USA > Connecticut > Fairfield County > Redding > The history of Redding, Conn., from its first settlement to the present time : with notes on the Adams, Banks Stow families > Part 4
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July 5th, same year, a tax of three pence on the
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pound was laid "to pay last year's six months men, to be paid in Silver, or Gold, or wheat at six shillings a bushel, and to be collected and paid to the selectmen before the 10th of July Inst."
The next fall, October 30th, 1781, George Perry was chosen " Receiver of Grain and flour on the half crown Tax, Benjamin Meeker and Isaac Meeker to receive the grain and flour on the two sixths tax, and William Hawley Esq. to receive the Beef and Pork on said tax, and to provide casks and salt said provisions as the law directs."
The last entry referring to the war appears August 11th, 1783, some nine months after the Provisional Articles of Peace had been signed at Paris. It is as follows : " Voted that the select men of this town be desired to move out of this town all those persons that have been over and joined the enemy, and have returned into this town, and that they pursue the business as fast as they conveniently can according to law." The selectmen on whom this task devolved. were, Seth Sanford, James Rogers, Stephen Betts, Hezekiah Sanford, and John Gray.
Several items that next follow are important as denoting the progress of events. December 18th, 1781 : " Voted, that the select men be instructed to petition the General Assembly to annex this town to Danbury Probate District," and the road com- mittee was instructed to sell the highway from Nobb's Crook to Captain Grays, and also the " up- right highway" west of Micayah Starr's, from Nathan Rumsey's to the rear of the long lots.
August 9, 1782, the town appointed delegates to a County Convention held in Greenfield " to inquire
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into the progress of illicit trade :" also a Committee of Inspection to assist the informing officers in put- ting the laws into execution.
August 11th, 1783 : It was voted " that the town will set up a singing school," and a tax of one penny on the pound was laid to pay the singing master.
March 13th, 1797: " Voted not to admit Small Pox by innoculation ; voted to admit Small Pox by innoculation next fall."
December 14th, 1791, a committee was appointed to apply to the proprietors of the mile of commons for a title to the land in Redding left by said proprie- tors for a parade." (This " parade," familiar to all old inhabitants of Redding, was in the large field ad- joining the Congregational parsonage now owned by Mr. Joseph Squires ; it was the scene of many militia trainings in later days.)
December 19th, 1792 : " Voted to reduce the highway from Danbury to Norwalk to four rods wide, and to sell two rods." In 1795 : " Voted that the selectmen prosecute those persons that cut tim- ber on the highways."
The first town-house was built early in 1798. It stood nearly in the centre of the common, a few yards west of the present building.
From the plan submitted December 27th, 1797, by the building committee, we learn that it was " 36 feet in length, and 30 feet wide, with 12 foot posts, cov- ered with long cedar shingles, the sides with pine." There was a chimney in each end, and fifteen win- dows with twenty lights in each. Peter Sanford. Ezekiel Sanford, Samuel Jarvis, Aaron Sanford, An- drew L. Hill, and Simon Munger were appointed
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" to receive proposals and contract for building the aforesaid Town House." The builder was Daniel Perry. In 1807 there was a movement to petition the General Assembly, " that Redding be made the shire town of Fairfield County." In 1809 it was voted unanimously, " That we will prefer a petition to the Congress of the United States for the estab- lishment of a Post Road through this town," and William Heron, Lemuel Sanford, and Billy Com- stock were appointed to draft the petition. This was successful, and the first post-office in the town was shortly after established. It was kept in the dwelling-house of Billy Comstock, who was the first postmaster ; his house stood where Mr. Dimon Finch now lives, at the fork of the Danbury road, and that leading to Redding Centre, via Nobb's Crook. There are old people in town who remem- ber this first post-office, and the excitement attend- ant upon the arrival of the weekly mail, carried by the great lumbering Danbury stage, which, with its four horses, its red-faced driver, and crowd of dusty, sweltering passengers, was the great tri-week- ly event of the villages through which it passed.
There is evidence that in early times the town exer- cised considerable influence in public affairs. In the Farmer's Journal (Danbury) for April 8th, 1793, appears a circular letter " sent by a committee ap- pointed to correspond with the different towns in the county of Fairfield," from Reading, as follows :
" READING, Apr. 2, 1793.
