USA > Connecticut > New Haven County > Hamden > The history of Hamden, Connecticut, 1786-1959 > Part 11
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Rollins' Ancient History, 10 vols.
Modern Voyages and Travels, 6 vols.
Hutchinson's History of Massachusetts, 2 vols.
The Spectator, 8 vols.
Gregory's History of the Church, 2 vols.
Morse's Geography
Ramsay's History, 2 vols.
Caroline of Litchfield, 2 vols.
Evelina, 2 vols.
Boles' Voyages
Carver's Travels
Elegant Extracts
Blair's Sermons, 2 vols.
Emma Corbett
Sermons, 2 vols. Telemachus
Vicar of Wakefield Guy's Sermons
* John H. Dickerman.
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New Roots in Old Soil
Watts' Lyric Poems James Lambert Trumbull's History of Connecticut
Goldsmith's History of England Beauties of Nature
Female American Citizen of the World, 2 vols.
Bishop Porteus Lectures Life of Washington Bishop Porteus Sermons Fowler's Exposition of the Prayer Book Shades of Plato
Many years later this collection was sold at an auc- tion, thus depriving later Hamden citizens of the oppor- tunity to view, if not to read it. A twenty-five-year record of the weather, 1785-18II, was kept at the library. The hottest day during that period was July 3, 1798, when it was IO1; and the coldest, February 9, 1809, when it was 5 below zero. Some of the nota- tions were made with a poetic choice of words:
Some snow; some sunshine. Clear morn, hail in night. Clear and cloudy at turns. Hazy; rainy night-peach trees begin to blow.
DOG LANE COURT
Reading was not the only pastime offered to the visitors in the Bradley home. After all, most of the literature was heavy going for men who had few chanc- es for fun and frolic, so gradually those who met there on Saturday afternoons organized a most unique and diverting society, with rules and by-laws and elective officers, in which they burlesqued court and legal pro-
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ceedings, calling themselves "Dog Lane Court." "Dog Lane" was their meaningless name for the northerly part of the turnpike in Mount Carmel. The man chosen for judge (or governor) had to be able not only to tell the biggest lie, but to make people believe him. When a Mr. Smith was elected to this honor, he immediately demurred, saying that his friend Job was far better qualified for the position, as he had such a completely convincing way of laying emphasis to his remarks with a lifted forefinger.
When Hezekiah Brockett retired from the high office in favor of a Mr. Stevens, he spoke of the society's habit of naming the most high-minded and honorable man, but "Governor" Stevens at once stopped him, saying, "Gentlemen, after hearing Mr. Brockett's speech you would think that that was entirely the prin- ciple that all the people of this 'Dog Lane Court' voted upon, but you are mistaken-for everybody knows that old Governor Stevens will lie and steal and get the best of everybody he can, and that is the principle we go upon to elect men to office."*
There was a penalty for all farmers whose first hoe- ing of corn was not completed by June 20. The mem- bers of the Court had to finish the hoeing, and the neglectful farmer was publicly crowned with the shell of a mud turtle. When Obed Blakeslee was dubbed the laziest man in Mount Carmel, he maintained that Eli was lazier, but one of the members said, "Eli is what I call a dead slow man, but you are what I call a down- right lazy man."
Feats of strength were among the Saturday activities, and the Doolittle brothers were famed for their wrest-
* John H. Dickerman.
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ling prowess and their ability to carry a 400-pound beam on their shoulders. When Reuben was bested by a Yale student in a wrestling match, he said he would bring his brother, who was a little better than he, the next time he came to town. When he and brother Caleb arrived at the campus in an oxcart, Caleb lifted from it a full barrel of cider, and drank from the bunghole. This exhibition of strength entirely discouraged any offer to wrestle with him. Little did Caleb dream that his townspeople would long remember him, nor would they have done so, had it not been for the blunder made upon his tombstone in West Woods Cemetery:
Died, April 31, 1838.
