USA > Connecticut > New Haven County > Hamden > The history of Hamden, Connecticut, 1786-1936 > Part 2
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Indian Corn Grinding Stone, Dunbar Hill Road
Christopher Todd House, 1665, South of the Mill Dam
Gift of Arnold G. Dana
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I3
The Colonial Period
where they had 30 acres of tillable land. In 1638 there were 47 in Momauguin's band, and 10 warriors and their families in that of Montowese. Charles Towns- hend* estimates that there were 100 around New Ha- ven in 1680. Their last sachem died about 1730, and by 1773 most of the survivors had gone to join their cousins, the Tunxis, at Farmington. In 1807, when Reverend Timothy Gillett came to Branford, there was only one squaw remaining, Lydia by name, who came once or twice from her wigwam to attend his midweek lecture, leaving with the final prayer. With her death at the age of sixty-eight, the Quinnipiacs disappeared from this immediate region.
The melancholy story of Nepaupuck is illustrative of the effect upon the red man of the white man's occu- pancy of his lands. Nepaupuck, the only person ever executed upon the New Haven Green, was put to death in 1638, charged with the murder of a number of white men. His head was cut off and set on a pole in the pub- lic marketplace. The Indians never understood the ways of the white man. They had a culture of their own, they pursued with wholehearted devotion the ideals of bravery, protection of family and tribe, loyalty, patriotism, calm and courage, and notably a silent and stoic endurance of physical pain. With a remarkable dignity, when he heard his death sentence, Nepaupuck said simply, "It is well." Was his red skin the reason that it was not deemed commendable for him to fight for his land and his people?
Arrowheads have been found in reasonable numbers in the soil of Hamden, telling only that these common and necessary implements were used in hunting food.
* The Quinnipiac Indians.
14
The History of Hamden
It is good to know that the Indians fought no wars on our land, that no man's blood was shed here in battle by this peaceful tribe of Quinnipiacs who were our town's original residents, and whose great regard for our Blue Hills Sleeping Giant surpassed our own, actually amounting to awe and veneration.
THE BEGINNINGS OF NEW HAVEN
For a century and a half before Hamden became a separate town it formed a part of New Haven. The prominent men among the New Haven colonists who influenced the early history of Hamden bore names which it is well to remember: Eaton, Davenport, Tur- ner, Gilbert, Yale, Mansfield, Newman, Miles, Todd, Tuttle, Atwater, Potter, Munson, Woodin, Pardee, Warner, Dorman, Sackett, Dickerman, Wilmot, and Ives. Names of our worthy peers are these, equals who typified the common rank of all in a community of civil brothers. We think how "such a one was strong, and such a one was bold, and such was fortunate,"* and as townsmen we can be proud of our inherited belief in civil and religious liberty, good government, and the enlargement of the minds and hearts of men-ideals which they undauntedly pursued, sometimes under great hardships, throughout the history of the town.
The New Haven colonists kept their first Sabbath on April 18, 1638. They heard a sermon delivered by their leader, Reverend John Davenport, under a spread- ing oak. Oak trees are an important and appropriate historic symbol in Connecticut.
On June 4, 1639, all the free planters convened in Robert Newman's large barn to lay with due solemnity
* Robert Browning, Childe Roland.
I 5
The Colonial Period
the foundations of their civil and religious life. This was done after a day of fasting and prayer. Mr. Daven- port began the meeting with a sermon from the text, "Wisdom hath builded her house, she hath hewn out her seven pillars." In the "Planters Covenant," which III persons signed, civil and church matters were to be ordered by rules taken from the Scriptures, "settling civil government according to God."
The men chosen to act as the Seven Pillars-Theo- philus Eaton, John Davenport, Robert Newman, Mat- thew Gilbert, Thomas Fugill, John Punderson, and Jeremiah Dixon-were entrusted with all the powers and responsibilities attendant upon the government of the Colony. On October 25, 1639, they first convened in their function as "the Court."
One of the earliest responsibilities of the new govern- ment was the allotment of lands and the laying out of highways. It was the custom in England to set aside common land on which cattle could be pastured, fire- wood gathered and garden stuff raised. The colonists established a similar plan, except that the land was actually owned by the proprietors and held by them in an undivided use. The pasturelands far out from the town were used in common by all who had livestock, and the Green, or marketplace, in the center of New Haven also was used in common. Similarly the first ground laid under cultivation, in "the Neck" (the name given to the land between Mill River and the Quinni- piac, now Fair Haven), which was probably first tilled by the Indians, was let out to a number of the colonists, at first for a period of seven years. Cattle were pastured in the Neck, but more of them were cared for in the cow pasture lying east of Beaver Ponds, and in the ox pas- ture on the west side of it. Before long the ox pasture
16
The History of Hamden
was cleared of timber and cut up into small cultivated strips, and a new one was opened beside Pine Rock.
