USA > Connecticut > Fairfield County > Bridgeport > Reports and papers. Fairfield County Historical Society, Bridgeport, Conn. 1882-1896-97 > Part 7
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. and certain of Read's lands.
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The jury (for at that early day this institution existed) found for the plaintiff; and on the case being carried from the County Court to that of the Governor and Assistants, Read was awarded "treble damages and costs." No less than fifteen times was this case brought to Court-facilities for keeping this sort of ball a rolling, being quite on a level with those of our own times-until even the stout heart of our young advocate be- gan to weary of the law's delay; and he makes, after a reverse decision, the following rather petulent petition to the General Court, sitting at New Haven in 1710: "May it please the Hon- orable Court : misfortunes in my adventures have undone me utterly for as I thought with a prudent foresight I purchased about twenty thousand acres of land in Wiantenock, parcel of a purchase of thirty-nine, recorded in May last; had spent much to settle and defend it; settled some inhabitants with me y'r afterwards, tried ye title and defended it against home pretenders. Sixteen times have I been to court about it, ever gaining till ye last Courts Assistants wherin I finally lost; and am utterly discouraged and broken-finding two things, 1st that I am not able to maintain suits forever, and that Indian titles are grown into utter contempt, which things make me weary of ye world. Whereupon I pray, seeing I nor my father have had not one foot of land by division or grant of town or county, tho' spending all our days in it. that I may have liberty if I can to find a place in ye colony (w'eh I know not yet of) not granted to nor purchased by any; y"t by your allowance I may settle it with some others of my friends, where in obscu- rity we may get a poor living, and pray for your health and prosperity with great content." Attention is called to the fact that this petition is-after the manner of the times-very deferential and a necessary stroking of the judicial ermine. Read would have never made a lawyer, if he had failed to gratify the vanity of this court: and he certainly would never have had his prayer answered if he had rubbed the fur in the wrong direction. His meek procedure was duly if not fully rewarded, and he was granted "a tract of the bigness of eight square miles," bordering on the province of New York. The locality did not suit him, however, and he soon sold it to par-
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ties more willing to have the early Dutehman for a neighbor. Land within the present lines of Redding apparently struck him as a much more available place of settlement; and here was founded the township which was named for him, but which for some reason, (unexplained by Mr. Todd and therefore unexplainable at all.) was long sinee changed to its present nomenclature. In this vicinity Mr. Read built his log farm house; here began a elearing for himself in a wilderness whose savage reality was attested by the existenee there of a genu- ine fortified Indian village. We cannot but add just here though, that this settlement could hardly have been the ideal one pictured in the petition. The "obseurity" therein re- ferred to certainly bore but faint relation to this savage retire- ment; and we positively refuse to believe that-though named by Mr. Read himself-Lonetown-it was the hermitage spirit- ualized in the petition where the victim of sixteen courts of law would "pray for the health and prosperity with great con- tent" of the judges inimieal to his righteous claims. Lone- town, nevertheless, was now his home wherein he gathered, among other household goods, his well-selected law library and set up as-a scholar and not a snob-the family motto: Sobrius Esto. Here were his professional headquarters, his office as Justiee of the Peace, his counting-room as a large operator in real estate, and the point from which he journeyed to the General Assembly when a member; and it was here that he wrote the appended curious document that quaintly emphasizes his saying that "Indian deeds had grown into utter contempt : "
"Know all men by these erooked serawls and seals yt we Chickens, alias Sam Mohawk and useco do solemnly declare that we are owners of ye traet of land called Lonetown, feneed around between Danbury and Fairfield : and John Read, Gov- enor and Commander-in-Chief thereof and of ye Dominions thereupon depending, desiring to please us have plied the foot and given us three pounds in money, and promised us a house next Autumn. In consideration thereof we do hereby give and grant to him and his heirs forever, the farm above men- tioned and corn appurtaining and further of our free will,
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motion, and soverain pleasure make ye land Manour; Indow- ing ye land thereof, and creating said John Read, Lord Jus- tice and Soverain Pontiff of ye same to him and his heirs forever. Witness our crooked marks and borrowed seals this seventh day of May, Anno Regni, Gratia Magna Brittania and Regina Decimo Tortio, 1704.
In presence of
Liacus, his ? crook.
Chickens, his X mark. alias Sam Mohawk. Martha Harney, her X mark. Naseco, his ? mark.
