Norwalk, history from 1896, Part 5

Author: Selleck, Charles Melbourne.
Publication date: 1896
Publisher: The author,
Number of Pages: 553

USA > Connecticut > Fairfield County > Norwalk > Norwalk, history from 1896 > Part 5

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).

At the foot of Strawberry Hill there diverged from the Stamford Path the Fathers' Path to Stony Hill, and thence to Saugatuck Playne, Duck Pond, Stephens Island and Great Marsh. This was a frequented "way," as it afforded accessibility to some of the most desirable portions of the new settlement.

The "Towne Street" began at the foot of what the settlers, in their simple speech, styled the "burial place," now the East Norwalk Cemetery. From this point the "land allotments" were numbered, and from the same point two " ways" parted, the one to The Pasture and The Neck, and the other to The Ballast, at the harbor end of the cove, west of the water-side home of John Gregory, Sr. The Pasture and Planting Soil were reached from the southeastern end of the burial slope, through a gate which was erected not far below the small bridge now standing just under the burial ground hill. This was the settle- ment's principal gate.2

The paths to Pine Hill and The Fields, from whence a path led to Saugatuck, Calf Pasture, Spruce Swamp, Half-Mile Isle and Fruitful Spring started from this gate, of which

+Local surveyors were required (vide action July 5. 1643) "to have a spetial regard to those comon waves whch are betwixt towne and towne."

"The " gate-lot " was the same that stands to-day on the road to Gregory's Point, (northeast corner) directly opposite the Josiah Raymond place.

NORWALK

Robert Beacham was among the first keepers, and which position he possibly held, dwell- ing in his cove-side cottage close by, until his removal in 1657-8 to one of the fairest marine sites then and now in New England-that of Compo coast.

"Towne Street" became more of a thoroughfare as the town grew, but north of Goodman Hoyt's (Earle's) hill, the limit of the ancient settlement, it was still, in 1680, a path only. Milling, in earliest Norwalk history, was a failure.1 Mill Brookb (Allen Betts' brook) was a larger stream than Mill Brook,a (East Norwalk brook) and grinding and saw- ing plants were consequently there established. This industry, in addition to the purchase and working of France Street lands, created a road traffic in that direction, and opened up the roads to Sticky and Cranberry Plains, two of the older ways in the town. Not many years, however, elapsed before Henry Whitney solved the mill problem by utilizing the waters of Norwalk river, when streets began to spring up around "the great bridge." The oldest path on "the other side of the river," (South Norwalk) was Ponasses Path, but the planters, with the exception of their sons, made, probably, for quite a time, no great use of this Indian "way." "Stamford" and "Meadow" paths came next, the first leading through Marshall Street, and the second lying quite near to the South Main Street of 1896. Meadow Path connected the Great Meadow (plain upon which South Norwalk's center is built) with the lower meadow, the "gate" between which two divisions stood in lower Main Street, not far from the present Main Street intersection with Woodward Avenue. Prob- ably there was a gate below that point. It is inferred, from old writings, that Ponasses Path swung towards the east as it approached the present South Norwalk, and merged in the path to the lower meadow at a point adjacent to the present Railroad Square.

Before the pale face set foot on Norwalk soil, there was here already a field-and- forest path that curvingly coursed the future settlement-site from west to east and thence south. It was evidently something more than a trail, of which sinuous tracks, according to tradition, the "Narwoke" of two- and-a-half centuries ago was full.

The path referred to was known to the Norwalk proprietors as Ponasses Path. Ponasses is a derivative of Ponus. Ponus and his partner, Wassacussue, both Sachems, were rulers over the Rippowams and proprietors of the territory now styled Stamford.

