Norwalk, history from 1896, Part 6

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

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As we come down from that period a gradual change is observed, and still we must

1" At a meetinge holden the 21st of January, 1655, by the inhabitants of Norwake, voted and agreed that every householder shall provide, erect, and sett up a good and sufficient ladder reaching up to the chimney above the house, the said ladder to be made and sett up within one mounthe after the date hereof, and that if any householder shall be defective herein, the said

householder shall - - of five shillings to the use of the town."

2Madame Knight, in her 1704 Diary, thus records :

" Wee hasted forward, only observing in our way the town ( Norwalk) to be situated on a navigable river, wth indifferent buildings."

NORWALK.

look a house generation yet farther on before is found the connecting link between the primitive double front-door' of the closing seventeenth and the picturesque Norwalk abodes of the ending nineteenth century.

The town's mid-period architecture was heralded by the rearing of the homes of the Rev. Roswell Swan, Jonathan Fitch, Lewis Mallory, Wm. and Stephen St. John, Wm. Maltby Betts, William and Eliphalet Lockwood, Jonathan Knight, Samuel, James and John Cannon, Thomas and Ebenezer Hoyt, Jarvis Street, Jabez Gregory, Richard Bryan, Eben- ezer Phillips, Alfred Chichester, James Quintard, Ralph Isaacs, John and Isaac Belden, David Lambert, Abijah Comstock, Elisha Silliman, Samuel St. John, Matthew Marvin,2 Joseph Scribner and Jacob Jennings. The Swan, Eliphalet Lockwood, William St. John and Scribner houses were more or less elevation-imposing. The Samuel Cannon and Thomas Hoyt dwell- ings have been deprived of their "colonial stoop," but are to-day fine specimens of Norwalk building mediævalism. The Ebenezer Phillips3 house has been tastefully modernized. The Abijah Comstock home exhibits one of the finest specimens left of Norwalk's middle- period " halls." The Eliza Selleck house on West Avenue is comfort-historic. The John Cannon house, although externally changed, shows the "central hall" of the period next before the "middle," and still preserves its rare super-mantel hand-work ornamentation. The Samuel St. John mansion, one of the best specimens of the fathers' house erections, has

']listory so far repeats itself as that the fathers' double front-door is almost a "fad" to-day. The uses of the same in past time were several. After the breakfast-table was "cleared away," the morn- ing's milk "set," the back stoop and well-stones swept, the men gone down to " the fields," and the boys had driven the cows to "the neck," and while the girls were bringing out the spinning-wheel and the wool for the noon stent, there was likely to be the mother's knickerbocker-like lookout for a few mo- ments at the bough - shaded front door, a "down town " practice of as recent observance as fifty years ago. The picture of Gov. Fitch's grand-daughter, Mrs. Samuel Fitch, standing in the early morn at that portal to salute a passing neighbor, or make a friendly inquiry, is a present memory. From Thanksgiving Day in the fall through to "Training Day " in the spring, the front door, for the greater portion of the time was closed, but when the bird-# came again and the " willows a-greening went," it was an institution. The arrangement served also as a protection. With its lower half bolted there was a sense of safety should " James the Indian " or any stranger James seek admission. Later down, as in the Rogers' days, the divided portal served a very agreeable purpose, when, behind its shut-under but open upper section,

summer afternoon teas were given at the hall table, waxen until "it shone the day to grace." A fine specimen of one of these halls is shown in the two Cannon houses on Mill Hill and The Green, and also in the Comstock hall near Vista. Mrs. Major Samuel Comstock made this apartment (different somewhat from the Cannon's) serve the purpose, in winter, of a conservatory.

¿This Wilton house was modelled after the Nor- walk Stephen St. John home.

3The Phillips home was astir on at least two not- able occasions, the first being that of a military salute paid the family by a company of United States reg- ulars, marching under cominand of Mrs. Mary Phil- lips' nephew, Capt. Samuel Keeler, from Fort Gris- wold, New London, to Detroit, Michigan, where they were ordered to assist in quelling Indian dis- turbances, and who, drawn up en route in line in Norwalk, splendidly gave the compliment referred to. The second occasion was that of a large evening gathering, when Mrs. Phillips' daughter Sally was wedded to William Stuart by, as the last official act of his life, Rev. Roswell Swann, the generous accom- modations of the old home being so taxed that "benches " were brought in for the use of the guests.

*Years after Gov. Fitch's decease, and in the almost recon- structed Fitch dwelling. (after Tryon's conflagration) lay one of the Governor's kin passing, at early dawn, so purely peace- fully away a- that her watcher -. in order to test whether the

spirit had or had not finally flown, asked whether the lingerer desired anything. In softest tones the lips of the expiring one breathed, " I am listening to hear the birds sing God's praise."

