USA > Connecticut > Hartford County > Bristol > Our Yankee heritage: the making of Bristol > Part 3
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Steve collected the necessary sig- natures.
"Seven of the twenty-one signers
are Gaylords," he told Ebenezer. "John and Edward are surveyors. Most of them live over beyond Moses Lyman toward Fall Moun- tain or the Swamp, except one has built high up on Chippins Hill."
"I see those two Chippins Hill settlers from Wallingford, Benjamin Brooks and John Hickox, have signed."
"Yes. Three of Hickox's uncles and aunts are married to Gaylords, and his wife is a Gaylord. He's a surveyor, too. First I picked up the names of Joseph Benham, Gershom Tuttle and Gideon Peck on the west side."
"Why isn't Messenger's name here?" asked Ebenezer, handing the sheet back to Steve.
"He's very sick."
Timothy Brown and 'Bish' Man- ross were old enough to put their names down. Two other signers were the brothers William and Ze- rubbabel Jerome. They had moved in near the northern end of King's Road and had set slaves to clearing their land.
23
THE MAKING OF BRISTOL
"A third brother named Timothy Jerome has bought land on Fall Mountain and is going to build," re- marked Steve.
The petition was forwarded to the October session of the Colonial As- sembly at New Haven. The request was granted and on November 8, 1742, the new 'Southwest Winter Sosiaty' held its first meeting in John Brown's new house on King's Road. Ebenezer was chosen mod- erator, and they elected Moses Ly- man clerk, and John Hickox treas- urer.
"How about having the meetings here at our house all winter?" sug- gested Brown. "It's easy to get to."
Ebenezer proposed they invite in Reverend Thomas Canfield, young Yale graduate, who was not
a yet settled. "I bought his father's land here on the Pequabuck," Eben- ezer said. "He's a good preacher."
And so, on December 6, Canfield conducted the first divine service ever held on the Pequabuck.
David was chosen 'chorister' to 'read' Scripture passages, and to 'set' the Sunday 'psalms,' as they called the hymns.
The second winter, church meet- ings and services were held mostly at Steve's house. But Canfield had taken a permanent post in Roxbury so they had to depend on whatever minister was available.
On a January Sabbath, in spite of snow swirling down from the hills,
more than fifty people showed up, but the preacher could not get through. Steve led the congrega- tion in prayer and was asked to say a few words. Thereafter he was often called on to fill the gap.
The following winter, to make attendance fairer for everybody, meetings were rotated in houses in different parts of the village. But in bad weather it was not easy to get to Hickox's house or Lyman's on Fall Mountain. Nor could any house easily bear the burden of such large gatherings.
"The place is really growing," said Ebenezer. "We'll have to have a regular minister the year round and build a church."
The matter was talked over. Eb- enezer and Nehemiah Manross were sent to Farmington to sound out the town fathers, and Samuel Gaylord, this year's clerk, was paid £2 18 shillings for his horse and time in going on a similar mission to Hart- ford.
Ebenezer drew up another peti- tion asking that the settlement be set off as a 'diftinkt fofiaty.'
Ebenezer Junior had at last moved up from Southington and helped Steve collect the necessary names. He was building a house north of Goose Corner on three large plots Ebenezer had given him.
Thirty-four persons signed but some familiar names were missing.
24
THE CHURCH ON THE HILL
Nathaniel Messenger had died - the society readjusted the widow's tax rate. Gideon Peck and the Browns were away. Nehemiah Manross Junior was now old enough to put his name down, but Bish and Samuel were sergeants with the ex- pedition preparing to march against the French in Canada. Their mother Esther died that summer, leaving Nehemiah a widower. Wil- liam and Daniel Barnes, son and grandson of Ebenezer, were also in the fray.
King George's War - the War of the Austrian Succession - had now spread to America, and it filled every heart with anxiety for every- body still remembered earlier wars against the French and Indians, ter- rible years of blood and devastation when whole settlements had been wiped out, some close at hand in the Connecticut valley.
Joseph Gaylord Junior and an- other Tuttle - Simon - were on the new petition. Hezekiah Rew, the devout millowner who had married Thankful Gaylord Plum with her brood of seven children, and young Caleb Abernathy from Wallingford, attracted here partly because his wife Lois was a Gaylord, also signed up. Caleb had built on King's Road between the Brown and Messenger houses. Numbers of new Chippins Hill residents put their names down.
