USA > Connecticut > Litchfield County > Harwinton > The history of Harwinton, Connecticut > Part 2
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ington and Simsbury, to the Massachusetts line north; to run west to Housatonick, or Stratford river; provided it be not, or part of it, formerly granted to any particular person to make a plantation, or village."" The 'Mattatuck' therein intended is Waterbury,t then including Plymouth.# Farmington, as therein referred to, embraced Bristol and Burlington ; Sims- bury then included Canton and Granby ; Suffield then belonged to Massachusetts. That this measure was 'huddled through', or passed, as Dr. Trumbull says of it, "in a hasty manner," is sufficiently manifest from its terms. In design more a resolve for the by, than an act for permanency, it was meant to serve merely as a legislative expedient, resorted to under pres- sure of an emergency, with the view of preventing these " Western lands" of the Colony being wrested from it and sequestered to the English Crown, that is, in part at least, to himself, by Sir Edmund's magisterial or personal rapacity.§ It simply designed "that," as Trumbull's language is, " these towns should hold the lands, thus granted, for the Governor and Com- pany, until those times of danger and trouble should be past, but not as their property. They had never purchased, nor given the least valuable consideration for them, and had no deeds or patents of them." The Colony, therefore, after the ill-boding but brief control of Andross had ended, regarded these lands as being still in the Colony's possession, just as they were be- fore the Colonial Legislature had taken said action respecting them. From such a view of the matter, however, the Towns,
*Colony Records.
+Waterbury received its present name on its incorporation, in May, 1686. The name 'Mattatuc' is now applied to the little village, partly in Harwinton and partly in Litchfield, where, on the west side of the Naugatuc River, three miles south of Wolcottville, is the 'Litchfield Station' of the Naugatuc Railroad.
#The eastern towns on Long Island were, at that period, in Connecticut's juris- diction. 'Mattituck' parish includes the present town of Riverhead, L. I., and 'Mattatuc' is in the town of Southold, L. I.,-as see Prime's, or see Thompson's History of Long Island.
§A writer says, with less courtesy than truth, of Sir Edmund: "This Andross was a modern Nero, and [he] employed all his powers to despoil the Colonies and to enrich himself."-Rev. Grant Powers, Centennial Address at Goshen, Ct., 1838. Others speak of him with much the same degree of respect.
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Hartford and Windsor, very naturally dissented. They clung to the resolve of the Legislature as tenaciously, as they would have done, had that Body in good faith designed it to be a con- veyance transferring the fee to them and giving to them the sole and indefeasible ownership. It certainly was such a con- veyance, if its words have meaning. The term 'grants' had then for them, as it has now to others, a peculiar charm. They were thus, and perhaps otherwise, also, inclined to make the most of it. They did make of it all which they could, and held the Legislature to its resolve as to a bond. When the lands, a genera- tion after, by coming into request became valuable, then, car- rying out their claim into action,-Trumbull says, "in contra- vention of the most express laws of the Colony,-they pro- ceeded to locate and vend the lands." This proceeding of the Hartford and Windsor claimants brought them, in 1722, as it could not fail of doing, into a direct conflict with the' Colonial authorities. Violent infractions were made of the pub- lic peace. Some of the trespassers, those claimants or certain agents they had employed, are arrested, tried, convicted, and, in execution of judgment, "committed to the common prison in Hartford." Their upholders oppose the Government by force of arms. The sheriff is specially "authorized to call out the whole militia of the county to his assistance," and "the officers and privates" are required, under a special "penalty," to aid him. Such, however, was the popular feeling then, even in ' steady' Connecticut, that, " notwithstanding this precautionary act of the Assembly, there was a riot at Hartford, the common goal was broken open, and the delinquents were set at liberty, even while the Assembly were in session." Our older State his- torian, in noticing this matter, added : "These were indeed evil times. Men, with an uncommon obstinacy, resisted the laws, and trampled on the authority of the Legislature." "This controversy had already occasioned a general ferment and great animosities among the people, and there was danger that it might be attended with still more serious consequences. The Hart- ford and Windsor claimants found it to be a difficult business to contend with the Governor and Company." One sees not why this last sentence, with neither a qualifying nor a connective