The Fitch trees were inviting nestling-places for the birds.

NORWALK.

unfortunately been swept away by fire, while the Jacob Jennings hearthstone has suffered considerable change. When its founder,' with possibly his great-grandfather's elegant Fair- field site in mind, came to Norwalk and chose the crest of "Harry's Hill Jr." as the like seat of a dwelling, he built thereon an imposing structure for the period. The internal wood- work was of oak and the tiling was borrowed from the Yonkers Manor-House pattern. The tiling has now entirely disappeared, and its loss cannot be accounted for. Captain Josiah Thatcher had parted with sufficient acreage for the Jennings accommodation, and as the road in front encroached less than to-day upon the premises, it was, with its green western slope, and ample rear garden, and well-started plants and trees, a handsome home, to which, after all was completed, and the residence furnished, Mr. Jennings brought his welcomed Boston bride.

A fair specimen of the average pre-revolutionary dwelling is still preserved in the present Henry Williams home-house at Allen Betts' saw-mill. This house was built for Josiah, son of Moses St. John. The father deeded the lot, "three acres each side of mill- brook," to his son on Nov. 20, 1770, and as the son had recently married, (Dec. 27, 1768) it is probable that the house was built at that time, making, if so, its age to-day to be one hundred and twenty-six years. The lot was bounded on the west by the old-time Platt land (now the Camp estate and Cornwall properties.) A little northeast of the building site rose a slight eminence, of which the existing road is a part, which eminence was sur- mounted by a work-shop. It is a handed-down mention that Tryon's men, who were en- gaged in action near by, might have destroyed the, at that time, new house had not their faggots given out. In Josiah and Mary ( Fitch ) St. John's day, the brook was quite a rivulet, and the old pair utilized it. Mrs. St. John was brought up in one of the most picturesque neighborhoods of early Norwalk (southeastern New Canaan) and she never overcame her birth-place love. In visiting her childhood home and in receiving visits from her birth-spot relations and friends, she appeared to take delight. In tea-pouring and tea- partaking she also found pure comfort. Her patriotic father-in-law, Moses St. John, who lived near by, remonstrated with her for her generous use, during the war, of the taxed beverage, claiming that she was thereby promoting the interests of the royal cause, but for

'Jacob Jennings, born Dec. 9, 1730, was a son of Isaac and Phoebe Jennings of Fairfield. He married Jan. 14, 1762, Grace, daughter of Isaac and Lydia Parker of Boston. Mrs. Jennings lost her parents in early life and was brought up by an uncle. She was a lady of culture, and a prized addition to Norwalk society. Her family was large, but she entertained her friends and found time to teach her children botany. She survived her husband, and finally died from the effects of an injury received in making a misstep on a lower stiarway in her still standing Tryon-saved dwelling.

Lucretia, sister of Jacob Jennings, married Henry Marquand of Fairfield, and was only about three

months younger than her husband. Isaac, the son of Henry and Lucretia Marquand, married Mabel, daughter of Peter Perry, who was nephew of Mrs. John Cannon, Sr., of Norwalk. Isaac Marquand was for a time associated with his uncle, Jacob Jennings, as a learner of the silver-art, in Main Street, Norwalk. His two sons were the banker Henry Marquand, of New York City Metropolitan Museum fame, and Frederick, the munificent donor to Yale College.

Mrs. Isaac Marquand's brother, Walter Perry, who was also Mrs. John Cannon, Sr.'s grand-nephew, was the father of Oliver H. Perry, whose sons John H. and Winthrop H. Perry, are well-known members of the Fairfield County bar to-day.

NORWALK.

all this the caller at the house to-day will discover the chimney, from the crane of which hung the kettle of always ready " steeping" water.

