USA > Connecticut > Fairfield County > New Canaan > Landmarks of New Canaan > Part 48
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Even the house whose walls have heard the talk of boots and shoes, farming, horses, land sales, birth and death, all the ups and downs of life, is still a proud and lovely homestead.
Its mistress Alice Deering Ells, now in her 90's, was deeded the house by her father-in- law, James B., in 1897, four years before he died there. He felt that she was level-headed and would carry on, and certainly she has.
Of the two daughters now living with her, both widowed, Mrs. Alice D. Douglas, Daisy to her friends, has been for some time soprano soloist and organist at St. Aloysius' Church. Mrs. Louise Vivienne Powers is a decorator connected with the Georgian Shop in Darien. The third daughter, occupation housewife, lives in Gilbertsville, N. Y., while the son, Oakley Ells, is in the Poconos at Gouldsboro, Pa.
The name of Ells will go on for many years and so will the house, we're thinking. Wish it luck as you pass and hope that yours may do the same,
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THE JOHNSON'S CARRIAGE SHOP
HELEN G. BRISTOW, Author [May 11, 1950]
In the last quarter of the 19th century before the horseless carriage was invented, there was one place in New Canaan which, above all others, boys loved to visit when school was out. This was a plain wooden building on the cor- ner of East Avenue and Forest Street, known as Johnson's Carriage Shop. Beyond the shop was New Canaan's first firehouse; across the street where barns and next door were more barns-a perfect set-up for a game of hare and hounds on a Saturday.
Through the big open door on Forest Street, the three great forges glowed, the pungent smell of burning hooves tantalized the nostrils and hot iron hissed excitedly as it plunged into
cold water. The boy looking in at the open door might have been one of the children described by Longfellow in "The Village Blacksmith."
"And children coming home from school Look in at the open door; They love to see the flaming forge, And hear the bellows roar And catch the burning sparks that fly Like chaff from a threshing-floor."
The boy looks in just as a horse is led in to be shod. The farrier picks up the horse's feet one by one and examines the old shoes. Then he looks through his stock of shoes, chooses four
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that he thinks he can fit, and gets the horse's feet ready for the new shoes. Picking up one of its feet with the leg bent at the knee, the farrier rests it on his own knee against his heavy leather apron.
Holding the horse's foot firmly between his knees, he yanks the nails out and pulls off the old shoe. Then he pares the hoof with a very thin-bladed knife, curved and limber, taking great care not to injure the center of the foot where there is no hoof.
Meantime the farrier's helper has been working the great leather bellows with a long handle. Thrusting the shoe into the bottom of the fire he blows slowly and easily; he must keep a hot fire going steadily. With a little shovel he pours on a special grade of soft coal which gives a maximum of heat and a mini- mum of ash.
The shoe is shaped on the anvil which is surrounded by dozens of different kinds of tongs. Red-hot from the forge, the shoe is picked up with tongs and placed on the poin- ted end of the anvil. With heavy blows of his hammer, the farrier begins to shape the shoe; he tries it on the hoof, thrusts it into the fire again, tries it again and again, pushing it right into the shaved hoof.
When he has curved the shoe to fit exactly, he turns up the ends to make a caulk; then he throws it into a tub of cold water. Lifting the shoe out, he notes the color to be sure the temper is right. When he is satisfied, he throws it on the floor. The same process is gone through with all four shoes, giving the watch- ing boy plenty of time to study the art of horse- shoeing.
The farrier uses special nails, flat with a flat head. Putting the finished shoe on, he drives the nails into the hoof so that they come right through to the upper side; then he takes a pair of bolt cutters and cuts off the projecting points. With a rasp he files the ends of the nails and the sides of the hoof itself until shoe and hoof present a perfectly smooth surface.
Most horses seemed to enjoy being shod, but once in a while one was brought in with tender hooves; then a felt pad was placed be-
tween hoof and shoe. No special horse-shoeing job was too difficult for a Johnson man to tackle. As he worked, the farrier chewed stead- ily on a plug of tobacco, and when the flies were bad, he kept a sharp watch on the horse's tail, for when he switched his tail, the horse often wrapped it right around the farrier, and a horse's tail could sting!
