USA > Connecticut > Tercentenary pamphlet series, v. 3 The Beginnings of Roman Catholicism in Connecticut > Part 20
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 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47
The struggle that ensued lasted for nearly two years,
49
from the issue of Connecticut's ultimatum in October, 1662, to the arrival of the royal commissioners in July, 1664. During this time, with all the play of Puritan con- troversialists, mingling loving words with the recrimina- tions of attack and defense, the two contestants waged the battle back and forth. Connecticut, standing im- movable on the terms of her charter, demanding the last pound of flesh; New Haven, with Davenport and Leete as spokesmen, with equal firmness opposing the union, saying that they could do nothing against con- science, that the freemen had already voted (November 4, 1662) to uphold the status of the colony, and that in any event they could make no final answer until the results of an appeal to the king had been received. This appeal had been embodied in an address to the king, which was to be presented if other means failed, but Winthrop, who knew all the details of the situation, opposed it, because he was in the midst of his controversy with Clarke over the Rhode Island boundaries and wished to avoid, if possible, "a tedious and chargeable trial and uncertain event" such as would happen if the appeal were handed in. He wrote to Deputy Governor Mason of Connecticut deprecating the course Connecti- cut had followed, and implying that he had never in- tended that New Haven's rights should be disquieted or prejudiced by the issue of the Connecticut charter. Afterward Connecticut denied that Mason had ever received this letter. She acted all along with little regard for Winthrop's opinion, taking the ground, as she did later in her controversy with Rhode Island, that once the charter had passed the seals Winthrop had no further connection with it and his feelings in the matter might be safely disregarded.
A further exchange of queries and answers took place
50
in August, but in no way advanced the progress toward a settlement of the difficulty. It became evident that the issue would have to be brought before the com- missioners of the New England Confederation, because New Haven charged Connecticut with violating the terms of that union by continuing to interfere with the New Haven towns. At their meeting in Hartford in September, the commissioners reviewed the circum- stances, and the delegates from Massachusetts and Plymouth (the others naturally not voting) decided that because New Haven was recognized in the articles as dis- tinct from Connecticut she could not have her jurisdic- tion encroached upon. Encouraged by this decision and the manifest sympathy of the Plymouth delegates, New Haven wrote Connecticut bidding her withdraw from all attempts to exercise authority outside her own bounds. Connecticut's answer to this was to ignore the act of the commissioners and to demand, categorically and without reserve, New Haven's submission according to the tenor of the charter. Thoroughly aroused by this unfriendly and peremptory reply, the New Haven court of October 22 considered various possibilities and came to the con- clusion that it would be best to appeal to England for a letter of exemption from the king and if possible to ob- tain a patent of her own, which should spike Connecti- cut's guns. In the meantime the colony was to hold a day of solemn and public thanksgiving "that the Lord by his mercifull providence hath been pleased to give them some breathing time in the enjoyment of present liberties, notwithstanding their fears."
As Connecticut refused to yield and continued during the winter of 1663-1664 to pursue her aggressive tactics, New Haven, further encouraged by an order of the Privy Council of June 24, 1663, directing the jurisdiction of
51
New Haven (among others) to obey the navigation acts -an order which certainly recognized New Haven as still independent despite the Connecticut charter-ap- pointed a committee on January 7, 1664, to prepare a statement of the colony's case. This statement, drawn up by Davenport and Street, is a review of the whole situation from the founding of the colony and contains several items of information, otherwise unsupported, of considerable importance. Among them is the assertion that before Winthrop went to England he certified in two letters to a friend that Connecticut had no intention of extending the boundaries of the desired patent to include New Haven and was willing to agree that New Haven should be left free to join Connecticut if she wanted to, otherwise not. Also that New Haven trusting in this promise had felt secure against Connecticut's ag- gression and had made no effort to obtain a patent of her own. If Davenport's and Street's statements are to be received at their face value, then it seems clear that the English authorities, in consenting to the issue of Con- necticut's charter, did not realize that they were en- croaching on New Haven's jurisdiction and without in- tending to do so had given Connecticut legal warrant for her aggressive policy, a warrant that her leaders took advantage of to the full. If the committee's facts are cor- rect, it is not strange that Davenport and Street should have charged Connecticut with a breach of faith and with taking "a praeposterous course in first dismembering this colony and after that treating with it about union, which [they said] is as if one man purposing to treat with an- other about union, first cut off from him an arme and a legg and an eare then to treat with him about union." In an extraordinarily unfair and self-righteous reply Connecticut characterized this paper-"New Haven's
52
Case Stated"-which cannot be considered as other than honest and well reasoned, as "bluster," and the references in it to Winthrop as a very ungrateful return for his "great courtesy and tender respect . .. his love, favoure and tenderness." Just why New Haven should be grate- ful to Winthrop it is difficult to see.