"GENTLEMEN : We are, by the inhabitants of this town, in a town meeting legally warned for that purpose, appointed a committee to correspond with
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the other towns in Fairfield County respecting the list of persons entered on the records of Congress, a number of whom this town apprehend are really undeserving. We are ordered to ask of you to adopt a similar mode of appointing a committee to correspond accordingly, and if by due enquiry any person, or persons shall be found to be put on the pension list, who are undeserving, to adopt proper means for redress at a proper board.
Signed : THADDEUS BENEDICT, WILLIAM HERON, LEMUEL SANFORD, S. SAMUEL SMITHI, JAMES ROGERS.
To the Selectmen of-
And in the Farmer's Chronicle (Danbury) for January 6th, 1794 :
" At a Town Meeting held in Reading, by ad- journment, on the 23rd day of December A. D. 1793, " Voted unanimously, That this Town will exert our- selves in every legal and constitutional method in our power to prevent the sale of the western lands at present, and to obtain a repeal of the act of this state appropriating the avails thereof for the sup- port of the ministry and schools in this state, as we conceive the same to be impolitic. And that a com- mittee be appointed to correspond with the other towns in this county to effect the purpose aforesaid, and that this vote be sent to the committee ap- pointed to sell those lands, with our request that they will omit to make any contract or sale of them till the sitting of the next General Assembly."
And in the records of a town meeting held April 20th, 1818 :
" Voted, That our Representatives to the General Assembly to be holden at Hartford in May next, be,
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and hereby are, instructed to use their influence that measures be taken preparatory to forming a written constitution for the Government of this State. That it is the opinion of this meeting, that the State of Connecticut is without a written constitution of Civil Government, and we believe it very important for the security of the Civil, and Religious rights, and privileges of the Citizens, that the powers and authorities of the Government should be distinctly defined."
The present town-house was erected in 1834. At a town meeting held March 3d, 1834, Mr. Thomas B. Fanton made a proposition " that he would en- gage to build a new Town House, same dimensions as the old one, of good materials, covering to be of pine, with shutters to the windows, outside of house to be painted, and the whole inside and out, to be finished in a workman like manner, to be erected near the old one, on land belonging to the town, pro- vided the town will give him $400, and the old. house," and engaged to save the town from any ex- pense on account of materials provided by the com- mittee to repair the old town house. This propo- sition was accepted, and John R. Hill, Gershom Sherwood, and Aaron Burr, 2d, were appointed a committee " to superintend building said House." There were objections, however, to having the new house built on the old site, and a meeting held shortly after voted "to relocate the house in the building owned by Thaddeus M. Abbott recently oc- cupied for a school house."
But other parties objected to this plan, and a third meeting was held before a site satisfactory to all parties could be agreed on.
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This meeting voted to locate it " on the Southeast corner of Thaddeus M. Abbott's homelot, fronting the public parade on the South, and on the west the Lonetown highway, provided that nothing in this vote interferes with the contract made with Thomas B. Fanton for building said house, and that it, be no additional expense to the town." The building belonging to Mr. Abbott which stood on this site was moved away, and the present town- house erected in the summer of 1834.
From this point until the opening of the civil war the records indicate only the usual routine of town business, and may be profitably passed over in or- der to make room for the valuable and interesting Revolutionary history of the town.
CHAPTER IV.
REVOLUTIONARY HISTORY AND INCIDENTS.