Among newcomers were three members of the Mix family, the
Royces on Peaceable Street, and three Graves, of whom two signed; the Roes, Mathews, Hart and Fris- bie families. Thomas Hart, a pros- perous Farmington resident, a big landholder and an early road sur- veyor, and Zebulon Frisbie, a tan- ner, had settled in the northeastern Stafford district.
The General Court acted favor- ably on Ebenezer's petition at its May session, and on June 4, 1744, the local group met as the New Cambridge Society, 'vested with the same powers and privileges' as other 'distinct societies in this colony' and having jurisdiction over five square miles, or the southern half of the five westernmost divisions of the 1721 survey.
The tax rate was increased, and Caleb Palmer, from under the ridge near the Jeromes north of King's Road, was made collector. The busi- ness meetings held at Steve's home early in 1745 hummed with new proposals. The building of a meet- inghouse was discussed. On Janu- ary 28 they set up their first school committee: Caleb Abernathy, Sam- uel and Benjamin Gaylord. On March 14 they voted to take steps to 'set off for training' - they would have their own 'training band' or militia apart from Farmington - and Caleb Mathews, who had had experience fighting Indians, was proposed as leader of the band.
25
THE MAKING OF BRISTOL
His brother, Abner Mathews, had bought John Brown's old place, south of the river. Abner was a wheelwright, wood turner and plowmaker, a valuable addition to the community, for oxcarts were frequently getting out of order, par- ticularly the axle, a big beam, fitted into wheels that were solid slices of oak or hickory tree trunks, some- times six feet in diameter. It re- volved in a wooden box attached to the body of the cart. The wood was treated for a long time with tal- low kept liquid by hot stones so moving parts would not squeak or wear so badly.
The various preparations for school, militia training and the church were not simple. Every- thing - taxes, militia officers, build- ing sites - had to be approved by the Colonial Assembly and the Farmington authorities. This meant long exhausting trips for hard-work- ing people who had all they could do to keep their farms going. It
meant long delays. Only after such effort did they get permission to start a pound north of the village for strayed animals. Joseph Hart agreed to care for it in return for the occasional fees.
Advice about a desirable minister was asked of the colonial church as- sociations. Of those invited for trial sermons, Reverend Samuel Newell, a fervent young Yale gradu- ate, born in Southington, and long
known to many, aroused the most enthusiasm. He spoke in a blunt old-fashioned way, with great con- viction. But seven members did not like his stern Calvinism and ardent support of the revivalism sweeping New England, so final decision was held off.
In October the attempt was made to push his appointment through a packed meeting at Moses Lyman's house. The minority protested an- grily. Calmer heads prevailed, and five ministers from surrounding communities were called in for an impartial decision. As a result, Newell was paid off and an effort made to find a candidate on whom all could agree.
Building plans went ahead. The final decision was taken at a meet- ing at the new house of David Rich Junior. He had just come to the Pequabuck from Meriden with his family and his father and brothers, Samuel and William, and had bought a share of the sawmill. A committee was named to plan and construct a church forty-by-thirty. Additional taxes were levied, and Frisbie was named tithingman. Though the year previous, the Farmington authorities had named David Gaylord and Ebenezer Barnes road surveyors, the Society hired County Surveyor Samuel Mes- senger and his two chainmen at five shillings a day and keep to stake out
26
THE CHURCH ON THE HILL
the entire community and locate the true center for a church.
He started at a 'white oak stadel' - a young sapling left after larger trees had been cut off - and a pile of stones, 'near the dwelling house of Mr. Ebenezer Norton,' a new ar- rival from Southington, who had in- stalled his wife Sarah Savage and his eight children at the village line far up 'under the mountain' near Compounce Lake.
Sam's survey showed the center of New Cambridge to be at the sum- mit of Indian Quarry hill. This was a happy outcome, for the folk be- lieved their church should be set high, to overlook all their homes and be nearer to Heaven.
Joseph Benton, another new- comer, generously agreed to sell the necessary land for a nominal £4, and Steve and Josiah Lewis were chosen to go to Hartford to speed up final approval of the site.
Josiah had come from Southing- ton the previous year with all his worldly possessions, his wife and five small children - the youngest a three-month-old baby, the oldest only seven. It had taken a whole week to get his big-wheeled screech- ing oxcarts, with their heavy loads, through the wilderness. Logs had to be felled to get them across larger streams, and they could make only a few miles a day.