It was even more exciting to see an ox shod. In the shop they had a sling or cradle which looked like parallel bars in a gymnasium with a great leather sheet suspended between them. The ox was driven in between the bars; the sheet was drawn up under its belly and tight- ened by means of a ratchet on one of the bars until the animal's feet were just off the ground so he couldn't kick. Since an ox's foot is cloven, the shoe had to be in two pieces; each piece looked like a clam shell with a little handle. The farrier sheared the ox's hoof slightly be- fore fitting the shoe.
In early colonial times, oxen were the com- mon beasts of burden; they dragged stone- boats and sledges, for there were no wheeled vehicles and no wheelwrights in Canaan Parish until after 1770. The two older Johnson broth- ers, Elias and Henry, shod horses and oxen and did iron work. After they died, there was no place in New Canaan to get an ox shod, a man had to take his oxen all the way to North Salem to a blacksmith shop.
Charlie Weed, a farmer and teamster who lived in White Oak Shade, never used horses; from the time he was a little boy until he died he drove oxen. In the early 1920's, he still had a yoke of oxen which he had to drive all the way to North Salem for new shoes.
Starting at dawn, he walked his animals nearly 20 miles to the smith's. Charlie never rode; he walked ahead of his oxen, carrying his whip over his shoulder, until he found him- self way out in front, then he walked back, talked to them ( without swearing ) and whaled them over their rumps. It was a long day's work to get his yoke of oxen shod.
The smith was a man of great importance in the days before the horseless carriage. Peo- ple had to have horses to get about and oxen
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for heavy hauling, and they had to have some place to get them shod. There were many little blacksmith shops, some of them way off in the country at lonely crossroads.
Johnson's was the only one that manufac- tured vehicles besides shoeing the animals that drew them. They built sturdy wagons and pleasure vehicles for a large territory around New Canaan. When wealthy people came to the neighborhood with blooded horses, they ordered all kinds of vehicles from Johnson's, including traps, coaches, buggies, sleighs and tallyhos for six horses. The brothers made them all; they also built cabs for livery stables.
If a boy got tired of watching the shoeing of horses and oxen, he could even go into the other side of the shop and follow the making of a wagon or coach from the wheels and axles to the final coat of varnish. He could study the plans for a vehicle laid out on paper.
Johnson's made the wheels for the wagons and carriages, buying the hubs, fellies and spokes ready-made from some mill nearby and assembling them. The felly or rim of a wheel came in three sections which had to be fitted together. The rim was then bored to fit the round ends of the spokes; the hub came with the square holes already cut to fit their square ends.
The completed rim had to be driven on to the round end of the spokes. Two metal bands were fitted around each side of the hub and fastened in place by bolts and nuts. Next the wheel was taken over to the iron mill (a part of the shop) and a tire rim was fitted to it.
There was a special instrument to measure the wheel and the piece of steel that was to be made into a tire. A steel bar was cut with a cold chisel and a sledge hammer to the pro- per length.
Outdoors was a fire into which the whole tire was put to be heated. When it was red hot it was fitted on the wheel and shrunk to it by putting it in water. This was the way of making a big heavy wheel, but some tires for light vehicles were attached to the wheels by bolts and nuts.
While the wheels were being fashioned,
another man had been making the axles, which might be all wood with metal ends or all metal. The wheels had to fit smoothly over the ends of the axle; a heavy grease was put between wheel and axle to make the wheel turn easily.
The two axles were fastened together at the right distance by a pole braced with iron. In front they had a "fifth wheel" and a kingpin, a half circle with two metal plates, one fitted to the axle, the other to the body of the vehicle. This prevented one wheel from going farther ahead than the other and tipping the wagon over.
The shafts of a wagon were usually made of ash; they were soaked in water until they would bend, then fastened into shape by means of iron bands placed underneath. Shafts were interchangable with a pole for a team of horses.
The body of a vehicle was a plain piece of carpentry work, but in the making of a wagon with a top a lot of iron work was involved. Buggies were made with collapsible leather tops. The woodwork and ironwork were all figured out in advance.
The painting of vehicles was done upstairs in a big room which would hold several car- riages and wagons at a time. First a priming coat was put on, then several coats of color; finally the striping and decoration were done and a coat of varnish added. The striping re- quired the most delicate skill, for the lines were drawn freehand.
