USA > Connecticut > The history of Connecticut, from the first settlement of the colony to the adoption of the present constitution, vol. II > Part 23
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" After a series of accumulated wrong and injury, [they] have proceeded to invade said colonies with fleets and armies, to destroy our towns, shed the blood of our country- men, and involve us in the calamities incident to war ; and are endeavoring to reduce us to an abject surrender of our natural and stipulated rights, and subject our property to the most precarious dependence on their arbitrary will and pleasure, and our persons to slavery ; and at length have declared us out of the king's protection, have engaged for- eign mercenaries against us, and are evidently and strenu- ously seeking our ruin and destruction. These and many other transactions, too well known to need enumeration, the painful experience and effects of which we have suffered and feel, make it evident, beyond the possibility of a doubt, that we have nothing to hope from the justice, humanity, or temperate council of the British King or his Parliament, and that all hopes of a reconciliation upon just and equal terms are delusory and vain."*
The reader will observe that in all former records, the popular indignation has been expended upon the other branches of the government, while the king has been spoken
* Hinman's Revolution, 94.
263
DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE.
[1776.]
of in the most loyal and kindly terms. But now no exception is made in favor of royalty.
The following invocation found in the same connection, will show what power they intended should be forever after the only object of their homage and adoration :
" Appealing to that God who knows the secrets of all hearts, for the sincerity of former declarations of our desire to preserve our ancient and constitutional relation to that nation, and protesting solemnly against their oppression and injustice, which have driven us from them and compelled us to use such means as God in his providence hath put in our power for our necessary defense and preservation :
" Resolved, unanimously, by this Assembly, that the dele- gates of this colony in General Congress, be and they are hereby instructed to propose to that respectable body to declare the United American Colonies Free and Independ- ent States, absolved from all allegiance to the King of Great Britain, and to give the assent of this colony to such declarations."*
Thus did the colony for the first time discard the maxim of the British constitution, that the king can do no wrong ; and while the members of the Assembly were, without a dissenting vote, promulgating these sentiments to the world, the Committee of Congress, composed of Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston, were engaged in preparing the form of the Declaration of Independence, to which, on the 4th of July, were set the signatures of Roger Sherman, Samuel Hunt- ington, William Williams, and Oliver Wolcott-names that will be household words in every family in the state, as long as the principles of 1776 shall survive in the hearts of the people.
There is an incident connected with Litchfield, that is worthy of notice here, as it illustrates the character of our people, and the part that the mothers and daughters of that generation, played in the drama of the Revolution.
* Hinman, 94, 95.
264
HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT.
General Wolcott, who was a member of the Continental Congress, and a signer of the Declaration of Independence, was a resident of Litchfield, and spent his congressional vacations at home in answering the demands made for troops upon the north-western part of the state, by Washington, Putnam, and Gates.
On the 21st of August, 1770, the birth-day of Prince Frederick, the father of George the third, an equestrian statue of his majesty was erected in New York, on the Bowling-Green, near Fort George. The statue was made principally of lead, but was the work of Wilton, a celebrated statuary of London, and was very elegant and richly gilded, so that it had the appearance of being solid gold. The cere- mony of its erection was the occasion of much festivity in New York. The king's council, the city corporation, the chamber of commerce, and the marine society, as well as the gentlemen of the city and army, paid their respects to Lieutenant-Governor Colden at the fort, by special invita- tion, and drank the "king's health" under the inspiring influ- ences of music, and the discharge of thirty-two pieces of cannon from the Battery. No doubt, after the fifth bumper, these gentlemen were loyal enough to have drank immortality to the statue, as well as to the king. But sad as the reflection may be, it is none the less true, that, although by the theory of the British constitution the king never dies, yet the works of men's hands are perishable, and the features of royalty fade even from brass and iron, to say nothing of the more impressible metals that may sometimes, with more propriety, represent sceptred sovereignty. The eighteenth century was remarkable for its desire to look beneath the surfaces of things, and appears, not long after the statue was placed, to have begun, even in New York, to make a very irreverent application of the maxim, " all is not gold that glitters." I is quite likely that one of the very first experiments was made upon this statue, and that the qualities of the metal were tested, in the year 1773, with that corosive acid first discovered in Connecticut, and afterwards constantly carried
265
HIS MAJESTY'S STATUE OVERTHROWN.