He had thrown up a large well- built house on the north side and
already had flax growing in his front yard. He was a cultured man. His grandfather, Captain William Lewis, Town Clerk of Farmington, had married Mary Cheever, daugh- ter of Ezekiel Cheever, a founder of New Haven and the most notable early teacher in Connecticut. Chee- ver's Latin textbook was used in the schools of America for two hundred years.
As soon as the weather was good, Steve and Josiah set out for Hart- ford, over the familiar trail to Farm- ington. Josiah was a tall muscular man with shaggy brows and pierc- ing eyes and rode his saddle with a fine swing.
There was now a wide cart road through the Talcott mountains to Hartford. Steve was amazed at the way the town was growing.
"Maybe one of these days we shall have fine shops in New Cambridge, too," he remarked.
"My children are going to make the place grow," said Josiah, chuck- ling. "I expect to have twelve of them."
He intended to buy enough land so when his boys got married he could give each a hundred acres and a house. "To get them started right, I'm going to give each boy a cow, a hive of bees and a Waterbury sweet apple tree."
The mission to Hartford was suc- cessful, and in late October axes began ringing against the hilltop
27
CALEB MATHEWS HOUSE - CHIPPINS HILL (Vault, Bristol Public Library)
THE CHURCH ON THE HILL
trees for the Meetinghouse. The sills of the new building exactly en- closed the stake and stones set up by Samuel Messenger. But winter closed in before they got much done.
The question of Newell's appoint- ment came to a head again at a stormy meeting at Benton's hilltop house in the wet miry Spring of 1747. Samuel Gaylord, acting as Moderator, argued that no man had greater knowledge and religious spirit than Reverend Newell. The members had delayed patiently for three years in the hope of getting everybody's consent, and the minor- ity should now accept the wishes of their neighbors.
Caleb Mathews, who had put up a fine house on Chippins Hill, warned the others not to insist. His words carried weight for he was a member of the building committee and his appointment as captain of the new Training Band was being approved in Hartford. Bluntly he told them, "We can never accept doctrines and practices so different from those of the Mother Church."
"We came here to have the reli- gion of our own choosing," retorted Gaylord hotly. "Our families left England to get away from persecu- tion by Church and Crown. Amer- ica is our home and our soil now."
To many this was heresy and sedi- tion and when Pastor Newell was
chosen by a vote of thirty-six to ten, bitterness between the two groups came to a head. Moses Lyman was so upset he said he was going to sell out and move away. At the next meeting in June eight members de- clared themselves in favor of the Church of England and under the Bishop of London and withdrew from the Society.
Steve, though wholeheartedly with the majority, went down the hill saddened by this rift in the little band which through five difficult years had stood together SO staunchly.
It was agreed to increase Newell's salary each year until it reached £300, payable in money or in grain at current prices, to provide an am- ple supply of winter wood and build him a house. He was preparing to marry the well-to-do Farmington widow, Mary Hart Root, with three children, and would need an ample dwelling. The committee was in- structed to build him a large two- story home 'in a good workmanlike manner.'
It was to have a seven-foot cellar. The chimney would have five flues and two large brick ovens. All rooms were to be lathed, plastered and whitewashed, and have built-in cupboards and shelves. Seventeen windows were called for, each with twelve to twenty-four 'sqares' of glass, six inches by eight.
Pastors from Farmington and
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THE MAKING OF BRISTOL
elsewhere were invited to partici- pate in his ordination, and Josiah Lewis was asked to provide them with hospitality. Five citizens, in- cluding Ebenezer Junior and David Rich - 'and as many more as pleases' - were commissioned to keep a 'publik houfe of entertainment' for those attending. A host of outside visitors was expected, for the found- ing of a new church was a gay, as well as a very solemn, occasion. People prayed hard, but also sang, made music, had parties and played games. And so, with due revelry and due fasting and prayer, on the second Tuesday of August of 1747 the membership was 'gathered in,' twenty men and twenty women. They set up 'for all time to come, the altar of the living God.'
The Church-of-Englanders held aloof and formed their own congre- gation, refusing to contribute taxes to build the Congregational church and pastor's house or support a min- ister not of their faith. Morally they stood on strong ground, but legally only if they had a resident minister were they entitled to have their tax money turned over to him.
Four, including Captain Caleb Mathews, were arrested and jailed in Hartford. They paid up and were released. Their visiting pas- tor, vehement William Gibbs of Simsbury, a young Harvard gradu- ate, brought suit to recover the
money. On his refusal to pay court costs, the Simsbury constable car- ried him off to jail with his hands and feet lashed together under the horse's belly and threw him among common 'malefactors.' He fell into such 'indisposition and melancholy' he could no longer preach, and for the last twenty-five years of his life never recovered his sanity.