The controversy might have been drawn out inter- minably but for two occurrences of the year 1664: first, the royal grant of March 12 to the Duke of York; and secondly, the sending over of the four royal commission- ers, two of whom arrived in Boston, July 20. The grant invested the duke with the proprietorship of eastern Maine and of the Dutch territory of New Netherland (not yet conquered), extending easterly to the Connecti- cut River, thus estopping Massachusetts from further expansion to the eastward, taking the region of the Hud- son and the Delaware from the Dutch, and handing over to the duke all lands west of the Connecticut River together with Long Island, which meant the New Haven territory and half of Connecticut. It was an astonishing grant, particularly when studied in the light of the char- ter of Connecticut and the controversy between that colony and New Haven, and also it raises the question as to who was responsible for the boundaries inserted in the Connecticut charter, upon which alone Connecticut based her claims against her neighbor colony. Condi- tions at Whitehall, in the council chamber, the seals offices, and the chancery, must have been at loose ends if a grant of 1662 to Connecticut could be so completely negatived by a grant of 1664 to the Duke of York, thus throwing Connecticut's claim to the territory of the New Haven jurisdiction completely into the discard. The second event, the sending of the royal commissioners to capture New Netherland and to investigate New Eng-
53
land, threatened the existence of all the New England governments, for the commissioners were instructed to report on the general situation among the Puritan colonies with an eye to their possible reorganization.
The emergency was a serious one for all concerned. Massachusetts immediately sent word to Connecticut and New Haven to settle their dispute and Connecticut sent agents to New Haven to demand her submission and to take over the control of the colony. There was nothing else for New Haven to do, unless she removed her people as a whole to the region of the Hudson or to the Delaware (for the overthrow of New Netherland had been affected in the summer of 1664), but this step was blocked by the duke's grant of the Jerseys to Berkeley and Carteret, three months after the issue of his charter and a month before the capture of New Amsterdam. Of course the towns of the jurisdiction might remain as they were and go under the duke's proprietory authority, but such a plan appealed to the New Haven people less than did a union with Connecticut. It took the general court a long time to reach a decision, but when in September, 1664, the commissioners of the New England Confedera- tion changed their minds and agreed that under the articles New Haven could be represented by the dele- gates from Connecticut and on November 20 the royal commissioners decided that Connecticut's southern boundary was Long Island Sound-though how they squared their verdict with a literal interpretation of the duke's grant is difficult to see-then New Haven gave up the struggle. The matter was settled December 15, 1664, though the formal act of submission was not passed until January 5, 1665. In yielding to her fate, New Haven refused to recognize the justice of Connecticut's actions and disclaimed all responsibility for the blow
54
struck at the integrity of the confederation. In testimony of its loyalty to the king's majesty and in deference to the verdict of the king's commissioners she agreed to capitulate "as from a necessity brought upon us by their meanes of Connecticut, but with a salvo jure of our for- mer right and claims, as a people who have not yet been heard in point of plea." Thus ended as an independent government the jurisdiction of New Haven, the towns of which, from this time forward, became a part of the Connecticut colony and conformed in all respects to the fundamental rules that that colony had established for itself in the Fundamental Orders, the laws that followed, and the charter of 1662.
