USA > Connecticut > Fairfield County > New Canaan > Landmarks of New Canaan > Part 43
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bought six acres and a dwelling across Silver Mine Road from the corners, and that was the Crofoot homestead until Ebenezer's son Joseph built the corner house in 1796.
The year 1776 was memorable for anyone then living, and Joseph Crofoot was no excep- tion. A young man of 25 in that year, he mar- ried his cousin, Esther St. John, and a few months later marched off with other able- bodied men from this section to help defend the Westchester-Connecticut boundary after Washington's defeat at White Plains.
As was usual for the time, his enlistment was of only one month's duration, and he was home again in November of '76. His son, Ebenezer, was born the following year, and twice more before the war was over, Joseph served short enlistments with the militia. This seems to have been the customary practice for men who farmed their land and were not members of the state troops or the Continental Line.
All during the 1780s and 90s, Joseph bought land in upper Silver Mine, eventually owning great portions of the old St. John holdings. And in 1787 he bought from his father one acre on the corner for 13 pounds, one may suppose with the idea of building his future homestead there. Perhaps, since he waited nine years to build, he wanted to see how conditions in the frail new republic would develop before com- mitting himself to building the kind of house he had in mind.
Whether or not the Crofoot household was typical of the time, a glance at it in 1793, for example, rather startles our modern concept of a family group. In that year, living in the home- stead in Silver Mine were the widow Lydia Canfield Crofoot, returned from Salem, her son Ebenezer, his second wife and daughter Polly, Lydia's grandson, Joseph, with his wife Esther, and their son, Ebenezer, jr., perhaps even then courting Sally Gregory, whom he married two years later. Those members of four generations were almost certainly there; how many as- sorted widowed aunts, unmarried daughters, or indentured servants were undoubtedly also in residence, staggers the imagination.
Lydia died the following year at the great age of 89 and Ebenezer, sr., seems to have re-
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moved to his lands in Wilton. The word "seems" is used advisedly, since a few days later a deed was recorded for land at Hoyt's Plains from Ebenezer Crofoot of Wilton to Ebenezer Crofoot of New Canaan, and wit- nessed by Ebenezer Crofoot, jr., another com- plete staggerer, which this writer will leave to a more competent detective for solution.
In 1796, then, Joseph decided to build his house and, after it was finished, he sold the old homestead to young Ebenezer, who with Sally and their baby daughter continued to live there, while Joseph and Esther moved into their "mansion house."
And mansion house it was. Built in a style many years ahead of its time, it boasted eight and a half foot ceilings, an enormous upstairs hall from which four chambers opened, and ample tall windows, each with 24 panes of glass. Facing south, toward Silver Mine Road, it had great trees on either side of the front stoop, a notable fanlight over the door and a dignity and graciousness that are timeless.
Downstairs were four rooms, one a large kitchen-living room, where the original cranes, etc., still ornament the fireplace and a huge built-in cupboard held the glass and china. Across the hall and on the opposite side of the great brick chimney was the parlor with its carved white mantel brought from England, and behind the parlor was a small bedroom, undoubtedly the "borning" room. Across the back, overlooking the orchard, was another large room. It was a comfortable house, and at the same time, impressive.
Joseph and his wife lived in their fine new home for only 10 years, for they sold it to their son Ebenezer in 1806, for the modest sum of $5, and removed to a house farther up Valley Road, "next above the Corners."
Anyone who has done any reading in New Canaan history will recognize the name of this "Captain" Ebenezer Crofoot. The title was used interchangeably with "Squire" and con- noted not military rank but standing in the community. Ebenezer's story is well known but will bear some repetition.
There are conflicting versions of his amaz- ing conversion to the then discriminated
against sect of Methodism. The writer prefers the one which seems most in keeping with what we know of the captain's character. Thus- there had been some scattered Methodist preaching in this section for several years be- fore 1808, in which year the Methodists in Silver Mine were forbidden by a District meet- ing to use the schoolhouse for their "ministry."
The prejudice of the day against the sect was such that few people "dared brave public opinion so far as to unite with them." The cap- tain, a man of great personal independence and large influence, owned the land on which the school house stood, and with his sense of fair play thoroughly outraged, threatened to ex- clude the Congregationalists from using the building, unless the Methodists had equal treatment. The District promptly backtracked, and the captain's interest in the new sect was undoubtedly aroused.