Steve and others urged that a compromise be reached before the dispute grew more bitter. The Church-of-Englanders were re- lieved of all building taxes and were to pay only half the ministerial rate until they had 'a lawful minister' to whom their taxes could be refunded.
Once more those who had with- drawn took part in regular society affairs, the school and training band committees, even as tax collectors. They started building their own meetinghouse on the hill across from First Church, and there in 1754 the first service was held. Stephen Brooks and Abel Royce were chosen wardens and Caleb Mathews clerk.
So, in spite of differences in doc- trine and ritual, the two factions now faced each other in tolerance and friendliness. But two deep- rooted ideas were still in conflict: between those depending upon au- thority far across the sea and those struggling to shape their lives and beliefs to American soil. It was to take many years before this basic issue of colonial rule versus full
30
THE CHURCH ON THE HILL
freedom and independence could be solved.
Though by 1748 the Congrega- tional church building was far enough along for services, in De- cember the following year taxes had to be increased 'to finish the lower part.' By the end of 1750 most of the high-walled box-like pews were installed, and committees were named to 'dignify' them and seat people according to age, rank, piety and importance.
Only devout influential members were named to the seating commit- tee, for animosities could easily be aroused. Steve was on the second one. On the first was the well-to-do newcomer, Joseph Adkins, who had bought an interest in the grist and sawmills. Over the next ten years he bought up more than thirty pieces of New Cambridge property. His house was across the river on Middle Street, but later he built an- other home north of the river near the central hill.
Each year a small sum was paid to some member for 'sweeping' the meetinghouse. Several of Steve's brothers had the task, but in 1752 £4-10 were paid for this duty to Hezekiah Gridley, a member of the famous blacksmith and storekeeper family of Farmington and Southing- ton, who had just bought a small 'pysell,' or parcel of land from one of the 1721 mapped, but never opened, highways. Soon he was
made Justice of the Peace, the first in the community. He prospered, and his son Hezekiah Junior even- tually built a fine house on West Street.
The final pews were installed that year of 1752 but, pending comple- tion of the galleries, young people - 'menkind at sixteen' and 'females' at fourteen or over - continued to be assigned to two pews under the 'stars' as the secretary wrote 'stairs.' Children had to sit in the aisles. All the costly window panes were not put in until 1767 when Josiah Lewis, the glazier, was allowed 20 shillings six pence for 'glass nails' and labor. By then a larger church was already needed.
As the years rolled by, there were squabbles over adjusting Reverend Newell's salary to offset the persis- tent depreciation of colonial money, but the congregation remained well satisfied with its choice. His stir- ring unadorned convictions at- tracted new settlers eager to hear his sermons. One was Zebulon Peck, from Middletown. He started a second tavern near Goose Corner.
Another ardent admirer was Deb- orah Buck, sister of Stephen Buck, who came up from Southington. Unable to obtain a house, she was permitted to build on part of the public road near the church. She loved flowers and her place became known as 'Aunt Deb's garden.'
31
SECOND MEETINGHOUSE OF THE NEW CAMBRIDGE SOCIETY (Vault, Bristol Public Library)
THE CHURCH ON THE HILL
Proper shelter was needed for families coming from distant farms and for their horses. In 1754 per- mission was given to Josiah Lewis, Zebulon Frisbie, Asa Upson (a brother-in-law of Reverend Newell) and several others to erect small 'Sabbath houses' on ten feet of the highway near the church. Each house had a central chimney. The horses were bedded at one end. At the other were benches and a crude table with a Bible and religious books. The Sabbath houses were welcome refuges, for it was con- sidered sinful to have any heat in the church. Often Reverend New- ell had to deliver his sermon in a heavy coat and muffler. When the
wind whipped over from the Cats- kills and picked the ice needles off Chippins Hill, the temperature in the uninsulated little meetinghouse was below zero and during the re- cesses in the all-day services, the worshipers came from the long service, blue with cold, to thaw out before the roaring Sabbath house fires and eat their noon day repast: jerked meat, roasted corn, dough- nuts or Indian pudding, apples and cider or mead. There they renewed their foot warmers with hot coals before trekking back for the long icy hours of afternoon prayers.
Thus were men and women united in faith. Thus was a com- munity born.