Two years had passed since the opening of the War of Independence-years of alternate victory and defeat to the colonists-when a hostile armament of twenty-five vessels bearing two thousand men, the flower of the British army, appeared off Compo, in Westport, on the Connecticut shore. It was the 26th of April, 1777. A few days before, news had come to Lord Howe, commanding in New York. that a magazine of munitions of war had been formed by the rebels in Danbury, and which afforded him a pretext for a descent on Connecticut -a step which he had long meditated. The region
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of country covered by the proposed campaign had been swept of its able-bodied men, who were in the Continental ranks keeping a careful watch on his lordship's regulars ; but that there might be no balk in the operations, an overwhelming force of two thousand picked men was detailed for the expedi- tion. For commanders, Howe chose a nondescript genius, one Governor Tryon, and two military men of ability, General Agnew and Sir William Erskine. Tryon had been Governor of New York ; he had the further merit of being intimately acquainted with Connecticut, and of being consumed with an inveter- ate hatred for, and thirst for revenge on, the Yan- kees ; he had a special grudge too against Connecti- cut, the sturdy little colony having thwarted him in a variety of ways. Her dragoons had scattered the types of his newspaper organ through the streets of New York ; her "Sons of Liberty" had plotted against him even in his own city, and she had treated with contempt his proclamations, inviting her to return to her allegiance, even printing them in her gazettes as specimens of the governor's pleasant humor.
Furthermore, he was well acquainted with the country to be traversed. He had been as far inland as Litchfield, had probably visited Danbury, and had been dined and fêted at Norwalk, Fairfield, and New Haven. He seems to have acted as guide to the expedition while his two advisers attended to its military details. The troops disembarked at Compo at four in the afternoon, and the same day marched to Weston, about eight miles distant, where they en- camped for the night. To oppose these troops there
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was only a militia corps of old men and boys, not equal in number to one half the invading force.
Colonel Cook was in command at Danbury with a company of unarmed militia. General Silliman at Fairfield, General Wooster at Stratford, and Gene- ral Arnold at Norwalk could not muster, all told, more than eight hundred raw, undisciplined men. Under these circumstances Tryon's expedition can only be viewed as a picnic excursion into the country, and as such no doubt he regarded it. Cn the morn- ing of the 26th his army was early astir, and reached Redding Ridge, where the first halt was made, about the time that the inhabitants had concluded their morning meal. What transpired here is thus narrated by Mr. Hollister in his admirable " History of Connecticut," vol. ii., chap. 12:
" On the morning of the 26th, at a very seasonable hour, Tryon arrived at Reading Ridge, where was a small hamlet of peaceful inhabitants, almost every one of them patriots, and most of them farmers, who had crowned the high hill, where they had chosen to build their Zion, with a tall, gaunt church, which drew to its aisles one day in seven the people that dwelt upon the sides of the hills, and in the bosom of the valleys, within the range of the sum- mons that sounded from its belfry. By way of sat- isfying his hunger with a morning lunch, until he could provide a more substantial meal, he drew up his artillery in front of the weather-beaten edifice that had before defied every thing save the grace of God, and the supplications of his worshippers, and gave it a good round of grape and canister, that pierced its sides through, and shattered its small- paned windows into fragments. The only spectators to this heroic demonstration were a few women and
5
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little children, some of whom ran away at the sight of the red-coats, and others faced the invaders with a menacing stare."
Mr. Hollister is in the main a careful and accurate historian, but a due regard for the truth of history compels us to say that he was misinformed in regard to the above facts. The following account is be- lieved to be correct, our principal informant being an aged inhabitant of Redding, and a competent authority :
During the halt the main body of the troops re- mained under arms on the green in front of the church. Tryon, Agnew, and Erskine were invited into Esquire Heron's, who lived in the first house south of the church, and which is still standing, though in a ruinous condition. Here they were hos- pitably entertained with cake and wine, and with many hopeful prognostications of the speedy col- lapse of the "rebellion." Across the street from the church, in a house a few yards south of the one now occupied by Thomas Ryan, lived Lieutenant Stephen Betts, a prominent patriot, and at whose house it will be remembered the county convention was held in 1779. A file of soldiers entered the house, seized him, and he was taken with them on their march. James Rogers, another. prominent patriot, and Jeremiah Sanford, a lad of ten years, son of Mr. Daniel Sanford, met a like fate. The lad, we may remark, was carried to New York and died in the prison ships, June 28th, 1777. Shortly before the army resumed its march, a horseman was observed spurring rapidly down the Couch's Hill road toward them, and approached within musket-
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shot before discovering their presence ; he then turned to fly, but was shot, and severely wounded in the attempt. He proved to be a messenger from Colonel Cook in Danbury, bearing dispatches to General Silliman, by name Lambert Lockwood. Tryon had formerly known him in Norwalk, where Lockwood had rendered him a service, and seems to have acted on this occasion with some approach to magnanimity, as he released him on parole, and allowed him to be taken into a house that his wounds might be dressed.