Though he is reported to have cultivated previously a taste for society and "the fashion- able recreations of the day," and to have fitted a large upstairs room in his house for the amusement of his numerous friends, the facts are plain. The captain attended a Methodist meeting and was promptly and dramatically converted.
His position in New Canaan was such that this action had a very marked effect through- out the town, and many people who had hith- erto scorned the whole idea, attended the meet- ings. A "class" was set up in Silver Mine with the captain at its head; it soon outgrew the schoolhouse and thereafter met in the Crofoot barn.
Ebenezer's wife Sarah and his daughters fol- lowed him into the new church, and the Cro- foot house became a refuge for the itinerant Methodist ministers, who before had found most people very inhospitable. Only one jar- ring note is struck in this united family front. Mrs. Joseph, the captain's mother, was ad- mitted to the Congregational Church in 1810. One wonders how she happened not to have belonged to it before, along with the rest of the family.
Sarah Crofoot died in 1812, and according to a story still current in the family, on her
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deathbed gave the captain two choices for her successor. She must have been well aware of the obvious fact that a young widower with eight children aged 4 to 16 would of necessity take himself a second wife. The Widow Thomas was one of Sarah's choices, and since she was also a staunch Methodist, after Ebe- nezer married her the family continued to lend both spiritual and material help to the growing sect.
A force in the community, the captain served briefly with the militia in the War of 1812, and in 1815 was one of the committee which pur- chased the land on which the Norwalk Metho- dist Meeting House had been erected. Since it was 1827 before the Methodist Society of New Canaan was permitted by the town meet- ing to use the town hall "occasionally" for pub- lic worship, provided they made good any damage done, Norwalk seems to have had the edge on New Canaan as far as tolerance was concerned.
In 1817-18 the captain was a selectman of the town, and during all these years he farmed his very large land holdings, as well as being in partnership with his stepson, later his son-in- law, in a general store located near his home. Then suddenly, in 1828-drama seems to be associated with him-he and his wife died of the typhus fever within three hours of each other, occasioning a double funeral with an unprecedented number of mourners. The Methodists lost a pillar of their church, and the community an excellent citizen who should have had many more useful years before him.
Ebenezer's land was apportioned among his children, and his only son, Minot, then 20 years of age, inherited the mansion house and the corner acreage. Within a week of his father's death he bought from his grandparents, Joseph the builder of the house and his strong-minded wife, their homestead and 30 acres to the north of the Corners, and the same day leased it back to them for $1, for their use as long as they lived. Presumably their staying powers were underestimated, for Joseph lived another three years and Esther another ten.
Minot was a farmer and a plain man, but a solid and respected citizen. He served on the
committee which purchased the site for the Methodist Church in New Canaan, thus con- tinuing his father's work. His sisters, all older than he, married, and some of them moved away, so that two existing photographs are of particular interest.
One, taken in 1860, shows a family reunion, with various members in the front yard and in the front windows of the house. The second picture, taken in 1868, shows the eight children of Captain Crofoot with their respective hus- bands and wives, the first complete family meeting since 1828, the year of the captain's death.
Minot, his second wife, Rhuamma Louns- bury, and Minot's seven sisters and their hus- bands appear in the conventional family group. The picture shows smoothly dressed hair and hoopskirts for the women, luxuriant beards for the men, and is captioned "Combined ages 1,024 years, average age 65 years 6 months." None of the younger generation appears, though Minot had three sons and his sisters had numerous children and grandchildren.
At Minot's death in 1885, his widow received as her dower the corner house and six acres, with the house meadow and the orchard, in addition to the river meadow across Valley Road. Minot's second son, Ebenezer, inherited the land north and west of the house including "the lot on which the old house and barn stands" and the "Uncle Miah lot." The other two sons received other land, and at the death of their mother, three years later, the youngest son, Seymour, bought the interest of his broth- ers in her dower and thus became owner and occupier of the house.
After the Crofoot farm passed out of the family's possession in 1910, it had the normal career of old houses in town. It had several owners, among them George Yuengling, who did most of the modernization, the central heat- ing and the re-arrangement of the downstairs rooms. Fortunately the various owners have changed the house without the semblance of change, and have modernized it without dam- aging its original beauty.
