Norwalk, history from 1896, Part 7

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

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for the consideration of a grant of one-and-one-half acres near-by his father's home-lot. This, (see vol. iv, fol. 122, Norwalk Town Records) was the begin- ning of the future Gregory's Point Road.

3He bought Gregory's Point for a ship-yard, but his family objected to his quitting Long Island.

4Said Underhill was visiting relatives in Norwalk when the suggestion of the Point's purchase was made. He at once embraced the idea, and left for Huntington and accomplished his purpose.

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him, and filled with stone brought from Goose and Cockenos Islands, and then planked over.

After spending something of a sum upon the premises, Underhill also gave up the same. The gold fever over, he returned from the Pacific Coast, and sold, on Aug. 2. 1855, the property to Capt. John Burke for $1500, who enlarged the house and closed it in, making several improvements thereon, and upon the dock also. Burke there kept a hotel for several years, and finally sold out, July 29, 1859, to Philip W. Hardenbrook, of Harlem, N. Y., who completely re-modelled the house, converting the original 20x56 struc- ture into a square building and making the whole spot more valuable and inviting. It afterward, with increased acreage, passed for $12.000 on July 5, 1864, into the hands of Aaron W. Raymond, of Ravenswood, L. I., who held it nearly four years, selling it on May 5, 1868, for $15,000. On this date it became the purchase of Henry F Guthrie, Geo. S. Bell, C. C. St. John, Melville E. Mead and Thaddeus Bell, which gentlemen composed the "Gregory's Point Marine Railway Company," a body politic, incorporated by the General Assembly of Connecticut, (May session, 1868, and bill approved June 26, 1868.) The Point (twenty-five acres) was formally sold to this corporation on Aug. 17, 1868, and ex- tensive ship-building arrangements were projected. The Marine Co., on Feb. 1, 1873. leased for five years from April 1, 1873, the hotel and dock portions of the Point to Geo. W. Hooper of Norwalk, at an annual rental of $500.00, agreeing on March 15, 1873, to dispose of the leased portions to said Hooper upon the following terms, viz. : $10.000 should purchase be made previous to April 1, 1873 ; $11.000 if purchased before April 1, 1874 ; $12.000 if purchased before April 1, 1875 ; $13.000 if purchased before April 1, 1876 ; $14.000 if purchased before April 1, 1877, or $15.000 if purchased at the end of the lease, April 1, 1878. This scheme seems to have fallen through, as the Co. on Oct. 2. 1874, sold through its authorized agent, Henry F. Guthrie, the hotel and dock accommodations, (one- and-a-half acres) with six additional acres of near-by salt meadow, to Philetus Dorlon, of Brooklyn, N. Y., for the named consideration of $7.000. The spot now took the name of Dorlon's Point, and Mr. Dorlon there, for several years, maintained a hotel establish- ment. After his death, the property passed into the hands of the present owner.'

'The long Fitch-tenure of Gregory's Point com- menced Feb. 14, 1742-3, on which date the Point's possession passed from Thos. Benedict, Jr. to Samuel, the brother of Gov. Thos. Fitch, and Benedict's Point took again its old designation of Gregory's Point. The property now seems to have been Fitch-will-dis- posed of until it finally fell to Rebecca, daughter of Jonathan Fitch, and wife of James Mallory. Said Jonathan Fitch was a grandson of Samuel Fitch. the first Fitch owner of the Point. On Aug. 8, 1825, Jas. and Rebecca Mallory sold the Point to Uriah Sey- mour, the consideration being $212.11. On March 17, 1830, Uriah Seymour mortgaged the property to Henry

Belden, who sold it on Nov. 5, 1833, to Seth Seymour. Two days afterward, on Nov. 7, 1833, Mr. Seymour sold it to Curtis Peck of New York, for $800.00, who the same day disposed of one-eighth of it to Alger- non E. Beard for $roo.oo, and one-eighth to Arnot A. Nash for $100.00, and one-eighth to James Quintard for $100.00, and one-sixteenth to Thomas C. Hanford for $50.00, and one-sixteenth to Raymond Benedict for $50.00, and one-sixteenth to Daniel K. Nash for $50.00. The Point was, in 1708, also called Little Marsh, and the path to it was that year alluded to as "a common highway." It was, from early times, a landing-place.

