USA > Connecticut > Fairfield County > Newtown > Newtown, Connecticut, past and present > Part 2
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Apparently undaunted by this experience, in April 1713, the Town authorized Ebenezer Smith to go all the way to Wethersfield to "treat with Mr. Thomas Tousey and request him to preach a Sabbath or two with us."
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A good impression was evidently made, for a month later the Town voted to pay 30 pounds salary and to "sow all ye minister's home lot provided Mr. Tousee preach ye Gospel Amongst us a year." By November Mr. Tousey was asked to "carry on ye work of ye ministry in this place as long as God shall grant him life and health."
Many Town Records follow, concerning salary and the value of wood, grain, etc., when paid in lieu of money to the minister. Years went by and after awhile difficulties developed, until in 1724 Mr. Tousey was invited to quit his post because "Ye Major part of ye Inhabitants could not sit easy under him." On leaving Newtown he went to England, gave up the ministry and became a Captain in the King's Army. Later he returned to Newtown as a civilian, undertook the practice of medicine, and lived here until his death in 1761. A colorful character, he was a leader in civic affairs all his life and held many positions of public responsibility.
"A MEETING HOUSE TO SERVE GOD IN"
With their lands laid out and planted, the mills running busily and nego- tiations for a minister under way, the Proprietors could turn their efforts toward erecting a Meeting House for religious services. This was undertaken in the fall of 1713 when the usual "committy" was appointed-(our forebears staunchly supported the principle that two or more heads are wiser than one), and the members were authorized to hire workmen and put up a building "40 foot long and 32 foot between Joynts." Something went amiss, however, be- cause we wait until 1718 to read that Thomas Scidmore offered to build the Meeting House for 45 pounds, "the sides with clabbord and the ruff with short shingles." It was agreed in 1719 that "where the lane that runs easterly and westerly intersects the maine town street that runs northerly and southerly shall be ye place to set ye meeting house for carrying on ye public worship of God." Until the building was finished, religious services were held in people's houses and the owners were properly compensated.
All the inhabitants were taxed for the support of the Church and at- tendance was compulsory. Punishment for absence was a fine of five shillings or "to sit in ye stocks for one hour." The building, when completed, was very simple, unheated and with little light. Plain board benches served as seats. Observance of Sunday was an all-day affair with both morning and afternoon services and hours-long sermons. An interval of one and a quarter hours at noon provided some relief, and brought about the erection of "Sabbath Day Houses", about which more, later.
Over the years repairs and alterations were made in the Meeting House, but it was a long while before the board benches gave way to "fationable
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pews", and the gallery stairs and floor were laid. By 1746 we find the parish- ioners "rectifying the underpinning and putting on good, fine boards on the gables." Finally that year they built the "bell free." A little later a tax of twelve pence on the pound was laid on the townspeople for further finishing the galleries and plastering overhead.
It was nearly fifteen years, however, before the steeple was added, much higher than the present one. Then one fine day in 1762 Capt. Amos Botsford and Lt. Nathaniel Briscoe promised "that at their own cost and charge they would procure a good bell, fit to hang in ye steeple." At the same time the steeple was made fit for the bell, the condition of the gift being "to complete ye sd steeple for the outside of the meeting house, culler it and culler ye pulpit."
The bell marks a great innovation in the Town, because up to now the people had been summoned to Church services by Stephen Parmalee and his drum, but now it was to be the ringing of the new bell which would bring them to the Meeting House, the Town House, or to any public gathering. Poor Stephen appears to have lost his job, for we read that it was "voted that Abel Botsford should be bellringer for ye year ensuing, and shall have for his services for ringing ye bell and sweeping ye meeting house, 40 shillings a year."
The bell was re-cast and hung again in 1767. It is pleasant to know that "nearly a fifth of the whole cost" was contributed by ye Church of England society. The bell is inscribed "The Gift of Capt. Amos Botsford and Lieutant Briscoe, 1768." For nearly two hundred years its sweet tones have sounded over the hills of Newtown.
No one knows when the famous cock took his high perch on the top of the Church steeple. (Both Town and Church records are tantalizingly silent about so many things we should like to know.) But an almost identical weathervane on the Episcopal Church in Stratford was made by a goldsmith there in 1743. Newtown had gold and silver smiths too. Zibah Blakeslee prac- tised his craft at the head of Main Street. It might not be too risky to guess that our cock was made right here in Town, if he did not fly up from Stratford.