The failure of the colony as a commercial enterprise- a failure largely due to the insufficiency of the available area of supply-the impossibility of territorial expansion, and the unfortunate location that it occupied on a semi- inland waterway, blocked in some measure at each end, resulted in grave economic weaknesses and eventual poverty and discouragement. The rigid limitation of the franchise, confined as it was to church members only, and the refusal of the leaders to allow in any degree a liberal- izing of the system and a consequent widening of the political foundation alienated many of its people. As time went on more and more of the inhabitants looked with envy upon those who enjoyed the broader privileges of Connecticut and were ready to take advantage of the opportunity to break away from an allegiance that be- came increasingly irksome with the years. More impor- tant than all else was New Haven's want of a legal title to exist, for the lack of a charter left her defenseless at a time when her northern neighbor, possessed of greater strength, determination, and diplomatic sagacity, was able to obtain royal privileges, which, however secured,
55
were to serve, at least in her own mind, as a sufficient legal warrant justifying her attack on New Haven, in the interest of her own expansion in rivalry with Massa- chusetts. The absorption of New Haven left but two Puritan colonies in New England, which with Rhode Island and New Hampshire made up this section of the colonial area during the eighteenth century.
Whatever one may think of Connecticut's method of bringing about the submission of her Puritan neighbor and the complete overthrow in this manner of an inde- pendent jurisdiction, the fact remains that the continu- ance of New Haven as a separate political and religious institution could have been of no advantage to New England or to the English colonial world. The weakness of the colony was manifest and its continued success as a going concern problematical. Hemmed in by powerful neighbors, its towns scattered and without unity, its territorial contour broken and irregular, it always suf- fered from want of cohesion and unity. The federation of towns that composed the jurisdiction was always loosely knit and though all were held together by laws, oaths, and a common adherence to certain fundamental Puritan ideas in church and state, its tendencies were centrifugal and there were always among its people a considerable number that were dissatisfied and discontented.
56
TERCENTENARY COMMISSION OF THE STATE OF CONNECTICUT
QUI
SUSTINET
TRANSTULIT
COMMITTEE ON HISTORICAL PUBLICATIONS
XLIX The Development of the Brass Industry in Connecticut WILLIAM GILBERT LATHROP
PUBLISHED FOR THE TERCENTENARY COMMISSION BY THE YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS 1936
The Printing-Office of the Yale University Press
TERCENTENARY COMMISSION OF THE STATE OF CONNECTICUT
COMMITTEE ON HISTORICAL PUBLICATIONS
XLIX The Development of the Brass Industry in Connecticut WILLIAM GILBERT LATHROPI
I B RASS is the most useful alloy known. It bears somewhat the same relation to copper, al- though for different reasons, that steel does to iron. Brass is harder than copper and takes a high polish. Since its cost is higher than that of iron or of steel, it is not adapted for heavy castings or for con- struction work. It cannot be tempered like steel and so is not used for cutting tools. For an endless variety of small wares or for purposes for which its color or dura- bility make it attractive, it is the most available and widely used metallic substance known. Today more than half a million different items of brass manufacture issue from the Connecticut mills alone.
Brass, in the strict sense, is an alloy of copper and
*The following account is based, in large part, on the author's The brass industry in Connecticut (Shelton, Connecticut, 1909) and The brass industry in the United States (Mount Carmel, Connecticut, 1926), which may be con- sulted for fuller information and bibliography. In the preparation of this Pamphlet the author has been much indebted to Mr. Edward H. Davis of Waterbury for helpful suggestions.
I
zinc, typically two parts of the former and one of the latter. Zinc is not found pure in nature and as a metal was not known to the ancients. Calamine is a zinc sili- cate and a natural ore. Its composition was not known until the middle of the eighteenth century. All earlier brass was made by smelting copper and natural cala- mine. About 1750 metallic zinc for the first time came into the market.
