USA > Connecticut > New Haven County > Guilford > Old Guilford including the land now constituting the towns of Guilford and Madison > Part 2
USA > Connecticut > New Haven County > Madison > Old Guilford including the land now constituting the towns of Guilford and Madison > Part 2
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Black Rock
Numbers up to 51 correspond to page numbers in this book ..
Beaver Dam 61 Mill, Loper
31
Blacksmith Shop, Leete's
26 Mill, Nortontown
20
Broad Hill Rd. 62 Mill, Town
17
Pond
Caldwell Lane
63 Moses Brook
73
Cemetery, Bluff
48 Murray Homestead
21
Christ Church
11 Nineveh Bridge
23
Church, Madison
34 Nineveh Falls
25
Hill Rd.
Church, North
28 Norton House
38
Church, N.Guilford
42 Norton, Nelson
40
Quannipaug
Dea. Collins House
15 North Madison
Mt.
World's End Swamp Dudley House, Caleb 36 N.Guilford Academy
East Hill Rd.
64 Old Plain Gate
75
East Ledge Hill
65 Pest House
76
Beaverthead Swamp
Hoop
S.Cost
Lot
31
Fitch Hill Rd
66 Robinson House
78
79
Road
Still Water Bridge
Town Hill
Summer Hill
Genesee
51 Skunk Hollow
79
H2 89
6.4
Great Pond
MADISON
68 Skunk Hollow Rd. Griswold House 8 Sluice
6
Iron
Cedar
25
Hinckley Lane 69 Sluice Creek
7
Wintergreen Ledgg
Horse Island
70 Spencer House
44
Dudleyville
Maple Hitl
Walnut Hill
Hotchkiss House 33 Spencer Barn
45
N
Lee Academy
9 Spinning Mill Lane
81
'Mt-
Ivy Swamp Griffin's Flats
Branch Bk. Hat
Maple Hill Ad
->
Little Porid
72 Tavern, Stone's
12
MSP
Stream.
-
Bower's Rock
Neck River
oes.
Henry Mit
Loper House
30 Tavern
13
ron Ötter Hole
Meeting-house Hill 43 W. Ledge Hill Rd.
83
Hawthorn Hill
Brood Hill
West River
14
or Long Hill
-
-
Brian Shed Rdl
Brook
.
Podunk
Cort Meida-
Ledge Hill Rd.
88 89
Brook
Moose Hill
Beaver
Stage Road
Flag Marsh
Nigger Lane
92
Wolf
Tanners
Holes
Marsh
90
Hundeguzik
Hit
Spencer's Creek
95 96
ims
Rocks
Nausuo BK. Prospe.
Goose Lane
Clapboard
Parents
Quarters
Jowner's Swamp
Dunk Rock Rd. (West
id.
94
A
44
12
creet
The
Copse R
78
18
SuET
Neck River
Three Corner
The Plains
14
5
Girdle Hill
Caffinges
Island
The Point
Hogshead Point
Lecte's Island
Hoadley Neck
Island Bay & Sok works
Joshua Pr.
Great
orki
O
1
2
3
4
Great Harbor
Uncas Pt. Ox Pasture
Pipboy
LEGEND
Pistapaug Pond
Old Town Line
Farm Rd.
-
Hemlock
-
Brook
-Town Line ---
8 Forty Acre Pond
Dead Hill Rd.
White Hollow
Cook's Lane, To Durham !!
Middletown Turnpike
Crooked Hill
Bangs Rd.
Rockland
0
Great
OLane's Pond
Broom stick
Suckers, Ledges
county
Nathan's Pond
Pole Rd
W. Gort
Goat Lot Road
51
East River
22 Poverty Rd.
77 18 46
West VuCeLA
Jones
Fosdick Island 67 Salten Bank
87
Green
or Bunney Ro
Dowd Hollow
Foote Place
37 Sheep Pound Hill
66
Rd
1
Genesee Country
Foster Hote
Field House, D.D. 32 River Street-
Beaver Hold
Rd. Saw Mill MM
West & East Sugar Loaf
GUILFORD-
Hoop Pole And.
Hart Rd.
Works
Cranberry Hill
24
23
County Rd.
Hoy Pound Rd Little Meadow Rd.
Haycock HALL
Il nd.
Little Harbor
Stone House, Old
F
Selby's
68
Johnny's Gut
Twin Bridge Rd.
or Fumace Rd.