The statement concerning the firing into the church is a mistake, and I am assured that the re. verse is true. It is said that the church was not mo- lested at all (except that a soldier with a well-di- rected ball brought down the gilded weathercock from the spire), and the fact that the pastor, the Rev. John Beach, as well as several of its most prominent members, among them the Squire Heron above referred to, were most pronounced loyalists, strengthens the assertion.
The British army, after halting an hour or two in the village, resumed its march to Danbury, with the capture and burning of which the reader is no doubt acquainted.
Meanwhile the patriots in Redding anxiously waited the approach of the Continental army in pursuit. At length it came in view, marching wearily, with dusty and disordered ranks, a lit- tle army of five hundred men and boys, led by Brigadier-General Silliman in person. They had marched from Fairfield that day, and were fully twenty-eight hours behind the foe, who was then ly-
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ing drunken and disorganized at Danbury. A mus- ter-roll of the little band would have shown a most pathetic exhibition of weakness. There were parts of the companies of Colonel Lamb's battalion of artillery, with three rusty cannon, a field-piece, and part of the artillery company of Fairfield, and sixty Continentals ; the rest were raw levies, chiefly old inen and boys. It was eight o'clock in the evening when the troops arrived at Redding Ridge-an even- ing as disagreeable as a north-east rain-storm with its attendant darkness could make it. Here the troops halted an hour for rest and refreshment. At the expiration of that time a bugle sounded far down the street ; then the tramp of horsemen was heard, and presently Major-General Wooster and Brigadier-General Arnold, at the head of a squadron of cavalry, dashed into the village.
On hearing that the British were so far ahead, it is said that Arnold became so enraged that he could scarcely keep his seat, and his terrible oaths fell on his auditors' ears like thunder-claps. Wooster at once assumed command, and the column moved for- ward through the mud as far as Bethel, where it halted for the night. At Danbury, but three miles distant, Tryon's force was sleeping in drunken security, and might have been annihilated by a de- termined effort, but the command was too much ex- hausted for the attempt.
Tryon the next morning was early astir, being aware that the militia were closing in on him on all sides, and commenced a retreat to his ships, taking the circuitous route through Ridgefield. On learn- ing this move, General Wooster at Bethel divided
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his command, one detachment under Generals Ar- nold and Silliman marching rapidly across the coun- try and taking post at Ridgefield, while the other, commanded by himself, pressed closely on Tryon's rear. The succeeding fortunes of the patriots-how they met the foe at Ridgefield, how Wooster fell gallantly leading on his men, how Arnold per- formed prodigies of valor, and how the enemy were pursued and harassed until they gained the cover of their ships-has become a part of our national history, and needs no recounting.
News that the British had landed at Compo, that they were encamped at Weston, and would march through Redding the next day, was conveyed to this town at an early hour, and occasioned the greatest consternation and excitement.
Money and valuables were hastily secreted in wells and other places of concealment ; horses and cattle were driven into the forests, and the inhabi- tants along the enemy's probable route held them- selves in readiness for instant flight. Herod's emis- saries could not have excited livelier emotions of terror in the hearts of Judean mothers than did Tryon's invasion in the breasts of the mothers of Redding. He seems to have warred pre-eminently on women and boys. The latter especially he made prisoners of, and consigned to the horrible prison- ships, either holding them as hostages, or on the plea that they " would very soon grow into rebels." The women of Redding had heard of this propensity. and at his approach gathered all the boys of thir- teen and under -- the older ones were away under arms-and conveyed them to a secluded place near
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the Forge, where they were left under the charge of one Gershom Barlow ; here they remained until the invader had regained his ships, provisions being cooked and sent in to them daily.
Many other incidents of the invasion are current in the town.
On receiving intelligence of the landing at Compo. Captain Read mustered his company of militia, and forthwith marched to intercept the invaders. At a place called Couch's Rock, in Weston, they came suddenly upon the entire force of the enemy and were taken prisoners. Timothy Parsons, one of the militiamen, had a fine musket which he particularly valued ; this a grenadier took, and dashed to pieces on the stones, saying it should waste no more rebel bullets.
