USA > Connecticut > Fairfield County > New Canaan > Readings in New Canaan history > Part 11
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25
126
Readings In New Canaan History
son, Elnathan, 302 acres at White Oak Shade, worth seven pounds, thirteen shillings. This is the earliest mention of land in that part of Canaan Parish. Another resident of Norwalk, Thomas Seymour by name, had probably received grants of land on which his son settled in White Oak Shade very early in the eighteenth century. Thomas Seymour had married Hannah Marvin, and her father, Mat- thew Marvin, also of Norwalk, and one of the first proprietors of land in Canaan Parish, gave his name to Marvin's Ridge.
These soldiers and others who received grants of land, being allowed some choice of location, often chose land adjacent to a grant already received, and consequently there were some very large tracts on the ridges belonging to single owners.
The Haynes family early acquired many acres to the north and west. John Haines, Esq., was governor of the Connecticut Colony when Roger Ludlow, deputy governor, was buying land in this vicinity. It may well be that the governor also bought directly from the Indians. It is thought that Haynes Ridge with its great acreage was originally acquired by a single individual. It was particularly desirable land, having probably been partially cleared and "brought under" by the Indians, who used to burn the lands over about once a year to plant their corn and beans. We know that a later Mr. Haynes was allotted by the "Norwalk Company" ninety-three acres of terri- tory in 1705. The highway through the Haynes land had been in use previous to 1729, as we learn from the Norwalk record that it was "more amply performed" - that is, more definitely recorded - by a committee of the Norwalk proprietors in that year. The road thus planned and laid out along Haynes Ridge is the present Oenoke Avenue. Other proprietors and their sons, besides the Haynes family, owned many hundred acres long before the first settlement.
It is impossible to tell just where this first settlement was made, as there were probably small cabins built merely for temporary use. There is a tradition that the very first cabin was built on the land later occupied by the house of the Rev. Justus Mitchell, which was later the home of the next minister, the Rev. William Bonney. This house now forms part of the building known as the Holmewood Inn. As to the first real dwelling or "mansion house," we can come much nearer to actual knowledge.
127
History of Canaan Parish
FIRST HOUSES BUILT
A tradition assigns the place of honor to the old Davenport house on Davenport Ridge. This section, although now belonging to Stam- ford, was once a part of Canaan Parish. It is said that Farmer John Davenport, also a carpenter, built his dwelling-house before his marriage in 1722. Or his father, the Rev. J. Davenport, of Stamford, may have built the homestead, as the custom was, for the reception of the bride and bridegroom. One historian, writing about fifty years ago, says that since 1705 "six generations of Davenports have owned this native seat. . .. Mr. A. B. Davenport took down the old house and built the fine residence he now occupies on the identical site."
White Oak Shade also has its traditional claim to the first house. Theophilus Hanford, the eldest of five sons of Thomas Hanford, had inherited from his father, first minister of Norwalk, a tract of land in White Oak Shade. It is said that Theophilus came to that vicinity very early and built the first house within the bounds of the Parish, for many years the first house on the road below the Methodist Church.
But the claims of the Davenports and Hanfords in this regard are matters of tradition only. The first "mansion house" authenticated by deed and record was the dwelling built by "John Benedict, Jr., 2nd" of Norwalk in 1724-26, and conveyed to his son, John Benedict 3rd. This is the house on Carter Street, Clapboard Hill, now owned by Miss Mabel Thatcher, the typical dwelling house of that period throughout New England.
SOCIAL CUSTOMS
In those days of purposeful living, a young man upon reaching his majority was made a freeman and given a fifty pound right in com- monage. Also he was expected to look about him for a wife, and to found a home and family. Then upon his wedding, he often received a further present of land or a home from his father, if the latter was a man of property. Thus in 1722, Ebenezer Carter, of whose thrilling youth we shall hear later, received from his father, Samuel, the princely wedding gift of 152 acres in separate tracts on upper Clap-
128
Readings In New Canaan History
board Hills, on the west side of Carter Street. The elder Carter reserved a home site on the east side for himself.