The painting of a coach ( always black ) was a highly specialized job; it had to be done in a room warmed to just the right temperature. To get a smooth, mirror-like finish, the varnish had to flow on. The upholstery was done by a specialist who did nothing but cushions and leather work. This was clean work, in contrast with the work with metal and fire.
Every fall the Johnsons had a big tent at the Danbury Fair in which they exhibited 20 to 30 new carriages made especially for the occasion. George Johnson spent the whole week at the fair, selling his new vehicles and taking orders for more. Carriages were de- livered two at a time on a long platform con-
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veyance drawn by four handsome iron-gray horses in polished brass-studded harness, with two men from the shop mounted on the lead horses.
The Johnsons were famous far and wide for the fine quality of their custom-made vehicles, but they did make one outrageous monstrosity on wheels, that was never used. This was an enormous farm wagon ordered by a Chicago millionaire who had bought a place in Wilton. The man went broke and never paid for his wagon; for a long time it was stored in S. B. Hoyt's shed where it served as a hideout for many a forbidden game of casino. Nobody knows what finally become of this white ele- phant.
At one time, the Johnsons had 30 skilled men working for them. The big boss was George F. Johnson, father of Howard, Herbert and Ho- race; he was all over the shop, superintending and taking part in all stages of the work. To a boy, he was the ideal of Longfellow's village blacksmith.
"The smith a mighty man is he With large and sinewy hands; And the muscles of his brawny arms Are strong as iron bands."
George, who was president of the School Board for 20 years, loved children. When the snow was deep on the ground, he mounted a long box wagonbody on two bobsleds, filled it deep with straw, hitched up the four iron-gray horses and took 20 to 30 children, warmly wrapped in blankets, on a long sleigh ride. When they reached Norwalk, George treated them all to hot chocolate at the drugstore, then drove them all the way to Stamford and home again.
Elias Johnson, a big, blue-eyed man, was the largest of the Johnson brothers; he was a smith, as was Henry Johnson. Another smith was Johnny Kelley, brother of Henry Kelley; Ed and Theron Raymond were the woodworkers; they were expert at making carriage bodies.
Ed later became a selectman. His son has
just retired from the Harvard faculty where he taught invertebrate paleontology; he wrote the only popular book on the subject ever published.
Dan O'Neill, who had a wonderful bass voice, was the upholsterer; he always looked clean. Orlando Malone was an expert forger- a superb craftsman in iron; after hours he made chandeliers and other household objects just for the love of it. These men were heroes to the boys. They were full of unending patience and good humor, never too busy or too tired to explain things to the boys who flocked to the shop. Often they put aside their work to at- tach steel runners to a boy's home-made sled; this sometimes involved a lot of argument as to whether the runners should be flat, round or oval.
In the winter, the whole town went crazy about coasting. Crowds of people came out for coasting parties on moonlight nights. They always started from St. Mark's Church. There were prayer meetings of Wednesday nights which everybody had to attend. One memor- able night the Methodists and the Congrega- tionalists had a joint prayer meeting at the Congregational Church which let out early so that everyone could go coasting.
Sometimes they coasted from St. Mark's down the hill to Main Street and on to Maple Street, or they might turn down East Avenue and with a little push go clear across the pond when the ice was good. Another popular route was down Park Street into Richmond Hill and out across the marsh area which is now the lake in Mead Park.
In those days the hills were safe, but there were plenty of spills and occasional broken arms. Everyone aspired to have a winning sled, a pung or a double rip (now called a bob- sled). This was where the Johnson's help was needed. With the money they had earned picking blue berries in the summer, the boys paid for the iron work on their sleds.
One winter when the coasting was especial- ly fine, the Johnsons made another outrageous vehicle. This was a huge double rip for their own use. The board was so long it had to be
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sprung up in the middle by means of a tie- rod running its entire length. The whole shop- 30 men-could pile aboard at one time. It roared down the long, steep slopes at a terrific clip; a team of horses was needed to pull it up the hill again.
George Johnson, who made it, thought he would show the world what a sled really ought to be, but it turned out to be impractical. Only the most extraordinary weather conditions made it possible to use the monstrous thing at all.
At the time Henry Ford was inventing his famous "horseless carriage," George Johnson was also inventing his own "horseless buggy," with the financial help of the late Lewis P. Child and they had their secret machine shop in Mr. Child's carriage houses, where a very fine machine shop was set up.