[1776.]
in the pockets of those peripatetic philosophers, called "SONS OF LIBERTY." Had it not been so, it is not likely that we should find, under date of the 6th of February, of that year, an act entitled an act "to prevent the defacing of statues, which are erected in the city of New York."
Under the protection of this statute, the equestrian king, with the exception of the ordinary wear of time, seems to have continued to bestride his charger, and to have met the morning sun with a countenance equally golden, until the year 1776.
On the night of the eleventh of July, seven days after the Declaration of Independence had been given to the world, the "SONS OF LIBERTY" paid his majesty a visit in good earnest. They treated him with a shocking familiarity. A gentleman who stood near enough to witness the interview, after the party in attendance had assisted the king to alight, could not forbear exclaiming in the words of the Angel to Lucifer :
" If thou be'st he-but ah ! how fallen, how changed !"
What they did with the king, where they carried him, and what was the fate of one, who, by the laws of the country that he governed, could not be allowed to die, was for a long time a mystery. The next morning the pedestal was in its old place, but the horse and his rider were gone. In vain might the loyal British governor search for them, and in vain might the tories of the city shed tears, as they looked the town and country over to restore to its place the presiding genius of the Battery. That benignant face never beamed upon them again.
Meanwhile, not like Cardinal Wolsey, by easy stages, but rather like General Putnam, by forced marches, and doubtless under cover of darkness, the monarch was led away into Connecticut. He was taken far inland over a rough country, and made to climb high hills. They finally committed him to the care of General Wolcott, who was probably at home, and ready to receive his kingly guest with his usual courtly hospitality, not long after the eleventh of July.
266
HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT.
The fate of the statue is briefly told. General Wolcott treated its ponderous masses as military stores. He caused a shed to be built for the broken statue in the apple orchard near his house, and chopped it up with an axe into pieces of a convenient size to be melted into bullets, that the king's troops, in the words of Mr. Hazard, might "have melted majesty fired at them." The account current, that will be found in the subjoined note,* is full of meaning, and will
* This account is in the handwriting of Governor Wolcott, and is as follows :
" Mrs. Marvin, . . 3456 cartridges.
66 66 on former account,. 2602
6058
Ruth Marvin on former account, .. 6204
Not sent to court house, 449 packs, 5388
11,592
Laura, on former account,. 4250
Not sent to court house, 344 packs,. 4128
8378
Mary Ann, on former account, .. 5762
Not sent to the court house 119 packs, out of which I let Colonel Parley Howe have 3 packs,. .. 5028
10,790
Frederick, on former account, 708
Not sent to court house, 19 packs,.
228
936
37,754
Mrs. Beach's two accounts,. 2002
Made by sundry persons,. ... 2182
Gave Litchfield militia, on alarm, 50
Let the regiment of Col. Wigglesworth have 300
Cartridges, No.
42,288
Overcharged in Mrs. Beach's account, 200
42,088
On the back of this account is written in the same handwriting, this brief explanation. "An account of the number of cartridges made." .
The following additional memorandum, is in the handwriting of his son, the last Governor Wolcott.
"N. B. An equestrian statue of George the Third of Great Britain, was erected in the city of New York on the Bowling Green, at the lower end of Broadway; most of the materials were lead, but richly gilded to resemble gold.
267
MELTING THE STATUE.
[1776.]
possess, for those who know the characteristics of the families represented in it, the lively features of a picture. It illustrates what has been said in the first volume of this work, that our Wolcotts, both male and female, were always ready to labor with their hands whenever the situation of the country and the public good seemed to call for their services. With the aid of this little account, we are able to take a peep into the family mansion of the first Oliver Wolcott, during one of those social gatherings, in the winter of 1776-'7. By the inspiring warmth of a hickory fire, we can see the sly looks of the fair young ladies, and the approving smile of the elder ones, as that handsome iconoclast, Frederick, places the ladle upon the live coals, piled high with fragments of the statue. Mrs. Marvin, Mrs. Beach, Miss Laura Wolcott, Miss Mary Ann Wolcott, and Miss Ruth Marvin, must have made some unloyal witticisms at the expense of the late king, as they saw a dissolving view of an eye, an ear, or a nose, that was about to assume a globular form and be put at last in the way of being useful. Forty-two thousand and eighty-eight bullets, in times when lead was dear, and not easily to be had at any price, made no insignificant accession to the resources of the continental army. They were carefully distributed and
faithfully expended. Some of them were committed to the keeping of Colonel Wigglesworth; others must have aided Putnam in defending the Highlands; a part of them may have gone with Major Seymour, to Saratoga ; and it is cer- tain, that fifty of them were used to welcome the king's pro- vincial governor, when he paid his first and last visit to Danbury.
