USA > Connecticut > New London County > Old Lyme > The educational history of Old Lyme, Connecticut, 1635-1935 > Part 14
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In 1859 the curriculum of the winter school is given with a memorandum of the number of children enrolled in each sub- ject; reading 60, grammar 10, geography 20, writing 27, arithmetic 36, history 4, and spelling 50.
Very interesting statistics are also available concerning the population of New London county in 1854. These show a population increase from 32,300 in 1790 to 51,821 in 1850. Religious changes are also clearly indicated, in the listing of some twelve denominations, housed in 102 churches. Among them were 12,176 Baptists, 13,825 Congregationalists and 7,100 Methodists. 43
Agricultural statistics show the wide variety of domestic animals raised-horses and mules, cattle, sheep and swine. Grains, potatoes and hay were also raised in abundance over a period of years. Nevertheless, between the years 1840 and 1850 great decreases were noted in every item of the agri- cultural statistics.
In Lyme there was a population in 1854 of 2,598. Of these, 1,290 were male and 1,308 female. The free colored population included 29 men and 41 women.
The map of that year gives the exact location of roads, and homes are also clearly marked.44 Of the 343 children over four and under sixteen years of age in the first society of Lyme at this time, 200 were in average attendance at school. There were seven male teachers and one female teacher in
42. Register of the First District, Second Society, Lyme, Connecticut.
43. Statistical Chart of New London County, 1854.
44. Map of Lyme, 1854.
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the winter schools and one male teacher and seven females in the summer school. The average wage of the male teacher in- clusive of board was $ 19.00 a month, while that of the female teachers was $ 12.00 a month.
Such were some of the conditions in Lyme on April 30, 1855, when "a motion was made that the town appoint an agent to oppose the petition of C. C. Griswold and others [ for the division of the town], whereupon the town voted not to appoint an agent for said purpose." A motion was made "that a committee of one from the old society and one from the North be appointed to arrange the bill in form for this divi- sion. Also to arrange about the change of name if a division should be effected." The committee appointed included Charles I. McCurdy and Lodowick Bill. Then followed a second petition proposed by William E. Hungerford of East Haddam, Z. Brockway and others of Lyme, who were op- posed to the division of the town of Lyme.
The division, however, was effected by act of legislature in that same year, and that part of the original town included within the limits of the first ecclesiastical society was set off as a new town. It was first called South Lyme, but after ap- proximately two years was given its present name of Old Lyme. It included nearly all the land used by the first set- tlers and embraced many of the cultural characteristics of the ancient town of Lyme. The incorporation of this new town and the beginning of the new era of public education under town control were simultaneous events, falling in the years 1855 and 1856. The history of the former includes the op- eration of the latter and our final chapter is devoted to their contemporaneous development.
Before leaving the period of transition, 1795-1856, it seems important that its significant conditions and accomplishments be summarized. The century started in the flood tide of post- war trade. It was strongly influenced by the abandon of newly won independence. With this came also a growing friction be- tween social groups. No longer was it a union against the mother country, but rather a local competition between reli- gious and economic groups. Immigration as a new factor in
150 Educational History of Old Lyme.
national expansion was also beginning to color and to compli- cate further the character of the social fabric.
Conditions in Lyme were typical of these general circum- stances. Lyme had a period of prosperity and enthusiastic participation during the years before the War of 1812. Lyme farmers prospered as her traders prospered, but with the growing depression which accompanied the embargo of 1807 her sea traders and farmers were greatly affected. So also did these changes affect the retired sea captains of Lyme whose investments were still on the sea. Lyme Federalists joined those of other towns in the state in sending memorials to the President, and, in church and out, Lyme Congrega- tionalists expressed the conviction of the orthodox group in opposing the growing Republican and Dissenter class. In the face of these problems one can feel the people returning again to their hillsides for the simple necessities of life. As the commercial trade became more and more centralized in larger boats and in larger cities, Lyme became less maritime, more agricultural and more rural. Her landed aristocracy turned to banking, to law and to general financial enterprise, with offices in adjacent cities. For them Lyme gradually became "the country estate of the English gentry." Her farmers, meanwhile, profiting by the improved transportation facilities and the natural advantages of their situation, sent fish, cattle, vegetables and fruit to New York and other nearby cities. Furthermore, to meet the growing demand of the woolen mills in eastern Connecticut, they covered their hillsides with sheep.