A portion of what is, in 1896, known as the Selleck house, on West Avenue, is of ante-revolutionary date. It was originally Belden property, and belonged to the fourteen acre homestead of John and Rebecca (Bartlett) Belden. After the parents' day, it fell to the ownership of their children, four of whom, Mary Esther, Sarah, Amos and Henry, sold on March 18, 1796, their share in the estate (two-thirds) to their brothers Isaac and John, who divided the fourteen acres between themselves, Isaac taking the south half and John the north portion. Isaac married the daughter of one of Norwalk's principal men of those earlier and more simple days, Matthew Reed, and lived in what is now known as the DeKlyn house. John was unmarried and resided in what is to-day the Selleck house. After John Belden's use of the premises, his brother Henry occupied the same for a time, and he, at the instigation of his wife, erected the milk-house addition which is to-day observed on the north side. The back roof at that time ran almost to the ground, and under its west section, floored with stone, was kept the wood for winter, but the space was reserved in summer for a " cooling " place in a hot day. The Beldens' rights in the prop- erty were finally bought out by Frederick St. John, son of William St. John and brother of Mrs. Col. Buckingham Lockwood. He had married Harriet, daughter of John Cannon, but had no children. He there lived and died, when the house and lot became the pur- chase of the widow of Zalmon Selleck, the mother of the present owner of the property, Mrs. Wm. K. James.' Mr. Selleck died in the South, leaving a widow and two children, one of whom, Henry, also died away from home, and the fine old place fell, consequently, to the mother and daughter, who there resided in great comfort. The building was set on fire by Garth's wing of Tryon's army, but as the men were hastening to cross the stream- rocks (site of iron bridge on Cross Street 1896) to join Tryon's forces, the house was prob- ably left as soon as the torch had been applied, and was on that account, partially saved. After the conflagation a small building that stood on the Westport road was moved and made to become a part of the original Belden building.

Another existing ante-revolutionary home is that of the lower Main Street Hoyt sisters and brothers. On May 15, 1764, Goold Hoyt, Sr., paid Capt. Josiah Thatcher, who then owned the old Whitney mill, £47-15s. for a lot of one-half acre and fifteen poles area and situated on "mill plain," now Main Street. Here Mr. Hoyt was to build the homey

Mrs. James was there born. After her father's decease, and before her mother came permanently to occupy the house, it had a succession of profes- sional tenants. Lawyer Alfred Apollos Holly, of Stamford and his wife Charlotte, daughter of Judge Chapman of Litchfield, resided there. Dr. John Adams McLean and his first wife, Catherine Hawley of Bridgeport, followed Mr. Holly. Subsequently David C. Sanford, a lawyer and his wife, a daughter

of Ozias Seymour of Litchfield, and a sister of Judge Origen S. Seymour of that place, there tenanted, and Mrs. Seymour died there. (Mr. Sanford married, 2d .. a sister of Rev. Edward Bull, once rector of Christ Church, Westport.) After Mr. Seymour's occupancy of the house, Moses Craft and his wife Esther Mary (Cannon) Craft there lived, and after Mr. Craft Rev. Sylvester Eaton, the seventh Congregational pastor of Norwalk.

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hearthstone, the residence to-day of his descendants. The summer following its purchase Mr. Hoyt married in Fairfield, and the new lot and house formed the future abode of the wedded pair. Their son Ebenezer was not yet three years old, and Munson, the youngest, was unborn, when, on Sunday morning, July 11. 1779. Garth marched his men in front of the Hoyt house. Mrs. Hoyt went into the street, if the tradition be correct, and made personal appeal. From the fact that the Hoyt's had not, the night previously, escaped to Belden's Hill, is argued that they had some ground whereon to base a hope for English clemency. Mrs. Hoyt was a daughter of Ebenezer Dimon of Fairfield, and as Gen. Tryon is known to have been a visitor at the Burr's, opposire the Dimon's, it is quite possible that she had met him on occasions of her after-marriage visits to her native home. At all events, the Hoyt house was spared, as was also, accepting the same authority, the Jennings (later McClure) house a little distance to the north, although in relation to this statement it should be added that the wind, on the morning of the town's burning, was blowing from the north or northwest, and as a barn belonging to a loyalist stood just south of the Jen- nings house, the latter was suffered to remain. Mr. Jennings and Mr. Hoyt paid the same price per acre for their lots. The great-grand children of the latter occupy to-day their forefather's premises.

There stand, to-day, in Norwalk, other structures of Revolutionary associations to be alluded to in their legitimate places, and in connection with the mention of the fam- ilies to which they belonged.

THE TIMOTHY WHITNEY HOUSE.

Turn down by Bradley O. Banks in iNy.

NORWALK

THE LUDLOW-PURCHASE COAST DIVISIONS.