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particle, is made thus immediately to follow the next preceding one; for, in keeping with what has been previously cited, the fact in the sequel appeared, that "the Governor and Company" as clearly "found it to be a difficult business to contend with" "the Hartford and Windsor claimants," backed up by the pur- chasers under them, who in their turn were supplemented by agents and attornies and various other partisans. With those claimants by such helps sustained, treats a duly appointed Com- mittee of the ' Assembly'; seeking in vain, by such concilatory " propositions as [it seemed to the ' Assembly'] should be made to them," " that the difficulties subsisting might be quieted." Their persistence in continuing to claim that 'grants,' volunta- rily made by the ' Assembly' to themselves or to their prede- cessors in law, ought to be made good, the Committee are unable to overcome. "An affair of great labor and difficulty" these found it, not so much, probably, "to examine the claims," as " to obtain such concessions and propositions as they judged rea- sonable, or as the Assembly would accept." How could the ' Assembly' expect work of this sort to be easy, while that res- olution of the ' Assembly' making the 'grants' which gave rise to and supported 'the claims' stood unrepealed, pledging the faith of the Colony, that the gift it purported to bestow should be given? "After laboring in the business nearly two years, [said Committee] made their report," the tenor of which may be gathered from what preceded and succeeded the making it. For the claimants, persistence obtained a compromise. To the de- murrers, wisdom acquired in the contest suggested, that there lay some value before unlearned in the trite maxim, 'Better lose half than the whole ;' and so, acting in literal conformity to that doctrine, " the Legislature, wishing to preserve the peace of the Colony, and to settle the lands in controversy as expedi- tiously as might be, on the report of their Committee, Resolved [,26 May, 1726], That the lands in controversy should be divided between the Colony and the towns of Hartford and Windsor ; that the Colony should have the western, and Hartford and Windsor the eastern division;" and "the Governor and Com- pany, 22 May, 1729, gave a patent of one half of said lands to them." The territory of Litchfield, the laying out and sale of
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which had begun the trouble, was excepted from this partition .* The share, therefore, which the Towns of Hartford and Windsor received of the territory in dispute was so much of what now is Litchfield county as lies east of Litchfield, Goshen, and Norfolk, together with Hartland which now is, as originally all said ter- ritory was, in Hartford county.+ Of this share one moiety was given to Hartford, the other to Windsor ; occasioning, 11 Feb., 1731-2, a second partition. Three townships in the eastern and north part of the share having been made from Hartford's lot, and three townships in the western and north part of the share from Windsor's lot, a remainder of the share was left, all of it, excepting Kent (Warren included) situated west of Litchfield, being situated north and east of Litchfield and northwest of Farmington. Dividing this remainder, of what was owned jointly by Hartford and Windsor, adequate in size for a seventh town- ship, there was made an eastern portion, assigned to Hartford, and a western one, assigned to Windsor; that is, a half town- ship belonging to Hartford, and a half township belonging to Windsor; Hartford's again the eastern, Windsor's again the western portion. Two other partitions are made, one, 7 April, 1732, at Windsor, whereby the Windsor people distribute their three townships and their half townshipt among themselves; and one, 5 April, 1732, (meetings continued by adjournment till) 27 September 1732, at Hartford, whereby the Hartford people distribute their three townships and their half townshipt among themselves. The several companies to which the differ- ent parcels of land, made out of Windsor people's moiety, had been allotted, were respectively incorporated, 11 May, 1732; and it was then enacted also, that their half township, "contain- ing 9,560 acres, should be forever called Harwinton." (Better to bestow titles on unfinished places, than on unfurnished men.) The several companies to which had been allotted the several parcels of land, made out of Hartford people's moiety, received incorporation respectively,-May, 1733; and it also was then
*See, in Appendix, (towards the end of). Note C.
