USA > Connecticut > Fairfield County > New Canaan > Landmarks of New Canaan > Part 46
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As is usual, the rooms are built around the "large central chimney. In front is the old par- lor (present dining room) with a mantel of pleasingly simple design. The room at the rear of the house with windows to the west looking down on the Norwalk Lake dam, was un- doubtedly used as the downstairs bedroom. The Murphys have made this their kitchen, but with the intermingling of the old with the modern, so characteristic throughout the house, the small fireplace has been left open on the east wall. It serves no useful purpose in this kitchen of today other than to give it a link with the past.
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The old kitchen, the room at the left of the front door, which in former days was the true living room of the house, is now still the living room, but in the present day interpretation of that term. The big fireplace with its accom- panying dutch oven is a reminder of the boun- tiful meals and hospitality of the past.
It is framed by a unique arrangement of seven cupboards, three above the mantel and the others on the sides. A brass warming pan hangs naturally by the side. This same pan had been sold with the deForest housefurnishings, but came back to its rightful place when Mr. Murphy traced it down one day in a local bar- ber shop.
Another heritage of the house is an old applewood table, made in 1749, which also had been in the deForest family. Further im- print of the deForest influence is in the hard- ware on the doors-they bear the mark of hav- ing been made in France. The Murphys have enlarged the original room somewhat by the incorporation of the milk room at the rear. A truly delightful room with three exposures is the result. A porch looks over the stonewalled garden to the south. Mr. Murphy recounts that Zachary Osborn with his team of oxen came up to plough the garden when first they came in 1906.
Enclosed stairs at the west end of the room rise up to the second floor where there are three bedrooms. One of the rooms, now con- verted into a bathroom, was being used as a storeroom for grain at the time the Murphys first inspected the house. No water came into the house, then, but a small lead pipe from the spring brought it to the barn.
When the land was more clear of trees than it is now, the Hickox house, way down the valley, was visible, and it is recounted that a tall spruce growing 50 feet, or more, in the northeast corner of the property served as a landmark to sailors on the sound. One summer, the daughter of the Murphy house was startled by a passer-by, who, after introducing himself as a sailor, explained how he had often taken bearings while on his ship from this tree on the deForest place.
In the rear of the house towards the west, the land sweeps down to the Norwalk Lake dam-a substantial lake of awe-inspiring size, indicative of the growth and changes of the community. But in the days when Mr. and Mrs. Murphy came, the valley of the Silver Mine River still retained much of the atmos- phere of the life which had gone on there in the early 1800's.
In those days, it was a community formed principally around the junction of Valley Road, North Wilton Road and along the river, with a mill at the upper end of the Grupe res- ervoir making the focal point. This mill, owned and passed down in the Lockwood family from father to son, was still standing there in 1906. The mill was a saw mill, grist mill and woolen mill.
A blacksmith shop, and the ruins of several homes were also evidences of the life there, while young Goodrich Murphy trudged to District School Number Five, which undoubt- edly the young deForests attended with the neighborhood children.
In those days most of the families farmed a little, as did the deForests, much land was bought and sold, and many augmented their incomes with work carried on in the home. The shoe and shirt factories in town provided the means for this. One of the tales of the neighborhood, as Mr. Murphy heard it, was of a particularly industrious woman who knitted as she walked the entire distance to town-it must have been about five miles or so. She would return from the shirt factory still knitting, with a bundle of garments to sew upon. Many brought shoes home as well, from the old Benedict shoe factory standing on the site of the present fire house.
Mr. Murphy was a pioneer in the com- muting way of life, the farthest north com- muter of this section, and we would think he did it the hard way. During this period he was the New York correspondent for the Chicago Tribune, and was a night worker, which meant that after hitching up his horse and carriage, he would drive the five miles to the station to catch the 6 o'clock train and return on the 5
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o'clock morning train. An important reason for choosing New Canaan was the fact that the best early morning train from New York left in this direction.
Mr. Murphy's father was a Methodist minis- ter and most of his boyhood was spent in mov- from place to place. As he grew up, he wanted to have a permanent home, a place he could return to in the intervals between travels, and he has always had New Canaan.