Whenever a distribution of land was to be made, either because an individual asked for a town lot or farm or perhaps a road was to be laid out, a committee was appointed to "view" the property and make a report to the town. Such committeemen had to be practical in estimating the value of uncleared land, the cost and trouble of removing stumps and large stones, and of widening foot paths for the passage of ox teams. They had nevertheless enjoyed cultural advantages back in England; they were men of vision who had chosen this place in which to build an ideal community; and, weari- some and difficult as the practical labor might be, their goal was always in their minds. As they worked, they ยท did not fail to appreciate the unspoiled beauties of the majestic forest trees, the sparkling brooks, the song of the birds; and they dreamed of the rich and pros- perous future which they were establishing.
When the colonists entrusted the surveyor John Brockett with the task of laying out the meets and bounds of their town plat, they had in mind a large and beautiful city, and they placed a central square, with eight others around it. Here the dwelling houses clus- tered about the church, and within a radius of two miles out in all directions from this focal point was the land which was used for the immediate needs of the settlers. Drawn on the map today, this circle takes in City Point, the edge of West Haven, and the west side of Edge- wood Park, Beaver Ponds, and St. John the Baptist Church; approaches Mill Rock, bisects East Rock, and encloses Fair Haven to the Quinnipiac.
There were nine general distributions, or "Divi- sions," of farming lands. The First Division, in 1640,
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The Colonial Period
was of land within the two-mile limit, and was soon fol- lowed by the Second Division, of lands stretching far- ther out from the center. The Third Division was made in 1680, and succeeding ones came in 1704, 1710, 1726, 1737, 1753, and 1760. On the whole the allotments in them were small; only men of considerable property were large landholders. Allotments were based on the size of the immediate family as well as on the amount of property owned. The table on page 18 shows the size of family and the first holdings of the more prominent colonists who affected Hamden's history, and most of their holdings were located within the present limits of Hamden.
Almost all the holdings here listed were along the East or Quinnipiac River; and it was in that region that Hamden lands were first cultivated.
One of the most important institutions in the Colony was the mill, to which every family must take its corn to be ground. In 1640, Sergeant William Fowler con- structed the grist mill at what is now Lake Whitney dam, and from it Mill River and the Mill Meadows received their names.
THE EAST RIVER FARMS
In the first allotment of farming lands the leading men of the Colony were permitted to select for them- selves large portions along the banks of the Quinnipiac River, far out from the center. John Davenport made his selection on the east bank, more than a mile square. It was tilled for him by Alling Ball, who was excused from military service so that he could take care of it. Governor Eaton took for his portion a large tract on the west side of the river, in what is now North Haven. In
Names of the Planters
Persons Numbered
Estates Pounds
First Div.
Neck
Land Holdings, Acres Meadow Second Div.
00
Th. Eaton
6
3,000
165
33
153
612
David Yale
I
300
I7
3
15
62
W. Tuttle
7
450
37
7
26
107
Capt. Turner
7
800
57
II
43
I74
Richard Perry
3
260
20
20
14
58
J. Davenport
3
1,000
57
II
51
206
M. Gilbert
2
600
35
7
31
I24
Jasper Crane
3
480
16
21
25
20
Matthew Rowe
6
1,000
65
13
53
212
R. Mansfield
4
400
30
6
22
88
R. Miles
7
400
37
7
23
94
R. Platt
4
200
20
4
12
48
Will Potter
4
40
I2
26
4
16
Thomas Yale
2
100
IO
2
6
24
John Punderson
2
180
14
34
IO
40
John Johnson
5
150
20
4
IO
40
John Evance
I
500
27
5
25
102
Francis Newman
2
160
13
18
9
36
David Atwater
I
500
24
141
Robert Newman
2
700
40
8
36
144
Richard Beckley
4
20
II
34
3
12
Francis Brewster
9
1,000
35
7
54
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The History of Hamden
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The Colonial Period
1659 this farm came into the possession of Eaton's step- son, Thomas Yale, whose brother David (father of Elihu), was also a landholder. Thomas Yale, 2d, set- tled in Wallingford and was prominent in the early days of that town, the beginnings of which probably came through a petition which included the names of two Mansfields, Isaac Whitehead, and Jonathan Tuttle in 1662, asking for grants of land above Mr. Yale's.