The oldest coast-parts, places and points of the Ludlow purchase' were the Head of the Harbor, Mill Brook Mouth, Mill Brook Bank, Creek Bank, Marsh Meadow Bank, Oyster Shell Point, Coaste Banke, Fort Poynt, The Ballast, Fitch's and Gregory's Points, Sension Beach, Calf Pasture, Half-Mile Island, Canfield's Island, Stephen's Island, Great Marsh, Bluff Point, Saugatuck Plain, Rocky Neck, Stony Brook Mouth, and, to coin a des- ignation, Fatherford.2 These all, barring the last, are ancient Norwalk names. What the founders termed the Head of the Harbor, is now the wharf properties of E. K. and F. St. John Lockwood. Mill Brook Mouth was the emptying point into the river of the Bark-Mill Brook, elsewhere in this work designated as "mill-brook b"; Mill Brook Bank is the pot- tery site. Creek Bank is the rear of the present Hubbell, Noble, Peck, Moody, Osborn, Thomas, Wood, Lockwood and Daskam places, and Marsh Meadow Bank that of the Gregory, Cram, Lynes and Hendrick properties.

The long known Oyster Shell Point was approached from the "towne street" by a lane, and as it lay close to the channel of the creek, a sort of wharf was there built, at which the harbor's smaller craft could land at low water. Permission to construct this wharf was given May 6, 1761, to Thos. Fitch, Jabez Raymond, Stephen St. John, Isaac Hayes, Jr., Haynes Hanford, Wm. Stanford, Jonathan Ketchum, John Cannon, Joseph Ketchum, John Raymond, James Fitch, Nathan Mallory, John Belden, Josiah Thatcher and Ralph Isaacs. The earliest Norwalk oysters were procured at this point.

The Coast Bank lay immediately below Oyster Shell Point.

Fort Point age-ranks Norwalk peninsula designations. It was the first "poynt" known to the founders, and the site before their day of an Indian fort, constructed by the red man for, possibly, a defence against the arrows of hostile natives, but more probably as a garrison in the event of onsets by the Manhattan Dutch. Its first English owner was John Gregory. Sr., who also controlled the two acres of salt meadow land immediately north of it. On April 3. 1689, Mr. Gregory gave the south portion of the land where "the Indian fort formerly stood" to his son Thomas Gregory.

From Fort Point eastward along the beach, as far as John Gregory's hill, lay a high- way, and the following action, taken at a town meeting held Feb. 24, 1701, attests to the value set by the pioneers upon the same. "Agreed and voted, and it is by this act de- clared, that all the land from the Ballance (Ballast) place southward or southwest below John Gregory's dwelling house, all the common land from said Ballance (Ballast) place all along to the Fort Poynt to the extent west or northwest end of said Poynt shall be for a highway, let the breadth of sayd common land be what it will more or less." A wharf

'The high rock, "'ye falles," and " the mouth of Norwalk river," now spanned by the stone bridge at the business centre of the city of Norwalk, lay be- tween the two purchases of Ludlow and Partrick.

- A name not unsuitable for the point on the Sau- gatuck, at which the pioneers, in 1650-51, crossed to the west side of the same river, and thence pro- ceeded to the east bank of the Norwalk river.

NORWALK.

was built in 1737 from the beach at Fort Point as far out as the river's channel, by Samuel Comstock, John Marvin, Samuel Fitch and Joseph St. John.

"The Ballast" was a spot at which stones were sunken ; it lay in the creek south- west of John Gregory's home. One explanation of it is that vessels there received ballast. Notice of it occurs in very early Norwalk records. There was also " The Ballast" at Pine Island on the west side of the river.

Fitch's Point' lay between Fort and Gregory's Points, in "the planting field called the Neck," and was undistinguished, excepting as a pasture locality, until Tryon there landed a wing of his invading army, in July, 1779. It was in the possession of the Fitch family, much of whose property was water-bordered. A typical farm cottage2 stood, after the Revolutionary war, almost at the extremity of the Point, where it remained until within a few years, when it gave way to a row of modern dwellings. The cottage referred to was the meeting place of the Norwalk Mormons some fifty years ago. In the summer- tide of one of the "forties" of the present century, there came to this portion of Fairfield County a representative from the Mormon headquarters in Illinois. He was young, elo- quent and enthusiastic, and drew multitudes in both Norwalk and New Canaan. His appeal in the latter place, based upon the prophecy, "woe to the land shadowing with wings which is beyond the rivers of Ethiopia,3 which wings he claimed were North and South America, made at least one New Canaan convert to Joseph Smith's creed. He was somewhat more successful in Norwalk, as several were immersed at Fitch's Point. His great and about the last public Mormon effort in Norwalk was brought to an abrupt close by an unexpected "gentile" reply from the assembly which crowded the bank at said Point.+

'The following will explain itself. In a letter dated Norwalk, Dec. 17, 1829, addressed by Capt. Samuel B. Warren to his son Dr. Hezekiah B. War- ren of Medina, N. Y., occurs this passage : "The County of Fairfield obtained a grant last spring ses- sion of the Assembly, to build a work-house or house of correction. The committee appointed to locate the place for the house met last week at Fairfield. I was with them two days. They viewed five places, one at Bridgeport, one at Mill River, two at Sauga- tuck, one at Norwalk, which is the handsomest place and the most central. The committee have not de- cided as vet, but we think it will be in Norwalk, east side of the Old Well harbour, Fitch's Point."