This incident was one of many that might be related, as illustrating the general fact, that the ladies throughout the state were willing to perform any manual labor that would
At the beginning of the revolution this statue was overthrown. Lead being then scarce and dear, the statue was broken in pieces, and the metal transported to Litchfield as a place of safety. The ladies of this village converted the lead into cartridges, of which the preceding is an account. O. W."
For a careful examination of all the evidence, and a minute list of the authorities relating to this incident, see Woodruff's Hist. of Litchfield.
268
HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT.
serve the cause, for which they were ready to give up their own lives, as well as those of their sons, their husbands, and fathers. It was indeed madness to attempt to subdue a people that had been nurtured and trained by women, who would not only deprive themselves of the most ordinary household comforts, and raise with their own hands the grain that they afterwards made into bread, but who would, also, mould the bullets and shape the cartridges that were needed to emanci- pate their country .*
* In another part of this work, I have brought down the genealogy of the Wol- cott family, from a period of remote antiquity, to Henry Wolcott, Esq., the Pioneer. From him it is continued as follows :
1. Simon Wolcott, (son of Henry,) was born in 1625; married Martha Pitkin, sister of William Pitkin, the ancestor of the Pitkin family of Connecticut. He was admitted a freeman of Connecticut colony in May, 1654; and died in 1687. Martha, his widow, died in 1719.
2. Roger Wolcott, (son of Simon,) was born in Windsor, Jan. 4, 1679. In the expedition against Canada, in 1711, he was a commissary of the Connecticut forces ; and at the capture of Louisbourg, in 1745, he bore the commission of major-general. He was successively a member of the assembly and of the council, judge of the county court, deputy governor, chief judge of the superior court, and from 1751 to 1754, governor. His wife was Sarah Drake, who died in 1747. He departed this life, May 17, 1767, aged eighty-eight years.
3. Oliver Wolcott, LL.D., (son of Roger,) was born in 1726; graduated at Yale College, in 1747; married Laura Collins, who died in 1794. He studied medicine, and settled in Goshen, in the practice of his profession. On the organization of the county of Litchfield, in 1751, he was appointed high sheriff, and soon after removed to Litchfield. He was a brigadier-general in the revolu- tion, member of the Continental Congress, signer of the Declaration of Inde- pendence, lieutenant-governor, and governor. He died December 1, 1797, aged seventy-one. His brother, Erastus Wolcott, was a brigadier-general in the revo- lution, a member of Congress, and judge of the superior court. He died Sept. 14, 1793.
4. Oliver Wolcott, LL. D., (son of the preceding Oliver,) was a native of Litchfield. He was comptroller of the state of Connecticut, Secretary of the Treasury of the United States under President Washington, and governor of Connecticut for ten years. He died in New York in 1833, leaving two sons, viz. Col. Oliver S., and Dr. John S. Dr. Oliver Wolcott, now of San Francisco, California, is a son of the former.
5. Frederick Wolcott, (also a son of the first Oliver, and brother of the second,) was in public life for more than forty years. He was a gentleman of stately manners, courteous, benevolent, and hospitable. He died in 1837. His
269
DOINGS OF THE ASSEMBLY.
[1776.]
During this year, there were five sessions of the General Assembly, three of which were specially called. At the regular session in May, the governor was, by a special act, made the chief naval officer of the colony, and was authorized to appoint subordinate officers at each of the ports of New Haven, New London, Middletown, and Norwich. A maritime jurisdiction was also given to the county courts. By another act, all the troops of horse in the colony were formed into five regiments of light-horse. Large detachments of militia were ordered to hold themselves in readiness to march at the shortest notice, for the defense of the colony. One regiment was directed to be raised for the continental service, and another to be stationed about New London. Sixty thousand pounds in Bills of Credit were issued, and a tax of eight-pence on a pound was laid.