The tradition that the bullet holes which riddle him were made by the French soldiers as they passed through Town in 1781 is probably not based on fact. It is believed that these troops under Rochambeau's command were too well disciplined to commit such an act. But the same cannot be said for the British soldiers who occupied Newtown at an earlier date, and they may be the culprits. Or even, as has been suggested, local bad boys with "gunns or muskitts."
The present Church, actually the second structure, was begun about 1808 with the proceeds of a not too-successful lottery sanctioned by the State As- sembly. From then to the present day the history of the venerable Church is fully recounted in the parish records.
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THE SABBATH DAY HOUSE
These unique features of colonial life were snug little buildings which the Town permitted a citizen who lived at a distance, to erect along the high- ways near the Meeting House. For example, on December 9, 1740 it was "Voted and agreed that Jeremiah Northrop shall have liberty to set a small Sabbath Day house in ye lane by Capt. Baldwin's orchard."
During the one-and-a-quarter hour interval permitted between the morn- ing and afternoon services, the families retired to these small houses. Usually divided into separate sections for men and women, they provided warmth and the opportunity for rest and refreshment, and a meal brought from home. In the records of the old Church, the term "Sabbaday" is nearly always used, so evidently that is how the early Newtowners spoke of their cozy little retreats. Some were used in common by friends, others were strictly family affairs.
How much the restless children and tired mothers must have enjoyed the "Sabbaday" House! Although conduct was strictly regulated and the children were not permitted "to sporte or playe", at least they could relax for awhile before returning to the chilling atmosphere of the Meeting House. One wonders whether the morning sermon was the only subject discussed during the midday interval, or if the men may have compared notes on crops and "made sly bargains in the sale of horses, cows, pigs, etc." It is certain that the babies, nursed, changed and comforted, returned to the Meeting House in a mood to sleep contentedly until the service came to a close.
"YE LAY-OUT OF YE COUNTRY ROAD"
As has been noted, at the first business meeting of the Town in 1711 a committee was appointed, their duty being to allot land for highways. The Town Street had been laid out in 1709 with the original Home Lots bordering it. This road was unquestionably part of the trail of the Scatikook and Pohta- tuck Indians who for centuries had traversed all this section, and yearly made trips down to Long Island Sound to enjoy the sea food.
The Town was planned with two highways crossing the "maine" street. The Northerly Cross Highway or East-West Highway-extensively used later in the Revolutionary war-was the present Church Hill Road, West St., and Castle Hill Road. The Southerly Cross Highway was the present Glover Avenue and Sugar Street. Some early road names familiar to us today are Queen Street, Head o' Meadow, Point o' Rocks, Brushy Hill and others whose direc- tions are described in the records.
The highways were laid out extraordinarily wide. From the Soldiers' Monument almost to the entrance of the Fairfield State Hospital, the Town Street was made 132 ft. across, the Northerly Cross Highway was 165 ft. wide, the Southerly Cross Highway 132 ft., and the "road for to go to Woodbury," laid out in 1715, was 330 ft. (from beyond Pohtatuck brook). Although the
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reason for this great width is unknown, it is assumed that it was for safety; to prevent surprise attacks from any foe. Only wagon trails of course, ran through the broad space, and the sides were used for common purposes- pasturage, woodcutting and the like. In later years, as we know, some of the roads were much reduced in width.
Beyond the limits of the Town itself the first highway laid out (Nov. 14, 1715), was the road to Stratford. How natural that this should have been the first! The Stratford boundary at that time extended as far up as Monroe, only six miles from the center of Newtown. Presumably on the Stratford side a trail of some kind continued, linking the townships. To many of the new settlement, Stratford was the "home place". What a comfort it must have been to those courageous-but surely sometimes homesick-pioneers, to have a road, no matter how crude, blazed through the wilderness. No one would get lost now trying to get down to left-behind families, old friends and familiar scenes.
The language of the early road surveys is quaint. "-and so toward ye Single Pine to a bunch of stones upon a rock, 20 rods wide". Our Route 34 seems to have begun thus: "Nov. 18, 1715. We laid out Darbee road from ye going over sd brook (Pohtatuck) by ye side of it, upon ye east side till we come to a path that leads to Freegrace Adams 60 acre pitch. Also that path we laid 20 rods wide."