The term, brass, is also commonly used as a generic name for any alloy of copper, which fuses readily not only with zinc, but also with tin, lead, nickel, antimony, and other metals in widely varying proportions. Copper alloyed with tin is known as bronze; with nickel, as cupronickel; with nickel and zinc, as German silver or nickel silver; with tin and antimony, as britannia. Lead is frequently used in such alloys to secure mechanical qualities which assist in machining the product. Other elements are also advantageously introduced in certain combinations. The alloys vary in color from red through the yellows almost to white. The physical properties of the different alloys vary widely.
A significant feature of all copper alloys, that is, of the whole brass family, is their wide range of applica- tions in use, due in considerable measure to their facility in manufacturing treatment, and in no less degree to their great adaptability to specific needs through varia- tion in the alloy mixture, but most of all to the many desirable physical qualities which may be secured. Thus, these various alloys may be subjected to either cold or hot processing; may possess a high degree of ductility and malleability, yet may be tempered to spring quality and considerable physical resistance; may be easily fusible, yet are not free conductors of heat; usually are not subject to marked changes on exposure to the atmos-
2
phere, hence may take a fine surface finish; and usually possess a good degree of electrical conductivity without being subject to electrolysis. The brass family of alloys is, consequently, one which has grown in its uses with the growth of the economic life of the community. From the beginning, it offered, in its diversity of treatments and uses, a field for experimentation and development particularly adapted to the inventive, mechanical, and commercial qualities of Connecticut people.
Archeologists agree that the introduction of the use of bronze marked the first significant advance of the human race. Copper, next to gold and iron, is, in nature, the most widely distributed metal which is now in common use. It is found practically pure, often in considerable masses. While it is easily fused, it is by itself so soft that primi- tive man could not use it to advantage. Tin is also found pure in nature, but it is not as widely distributed as the other three metals just named.
Gold is more frequently encountered in nature than any other metal, but there is no evidence that it has ever been used extensively except for adornment. Iron is the next most widely distributed metal, but pellets of iron which may have been found in the primitive fire pot could not be readily worked to advantage. Consequently, the art of using bronze easily preceded that of working iron.
Before recorded history bronze was more commonly used than any other metallic substance in Japan, in China, in India, in Babylon, in Nineveh, and in Egypt. From it swords and spears were made as well as house- hold utensils and ornaments. Objects have been taken from Egyptian tombs dating from before 2000 B.C., some composed of copper of considerable purity and some of bronze with a fairly constant proportion of from ten per
3
cent to fourteen per cent of tin. This seems to indicate that, even so early, the making of bronze was deliberate and intelligent.
Of brass, strictly so called, the earliest articles thus far discovered are from Roman remains deposited about the beginning of the Christian era. For a thousand years brass was used to some extent, with varying zinc con- tent, apparently with no exact knowledge of its com- position. After A.D. 1200 efforts were made to secure a definite result by selecting the proportions of the metals to be fused. In 1781, shortly after zinc appeared, James Emerson invented in England the process of making brass by the direct fusion of copper and zinc, which was continued practically without change until the intro- duction of the electric furnace in 1917.
In ancient times and during the Middle Ages bronze, brass, and other alloys were always cast, at least roughly, into the shape finally desired. The modern process is first to cast the metal in the form of pigs or ingots, which are rolled into strips or sheets, or drawn or extruded into tubes, rods, or wire; this material is then either used thus or sold or manufactured into wares as desired.
II
THE brass industry in the United States had its birth in the Naugatuck Valley in Connecticut. Its subsequent development was much the most important of several attempts to enlarge economic opportunity in a state which had hitherto been mainly agricultural.
No original papers referring to the beginnings of manu- facturing in the state survive for the period prior to 1716. All through the eighteenth century the general assembly was appealed to for assistance for various enterprises, many of which were unsuccessful. Brass making, how-
4
--
ever, was not to begin in Connecticut until after the close of the eighteenth century. Copper and brass uten- sils were, indeed, in use, imported from the Old World, but many of the arts in which Connecticut brass was later to have an important part were then being developed with other materials, such as tin, wood, and pewter, an alloy of tin and lead. There were, thus, to be found within the state shortly after the Revolution the beginnings of many industries which later raised the state to the high rank which it now occupies as a manufacturing center. These beginnings were, however, to be found in house- hold industry rather than in more ambitious under- takings of the factory type.