The program of life seems to have grown definitely more immediate, more tangible and realistic, less romantic and in many ways less hopeful. With the exception of the families of the sea traders, who now formed the local aristocracy, the people seem to have returned to a simple life of agrarian thrift.
In this situation, private schools were organized more ex- tensively for the families of the well-to-do, community ex- periences were widely differentiated and community needs were no longer met through cooperative enterprise. The
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classes were growing apart and social domination was increas- ingly the order of the day. Under these circumstances, the district schools declined as private schools increased, and it remained for the state to see its responsibility in maintaining and safeguarding the standards of the masses. As other social institutions divided and differentiated, the public school be- came increasingly the institution of the people. The improve- ment of these schools was long evaded. Only when other con- ditions, such as population density, illiteracy and delin- quency, challenged the well-being of the commonwealth was legislation forthcoming favoring an improved public-school system.
So in Old Lyme, in 1855, the same eight district schools which had been organized rather gradually during the first half of the eighteenth century and which had survived the difficult transition period of the early nineteenth century be- came a part of the new state program of public schooling. To- gether these eight district schools constituted the inherited public-school system of the new town of Old Lyme.
V.
The Social Heritage of Old Lyme.
W E have focused our attention thus far upon certain historical and social factors imperative to an un- derstanding of the development of education and schooling in Old Lyme. We have retraced the most impor- tant steps in the establishment of the parent town of Lyme: its incorporation, the division of the land and the consequent distribution of the population. We have watched the estab- lishment and spread of its churches, the development of its diversified industries, the growth of its trade and manufac- ture, the influence upon it of transportation and the leveling effects of nationalism. This evolving social structure has been reproduced that we might see more clearly the changing needs and opportunities of education. All of this has been considered as part of the larger program of the colony and the state.
Many of the conditions presented here are typical of other towns in Connecticut. These conditions depict, in a large meas- ure, the changing conditions of community life. They provide background and foreground for social events and together form a panoramic setting against which the educational sys- tem stands out in bold relief.
These factors are not sufficient, however, for a complete understanding of the circumstances affecting education and schooling in Old Lyme. Other more subtle forces colored and still color the community life of the town. The more potent of these forces are social survivals, which have their source in the social heritage of the earliest settlers. There is a very real social stratification, which is dominated by a strong "Federal- ist-Puritan" influence. The. "landed gentry," the "freemen" of earlier days, still control the affairs of the town and their thinking has been effective in carrying forward an inherited orthodox program. There is a degree of social crystallization which treasures the old and avoids the new. This aristocratic
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Social Heritage.
social awareness which permeates the atmosphere is symbol- ized by old families and old houses.
Environment is in all situations a major factor in educa- tion. There is first the purely physical environment of climate, topography and natural resources; then the immediate en- vironment of people, events and things; and finally the cul- tural environment of accumulated social experience. This lat- ter includes all that the generations have left in the way of social attitudes, intellectual achievements, economic experi- ence and aesthetic taste. These create and perpetuate the at- mosphere and personality of places. In reality they may be predominantly material and yet so mellowed by tradition and appreciation as to be in truth a spiritual force.
Old Lyme is just such a place. Everywhere one feels the companionship of other days. It may be an old barway, an old dock, a rare stone wall, a row of vaulted elm trees, a perfect doorway, a fine library or a profusion of colonial houses. In such a situation education is, to a great extent, the appreciation of the cultural environment, while schooling is the acquisition of tools by which this environment may be made increasingly available to oncoming generations. For these reasons, we are presenting here some of the pertinent information regarding families long connected with the town of Lyme. It is possible that in this way we may sense more clearly the sources of other types of cultural influence which have contributed to the continuing substance and quality of the social structure. These data include illuminating facts re- garding the heritage and lineage of old families. They also show the significant prevailing practice among these people of marrying within a very restricted social group. The same names appear and reappear in the records of a single family. This practice has had a very great influence upon the owner- ship of land, upon the personnel of control groups, upon the prevailing social and religious attitudes and upon social strati- fication within the larger community. Such data help to make more clear the dominant social characteristics of Old Lyme as they exist today.