Andrew Ward was appointed colonel, Obadiah Johnson, lieutenant-colonel, and William Douglas, major, of the regi- ment to be raised to serve in the continental army .* Of the regiment to be stationed at or near New London, David Waterbury, Jr., was appointed colonel ; Comfort Sage, lieut .- colonel; and Oliver Smith, major. Benjamin Hinman, Philip Burr Bradley, and David Dimon, were appointed to the cor- responding offices in the regiment to be raised for the defense of the colony.t
At the special session in June, an act was passed to raise two regiments by enlistment to reinforce the continental army in the northern department. David Waterbury, Jr., was appointed brigadier-general, and Samuel Mott and Heman Swift were appointed colonels of this detachment. Seven regiments, including the one raised in May, were ordered to march immediately and join the continental
first wife was Betsey Huntington ; his second, Sally W. Goodrich, of the old Goodrich family of Wethersfield.
"Some of the family have been members of the assembly, judges of the Superior Court, or magistrates, from the first settlement of the colony to this time, during the term of more than a century and a half." Trumbull, i. 227.
* Dr. Benjamin Trumbull, was appointed chaplain of this regiment.
+ Hinman, 97, 100.
270
HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT.
army in New York. James Wadsworth, Jr., was appointed brigadier-general ; Gold S. Silliman, Charles Webb, Philip B. Bradley, Jedediah Huntington, Fisher Gay, Comfort Sage, John Douglas, Samuel Selden, William Douglas, John Chester, and Erastus Wolcott, were appointed colonels.
The sessions in October, November, and December, were mainly occupied in providing for the raising and equipping of new troops, appointing officers, levying taxes, issuing Bills of Credit, and in other ways contributing their full proportion to the advancement and success of the great struggle in which the state was engaged. It will suffice here to add, that Connecticut sustained five heavy drafts for actual service during the year. The first, a large one from the western section, marched for the defense of New York ; the second, for the defense of New London and Long Island ; the third, from the eastern section of the state, for Westchester county, N. Y .; the fourth, for the defense of Rhode Island ; the fifth, was a draft for the defense and protection of the western frontier .*
At the December session, all the militia in the state was formed into six brigades : David Wooster and Jabez Hun- tington, were appointed major-generals ; and Eliphalet Dyer, Gurdon Saltonstall, Oliver Wolcott, Erastus Wolcott, James Wadsworth, and Gold S. Silliman, brigadier-generals.
Let us now return to the American camp. It had for some time been the desire of Congress that General Wash- ington should repair to Philadelphia, and have an interview with them. As the British army was now absent, and the American works were in a state of great completeness, Washington, on the 21st of May, set out for Philadelphia, leaving the whole army in charge of General Putnam, who from that time until the 6th of June, was to all intents the acting commander-in-chief of the American army, and was authorized to open all letters addressed to General Washing- ton on matters pertaining to the public service. During this period of about fifteen days, Putnam found abundant scope
* Hinman, 110, 111.
271
BUSHNELL'S "AMERICAN TURTLE."
[1776.]
for the employment of his powers. To finish the works already begun, to lay the foundations of new ones, to estab- lish suitable signals, to add to the quantity of powder of which the supply was as yet too scanty, and to secure it in a safe place of deposit to provide for the defense of the High- lands-and many other matters of a public and general nature-kept him so constantly occupied, that he had scarcely time to eat or sleep. But he had a certain task assigned him of a more private and delicate nature, that could not have been committed to better or more experi- enced hands. This commission was no other than that of affording aid to the Provincial Congress of New York, in apprehending their own citizens who were tories, and keep- ing them out of the way of doing mischief.