+See, in Appendix, Notes F., and I.
#See, in Appendix, Note G.
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enacted that their half township, "containing, by estimation,* 8,590 acres," "should forever hereafter, in conjunction with the other part, be called Harwinton."-Thus terminated the only intestine altercation which has ever disturbed, by popular resort to physical violence, Connecticut's habitual serenity. Yet this contest, as well as other incidents, involved a decidedly Con- necticut character, since it exhibited as working at home, though in confessedly an exceptionable manner, that ingenuity for which her people have abroad been proverbial. In that meas- ure which her citizens, elevated to office, had devised for pre- venting a transfer of her territory to others, her citizens, not raised to authority, found the means of procuring a transfer of that territory to themselves. What royal messengers, relying on power which they well knew by experience how to wield, could not have made her give up, her own plebeian republicans, who as yet were but learning their strength, induced her in wil- lingness to bestow. The rebellion, waged as vigorously as its occasion was singular, ended singularly-in this amicable work of dividing, apportioning, and naming lands. The reception of these distributed lands was probably as pleasant to the receivers, as the effort, needful to understand so many divisions and sub- divisions, may have proved tedious to us. From this recital, which the writer has tried to make explicit, of transactions nec- essarily complicate both in themselves and in the accountst of them, this much at least is clear; that the two half townships, apparent in the unit of Harwinton territory, did not arise cas- ually, as contingencies of many dividings; that they were not brought together after such dividings, as odds and ends which had before been unconnected; that they occurred from the cir- cumstance that certain joint owners of a tract of land separated it for size' sake into an uneven number of portions; that the western, or first designated half of one certain portion, was the moiety of Windsor-town; that the eastern, or second desig- nated half of the same portion, was the moiety of Hart ford-
*By a survey made, 1733, the whole township was 18,150 acres. Colony Records. +See, as regards all the townships into which "the Western lands" within the present limits of Connecticut were made, Trumbull's History of Connecticut, II. 95-114.
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town ; and that the name Har-win-ton, given in the two fold way and at the two times above specified, carries in it a designed ref- erence* to that previous double proprietorship here, and so imports HARtford-TOWN-WINdsor-TOWN."
Such, set forth briefly, are some of the preparations variously made for our Town. Along with these, and partly by means of them, were selected and combined certain elements of the moral atmosphere in which we here breathe and live.
Compared historically with the other Towns comprised in our county, this holds a satisfactory position. Tne tract of land, specified in the before-mentioned resolve of the Colonial Legis- lature, and repeated divisions of which were by subsequent acts of that Body appointed and ratified, is about half of that which the county, Litchfield, contains. After said tract had by those partitions been laid off into townships of due size; "as the pur- chasers were none but the inhabitants of Connecticut, it was many years before they could all be sold and settled."+ The first of them settled was Harwinton .- In the county are only four Towns in which settlement was earlier made, namely, Woodbury, settled in 1673, then in Fairfield county; New Mil-
*Names, constructed in a similar manner, were applied to other places in West- ern Connecticut. Farming-bury, the denomination of what, become since the Town of Wolcott, was once a 'Society' made in part from (the original territory of) Farmington, and in part from Northbury (then a 'Society' in Waterbury, now the Town of Plymouth); was equivalent to FARMINGton (-parish)-WaterBURY (-pa- rish). Win-sted, designating now a thriving Village, was thus denominated to remind one, that it was a district partly of Winchester and partly of Barkhamp- stead; as if to say WINchester (-place)-BarkhampSTEAD (-place). Win-ton-bury, formerly a 'Society,' latterly the Town of Bloomfield, received that appellation to denote its territory as lying respectively in Windsor and Simsbury Towns; so inti- mating WINdsor-TOWN (-parish)-SimsBURY-TOWN (-parish). Torring-ford, a 'So- ciety,' designates its origin from the Towns of TORRINGton and New-HartFORD : Had-lyme, a 'Society,' designates its origin from the Towns of (East) HADdam and LYME.