COLONEL BELLAMY
The second gravestone erected in Mount Carmel Cemetery was the one that marked the last resting place of Samuel Bellamy, who died in 1760. He was one of the first settlers in Mount Carmel Parish, coming there in 1743 to establish the famous tavern, which his widow and son continued to manage after his death. The son, Samuel, 2d, was prominent in every kind of town activity, five times selectman, twice representative to the General Assembly, first Masonic master in Day Spring Lodge, colonel of a regiment of militia, and a leader in the Mount Carmel church, whose earliest So- ciety meetings were held in his tavern. It was an obscure committee in Hamden affairs which did not list his name. But in spite of all this and his prosperous inn, he sold his place in 1804 to Noah Barber-the lovely home with its broad lawns, tall poplars, and clusters of thick, sweet-smelling lilac bushes, forty-six
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The History of Hamden
acres in all-for $5,000. Later he disposed of fifty acres more for $2,000 and moved to Skaneateles, New York, where he became a comparatively rich man. A logical reason for his decision to leave Hamden was that his wife was a Bradley, and that her brother Daniel Bradley had removed to New York State as a part of the migration of Mount Carmel and other Connecticut people into western Massachusetts, eastern New York, and Vermont, immediately after the Revolution. Todds, Atwaters, Tuttles, and other Hamden family names were among those appearing in pioneer settlements in those states. Many of them had served with the militia in the Lake Champlain region, militia which General Gates called "the two excellent militia regiments from Connecticut," and doubtless the descriptions of beautiful country which they brought back inspired others to go out there. The Mount Carmel families who left Ham- den to settle in these distant places had been church members and public-spirited citizens, who carried with them the bold self-reliance, native shrewdness, and the fear of God, which were the characteristic traits even- tually carried by Connecticut emigrants to every state in the Union.
Colonel Bellamy and his wife made their home near Daniel Bradley. The Bellamys had no children and no natural heirs, so that when the Colonel was solicited for a subscription to the proposed theological school in near-by Auburn, he not only responded generously but in time gave to it his entire estate, only excepting a $600 annuity to his widow. His will gave the seminary $60,000 and made it residuary legatee as well. In 1820 he laid the cornerstone for the school. Into it went a silver medal inscribed with his name and that of an-
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other donor, and the words: "Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a chief cornerstone, elect, precious."
Colonel Bellamy nevertheless was so far forgotten by this favored institution that a recent inquiry made to it elicited the sad fact that only the dates of his birth and death and when he joined the church were known there, and that a professorship bore his name. Hamden rec- ords remembered him far better, which seems to prove that man's most lasting memorial is shown in the hearts of those who were his closest friends. Although he left his tangible wealth to the Auburn Seminary, the mem- ory of what he really was remained in the place where he had contributed the intrinsic values of himself.
THE BLUE HILLS COMMON FIELD
The Blue Hills Common Field had been laid out in 1721 by a committee of New Haven Colony, one member being Isaac Dickerman. In 1807 a group of men signed a court petition in which they showed them- selves proprietors of more than two thirds of an 800- acre tract of land, being the whole of the Eighth and Ninth Divisions in the Blue Hills. The court permit- ted the petitioners to improve the tract as a common field, and authorized them to do so with all the powers and privileges by law appertaining to proprietors of common fields.
Although the jurisdiction of proprietors had dimin- ished almost to nothing after the formation of parishes and towns and the consequent transfer of most of the land to such groups, still up to the close of the Revolu- tion they had occasionally been of influence. One in-
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stance of this was the contracting by proprietors for royalties from the copper mines in the Blue Hills.
On this petition were such names as Tuttle, Munson, and Dickerman. In 1808 they voted to enclose the Blue Hills with a "good and sufficient fence erected around the hills and made into one common field." In 1809 the fees for impounding cattle, horses, sheep, and swine within the enclosure were to be "dubble" the amount set by law. In 1812 a committee chosen by the proprietors of the north and south tiers of land on the Blue Hills portioned out each one's share of the fence: "to Jonathan Dickerman, 65 rods, to heirs of Medad Todd, 43 rods, 5 links," etc. Haywards and fence viewers were regularly chosen. It was once voted "that the fence set out to Chauncey Dickerman by the proprietors committee, from Eli Tuttle's land running down to James Wyles' garden, stand where it now is." They voted to tax themselves six cents on the acre to defray necessary expenses, and one third of the pound- age fee was assigned to the pound-keeper. After the enclosure was no longer of value for poundage or for cutting quantities of saleable wood (1842), the pro- prietors ceased to meet or to keep up the fence.
JONATHAN MIX, INVENTOR
Jonathan Mix was born in New Haven in 1753 and had an active and exciting military life during the Revo- lution. He lived in Hamden after his second marriage, to Elizabeth Phipps, who inherited the Tuttle family homestead at Cherry Hill. The place was best known in later years when their daughter Nancy lived in a new house there after her marriage to Elihu Blake .* In
* 1836 Elihu built the new house.