The above mentioned personally appeared and acknowledged ye above Instrument ye free aet and cheerful deed, in Fairfield ye 7th day of May, 1714, before me.
NATHAN GOLD, Dep. Gov. his ยง seal."
This document, still preserved in the original, has some- thing of the savor of trifling, for it really came before the Deputy Governor, and was legally binding; one must infer that Capt. Read (he had also attained that honor, ) was inclined not only to "sulk in his tent," but to add a spice of grotesque lmmor to the official paper upon which the august assistants had to pass judgment with regard to Indian deeds. The In- dians, themselves, certainly never read these deeds, and prob- ably never looked at them; copies had to be given them over and over again, and it was a paper of unusual toughness that would stand this savage handling. However severe the wording might be a further Indian construction would include another blanket, a brass kettle, and perhaps an additional kog of rum, together with a change of boundaries and a lessening of aeres, that inclines us to accept as at least partial truth the assertion of Sir Edmond Andross, that "an Indian deed was as worthless as the serateli of a bear's paw." Nor were the white man's dealings always models of probity. Mr. Read, himself, tells of a sale of some portion of these very Lonetown lands which was, to use a familiar modern phrase, a "put up job" on the part of the General Court, two of the members
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being sharers of the "boodle," and Capt. Couch being the man who "made the deal." At public "vendue" some hun- dreds of acres were knocked down to Couch, though, on the testimony of Jonathan Sturges, of Fairfield, "there was a bid of twenty shillings more; "-"crookedness," we observe, is an old prodnet with a new name; it thrived before our fathers' time, and has, we incline to believe, a protoplasmic antiquity.
The records pertaining to the subject of our sketch are free from even a hint of suspicion of. the absolute honesty that characterized his public and individual acts, although he is occasionally referred to as an eccentric man; and this point will do as well as another to recall a story in this connection. He would at intervals take abrupt leave of professional duties and journey with no apparent object about the country. On one of these excursions, or periodic tramps, he stopped on a Saturday afternoon at the home of a friend by the name of Walker, a Congregational clergyman, who, after the evening meal, invited him to preach the following Sunday. Mr. Read at first declined, but being urged on the special plea of friend- ship-a plea his good nature never could resist-finally assented, and the next morning duly appeared in his friend's pulpit. At the proper time, opening the Bible he read his text : "And the Lord said unto Satan whence comest thou?" and Satan said, "From going to and fro in the Earth and walking up and down therein." Here he looked caliuly around and observed: "Without any formal introduction I shall raise the doctrinal proposition that the devil is a walker." Mr. Walker was as suddenly astonished as if he had inadvertently come in contact with a charged Leyden jar; the brethren sat aghast ; and the young folks had hard work to suppress giggling. But the countenance of the strange preacher betrayed no hint of overt intention, and the entire solemnity with which he entered upon his discourse, soon commended the most respectful in- terest. No reference was made to the coincidence (?) of the text; the sermon was original in conception and handling; and, though profound in matter, was picturesque and replete with sharply-pointed illustrations and markedly effective ap- plication. It was, in brief, a sermon that might have been
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delivered with success two hundred years later in the largest and most popular of modern tabernacles.
No reason is recorded for Mr. Read's removal from the Con- necticut Colony, but the monograph before alluded to informs us that he came to Boston to live in 1722, buying a fine house and lot on Hanover street, the deed of which is made to John Read, of Lonetown, Fairfield County, Conn., December 12th, of this year. But he did not dispose of all his lands in our State, the Manor of Redding being a notable exception. This was for many years the residence of his son John, who kept up the place, including a deer park, in fine old English style, and who was the distinguished Colonel Read of our State his- tory, often confounded with, but by no means the able man with whom this paper concerns itself. The "Colonial Law- yer" was scarcely forty years old when he began practice in Boston, but fame had already singled him out, said John Otis, as "the greatest common lawyer the country ever saw." Like most great men, he was remarkable for his industry, and was soon carrying on so extensive a law practice, and was so actively engaged in numerous other varied affairs as to be recognized as "the busiest man in Boston."