Mr. and Mrs. Edward Ireland of Westbury, Long Island, bought the house in 1931. Mr.
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Ireland was a painter and illustrator, and hc and his wife were looking at houses in this sec- tion at that time with an idea of moving to Connecticut. It is a tribute to the Corner house that in driving by it, they were so struck with it because of its authenticity for the period in which it was built, that they inquired if it were for sale. On learning that it might possibly be on the market, they arranged to see the in- side, made an offer which was accepted, and the house-hunting was over. Since Mr. Ire- land's death three years ago, Mrs. Ireland has continued to live there, with their son, Michael, a recent graduate of Dartmouth.
For one of the early Crofoots to look at his home now would give him no great shock. The kitchen wing, added early in the last century when fireplace cooking went out and stove cooking came in, seems a logical addition to the original house. The garage was the next to come, and then in 1931, the service wing and the stables, designed by Mr. Ireland.
Outside, the house has its traditional white paint and slatted shutters, with a picket fence, just as it did in the 1860 photograph. When the
inside was redecorated some years ago and the multiple layers of paint were removed from the walls, the original or nearly original colors ap- peared; yellow for one room, grcen for another, and in one room a Hitchcock stencil on the wall. The present interior colors, while not the same, are in the darker shades, as were the early ones.
The old well with its high sweep is still in the side yard, even if Norwalk water is now used, and if the brook has become a swimming pool, it is a pool that fits naturally into the con- tours of the land. The orchard survives on the Valley Road side, and the present 15 acres which go with the house include what used to be called the "north wood lot, south wood lot and the rocky pasture."
The old barn across the road ( of Methodist meeting fame) was torn down early in the 1900s, but what it stood for still survives in the life of the town. Though the Crofoot family no longer plays a large part in town affairs, the house remains, a New Canaan landmark, called by its owners "Crofoot Farm."
THE KELLOGG-HYATT-POLK HOUSE
WILLIAM R. TYLER, Author
LEONARD J. ROBBINS, Artist
[ March 9, 1950]
Driving south on Silver Mine Road, just past Sid Guthrie's store, one may see on the right a modest house, built low to the ground and close to the road. It is pink in color. It is on the northwest corner of Silver Mine and Buttery Roads, and only a short distance west of the site of the old knob mill of Henry Guthrie, now the Silvermine Tavern.
The simple lines so characteristic of many of the colonial houses are not evident at first glance because the several additions have
changed the outward appearance of the housc. If, however, one imagines the older portion, which is the forward portion under the peaked roof, as standing alone, there will be secn a suggestion of the more primitive dwelling so common to the early scttlements.
Fred Buttery, who operates the ancient saw- mill on the Silver Mine River and whose knowl- edge of the history of the Silver Mine area is great and highly respected, tells us that the land on which the old house stands was ac-
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The Kellogg-Hyatt-Polk House
quired in 1709 by Jacob St. John. It is believed that it came into his possession either as a part of his right to common lands or by inheritance.
Jacob was a member of a noted pioneer fam- ily, his great-grandfather being Matthias Sen- sion (St. John), who came from England in 1631. Matthias was associated with Roger Lud- low and we quote from Charles M. Selleck's "Norwalk," comment on their migration to Connecticut:
"Roger Ludlow, the Norwalk purchaser and Matthias St. John, the Norwalk pioneer, with other persons of figure, appear to have been founders of Dorchester, Mass. Ludlow, dissatisfied with the elevation in 1636 of John Haynes to the Gov- ernorship of Massachusetts, determined to quit the colony and emigrate to Connecticut. With a num- ber of his Dorchester neighbors, including possibly Matthias St. John, Sr., the party, nearly one-half the population of Dorchester and a large proportion
of its intelligence and wealth, made its way to Windsor, Conn. Ludlow came afterward to Fair- field and St. John to Norwalk."
Norwalk was founded in 1650 or 1651, and Matthias St. John's estate was tabulated there in 1655. His descendants went to many parts of the country, but a great number of them came to the Silver Mine Valley and contrib- uted much to its growth and progress. Jacob St. John, himself, owned considerable land along and near the Silver Mine River and was a "fence viewer" and surveyor of highways. It was he who about 1741 built the second saw- mill on the Buttery mill site, a quarter interest in which he held at the time of his death in 1777.