Travel across rivers and brooks was by fords or by the crudest bridges. There were at least four fording places over the Housatonic: two in what we call Hanover District, one across to Woodbury about where the Rochambeau bridge is now, and another lower down the river, to Oxford. Travelers crossed at their own risk.
In 1733 Peter Hubbell was granted permission to operate a ferry to Wood- bury. The fares were three pence for a man or a horse, eight pence for a man and loaded horse, "ox or other kine, three pence half-penny, hog or goat one half penny." We know that by 1781 a "pole" bridge crossed the river. It must have been considered a great advance in transportation.
Toll gates in Newtown were erected much later and are described in another chapter.
THE FIRST TOWN HOUSE
With land divisions, mills, roads, settling a minister and building a Meet- ing House under way, our indefatigable forebears felt that it was time to do something about a place for secular gatherings and for education; hence on October 9, 1717 it was voted that a school house or town house should forth- with be built. This was to be located on the main street, betwixt Abraham Kimberly's and John Lake's houses, near "ye northeast corner of ye cross road yt leads to Pohtatuck brook."
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Our friend Peter Hubbell-a versatile man !- was to be one of the build- ers, but he was not to be paid until upon "compleating sd work, workmanlike." This building was used as Town House and schoolhouse for sixteen years.
By 1733 the population had increased sufficiently to justify a larger Town House, so at the request of the citizens of the Middle District for a schoolhouse of their own, the old Town House was moved at their expense to a location further south on the main street, where it continued in service for many years more.
A second Town House was built in 1766. Business and Town Meetings had been held in one schoolhouse or another until then. Oliver Tousey (de- scendant of the Rev. Thomas), was authorized to build it for 66 pounds, but he was required to give bonds on the contract. It was stipulated that Tousey should provide good seats as are generally made "in form as in the State House in Hartford." Newtown was getting pretty stylish.
The picturesque brick building on Main Street, across from the Library, is often mistakenly referred to as "the old Town Hall". It never served that purpose, but for many years was the office of the Probate Court and of the Town Clerk. It contained a fireproof stone vault in which the Town Records were kept.
The next Town Hall was a large building on the site of our present one. This was bought by the Town in 1882 and had been used as a Church by the Roman Catholics, who in turn had bought it from the Universalists. In 1917 it was considered "a large and commodious building that is likely to continue (except in case of fire) Newtown's town house for at least a century to come."
But what a far cry from that first Town House, "25 foot square and eight foot between joists," to the magnificent Edmond Town Hall which we are privileged to possess today!
THE QUIOMPH PURCHASE
Newtown was flourishing in 1723 when a Pohtatuck Indian named Quiomph appeared before the Town Fathers and announced that he was the owner of a tract of land in Sandy Hook which had never been included, so far as he was concerned, in the purchase in 1705 by the three speculators. The area in question ran from an "elbow" in the Housatonic "right against ye Wigwams", along "ye brook called 'Hucko' by the Indians (Pohtatuck) to where ye brook comes down between ye hills"-our own beautiful Rocky Glen. Not included in this sale was a "corner of intervale land lying by ye river where Cockshure's fence is." This was probably the level stretch of bottom land where the Pohtatuck enters the Housatonic. It was near the Indian campsite which can still be identified further up the river and which soon will be inundated by the waters of Shepaug Lake.
There were then fifty-one Proprietors of the Town and between them
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they bought the tract from Quiomph for sixteen pounds and disposed of the land among themselves. This time the transaction was entirely legal and above board. We find Massumpas appearing again, as a witness to the sale. Perhaps it was he who advised Quiomph to demand payment in solid British pounds, instead of ruffelly coats and blankitts, as in the purchase of 1705.
TOWN BOUNDARIES
It must have been evidence of growing pains of the new community that in the early years there were many disputes over the Town boundaries. The first, in 1725, concerned the line between Newtown and Stratford. A committee was appointed to meet with a similar one from Stratford and was authorized, if agreement could not be reached, to appoint "three uninterested gentlemen" to arbitrate. The boundary was mutually agreed upon in 1725, but was not finally confirmed by the General Court until 1761. The line is the present one which divides Newtown from Monroe and Trumbull.