About the year 1736, while a representative-the first law- yer admitted to that honor-doing, as the records show, a large amount of committee duty, and continually introducing important bills on the currency, and recodifications of the statutes, he wrote a Latin Grammar which attained celebrity as a simplified text-book. Copies of this book are quite rare, and the advisatory note at the end invites reproduction, as characteristic of the author. He says: "Now, therefore, let the tutor read distinctly any chapter [of the vulgate transla- tion of the Bible] into English, explaining the nature and dif- ference of the syntax and translations as need requires; and then the pupil by comparing the English and Latin transla- tions by himself, shall easily attain the Latin tongue; and at the same time furnish his mind with the fundamental princi- ples of all knowledge, establish his heart with true wisdom and conduct of life, and finally grow up in favor with God and man. Amen."
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He was, too, a communicant and regular attendant of King's Chapel, and for two years one of its wardens, which fact is of ecclesiastical record and is decisive as to his Episcopal pref- erences. He also found time to engage in many large opera- tions in real estate; and when in 1737 the Massachusetts colony placed a vast tract at public sale he bought 23,040 acres in the territory now known as Claremont, selling the greater part a few months after; though he reserved 1,760 acres, which he presented to his son William, who became a prominent citizen. He also acquired an interest in a town- ship at Piscataqua river, and during the same year purchased the mansion and grounds on Queen street, in Boston, which was his residence during his phenominally busy life. In brief, such were his numerous, varied and successful activities that John Adams has left on record these words: "John Read possessed a genius and attained an eminence as great as any man."
Whenever he elected to serve in a publie capacity the peo- ple elected him to places of dignity and trust. He was a member of the Governor's Couneil during the administrations of Governors Shirley and Belcher, and it is written of him, officially, that "while he sat at that board he was their oracle " The same historian goes on to say "as a legislator he was con- spicuous, but too nnambitious to be a regular leader; he was too independent and enlightened for a lover of prerogative. and too honest for a leader of faction-he spoke with frank- ness, regardless of political consequences." His advice and individual service was frequently called in to solve the difficult money problems of the day, and it is worth while to briefly quote from his report when he met the commissioners of Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Massachusetts. and other colonies on the depreciation of the paper money then in vogue. Said he: "The paper money now abroad daily sinks in value . so that merchants raise the price of goods to what they think it will sink to; and thus the hus- bandry-the stay of land-always comes off the worst by it. Perhaps it may be ordered redeemed by act of parliament, will become to be no medium of trade, and we shall
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be obliged to give silver money for these old broken rags- for money they are not, and money we must have and be just." These thoroughly practical-though necessarily brief-ex- tracts will be recognized by some of our Connecticut people as "good old-fashioned horse-sense" that would mix well with many nice theories of modern finance. They also prompt us to allude to another quality of statesmanship which is notably scarce among our publie men to-day. He was endowed with rare modesty, and when an important money measure was presented to the Conneil, Jolin Read promptly withdrew his own admirable bill with the remark that "the other was too much better for the country at large to exist at the same time," and immediately set to work to formulate the measure of his colleague.
It would not do, however, for contemporary lawyers to pre- sume too far upon Read's self-abnegation ; he took such shrewd care of himself in court as to make opposing council very wary of him, and a case in point will illustrate a neat bit of his saga- cious special pleading.
A merchant had a ship and cargo seized by the eustoms through some technical breach of the Trade Acts, and retained Read as counsel. He was told to replevy, and a writ was issued to the Sheriff to restore the ship and cargo-bond be- ing given to answer at next court. In the process, Read had intentionally given defendant no replevin or addition, but on the day of next sitting of court defendant's counsel found the flaw and so informed the owner of the ship, who, in turn in formed his counsel. Read told his client "never mind," and to enter the action. . In court defendant's counsel whispered across the table that he knew of the error and intended to have the writ abated in consequence. Read, innocently look- ing over the papers, asked the privilege of amending the mis- take, which being denied, he remarked that if such an advan- tage was taken it could not be helped and he must plead as matters stood. A plea of abatement was thereupon made ore tenus-without asking the return of the ship-and judgment entered up accordingly. Then Read told his client to let ex- ecution be taken out, but not to pay the sum before it was
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served. At next term suit was brought on the bond; and Read pleaded he had fully performed its conditions by prose- cuting the suit to final judgment, producing in proof the Sheriff's return. Meanwhile the ship having gone to sea, there was an end to the matter.