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Sension (St. John) Beach lays adjacent to Round Beach, and between Gregory's Point and Calf Pasture. It is old clamming ground.

Calf Pasture was a name given by the first settlers to the extreme southward end of "The Neck." There the young animals were, at a proper time, driven from the parent stock and kept and cared for by persons regularly appointed by the pioneers for the work. or were "scowed " over to Calf Pasture island, somewhat to the southeast. Calf Pasture was fenced off from the planting and pasturage fields, and, extending from Charles Creek, it fronted Spruce Swamp, and was bounded on the east (at certain tides) by Half-Mile Island.

Half-Mile Island, one of the oldest Norwalk English designations, lay in what the settlers denominated the "lower plantinge field." Its " island" appellation would appear to have been a misnomer excepting at certain tide periodicities. A portion of its eastern estuary (Campfield's Creek) after forming its boundary in that direction, swept anciently around to the west, thus creating a northern basin-border, the water of which basin, escap- ing at certain extreme "apogees" into the Sound on the south, and at a point not greatly distant from Spruce Swamp, afforded complete insulation, justifying, at such times, the locality's "island" descriptive.

There can be but little doubt that charterer Matthew Campfield, who was a vicinity proprietor, looked longingly upon the island, but it was originally owned, first by Stephen Beckwith and then John Ruscoe, the Huguenot, who held it until tempted by Samuel St. John, grandson of Matthias, the pioneer, to dispose, on Feb. 19, 1666, of a portion of it.' The island was traversed from east to west by a fertile semi-spine which, possibly, from time immemorial the debris-deposit of the sea had enriched, and the aborigines, with washed ashore marine-shell and blades, had cultivated. If its earliest story accorded with its somewhat later history, the finest corn in the old plantation was probably grown upon that ridge. So choice of the spot and so careful of its prolific characteristics was one of its long-gone tenants that he would permit only three stalks to a hill throughout its entire length. Pears,2 peaches, and tempting plums have there been raised, and its soil-product- iveness for many seasons remained a distinguished mark of the sea-girt domain. The sheltered salt-grass meadow at the north of the island was formerly held as a distinct property. Caleb Hoyt neighbor, on the opposite side of the street, of Gov. Fitch, bequeathed it by will, Sept. 3, 1747, to his three sons. During the Revolutionary war there was a salt- works establishment upon the island.

On Sept. 3, 1821, occurred the "great September gale " which visited the coast and

1After Mr. St. John's death, it became the prop- erty of his estate. His daughter Elizabeth, together with her husband, John Raymond, cousin of Joshua of Block Island, sold it on June 29, 1728, to Thomas, father of Gov. Fitch. It afterwards fell to the Gov- ernor's brother Samuel, the grandfather of Moses Rogers of Shippan Point.

-The old Half-Mile Isle pear tree stood about one hundred and fifty feet eastward of the present Lang- don dwelling house, a short distance from which was a small orchard of bearing plum trees. There were these before, and the sea and land and blue sky, but not the " tangible joy in the grass and flowers" that there is to-day.

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worked great destruction. The afternoon had been dark, and a few minutes before sun- down it became evident that a terrible visitation of wind and rain was at hand. The storm is said to have commenced at Norfolk, Va., an hour or so before noon. It reached Norwalk at about 6 o'clock in the evening, and it spent itself on the Massachusetts coast at mid- night. It overtook the Norwalk packet, THE SLOW AND EASY, Uriah Selleck' owner, and sank it. It leveled between one and two hundred large chestnut trees standing on some four acres a few miles out of Norwalk, and unroofed houses in every direction. The Nor- walk shore was in its direct path, and Half-Mile Island and other marine sections were particularly exposed. The storm of 1833 shifted much of the sand of this same island from the east side to the west side, and on Dec. 17, 1833, the tide rose to such an extreme height that it made three distinct islands of the one. On Feb. 5, 1845, the island is said to have been surrounded by banks of snow six or seven feet high.