Among the original families of Lyme there were certain names which have persisted throughout the generations. Their
I54 Educational History of Old Lyme.
characteristics and achievements have done much to mold the type of culture which pertains in this ancient town. Some of these families remain only in the legend and casual con- versation of the place. Others, better known, have failed to assemble and publish the interesting personal histories of their progenitors. Their records and names are still treasured within the private confines of the kinship groups, but to the inter- ested outsider they are in every way inaccessible, though not unappreciated. Our references therefore are, of necessity, con- fined to those families whose records have been made avail- able. Fortunate it is that this group is sufficiently extensive to be significant.
An attempt has been made, through a review of the earliest records of burials in Lyme, to assemble specific information regarding the names and the longevity of the early residents of the town. This was possible only in part because of the general practice of private burial lots and the early absence of individual markers. Of the known public and private burial lots, those at Meeting House Hill and Duck River contain the graves of the earliest residents. The names selected are those which appear most frequently in the manuscript records of the town. Many of these are the names of persons born in the seventeenth century who lived in Lyme for a long period of years.1 Many endured the hardships of pioneer life and
1. Selected inscriptions from the Old Burying-Ground, Meeting House Hill, Lyme, Connecticut (New England Historical and Genealogical Register, Vol. 61, pp. 75-79) :
John Lay died Nov. 13, 1696, aged 63 years.
Sarah Lay, his wife, died June 12, 1702, aged 60.
Isaac Watrus "Sener" 7 Oct. 1713, aged 72 years.
John Clark, March, 1719, in 82nd year.
Lieutenant Abraham Brownson, June 27, 1719.
Mrs. Annah Brownson [his wife, and daughter of Mathew and Anna (Wolcott) Gris- wold], 13 Apr. 1721.
Elizabeth-Releck of Roger Alger, died 6 July, 1729, in 66th yr.
Edward Lay, March 1, 1758, in 90th year.
John Lay, 14th of April, 1788, in 92nd year.
Robert Lay, 3 Feb. 1792, aged 81 years.
Mary Lay, his widow, July 11, 1794, in 83rd year.
Joseph Lay, 1797, aged 97.
John Lay, 8 Jan. 1813, aged 75 years.
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lived to influence directly the social thinking of a number of succeeding generations. Numerous among these are repre- sentatives of the Lay family: Edward Lay, 1758, aged ninety; John Lay, 1798, aged ninety-two; and Joseph Lay, 1797, aged ninety-seven. Others in this group are Henry Champion Sr., who died in 1708 at the age of ninety-seven, and Mrs. Sarah Sill and Mrs. Sarah Peck, both of whom died in 1736 in their ninetieth year. The number living past seventy is consider- able.2 Together they represent certain characteristics of the pioneer stock. They indicate the span of pioneer influence and suggest the source and the nurture of early social customs.
Mathew Griswold, first magistrate of Saybrook and leader in the movement to settle the "east side of the River," has al- ready been given particular mention for his own sake. As the first of a direct line of nine generations of Griswolds in Lyme, and of a kinship group including many persons of signal posi- tion, this family name deserves further consideration.
Mathew Griswold, the pioneer, was one of two brothers,
2. Selected inscriptions from gravestones at Old Lyme, Connecticut, Duck River Cemetery (Ibid., Vol. 77, pp. 194-213) :
Lieutenant Renold Marvin, 1676, age 45.
Capt. Joseph Sill died 1696.
Mr. Henry Champion, the 2nd July, 1794, 49th year. Wollston Brockway, Junior, May 15, 1707, 38 years.
Mr. Henry Champion Senior, 1708 in his 97th year.
Mr. Edward DeWolfe, Mar. 24, 1712. 66 years.
Mr. Mathew Griswold, Jan. 13, 1715. Age 63.
Mr. Mathew Waller, Apr. 17, 1716, 55th year. Deken Joseph Peck, Nov. 25, 1718, aged 78.
Lieutenant Richard Lord, Aug. 20, 1727, 80th year. Mathew Beckwith died June 14, 1727, 84th year.
Samuel Tinker, Senior, Apr. 28, 1733, 71st year. Mrs. Sarah Sill (wife of Joseph), Sept. 14, 1736, aged 90.
Mrs. Sarah (wife of Joseph Peck) Sept. 14, 1736, aged 90.
Deacon Samuel Marvin, 1743, age 72. Hannah Anderson, 1745, aged 77 years.