The name given to another locality, Hart-land, cannot be justly held primarily responsible for awakening, as in poetic minds it by its form and by its sound does awaken, thoughts of scenes fair, quiet, sylvan, the haunt where harts resort; be- cause, implying no more than does the term set upon a fellow town, NEW-HART- FORD, its sole intent is to suggest, in the short commercial way, a 'reference' to HARTford-LAND.
+Trumbull, II. 104.
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ford, settled in 1707, then in New Haven county; Litchfield, settled in 1720; Salisbury, settled, a part of it, then regarded as in New York, in 1720, by Dutch emigrants from that Province (, but settled, the most part, then regarded as in New Haven county, in 1739, by New England ones). Harwinton was set- tled in 1730. Its eastern half, or "East Harwinton," was the earlier occupied, although its western half, or "West Harwin- ton," had been the earlier appropriated. That the eastern was earlier settled resulted from several circumstances. Harwinton's territory bordered east as well as south on that of Towns a con- siderable time established; there ran through it a 'cleared road' which already had been used several years; and, what in those days was not a small matter, the " East Harwinton Proprietors" were nearer than were the "West Harwinton" ones to their Propriety. The other Towns in the county were settled later, those above-named excepted, than this .- There are, in the county, but three Towns which earlier received incorporation, namely, Woodbury, incorporated in 1674, then in the county of Fairfield ; New Milford, incorporated in 1713, then in the county of New Haven; Litchfield, incorporated in 1721. Harwinton thus, Litchfield excepted, the oldest within the "Western lands," was incorporated in October, 1737 .* The other Towns in the county, those above-named excepted, were later in this respect. Most of the Towns, now in Litchfield county, were for some years in Hartford county.t
DATES OF SOME OF THE IMMIGRANTS GIVEN.
The pioneer settler in this township was Daniel Messenger. He fixed his abode here in January 1730. In him we recog- nize the founder of the Town. As such, let him be held in memory. Whether we think of him as now keeping more closely to his tarrying-place, which must at the first have been so lonely, though "near the road between Litchfield and Far- mington;" or, as now 'crossing " the line' between the Hart- ford and Windsor Proprieties ;" he, for both "East Harwinton"
*See, in Appendix, Note H.
+See, in Appendix, Note I.
#See, in Appendix, Note J.
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and " West Harwinton" respectively, and so for us all was 'the pathfinder.' Viewed in relation with merely such effects, con- sequent on his coming to Harwinton, as here, while he lived, he saw accomplished; much more, viewed in relation with those results, thence originating, which here, since his death, have been unfolded; he appears, even aside from any of his own purposes in the matter, to have executed a mission from God for the good of all other persons who should dwell here; so that without intent to utter it punningly-far less, profanely- one might say that, to each of such persons, Providence in effect affirmed of him (what was said of one "greater than he") : " This is he of whom it is written, Behold I send MY messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee." As to our 'pathfinder,' literally " before" him, respecting time and otherwise, was that "way" prepared which has incidentally been twice mentioned. In the latter mention of it were quoted the words of a record which, one other excepted, is the oldest that Harwinton possesses .* This road which our annals present thus early was, previously to Capt. Messenger's taking his resi- dence in the township, part of the route traversed and incip- iently 'made' by such persons as, at Farmington, Hartford, and other places, had been interested in facilitating access and acces- sions to the plantation by them set forward at Bantam, t now
*9 Jan., 1731-2. "Ebenezer Hopkins, of Waterbury," buys land of (his uncle) "Samuel Sedgwick, of Hartford." 10 Jan., 1732-3. Ebenezer Hopkins, of "the Western lands near the road between Litchfield and Farmington," sells land to " my father Daniel Messenger, living at the same place."-" East Harwinton" Rec- ords. (22 Feb., 1732-3. " Anthony Hoskins, Jr., of Windsor," etc., is the ear- liest date noticed in the " West Harwinton" Records.)