Whether Jacob St. John or John Kellogg, to whom the land was sold, built the original dwelling is not clear, but it is believed that
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John Kellogg, whose family owned the house until 1761, was the builder. John Kellogg, as well, was a direct descendant of one of the early settlers of Norwalk.
His grandfather, Daniel Kellogg, was one of three brothers who came from Great Leighs, Essex County, 35 miles northwest of London, England, exact date unknown, and established the Kellogg family in New England. He is re- ferred to as Daniel of Norwalk and his home lot of four acres is described in the first book of land records in Norwalk.
Hopkins in his "Kelloggs in the Old World and the New" speaks of him as "the largest man of the pioneers, more than seven feet in height and of proportionate dimensions otherwise. . . . On one occasion he was visiting in the neigh- borhood and found that two Indians, who were callers at the same time, had so far forgotten the English proprieties as to have engaged in an angry and violent wrangle within the white man's abode. Mr. Kellogg stepped forward and in a very businesslike manner, rubbed the heads of the red natives vigorously together and taught them a lesson.
Daniel was a selectman of Norwalk in 1670 and a representative to the General Court sev- eral times between 1670 and 1683. In 1672, when a distribution of the common lands of the town was made, he drew his share as an in- habitant and the father of six children. He thus became a large landed proprietor. His death occurred in 1688, and the provisions made for the distribution of his estate among his chil- dren are of interest:
"The eldest son Daniel to have a double portion of the 'hole estate to be taken out of the housings and lands,' the other sons to have twice as much as the daughters. The administrators are ordered to husband and take all prudent care of the estate and children; married children to be paid within one year: sons to be paid when twenty-one; un- married daughters when eighteen or when mar- ried."
Deacon John Kellogg, grandson of the first settler, and the one whom we credit as the builder of the house about which we write, was
born in 1701. Hopkin's genealogy of the fam- ily comments on him only briefly. He died in 1740 and his wife and her second husband con- veyed to "their loving children their right of dower in the land of her late husband, John Kellogg, 4 Jan. 1760."
The early land records show a change in the ownership of property in the Silver Mine area from the heirs of John Kellogg to Jacob St. John in 1761. The property, described in part as bounded on south and east "by highway," is firmly believed to be that on the northwest cor- ner of Silver Mine and Buttery Roads rather than on the similar corner at Crofoot Corners, roughly one mile to the north.
The question establishing one or the other of these corners on Silver Mine Road as the one referred to in the "heirs of John Kellogg" land record is one which has come up for consid- erable discussion in the past. The fact that John Kellogg in October, 1738, as shown in the "Colonial Records of Connecticut," (Vol. VIII, page 217), petitioned the general assembly for permission to leave the recently established Canaan Parish and rejoin Norwalk is strong in- dication that the Kellogg dwelling was on the more southerly corner which was on the Nor- walk-Canaan boundary line. It seems highly improbable that he would have made his peti- tion for removal, or that the assembly would have granted it, had he lived at Crofoot Cor- ners, a good mile to the north of the boundary line.
Further evidence may be found in the act of the assembly in May 1731 ("Colonial Records of Connecticut," Vol. VII, page 334), granting parish privileges to Canaan Parish. The south- ern boundary of the new parish is described as: "By the southwest corner of Wilton Parish, from thence running to a highway that runs on the south side of John Kellogg's new dwelling house ..... " This too, points strongly to Kel- logg's dwelling as being on the Norwalk-Ca- naan Parish line rather than at Crofoot Cor- ners.
Life in the Silver Mine Valley at the time the Kellogg dwelling was established was almost wholly agricultural. The following quo- tations from Hon. John Treadwell's (Gov. of
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Conn., 1809-1811) "Memorial History of Hart- ford" are descriptive of those early days:
"Labor in the field was almost the only employ- ment. Industry and economy have characterized the inhabitants; labor has been held in reputation; none however elevated by office or profession have considered themselves above it. ... While the men have been thus employed in the field in rais- ing the materials for food and clothing, the women have been no less industrious in the domestic circle, in rearing the tender branches of the family, and in dressing the food for the table.
