USA > Connecticut > Fairfield County > Ridgefield > The history of Ridgefield, Conn. : from its first settlement to the present time > Part 15
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My faults forgotten, and my sins forgiven- Let this, my tranquil birthplace, be my grave : As in my youth I deem'd it nearest heaven- So here I give to God the breath he gave !
Yours ever, S. G. G.
CHAPTER XIV.
TRADITION AND REMINISCENCE.
THREE-QUARTERS of a century ago there was some- times to be seen in the village a strange-appearing old woman, familiarly known as Sarah Bishop. Her whole appearance was to the last degree peculiar. Poorly clad, her form slightly bent, her face pale and careworn, her brow wrinkled and nearly hidden by long locks of gray hair, which were allowed to fall carelessly over it, her step quick and agile, she would seem to glide rather than walk through the town street in quest of such articles of food as were absolutely indispensable to the sustenance of the body ; or a few crumbs of that spiritual bread which is no less indispensable to the life of the soul. She is said to have reminded one more of a visit- ant from the spirit-world than of a being of actual flesh and blood.
Her home-if home it could be called-was situated on one of the south-eastern declivities of West Moun- tain, about four miles north-west from the village of Ridgefield, and just inside the town limits of Salem. It was formed in part by a mass of projecting rock, and in part by pieces of bark and limbs of trees thrown up by her own hands for a covering.
No name could better apply to her manner of life than hermitess. She was no mere amateur recluse -she was actually shut off from all society. Her
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TRADITION AND REMINISCENCE.
dwelling-place was one difficult to find, and her reti- cence covered alike all the incidents of her past life and her present thought. She repelled almost with sternness, rather than courted, the sympathy even of those of her own sex. She loved solitude, she did not feign a preference for it.
The tradition concerning this singular woman is that during the Revolutionary war she lived with her parents on Long Island ; but her father's house hav- ing been at that time burned, and she greatly wronged by a British officer, she left her home, and wandered about until she discovered this lonely spot and the half-formed cave, from which she could not only overlook the Sound, but which on a clear day enabled her to feast her eyes upon the very hills and valleys which surrounded the home of her childhood.
A Poughkeepsie paper published in 1804 gives the following account of a visit to this cave and its oc- cupant :
" Yesterday I went in the company of two Capt. Smiths of this town (N. Y.) to the mountain, to visit the hermitage. As you pass the southern and ele- vated ridge of the mountain, and begin to descend the southern steep, you meet with a perpendicular descent of a rock, in the front of which is this cave. At the foot of this rock is a gentle descent of rich and fertile ground, extending about ten rods, when it instantly forms a frightful precipice, descending half a mile to the pond called Long Pond. In the front of the rock, on the north, where the cave is, and level with the ground, there appears a large frus- tum of the rock, of a double fathom in size, thrown out by some unknown convulsion of nature, and ly- ing in the front of the cavity from which it was rent, partly enclosing the mouth, and . forming a room :
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HISTORY OF RIDGEFIELD.
the rock is left entire above, and forms the roof of this humble mansion. This cavity is the habitation of the hermitess, in which she has passed the best of her years, excluded from all society ; she keeps no domes- tic animal, not even fowl, cat, or dog. Her little plantation, consisting of half an acre, is cleared of its wood, and reduced to grass, where she has raised a few peach-trees, and yearly plants a few hills of beans, cucumbers, and potatoes ; the whole is sur- rounded with a luxuriant grape-vine, which over- spreads the surrounding wood and is very produc- tive. On the opposite side of this little tenement is a fine fountain of excellent water ; at this fountain we found the wonderful woman, whose appearance it is a little difficult to describe : indeed, like nature in its first state, she was without form. Her dress appeared little else than one confused and shapeless mass of rags, patched together without any order, which obscured all human shape, excepting her head, which was clothed with a luxuriancy of lank gray hair depending on every side as time had formed it, without any covering or ornament. When she dis- covered our approach she exhibited the appearance of a wild and timid animal, she started and hastened to her cave, which she entered, and barricadoed the entrance with old shells, pulled from the decayed trees. We approached this humble habitation, and after some conversation with its inmate, obtained liberty to remove the pallisadoes and look in ; for we were not able to enter, the room being only suffi- cient to accommodate one person. We saw no utensil either for labor or cookery, save an old pewter basin and a gourd shell ; no bed but the solid rock, unless it were a few old rags scattered here and there ; no bed-clothes of any kind, not the least appearance of food or fire. She had, indeed, a place in one corner of her cell, where a fire had at some time been kin- dled, but it did not appear there had been one for some months. To confirm this, a gentleman says he
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TRADITION AND REMINISCENCE.
passed her cell five or six days after the great fall of snow in the beginning of March, that she had no fire then, and had not been out of her cave since the snow had fallen. How she subsists during the severe sea- son is yet a mystery ; she says she eats but little flesh of any kind ; in the summer she lives on berries, nuts, and roots. We conversed with her for some time, found her to be of a sound mind, a religious turn of thought, and entirely happy in her situation ; of this she has given repeated proofs by refusing to quit this dreary abode. She keeps a Bible with her, and says she takes much satisfaction and spent much time in reading it."