After the farm use of Half-Mile Island by the St. John's, Raymond's and Fitch's, the frame of a dwelling2 which formerly stood on the path to the "Ballast," was thither removed, and the beach's orient end became the site of an humble but happy home-hearth. Grandmother Gregory3 was the head, for many years, of this hearth-stone, and was ever and anon seen standing at her southeast-facing door, looking at the sails in the offing, or listening to the plaintive note of some distant sea bird.4

'The Norwalk wharf of this sailing vessel ad- joined the present coal yard of Charles T. Leonard. Uriah Selleck there had a store, at the rear dock of which the first steamboat put upon the Norwalk route had wharfage. His business partner, at one time, was Samuel St. John of New Canaan, the father of the late Wm. and Prof. Samuel St. John. Mr. Selleck had married, May 18, 1784, Hannah Smith of Darien, and a direct descendant of Mr. Wm. Haynes, of Haynes' Ridge. These had two children, Zalmon and Nancy, the first of whom, born March 31, 1795, was the father of Mrs. Maria (Selleck) James of Wall Street, Nor- walk. The Uriah Selleck home became, afterward, that of Matthias Hubbell, in Main Street.

Evart Quintard, born 1798, in South Norwalk, commenced learning his trade (cabinet-maker) in the house, still standing, northwest cor. of North Avenue and Camp Street. Zalmon Hanford was the occu- pant of the premises, and the rooms in which Chas. . R., father of Gen. Wm. T. Sherman, had enjoyed old Samuel Camp's evening musicales, were now appro- priated as furniture quarters. During Mr. Quintard's apprenticeship Mr. Hanford removed to the Uriah Selleck house, which he occupied until about the time of its purchase by Matthias Hubbell. Mr. Hanford there built the cabinet shop that was afterward moved and used by Mr. Quintard, on the site to-day known as 152 Main Street.

?This dwelling was the home of Abraham Greg- ory, which stood a short distance below the ancient burying-ground.

3She was the widow of John Betts Gregory. Iler husband was the son of Abraham and Elizabeth (Betts) Gregory, who lived where the late Henry Marvin resided, on East Avenue, and south of the ancient Beacham Lane. It was the oaken frame of Abraham Gregory's house which was removed in 1831 to Half- Mile Island, and formed the west end of old Mrs. Gregory's cottage at the Point. John Betts Gregory learned his trade (potter) of Absalom Day of " Old Well." After his marriage to Olive, born 1786, daugh- ter of Aaron and Hannah (Weeks) Raymond, and grand-daughter of the soldier, Simeon Raymond of " Old Well," he had a good business offer from Huntington, L. I., which he accepted. He afterward established a pottery in Clinton, Oneida Co., N. Y., which required a building 140x40 for his operations. He returned in 1831 to Norwalk, and bought from Samuel Hanford Half-Mile Isle, paying for the same $325.00. He there built a kiln for the burning of earth- en and stoneware. The kiln was erected during the cholera year (1832) by masons Lewis and George Raymond of "Old Well." The business was here kept up until 1840. Mr. Gregory died July 22, 1842, leav- ing a widow, who survived him until 1883. His child- ren were Charles E., who lived at the present Lang- don west-end entrance, and was drowned; Geo. W., who resides in Saugatuck ; John W .; Mary Jane (Mrs. Rev. W. B. Hoyt ; ) Harriet (Mrs. Rev. Harvey Camp) and Eliza (Mrs. Gay.)

4The notes of a species of sea-fowl, heard thereat, were, especially at shut of day, soothingly pathetic.

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As this good woman was about to sit at her supper-table on the evening of Jan. 13, 1840, she observed that her cottage walls were red from lurid gleams which entered the southwest window-panes. Springing to the door her eye caught, from over Mamachimons Island, the reflections from the burning steamboat Lexington. The wind was blowing freshly from the west. The weather was intensely cold, but while the Norwalk and New York steamboat was ice-locked at Old Well, (South Norwalk) yet was the bay off Half- Mile Isle as unobstructed as in summer. There was a small boat at the island, and the first thought was to launch it, but the craft was unrigged and in winter quarters, and so out of service. The burning steamer, as watched from the island, threw such brilliant flames upward that, when off Goose Island, the machinery was plainly seen. There was a strong ebb tide, and, as it appeared from Half-Mile Island, the Lexington sank when about abreast of Old Field Point.