Capt. John Coult, Jan. 2, 1751. 60 years.
Capt. Timothy Mather, July 25, 1755, 75th year.
Mrs. Elizabeth Lord, the Remains of Richard Lord, July 22, 1756, 76 years.
Mrs. Marcy (wife of Joseph Higgins) Nov. 22, 1768, 71st year. Lieut. John Denison died Nov. 28, 1776, 79th year.
Mr. Joseph Higgins died -, 75th year.
Richard Lord Esq., Aug. 6, 1776, 86 years.
156 Educational History of Old Lyme.
Edward and Mathew, who came to America about the year 1639 and settled at Windsor, Connecticut. Another brother, Francis, who came in 1635, seems to have returned to Eng- land. Still another brother, Thomas, remained in the old English homestead. They were reported to have come from Lyme Regis in England and this fact appears in many his- tories. Efforts in 1874 to establish the authenticity of this statement were, however, unsuccessful. Affidavits seem to in- dicate very clearly that their original home was Kenilworth county, Warwick, for which Kenilworth, Connecticut, was so named by Edward Griswold. The records further indicate that they were a family of financial independence with more than average social advantage.
Mathew Griswold was approximately nineteen years of age at the time of his arrival at Windsor. Here he settled and married Annah, the daughter of the first Henry Wolcott of that place. That he was a stonecutter by trade has won wide credence, but little evidence is available to confirm this fact other than two receipts for tombstones supposed to have been cut by him. That of Lady Fenwick at Saybrook Point is one of the stones so mentioned. His greater activities had to do with land, money and politics.
Mathew Griswold removed to Saybrook either just before or immediately after his marriage. There he served as the special agent of George Fenwick and as the chief surveyor of the outlands. In this way he knew intimately the quality and value of all the common land and his choice of a homesite in Lyme in 1645 reflects his inclination. Mathew Griswold's large estate at Black Hall was in the nature of a grant from Fenwick, made just prior to his departure for England. Through this grant both Mathew Griswold and the genera- tions of Griswolds that followed have been among the wealthi- est landed gentry of the town.3 This situation has been fur- ther and constantly nurtured through marriages within a very restricted group of landed gentry, favored from the very be- ginning by a nearness to the wellsprings of power. The num-
3. Hurd, History of New London County, pp. 41-42.
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ber of distinguished and influential men in this family group, within the nine successive generations, is legion.
Among these was Governor Matthew Griswold, who was born in Lyme in 1714 and served as deputy governor of Con- necticut during the Revolutionary War under Governor Jona- than Trumbull. It is probable that he attended the Black Hall district school since no academies existed in that area during this early period. At the age of twenty-five he began the study of law. He entered political life in 1751 and be- ginning in 1784, following the war, was twice elected gov- ernor of the state. He married his cousin Ursula Wolcott of Windsor, Connecticut, and again the Griswold name was con- nected with land, money and politics. This combination of political influence and financial power encouraged and further entrenched the social attitudes of the landed gentry of Lyme.
Their sons, Matthew and Roger Griswold, were also promi- nent in the legal and political life of the state. Matthew Gris- wold Jr. was one of the four chief justices4 and is also remem- bered for the private law school which he conducted at his home in Lyme. Here he trained many successful lawyers. Roger, his brother, was for years one of the ardent New Eng- land Federalists in Congress and later was both chief justice and governor. In Congress, as early as 1803, the dissolution of the Federalist party was proposed and slavery was made a real issue. The addition to the Union of Democratic and slave territory was at that time alarming. Secession of the New England states was actively urged and of this movement Roger Griswold, leader of the New England Federalists, was an ardent advocate.
Other members of the Griswold family of Lyme promi- nent in the annals of the town were the Rev. George Gris- wold of East Lyme and John Griswold, previously referred to as the founder of the well known New York to London packet line. Numerous Griswold families still make their homes in Old Lyme, but Dr. Matthew Griswold, recently re- turned to Old Lyme and Black Hall, is the ninth generation
4. Morgan, Connecticut as a Colony and as a State, pp. 62-63.
158 Educational History of Old Lyme.
of the direct line from the immigrant, Mathew.5 He has re- turned to the land of his forefathers. Here he occupies one of the ancestral homes and symbolizes in the town the prevail- ing elements of his family tradition: a Congregational Re- publican and a physician with all the advantages and taste of the aristocratic landed gentry. Land, money and political power are still the three dominant factors in his social inher- itance. Through the generations they have become the natu- ral family expectancy.
