USA > Connecticut > Fairfield County > New Canaan > Landmarks of New Canaan > Part 54
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61
Two other farmers owned the Whaley place briefly before it was bought in 1909 by Dr. Samuel Lloyd, then head of the Post Graduate Hospital in New York City. Dr. Lloyd's pur- chase marked the end of an era, the end of
441
personal, family farming and the beginning of gentleman farming. Dr. Lloyd wanted a place in the country where his family could spend happy, outdoor summers and rural white Christmases, a place where he could raise fruit and vegetables and enjoy his own vacations.
He was only one of many New Yorkers who were turning to New Canaan at that time for the same reasons. Dr. Llyod made substantial changes and improvements in the Whaley house, built another house for the farmer he employed and had an ice pond dug which was fed by several springs.
The next time Rosebrook Farm changed hands was in 1923. The purchaser was Hazen Perry, Dr. Lloyd's son in law and vice president of the Turner Construction Company. Since Mr. Perry was a commuter his advent marked the end of the brief gentleman farming era of Rosebrook Farm.
It was quite likely Mr. Perry's experience in the construction business which inspired him to the extensive alterations he made on the old
Whaley house. He widened the house, knocked out partition walls, put in steel girders, re- moved a porch, moved the house formerly in- habited by Dr. Lloyd's farmer down beside the Whaley house and hitched it on with connec- ting rooms. That he knew what he was doing is shown by the roomy and comfortable home he created.
Twenty-seven years later, after the Perry children had all grown up and married and could not fit commuting into their busy lives, Rosebrook Farm was sold to its present owner, John M. Lyden, a New York advertising man. The difference between modern advertising and the kind of farming done by the original Fitches, with shoemaking as a cash crop in the winter months, is undoubtedly great. But there is a certain continuity in the old house on Rosebrook Road, the continuity which comes from one family after another taking part in the life of New Canaan, raising their children in the pleasant countryside of Rose- brook Road.
THE N. CRISSEY-COLLINS- Mc KERNAN HOUSE
MARSHALL H. MONTGOMERY, Author
EDMUND DAVENPORT, Artist
[ April 19, 1951]
Out on Ponus Street, a mile above Greenley Road and just south of the pond formed by damning the east branch of the Rippowam, sits the rather large Crissey house on a suitable eminence facing westward to one of the nicest meadowland vistas in New Canaan. The house has literally had its ups and downs, having been moved once, maybe twice, but after a long period of non-owner tenantry it is now the proud possession of Mr. and Mrs. John F. Mc-
Kernan, who have carefully furnished it in keeping with its original role as one of New Canaan's fine old homesteads.
It is curious that early ministers of two of New Canaan's neighboring towns gathered unto themselves such superabundant land holdings as to be unique in Connecticut annals. One, the Rev. Thomas Hawley of Ridgefield, acquired 50,000 acres on a patent basis (free
442
. EDMOND. DAVENPORT
The N. Crissey-Collins-McKernan House
for nothing) in the Oblong north of New Ca- naan, which under the guise of the Hawley Land Company he sold off in 500 acre lots to eager buyers, including many from the Smith Ridge section of this town.
His, however, is a separate story. The other, the Rev. John Davenport of Stamford, had at his death in 1731 a vague but huge domain, which in essence consisted of all the land west of Weed Street and West Road in the about to be established Canaan Parish, plus an equal amount east of High Ridge Road over on the Stamford side.
After great persuasion and protracted nego- tiations, the Rev. Mr. Davenport had been called to Stamford in 1693, and, to mix a meta- phor, from the beginning he was tended and nurtured by his flock like a queen bee. Early Stamford records are so full of concern for the minister as to be more than mildly astonishing to any modern day laborer in the vineyard. The following excerpts will give an idea:
"The town doth engage to finish the pasinedge house, fence in the lott, digg a well, plant an or- chard and give it to Mr. John Davenport." "The
town doth vote 100 pounds a year to Mr. Daven- port." "The town doth give to Mr. John Davenport his firewood ... to be done by the people of the town, all male persons from 16 years and up- wards." "The town do now further order that every inhabitant of this town shall cut and carry to Mr. Davenport a good ox load of good wood to be done by the last of November annually . . . under penalty of 4 shillings." ". .. appoint a day to call forth those men that are behind to at- tend ye work of bringing wood to Mr. Davenport, and to do it as soon as may be." ". .. to order those men that are behind in the fence of Mr. Davenport's pasture to make up the posts or else to hire men and pay according to law."