The first piece of poetry ever published by S. G. Goodrich (Peter Parley) had this hermitess for its sub- ject. It ran as follows :
For many a year the mountain hag Was a theme of village wonder, For she made her home in the dizzy crag, Where the eagle bore his plunder.
Up the beetling cliff she was seen at night Like a ghost to glide away ; But she came again with the morning light, From the forest wild and gray.
Her face was wrinkled, and passionless seem'd As her bosom, all blasted and dead -- And her colorless eye like an icicle gleam'd, Yet no sorrow or sympathy shed.
Her long snowy locks, as the winter drift, On the wind were backward cast ;
And her shrivell'd form glided by so swift, You had said 'twere a ghost that pass'd.
Her house was a cave in a giddy rock, That o'erhung a lonesome vale ; And 'twas deeply scarr'd by the lightning shock, And swept by the vengeful gale.
IO
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HISTORY OF RIDGEFIELD.
As alone on the cliff she musingly sate- The fox at her fingers would snap ; The crow would sit on her snow-white pate, And the rattlesnake coil in her lap.
The night-hawk look'd down with a welcome eye, As he stoop'd in his airy swing ; And the haughty eagle hover'd so nigh As to fan her long locks with his wing.
But when Winter roll'd dark his sullen wave From the west with gusty shock,
Old Sarah, deserted, crept cold to her cave, And slept without bed in her rock.
No fire illumined her dismal den, Yet a tatter'd Bible she read ;
For she saw in the dark with a wizard ken, And talk'd with the troubled dead.
And often she mutter'd a foreign name, With curses too fearful to tell, And a tale of horror-of madness and shame- She told to the walls of her cell !
Mr. Goodrich further says of her (" Recollections of a Lifetime," vol i., p. 293) : "In my rambles among the mountains, I have seen her passing through the forest, or sitting silent as a statue upon the prostrate trunk of a tree, or perchance upon a stone or mound, scarcely to be distinguished from the inanimate objects-wood, earth, and rock-around her. She had a sense of propriety as to personal appearance, for when she vis- ited the town, she was decently though poorly clad ; when alone in the wilderness she seemed little more than a squalid mass of rags. My excursions frequently brought me within the wild precincts of her solitary den. Several times I have paid a visit to the spot, and in two instances found her at home. A place
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TRADITION AND REMINISCENCE.
more desolate-in its general outline-more absolutely given up to the wildness of nature, it is impossible to conceive. Her cave was a hollow in the rock, about six feet square. Except a few rags and an old basin, it was without furniture-her bed being the floor of the cave, and her pillow a projecting point of the rock. It was entered by a natural door about three feet wide and four feet high, and was closed in severe weather only by pieces of bark. At a distance of a few feet was a cleft, where she kept a supply of roots and nuts, which she gathered, and the food that was given her. She was reputed to have a secret depos- itory, where she kept a quantity of antique' dresses, several of them of rich silks, and apparently suited to fashionable life : though I think this was an exaggera- tion. At a little distance down the ledge, there was a fine spring of water, in the vicinity of which she was often found in fair weather.
" There was no attempt, either in or around the spot, to bestow upon it an air of convenience or com- fort. A small space of cleared ground was occupied by a few thriftless peach-trees, and in summer a patch of starvelling beans, cucumbers, and potatoes. Up two or three of the adjacent forest-trees there clambered luxuriant grape-vines, highly productive in their sea- son. With the exception of these feeble marks of cul- tivation, all was left ghastly and savage as nature made it. The trees, standing upon the top of the cliff, and exposed to the shock of the tempest, were bent, and stooping toward the valley-their limbs contorted, and their roots clinging, as with an agonizing grasp, into the rifts of the rocks upon which they stood. Many of them were hoary with age, and hollow with decay ;
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HISTORY OF RIDGEFIELD.
others were stripped of their leaves by the blasts, and others still, grooved and splintered by the lightning. The valley below, enriched with the decay of centu- ries, and fed with moisture from the surrounding hills, was a wild paradise of towering oaks, and other giants of the vegetable kingdom, with a rank undergrowth of tangled shrubs. In the distance, to the east, the gathered streams spread out into a beautiful expanse of water called Long Pond.