An instinctive abhorrence of wrong was another quality of the "Colonial Lawyer," and there is still preserved at Hart- ford an autograph letter in which he expresses his interest- gratuitously of course, in one of the Uneas family of Indians, who claimed he had been wronged by Capt. John Mason; the letter is fragmentary which unfortunately precludes its repro- duction. Another instance in this direction was brought about by one of Read's eecentrie pedestrian tours. Having made up his mind to relieve the dull rontine of his profes- sional labors, he donned the plainest of garments and started on foot for a journey south. His sunny disposition, his re- markable familiarity with the practical workings of a variety of occupations outside of his profession, added to his legal and theological crudition, made him a welcome guest wher- ever he chose to be one. A thick volume might be filled with accounts of his adventures, none of which, however, were of the kind that tilts at windmills. In his homely attire, afoot, and with a bundle on a staff over his shoulder, he had more the appearance of the better sort of tramp than a knight errant ; yet when he stopped to converse with some intelli- gent person he invariably conveyed the fact that he was an unaffectedly chivalrous gentleman. At the farm. the mill, the forge, the school or parsonage, he was welcomed on account of his genial face and honest manner, notwithstanding his plain garments, and all were surprised with the quantity and variety of his practical knowledge.
Entering a town, he was naturally attracted to where a court was sitting and had his sympathies at once enlisted on the side of a plaintiff with a righteous but complicated case to defend against an unscrupulous land speeulator. He took in the case at a glance and, after a talk with the presiding judge offered his services to the weaker side, and at once be- gan operations with the intuitive grasp and instant compre-
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hensiveness that always distinguished him. When on his legs to plead many present recognized the traveling farmer, the veterinary surgeon, the skilled mechanie, the seliolar or preacher, but as he warmed to his work were amazed to discover an accomplished lawyer, a jurist of wide and profound knowledge of all law -- even that of a strange province; and he not only captivated the court, jury, and audience, but gained the ease. The plaintiff was in ecstacies of delight and gratitude, but be- fore he could get through the throng to offer his thanks, the "Colonial Lawyer" had disappeared. The presiding judge, who had in the interval, adjourned to a neighboring inn, was appealed to as to his whereabouts; and, singularly enough, remarked, as he shaded the rays of the setting sun from his twinkling eyes, that he thought he observed, about a mile and a half down the turnpike, the perepatetie lawyer making good time southward.
Indeed, a pleasing evidence of philanthropy ever accompa- nies these stories of eccentricity; and when Gov. Washburn spoke of such "out of the common " acts, he also said: "John Read filled a wide sphere in the provinces, and did more, per- haps, than any other man in introducing system and order into the practice of the courts in Massachusetts." And, in concluding this feeble memorial we will, leaving out all analy- sis of character, only add that the great John Read was a most estimable citizen, who so conscientiously did his day by day duties that common people took pride in quoting his com- mon sayings; that jurists and statesmen, and his professional contemporaries held him in high regard: that his legal works were preserved by Story, and commended by Parsons; and that a large fortune rewarded the incessant labor of his life. He died peacefully, in his seventieth year, at his home in Bos- ton, on the 12th day of February, 1749; and of so noble a life may it not be justly recorded: Sie itur ad astra-such is the way to the stars.
At the close of the reading of Mr. Beers' paper a vote of thanks to him was passed, and upon the suggestion of William E. Seeley, Esq., it was also voted to print the paper in paul- phlet form for preservation.
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STRATFORD, NEW HAMPSHIRE.
The President then called on the Rev. Samuel Orcutt for some items concerning the township of Stratford in New Hampshire, the knowledge of which had entirely passed out of memory and recognition in Old Stratford, Connecticut, a somewhat surprising fact. The following were the items, taken from the records of Stratford, N. H., by the Rev. L. W. Prescott, of Warren, N. H.
Stratford Township in New Hampshire was first settled by persons from Stratford in Connecticut. Among the first pro- prietors of that township were the following men, then resi- dent in Stratford, Connecticut, but few of whom removed to New Hampshire, but they sent several of their children to settle there.
SAMUEL BEARD,
CAPT. SAMUEL BEERS,
STEPHEN CURTISS, JR.,
ABNER JUDSON,
JUDAH KELLOGG,
ELISHA MILLS,
CAPT. ISAIAH BROWN,
NATHAN BOOTH,
MR. SAMUEL JOHNSON,
CAPT. AGUR JUDSON,
GEORGE LEWIS,
AGUR JUDSON, JR.,
DANIEL JUDSON, JR.,
CAPT. JOSEPH TOMLINSON,
DAVID JUDSON,
STEPHEN TOMLINSON,
STILES JUDSON,
WILLIAM AGUR TOMLINSON,
NEHEMIAH CURTISS,
Ws. THOMPSON, inn keeper.