' The very first Norwalk "milling" was, it is possible, simple pounding or crushing. The set- tlers, it may reasonably be imagined, not only brought something of a meal supply with them, but obtained corn of the Indians. These sources, nevertheless, were limited, and consequently, before they could select their mill site and build a basin, dam and mill- house, they had, perchance, to resort to the "bruis- ing " process ; a state of things, however, that could not have been of long duration. The mill was de- manded, and was accordingly among the earliest in- dustries projected. As to the exact site of the parent establishment there may be some uncertainty, but there is no uncertainty whatever that the establish- ment itself was of primitive construction. That the

water from the stream now issuing into the East Norwalk tide-mill pond at the foot of the burying ground hill was held back somewhere in the rear of the present Hendricks lot, and when the bowl was full, made thereat to flow over a smail wheel, is not a groundless supposition. Close perusal of the records suggests this conclusion. The pioneers did not re- quire, even were they prepared to at once provide, extensive facilities in this direction, but as settler after settler arrived and acre after acre fell under cul- tivation, it became necessary to enlarge their milling and sawing accommodations. This juncture would appear to have been reached when the vote of Jan. 6, 1654 was passed. The first apparatus was insufficient; the stream perhaps proved disappointing, and the

NORWALK.

Wassacussue lived at Shippan Point, but Ponus' hill-top home lay farther north, a little way across the boundary-line, at that day, of Norwalk, at a point nearly two miles west of the present business street of New Canaan.

Standing two hundred odd years since at the summit of what the. Norwalk fathers, with fine poetic sense, called "the homeward end" of Haynes' Ridge, now the handsomely graded Church-hill, in the center of New Canaan, and looking northward and westward the eye beheld as goodly a representation of a foreign " Waldegrave," edged by rolling meads and enriched by a bit of "moor and fen and crag," as the entire colony, perhaps, exhibited. Between the Sagamore Ponus' precincts in the southwestern portion of this landscape and his red brother Heckett's rural wekuwhum, about a league north, and backed by Wood- pecker's Ridge in the distance, and fronted by the near-by William Haynes English wold, the seat of the later St. John, Silliman and Mitchell residences, and of the still later Parker, Bright, Rogers, Bond, Skiddy and Childs summer haunts, stretched a charmingly diversified expanse, which to-day, surveyed from the twin New Canaan spires, forms a lovely picture.

Within the limits of this romantic tract began the sylvan serpentine Ponasses Path, which for some ten miles wound on, through, over and past Ponus Hollow and White Oak Shade and Spring Hill, and Keeler's slave-quarters at the head of Belden Avenue, and the Benedict and Seymour domains, (near the present Norwalk Armory) until it finally terminated not far from the thither edge of what the settlers styled the "great meadow on the other side of the river," the level center to-day of the city of South Norwalk.

This path, Norwalk's oldest path, had perhaps political significance. Ponus was a warrior, and his three sons-Onox, Taphance and Owenoke-were, as regards warfare, to the manor born. Mahackemo, Noxanowe, Proxanowe, Poranhunne and Womansunne were Norwalk braves who, with Ponus, were compelled to pay tribute to the stronger tribes of the north. There were times when this tax-payment was delayed. This incensed the upper chieftains, who made fierce descent upon the Sachemdons near the Sound, and dis-

committee seem convinced that the contemplated and already commenced improvements would, after all, prove inadequate; hence the order that " the mill must desist," and " not be carried on," and that its three " undertakers," without delay, advise with Lieut. Swayn (brobably Samuel Swayn who built the Stamford mill) and make the best terms possible with him for labor and material up to that time per- formed and employed. Having done this Thomas Fitch, Nathaniel Richards and Richard Olmstead proceed to erect a " damne " either farther down the same stream, or more probably, at the mouth of mill brookb (see page 35, line 6). This would flood a greater surface and furnish a larger water supply. It is barely possible that the remains of the first mill were tem-

porarily utilized at the new dam. The town's terms about this time to Jonathan Marsh, a new comer, might possibly be construed to so intimate. A proposition seems now to have been made Marsh " to build a corn mill sufficient for all purposes." Articles of agree- ment were drawn up and the work began and finally finished. Jonathan Marsh "ran " the establishment for six or so years, and then, with the town's consent, sold everything out to Nathaniel Richards. The population grew ; "mill-brooks," a and b," although considerable streams in that day, were, after all, in- termittent, and beyond doubt, insufficient, and the problem of eight or ten years before, again confronted the founders.

It is unfortunate, in the interests of Norwalk

* On page 35, line 6, mill-brook (b) is designated as Allen Bett,' brook, because said Betts controls, in 1896, such a portion

of it. It is indicated as mill-brook (b) to distinguish it from the first-named brook, which is lettered (a).