Those same records, however, which give such a full story of how the original common lands were "pitched" to Stamford's early fam- ilies, in no way account for Mr. Davenport's terrific holdings. We can only conclude that he simply took title to all that remained after most of the pitching was done, and that no one questioned his right.
At any rate, after his death his heirs prompt- ly had a careful and accurate survey made of
443
what had previously been delineated only by oak trees, crosspaths, moist spots, and big boulders, and proceeded for the next 50 years to sell off this tight little empire for coin of the realm.
Among those who so bought was one Nath- aniel Crissy, who with his wife Martha (Bi- shop) was dismissed by the Rev. Mr. Wells of Stamford to the Canaan Parish Church in 1747. Born in 1700, Nathaniel was the son of John Crissy, born in 1665, and the grandson of Wil- liam Crissy who came from England to Salem, Mass., and turned up in Stamford in 1649.
There seems to be no trace of the house this first Nathaniel built, in which two succeed- ing Nathaniels were born, and which the Rev. William Drummond recorded in his Journal of Family Visitation in 1772. The present house was built for Nathaniel Crissy, 3rd, about 1795 by a farmer-builder named Weed.
In due course this new house descended to Samuel Crissy, who was either a son or nephew of Nathaniel, 3rd. Samuel was born in 1790, and married Abigail Scofield. He died in 1855 she survived him by 16 years. Their son Cyrus was born in the house in 1826, and became the next owner by inheritance. Cyrus Crissy, in addition to farming his own lands, was the farmer for Col. Darius Davenport, where the W. L. Fingers now live. The Davenports' little daughter Sarah kept a diary, and two excerpts from it open a window on a fascinating bit of history connected with the Crissy house. Here is an eleven year old girl writing in 1849:
"Thursday 7 June. Warm and pleasant. Absent from school. My Father's hierd man Mr. Cyrus Crissy is to be married to Miss Sally Ann Hoyt this evening.
I expect to go with my parents to the wedding.
"Friday 8. A rainy day cold for the season. I was rather too dull to do much towards my studies. We had a delightful time last evening and did not get home till after midnight because when the minister who had come more than eight miles to marry them found they had not been published according to the laws of the State he refused to marry them under penalty of the law.
"So they and eight or ten more took a ride up to Poundridge in New York State and were married
by Mr. Paterson. They were gone two hours, the company a waiting all the time, but when they returned after the usual salutation was passed we were refreshed with partaking of a fine entertain- ment, and the cake was really delishous and then such beautiful bunches of raisins, plenty of al- monds and mottos and lemonade and then such fun as we had is almost indescribeble."
Sally Ann Hoyt was from Stamford, which may account for the wedding being held in the bridegroom's house. Their marriage lasted 50 years, ending with her death in 1900, but it can hardly be said to have survived its poor start. It is reported that for many years toward the end the house was a house of silence, Cy- rus and his wife exchanging not one word with one another.
After Sally Ann died, Cyrus made about the only move possible in those days before Social Security. He quit-claimed to his neighbor and relative Sidney Chichester his house and land, writing in the following provision in the deed:
"The condition of this deed is such that whereas the Releasee has promised and agreed to furnish the Releasor with comfortable and proper support, food, shelter, clothing, and medical attendance for and during the term of his natural life and his burial after death, in return for the conveyance of the premises aforesaid."
Under the care of the Chichesters, Cyrus Crissy lived two more years, dying in 1902. It is evident that the dwellers of the northwest sec- tion of the town pivoted their daily lives in those days around North Stamford, Dantown, or High Ridge, for this life long resident of New Canaan rated only a two line death notice in the New Canaan Messenger, being referred to simply as an "aged resident of upper Ponus."
In 1905 the house was sold to William Haw- ley, a shadowy figure about whom few verifi- able facts can be learned. A balloon ascension- ist and early aviation pioneer and enthusiast, he is said to have contemplated making a land- ing field of the flat meadows across the road. One version of the moving of the house is that he pushed it further back from the road to be out of harm's way. Tradition says that he was
444
killed in an airplane accident about 1908 over in Norwalk.