Broadway
Washington
Lot Benton House 16 Tuxis Pond
82
West Pond
West River
Turkey
Johnny's Bridge
Dunham's Sugn
Potash
Round
Whip-Por-Will Rd. Witch's Bridge Wolf Pit
86
H.U.
Great Lodg's
Bear Houk No
Podunk Rd.
Lane
Old New Haven to
District
Saybrook road, parts
90
Birchin
Witch Hazel
UN NEN Footes
... 90
Portage Rd
Bridge
Petticoat Lane
91 .
6. Swamp
.90
76
Howlett Bridge
Mungertown
Lane
Wild Cat Rd
Horse Pond
Little Meadow
Hill
Dudleytown
Duck Holes
Dunk Rock Hill
Lanet
Barker Lot Hill
WEST WOODS
ginos
9
East
Saw Pits
The Neck
Hammonasset
slough
Neck Rd.
Smith's
Tiland
BAD
Oll Works
TUNi
Island
or Jumping-off-place
Cristiano
MI
liberty
APPROXIMATE SCALE OF MILES
LONG ISLAND SOUND
-
Quannigaud
Quannipaug Fond
Hubbard's Master - Hill
/84
Drowned Swamp 18
Crooked Hill Rd.
M.
-
Bluff Head
Totoket Mountain
County Rd.
Road/
24 74
Hill
BeaverHead Brook
County Rd
SI
Place Rd.
Deer Run
ORTH
Pine Ledges
Little Meadow BAS
· Step Stone
Fence Rock
Bear House
St John's Church
or West Lane
Suo7
Rock Rimmon
Saw Mill Rd.
Saw Mill
Moore Hill
Panther
~Pinning Mill 84
Mill Pond
36
Nortontown Rd.
10
Ivy Island
Oil Mill
zale Brod
Duck
21 Nortontown
Flandes
Jones's Bridge Barnes Brook 93 94
Green
., 86
Warpus Rd.
Wood's
Stony Hill
Squaw
Hal
Hungry Hill
Nut Plaine St.
Drowned
Swamp
West Pond Rd.
Hill Rd.
New England Rd
O Rattlesnake BK
Pound
Peddlers Rd. Marsh Rd .~
Crooked Lane
Buttonwoo
Green Hill Rd.
Ram Pasture
Towner's Swamp Rd
Opening Hill
Factory Rd H
84
85
Hoop Phe
Bradley Corner Rd
St. High
King's Highway
Sometimes called Old Durham Rd.
Fond Rd.
Race Hi NORTH
Swamp
Nineveh
Sap works
15/
Present Town Line, Approximate
Coginchaug R.
Ores
Rall Road
32
80
East & West Turnpike
ΓΕΙΑΕ ΙΟ ΠΛΥΔΙΗΟΙΤΡΙΣ
Guilford
Town
1
1639
For Hubbard House- 1717- seepage-14.
Guilford
COMPILED AND PUBLISHED by THE BOARD OF TRADE of GUILFORD, CONNECTICUT 1930
(Copyrighted)
270 STATE STREET. SIMPLE, TYPICAL.
Guilford
GUILFORD, founded in 1639, the fourth settlement in Connecticut, is an interesting town. The population of the town-ship was as large in 1774 as it is today, except that it was more evenly distributed. Now- adays, it gravitates towards the shore.
The old town, built about a truly wonderful Green, has in time past never deplored its relative isolation and even now loves its quiet- ness. It has a better surviving collection of colonial houses than any other spot in the state. Some of these have been restored, but most are as they were from the beginning. Some are marked, for instance, "IN THIS HOUSE DIED FITZ-GREENE HALLECK, AMERICAN POET" etc. This is the sort of thing that makes the town interesting.
Guilford is located in the middle of that bit of territory of Connec- ticut whose streams and sound shore are clean. The shell fish are over- fished indeed, but they are still quite easily obtainable, and what is obtained is above suspicion.
The town and its beaches are equipped with telephone, city water and electric lights. Sewage is cared for by the cesspool and septic tank method. This is perfectly safe, so far, as the soil is sand and a natural filter.
The beaches, which are beautiful, clean and well kept, have limited hotel and not so limited rented cottage accommodation. Our summer population mostly occupies its own homes. Speaking by and large therefore, the beaches are quiet, restful spots. There is not a merry-go- round or peanut stand in the place. We have a full complement of schools, churches, library, stores, banks, theatre and effective fire de- partment, enough to supply all the conveniences and no small number of the luxuries of every-day life.