NORWALK.

turbed, despoiled and destroyed them. It was necessary, at seasons when such danger was imminent, that adjoining leaders should confer and co-operate. Hence one origin-explan- ation of Ponasses Path.

After, however, Ponus was laid away in that pathetically lonely lot-corner found to-day in Ponus Street, New Canaan, to which burial-spot* tradition has all along cer- tified, and after he was followed hence by his favorite grandson Powahay, whose sightly grounds, a number of miles to the northwest of his grandfather's, were many years since purchased by the patriot John Jay, and now form part of the splendid Bedford-Jay estate ; after Mahackemo was known only by his namesake Norwalk meadow on the Saugatuck ; after Naramake's and Pemanante's burial-hill near Barren Marsh, on Norwalk harbor, was full, Ponasses Path became character-changed. Onox, Ponus' oldest boy, habitated, as a written reference intimates, elsewhere ; Taphance, his second son, lived under a cloud, (he was charged with murder, albeit, in justice to his memory it ought to be stated that

milling history, that a record at the foot of the page of one of the "proprietor's books," should be so worn and torn as to be illegible. The record intro- duces the Whitney name, and it evidently treats upon the matter under consideration, but its full re- cital cannot now be ascertained. Mr. Whitney had, presumably, something to say upon the subject, the sequel to which was, quite possibly, the short tenure of Nathaniel Richards (who held the property only a brief period) and the grander Whitney scheme of abandoning the former smaller accommodations,t and building a capacious structure at the "Point of Rocks" at the mouth of Norwalk river, by " the falles." It can be imagined that at the meeting held July 29th, 1665, Thomas Fitch, Lieut. Olmstead and Mr. Fenn gladly surrendered the tentative and troublesome primal projects, and welcomed the progressive ideas of Henry Whitney. Before this meeting adjourned there was granted to Mr. Whitney a home-lot in the near neighborhood of the mill-site. The earliest mill- site passed out of existence millwise, and was suc- ceeded by John Nash's tannery, the said Nash retain- ing of the former facilities, only the water feature.

It may be remarked that Henry Whitney's re- moval of the milling interest was, probably, the en- tering wedge of the success, for two centuries, of upper over lower Norwalk. Norwalk was not then out of its teens in age, but the mill was even now the magnet. The millwright drew the wheelwright, the carpenter and the blacksmith, and of course their families and shops and apprentices. There was but little or no "back country" at that time, but the farmers from the home division (East Norwalk ) and

the second division (South Norwalk ) and from Straw- berry Hill, and Saugatuck Playne, and not a great while afterward, from Cranberry and Poplar Plains, and Chestnut and Belden Hills, learned the way to Whitney's Mill. Hither they brought their produce, which created a market, and store and sloop quickly succeeded. This was the start. Had the tide-mill conception earlier entered the fathers' minds, East Norwalk's supremacy might have been less easily lost.

The story of the old corner mills, Nos. 1 and 2, at The Bridge,# is not devoid of interest. Tryon des- troyed mill No. I, but the age of No. 2 was great, its posts, joists, rafters and window-panes being gray with the dust of generations. Its wheels were a mar- vel to young eyes, and its music, if sometimes mon- otonous, is not an unpleasant memory. It proudly defied the ravages of many a spring freshet, and stood venerably immovable until touched by the hand of improvement, when it disappeared much more quickly than it arose. Among the names of its owners since Capt. Josiah Thatcher's day, are Gen. Joshua King, Taylor Sherman, Jabez Gregory, Benj. Isaacs and Samuel Cannon. John Adams had temporary quarters in its vicinity. Lafayette, if not Dr. Dwight, rode under its "bucket " overshot, and Madame Knight, 190 years ago, across its predecessor's bridge-planks. Mill No. I was consumed by Tryon's faggots, but a spell seemed to protect No. 2 from fire and flood, until it fell to Joseph W. Hubbell and Stephen Ray- mond to conclude, in 1854, a business that millionaire Stephen Whitney's great-grand-uncle, Henry Whit- ney, in 1665, there commenced.

+At mill-brooks "a" and "b," Previous to the building of the mill at the corner, (Hubbell estate corner 1896) there was evidently a mill at the foot of Mill-Hill, north side. A dam thereat is deed-alluded to.

