In 1909 Mr. Mead sold the house to Helen S. Har- min Brown who in turn sold it to Anna B. Morse.
In 1920 the house became the property of three maiden ladies, the Misses Fowler, who are remembered by many people in New Ca- naan today. The three sisters were gentle- women whose income had shrunk over the years. One of the ladies opened a gift shop in their house, where she sold childrens' dresses and other hand-made specialties. Another sis- ter gave art lectures at the New Canaan Lib- rary, and the third was gifted in literary lines.
After the Fowler sisters died the house was bought by Mr. and Mrs. John Brotherhood in 1935. They lived there for three years and then sold the place to S. Bayard Colgate who in turn sold it to Alice R. Jackson in 1941. Mrs. Jackson was responsible for removing the front porch, which had been added to the house in the 1880s, thereby restoring the front entrance to its original, simple lines. In 1945, as already mentioned, the house was purchased by its present owners, Mr. and Mrs. Tompkins. It is reassuring to know that the charming, little house is in such good hands. We only hope that it may remain as long under the tasteful and kindly care of the Tompkins as it did with its first owners, the Joseph Scofields.
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Walter Richards
50.
THE FITCH-DRUMMOND- EDWIN HOYT HOUSE
MACLEAN HOGGSON, Author
WALTER RICHARDS, Artist
[February 23, 1950]
The Edwin Hoyt house stands on the west side of Carter Street, a short piece beyond the Hoyt Nurseries, whose main entrance is on the same side just north. The drive up past the house to the tree-lined circle rises gently from Carter Street, and the place for visitors to "hitch their rigs," or nowadays to park their cars, confirms the hospitable welcome inherent in the gra- cious lines of the white frame dwelling. It is a handsome, four square, really big house (com- pared to the modern concept), with a sweep-
ing view both east across the street, and west over toward town. Clapboard Hill falling away in both directions.
A house means people, and people and houses were supported by and made from off the land on which they stood. Clapboard Hill first appears on the land records in 1676, when one Samuel Keeler, a fighter for his Majesty the King, struggled valiantly in King Philip's War. The town of Norwalk must have thought well of Samuel Kceler, for it granted him, on
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January 12, 1676, "Twelve Acres on Clapboard Hill" for "Service at the direful Swamp Fight" in that war. Whether this grant was at the north end of the Clapboard Hill region (it reached from Norwalk well up into what was to become Canaan Parish) is not indicated. The name Clapboard Hill is of course functionally de- rived from the stand of oak in the region, most excellent for the making of clapboards, em- ployed in all the best houses of the time. From the farm of a later settler, also, Mrs. Ebenezer (Rhoda Weed) Carter, 2nd, came the flawless, 58 feet long 10 inch square oak timber which peaks the spire of the present Congregational Church on God's Acre, which celebrated its 100th birthday in 1933.
About 1722 Ebenezer Carter settled on the north part of Clapboard Hill, having been given the land by his father Samuel Carter (b. London, England, 1677). Seven-year-old Ebe- nezer was one of the children carried off to Canada by the Indians after the Deerfield Mas- sacre in 1704, but he was happily restored two years later to his family, who had moved to Norwalk, in an exchange of prisoners. The Carters prospered and multiplied, and though none of the family appears now to have re- mained in New Canan, Carter Street witnesses the original family of settlers on this part of Clapboard Hill.
About the same time (1705) the piece of ground where Edwin Hoyt's house now stands was bought originally from the Common Land of the town by John Fitch, grandson of Thomas Fitch, sr., who came to America from Brain- tree, England in 1638. The property is sup- posed to have passed in turn to John's son Theophilus, and to his grandson, also named Theophilus, who died in 1830, willing the land and buildings thereon to his nephew, William Drummond, who was also a nephew of the Rev. William Drummond, third pastor of the Congregational Church of New Canaan. The notes of "Family Visitations" by the Rev. Drummond in 1772, the first census according to the old Scottish custom, are among the very earliest authentic records of Canaan Parish, to become the town of New Canaan in 1801. It was his nephew, then, also the nephew of Theo-
philus Fitch, 2nd, who inherited the Fitch estate.