His life, like his father's has been full of motion and color. During World War I, in 1917, he went to France, to take charge of the Chicago Tribune Army Edition until after the Armistice. Afterwards with headquarters in Vienna, he continued as correspondent for the Chicago Tribune. Then to join the American Relief Administration, which necessitated his travelling through various European coun- tries especially Czechoslovakia, Poland, Aus- tria and Hungary, and during the famine, he was in Russia.
Back to the States in 1922, and in 1925 he joined the Baltimore Sun as New York corres- pondent and the following year took charge of the Washington bureau. To London next for a couple of years and back to Washington. The
next trip abroad was to Berlin in 1932, and from there to Geneva to cover the arms con- ference. In London next, and then in 1934 Mr. Murphy left the Baltimore Sun.
He served the State Department for a few years and during 1936 to 1943 was with the Democratic National Committee in charge of publicity. A rich and varied life, and fortunate- ly Mrs. Murphy was able to accompany him on most of his travels, with the exception of the war years, and the visit to Russia during the famine.
In all these wanderings and experiences the Murphy family's footsteps have ever turned back to their home here. Deep have their roots sunk into the hillside, even as the deForests before, and three Murphy generations are liv- ing here now. On land adjoining their parents, the son Goodrich, and his wife, Eleanor, live with their four boys, and the daughter Harriet, who married Paul Borglum, lives with her family nearby. It is pleasant to think that for over a hundred years these two families, the deForests and the Murphys, have lived on this ground, in this same house, contributing so much to the life and background of New Ca- naan.
STEPHEN HOYT HOUSE
WALTER RICHARDS, Artist
[April 20, 1950]
EDITOR'S NOTE: We are departing from our customary manner in presenting the house of the late Stephen Hoyt. The sketch had already been completed and instead of an original article, it seems very fitting to use the exact words of his father, Edwin Hoyt, in describing the building of their home. The Rural New Yorker's obituary of his father, which follows the letter, is so extraordinarily applicable to his son today, that we feel it should be included:
Letter of Edwin Hoyt as published by the Rural New Yorker on March 21, 1908.
I do not know what became of O. S. Fowl- cr's house, asked about on page 42, but I do
know about the house I built of concrete in 1859. I am living in it still, and it is just as good and perfect as the year in which it was built, and is good for years to come, for all I can see, if it is properly cared for. Mr. O. S. Fowler
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Walter Richards
...
The Stephen Hoyt House
published a book on concrete houses and their construction. This I purchased and studied the winter before I started in to erect my house. About the same time that Mr. Fowler built his concrete house a Mr. Barrett of Ohio built one of concrete. He also wrote a book on "Con- crete Houses and Their Construction." This book I also bought and studied well. I liked his curbing board construction and method of holding them in place, and adopted his plan in the erection of my house. Both of these books I have lost, so cannot give the name of Mr. Barrett or the town in which he lived. My house is 41x36 feet and 26 feet high, made with three stories, and has 18 rooms, three
halls and two baths. Concrete houses erected at the present time are mostly of large blocks, made from gravel and cement. This is an ex- pensive way of building a concrete house. In building my walls not a pound of cement was used. Lime, gravel and cobble stones only were used. By experimenting with the lime and gravel I had to mix together I found that 16 barrels of gravel to one of lime made the hard- est and firmest block so I used this proportion of gravel and lime to make the grout or mortar, which was poured into the curbing boards. In this was worked in all the cobble stones that could be put in and covered with the mortar or concrete. These stones were such as were
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picked from our fields when plowing and pre- paring them for our spring crops. These stones were from the size of a coffee cup to a foot in diameter. I did the work of making the curb- ing and filling it myself (for no one knew how to construct such houses then) with the help of one man who was hired by the month for $13 and board.
In the construction of these walls I used 35 barrels of lime at $1.37 per barrel. Calling my labor $2 per day (a large price for that time) and my helper $1 per day, it cost me in labor $248 to build the walls. The cost of erecting the walls, including the lime, was less than $300. It made a fine place to dispose of nearly 100 loads of cobble stones, which would have to be buried or deposited in some place on the farm. I hired masons from New Haven who were experienced in stuccoing brick houses to put on an outside stucco finish; this cost just $100. The chimneys were made by putting a wooden box 4x18 inches in the curbing box and working the mortar around it. When the mortar was set and the curbing boards loos- ened up this wooden box was drawn up and there was the flue for the chimney. All the brick used was only to top out the chimneys above the roof. No studding was used for plas- tering on the inside of the walls; the mortar was put right on the inside of these walls, so there is no space or places for rats, and the walls are as dry as any studded wall house.