+The inquiry may be allowed: How came Bantam to designate Litchfield ? J. Hammond Trumbull, Esq., who has bestowed much attention on the primitive local names in Connecticut, thinks that some person who anciently lived in Litch- field bore that appellation. Books give Bantam as the American Indians' name of that place. In books Bantam also appears as, apparently, the Asiatic Indians' name of a chief commercial Town in Java, E. I. Dutchmen preceded the English alike in Connecticut and in Java. Swinton, in his Rambles Among Words, repre- sents bantam (, sc. the fowl so called,) as being of Malay (, que. Bantam, Java ?) origin. All this may be casual coincidence. In Sketches and Chronicles of Litch- field, Connecticut, 1859, a work of the late Payne Kenyon Kilbourne, Esq., a cor- respondent is quoted as affirming, " that the Java [Town] Bantam was in exist-
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Litchfield. Chiefly by this did the people of Hartford and the other easterly towns gain entrance into a territory which, form- ing at present a large part of the largest county in Connecticut, and supplied now with agricultural products, manufactures, vil- lages, and well-instructed inhabitants, was, at that period, a wil- derness known as "the Western lands."* The said road, by Capt. Messenger and other "East Harwinton Proprietors" put into fit condition, Dec. 1732, continued to be a main thorough- fare, until long after the establishment of stage-coach accomoda- tions; so that, by means of the travellers who used it, Harwinton had, at that day and for years afterward, a more extensive publicity than it has now. It was over this road that,-with his suite including Major General the Marquis de La Fayette, General Knox, and several other American officers of distinc- tion,-passed our nation's 'Pathfinder,' General Washington.+ After his party had taken here refreshments, in presenting which the choicest of our young maidens honored themselves as well as their fathers' and their Town's welcome guests,; the cavalcade went onward; and when, in its progress, it moved
ence and had a king eighteen years before the landing of the Pilgrims," "was occupied by the Dutch in the sixteenth century, and was a place of much conse- quence;" and that "in the Portuguese writings of Jono de Barras [Joao de Bar- ros], (Lisbon, 1777,) the place is called "Bintam or Bantam." The Portuguese have no w in their language, and the nearest equivalent, v, is employed somewhat interchangeably with b. The form Bintam, as thus given, suggests that the Dutch name of either locality may have been, what befits so well the Connecticut one, Wind'am, i. e. WIND-HAM, wind-home (, a breezy town). Windham, the designa- tion of an English place, whence have come the Windhams of Connecticut, Ver- mont, etc., is, however, an abbreviation for Wimund-ham (Wimund's home).
*See, on the next preceding page, Note (*).
+General Washington was, on the occasion referred to, returning to his Head- Quarters, then at West Point, N. Y., from the Conference which, 21 Sept., 1780, himself, and suite had held, at Hartford, with the Count de Rochambeau, Admiral Ternay, and other distinguished French commanders, whose forces were then coop- erating with the American army .- See Hollister's History of Connecticut, II., 387.
#The repast was taken, aged people, my informants in 1837, said, in the house then occupied by a Mr. Bronson, in which, 1860, is the office of Hon. Abijah Cat- lin. That building, however, was the first tavern-house kept in Harwinton. Whether it was so used, at the time of Washington's passing through Harwinton, does not appear. One of the fair servitors of the entertainment given was Can- dace, daughter of George Catlin, afterwards the wife of Lewis Catlin, Esq.