[3]
The Founding Fathers
GUILFORD was begun by a party of Englishmen who were disgusted with the posture of affairs both in Church and State, in their homeland. They came here with the intention of founding something very different. Having, as a preliminary measure of prudence, signed a stay-together, work-together "covenant" they acquired, for valuable considerations, thousands of acres of land from a few Indians ready to die. In the clear spaces and the woods immediately adjacent, they established themselves. Here were located the "home lots", so called. The farms came later. There were twenty-five covenanters, some with families, and dependents. Their city, like the New Jerusalem of Holy Writ, was to be built four- square about a four-square center-the Green. Their Church Congre- gation was to be built, and was, on "Seven pillars", because "Wisdom hath builded her house, she hath hewn out her seven pillars" (Prov. 9:1). Their court was to administer, and did, according to "the judicial laws of God, as they were delivered by Moses, until they be branched out into particulars hereafter."
[4]
FIRST CHURCH
The "seven pillars" of Guilford made over to the Church all the un- appropriated lands bought from the Indians. The Church distributed and later re-distributed these lands as settlers came in, to Church mem- bers (freemen) and those accounted eligible for Church membership (planters). Who were eligible? The court, which based its decisions on the judicial laws of God, as they were delivered by Moses, could tell --- and did.
[5]
CHRIST CHURCH
None but Church members could have a part in town meeting, elect officers, disburse funds. All, planters as well as freemen, were taxed.
All this was very different from what they had left behind. It became the germ of law and custom. It was hammered into experience and fact quite definitely until 1818, when the Church, from which all else depended, was disestablished in Connecticut.
From 1639 to 1818, the system, which was in effect the Founding Fathers' Declaration of Independence of England, had fashioned a people with characteristics quite their own. Guilford is a fair flower of the system.
[6]
The Old Houses
SPEAKING generally, they stand on the old through roads and on the way to navigable water. The houses referred to below are chosen either because they are characteristic, or because there are more or less interesting stories extant about them.
Four of what may be called the first generation houses survive.
.
THE OLD STONE HOUSE
1. The Stone House. Built for Henry Whitfield, Church of Eng- land clergyman, Puritan, and leader of the group from England that founded Guilford. Owned by the State of Connecticut since 1900. Open to the public as the Henry Whitfield State Historical Museum. Stuffed with antiques, curios, and Guilfordana.
[7]
THE HYLAND HOUSE
DOROTHY WHITFIELD . ** , HHIST SOCIETY ICI
1440 1710
SINDATY KIKKALY
THE HYLAND HOUSE
2. The Hyland House. Built about 1660. Restored and furnished authentically, so as to show the simplicities of living of the founding fathers. Open to the public for a small fee during the summer. Owned by The Dorothy Whitfield Historical Society.
(NOTE .- Except the Old Stone and the Hyland Houses, all are privately owned. The Stone House is open free all the year; the Hyland House in the moment oryant for a small fee.)
[8]
COMFORT STARR HOUSE, 138 STATE STREET
3. The Comfort Starr House. Came into Comfort Starr's posses- sion in 1694. Before that it was Henry Kingsnorth's house. Kingsnorth was one of the original twenty-five signers of the covenant. The house is the only surviving wooden house of the signers.
[9]
ACADIAN HOUSE
4. The Acadian House. So called because tradition has it that exiles from Acadia were sheltered in it for a time. The house was built about 1670.
[10]
CAPT. LEE HOUSE, 1 NORTH STREET
The street leading out of the north-eaast corner of the Green is State Street-the original road leading north into the country. Passing several fine old colonial houses one comes to the Capt. Lee House, built in 1763. Home of Samuel Lee, captain of the Coast Guards of the Revolution. Was often raided during his absence by Tories in search of contraband articles seized by the Coast Guard. They were always outwitted by his wife, Agnes Dickinson Lee. It was she who fired the cannon in the yard to alarm the countryside when the British landed at Leete's Island in 1781.
[11]
GOV. LEETE HOUSE, 6 BROAD STREET (1749)
22 BROAD STREET (1749)
[12]
These houses are located on the "home lot" of Governor Wm. Leete. They took the place of the original house and the stone house in whose cellar, still preserved under the present garage of No. 6, and facing the river, the expatriated and hunted Judges of Charles I, Goffe and Whalley, were concealed and fed by Mr. Leete, an ardent Independent and Crom- wellian.