I make this full statement of the construc- tion of this house to show how cheaply con- crete houses may be constructed and no cooler house in summer or warmer in winter can be made. A house can be built of concrete by using curbing boards as I had for much less money than the concrete blocks can be made, which will have to be laid up into the walls after they are dry and hard. The greatest dif- ficulty now in building concrete houses is there arc no parties sufficiently experienced in their construction to be had to do the work. I studied Barrett's and Fowler's works, and being young, energetic and something of a mechanic started in and built the walls myself, and by the dimen- sions it will be seen that it is no "baby house."
My carpenter said before I began to build the walls there would not be a plumb corner or a side but would bulge down the first heavy rain that came, and I was a fool for building a house of such material. I went into the house December 24, 1859, and Mrs. Hoyt and myself celebrated our fiftieth wedding anniversary September 30 last in this same house.
No one would know the house was built of concrete if not told. If I was to build again I would put in a little cement with the lime, but not much. It is more expensive than lime and the wall is not materially better. It would per- haps cause the concrete to set a little quicker. The curbing boards were 20 inches wide and raised 15 inches for each course, which left five inches on wall below to hold the bottom of board in place. We filled in the boards three times a week as a rule, sometimes four. The picture here represented is a photograph of my house. It is all right, and concrete is the coming material for country houses and barns, notwithstanding carpenters, bricklayers and master masons, etc., are not in favor of this material for house building.
New Canaan, Conn.
R. N. Y .- As stated on page 161, the original Fowler house fell in ruins, not even the ruins now being left.
The Rural New Yorker's Obituary of Edwin Hoyt, who died April 19, 1908.
This world lost a strong and useful character in the death of Edwin Hoyt, of Connecticut. He was one of Nature's noblemen, and through his long and useful life held high idcals of character and service. Born 75 years ago, Mr. Hoyt, with his brother James, succeeded to his father's nursery business, and made the name honored among fruit growers through- out New England and beyond. He held public office, and was an authority on farm and horti- cultural matters. Probably his last article for the press was the account of the concrete house which we printed a few weeks ago. Mr. Hoyt built this house with his own hands when
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a young man, and recently celebrated his gol- den wedding in it. That house, built upon hon- or, was so honestly and thoroughly made that it stands today good for another half century. And the character and reputation which Mr. Hoyt built up and left behind him are like that house, so true and solid that they are enduring.
At the monthly meeting of the Board of Governors of the Historical Society on April 10, 1950, the following memorial was unanimously adopted.
STEPHEN HOYT (1870-1950)
The New Canaan Historical Society records its deep sense of loss in the death of its long- time member, Stephen Hoyt, who died on March 31, 1950.
New Canaan has lost one of its outstanding
citizens, a bulwark of this community over the years, and this Society has lost one of its oldest and most valued members.
It is particularly appropriate that this So- ciety pay tribute to one who was not only a distinguished descendant of a leading family of Canaan Parish, but whose own life exempli- fied a stability and permanence which are too often lacking in this changing world. We may well pause to reflect upon the life of this man, who died in the house where he was born and had lived for all of his cighty ycars, a house which his father had built in 1859. As with his house, so with his business, for he succeeded his grandfather and father as the head of The Stephen Hoyt's Sons Company, Inc., which has had only three presidents since it was founded in 1848.
While we mourn the loss of Stephen Hoyt, we also express our gratitude that the Society and community have so long enjoyed his lead- ership in their affairs.
THE TALMADGE-SMITH-MILLER HOUSE
MARSHALL H. MONTGOMERY, Author
WALTER RICHARDS, Artist
[April 27, 1950]
At the close of every weekend during the sum- mer and especially on Labor Day about an hour before sundown, up to two score cars can be observed clustered about the bridge over the Merritt Parkway on quiet Lapham Road. These cars bring at times more than a hundred people who crowd the west battlement of the bridge to gaze in fascination at a man-made spectacle against New Canaan's most spectac- ular scenic backdrop.