Young Ebenezer did not come directly, and two years later sold eight and one-half acres of his holdings to John Benedict 2nd., who, as we have seen, built thereon the "first house" for his son, and deeded the property to him in 1746. This John Benedict 3rd had married Dinah Bouton, of Norwalk. We have a picture of the young husband and wife setting bravely out to live in "the woods" of Clapboard Hills, Dinah seated on a pillion behind John, on "their sturdy and able steed." This must have been at least two years previous to the signing of the deed, as their second son, a fourth John Benedict, is said to have been the first male child born in the parish, and the date is given as September 11, 1724. This John Benedict 4th, moved to Walton, N. Y., in 1803, where he died three years later, aged 82. The first house, the first son, - surely the name of John Benedict is closely linked to the beginnings of Canaan Parish.
John and Dinah had heard of Clapboard Hills all their lives as a piece of woods rich in fine white oak, which, we are told, "is called Laith Oak, and from which the clapboards were riven and shaved upon a wooden horse with a drawing knife used by hand." These clapboards were at that time common material for covering the sides of all buildings. The same tree gave its name to White Oak Shade, where there were some specimens as large as twelve feet in circum- ference, monarchs of the forest like that beautiful white oak at the entrance of the Bird Sanctuary on Old Stamford Road, which may well have been standing at the opening of this history.
It is not generally known that the name White Oak Shade was used as late as the year 1800 to designate the locality running down the west side of Main Street, as most people now know it only as the lower New Canaan end of the Norwalk Road.
To digress a little further, it was from the woods of Ebenezer Carter on Clapboard Hills that the wonderful piece of white oak was taken in 1843 to serve as the "topmost stick" or spire pole of the present Congregational Church. This was the most difficult piece of the lumber to find, but this great timber, fifty-eight feet long and ten inches square, is perfect throughout, with the corners "on good even to the upper end."
129
History of Canaan Parish SETTLERS ON CLAPBOARD HILLS
Another worthy to build and settle on Clapboard Hills in 1726 was John Fitch. The site of his house is in the lot north of the Drum- mond house, the present home of Mr. Edwin Hoyt.
Thus the first settlers on Clapboard Hills were not entirely alone in the woods. At the time of the earliest settlements in Canaan, the Indians had almost disappeared from this part of the country. But the pioneers could never be quite sure of the temper of those who remained. It was natural that they should combine with their adven- turous spirit a desire for mutual protection, as well as for social inter- course. A pioneer farmer might look over the large tract of land "layed out" for him or his father, cutting or marking trees to guide him back, and choose his home site on a cross path, or on one side of the main line of travel of the redmen, who had their own paths from the shore to their haunts in the woods to the north. He would pick a spot near a running stream or a natural spring. Later, he would open a path to the new home site, and build his house. Others, follow- ing from Norwalk or Stamford, would settle as near him as the divi- sion of land and the requirements of a home site permitted.
So on Clapboard Hills we find a neighborhood with the good old New Canaan names of Benedict, Fitch, Carter, and Bouton; on "Pon- asses Path" or Ponus Street were Hoyts and Davenports; on Old Stamford Road lived the Talmadge and Stevens families; farther to the south were Seeley, Green, Waterbury, and Slosson; while Sey- mours, Hanfords, Marvins, and Sellecks had settled in White Oak Shade.
GROUPS WIDELY SEPARATED
These groups, however, were widely separated. There was at first no effort to found a town, or even a village, as their immediate ances- tors had done in Norwalk and Stamford, because for nearly a century, up to 1801, they were still citizens of one or the other of those parent towns, with all the civil obligations which went with citizenship. So we find Norwalk groups on the eastern boundary line, Stamford groups on the western, and other neighborhood settlements here and there on the ridges and in the valleys.
But far as these groups were from each other, they were even
130
Readings In New Canaan History
farther from the two parent towns, and from the meeting-house in each, that centre and soul of colonial life. When we remember that even the public highways were only bridle paths, that all travel was on foot or horseback, we marvel that the new settlers did not use a stronger word than "inconvenient" to describe the weekly journey over the miles to the meeting-house in Norwalk or in Stamford; and we wonder what would have been their opinion of a generation pre- occupied with "taking the wrinkles out of South Main Street." No carriages for another hundred years: no highways fit for wheels even if there had been any.