The Hawley estate in 1910 sold the 86 acre tract and house to John R. Bradley, of the well known turf and gambling family. (This was in the days when the term gambler fol- lowed the Jim Brady-Dick Canfield tradition, connoting spas, casinos, racing stables, and sporting events-not the type recently dredged up by the Kefauver Committee).
Mr. Bradley only lived here summers, and built for his own use the much larger house to the northeast using this house as a guest and play house, a long addition being extended on the back to be used as a bowling alley.
In building this addition, Mr. Bradley or- dered electric wiring to be laid under the floor with provision for outlets, and the local work- men assumed that these would lead to gaming tables and promptly spread the story that a den of iniquity was to blacken New Canaan's name.
Another story told about Mr. Bradley is that he hired a personal physician at a salary of $10,000 a year, invariably won this amount from the latter at poker games, then went around humorously complaining that he had to pay the good doctor double his fee.
When Mr. Bradley shook the dust of New Canaan from his feet in 1916 he sold his estate to Herbert S. Collins, who with his family is still remembered by many residents of our town. Mr. Collins was president of United Cigar Stores, and is credited with originating many of the techniques now standard practice in successful chain store management.
Under the aegis of Mrs. Collins the gardens on the estate were well known locally. She had
a number of coin silver spoons marked "S. C." which she believed undoubtedly had belonged to Samuel Crissy, father of Cyrus. Some of the earliest movies in New Canaan were shown by the Collins in the Crissy house extension, for the benefit of guests and any neighbors who cared to come, becoming an integral part of the summer life of upper Ponus during and shortly after World War I.
In the 1940's the Crissy house passed through the hands of a number of owners, until we come full circle in 1947 when the McKernans, as mentioned before, took possession. This house they are so fortunate to own is remark- able, perhaps unique in New Canaan, for hav- ing successfully been transposed from the primitive center chimney type to the more spacious, gracious and liveable center hall house which has been preferred ever since builders mastered what is known as the bal- loon type frame construction.
Patches on the upper floors and under the roof give clear evidence that a center chimney once existed. That the house has been moved once or twice short distances is shown by the absence of a full cellar in its present location- five or more feet was a must for enabling those massive chimneys to take off through the floors above.
The answer to such a successful transposi- tion is, of course, that the house was moved. Moving gave an excuse for dismantling the center chimney. But that answer, in turn, rests upon another, and that was the ability of wealthy owners before our day to exercise whims where money was no object, involving as it were, only a guest or play house.
445
2-
THE GILBERT-WOLHAUPTER HOUSE
GENEVIEVE C. SALMON, Author
EDWIN Fox, Artist
[ April 27, 1951]
Everyone has experienced at some time the curious, instant sympathy that springs to life at a first meeting with another person. The same sort of thing seems to happen at the first sight of some old houses, not because of the setting, the architecture or the history, but rather because of a warm radiation of happi- ness and welcome that in a human being could come only from a sense of security.
At any rate, that was the sort of feeling that the writer experienced on taking the first long look at the house of Mrs. Benjamin Wolhaupter
on Silvermine Road. It made the usual drud- gery of the long hours searching the land and probate records into quite a different thing as the story began to emerge. It is the story of a house with a busy and happy early life, of its years of orphanage when it was passed from hand to hand, of its finally coming into the guardianship of one whose loving care is so evident.
Over the door, the house proudly wears the date of its birth, 1823, the year when Abner Gilbert built it. However, many of the relation-
446
ships which entered into its history had their origin long before that, in the families of the Gilberts, the St. Johns and the Gregorys.
Abner Gilbert was born in 1774 and was a resident of Weston when he married Esther St. John before the turn of the century. His branch of the Gilberts and the Samuel Gregory line appear often in the Greenfield records until Samuel moved up to Wilton and the Gilberts followed him because of the frequent inter- marriages between the two families.
Esther Gilbert was the daughter of Nehem- iah and Mary (Akin) St. John. Her father owned land on the west side of Huckleberry Path (Silvermine Road) and when he died in 1797, without leaving a will, there was some delay about the distribution of his estate, especially as Esther's two younger brothers, Hervey and Abner, were minors.
The St. John Genealogy gives the former's name as Harvey but he signs himself Hervey. The widow, Mary St. John, was given as her dower one-third of the real estate and the homestead which was described as “situated at the South East corner of the Town of New Canaan at a place called Silvermine." It was south of the land that became Abner Gilbert's.