This horseless buggy was well advanced about the time Mr. Ford brought out his famous invention. George Johnson died in June, 1896, and his horseless buggy was never fin- ished. Mr. Child's machine shop was kept in- tact many years after, before it was dismantled.
The corner of East Avenue and Forest Street has been connected with transportation for many years when the common land was divided in the early 1700's, this land probably fell to Theophilus Hanford; it changed hands
several times before coming into the possession of the Johnsons.
It is not known who built the first black- smith shop at this location, but the first black- smith shop in the village was built on the pres- ent Birdsall House property by Bradley Kee- ler, great-grandfather of Bishop Keeler. In 1909, the old wooden buildings of Johnson's Carriage Shop were torn down and new brick and steel buildings were erected for the rising automobile business.
Today the Johnson brothers, Herbert and Horace, sons of George, are still engaged in selling and repairing the means of transporta- tion, but they no longer make their own vehi- cles. The automobiles they sell are manufac- tured far away and are brought to them on vast motor carriers. Their sister, Clara G. Johnson, (now Mrs. James Thomas) was for several years bookkeeper for the firm which celebrated its 75th. anniversary in 1948.
Blacksmiths are still needed to shoe horses, but nowadays they have portable shops and forges on trucks, and they go to the horse in- stead of having the horse brought to them. Oxen are still used for heavy draught work, but no longer in New Canaan. A lot of them are used in Vermont, especially at sugaring-off time, and many prized yokes of oxen are still to be found in Nova Scotia.
THE PRINDLE-FAIRWEATHER - COMSTOCK-EWING HOUSE
VIRGINIA JONES OLMSTED, Author
EDWIN EBERMAN, Artist
[May 18, 1950]
The first mention of the land on which this house was built so much later is contained in the town of Norwalk grant to one William Haynes of 90 acres of common land in 1706.
During the ensuing years Haynes granted a portion of his property to Samuel Prindle of Milford in the colony of New Haven.
William Prindle, the grandfather of Samuel,
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.... .
Edwin Elerwar 1950
The Prindle-Fairweather-Comstock-Ewing House
was born in Scotland in 1630. He came to this country doubtlessly with the group headed by the Rev. John Davenport who migrated into Connecticut after first settling in Massachu- setts Bay. The New Haven colony, which was one of those formed as a result of the migration, was governed and largely supported financially by Theophilus Eaton before whom William Prindle took the oath of allegiance.
Samuel Prindle, an early owner of the Fair- weather-Comstock-Ewing property, was born in 1702. He became identified with Canaan Parish when in 1773 he and his first wife, Mary, were among the earliest admitted to the newly organized Congregational Church. Four years later, in February, 1737, Johanna, the second wife of Samuel, was made a member of the church-also during the ministry of the Rev. John Eels.
In that same year Samuel Prindle sold to Oliver Arnold and heirs for 210 pounds "a cer- tain piece of land near the Meeting House con- taining eight acres and a half acre with a house
on some part of it." Just which house it was and who lived in it later is difficult to verify. We can be certain, however, it was not the original of the Ewing house. With the foregoing trans- action the name Prindle ceased to be identi- fied with the property.
Oliver Arnold, who owned the land briefly from 1737 to 1740, sold it in that latter year to William Boult of Norwalk for 300 pounds. An estimated 15 acres and a house were included in that agreement. William Boult was a patriot of Canaan Parish and belonged to the Train Band, an organization similar to our present day home guard. He was commissioned an en- sign in 1758 and in 1764 had obtained the rank of captain.
During his ownership of the property Wil- liam Boult built a cider mill on it. This mill fea- tured in several of the succeeding grants of the land. In 1761 Boult gave to Andrew Seymour for 190 pounds 15 acres, a house, barn and one fourth of the cider mill. After selling it he lived 38 more years and died in 1799 at the age of 85.
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Andrew Seymour, the fifth owner of the land, was born in 1734. At 22 he married Sarah Cris- sey of Canaan Parish. Between them they pro- duced eight children before he died in 1773 at the approximate age of 40. His death oc- curred as a result of a fever which set in nine days after a surgical operation was performed on him by a Dr. Townsend.
Three years after his demise the estate of Andrew Seymour was divided among his wi- dow and his children, after first being inven- toried by Samuel Hanford and David St. John. Andrew's second son, John, in 1781 sold one acre and three rods of his inheritance to his older brother Samuel for 12 pounds. Included in the sale was his right to the cider mill and also the barn.