The first in time as well as the most important, both because of its immediate history and because of its indirect influence upon brass and other manufactures, was the making of tinware. The manufacture of culinary vessels and household articles from sheet tin was begun by William Pattison and his brother, Edward, who com- ing from Ireland settled in Berlin about 1740. After sup- plying their neighbors they reached out for a larger mar- ket. Their wares were sold from house to house, at first by the brothers themselves, afterwards by peddlers whom they employed. As it was easy to make a much larger product than the local market could absorb, for some time the brothers kept the manufacture to themselves. After 1760, however, they consented to train a few ap- prentices, and after the Revolution their peddlers ex- tended the scope of their operations. At first on foot, then on horseback, and finally by wagon, they sold their wares all over the United States. After a little a special type of wagon was perfected for the trade. A one- or two-horse vehicle was developed, strongly built, to carry prominently displayed samples of wares to be sold.
5
.
The peddlers traveled from Montreal and Quebec to Charleston and through the South, also far to the west, even across the Mississippi. They traded by sale or by barter, making use of every means which ingenuity could suggest to market the goods they happened to have. These Connecticut peddlers were for the West and South the original Yankees. The sharpness of their methods was well illustrated by the prevailing tradition that they attempted, at least, to sell wooden nutmegs. It was the common practice to charge all that the traffic would bear.
After 1800 the selling of tinware was fully organized and for forty years Connecticut was the center of this industry. In 1810 two thirds of the product of the country came from that state. In 1832 Connecticut still con- trolled the Southern and Western trade. In 1845, after manufactures of iron, brass wares, and clocks, the mak- ing of tinware continued to be the most important metal- working industry in the state, but after the middle of the century this manufacture declined and practically dis- appeared.
The most valuable contribution which the tinware manufacture made to the industrial history of the state was the trade organization which it perfected. The itinerant vendors, who were at first interested mainly in the sale of tinware, found their occupation expanded in the sale of other small articles provided for them by Connecticut enterprise. The sale of the product was decidedly the more important end of the business. In 1815 single tin shops sent out as many as twenty or thirty of these peddlers, in some cases twice as many as the workmen in the home establishment. Until 1850 the peddlers of Connecticut merchandise were known all over the country and the part which they played in the marketing of the local manufactures of small wares can
6
.
hardly be exaggerated. Several of the men who later made large contributions to the establishment of the brass in- dustry gained their knowledge of the market by their experience as tinware peddlers. In 1850 the standard stock in trade, besides tin, copper, and brass wares, included clocks, hats, shoes, combs, axes, buttons, saddlery, and paper. These wares were even then gen- erally made in small quantities in small establishments with limited capital, but the aggregate of production was large.
An industry with a much more brilliant history than the making of tinware was the clock manufacture. It is known that before 1800 clocks were made, generally of wood, in the household in several places in the state. It was difficult to secure seasoned wood which would resist the influence of dampness. This interfered seriously with the Southern trade. At the turn of the century efforts were actively made to secure satisfactory results by the use of metal. Some cast brass was used, but the finished article was expensive, heavy, and unwieldy, and could not compete with imported metal clocks. Iron and steel were rejected because of rust. In 1830 a patent was issued for the making of clocks with glass wheels! About 1825 sheet brass appeared, the parts being cut from old kettles.
In 1837, Chauncey Jerome, who had been making wooden clocks for twenty years, perfected a radical and revolutionary invention when he placed upon the market a one-day brass clock, which could be manufactured for six dollars, and which was much cheaper than any other clock in the market. This invention was an instant suc- cess. In 1842 a consignment of Jerome's clocks was sent to England, which was the beginning of a large and very profitable trade. Except during the period of the World
7
War brass clocks have continuously been the most im- portant single item of export in the whole list of brass manufactures and, until the invention of the electric clock, Connecticut consistently controlled this industry. Jerome's invention in 1837 increased suddenly and greatly the demand for sheet brass, and it came at just the time when the brass mills were in a position to meet the demand.
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.