On the opposite end of Town also the boundary was causing friction. By 1731 New Milford brought legal action against Newtown for "neglecting to perambulate ye line", and Capt. Thomas Tousey was appointed to represent Newtown before the Superior Court in New Haven. The General Assembly was requested to send an impartial committee to study the matter, and the two Towns appear to have accepted their survey, because in December of 1734 the controversy was satisfactorily settled.
Brookfield also caused trouble to the Newtown community. With the original purchase of 1705 Brookfield (as we know it now) was included in the boundaries of Newtown. About 1751 the inhabitants of the "West Farm" and "Whiskenere" sections expressed their desire to join Danbury and New Milford to form an Ecclesiastical Society. (After all, they were very far from the Meeting House in the center of our village). However, Newtown presented powerful opposition in the General Assembly and conceded only that the North End citizens need not pay to support the Newtown minister, provided that they would take care of one in their own district. Whereupon they engaged the Rev. Thomas Brooks, who developed so large and so devoted a following that the parish-first called "Newbury" (combining in its name Newtown and New Milford with Danbury) -preferred to consider itself "Brook's field", the origin of the name we know today. The disagreements continued until 1788, when Newtown relinquished its claim and the parish of Newbury was incorporated as the Town of Brookfield.
Our neighbor to the west also figured in arguments about the establish- ment of Newtown's boundaries. The usual committee to study the matter was appointed in 1758 to meet with one from Danbury and "to perambulate, re-
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new and erect ye boundaries." The description of ye boundaries seems so ingenuous to us these days, when the relocation of Route 6 is a matter of concern to so many of us, and we are so aware of boundary lines, surveys and the like, that one cannot refrain from quoting a word or two: "We agreed to renew such boundaries by putting stones to it, which was and is a small ditch. The next monument which is a red or black oak tree with stones to it, then on to a heap of stones, adding to it more stones-" and so forth. Perhaps today's Highway Commission would find such a survey not altogether satis- factory in determining boundaries, but since they have endured for nearly two hundred years, it must have its merits.
THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND
It was not long after Newtown had adjusted itself to the taxes and prob- lems presented by the Quiomph Purchase and to the uncertain boundary lines, that we find the Town struggling with "difficult circumstances" concerning the established Church.
The minister who had been called to follow Mr. Thomas Tousey was the Rev. Mr. John Beach, a young man from Stratford. He was evidently of a charming and forceful personality and was much loved by his parishioners. Unhappily for all concerned, about 1732 the Rev. Mr. Beach became unsure in his own mind of the validity of ordination in the Congregational Church and resigned his parish. The Town Records of the time show clearly the distress and prayerful seeking for guidance of the townspeople in this situa- tion. However, firm in his convictions, Mr. Beach left home and family, sailed for the Mother Country and was ordained in the Church of England. It should be understood that there had always been in Connecticut a very large following loyal to the Church of England, people whose religious thinking was entirely unlike that of the non-conformist, independent Puritan. There was a powerful aristocratic contingent in early Connecticut which remained true to the old religious adherence, as it did later, to the Tory viewpoint in political affiliations. However, the established Church of the Colony, which everyone was required by taxes to support, regardless of his own faith, was the Congre- gational denomination. Nothing could have been more disrupting to the peace- ful life of the community than to have the well-loved minister change his allegiance from one persuasion to another.
Needless to say, this action caused bitter personal situations with some of the less tolerant townspeople when Mr. Beach returned shortly as a missionary preacher assigned to Newtown and Redding. The feeling against him was so strong that the story goes that some of his former parishioners incited the
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Indians to plague him. One time during his absence a band of them invaded his home. The small children were terrified, but the courageous eldest daughter gathered them together, hid the family silver under her voluminous skirts, and refused to give any information as to the whereabouts of her father.
The first service of the Church of England conducted by the Rev. Mr. Beach was under an immense buttonball tree near the corner of Main Street and Glover Avenue. A tablet marks the site today. In Redding a different sort of memorial commemorates this fearless preacher: bullet holes in the old Church, reminders of an attempt on his life when he persisted in praying for the King of England close to the outbreak of the Revolution.
Tradition places the location of the first Episcopal Church in Newtown close to the buttonball tree referred to above. The building, 28 x 24 ft. was framed, raised and enclosed on a Saturday and the following day the workers assembled for service "sitting on timbers and kneeling on the ground."