"Our ancestors, here, of both sexes, have till of late, clad themselves in simple apparel suited to their moderate circumstances and agricultural state. . .. The same simplicity has been conspicu- ous in their diet, their houses and their furniture. Equipage they had none; pleasure carriages and sleighs were unknown. In attending the public worship or in short excursions, a man usually rode with a woman behind him, mounted on a pillion; and even to this day this practice is not wholly laid aside."
Following the death of John Kellogg, his heirs; as previously indicated, sold the prop- erty to Jacob St. John in 1761, and he in turn sold it to Nathaniel Lockwood in 1773. Lock- wood sold to Nehemiah St. John in 1781 and thereafter the place was in the possession of members of the St. John family until 1832. Ste- phen Gregory became the owner in 1834 and through probate his widow Cynthia Hyatt (Gregory) took it over, disposing of it in 1876 to Hyatt Gregory.
In the century preceding this last transac- tion, great changes had come to the Silver Mine Valley. There were more people, the houses were not so scattered, more land had been cleared, more roads built. In 1800 there were two mills on the river; by Hyatt Gregory's time many more had been established: Edson St. John counted eleven in an article he wrote for the Norwalk Hour (March, 1939) covering this period.
With this development, the community grew and there were stores along the Silver Mine Road. One of these was Hyatt Gregory's, es- tablished in the basement of the old Kellogg house on the corner of Buttery Road. It was a
small general store, selling meat, tobacco, cider and root beer. He was particularly known for his root beer, and some of the older residents of Silver Mine can remember him and the cross handled basket he used to carry. He gathered his roots across the river, brewed them at home, and from the extract made the root beer which he put in old-fashioned stone bottles for sale.
He carried a supply of peanuts which he roasted in a roasting machine cranked by hand and sold on Sunday. This fare appealed partic- ularly to the teen-agers in the neighborhood who gathered regularly in considerable num- bers at the corner store.
Hyatt Gregory in his later years acquired one of the early Cadillacs. It was of the two cylinder variety, engine under the seat, crank on the side. It had, as he said: "three speeds, two in front and one behind." He boasted a long gray beard and was an impressive figure as he drove along in his open car, the breeze parting his flowing beard neatly in the middle. When the car was quite old, a Cadillac repre- sentative who saw him driving, approached him later and offered him a new car for his old one, if he would ride in a parade in New York for them. "No sir," was the reply, "I know this car and I'm not going to take any chances on one of your new ones."
Following Hyatt Gregory's death about 1916, the house went by probate to Ellen W. Gregory, his widow, who sold it to Agnes Fos- ter Wright (Mrs. Richardson Wright) in 1923. Since then the property has changed hands four times, Robert L. Polk taking possession shortly after the end of World War II.
One of the striking features of the older por- tion of the house is its modest dimensions, the inside measurements being roughly 14 feet by 25 feet. While the chimney is in its accustomed central location, the old fireplace, so essential to the early houses, is not in evidence. Portions of it were apparently taken out, and the re- mainder covered with either boards or plaster. There are fine wide boards of pine on the first floor. On the second story are more wide boards, both on the floor and on the walls. These, together with an occasional hand hewn beam in evidence, give an air of antiquity to
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the place and account for some of its charm.
Mr. and Mrs. Robert L. Polk, the gracious owners, have done a great deal to the interior of their home. The old heating stove which stood near the middle of the front room has been moved away, a partition in the forward part of the house has been taken down making possible a living room of pleasing proportions which runs the width of the present house.
The gray paint which previously covered the old pine floor has been removed, and the boards have been carefully treated to restore their original appearance. Cupboards with hardware of colonial design have been taste- fully added and colorful curtains and appro- priate furnishings lend an air which is both pleasing and at the same time retains a sug- gestion of the early pioneer days.
THE ELISHA SEELY-SCHOLL HOUSE
VERA C. HALSTEAD, Author
KENDRICK RUKER, Artist
March 16, 1950]
Newcomers to New Canaan today have to get their bearings by learning the whercabouts of the various ridges-Smith, Oenoke, Marvin, Brushy, Marshall and Ponus-yet when they drive out South Avenue from Now Canaan center they are not aware they are approaching Flatt Ridge. Thus it was known to the earliest
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