Mr. Leete was born in 1611, a university graduate and lawyer when he came to Guilford with the other covenanters in 1639. He was secre- tary and wheel horse of the seven pillars, on which the Guilford Church was founded; member of the Court that determined the fitness of planters and disciplined the unruly; distinctly instrumental in drawing together the sovereign, independent settlements of Guilford and New Haven; gov- ernor of these united under the name of New Haven; equally instrument- al in drawing together all the other independent, sovereign settlements of the State; and then governor of the State, in which office he died in 1683. He adorned and honored every office he held. He remains Guilford's greatest political character.
76 BROAD STREET (1774)
[13]
On the "home lot" of Andrew Leete, son of the governor. Here lived Jared Leete, grandson of Andrew. Jared was a "poet." Also, he drank thoroughly. Out Moose Hill way a-hunting one day he discovered a great thirst. At a nearby farmhouse he asked for a drink of cider. The farm wife, who knew him, refused. Then said she would, provided he would compose an epitaph for her. Jared began-
"Margaret, who died of late "Ascended up to heaven's gate."
That sounded good, and she brought the cider. Jared finished the cider-and the epitaph,-
"But Gabriel met her with a club "And drove her down to Beelzebub."
Later, a conservator was chosen for him. Jared's thirst again fit him up, and he chirped-
"There was an old miser lived over the hill, "And all the poor people be strove for to kill, "He hated his God, and all that was good
" And wouldn't let poor old Jared Leete sell his own wood."
It is but fair to remark that mighty few such stinging human insects survive in old Guilford today.
HUBBARD HOUSE, 53 BROAD STREET (1717) [14] For description- over->
John Hubbard and his spinster sister Mary, owned this together - They did not " get on " so divided it in two, inside, and lived their later years, apart.
4
١٢
Still, as always, in the Hubbard family, the largest colonial house in town. Here was born, in 1739, Rev. Bela Hubbard D. D. Church of England clergyman, loyalist, so politic as to be allowed to minister in New Haven throughout the Revolutionary War, and so faithful as to stick to his post and minister when New Haven was sorely afflicted with yellow fever.
From this house, as from a well-spring, have gone Hubbards to all parts of the country.
Here, in 1889, was given a reception to all and every on the occasion of the 250th anniversary of the founding of Guilford.
58 FAIR STREET (About 1725)
The Nathaniel Johnson house. Nathaniel Johnson was a younger brother of Samuel Johnson, who often visited him here. Samuel Johnson became the first president of King's College, now Columbia University. He was born and raised here, taught school here after graduation from Yale, preached his first sermon here. He virtually founded and certainly nursed the Church of England congregation here, and is accounted the first American idealist philosopher.
[ 15]
55 PARK STREET
A house that General Lafayette, when he stopped on the opposite corner of the Green for liquid and other refreshment, opined was a nice house.
Here lived for many years, Ralph Dunning Smyth, lawyer, Probate Judge, Representative, and, best of all, Historian of Guilford. To Mr. Smyth must be given credit for long continued, painstaking search and accurate tabulation of Guilford records and genealogies. He died in 1874. From then living elders, he gathered recollections of a Guilford past which else had been now completely lost. It was he who gave some idea of the body of fact and folklore that has accumulated about the old town.
[16]
23 PARK STREET (1735)
Close by lived the man who wanted to be buried head-up in the Green, so he could glare at his neighbor, whom he hated, who lived in this house. His wish was not respected. They buried his body in the Green, deep as anyone else's. His little soul, for intensive training doubtless, went to - Heaven, to one of the many mansions there.
It may be added that most of the Founding Fathers, together with their children to the fourth and fifth generation, lie buried in the Green.
[17]
15 WATER STREET
The. Ebenezer Bartlett house. Ebenezer helped build the first town dock at Jones' Bridge in 1744. He was also a deacon of the Church, and died in 1775. About that time Ebenezer II built this house.
Here died Fitz-Greene Halleck, America's best known poet from 1825 to 1850. He was born and raised in Guilford, a handsome lad, early the master of a graceful line, that made the girls clamorous for a couplet in their autograph books, and even brought from them offers of marriage, though he never married. He left Guilford at 21 years of age to seek his fortune in New York City. It was there his genius shone, and there he achieved his poetic and social triumphs. His greatest poem, Byronic in mood, "Marco Bozzaris", was dearly loved by all graduating school boys for half a century. He spent his declining years here with his de- voted sister Maria.