Jonathan Tuttle, son of William who came to New Haven in 1639, was one of the Wallingford "covenant- ers." According to the North Haven Annals, he located on the Quinnipiac in 1670 and built a bridge across the river, at which he was allowed to take toll. It is hard to imagine any great revenue accruing to him from the fees collected for crossing his bridge in so sparsely set- tled a neighborhood. In 1683 he offered to exchange his Third Division land for some nearer the Blue Hills. His grandson Nathaniel, born in 1714, married in the 1730's and his eight children were born in Mount Car- mel.
A prominent landowner in that region was William Jones, Governor Eaton's son-in-law. He was granted 1 50 acres in 1668 between the crossing and the foot of the Blue Hills. He came over from England in the same ship with the Regicides, sheltered them in his house in New Haven, and led them from the mill to Judges' Cave. He had a natural sympathy for them, as his father had been put to death for the same reasons that they were now being hunted.
Governor Eaton was buried on the New Haven Green in 1657, the General Court providing a "comely" altar tomb as a memorial to him. This was moved in later years to the Grove Street Cemetery; and in 1938 the Eaton Cenotaph was unveiled directly back of Cen-
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The History of Hamden
ter Church. This monument was designed by the Hamden architect, J. Frederick Kelly. The words engraved to his memory are the same on both stones:
Eaton, so faimed, so wise, so just, The Phoenix of our world, here lies his dust, This name forget, New England never must.
Captain Turner, the commander of the Colony's military forces, free to choose a farm where he liked, took over a tract just north of East Rock, extending from Mill River to the Quinnipiac. North of the Tur- ner land were the farms selected by Matthew Gilbert and Robert Newman. North of these two farms, yet to the south of Governor Eaton's holdings, were farms dis- tributed in the allotment of lands, belonging to John Punderson, Richard Miles, Francis Brewster, and Richard Mansfield.
These earliest landholders were not settlers at the beginning, and it is not certain when the farms were actually occupied. David Atwater was probably the earliest to live on the land, and he may have been Ham- den's earliest settler. His farm included East Rock and the surrounding region between the two rivers. He appears to have been on the ground by 1645, although he also possessed a houselot in town and may have lived for part of the year on each place. He first built on the Neck Lane (now State Street) next to Captain Turner, but later removed to Cedar Hill. A hundred years ago members of the Atwater family occupied all the farms along State Street for a distance of two miles.
The servants of Captain Turner and Governor Eaton may have been living on the farms as early as 1645. By 1648 Vangoodenhausen and Mansfield were occupy-
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The Colonial Period
ing their farmhouses a part of each year. In the same year, 1648, houses were built along the Quinnipiac River by Richard Miles, Francis Newman, and Sergeant Richard Beckley. Francis Brewster went down with the Phantom Ship, and his farm east of the river became Alling Ball's; the one on the west bank went to William Bradley, who had been an officer in Oliver Cromwell's army. Mr. Bradley moved to his farm about 1649, and is accounted the first inhabitant of North Haven.
William Potter acquired land along the Quinnipiac River in 1647, and four years later he purchased the farmhouse of Robert Newman. The Matthew Gilbert place was sold off in part to Richard Newman and Wil- liam Bassett in 1661. Bassett's sons John and Samuel later had homes in the neighborhood of the Mill Pond.
There were other servants besides Alling Ball to acquire farms on the east side. Henry Hummerston, who had worked for Captain Turner, settled there in 1662 between the farms of Miles and Mansfield. That neighborhood became known as the "Little Quarter."
Most of the lands between the Mill and Quinnipiac Rivers had been conveyed to individual ownership by 1680, and dwelling houses dotted the sides of State Street (known at that time as Neck Lane). The sons, sons-in-law, and servants of the leading families of the Colony had made their homes there. Their sons and daughters intermarried, and gradually the old distinc- tions between master and servant came to an end.
SETTLERS ON THE HAMDEN PLAINS
The earliest allotments on the west side of town were made to Adam Nicholls, John Thompson, William Davis, Richard Newman, Thomas Mitchell, Thomas
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The History of Hamden
Morris, Robert Pigg, Francis Browne, Thomas Bea- mont, John Vincent, Will Russell, Christopher Todd, Thomas Munson, Benjamin Wilmot, and others; and a tract was reserved for "a brickmaker." On November 29, 1641, it was provided that owners of land on the east side of the Quinnipiac might exchange their hold- ings for land at the farther end of the "Great Plain" on the western side, at the rate of six acres for a single man, eight for a couple, and an acre additional for each child. At the same time Browne, Morris, Russell, Bea- mont, Pigg, Davis, and two others, John Wilforde and Abraham Smith asked for land at the Plains, and a committee of four-Nicholls, Munson, and Robert and Francis Newman-were appointed "to view the com- mon way to the Plains." In 1644 similar committees. were "viewing" Beaver Meadows and Pine Rock Meadows.