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1807 Jonathan Mix invented "the elliptic and thorough brace carriage spring," the principle of which was to substitute iron or wood for leather spring thorough- braces for carriages, and to give more elasticity and durability at less expense. The springs of each axle were reduced in number to one, and that was fixed to the center of the axletree, supporting the shafts. The United States patent on this invention, embodying the fundamental idea of wagon and vehicle springs of all kinds, bore the imposing signatures of Thomas Jeffer- son, James Madison and Attorney General C. A. Rod- ney.
A certificate of excellence, signed by many subscrib- ers, made known to the public their preference for Mix's springs above all others, stating that
after mature deliberation we do hereby give it our opinion that they are the safest and most convenient and best springs ever invented or made use of. In our opinion a stage fixed on Mix's Axletree springs is not so liable to overset, . . . and the passengers will be transported much more to their ease and satisfaction.
Mr. Mix also invented a cartridge box for troops and, with Robert Fulton's cooperation, a device which car- ried away the smoke from the fuses of ships' guns. This invention was used on Fulton's steam frigate.
In 1814 Caleb Alling paid a tax of $4 "on his chaise hanging on steel springs," which then were new and luxurious-the automobile tax of his day.
Said to be one of the earliest manufacturers of steel carriage springs in the country was Charles Brockett of Mount Carmel who, upon his retirement from business at the beginning of the Civil War, became first select- man of Hamden.
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The History of Hamden
Charles Brockett was a descendant of John Brockett who laid out New Haven's nine original squares. His father, Hezekiah, lived on the south corner of the Cheshire Turnpike and Tuttle Avenue, just north of the mountain, where he maintained a cooperage busi- ness. He made convenient use of an enormous oak tree, from a branch of which he suspended a chain to hold his inverted hogsheads in place over a fire for the purpose of properly charring the inner surfaces. Many weekly gatherings of Dog Lane Court convened in the ample shade of the "Hezekiah Brockett Oak." This venerable tree, measuring eighteen feet ten inches in circumference, may at that time have been growing for more than two hundred years.
Before he was a cooper, Mr. Brockett was a sea cap- tain. At one time when he did not go on a certain planned voyage, he dreamed that the vessel had gone down, woke his wife, and told her of his dream. The ship never came back in any event, and he believed that it sank that very night.
The casks that Hezekiah Brockett made were destined to be filled with molasses or rum in the active West Indies trade of which New Haven held so large a share, and in which he once sailed a vessel. Hamden men carried on an extensive business in making and selling hoops in this market. The work in the woods during the winter months nicely augmented their labors at farming the rest of the year. The average price obtained for hardwood hoops was $20 to $40 a thousand. New Haven coopers also bought great quantities of hickory poles.
Charles Vanden Heuvel, who lived a part of the year in what later became the Webb homestead in Spring Glen, was owner of rich sugar estates in the
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West Indies, from which he shipped his sweets to ex- change in the New Haven market for casks, hoops, staves, and horses and mules. Hickory poles from Ham- den were among the planters' greatest demands.
An unusual business, that of carrying Fair Haven oysters in small kegs to Albany, New York, was con- ducted by Seymour Dickerman of Mount Carmel in 18II. When visiting an uncle who lived in Albany, Seymour gave some sample kegs of oysters to local peo- ple, who soon became the nucleus of a prosperous win- ter business (the oysters were too perishable for warm- weather sale). In the days when oxen were the common means of travel, Seymour drove a four-horse team which was greatly admired.
James Wyles operated a grist mill equipped with a dry kiln for preparing corn meal for market. This was at the spot where Joel Munson's mill stood at Mount Carmel, in the gap where Roaring Brook and Eaton Brook met and were dammed, with the mountain form- ing an abutment. From the mill to New Haven for shipment, Mr. Wyles used to send an ox team daily during six months of the year loaded with three hogs- heads of meal, each weighing about one thousand pounds. Nearly all the corn was raised in Hamden; some was perhaps from adjoining towns, as this was the only mill in the locality with a dry kiln to prepare meal for foreign markets. A single purchase of seven thous- and bushels of grain appeared on the books, as well as the sale of quantities of gin.