What they are watching is the homeward flow of the New York bound traffic, sometimes bumper to bumper and with the right hand lane for once progressing faster than the pass-
ing lane, as it crawls down the hill, across the giant causeway over the Noroton River valley, and up the straight three-quarter mile sweep to the crest of Ponus Ridge.
This vantage point on Talmadge Hill, named for a family which, although giving its name to the hill, is more closely identified with and had its original homestead in the valley below-a homestead still to be seen as the first house north of the parkway exit tucked in the corner formed by Old Stamford and Jelliff Mill Roads.
This one and one-half story center chim- ney house is a landmark familiar to most New
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Canaan people because for years it has carried the Tercentenary sign labeling it as the James Talmadge house and the date "1739." As we shall see later, both name and date are probably in error, but for once the hastier research of an earlier day seems to have caused the error to fall on the conservative, not the fanciful, side.
The land on which the future Thomas Tal- madge house was to stand is of special interest because it was originally laid out to, or "pitched," to Jonathan Bell, Stamford's first white child who was born the very year of that town's first settlement-1641. To him was allotted shortly before 1700 extensive acreage on the west slope of Flat Ridge (between the present Old Stamford and Lapham Roads) and i-e, "the plains" on the east side of Noroton River south of Jelliff Mill Road down past the present Woodway County Club. For years afterwards these areas were known as Bell's Ridge and Bell's Plains.
In 1710, several years after Jonathan Bell's death, his five children had more definitely de- lineated for them their father's holdings, one of which was described as a thirty-acre piece lying in the plains bounded west by the (Nor- oton) River, north by a cross highway (Jeliff Mill Road), east by a highway (Old Stamford Road), and south by another property owner.
Such has been the consistent description of this piece down to the present, for 250 years the possession of members of only two families. One of the five children for whom the above document was drawn was Susannah Bell Weed, who in 1715 enters our story as a young widow of 29 and the mother of a small child, for it was in that ycar that she married Thomas Tal- madge.
Thomas Talmadge's great grandfather, Thomas, and grandfather, Robert, came to the Boston area about 1630 from Hants, England, and with a party of Lynn people helped co- lonize Southampton, Long Island, in 1640. Four years later Robert appears in New Haven, where in 1656 his fourth child, Enos, was born.
This Enos married Hannah Yale, (thus be- coming the brother-in-law of Elihu of ivy
league fame), and came to an untimely end when as Lieutenant in command of the assis- tance sent by Connecticut to Schenectady he was killed in the burning of that town by the Indians in 1690. Our Thomas was only two years old at the time of this shocking occur- rence, but it says much for his initiative and independence that as soon as he became of age he sought newer fields, for in 1709 he was ad- mitted an inhabitant of Stamford and the next year was able to produce 80 pounds with which to buy John Bishop's house in the center of town.
If you extend New Canaan's perambulation line in a straight line southerly to Five Mile River and northerly four miles into Pound Ridge, then run a line westerly parallel to the Sound to a northern extension of the Stam- ford-Greenwich line you will have the boun- daries of Stamford as they existed at the time Thomas Talmadge married the widow Susan- nah as described above. In other words, before the present New York-Connecticut line was run in 1731, Stamford included all of the pres- ent Darien and parts of New Canaan, Pound Ridge, Bedford and Northcastle.
The town's population had climbed over the 600 mark, and there was a definite pressure to move into and farm the common lands that were continually being pitched. What more natural then that the new young family make use of the inherited lands? Thus it was that in 1719 Thomas and Susannah came to an amic- able agreement with the latter's sisters and brothers to take over the upper plains property on which to build a home. Three years later the house in Stamford was sold, at which time we can assume the homestead on its present site was ready to be lived in, at least in part.
We say in part, because the Talmadge house as it stands today presents a real mystery. It is actually a house and a half. To the southern and smaller part, which we shall call the ell, can be ascribed the date 1722-both tradition and external and internal evidence point to it as being older than the larger center chimney portion, but by not more than 10 or 20 ycars.