When Mathew Griswold, the pioneer, decided to make a permanent home for himself and his family on the "east side of the river" it appears that he began to gather about him other settlers of similar independence and social conviction. Some of these were his neighbors in Saybrook, others were former friends and neighbors in England. Thomas Lee, the first, belonged to this latter group.
Thomas Lee sailed from England in 1641, together with his wife and her father, Mr. Brown. Mrs. Lee was probably the sister of the Chad Brown who aided Roger Williams in the settlement of the Providence Plantations and became the forerunner of the well known and influential Brown family of that city. With the Lees were their three children, Phoebe, Jane and Thomas. On the passage across Thomas Lee died of smallpox and his family were left to make their home for a considerable number of years in Saybrook. Mrs. Lee later re- married and her father went to join his son in Providence. In 1660, however, the second Thomas Lee, then a man grown, took over the family holdings which his father had purchased before leaving England. These holdings adjoined the exten- sive acreage of Mathew Griswold and on them he built the first wing of the present Thomas Lee house. In the course of events he became the head of a long line of influential men and women and at one time was said to have owned one- eighth of the town of Lyme. A man of dominant personality, he gave to his ever widening circle of progeny a rich herit- age in land, power and social advantage. His family did much
5. Salisbury, Family Histories and Genealogies, II, 1-120.
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to create the prevailing social philosophy of the present town of Old Lyme.
Thomas Lee's first wife was Sarah Kirkland of Saybrook, whose family contributed many leaders to public life. Among these was Samuel Kirkland, the famous missionary to the Oneida Indians, and his son, John Kirkland, the fifteenth president of Harvard. This Thomas Lee, the second, and Sarah Kirkland Lee had three children, John, Thomas and Sarah; and after her death he married Mary DeWolfe, daughter of Balthazar DeWolfe, one of the first proprietors of Lyme. They in turn had four daughters. Through these seven children, Thomas Lee became connected by marriage with many of the most important families in the colony. Among these were the Marvins, Griswolds, Hydes, Sills and Pecks. Through these marriages his circle of influence was in- creased and strengthened. His social convictions were thus firmly enmeshed in the social thinking of the oncoming gen- erations in Lyme.
The Lee records are invaluable as showing the effect of marriage customs upon group solidarity and social influence. A. Thomas Lee's sister, Jane Lee, married Mr. Hyde of Nor- wich and their daughter, Elizabeth, married Mathew Gris- wold of Lyme. She was the mother of the Rev. George Gris- wold and John Griswold and grandmother of Governor Matthew Griswold6 previously referred to. Thomas Lee's sec- ond son, Thomas, married Elizabeth Graham of Hartford and they had four daughters. Their second daughter, Eliza- beth, married her cousin, the Rev. George Griswold, and the Lee-Griswold influence was further extended. In the mean- time Thomas Lee's niece, Elizabeth Hyde, the wife of Mathew Griswold, had died and after Thomas Lee's death his widow, Mary DeWolfe Lee, married this Mathew Gris- wold, her nephew by marriage. Some years later a marriage took place between her daughter, Hannah Lee, and his son, John Griswold. By this constant intermarriage within the group, money, land and influence became centralized.
6. Salisbury, Family Histories and Genealogies, III, 1-15.
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The Lees were people of wealth and social standing in their day as is shown by their extensive landholdings and the important offices which they held. In 1713 the old house, now greatly enlarged, was swung about to face the new high- way to Nehantick. Here in the "Judgement Hall" the third Thomas Lee, known as Deacon Lee or Mr. Justice Lee, held his courts. The wall is decorated with Tudor Roses and the illuminated "dying charge" of John Lee, the older brother. This charge is suggestive of the religious convictions of the Lee family and of the prevailing practices of that day.7 In it Deacon Lee charged his children to fear God and keep his commandments, to uphold public worship with diligence, to be constant in the duty of secret prayer, and to have family prayers twice daily all the years of their lives. He further charged that they avoid all evil company and excess in drink- ing and profaneness, and that they be always dutiful to their mother and kind to one another. This charge he left to all his posterity to the end of the world.
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