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gracefully up the western ascent from the valley of Lead-mine Brook, and thus was in full view of persons assembled at the Church standing then,* it presented a pageant which, sixty years afterwards, aged citizens vividly remembered. It is pleasant to add, respecting this most ancient of the human works which as 'modern antiquities' Harwinton is able to show, that the road is to-day 'in a good state of preservation,' and still, more travelled over than any other here, is the principal one.t
It is not probable, that our pioneer resident lived, for any considerable interval, wholly alone; but it does not appear, with any definiteness, how soon other persons ma'de here their homes. Dr. Trumbull, giving of our first settlers only the surnames, says,¿ "The five first were Messenger, Hopkins, Webster, Phelps, and Wilson. These were on the lands before the divis- ion and sale of them, in 1732." The division which he refers to is the partition, made between the Towns of Hartford and Windsor, of their moiety of the "Western lands;" and the sale which he refers to is rather, as he had previously called it, " pro- visions for the sale" of said lands. In saying "before" 1732, he seems to have meant the year next preceding that. The first name that Dr. Trumbull gives, Messenger, might in addi- tion to our pioneer himself include, as found here at the date assigned, two of his sons, Nehemiah and Samuel. Our records show, of these sons, that the latter belonged here, in January, 1733-4; and the former, in October, 1735, certainly; in January, 1733-4, probably. It may, from the circumstances of their father's age and position, and of their own age, both being then in their majority, be well inferred, that these both were here as soon as their father was; although a Nehemiah Messen- ger,-more than possibly this same person, going thither after tarrying here, and at Cornwall, and at Sheffield, Ms., for only a
*Our 'Center' was, at that day, scarcely a hamlet. See, in Appendix, Note K. +Well-made and well-kept roads are more than aids to municipal improvement. They exhibit and they promote a proper self-respect in all who even pass over them, much more in all who maintain them. They are proofs and 'prime conduct- ors' of civilization. As such, every town should regard them. Patriot citizens, "in whose heart are THE WAYS," have reasonably a love for them, "and favor the dust thereof."
+II. 105.
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short time,-was, somewhat after 1750, among the early immi- grants of Egremont, Ms.,* the settlement of which township some one commenced about the same date that Capt. Messenger began to settle ours, 1730. The second name that Dr. Trumbull gives, Hopkins, may also include more than one person, since Ebenezer Hopkins who, calling Capt. Messenger "my father," was either his step-son or, which is the more likely, his son-in- law, was a resident here in Jan., 1732-3; and Hezekiah Hop- kins who, found resident here two or three years later, took a deed of land here, in April, 1732,-the month indicating that he took the deed with a cultivator's intent of putting the land into immediate occupancy, that he might live on it and live by working on it, rather than with a speculator's thought, "I have bought a piece of ground, and I must needs go and see it." The third name that Dr. Trumbull gives, Webster, is scarcely more definite, in respect of the persons intended, for though Cyprian Webster had a deed, conveying to him land here, in November, 1733, yet Moses Webster appears, by our documents, as residing here nearly as soon as said Cyprian Webster does. The fourth name that Dr. Trumbull gives, Phelps, similarly ambiguous in this regard, may apply nearly as well to two persons; for, so far as our records disclose, Daniel Phelps and Samuel Phelps were both resident here in 1736. Of the five names that Dr. Trum- bull gives, there appears, as having neither a double nor triple applicability to persons, but one, Wilson; yet John Wilson, in the records that we have, comes to view not earlier than in 1737. Conceding, however, that Dr. Trumbull was, in this case, accu- rately informed,-as he surely might have been, gathering ma- terials for his history at the time in which one, at least, of the five, John Wilson, was yet surviving,-the sum of the matter is this. Daniel Messenger ranked apart from the rest since, be- yond doubt, he was established in the township in 1730, there may be taken as the primary inhabitants of Harwinton, Ebenezer Hop- kins, Samuel Messenger, Daniel Phelps, Samuel Phelps, Cyprian Webster, John Wilson. These, and Nehemiah Messenger possi-
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