This inter-family connection may be of in- terest to students of the division of families by war. The Rev. William Drummond was dis- missed from his pastorate because of Tory sym- pathies, and in January 1778, petitioned "the good people of this country" for permission to proceed to New York, "taking with him his wearing apparel, bedding and books . . . to se- cure passage from thence to (Scotland) his na- tive land," which permission was granted. Yet less than a decade later, his brother, Robert Drummond, married Ann Fitch, granddaugh- ter of John Fitch, and their son, William, be- came inheritor of the Fitch estate.
The date of the actual building of the Drum- mond-Hoyt house has not been clearly estab- lished, but it was circa 1830, shortly before or after the death of Theophilus Fitch, 2nd, and inheritance by William Drummond, nephew of the repatriated Rev. William Drummond. The issue is obscured in connection with the house built originally by John Fitch about 1735, some years after he had originally purchased on what is now Carter Street, and later had added ma- terially to his holdings. It is thought that this original Fitch dwelling was still standing in 1903, some 125 yards south of the present Ed- win Hoyt house. In fact, Edwin Hoyt remem- bers playing in a very old, deserted house on that side as a small boy, and it is known that the dwelling was torn down shortly after the Hoyt family purchased the land in 1903. This may have been the house "and much land" that was sold sometime after John Fitch's death in 1760 to Esais Bouton for 675 pounds, and later acquired by William Drummond, then the Hoyt families.
On the other hand, Mrs. Samuel C. Fairley in her "History of Canaan Parish from Found- ing to 1801" states that John Fitch settled on Clapboard Hill in 1726, and built on the "lot north of the Drummond House, the present home of Mr. Edwin Hoyt." William St. John in a letter to the New Canaan Messenger of Sep- tember 19, 1885, written on March 24, 1881, from Fredericksburg, Va., says, "On the same side of the street below Priest Eels house about
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one-eighth of a mile, was another house of the same old New England style in which the Fitch family lived, and where the noted Stephen Fitch was born, famous [sic] for his ill treat- ment of his wife. . .. A little farther below stood another house on the ground where Wil- liam Drummond's house now stands. This was also the house of another Fitch family, from which Theophilus Fitch descended. .. . "
It seems difficult, then, to determine which Fitch house was torn down by William Drum- mond about 1830 to build his new house, and whether the house built by John Fitch about 1735 was just south, just north, or on the same spot as the Drummond-Hoyt house under dis- cussion.
The Hoyts (or Haits sometimes spelled) ap- parently lived first on Canoe Hill. There Justus Hoyt, 1st, a fire-eating Baptist minister who brooked no difference from his views on fire and brimstone, was born. His son, Justus, 2nd, the blind miller who lost his sight accidentally at the age of nine, was born in the old house opposite the library. So skillful was his compen- sating sense of touch, that he became widely known for the excellence of his grain sorting and grading. Captain Stephen Hoyt, Ist (of the Connecticut Militia ) was the son of Justus, 1st, and in 1794 married Polly Carter, granddaugh- ter of Ebenezer Ist. It was their only son, Cap- tain Stephen, 2nd, who married Ciley Bene- dict, and lived where the library now is, who commences the record of one of the important industries of New Canaan-the Hoyt Nurser- ies.
Captain Hoyt, 2nd had followed his father in keeping store at the corner of Main Street and East Avenue, but feeling somewhat cramped in town, felt that his children could be better trained "in the country." So, despite the protests of his four sisters, he moved his family "way out" to Clapboard Hill, and in 1837 bought "163 acres of worn out rocky land known as the Shaker Farm." At first raising onions in a small way, it was not until 1848 that the partnership with Lewis Scofield launched the beginnings of the present extensive indus- try. Unlike shoe and other manufacturing, the nurseries were not in danger from city com-
petition, and could serve the native New Ca- naanites and metropolitan newcomers equally well.