Half-Mile Island remained largely in the possession of the Gregory's (old Mrs. Gregory's son, Charles E., lived at the west end) for many years. On Jan. 15, 1873, Louisa Byxbee sold a portion of it to Woodbury G. Langdon, and six days afterward Mr. Lang- don bought another section of the island from Charles W. and Wm. H. Hoyt. On Feb. I, 1873, Nancy Gregory, (widow of Charles E. and daughter-in-law of "grandmother" Gregory) who had, through different vicissitudes, for a series of years, possessed her water- side half-acre home (now the site of the Langdon gate-house), disposed of it to Mr. Lang- don, and on the 7th day of the same month James Mitchell sold the balance of the property, for several thousand dollars, to the same new proprietor. Mr. Langdon now built his summer villa and laid out its beautiful lawn, where Elijah Gregory once raised his corn which attained the height of fourteen feet, and a few rods south of one of the most prolific peach patches of the olden " down town."

Mr. Langdon increased his Norwalk acreage by the purchase, May 8, 1874, from Chas. W. and Wm. H. Hoyt, of Sprites Island, and on June 15, 1874, from Henry A. Smith, of Campfield's Islands thirty-four acres, and Aug. 20, 1874, of Calf Pasture Island. and April 16, 1875. of Goose Island.

Campfield's Island, in the immediate vicinity of Half-Mile Island, and separated from it by Campfield Creek, rightly bears the name of its early proprietor, the only Norwalk set- tler who had the honor of being a Connecticut charterer, and whose remains now, it is supposed, rest beneath one of the public buildings in the city of Newark, N. J. The town granted the island to Matthew Campfield soon after he came to Norwalk. Its owner removed to New Jersey and made over his Norwalk property to his son Samuel. In March, 1672, Samuel Campfield sold a part of the island to Ephraim Lockwood, who, just before he died in 1685, deeded it to his son James, great-grandfather of Chancellor James Kent. A well- defined turf-divided road traversed the island, and paying crops have there been secured. A delightful use to which the same was formerly put was that of an annual after-harvest social gathering-ground for the old "down town" (East Norwalk) fathers, mothers and

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children. The island, one day in the year, was alive with numbers, vocal with cheer, and spread with laden tables, the memory of which is one of the happiest of Norwalk remin- iscenses. In high summer and at full moon and full sea Campfield's Grove was a fascinating spot. It forms to-day a part of the Langdon Marina, being connected by a bridge with Half-Mile Island.

From Campfield's Island a small creek led to Stephen's Island, which was not dis- tant from the main land. Here, for some time, lived the parent, a silver-craftsman, of the late Alfred Jackson of Norwalk, and his brother Le Grand, now the Wall Street jeweler.

East of Campfield's Island skirted a coast-line to the extreme southeast point of the Ludlow purchase. This line has been broken in modern days by the Westport ship canal, built years ago by the U. S. Government, under contract with Silas Meeker of Norwalk, which canal is the site of the Norwalk pioneers "hithermost wading place" at Great Marsh, to which Elbow Creek was the entrance. Between the canal and Campfield's Island was a small creek (Smith's Beach Creek) which connected Campfield's Island and Stephen's Island creeks. Above the southeast point (Bluff's Point) of the coast line under descrip- tion, the land retreated westerly so as to form a bay in Saugatuck harbor, the sides of which were known as Saugatuck Playne. The plain attracted the attention of the first planters of Norwalk, and after their day of the Harson's, of Manhattanville, N. Y., who there landed (while cruising through the Sound) and built and remained. This property was that of the present Enos's and Ketchum's. In earlier times the descendants of Joseph Ketchum, the Norwalk pioneer, possessed the river-bordered Saugatuck Playne, and the Ketchum children from the "N. Y. province-line vicinity" (northwest New Canaan) there fished and frolicked. Later still, the New York City Harvey's and the Dana's of the New York Sun, passed the summer season at that bay side, above which rose Rocky Neck, now the Cockcroft place, hard by which last locality was the Indian meadow, named for Mam- achimon, and the Disbrow ferry, across what, in 1704, a distinguished traveler called a "difficult river" (the Saugatuck). To the north of Rocky Neck, and along the west bank of the Saugatuck, was a beautiful river side as far up as the mouth of Stony Creek, and even beyond, to what may justly be denominated FATHERFORD, the settlers Saugatuck crossing place in 1650.