Could the children of two centuries ago greet the Sabbath with delight, we wonder, in spite of its rigors, for the adventure of a far journey through the woods? Imagine the little daughter Davenport or Benedict on her pillion behind her father with his great blunder- buss, gazing with wide eyes at the glint of a redskin among the way- side trees, tightening her little arms around her father's waist, as a bear, a wolf, or a panther crossed the sun-flecked path ahead. The children as well as their parents must have yearned for a meeting- house of their own to which even the dwellers on Ponasses Path or on Clapboard Hills would have only about half as many miles to travel as in the long journey to Stamford or to Norwalk. If the road seemed long in summer, how much more tedious and difficult in the cold and snows of winter! We do not wonder that it was in December of 1730 when, according to the Stamford records, John Bouton and others asked the liberty of moving out of town "to join a part of Norwalk in order to be a society."
PARISH CHURCH ORGANIZED
There were, in 1713, in Connecticut Colony, forty-six churches, which had been "illuminated" with about ninety ministers, and had "enjoyed peace and increased in numbers, knowledge and beauty." From the earliest settlement of the New England Colonies, however, a parish church or town was permitted by the government to be estab- lished or founded only when the people could prove themselves able to maintain a settled minister. Whether for lack of such proof or for some other reason the request of John Bouton and his companions was at first refused, the town of Stamford voting in the negative. But
131
History of Canaan Parish
the decision must have been reconsidered within the year, for in December of 173 1 Ebenezer Seeley and John Bouton were appointed "tything men" for the new Society. Moreover, the Society's first meeting had been held in July 1731, and the parish had been incor- porated by the Legislature. It was in May, 1732, that the Assembly granted that it be called by the name of "Canaan Parish" after a mem- orial presented by John Bouton, John Benedict, John Fitch, and Ebenezer Carter.
Of the first organizers of the church, we find that thirteen had been dismissed from Norwalk, with the blessing of the Rev. Moses Dickin- son, and the other nine had been recommended from Stamford by the Rev. Ebenezer Wright, just that year ordained. The following list has come down to us. The thirteen from Norwalk: John Fitch and Lydia, his wife; John Benedict and Dinah, his wife; Thomas Seymour and Elizabeth, his wife; Daniel Keeler and Hannah, his wife; Ezra Hait and Phebe, his wife; ("Hait" is one of the eleven different spell- ings of the present name of Hoyt) Nathaniel Bouton and Hannah, his wife; and Caleb Benedict.
The eleven from Stamford; John Bouton and Mercy, his wife; another John Bouton and Mary, his wife; Thomas Talmadge and Susana, his wife; John Davenport, John Finch, Eliphalet Seeley and Sarah, his wife; and Jerusha, the wife of David Stevens.
Dr. James Hoyt, writing a century and a half later about this group of twenty-four original members, finds the number symbolic of the twelve tribes of Israel added to the twelve apostles.
This is the roll of the real forefathers and mothers of our town, for it must always be remembered that throughout the first seventy years of its existence, Canaan Parish was not a town, but a religious or ecclesiastical society. Village history up to 1801 was church history.
LOCATE MEETING HOUSE SITE
In the fall of 1731 the General Assembly at New Haven had sent here a committee of three to "view, consider, and make report" in regard to the most convenient place for a meeting house. They settled upon a spot "on Haines Ridge, near the southern end of said ridge, on a flat rock with a monument or heap of stones on said rock, being between two roads or highways, and being, as supposed, near or about
132
Readings In New Canaan History
twenty rods west of Canaan Road." This "monument" may have been merely a boundary mark, but one chronicler suggests that the spot may have commemorated some name or deed. The Celtic cross, which honors those who gave their lives in the World War, is only a few rods distant from that vanished marker, possibly a memorial to the valor of an unknown hero of the past, whether white man or Indian, no one knows.
It was a year after the visit of the New Haven committee before the matter was put to vote by the settlers of Canaan. The choice was made on October 4, 1732, "by the vote of twenty that were of a mind to build a meeting house on the lower end of Haines Ridge, who passed out of the west door, to six in the negative." A building com- mittee was appointed, which was either to let out the work "by the great" or hire men by the day.