Mrs. Thankful Bradley, living in Weston, near the Redding line, was milking by the roadside when the troops surprised her. An officer told her to remain quiet, and they would not molest her. She followed his advice and continued milking while the entire army filed by. With the exception of kidnapping the lad Sanford, the British behaved with praise- worthy moderation during their march through Redding. No buildings were burned, and no such enormities committed as marked their descent on Fairfield and New Haven two years later.
After their departure nothing further of a warlike nature occurred in the town, until the encampment in Redding in the winter of 1778-9 of General Putnam's division of the Continental Army. This division comprised General Poor's brigade of New Hampshire troops, the two brigades of Connecticut troops, the corps of infantry commanded by Hazen,
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and that of cavalry by Sheldon. This division had been operating along the Hudson during the fall, and as winter approached it was decided that it should go into winter quarters at Redding, as from this position it could support the important fort- ress of West Point in case of attack, overawe
the Cow Boys and Skinners of Westchester County, and cover the country adjacent to the Sound. Accordingly, early in November, General Putnam arrived with several of his general officers to select sites for the proposed camps. Three were marked out : the first in the north-eastern part of Lonetown, near the Bethel line, on land now owned by Aaron Treadwell. The second also in Lonetown, about a mile and a half west, on the farm of the late Sherlock Todd, a short distance south-west of his dwelling-house. The third camp was in West Red- ding, on the ridge lying east of Uriah Griffin's, on
land now owned by him, and about a quarter of a. mile north of Redding Station. The sites of all three camps may be easily distinguished by the ruins of the stone chimneys which formed one side of the log huts in which the troops were sheltered. The ruins of the first camp are most distinct, and form perhaps one of the best preserved, as well as most interesting, relics of the Revolution within the reach of the antiquary. This camp was laid out with ad- mirable judgment, at the foot of the rocky bluffs which fence in on the west the valley of the Little River. The barracks were so disposed as to form an avenue nearly a quarter of a mile in length, and several yards in width. At the west end of the camp was a mountain brook, which furnished a plentiful supply
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of water ; near the brook is a heap of cinders which probably marks the spot where a forge was erected. The camp was until recently covered with heavy forests, which explains perhaps the secret of its pres- ervation. The present owner is clearing up the un- derbrush which has overgrown the ruins, rendering it easy of access to visitors, and it will in time no doubt become a favorite place of resort. Only a few heaps of stone mark the site of the second camp, which was also laid out on the southerly slope of a hill, with a stream of running water at its base. The same may be said of the camp at Long Ridge.
As to the exact location of Putnam's headquarters at this time, authorities differ, but all agree in plac- ing it on Umpawaug Hill. Mr. Barber, in his " His- torical Collections," says it was the old house that stood until recently on the corner of the road lead- ing down to Sanford's Station, a short distance north of Andrew Perry's present residence. Mr. Lossing, in his "Field Book of the Revolution," makes the same statement ; but I am informed by an aged resident, whose father was an officer in the Revolutionary army, and visited General Putnam at his headquarters, that they were in an old house that then stood between the residence of the late Burr Meeker and that now occupied by Mr. Brady, and that the first-named was his guard-house. The question is one of little importance perhaps, except to those who demand the utmost possible accuracy in the statement of fact.
Some of the officers were quartered in the house now occupied by Seth Todd, then owned by Samuel Gould ; others in a house that stood on the site of
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the one recently occupied by Sherlock Todd. Gen- eral Parson's headquarters were on Redding Ridge.
While the army lay at Redding several events of importance occurred, which are worthy of narrating with some degree of particularity. The troops went into winter quarters this year in no pleasant humor, and almost in the spirit of insubordination. This was peculiarly the case with the Connecticut troops. They had endured privations that many men would have sunk under -- the horrors of battle, the weari- ness of the march, cold, hunger, and nakedness. What was worse, they had been paid in the depreci- ated currency of the times, which had scarcely any purchasing power, and their devoted families at home were reduced to the lowest extremity of want and wretchedness.
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