2Built by Albert, son of Elijah Gregory. He professed the Mormon faith and was received as a disciple in the Old Well Academy, which stood near the site of the present Second Congregational Church, in South Norwalk. He was at first a stout opponent of Mormonism, but after his wife's acceptance of that belief, he soon yielded. He went west, where he was made a Mormon apostle. In the year 1842, this people had a sort of gathering on one of the

Norwalk islands, since which time the same has been known as " Nauvoo." When Albert Gregory's father died, his son was in the west. Having, however, been chosen to come east for the purpose of conducting a party of English pilgrims hence to Salt Lake city, he visited Norwalk and received his portion of the fam- ily patrimony. He departed with it and had reached St. Louis, where he fell a victim to cholera. His father's homestead was on the present Winnipauk road.

3Prophecy of Isaiah.

4It was Sunday afternoon. A convert, a descend- ant of Norwalk's best stock, was to be immersed. Said convert had previously denounced Mormonism in violent terms and loudly denominated its followers " fools." But now he is so fired with the new relig- ion as to attempt, while in the water, and just before immersion, a brief speech to the people. He began emphatically thus : "This fool," when one of the congregation, a Norwalk manufacturer and afterward Brooklyn mayor, shouted roundly out " We see you are." It was impossible to control the congregation and the meeting was dismissed.

NORWALK.

Gregory's Point (Goodman Gregory's Neck, 1681, see Nathaniel Richards' will) is a locality-name of venerable age. The fathers' first designation of the place was "the poynt of coaste division," and they divided its seven and one-half acres between Matthew Camp- field and John Gregory, Sr. Subsequently Mr. Campfield sold his part to Mr. Gregory, who deeded it to his wife Sarah,' with the understanding that she was to leave the same to their sons-in-law John and James Benedict, after whose possession it tentatively bore the title of Benedict's Point. It contained, in the Campfield-Gregory days, the acreage as before stated, and was bounded on all sides, save one, by tide-water. Richard Seymour first, Samuel St. John second and afterward Samuel Smith, a son-in-law of Matthew Marvin, Sr. owned the land to the north of the seven-and-a-half acre point." This point, geographically defined, comprises, at this day, all the territory of that area lying south of a line drawn from Charles Creek west to Norwalk harbor, and bounded east, south and west by salt water. During all the Norwalk years, Gregory's Point has remained a prominent harbor projection. Meadow and sea-grasses were its ancient products, the cutting and curing of which, and the digging of soft clams at the Point's end, being about the only industry there practiced prior to the days of steamboat navigation, when a dock was built southwesterly out to the channel for the landing of passengers at certain states of the tide, and for the accommoda- tion of Bridgeport boats, which there made a "stop" on their trips to and from New York. A little before the middle of the present century, a ship-builder of Huntington, L. I., Isaac Scudder Ketchum, conceived the idea of converting the Point into a ship-yard. He con- sequently purchased, on Sept. 15, 1837, of Curtis Peck, six-sixteenths, and on Sept. 21, 1837, of James Quintard, Algernon E. Beard and others, seven-sixteenths more of the property, and built what many remember to-day, the long two-story Gregory Point House, the west end of which contained, on the first floor, a square room for living and office purposes, directly over which was an apartment of the same size, but unplastered, which was used for the making and storing of models, leading out of which room was a loft for timber, and underneath this loft, on the ground floor, an open spacious area where work was done. Mr. Ketchum had progressed thus far with his project, when for some reason, he relinquished his purpose, and decided not to quit Huntington.3 The property remained idle until the spring of 1851, when James W. Underhill, of Stockton, Cal., purchased the Point (seven acres) and house for $993.50.+ Isaac Scudder Ketchum built the first house, but Mr. Under- hill built the first substantial dock at the Point. The "cribs," still standing, were made by

1 By will executed Aug. 15, 1689. On Nov. 1, 1689, Mrs. Gregory was deceased, and her two sons- in-law, John and James Benedict, " declared them- selves satisfied with their portion " of her estate.

2The pioneers early opened and operated a path to the Point. This path became a way or road after the town action of Dec. 10, 1710-11, when John Bene- dict, Sr. agreed to part, for "lawful and public use. with ye way that is and hath been improved along through said Benedict's land unto the said point,"

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Norwalk, history from 1896, Part 6

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