Samuel Seymour, born in 1756, was married at 18 and two years later, at the still early age of 20 enlisted as a private in the Revolutionary Army. He served to the end of the war with that rank. He died in 1834, the father of 12 children. Thirty-one years previously he had granted the land inherited from his brother, John, plus an additional 13 or 14 acres together with the house, barn and one eighth of the cider mill to Daniel Bouton, jr.
Apparently none of the numerous children wished to build on this land and thus ends their connection with the property. It is unusual for such an eminently convenient holding as that to have been owned by many prominent Ca- naan Parish families, and to have been the home of none.
Daniel Bouton was probably the same who was born in Canaan Parish, town of Stamford, in 1740, the son of Nathaniel and Mary Bou- ton. He married in 1767, but the name of his wife was not mentioncd. During the Revolu- tionary War he served as captain and marched to repel the British at Compo Bay and was so seriously wounded by a shot from an enemy vessel that he received a pension for the rest of his life as a result of his injuries.
In 1797 Daniel Bouton was elected a deacon for life in the Congregational Church, and was apparently a man of great influence in the com- munity. Prior to that, he served on a commit- tee to "treat" with the Rev. William Drum-
mond before the latter was dismissed from his duties as third minister of the parish. In 1808, 13 years before his death, Deacon Bouton granted 15 acres, a house, barn and seven 24ths of a cider mill to Richard Fairweather.
Richard Fairweather was an original propri- etor of the New Canaan Academy founded in 1815. During his tenure as headmaster he boarded out-of-town students, and in one in- stance a young instructor, Julian Sturtevandt, who later married his daughter, Hannah Rich- ards Fairweather.
One of Richard Fairweather's important confreres in the founding of the academy was the highly respected citizen and merchant, Samuel St. John. His store provided the early housing for the school until a year later a "suit- able two-story building" was found for its loca- tion. That ground is now the site of the present parking lot behind John Brotherhood, Inc.
In the beginning there was a rapid turnover of teachers at the academy-mostly young Yale graduates-to "make the most of their energy and enthusiasm before they moved on to larger fields." Because of the modest tuition the sal- aries were correspondingly small; however, the curriculum was highly elastic and embraced not only "finished English education," Latin and Greek, but also mathematics, philosophy and chemistry. It is said of the 13 original pu- pils who studied at the academy that they showed the highest marks of all the students who were accepted at Yale at that time.
. Julian Sturtevandt was the eighth master of the New Canaan Academy. After two years there he went on to be a part of the "Yale Band" which founded churches, colleges and schools in the Mississippi valley. Alone he founded Illinois College at Jacksonville and served as its president for 36 years.
In one of the beginning years of his presi- dency, some 13 years after he left the academy and his temporary home at the Fairweathers, he married the daughter of the house, Hannah Richards Fairweather. Unfortunately the story of that long ago courtship is not recorded. The many letters undoubtedly exchanged would give us interesting information about the old academy and life in Canaan Parish.
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At this point it is still a mystery whether or not the house so frequently mentioned is one of those still standing in the neighborhood, or whether it was destroyed, for, some few years after he purchased the land, Richard Fair- weather built the present house much as we see it today. In a small shop near his house he carried on the manufacture of hats.
It was he who sold a portion of his land to the Episcopal Society on which is built the present church. In 1837 Fairweather sold the house which he had erected, together with 30 acres, to Seymour Comstock who lived there until his death in 1902 at the ripe old age of 99.
During his lifetime he ran a very successful general store further down the street. His es- tablishment and that of the three Raymond brothers, Charles, Thomas and Edgar, were boasted to be "two of the best all-round coun- try stores in the country." Heavily loaded hay wagons would pass through the village on their way to Norwalk. On the return trip when empty they would pause at the Comstock or the Raymond store to take on supplies to carry home.
After the death of Seymour Comstock in 1902, the house and its attending acres passed through several hands, including those of a son, until it became the property of G. Temple Bridgman. Mr. Bridgman, an eminent mining engineer, was connected with the Guggenheim copper interests and had occasion to travel abroad frequently. Upon his retirement in re- cent years, he and his family moved to Cali- fornia where they are now living in San Fran- cisco.
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