THE PARTRICK PURCHASE COAST-DIVISION.

Beginning at the head of Norwalk river, the "ship-yard" was the first locality, an- ciently, of note in the west or Partrick section of Norwalk. This yard was a little below "Kecler's Hollow," and somewhere near the present freight depot of the Danbury and Norwalk R. R. It originated, probably, in the days of the Whitney milling enterprise, and there is record of the building of water-craft thereat down as late as Ebenezer Hoyt's day. The wharf (next that of the 1896 Leonard coal yard) was built in the fall of 1796, a season "most remarkable for drought and clear cold till long in winter." "Tinker's

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Point" lay next below, a stretch of salt meadow filling the intervening area. Pine Island has always been a prominent west coast elevation. Here, in more modern times, was a ship-yard. Below Pine Island (a favorite bathing place in late years) the coast was in- dented by Rusco Creek. This was formerly a small estuary of some importance. Its head (west of 1896 corset factory) was selected by Eliakim Smith, Sr., of Hadley, for a home- site, and here the Norwalk ancestors of the many Smiths of his line were born. His first house was consumed in 1779, but the building that supplanted it still stands.1 South of the mouth of Rusco Creek was "Liberty Point," the site in old time of Norwalk's first pottery, and to-day of Messrs. Hatch, Bailey & Co.'s planing establishment.

The ancient "ferry " place, on "The Stamford and Fairfield Path," was immediately below, if not partly inclusive of, the Norwalk Iron Works dock property of 1896. Later than its ferry use, this spot was a favorite wading and water sporting place for the Old Well children. The strip lay between Marshall and Sun (now Washington) streets. Both these streets evidently took their old names from two of the first steamboats that plyed between Norwalk and New York (see article entitled "Ancient Norwalk Commerce.") A few rods south of this miniature Partrick bay was dug the famous "old well," which gave to that section of the town its former and familiar name. The fathers' old well, quite similar in the particulars of situation and source, to the Moses Rogers well at Shippan Point, was so fed by distant streams as that its waters remained fresh and pure, notwithstanding the spring's proximity to the sea. A coast strip, upon which was a ship-yard, and below the ship-yard a strip of salt meadow, now lined the west shore as far as Barren Marsh2 (opposite Gregory's Point) and Judah (Peach) Island. A small stream here set innerward and wound southwesterly toward the rear of Bouton (now Keyser) Island. Near the head

"This venerable building, the residence to-day at 15 Ann St., of Nehemiah Brown, was raised on Sat- urday, April 23, 17SS. Its predecessor was burned July 11, 1779. The interval of nine years was partly or wholly spent by the family in Wilton, perhaps, as they thence removed at the date of the town's des- truction. Eliakim Smith, Sr. died some eight years before Tryon's visit, (Feb. II, 1771,) but his son, Elia- kim, Jr., born Dec. 25, 1734, succeeded to the owner- ship of the family bible, which, formerly lost, has been in late years singularly found on the shelves of the New York Bible Society. This bible, of interest to the Norwalk Smiths, was printed " in 1634 by Robt. Barker, cum priveligie." The bible record is thus introduced : " This Book was 100 years old that year the subscriber was born; Eliakim Smith, Jr., born Dec. 25, 1734, of Norwalk in Connecticut, New Eng- land; who died Feb. 11, 1819." Among the bible's fly-leaf mentions are (per Eliakim Smith, Jr., ) "Nor- walk burnt 11 July 1779 and ye winter following most se vere in ye fore part and ye summer following very

dry." "1811, Oct. II, the highest tide ever known in Norwalk." " 1815 then a tide two feet higher than any before that time; up to my house (standing in Ann Street, South Norwalk, 1896) and in cellar."