SAMUEL CURTISS,
THOMAS -
STEPHEN CURTISS,
JOSEPH WELLS,
AGUR TOMLINSON,
NATHAN WELLS,
BEACH TOMLINSON,
REV. IZRAIHIAH WETMORE.
DOCT. HEZEKIAH TOMLINSON,
The first tree was cut in Stratford, N. H., by Isaac Jolin- son. He and Archippas Blogget (Blodget), both from Strat- ford, Conn., tried which could ent his tree down first, and Johnson succeeded.
In 1772, the following persons left Stratford, Connecticut, and made the first permanent settlement in Stratford, New Hampshire:
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JOSHUA LAMPKIN,
AARON CURTISS,
ARCHILPAS BLODGET,
ISAAC JOHNSON,
JAMES BROWN,
TIMOTHY DEFOREST,
JAMES CURTISS,
BENAJAH BLAKEMAN,
WILLIAM CURTISS,
JOHN SMITH.
The town records of Stratford, N. H., say: "August 13, 1773, the sum of ten pounds was voted to Mrs. Barlow, wife of Joseph Barlow, . ... that she hath proceeded with her husband and family of children to come to our township of Stratford, aud is the first woman that hath settled upon said township."
The ten men above named were voted "three pounds each for their extraordinary trouble and expense in proceeding to settle and make improvements."
James Brown, sou of Capt. Isaiah Brown, called the first town meeting in Stratford, N. H., and was one of the most prominent citizens for many years. His marriage to Hannah, daughter of Joshua Lamkin, in 1775, was the first that oc- eurred in that township, she being sixteen years of age, and their daughter Anna, born in 1776, was the first child born in the town. He died in 1813. His widow, Hannah, died in 1836, aged 77 years. He remained in that township through the Revolution, had charge of the fort, and his daughter Anna was born in the fort, and his descendants are still numerous in that part of the country.
Daniel and Agur Platt were among the early settlers there and are said to have gone from Stratford, Connecticut. Agur returned here and died, but Daniel married a daughter of James Brown, lived a prominent eitizen, and died about 1860. The Johnsons, Blodgets, Curtisses, and Platts, are very numer- ous there yet.
The President next introduced Mr. Charles Burr Todd, of New York and Redding, Conn., and said that he did so with all the more pleasure as he was thereby relieved from making any extended remarks on this occasion himself. He had on several oeeasions endeavored to set forth the work and to emphasize the needs of the Society. It was a matter in which
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he felt a deep interest-and he was glad to have so able a helper come to his aid. Mr. Todd then read the following paper on
THE FAIRFIELD COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY: ITS WORK AND NEEDS.
One of the greatest of modern critics has observed that the literary and artistic faculties come latest in the development of peoples, the inference being that this is the summum bonum, the highest gift, to be obtained only through successive and ever widening stages of development.
We may urge the same elaim for the historical faculty. The pioneer is rarely the historian. The men who make history are usually the most careless about preserving it, and it is not until a people has attained a certain degree of culture, leisure, and refinement that much interest is taken in the details of history, in the various steps by which the pioneers founded the State and laid its walls in liberty, justice, and righteous- ness.
This fact explains, perhaps, why the Fairfield County His -. torical Society was not formed until nearly two hundred and fifty years after the County was first settled. There was no reason why it should not have been founded before. It is cause for congratulation that certain public-spirited gentlemen at length organized it, and that having survived the perils of infancy, it has grown into the stout and lusty youngster we now beliold. And what a field lies before it! No county in the State is richer in quaint, interesting, romantie, valuable, historical material. Let us consider it a moment. It gave to Whittier, and Whittier to the world. Abraham Davenport, the best and noblest exponent of the Puritan idea to be found in history ; it gave Deputy-Governor Gold; and John Read, the Colonial lawyer, and Judge Peter Burr, with Governor Fitch, and other pillars of the Colonial fabric. Joel Barlow, too, and Aaron Burr, the founder of Princeton College, his son Aaron Burr, the better known man of affairs, Roger Minot Sherman, the leader of the Connectient bar, Commodore Hull, and later to our civil war, William Teeumsch Sherman, and to our coun- cils John Sherman his no less illustrious brother.
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