Abner began his purchases in Silvermine in 1802, when he was given a warranty deed, followed in 1805 by a quit-claim deed, for four parcels of land, by Caleb Comstock. Three parcels were in the Whortleberry Hills and Canoe Hill section and do not concern us now. The first parcel consisted of "one acre more or less," lying on the west side of Silvermine Road, "together with the house and barn thereon standing." It was bounded on the east by the highway, south by land of John St. John and west and north by land of Daniel St. John. Did he live in this house during his first years in Silvermine?
The next year, 1803, he bought from John St. John a tract of 15 acres directly south of the little piece with the house on it. This we know because the quit claim deed of 1805 states that the small piece with the house was "bounded on the south by said Abner's land."
The large tract was described as being
bound on the north by land of Abijah St. John; on the east partly by the highway and partly by land belonging to the heirs of Nehemiah St. John, deceased; on the south partly by the said heirs' land and partly by land of Jesse James and on the west by Jesse Seely's land.
Jesse Seely had had this land on lease dur- ing Nehemiah's last years and had bought it from Hervey, Nehemiah's son. The quit claim deed, given in 1808, is interesting, it covers "all the right and interest in one undivided 4 part of all the real estate of my deceased father's estate, " part of the house and barn of my father ... 1/3 part of the House and Barn is now occupied by my mother as part of her dower out of the Estate of my said deceased Father."
This arrangement seems a little high-handed, as his mother did not die until 1862, according to the St. John Genealogy, and was living in the house with Susan, supposedly his sister. Perhaps it was some sort of legal necessity, as in the same year he sold his share in the house to Abner Gilbert who promptly deeded it to Susan.
Abner and Esther Gilbert had seven chil- dren: two sons, Charles and Luzerne, and five daughters. These were Frances, who married a Mr. Cumberson first and later Rafaello Man- cini; Mary, who married Ethelbert Cumber- son; Delia, who married Daniel G. Weed; Es- ther, who married Jerome Beers, and Caroline, who married Nehemiah Gregory. One can't help wondering if he was not a little dismayed at having so many daughters and only two sons to help with the tilling of so much land.
The farmers of that day did not put their faith in one crop. Abner had fields of corn, oats, rye, buckwheat and potatoes. He must have made a pretty good thing of it, for he left a tremendous list of personal property.
It is difficult to imagine how all these things were accommodated in the small farmhouse which he built in 1823. It was the usual house of that day with a big central chimney having three fireplaces built into it, the biggest one in the front room which served as kitchen and general living room.
447
.
We can see him there, after the children had gone to bed, casting up the accounts of his properties in Whortleberry Hills, Canoe Hill and the home fields. And that wasn't all. There was the mill standing near Thomas Comstock's, in which he had bought a one-third part and a one-fourth part of one-twelfth part and also a one-third part and a fourth of one twelfth part of a sawmill yard pond.
It couldn't have been a less complicated business after he sold "one-sixteenth of the Sawmill and Yard. Together with the appur- tenances thereunto Belonging Excepting the Steel plate Saw that now belongs to said Mill" to Abijah Comstock, Jr. A modern income tax form seems simple in comparison. The reader will no doubt mutter that the biggest differ- ence was that the result of all this figuring went into his own pocket.
There was always a good deal of business to be done in New Canaan, Norwalk and at the neighborhood shops and a good deal to talk about. There had been a lot of exciting events since Abner moved into the valley. Canaan Parish had declared its independence and had a new title, Town of New Canaan. There was the War of 1812, about which some Connecti- cut people were pretty balky and some hot- heads wanted to secede from the Union.
The state had a new Constitution in 1818 and many people said it had been engineered by some pretty radical fellows. When Abner was building his new house, they talked of the com- ing election, over which Connecticut was in a real dither. Here were four leading candidates and while Andrew Jackson got the largest number of electoral votes, he did not have a majority.
So, as the Constitution said, the election passed to the House of Representatives and John Quincy Adams got in. That was fine, but the pleasure dimmed as they discovered he favored government aid in building roads and canals and public grants of money to promote education and the arts and sciences. The farmers did not like these new-fangled ideas.
The every-day mechanics of life were not much different in 1839, when Abner Gilbert
died, than they had been 50 years before. The inventory of his estate showed the simple plow, the stone boat, the oxen, the tools of the time.