[18]
CALDWELL HOUSE, 157 BOSTON STREET
Here lived, for very many years, Miss Clarissa Caldwell, dying in 1876, at the age of 99 years, 9 months and 9 days. Miss Caldwell was a milliner, and a teacher of milliners. Examples of the styles of braid from native grasses that she taught her pupils are still in existence. "Behold her, tall and well-formed, of benignant feature and expression, bright and able", writes a contemporary. As much addicted to "tea" as ever were the ladies of Mrs. Gaskell's "Cranford". Among her intimates she num- bered Bishop John Williams and his mother, Dr. Thomas Pynchon, pro- fessor and president of Trinity College, Dr. Thos. Gallaudet, nationally known deaf-mute teacher. And she had a host of friends.
.
[19]
161 BOSTON STREET
Next door, just east, on the bank above the road, is the Ezra Gris- wold house, where lived a very model of faithfulness who was parish clerk for 44 years; and later, during the summers, his son, a leading citizen of Bridgeport and its some time Mayor.
Colonel Samuel Hill was born, lived, and died in Guilford. He served through eighteen sessions of the State Legislature, of which he was twice Speaker. At his death in 1752, at the age of 75, he was not only repre- sentative, but Town Clerk, Clerk of the Proprietors, and Probate Judge. He had held about all these offices from young manhood. The moder- ator of the Town Meeting got the habit of announcing, "we are here to elect Colonel Sam. Hill and some one to go with him to the next general Court" (Assembly). He united a remarkably fine character with ex- ceptional powers as a campaigner. To "run like Sam. Hill" is a proverb that has gone far beyond Guilford. He built a legend that enabled his son and grandson to hold office for the period of their lives.
No house of Colonel Sam. Hill survives, but only his last will and testament in the Probate Judge's office, and the memory of his career.
[20]
01
Guilford is more than a borough and a shore-line. It is a township of above 30,000 acres, running back from the shore about ten miles and having a width of about five. The earth-floor rises as one goes back from the shore. This floor is covered with spurs, like giant claws. The highest and boldest of these is Bluff Head, 765 feet above sea- level, a guide to mariners on the Sound in the days when there really was water borne trade on it. Beneath Bluff Head and for a couple of miles along the Durham and Hartford turnpike is Lake Quonapaug, a
LAKE QUONAPAUG
lovely sheet of clean water on which cottages are springing up apace. South of Quonapaug, and to the west, is West Pond, another sheet of clean water in the woods. Here also cottages are springing up. South-east of West Pond is what a few years ago was Johnny's Pond, where the pickerel and the pond lilies were comparatively undisturbed. Now the pond level has been raised, there is a club house and bungalows, and it is.
[21]
Guilford Lakes-and deserves the name. The way to it out of Guilford is through Nut Plains, an ancient district in which are located some characteristic colonial houses.
HALL HOUSE, NUT PLAINS
[22]
-
The Beaches
THESE reach from Guilford, like the fingers of one's hand. Guilford Point, to which the stages ran from Hartford for good fare and famous cocktails. The host, however, never mixed a cocktail on Sunday.
MULBERRY
MULBERRY-So called because mulberry trees were planted there long ago, and silk-worm culture engaged in.
[23]
-
INDIAN COVE-Across the inlet from Mulberry, and of a piece with it in terms of beauty.
.
SACHEM'S HEAD
SACHEM'S HEAD-Where, also very long ago, the white man's fear of the Indian in these parts was almost finally quieted.
[24]
.. 4
LEETE'S ISLAND
LEETE'S ISLAND-Scene of Guilford's most serious engagement with the British during the Revolutionary War, as the tomb stone of Simeon Leete, patriot, beside the road there, does testify. There is ab- solutely nothing more warlike now than the splashing of sparkling water on granite rocks.
[25]
THE CHART AT THE BACK INDICATES THE ROUTE YOU MAY TAKE TO FIND THE HOUSES BEFORE DESCRIBED.
Jo Jake Quonnipaug
NEW HAVEN NEW YORK
„58 f.
ChurchSt.
State St.
Acodian House
NEW LONDON BOSTON
River ft.
52 @3 53 Broad ft.
GREEN
Park St.
Hyland
'House
151
94
The
Water St.
Whitfield St.
House
Sluice Bafin
1
Mulberry Point & Pipe Bay
GUILFORD HARBOR
A.I.Ripley Del.
I
I
I
138 5
CE
Federal Highway
MIDDLETOWN HART FORD
To Nut Plains & Guilford Lakes
Map of a portion of GUILFORD in Connecticut
Old Bolton Poft Road
0
Faire
22
55
Jo Leete's Ffland & Sachem's Head
New Haven Railroad
3157 1
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