The usual development was for the pioneer
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Walter Richards 51
The Talmadge-Smith-Miller House
settler to build one room with a chimney on one end, then pivot his house around the chimney, adding a room on the other side as his means or family increased, a lean-to (salt box effect) on the back side, etc. The mystery here is why Thomas Talmadge made an ob- vious start following this pattern (the present cobblestone chimney replaced an original Dutch oven type) and then shifted his base of operations, as it were, to produce full blown the main dwelling as it now stands.
The writer has puzzled over this, but dares to hazard a theory for which there is only cir- cumstantial evidence, yet one which seems to fit all the factors. We know Thomas was a nephew of Eli Yale, and that he was a bene- ficiary under his will. His merchant uncle died in England in 1721, just about the time Thomas was getting his house started, and it may be that some time elapsed, because of the dis- tance, possible litigation, etc., before he was able to realize on his inheritance. This new found wealth might well account for such an
ambitious change of plan, and the timing would seem to fit in with the fact that the main house appears to have been built ante 1750. Furthermore, New Haven records dis- close Thomas to have been a seller of property there after he became part of Canaan parish.
At any rate, in the orbit thus created by the family's new surroundings Thomas and Susan- nah soon took an active part. In 1733 the two of them were "affectionately dismissed" by the Reverend Mr. Wright in Stamford to the newly formed Canaan parish church, Thomas be- coming its first deacon and serving continu- ously in that post until his death in 1766.
They cleared the land and farmed it with the help of their three children-James, b. 1721, Jonathan, b. 1725, and Mary, b. 1730-and, as was the case so often, they buried another son and daughter under infants' tombstones. Then, when the two sons were grown, "for affection" they deeded their homestead and lands in 1743 to James and Jonathan to be shared equally. The estate had grown to over 130
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acres, running well south of the present Darien line and including land up the valley and on Bell's Ridge.
We now come forward a generation where James engages our attention. When he was 20 he married Mary Seymour of Norwalk, and before 1755 had enlarged the family's interests by owning and running the adjacent mill. This was the very mill whose history can be traced back to 1718 and as Jelliff's Mill is still so well known to us today. In 1755 a most complicated series of deeds, quit-claims, and swaps be- tween James and Jonathan and the elder Tal- madge left the mill ownership hopelessly rav- elled (to the researcher) in factions, but did leave James firmly planted in the homestead with his wife and five children and both par- ents. Living until 1797, he deeded to his third child, Seymour, the family place in 1781.
With Seymour our New Canaan Talmadges touch briefly on a wider and more exciting sphere than that provided by a humdrum farm year, for the family was certainly privy to and may have had active participation in one of the most celebrated exploits of the Revolution. Seymour's third cousin from New Haven way, Colonel Benjamin Talmadge, was an aide of Washington's and his chief secret service operative. In 1779 he nearly allowed himself with important papers to be captured by the British during a sharp engagement near the church in Pound Ridge.
To make up for this mortification he asked for and was given permission to raid a British detachment on Lloyd's Neck over on Long Island which was making life miserable in- discriminately for both patriots and loyalists on the Connecticut shore. Marching his com- mand from Canaan parish to Shippan Point, he gathered a flotilla, embarked, executed his attack with daring and dispatch, captured 500 prisoners, and returned to Stamford without the loss of a man. The regard in which he was held was such that he later was given custody of Major Andre until the latter's execution.
Seymour was born in 1755, married Sarah Hoyt, disposed of the mill property in 1800, and for reasons unknown decided to pull stakes
and remove to Saratoga County, New York, in 1816. Most of his children, however, remained, but their center of activity was further up the valley or on the Ridge, whence came the eventual naming of Talmadge Hill. For $2,654 Seymour deeded to Joseph Smith two pieces of land, on one of which was "my homestcad."
Although a new name is here introduced, Joseph Smith's wife Mary Talmadge, who seems to have been a daughter of Jonathan. Of a prosperous family on Flat Ridge, he was the son of "Tory Joe" Smith whose bar sinister had resulted in the loss of the family's holdings during the Revolution. Joseph, Jr., and Mary had four· sons-Stephen, James, Minot and Sherman, to whom they quit-claimed the home- stead in 1838. Said sons turned right around and quit-claimed back to their mother the pro- perty "for the term of her natural life and no longer," which turned out to be 1850. Joseph, however, lived on in the house with his son James and family until his death in 1857, when James became sole owner.
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