MEMBERS TAXED IN BUILDING
The members taxed themselves at the rate of 10 pence on the pound, a rate later raised to 19 pence, to be collected "by stress" if necessary from every freeholder. The "stress" was probably seldom necessary, as it was taken as a matter of course that all should unite in the support of the institution which was the centre, not only of their religious, but of their civic and social life. It had been the custom, indeed, since the earliest settlement of New England, for every citizen to be compelled by law to connect himself with some ecclesiastical organization, that he might be legally enrolled and taxed. It is on record, however, that one member of Canaan Parish did petition the Legislature for release from this universal tax, but when he got to New Haven he was opposed by a committee from home and lost his petition.
The high tax for the building was something of a strain on their slender resources. The land itself was granted to the Society in 1732 by the proprietors of Norwalk, who seem not to have objected, as Stamford did at first, to the formation of the new parish. The tract is described in the Norwalk Records as "all ye common land where their meeting-house standeth, and thirty Rods for the meeting-house, that is common highway there so long as they shall support a meeting- house in that place." This piece of land is small compared to the fifteen acres granted to Wilton, and the six acres granted to Middlesex
133
History of Canaan Parish
for a similar purpose, but in the case of Canaan Parish, the land to the west had all been taken up.
The tax had to cover, not only the building of the meeting house, but the support of a minister, who had now to be selected - a serious business at any time, and on this occasion undertaken with an earnest deliberation deserving of more permanent results.
THE FIRST MEETING HOUSE
In February, 1732, a committee set out to interview the Rev. John Eells, of Milford, a graduate of Yale in the class of 1724, and to pro- cure him for a trial visit. Five months later he came on a trial visit a second time, and remained for nine months "on approval."
And so we look back exactly two centuries to the time when the first meeting house was new, and the first minister was already preach- ing there on probation. It is interesting to consider what sort of world the little band of pioneers looked out upon. They owned allegiance to George the Second, who, although he knew a few more English words than his father, was more interested in his native Hanover, and in gloating over his little heaps of gold, than in governing his English subjects on either side of the Atlantic. All affairs of state he left to Walpole, but only three years were to pass before William Pitt, Earl of Chatham, should enter Parliament for Old Sarum, and begin his rise to the real rulership of England.
Across the channel, Louis 15th had reigned for seventeen years, and the seed was being steadily sown in the luxury and corruption of the court that was to mature into a bloody harvest half a century later. For another generation France was to keep her hold on Canada.
The French and English in the New World were nominally at peace, for Queen Anne's War had ended with the Peace of Utrecht in 1713, and King George's War was not to break out until 1734. But only eight years before, a force of New England troops had destroyed the French settlement of Norridgewock, in Maine, to be avenged on the French for instigating the Abenaki Indians to attack the Eng- lish settlements. "Peace" was merely a relative term. Wherever the French and English were near together there was apt to be trouble brewing, and there was never complete assurance of safety from the Indians. Deerfield was more than a memory to some Canaanites, as we shall see.
134
Readings In New Canaan History
While the forty-seven members were gathering in their new meet- ing house on the hill, a certain General Oglethorpe was obtaining a grant of land from George the Second for debtors released from prison, and naming it "Georgia" in honor of his monarch. These matters must have seemed remote enough from the new clearing on the hill, but even more irrelevant to the little band who worshipped there would have seemed the news-item that in an ancestral home at Bridges Creek in far-off Virginia a son had been born to Augustine Washington and Mary Ball, his wife, and had been named George. This occurred in the same month when the committee went to invite the first minister over from Milford.
NEW MINISTER ORDAINED
The thorough testing of the Rev. John Eells resulted in a unanimous call in June, 1733, whereupon the Society "pitch upon the second Wednesday to be kept as a day of fast and solemnity to God, in order to prepare before the ordination which is agreed upon." On the third Wednesday, June 20, 1733, the new minister was ordained, and the new church organized.