Among Captain Hoyt's children were two brothers, Edwin and James, grandfather and great uncle of the present Edwin Hoyt. Edwin ran the nursery and James managed the farm, its barns and stock, and had more than enough time left over, we read, to become one of the town's outstanding characters. He combined a pious and temperate disposition, and regular churchgoing habits, with one of the shrewd- est trading senses in the country, as those who sought to trade horses with him discovered.
James Hoyt was a bit eccentric but a great favorite with his townsmen. This was just as well on a certain occasion, when his habits of bachelorhood, of long standing, made him for- get to bring his bride of two weeks home from a Grange meeting one evening. Having stopped to talk to one and all, and having dropped by his brother's house for a chat on the way, he was quite perturbed to be asked, on his ar- rival home, "Where's Amelia?" Fortunately, Mrs. Hoyt came home with some neighbors, and all was well.
Captain Stephen Hoyt, 2nd, and his family, were next door neighbors, from 1837, to the William Drummonds, who had just built the Drummond house, later inherited in 1865, by his son George. In 1875, at the death of her husband, Mrs. George Drummond, formerly Sarah Hoyt, daughter of Captain Stephen, 2nd, and her small daughter, Mary Carter, went to live with her father's family in their home. Here her second daughter, Georgia was born, which explains why she no doubt felt unequal to the task of running her own home. This daughter Georgia, now Mrs. Thomas F. Rae of Old Stamford Road, has told me many inter- esting facts about her life in this house, and of their move back to the Drummond house, home of the present Edwin Hoyts.
This move to their neighbor-relatives was caused when a fire in 1881 destroyed Stephen Hoyt's house. From then on, until 1890, when she, with her mother and sister moved to the village, Mrs. Rae remembers with great plea- sure the life there with their grandmother
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Hoyt, Uncle James and his wife and an aunt Emily Hoyt. The house seems, as always, to have had unlimited capacity, as she remembers many guests simultaneously in residence.
The other sister, the aforementioned Mary Carter, was the wife of Dr. Thomas Tunney, and well remembered for her many civic activi- ties, especially in regard to the Historical So- ciety, of which Mrs. Tunney was president for several years. She was also Regent of the local Daughters of the American Revolution, and was deeply interested in New Canaan history, both past and contemporary.
However, to return to the house itself, on the back are two large rooms on the ground floor, three smaller rooms on the second floor, and two storerooms in the attic. In the main part of the ground floor are the large, almost square, living room and the parlor, formerly opened only for funerals, just to the right of the old front door, beautifully proportioned and with the old fireplace and mantel gracing the west wall. Just back of that is the dining room, origi- nally the sitting room, and a very large en- trance hall into which the south door, as well as the old east front door, open. The pantry, kitchen and old kitchen are at the back.
Seven or eight bedrooms on the second floor, attest the large families and constant flow of visitors of the last century, continuing right up to the first World War. Edwin Hoyt says that in his memory, he can't recall Uncle Jim and Aunt Amelia ever being without at least one or two visiting couples or friends. In the easy and bountiful hospitality of the time, some casual visitors stayed at least as long as "The Man Who Came to Dinner," and occasionally, we are told, visitors arrived for a summer and just never got around to leaving at all.
On the southwest corner of the house is the original old kitchen, now a relic of the past,
with its huge red brick chimney in front of which the capacious wood cook stove once rested. Where the kitchen is now was the well known and necessary cold pantry where were stored many extra food supplies, and where the old spring barrel stood. Both for cooling and for drinking water, this barrel was kept con- stantly full and overflowing with sweet cold water by means of a hydraulic ram, from a spring across the street.
The attic, running the full depth of the old house, shows the traditional wooden pegged oak beams, still marked with adze and broad axe, a full sturdy six inches square, and the chestnut rafters over which the clapboards and the original wooden shingles were laid, more recently topped by a slate roof.
Having been built originally by William Drummond circa 1830, the house passed suc- cessively to his son George in 1865, and on his death in 1875, to his widow and two daugh- ters, Mary Carter and Georgia. The Drum- monds owned the house until 1903, when the house and land were sold to Edwin Hoyt, grandfather of the present Edwin and brother of Mrs. Drummond.