It was towards the close of June before General Howe, who had at last been sufficiently reinforced to make it safe for him again to set himself in hostile array against Wash- ington, appeared off New York with the British fleet and army. To obstruct the passage of the ships, Putnam, who had command of the whale-boats, fire-rafts, flat-bottomed boats and armed vessels, lent his personal attention to a project, that had well nigh proved successful, of blowing the whole fleet out of the harbor by means of a machine that had been invented by Mr. David Bushnell, of Saybrook, by which the art of submarine navigation was brought to a greater state of perfection than it had ever been before. This sea-monster was called the American Turtle, and was so constructed that it could be propelled under the water in a horizontal line, at any given depth, and could be raised or lowered at the will of the operator. There was attached to the turtle a magazine of powder, that was to be fastened under the bottom of the doomed ship by a screw. The same stroke that severed the turtle from the magazine, was made to set in motion a piece of internal clock-work that was so contrived as to set the powder on fire at the end of a given period of time.
+ Humphreys.
272
HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT.
Unfortunately for the success of the first trial, that was to be made upon the Eagle, a sixty-four gun ship, having on board Lord Howe, the British admiral, and some of the choicest officers of the army, Bushnell's brother, who was the principal engineer, was sick, and the turtle was com- mitted to an unskillful hand. The screw that had been made to pierce the copper-plates, struck by accident an iron one, and of course did not penetrate it. The magazine consequently drifted away from the ship, and when it exploded, did no other harm to the British admiral than to give him a sad fright, as, with the noise of an earthquake, it threw its column of water high into the air .*
This same David Bushnell afterwards invented other machines, which destroyed a ship off the Long Island shore, and subsequently gave the British fleet at Philadelphia that fright in the winter of 1777 which was celebrated by the witty Mr. Hopkinson in his poem, called "The Battle of the Kegs."t The repetition of the experiment was prevented by the great events that soon followed. The British ships, day after day, brought additional troops to swell the ranks of the invading army. In spite of all the efforts that had been made to prevent the fleet from getting possession of the North river, the Phoenix, the Rose, and two tenders, in the face of a heavy cannonade, accomplished this dangerous feat on the night of the 15th of July, and, sailing up as far as Tarrytown, took their station in front of that place.t
By the 21st of July, only five thousand of the new troops that had been ordered, had arrived in the American camp, and they were many of them so ill-equipped as to be almost unfit for service. Many of the colonies failed to send their
* Humphreys.
+ About Christmas, 1777, Mr. Bushnell committed to the Delaware river a number of his "infernal machines," in the form of kegs, which he designed should float down and destroy the British fleet at Philadelphia ; but the strange squadron, having been separated and retarded by the ice, demolished but a single boat. This catastrophe, however, produced an alarm unprecedented in its nature and degree, which is most happily described in the poem referred to.
# Gordon.
273
THE NUMBER OF OUR TROOPS.
[1776.]
quota, while others made exertions quite beyond their means. Early in August, the aspect of affairs in and about New York was so threatening, that, at the earnest solicitation of General Washington, the governor and council of Connec- ticut directed the whole of the standing militia west of Connecticut river, together with two regiments on the east side, to march forthwith to New York city. Though a busy and important season for farmers, this order was promptly carried into effect. This body of troops comprised fourteen regiments, and, at a moderate computation, must have amounted to at least ten thousand men. About the same time, a large proportion of the remainder of the militia on the east side of the river was called to the defense of New London, and to aid the inhabitants of Suffolk county, L. I. There were, therefore, at this time not less than twenty thousand of the inhabitants of Connecticut in actual service, most of whom had been marched out of the state for the defense of New York .*
Washington's whole force, including the sick who were present and absent, amounted to only seventeen thousand two hundred and twenty-five. Most of these were raw troops, and could hardly be estimated at eight thousand effective men. Besides, they were scattered over a wide surface of country. Some of the corps were fifteen miles apart. This army was so destitute of lead that the citizens of New York were compelled to strip their windows and the roofs of their houses to supply the demand. One house fur- nished twelve hundred pounds .; In other necessary articles whole companies were equally deficient.
Thus it appears that Connecticut had furnished and kept in the field full one half of the American army commanded by Washington.
* Hinman, 106, 107.
t At a session of the Governor and Council of Connecticut, July 2, 1776, it was " Voted, That a quantity of lead owned by Jonathan Kilbourn, Esq., of Col- chester, and used by him on the water-wheel of his saw-mill, shall not be taken from him for public use until actually wanted ; and then only by the selectmen of Colchester, without further orders."
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