The probable reason for the landowners being sent out to the "farther end" of the Plain was the necessity of conserving pasture and timber lands nearer the cen- ter. The ox pasture and cow pasture were in between, and at one time the former comprised 460 acres. A tract of 20 acres was set aside in 1645 for pasturing strangers' horses, and was granted to William Andrews, who was the Colony's leading carpenter. He built the Newman barn in which the colonists met to set up their form of government.
At the foot of West Rock in 1647 was a tract of 24 acres which had belonged to Thomas Fugill and which contained beds of clay suitable for brick-making; and in that year Benjamin Wilmot made application for the land, promising to build a house near-by on the lot which he already owned. This may have been the house
23
The Colonial Period
where William Wilmot, son of Benjamin, was living with his mother four years later when he asked to be excused from standing the town watch.
In 1644 Nehemiah Smith came to New Haven from Stratford and asked for 40 acres of upland and 10 of meadow by Oyster River for the raising of sheep. So much objection was made by his neighbors that the town authorities arranged for him to transfer his flock to the Neck. When he was asked to care for all the sheep of the town, he said that he wished to raise only his own; yet in 1649 he agreed to satisfy them, asking for land near the brook which flowed above the Plains beyond the Sequestered Lands. (These were lands that had not been especially desired for private holdings in the earlier divisions.) From his occupancy of the place, which was in the neighborhood of the southern end of the present Hamden Meadowbrook Country Club, the name of "Shepherd's Pen" became attached to the spot, and the stream became "Shepherd's Brook." Nehemiah Smith removed to New London in 1652. The physical hardships which he endured were many in wild, bleak, lonely territory, and with a constant struggle against the depredations of wolves.
Most prominent among the settlers on the Plains were the Sacketts, the Woodins, the Wilmots, and the Dormans. John Sackett, to whom George Sherwood Dickerman refers as "the pioneer," is believed to have come over from England at the age of three with his father, in the same ship which bore Roger Williams. He became the servant of Mrs. Abraham Stolyon, who owned a small shop, and he was once haled into court for having spoken disrespectfully of her. He went to law on two occasions, once to collect for some repairs to
-
24
The History of Hamden
a dwelling house, and again for his services in curing a neighbor's horse of the distemper. He was on the Plains about 1650.
William Woodin had been Captain Turner's servant at his farm on the Quinnipiac River. He must have been a harumscarum youth, for in 1643 he and eight others were fined for raising a disturbance at the prison, and a few years later he was accused of selling off Mr. Vangoodenhausen's hay and starving his cattle. How- ever, he settled down to a sober and responsible life when he took to himself a wife and bought of William Davis his house and fourteen acres at the farther end of the Plains, between the homes of Adam Nicholls and Robert Pigg. In 1656 he acquired six acres more, and three years later was granted an acre and a half, with the understanding that he must make room for a road to Pine Rock where stones, timber, and firewood could be obtained; this he evidently did, for in 1671 there was a highway through Dorman's and Sackett's lands, which lay beyond his property toward Pine Rock; and he had also built another house.
In 1649 Ralph Dayton bought a piece of ground and made his home on the Plains for several years, and then transferred his property to Philip Leek, who passed it on to William Wilmot in 1668. This land was close by the Pine Rock ox pasture.
Edmund Dorman in 1668 bought the Robert Foote house which was built in 1659, and the property was described as consisting of "forty-nine acres, east of the Cartpath which ran through the middle of the Plains (the present Dixwell Avenue); sixteen acres, west of the Cartpath, north of Sackett's; nine acres, Sackett on the north, William Woodin on the south, the Cartpath on the east, and the common on the west." The town
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The Colonial Period
for reasons of its own denied his request for three acres of swamp land.
A neighbor, in 1662, carelessly remarked that he had seen Dorman in the woods praying aloud for a wife, but he had reason to regret his disclosure, for Dorman promptly sued him for slander. Records show that Dorman was married within that year. Perhaps he did not wish the public to think that prayer had had any- thing to do with his finding of a mate.
Isaac Beecher acquired land on the Plains in 1652, and the adjoining property owners were Pigg, Sackett, Munson, Dayton, Bristow, and Russell. Matthew Rowe, the miller, owned a house just above Beaver Ponds. Although there still was much common land in this area, small individual grants were made about Beaver Ponds and, a little later, at Pine Rock.