# The title of "The Bridge," the name which Norwalk's business center has long borne, originated, doubtless, in the ancient title of the same locality, viz .. the Great Bridge.

*Action taken in New Canaan, Sept. 10, 1896, to mark it.

NORWALK.

the Court dismissed his case on the ground of insufficient evidence) ; Owenoke, Ponus' baby, for whom the Haynes Ridge of the seventeenth is, at this closing nineteenth century, named, appears to have wandered a long distance from his birth-place ; so that Ponasses Path fell, gradually, to European use. Fleet savage feet no longer traversed it, but swift English steps-the steps of the Fitch's, Hoyt's, Hanford's and Raymonds, when boys,' bounded along its bushy betweens. It came, doubtless, to be merrily enjoyed by white, blithe souls, blithe as the invigorating morning air nerved them forward, and still more blithe as, laden with game and fruit, they returned at night from their day's sport.

"All roads lead to Rome :" and, stationed upon the Prowitt East Avenue corner, the site of the first place of Christian worship in Norwalk, one readily discerns how the oldest Norwalk paths, excepting Ponasses, conducted, intentionally or otherwise, directly to the fathers' sanctuary.

THE ANCIENT HOME-LOTS.

The first house erected in Norwalk was, it is fair to argue, the "company" or "com- mon house." The advance-guard (all men) of pioneers required immediate shelter. These, en route from the coast, via Saugatuck ford and the Norwalk rocks, finally stopped, on their way to the coast level, in the depressed rear, tradition states, of the present Prowitt residence in East Norwalk. This point bordered the old Fairfield path, already in exist- ence, which fact quite possibly determined the halt that was made beside it. Here the new-comers at once commenced to fell the timber wherewith to throw together the walls and roofing within and under which they could wait until hasty survey was made and building sites decided upon. They were here, probably, first called to order and organized. Richard Olmsted was made surveyor, and the corner formed by the bend in the Fairfield Path (see diagram on next page, lot between Nos. 8 and 10) very likely suggested itself to them as the proper situation for the meeting- house and the Indian-compelled drill- ground. Their minister was not yet chosen, but when the surveyor ran his straight line from The Cove-bank north to the brow of the hill (now Earle's) a commodious corner-lot was reserved for a parsonage. By reference to the following diagram,2 the home-lots of the pioneers may be more easily traced.

1 It has been suggested that ancient Norwalk's young blood may have been partially responsible for New Canaan's origin, and the surmise that its settle- ment was devised around the supper tables of the Norwalk planters, may not be so greatly wide of the mark. The settlers' sons had, doubtless, their own way of passing the infrequent holidays of the period. A wierd path, (Ponasses) already in existence at the date of the pioneers arrival, led to the land of pigeons, partridges, wild fruit and honey, and as their boys after a day's adventure out returned, and at the even-

ing board recited their experiences, the attention of the elders might have been drawn to these new-found precincts of plenty, which they determined to be a land of promise, and denominated it Canaan.

2This diagram, depicted for condensation and convenience sakes, on the next page, exhibits the home-lots of the Norwalk fathers, the histories of whom will follow in their proper places. As two of said primitive lot-holders had hardly more than nominal connection with early Norwalk, it is in order here to make reference to Joseph Fitch, of lot

NORWALK.

THE ANCIENT HOME-LOTS. The Original Settlement's Northern Limitation-Line.

Jonathan Mar-h, Ephraim Lockwood,

Samuel Hales. Robert Stuart.

Thomas Ward. Ralph Keeler.

Common. Site of Second Meeting-House.

John Steele. Matthias St. John, Sr.

Isaac Moore. Mark Sention.

Matthew Campfield.

Nathaniel Richards.

17 Thomas Hales. Richard Olmsted.

John Platt.

Thus. Betts. : Joseph Fenn.

Matthew Marvin, Sr. 10

13 Nathan Ely. Thomas Betts. Christopher Comstock.

....

Kellogg.

31 Ist Meeting-House and

and Fairfield

Matthew

Exercise or Parade

Marvin, Jr.

Ground.

Thos. Benedict, Jr.