33
TRAINING BAND INSPECTION (Picture File, Bristol Public Library)
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pioneers BUILD A society
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"WE have to get a schoolhouse started right away," Caleb Aber- nathy told Ebenezer at the tavern. Caleb had eight children growing up in his house further up King's Road.
Taxes for the school, authorized at the start of the Society, had been revoted year after year, and parents also paid a small tuition toward the teacher's salary. The term was six months, taught three months by a woman teacher, three months by a man teacher. Classes had been held in different homes but now children outnumbered their elders.
Ebenezer was deeply interested in school matters because of grand- children staying with him since the death of his son Thomas. Steve's children and Ebenezer Junior's grandchildren would also be ready for school in a few more years.
"Yes, we have to have a school," he told Caleb. "We ought to put it on the hill opposite the church."
"The people on Chippins Hill say that's too far; they need a place closer by."
"You had better see Steve and the others about it. I'm not up to doing so much as I used to."
Two schools were decided on: one on Indian Quarry Hill, later called Federal Hill, the other on Chippins Hill. Farmington gave the necessary permission at its Town Meeting of 1754, and the New Cam- bridge people pitched in whole- heartedly to get the two schools built at once.
School taxes were increased, and the Hartford authorities were peti- tioned for school money to which New Cambridge was legally enti- tled. For the upkeep of a local school each village society had the right to get back forty shillings per each thousand pounds of assessed property from all taxes paid to the colonial government. The New Cambridge folk also asked for their share of money from the sale of lands to new Connecticut towns west toward the Hudson. By the Royal Charter given Connecticut, the colony also owned all the land - except the settled area of New York
35
THE MAKING OF BRISTOL
- between the extended lines of its North and South boundaries from the Atlantic to the Pacific, called the 'South Sea.' Some day, that far western frontier area would be set- tled up and would also help main- tain schools.
By the following year the two schools were in operation. The one on Indian Hill had a young lady teacher. Her desk stood high at one end, and single long benches, made of big logs split in half, lined the other three sides. The children sat facing the walls and double study shelves that held the books, paper and ink. They were being taught reading, arithmetic, Latin and the Scriptures.
In spite of the fire roaring up the chimney, the room was not overly warm, and the children were well bundled up. On real cold days the teacher relaxed the seating rules and had them circle the fire. But soon warm spring days would he here.
Steve, who visited both schools, thought of the two short terms he had gone to school in Farmington. After that he had had to pick up his knowledge at odd moments. He was glad his son Thomas and his two girls, Azubah and Anna, were going to have a better chance.
Steve rode on home to give Mary a pheasant he had shot. For a mo- ment he looked in at Peck's tavern across the way where neighbors were staging a cock-fight, then went
to Dan Roe's blacksmith shop to or- der a wolf-trap and several meat hooks made.
At an early session of the Society, it had been ordered that 'legal warn- ing' of all business meetings be posted on the doors of Ebenezer's tavern, the 'corn-mill' and Dan Roe's shop. He was a great help to the community. People could now have their oxen and horses shod there, and could get tools and carts re- paired or needed iron braces, rods and trace chains made without hav- ing to ride to Farmington or Water- bury. It was quite a sight to watch Roe pull a big ox up in the air in the 'cage,' a heavy oaken frame, so the animal could be shod. Roe worked the handle of the big leather 'lungs,' or bellows, heating the small double iron shoes required by the cloven hooves. At free moments he fash- ioned candlesticks and H-L hinges, andirons and pothooks, shovels and hoes and nails for sale.
Daniel Mix also had a blacksmith shop up Fall Mountain way. He had bought land and a house and barn from Moses Lyman, when the early settler had moved to Goshen be- cause of the religious controversy.
Various men with special skills were coming into the village; ma- sons and mechanics, carpenters, coopers and joiners, who made fur- niture and spinning wheels, plates and cups and utensils, rolling pins, mortars and pestles, cider and vine-
36
PIONEERS BUILD A SOCIETY
gar barrels, hinged pin-boxes and combs. There was a good basket- maker, too. Zebulon Frisbie's tan- nery on West Street was making shoes and other leather goods. An- other tannery had been started near the river by Jabish Roberts from Middletown. The artisans and ap- prentices at the tanneries and inde- pendent leather workers were mak- ing shoes, knife sheathes, blackjack mugs neatly bound with copper bands, harness straps, jackets and other goods which had a ready sale in all the countryside and the West Indies.
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