"Dec. 1801 and January and Feb. till 22 day ye most moderate ever known in ye memory of ye oldest man. No frost in ye ground or snow on it or ice in ye harbor, but warm and pleasant. Could ... dig stone, lay fence or any work like spring, but ye 22 February a smart N. E. snow storm and ye first of ye winter; 23 clear and cold; 24 pleasant; 25 and 26 rain ; 27 and 28 mild, N. E. wind, harbor clear of ice, moderate. North River open most of ye time. After that common spring weather. Recorded by Eliakim Smith 67 years old."

'This was the name of what might be termed the south-easternmost point of the Partrick shore pur- chase. When the tide was out Barren Marsh, to the seaward of high water mark, unbelied its name, but when the tide was in, its " barren " conditions seemed somewhat reversed.

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of this stream rose Hayes' Hill, and on near-by Platt's Hill' date E. A. Woodward's harbor home) was an upland Indian burying ground. There appear to have been no Indian ceme- teries of importance at the settlement's center.

To the southwest of Barren Marsh lay " Partrick's horse," and the site, formerly, of the Government beacon indicating the entrance to the harbor, and still to the west- ward the ancient Bouton (afterward Raymond, Comstock and Keyser)' Island. From this point still west to Belden Point ran a line of coast territory terminating a short distance from the Indian Naramake's burial-place at Belden Point. The shore line thence took a northerly course as far as the head of Pampaskashanke or Wilson Cove where, south-facing the shimmering waters of the Sound, stood the house here depicted.

THE ESALAS BOUTON HOME. Changed somewhat from a memory-reproduced picture.

The above pictured premises at Pampaskashanke Beach constituted the domicile- site of Capt. Esaias and Phoebe Bouton and their seven children-Phoebe, Nathan, Lydia, Stephen, Samuel, Hannah and Josiah. Capt. Bouton was only a few generations remove

'There was also a Platt's Hill, No. 1, to the cast or southeast of Pine Hill. The name in both cases. unquestionably arose from the Platt ownership of the property. Platt's Hill, No. 1, at the present time. belongs to the East Norwalk Marvin brothers, who have there found gravel in large quantities

"This Island, from a flag staff of which its owner,

during the civil war of thirty odd years ago, floated at morn and eve, a streamer bearing the patriotic in- scription " We Have a Country," is now the property of an institution belonging to the Roman Catholic Church. It is connected by a bridge with the main land, and is a handsome wave-washed stretch of the Partrick coast-territory.

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from John Bouton, the Huguenot settler, but he was a staunch loyalist and a strong Churchman. He lived to a good age, and his energetic-visaged, portly form, seated upon the saddle, as he rode to Church, (St. Paul's, Norwalk) making his gallant salutation to his friends, the Cannons (family of Samuel and Sarah Cannon, who were the parents of Le- Grand Cannon, of Troy, and grand-parents of Col. LeGrand B. Cannon, of New York, 1896) when he passed their mansion (now Miss Julia A. Lockwood's residence) at the sum- mit of Mill Hill, is to this day recalled, while his business transactions with the British governor of New York (Tryon) are a matter of record. Phoebe, the oldest child, quiet but principled, and of name Hopkins-derived, married the son (Eliakim Warren) of a not dis- tant Runckingheage neighbor, and removed at the age of forty-four, from the head of the Roaton to the head, or nearly so, of the Hudson waters. Nathan, the second child, reached majority the year following the Declaration of Independence. He had evidently inherited his father's sea-fondness, as there is old mention of his youthful trips on the Sound. He married at twenty-six, selecting a minister from His Majesty's late Long Island temporary possessions to perform the wedding ceremony. His two daughters, Mary and Esther, be- came subsequently and respectively, Mrs. Nathan Warren and Mrs. LeGrand Cannon.1st. Lydia, third daughter of Captain Esaias Bouton, married Stephen Kellogg, from whom de- scended Josiah Kellogg of Lower Clapboard Hills, (1896.) Stephen, the next son, married Hannah Camp, which two were the grand-parents of Dr. George B. Bouton, a recent well- known physician of Westport. Samuel, next younger than Stephen, married Eunice Smith, and is represented by branches of the Jennings and other families. Hannah,1

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Norwalk, history from 1896, Part 7

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