The early settlers on the Plains were forced to go out some distance to establish their properties, because the ox and the cow pastures contained undivided lands beyond which they must go. The fact that the leading men of the Colony staked their claims on the east side makes it appear that that land was considered more de- sirable than the Plains.
In March, 1663, Matthew Gilbert asked for a tract above Shepherd's Pen, "because he was willing to try to rayse some food for his horses in winter to wont them there." He was granted forty acres for this pur- pose, and he set up a farm noted for the fine horses which he bred. In time he enlarged the size of his property, and attracted other settlers to build near him. The name of the locality soon changed from having been called "Shepherd's Pen" to "Gilbert's Farms," for the Gilberts came to stay and to establish a perma- nent home, whereas Nehemiah Smith, driven out of the
26
The History of Hamden
first two places where he had attempted to raise sheep, had come out here to the wilderness not so much because he wanted to make it his home as that there was nowhere else that he could go with his sheep. He became dis- couraged in a few years and gave up his venture. Not so the Gilberts who lived there for many generations.
Gilbert was one of the foremost men in the Colony, being deacon, assistant magistrate, and deputy governor. Third Division allotments in this section came into his hands, and in his will his heirs received land on the Plains, on Mill Lane, and in the "Little Quarter."
A simple gravestone in the rear of Center Church on the New Haven Green, the church in which Matthew Gilbert was one of the original Seven Pillars, bears the letters "M.G. 80." Many believe that this marks the spot where he was buried, although there has been much dispute about it among antiquarians. In any case he died in 1680, and this burying ground was used by his family.
EARLY ROADS
As long as New Haven remained practically isolated from the other towns in Connecticut, roads were for the convenience of the local population in driving the cattle to and from pasture, journeying to the farms, and going out for timber, stones, and clay.
Mill Lane, running from the center of New Haven to the site of the mill, has in part become Orange Street. For a number of years the town granted to one man the exclusive hauling privileges to and from the mill, except for those who hauled their own grist. Very early a way was opened from the upper end of this mill road through land belonging to Mr. Davenport, to the clay pits along the Quinnipiac River.
27
The Colonial Period
The main route to the Plains, popularly known as the Cartpath, began at Broadway in New Haven and fol- lowed the present Goffe Street to Orchard, then by way of Orchard to the present Dixwell Avenue, to Shep- herd's Brook and beyond. Along this lane were the homes of Sackett, Woodin, and Dorman.
The road which has become Whalley Avenue led to the ox pasture and to the clay pits at the foot of West Rock. It may have been the road by which cattle were first detoured alongside the ox pasture to grazing lands beyond, so as to keep them from passing through the settled districts.
In 1686, forty-eight years after the original settlers arrived in New Haven, attention was given in the town records to all the highways, including a description of them. By then it was realized that, in addition to their own local roads, there should be some link with other towns. There had been several trunk routes used by the Indians, the principal one following the shore from New York to Boston. Out of New Haven went three other routes: one to Middletown, Wethersfield, and Hartford; another to Farmington, Simsbury, and West- field, by which the Quinnipiacs journeyed to and from the Tunxis at Farmington; and one through the forest to Hartford. Undoubtedly the colonists made use of these trails before they began to construct their own, and in general their roads followed the same routes. The one to Hartford by way of Middletown had been a heavily beaten track from its use by Indians carrying great quantities of fur pelts to the trading post on the Connecticut River.
The road to Farmington (which became a town in 1645) followed the familiar Dixwell Avenue path to Shepherd's Brook, "and so on to the end of our bounds,"
28
The History of Hamden
six rods wide. The mill road went on past the Mill Quarter and the Little Quarter, two rods wide. In the Neck was a road four rods wide, from the ferry to East Rock, and around it to Mill Meadows. A road ran from Henry Beecher's shop through Cooper's Quarter (named from John Cooper, the viewer of fences) into the Plains. Another led from it up the hill between Moses Mansfield and Thomas Mix, to the common at the two-mile end. Another way led through the ox pas- ture to William Wilmot's, and onward to Pine and West Rocks and the common, for bringing out timber, firewood, and stone. A lane went from the Plains through Sackett's and Dorman's to the commons behind Dorman's, and another to the woods behind Sackett's. Still another highway went from Mr. Yale's, which was east of Mill River, past Joseph Bradley's westward to Mill River. One extended from Bradley's to the north- east end of Nicholas Street's farm in Wallingford, and from there the road ran through the lots facing on the Quinnipiac River to the Blue Hills. A final road ran from the Country Road at Richard Newman's house to a way between Yale's farm and that of Street.
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