Owned by the Hoyt family continuously from 1903, the Sidney Wetmores lived in the house from 1903 to 1920, followed by the L. Emery Katzenbachs from 1920 to 1924. Edwin Hoyt and Mrs. (Louise Powe) Hoyt have lived there since then, except for a hiatus dur- ing World War II, when Edwin again served in the armed forces, as he had done in 1917- 1918.
The spreading trees are characteristic of many old New England houses, particularly one great, beautiful old maple which shelters the northeast corner, "I think there is nothing so restful, satisfying and inviting as great, old trees in the dooryard of a home.
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THE CROFOOT-IRELAND HOUSE
JANE R. BARRY, Author
JOHN PAUL TURNER, Artist
[March 2, 1950]
Stand on the corner of Silver Mine and Valley Roads and pretend, as you look at the north- west corner, that the year is 1796. There stands a dignified square white house, obviously brand-new, the product of a man's desire to have a suitable homestead for himself and his family.
Unchanged except for kitchen wing, service wing and garage, it stands in 1950 as it did in 1796, square, white and dignified, a monument to an era when quality and solidarity were paramount virtues, and a man built not only for himself but for his descendants. To tell the story of the house on "Crofoot's Corners" is to give the land, the family and the building each to its own part in the making of a New Canaan landmark.
Upper Silver Mine in the early days seems to have been almost exclusively in the possesssion of the far-flung St. John family. In 1717, there was a deed recorded from Ebenezer St. John to lıis son, Daniel, of "One third of a parcell of
my Land situate on ye East side of Canoe Hill containing Twenty one acres of Land be the same more or less" (Consideration Parental Love).
In 1724, by other deed, this time for cash, the remainder of the 21 acres passed into Daniel's possession. At a division of the common land in 1739, Daniel received the land lying imme- diately south of the above holdings, including the corner "bounded East and South by high- way" which identifying phrase marks all the land transactions involving the "Corners" for the next 200 years.
When Daniel died in 1757, he left a will which is the classic example of the legal instru- ment of the day. He left his soul to God, his body to the earth, one-third of his moveable estate to his wife, his wearing apparel to his sons and his land to his children. To Daniel, jr., his second son, went, among other tracts, the land on which the corner house stands.
In 1769, for eight pounds five shillings, Dan-
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iel St. John sold two acres on the north and west sides of the corners to Ebenezer Crofoot, who had married Daniel's cousin Sarah St. John 20 years before. And here may we intro- duce the Crofoot family.
The first of the name to be documented in New England records seems to be one Joseph, freeman of Springfield, Mass., in 1672. Even before that date, Joseph is on record as having signed a petition in Springfield, protesting against imposts on produce and goods from neighboring colonies. He fought, in 1676, in King Philip's War, that last struggle in central and southern New England against Indians un- aided by European allies.
The second Joseph, born in 1660, married a Wethersfield girl in 1686, setting the pattern followed by all the Crofoot men, with a single exception, of marrying at a settled age, i.e. in their middle or late 20s, a contradiction to the popular belief that our predecessors married very young.
The third Joseph, born in 1692, appears next in Norwalk in the 1720's. He married Lydia Campfield, of a notable Norwalk family, and established the Crofoot name in this section. The early Norwalk records show a quantity of land transactions where by Joseph and Lydia sold at intervals her inheritance from her father and grandfather in what is now the city of Norwalk. They moved in 1728 to Canaan Par- ish with their son Ebenezer, purchasing a house in White Oak Shade ridge between the Hanford and Reed lands. The births of their two daughters are recorded in the earliest par- ish records.
Lydia and Joseph lived in White Oak Shade for only nine years, and then apparently re- moved to Salem, N. Y., with several of Lydia's sisters and brothers. Their son, Ebenezer either did not accompany them or else returned to New Canaan, for, as previously mentioned, he married Sarah, the daughter of Jacob and Ex- perience St. John in 1749, and bought land from his father-in-law in White Oak Shade. Why he decided to take up land in Silvermine is unknown, but among the transactions with the St. Johns, he made the before-noted pur- chase of the corners in 1769. Then in 1772, he
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