They listed things in an odd way. The wi- dow, Esther, received "one calf, one feather- bed No. I, one bolster and pillows No. 2, one straw bedtick No. 2, one Carpet Coverlid, ... two and a half pr. new flannel sheets, seven pr. linen sheets, seven pr. linen pillow cases, one new bedstead and cord, two double diamond tablecloths, three single towels, one horse, one rocking-chair" etc. There was distributed and set aside to her for her natural life the north part of the homestead "in quantity twelve acres, three roods, thirteen rods, with the dwel- ling house, barn and outhouses standing there- on."
To her son, Charles went, among other things, a cherry stand, a cherry dining-table, and eight Windsor chairs. Where is that table now? Also he was given the southeast part of the home lot, as is shown by the diagram in the records. The other son and the five daughters were given their shares of the land in Canoe Hill and Whortleberry Hills.
EZEKIEL DEERS
HIGHWAY
(SILVERMINE ROAD)
15.2 8
WIDOWS DOWER
2.2.35
ST. JOHN
ABIJAN
CLUSTER
MAPLES
STEPHEN GREGORY
RAYMOND MURRAIN
MURRAIN RAYMOND
S
448
ABIJAN ST. JOHN
12.3.13
CHARLES GILBERT
So now it was 1840 and the house was 17 years old. The master was dead, but the mis- tress still lived in it and perhaps her widowed daughter, Frances Cumberson, came home to live with her. At any rate, Frances had an affec- tion for the house for she and her second hus- band became the next owners of it.
There was an expert stone mason in the town named Rafaello Mancini and Frances married him. Perhaps she met him when she went to visit her father's grave and saw him doing the beautiful work that survives him in the Upper Cemetery.
When Esther Gilbert died, in 1862, Rafaello and Frances began the long process of buying the homestead and getting the title cleared. It wasn't until 11 years later that all the heirs had given their deeds, a year after Frances was dead. Apparently he did not want the house without Frances in it, so he sold it. Who can say that the house did not also mourn her pass- ing, did not have a premonition of the coming years of continual change of masters?
It went to Adeline Castle, of New York, wife of William H. Castle. Again death struck at the master of the house and, when Adeline married again, her new husband, John Gastaldi, and she decided to move. They sold the house to Franklin B. Austin of Brooklyn. He kept it for some eight years and sold it to Frederick Hut- welker of New York.
Then it went to Frank B. Pollard of Brook- lyn, then to Austin W. Lord, and the following year to William A. Boring. Bits had been sold from the original 17 acres and now it was a 14 and a half acre piece.
Mr. Boring decided in 1912 to cut off the top two and a half acres "more or less," and he sold that much, with the house to Mrs. Mary A. Hobby of Brooklyn. Mr. Buttery says she moved first to Pleasantville, but liked New Ca- naan better. Why doesn't somebody write a book, "New Canaan Family Trees that Grew in Brooklyn?"
Mrs. Hobby enjoyed it for only about ten years and, after her death, her daughters sold the house to Lydia Goldstein, who sold it in 1922 to its present owner, who was then Miss Frances M. Wilson. She married a landowner of the neighborhood, Benjamin Wolhaupter, who was a relative of the poet, Bliss Carmen. The Wolhaupters made various changes in the house to enlarge and beautify it.
Did the old house begin to smile again like an old lady whose granddaughter says, "Look Granny, you've got to have a new hat and why on earth don't you cut your hair?" How com- forting to see the center of the house with the great stone fireplace just as it was when the little Gilbert girls ran past it on their way to school and came home on winter days to find their father warming his back at the fire.
The room was bigger now, by far, but it still had the grace and charm of its early days. Mrs. Wolhaupter had more time to give the house the attention it longed for in its old age than Esther Gilbert could give it in its first days when seven children had to be washed and clothed and fed. If Esther had been worrying in the other world about the fate of her home, then she must have ceased fretting long since and is happy and contented, as is her house.
449
KIESSLING .EL.
THE WEED-VANDERHOEF-ADAMS HOUSE
ELEANOR HARD LAKE, Author
CALVIN KIESSLING, Artist
[May 3, 1951]
On the west side of Weed Street, not far above Wahackme Road, stands what is perhaps the only New Canaan house ever pictured in the Encyclopaedia Brittanica-the old Charles Weed farmhouse, now owned by Mr. and Mrs. R. Morton Adams. Built in the 1750's, the house was completely remodeled and much enlarged by Benjamin Vanderhoef in the early 1920's.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.