We know that a second Church was erected in 1746, further up the street, on the west side, and called Trinity then : but since this was not the recognized Church of the Colony and was not built at the expense of the Town, the Re- cords have no report upon it. Near the end of the 18th century the Episco- palians were granted permission to move the Congregational Meeting House across the street to about the site of the present Church, and to build for themselves a new Church close to where the present Trinity now stands. Moving the Meeting House was considered such a daring undertaking that people from far and wide were invited to come and witness it. Accordingly, on June 13, 1792 the Meeting House, steeple and all, was successfully moved a distance of eight rods in one and a half hours. A Divine Providence must have kept a gracious eye on the operation.
In 1793 the new Church was consecrated by Bishop Samuel Seabury, the first Episcopal Bishop in America. The famous Glebe House in Woodbury is indelibly associated with his valiant career. For many years this Episcopal Church was the largest in the State.
The present Trinity Church was built a long time later, in 1870.
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MORE SCHOOLS AND SCHOOL DISTRICTS
By 1726 Newtown was faced by the demand for a schoolhouse at the north end of the Town. The settlement was growing. The need for schools was evident, for this is the record by the Town Clerk, presumably considered an educated man: "Att a lawful towns Meeting of ye Inhabitants of Newtown Held November ye 29th 1726 Then Unanimously agreed and voted by ye Inhabitants before sd That there shall be a free Schooll Set up and Maintained in Sd Town for ye benifit of ye Children of the Town for ye Space of Three Munths and that ye chrges of said School shall be refund or paid out of ye Town Rate and the whole a fair of ye School is Left with ye Comitee that shall be Consarned in ye Affair above sd."
Ye Comitee erected a building for fourteen pounds near the house of Abraham Bennitt. Those who could not pay the tax of two pence a pound on their estates were permitted to turn in the equivalent value in wheat, rye, corn, etc. at so much a bushel.
The Selectmen were authorized to engage a schoolmaster "so long as ye overplus money in ye Town rate will support it." The term increased from "ye space of three munths" to four, five or six, and was supported partly by the Town and partly by the "schoolers," or by private subscription.
The settlement kept on growing, which led to the establishment of the school Districts. Always there was a local committee to direct the building and administering of each school and the hiring of a teacher.
The following list records the founding of the Districts. The details of their organization are available to the student, as well as the many changes
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and consolidations which occurred as time passed: Taunton, 1738; Zoar, 1745; Land's End ("Whiskenear"), 1745; Palestine, 1748; Hanover, 1755; South Center (Kettletown, later Tinkerfield), 1761; Deep Brook, 1767; Slut's Hill (Mt. Pleasant), 1768; Lake George (perhaps so called by combining the names of two local residents, Lake and George), 1768; Flat Swamp, 1769; Pohtatuck (Sandy Hook), 1779; Bear Hills (not "Bare:" the animals ranged around there), 1783; Gray's Plain, 1784; Head o' Meadow, 1784; Wapping, 1786; Half Way River (originally known as "Ragged Corner"), 1786; Gregory's Orchard, 1788; Walker's Farms (now part of Monroe), 1789; Toddy Hill (Botsford), 1789; Huntingtown, 1794, (united the next year with Bear Hills District, when the provision was made that "the children of Justus Sherwood and William Nickerson Taylor be not taxed for firewood and boarding the schoolmaster") ; Walnut Tree Hill, 1886, a Johnny-Come- Lately, combining sections of Sandy Hook, Pohtatuck and Hanover Districts. This arrangement was largely brought about because of the increase in school population due to the influx of workers employed by the great New York Belting and Packing Company of Sandy Hook.
The schools were under the over-all management of the Selectmen. Many other means beside Town taxes were drawn upon for their support-even liquor licenses! A boon was granted in 1795, when the Connecticut State School Fund was established. This came to pass by the sale of State-owned lands in the Western Reserve in Ohio. The territory had been claimed by Connecticut under her Charter of 1642 from the Crown, which granted Con- necticut land "limited East and West by the Sea." The proceeds of the sale were distributed among the Towns for purposes of education, and the fund is still in existence. Another source of aid to the public schools might be mentioned here, although it came much later (in the 1830's), the Town Deposit Fund. This was Connecticut's share of a surplus-(actually !)-in the national Treasury.
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