Joel Munson had added a sort of store to his mill in the early days of its operation. This feature of the es- tablishment was in 1785 conducted by Dr. Elisha Chap- man, who had purchased land in Mount Carmel in 1778 and married the senior Samuel Bellamy's daughter Re-
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becca. In 1784 he was one of the organizers of the New Haven County Medical Society. He and Joel Munson were said to have been slave owners. He was a Ham- den selectman in 1792, but he moved to North Haven soon after selling the store in 1795 to Ezra Kimberly and Levi Tuttle, the latter in a few years selling out to his partner. Ezra Kimberly obtained permission from the selectmen to use part of the old highway, by prom- ising to keep a horseshed there for public convenience. In 1802 he bought the mill property which included a grist mill, kiln drying works, fulling mill and press, apparatus for drying cloth, and an old saw-mill stand with the iron. He carried on an active business until Mr. Wyles took over the mill and dry kiln. Roderick Kimberly continued the family interest in the store and in what was, in 1827, called a clothier's shop.
The Kimberly mill was one of the three places in the town where homespun could be treated. In the southern part of town, many people washed their sheep at a small bridge a short distance above Mr. Whitney's factory. The sheep were driven onto the bridge and penned in by closing the bridge at both ends, then one at a time they were handed over the side to the washer, who stood in water three or four feet in depth, just deep enough to prevent the sheep from struggling. Some families removed the dirt from the wool and carded it by hand, then making a roll which they spun into yarn on a spinning wheel. A Mrs. Hawley who lived in Whitneyville, and a Mrs. Bradley of Ham- den Plains, did weaving as a business.
Another old Hamden mill which extended its enter- prize to a new function was the Bradley mill on Grims- den Hill (now West Todd Street). It had been a saw mill from 1730 to 1786, when Job Munson took it over.
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He was deeded the right to divert water from Eaton's Brook into the brook which fed his mill, and the marks of the trench are visible to this day, running back of residences on Hillfield Road. Flour from his mill was carried to New Haven, and shipped to foreign markets.
Many amusing stories are told of him, one being that he sold some turnips, saying that he had been fattening pigs on them. When the buyer later complained that his pigs were not getting fat, Job said, "I usually mix meal with mine, and I always get better results when I use a lot of meal." It was also said that he pulled teeth, and never charged anyone for the service.
He operated a distillery in conjunction with his saw mill, and in 1808 he leased to the Shipman-Dennison Company "the distillery barn, malt house, and the land for hop sty and cattle yard" at an annual rental of $ IO. On December 27, 1808, the following notice appeared in the Connecticut Herald: "Shipman-Dennison Co. wish to purchase a quantity of rye to be delivered at their distillery in Hamden, for which cash will be paid on delivery." An advertisement appeared in the same paper in the following year: "Country gin of the first quality by the pipe or less quantities for sale by Ship- man-Dennison Co., New Haven, Feb. 7, 1809."
When in 1817 the distillery lease came to Seymour Bradley, who was the youngest of Joel's nine children, his wife helped him in the business, and at his death in 182I she carried it on successfully for many years. She was known to most of her acquaintances as "Aunt Livvy," and it was said of her that she could lift a bar- rel of liquor from a wagon to the ground, setting it on its chimb with ease. The distillery was doubtless the reason for naming the near-by street Still Hill Road.
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The History of Hamden
HAMDEN DESCRIBED
In the Gazeteer of the States of Connecticut and Rhode Island, published by Pease and Niles in 1810, there is a brief description of Hamden, which speaks of the town as being situated between two greenstone ranges, and refers to the soil as gravelly loam, generally fertile, with walnut and oak and other deciduous trees, and "good and heavy crops of rye, corn and oats." In- dustries listed are the Whitney Arms Company, a paper mill, a fulling mill and carding machine (doubtless re- ferring to those at the Munson dam), a distillery, two grain mills, two tanneries, two mercantile stores, and two taverns. Also listed were the two Congregational churches and Societies, the Episcopal church, the Inde- pendents, nine school districts, one social library, two clergymen, and two physicians. The population was 1,716, with 260 dwelling houses and 200 electors. There was a company of militia. Taxable property was listed at $36,806.