The Stamford

Thomas Benedict.

Rev. Those Hanford.

John Rusco.

John Bouton.

Burying

Richard Holmes.

Place.

Ist Blacksmith Shop.

Mark St. John.

Will Pond.

Thos. Lupton.

Mark St. John.

Brac ham's Lane and house.

Beacham's Bridge.

Nathaniel Haves.

George Abbott.

Ancient ! Gate.

The Gate Lot.

24 Stephen Beckwith,

To the Fields. ( anfield and Half- Mile Island ..

John Gregory, Jr.

John Gregory, Sr.

To Halt- Mile Hond.

The Cove.

The Coast.

Charles Cr. -

To Sponde Swamp and Calf Pasture.

....

23 Thus. Barnum.

11 Richard Seymour, Sr. Thomas Seymour. James Rogers.

Richard Webb.

To Stony Hill and .So tuck PI

1- Ralph Keeler. Richard Raymond. John Raymond, Sr.

Edward Nash.

Joseph Fitch.

-y Walter Hoyt.

.....

The Towne Street.

15 Richard Olmstead.

Edward Church. Thomas Fitch, Sr.

Path.

Strawberry Hill.

The Coast Bank.

To the Planting, the Neck and

Pine Hill.

25 Matt. St. John.

To the Ballast

The Cove.

Daniel

NORWALK.

ANCIENT NORWALK ARCHITECTURE.

As to early Norwalk architecture, we have hardly even fugitive reference. The first dwellings were log cabins, hastily planned and planted. The work of framing to any considerable extent was contingent to the erection of the saw-mill; consequently "mill- brook"b and subsequently one or two sites on the stream which coursed that "lonesome valley"' above "the point of rocks" at the head of the creek, now "The Bridge," were promptly utilized. The needful was a cardinal consideration with the Norwalk fathers, whose conceptions as to present necessities were clear. The era when skilled workmen were to manipulate "elaborate machines and produce the cloth we wear" had not yet dawned, neither the day when "jars and bottles were to magically grow upon the potter's wheel ;" but the time wherein to build the grist-mill, the blacksmith shop and the school- house had arrived, to developments in which primitive and serviceable directions the set- tlers consistently bent their energies.

5, and John Steele of lot 22, both of whom were trans- ient proprietors.

Joseph Fitch of lot 5, brother of Thos. Fitch, Sr., and permanent settler, was a possessor of Norwalk meadow property, ( south of East Norwalk school building and embracing the site bought in 1896 by St. Paul's parish for an East Norwalk chapel) but did not long remain (three years) to enjoy it. He sold everything out, "home-lot, housings and all other parcels of land of any kind" to Mark St. John, and went from Norwalk to Northampton, Mass., and thence to Hartford, where he married Mary, the youngest daughter of the "acute and accurate " Rev. Samuel Stone, who was the Hartford successor of the Rev. Thomas Hooker, the founder of the Connect- icut capital. He had three children, Joseph, 2d. Na- thaniel and Samuel, Joseph2d. resided at Windsor, Conn., where he died in 1697, leaving a son, Joseph Fitch,3d. who married Sarah Shaler, of Bolton, Conn. Their son John, born Jan. 21, 1743, was the INVENTOR OF STEAMBOATS. In reference to this achievement of a great-grandson of one of the Norwalk founders, it is affirmed " that if the inventions of others which Fulton had copied were removed from his boat, noth- ing would be left but the hull." John Fitch, the steam-craft originator, married Dec. 29, 1766, Lucy Roberts of Simsbury, Conn. His brother Augustus married January 22, 1760, Editha Field of Hadfield, Mass., and had John, who came to New Canaan for his wife, finding her in Lucy Mather, born in 1770, in Canaan parish. Mrs. Lucy (Mather) Fitch lived to the age of ninety-two. Her son was the distin- gnished Augustus Field Fitch, M.D., of Charleston, South Carolina.