The first meeting house stood a short distance southeast of the present building. We know that it was "thirty foot square, of a suit- able heighth, for one tere of Gallaries." The building was very rude and plain, made of hewn timbers and slabs, and covered with rough clapboards. It was at first unceiled, but by 1735 the walls had been finished with lath and plaster. The pews were merely rude benches set in tiers. The modern antiquarian's respect for such rough hand- sawn boards as composed the floor, and the price he sets upon them, would have been amazing indeed to these early worshipers.
There were, in 1732, forty-seven members; thirty from the Nor- walk side, who came over from Clapboard Hills and Brushy Ridge, and up the forest path which is now North Main Street; and seventeen from the Stamford side, who made their way from as far off as Daven- port Ridge, along Ponasses Path, through Frogtown Road, through Weed Street (a part of which was once called Whiskey Street) and along Seminary (once Brook Street) and so greeted their new brethren on the church green.
We can picture them toiling up the slope from two directions, on
135
History of Canaan Parish
foot and horseback. We seem to see the stalwart figure of Captain Ebenezer Carter in his great coat and "old Bever Hat," on his "Bauld face horse." No doubt his "red and blue jacket with silver buttons" and his silver buckles at knee and instep would be too worldly for sober Sabbath wear. The women are decorously garbed in cloak and hood. The men are carrying guns, and the women are leading the littlest children by the hand, for danger lurks in these woods, but no one stays at home.
The Society had to meet between Sabbaths, of course, not only for services, but also to conduct all the business of the community, such as taking charge of schools and laying out highways. Their meetings were commonly "warned" to be held at "sun two hours high at night." Clocks and watches were a rarity in those days. We find in the Canaan Parish record an item of two shillings, nine pence to buy an hour glass. This was for the minister's use, but it imposed no undue restrictions upon his eloquence, judging from the New Haven pastor who "placed his hour-glass on the pulpit when he began his sermon and usually stopped when the sands had run out, but if his topic seemed to him especially important or interesting, he would turn the hour glass and keep on with his preaching."
If that first ordination service was any more protracted than the ordinary service, we are glad that the ceremony fell in June instead of at a more inclement time of year. It was customary to have an afternoon as well as a morning service, and it was not permitted to use any fire other than foot-stoves in the Lord's house. It is related of the old New Haven meeting house that on very cold winter days water froze in the baptismal bowl and bread on the communion plate.
"SOCIETY HOUSE" BUILT
It was not until ten years later, when the church was enlarged to accommodate its growing membership that a "Society house" was built north of the meeting house, with a fireplace, where those who came from a distance might gather between the meetings.
This idea was not original with the Canaanites. In New Haven a number of rough little houses were built near the Green, and called "Sabba Day Houses," primarily, perhaps, for the shelter of horses during service. Each was owned by one or several families and the
136
Readings In New Canaan History
owners "came to them on Sunday some time before morning service began, built their fires, and stabled their horses in a corner. By noon the logs had burned down to beds of glowing coals, and the air of the little room was warm and balmy. Here the people ate the food they had brought from home, while horses ate their fodder. The women could replenish the contents of their footstoves, and they could all warm themselves again after the second service, which was shorter, before returning to their homes." What a blessed hiatus that must have seemed! A bite of food, a thawing out, a bit of decorous gossip; and what valor it must have taken to assemble again at two o'clock in the bleak and holy precincts of the meeting house!
As all members were taxed for the expenses of the society, no member had to pay for his seat, but every member had to sit where he was told. The Society was accustomed to "seat the meeting-house" according to "rate and dignity." This process was called "Dignifying the Meeting House," and it was a ticklish matter for the committee to estimate the place for each man and woman in the social scale with- out giving rise to emotions far from Christian, and possibly expressed in a manner less dignified than the name of the undertaking implied. No one of course could take exception to the vote which gave the Rev. Mr. Eells the seat next to the pulpit on the woman's side.
It was the custom to appoint some person to "set the Psalm." This precentor stood directly under the pulpit a few steps above the deacons' seat. There was a tradition that Captain Thomas Benedict, a precentor in early times, was a singer of such power that he could be heard and understood at the distance of more than a mile! It was not until 1739 that the congregation voted to "sing by rule," or that which is called the "new way," although this change had been intro- duced elsewhere in New England in 1721 as a necessary reform, because the eight or nine tunes brought over by the pioneers "had become barbarously perverted."
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.