THE WAR OF 1812
The company of militia to which the Gazeteer re- ferred was the Seventeenth Company of the Second Regiment. Its captain during the War of 1812 was Leverett Tuttle, and his company roll, plus men draft- ed from Hamden, included the following:
Daniel Ashton Merrit Blakeslee Timothy Andrews, Jr. Mathew Blakeslee
James Atwater Jason Bassett
Jared Benham
Stephen Atwater Daniel Austin Levi Baldwin
Harvey Bradley Joseph Ball
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John Babcock
William Maynard
Ira Cooper
Ebenezer Mansfield
Ezra Cooper Philo Curtis
Lyman Mansfield
Lyman Munson
Ezekiel Dorman
Dearing Munson
Edmund Dorman
John Potter
Lyman Dorman
William Peck
Eli Humiston David Smith
Andrew Hopkins
Nathaniel Turner
Isaac Jones
Joseph Warner
Daniel Little
David Warner
Thomas Mix
Samuel Whiting
Zenas Mix
The Seventh Company of the Second Regiment, led by Captain Ambrose Tuttle, brother of Leverett, was made up of Mount Carmel men, many of whom were sent on coast-guard duty as far away as New London and Groton. The muster roll included among others:
Seymour Dickerman Riley Tuttle
Whitney Dickerman
Jesse Cooper
Amos Dickerman
Benjamin Peck
Russell Ives
Jesse Doolittle
Andrew Goodyear
Truman Sanford
Aaron Chatterton Austin Bradley
Josiah Todd
Austin Munson
Elam Warner
Ichabod Hitchcock
Hezekiah Brockett
Ezra Kimberly
Captain Jared Whiting led one hundred Hamden soldiers who responded to the call for assistance in strengthening the fortifications at Fort Wooster on the New Haven shore. Newspaper accounts said that they helped in throwing up earthworks with great industry, and they were saluted and applauded by New Ha- ven citizens as they returned homeward.
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The History of Hamden
Hamden shared the general New England dislike of the war, which worked far greater hardships on the Northern states than on the Southern, for practically all the commerce of the country was centered in the North. The embargo and blockade hurt them badly, for they not only were largely dependent for their liv- ing upon shipping trade but many were also in the car- rying trade, using their ships for hire.
When President Madison called for Connecticut's state militia to invade Canada, Governor Griswold re- fused, saying that the Constitution specified only three purposes for which state militia could be called out of the state: "To execute the laws of the Union, to sup- press rebellion, and to repel invasion." And Massachu- setts and Rhode Island took the same stand. The Connecticut General Assembly went on record as saying that the war was "unnecessary."
Elam Ives, who lived on the west bank of Mill River on the road from Mount Carmel into North Haven, was fifty years of age when the war began. During the Revolution he had volunteered his services for the defense of New Haven, and now again he saw a way in which he could serve his country. He established a freight line consisting of two wagons, each drawn by two yoke of oxen and a horse, to transport valuable goods between New York and Boston in company with other similar lines, which for all their puny size were the only regular service between the two cities, all traffic by water being prevented by the blockade. Long Island Sound was blockaded for two years of the war.
The wagons, which were driven by Ives's sons, Par- sons and Jason, who were aged twenty-one and seven- teen at the time, were quite unusual conveyances. Each of them was a box 13 feet long, 4 feet wide, and eighteen
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inches high, mounted on two cart wheels and two wagon wheels. It was capable of carrying twice as much as an ordinary wagon.
The distance of 230 miles from New York to Boston could hardly have been covered in less than a week by ox power. Hamden was extremely proud of the oxen raised and exhibited by local farmers, and doubtless the yokes used were of the best strain. The Ives boys were of the third generation of their family in Hamden. When James Ives, Elam's father, lay in his last illness at his farmhouse east of Mill River, he said sadly: "The sun has got up before me this morning, which it has not done before in 20 years." He was a sturdy pioneer settler in the town, and his son Elam also was a pioneer, in the field of industry, twice serving his country in war and early training his sons Parsons and Jason to follow the family's traditional and virile leadership in the community.
HAMDEN PLAINS METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH
In early colonial times, ministers of the gospel were leaders in the affairs of their flock-well educated, and usually of natural superior ability. The people gave much attention to religion and the contemplation of the hereafter, hoping to achieve in the future life the joys which this life did not yield them. But as industry and commerce gradually brought them a moderate pros- perity, they began to feel that perhaps man as well as God might influence their destiny, and that temporal joys were attainable. Ministers were confronted with the new problem of worldliness.
It was in this era that the Methodist Episcopal Church in Hamden had its beginnings, and the difficul-
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The History of Hamden
ties with which it had to contend were many. Its loca- tion was in a part of the town where there were already two groups of Congregationalists with their favored background of the established church, who outnumbered and outweighed in influence all dissenting religious groups. Far from encouraging were the experiences of the New Haven Methodists, who had formed in 1795. Their first meetings had been held in a rented building, where much disturbance was deliberately created by a gang of ruffians, and on one occasion the pulpit had been hewn in pieces. But the worshipers were not dismayed, and persisted in holding their classes. By 1807 they had succeeded in acquiring their own building.
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