Hon. John Steele, of lot 22, was the first secre- tary to the government of Hartford. He belonged

in Farmington, but was a Hartford magistrate. It is probable that he was simply a Norwalk property holder-not a resident of the town. He married the widow of Richard Seymour, Sr. Mr. Seymour was one of the first Norwalk settlers removed by death. He died in 1655 at his home, southeast corner of the present East Avenue and Fitch Street, leaving his wife Mercie and his oldest son Thomas, to take care of the three younger boys, John, Zachary and Rich- ard.2d. In the ordering of Providence Thomas was to found the large Seymour family of Norwalk, and the other sons, particularly John, to head prominent house- holds elsewhere. The widow married, second, Hon. John Steele of Farmington and Hartford, and the three younger lads accompanied their mother to their step-father's home. Mr. Steele died Nov. 25, 1665, having been a faithful and good step-father to his foster Seymour children. He sold to the first Mat- thias St. John, the earliest St. John home. He was a notable man at the colony's seat. By his first wife he was the ancestor of Gen. Walter Phelps, brother- in-law of the Connecticut poet, Rev. George H. Nichols, D.D., who was the father of Mrs. William H. Barnum, Jr., of Lime Rock, Conn.

Asahel Steele, who married Nov. 16, 1806, So- phia Seymour, born in Norwalk (Canaan parish) Feb. 25, 1790, daughter of Samuel and Anne ( Whitney ) Seymour, and grand-daughter of David and Elizabeth (Hyatt) Whitney, was a descendant in the seventh generation from Hon. John Steele.

'From " Hyatt's Hill" (the Main Street decliv- ity at the foot of which formerly stood Lamb's black- smith shop) to the old Whitney mill, there anciently stretched a well- wooded and well - watered valley. This valley is now the site of the populous lower end of Main Street.

NORWALK.

Referring to the ancient hearthstones of Norwalk, Rev. Dr. Nathaniel Bouton, nearly fifty years ago, wrote of the "one story and a half or two stories with back roofs running slanting and low," which is, unquestionably, a good description of the houses of days agone. The chimney was a feature and in one sense a factor, for not only was warmth demand- ed, but fuel being superabundant, had to be disposed of, so that the fire-place, sufficiently commodious to take in logs five feet in length, performed the double office of heating and consuming ; which explains the New England "chimney viewers" object and "ladder"! ordinance. The former was a sort of patrolman, whose duty it was to see that the gen- erous flues were kept soot clean, so diminishing the fire risks, and the latter was a practical precaution, as the ladder-sometimes a fallen tree instead-afforded quick approach to a burning cinder's lodgment in the roof upon which the chimney's roaring draft had pre- cipitated it.

The early Norwalk dwellings would seem to have been substantially but simply built, and as to any distinction between the same, it is more likely that the structure's size, rather than style, indicated its owner's rating. There is nothing to show that Thomas Fitch, the wealthiest man in the plantation, had any other than a plain dwelling-house. Whether there was a solitary conventional "Cape Cod house" in the Norwalk of the past it is impossible to state, but anything much more elaborate is hardly suspected. There was not, in all of old Norwalk, probably, a single example of the colonial enclosed two- story porch. There were a few such in New England at the end of the seventeenth century (notably at Hartford and Windsor), but their Norwalk substitute, then and later, was the old-fashioned lean-to, which afforded the extra dormitory accommodations in the rear rather than in front. There is doubt as to the pretentious character of, perhaps, any of the oldest hearthstones.2 The little hand of man, which the Hindoo declares is omnipo- tent, was here hard employed in digging under the rocks, draining the swamps, driving the saw that spliced the tough logs, hammering the metal into spikes and nails, and in keeping the red man at a distance and the wolf at bay. Hard working Norwalk hands were heavily employed betwixt 1650 and 1700. We read, indeed, of one "comely porch" of that day. The Reed house, of Reed's Farms, may have attracted notice, and possibly "my mansion house in Norwalk," mentioned by James Brown in his last will and testament, bearing date 1766, had been inherited from his father, and was, therefore, standing before 1700; but severe dwelling, dress and demeanor-simplicity was the rule from which the "four," not "forty-acre" men of 1650 did not, in the majority of instances, deviate.

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.

Norwalk, history from 1896, Part 5

Author: Selleck, Charles Melbourne. Publication date: 1896 Publisher: The author, Number of Pages: 553

Author: Selleck, Charles Melbourne.
Publication date: 1896
Publisher: The author,
Number of Pages: 553