" A place at once so secluded and so wild was, of course, the chosen haunt of birds, beasts, and rep- tiles. The eagle built her nest and reared her young in the clefts of the rocks ; foxes found shelter in the caverns, and serpents revelled alike in the dry hollows of the cliffs and the dank recesses of the valley. The hermitess had made companionship with these brute tenants of the wood. The birds had become so familiar with her, that they seemed to heed her almost as little as if she had been a stone. The fox fearlessly pursued his hunt and his gambols in her presence. The rattlesnake hushed his monitory signal as he ap- proached her. Such things, at least, were entertained by the popular belief. It was said, indeed, that she had domesticated a particular rattlesnake, and that he paid her daily visits. She was accustomed-so said the legend-to bring him milk from the villages, which he devoured with great relish.
" During the winter she was confined for several months to her cell. At that period she lived upon roots and nuts, which she had laid in for the season. She had no fire, and, deserted even by her brute com- panions, she was absolutely alone, save that she seemed to hold communion with the invisible world.
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TRADITION AND REMINISCENCE.
She appeared to have no sense of solitude, no weari- ness at the slow lapse of days and months : night had no darkness, the tempest no terror, winter no deso- lation, for her. When spring returned, she came down from her mountain, a mere shadow-each year her form more bent, her limbs more thin and wasted, her hair more blanched, her eye more colorless."
In the year 1810 this strange life ended, and ended in a manner sadly in keeping with all which had pre- ceded it.
One stormy night she left the house of a Mr. Wil- son, living where Mr. Timothy Jones now lives, some two miles away, to return by a nearer route across the fields to her own wretched den. A few days after, much anxiety having been felt as to her condition, search was made for her. Not finding her in the cave, those in search started down across the fields towards the house at which she had been last seen. They had proceeded but a little way before they dis- covered her lifeless body literally wedged in between masses of rocks. She had never reached her home. The things which the kind neighbor had given her were with her. In attempting to climb the steep and rocky hill-side she had missed her footing and per- ished.
The neighbors and friends took up her body, and having prepared it for the grave, buried it in the old burying-ground connected with the Episcopal Church, North Salem. No stone marks the spot where her body rests, but the old cave, still to be seen in the mountain-side, will keep fresh and green her memory, while that of many who lived in affluence and died greatly lamented shall have perished.
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HISTORY OF RIDGEFIELD.
During the war of 1812 Zina St. John, Major Bough- ton, Adniram Keeler, Josiah Dykeman, and several others were drafted into the government service and stationed at New London, Ct.
While there they were visited by an old lady from Ridgebury (widow of William Forrester, Esq.), fami- liarly called Aunt Sarah. She was partially de- ranged, and on this occasion had conceived the idea that our soldiers were starving at their posts. Un- beknown to her relatives, she donned her late hus- band's military coat and hat, obtained a young horse but recently bitted, and securing a cheese and a ham in a bag, placed it on the colt, and, without a saddle, rode to New London, a distance of over seventy miles. Upon her arrival there she at once rode into camp, where she found our boys, and treated them to the contents of the bag. The officers, comprehending her situation, treated her kindly, and on the following day returned her to her home.
Mrs. Sarah Jewett, now in her ninety-second year, has in her possession a copper kettle, which is said to have been brought to this country in the Mayflower. In this kettle the first cup of tea was made in the town. There is a very amusing tradition concerning this first tea-making. It was in an old house, which stood im- mediately back of the residence of Mr. Howard King, then owned and occupied by Rev. Jonathan Ingersoll, that this first attempt at tea-drinking was made. The tea was placed in the kettle, and a sufficient quantity of water added ; when properly boiled, the water was thrown away and the tea-leaves were eaten.
2II
TRADITION AND REMINISCENCE.
The Indian sachem Katoonah, from whom the town tract was originally purchased, lies buried beside his favorite wife on the heights of Cantitoe (Katoonah's own land), where two immense boulders are shown as marking the spot. Cantitoe is in Bedford, Westchester County, N. Y., and the site of this chieftain's sup- posed grave is on the farm of Mr. Pillow. The origi- nal deeds of the town of Bedford show that much of that land, as well as of towns south, was purchased of Katoonah.
CHAPTER XV.
THE RECORD OF THE TOWN IN THE WAR OF THE REBELLION.
THE roar of the first gun fired on Sumter seemed to awaken echoes in every village and hamlet in New England. It was a shot fired at constitutional liberty and at the equal rights of man ; a blow struck at the best government and the best institutions on earth ; an assassin's knife aimed at the very heart of the Re- public.
New England felt this in every part. The operatives in her workshops and factories ; the merchant and tradesman in their stores and counting-rooms ; the professor and student in her seminaries of learning, all felt the shock, and hastened to express their loyalty, and if necessary to sacrifice every thing that men hold dear rather than tamely submit to usurpation and wrong.
Ridgefield was among the first towns in the State to take decisive action in the matter. Public meetings were called, sentiments of purest loyalty expressed, and volunteers forwarded to the national capital. The following minutes, taken from the Town Records, will indicate the spirit of loyalty everywhere mani- fested.
PHOTO-ENC CONY
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THE WAR OF THE REBELLION.
SPECIAL TOWN MEETING.
"The Inhabitants of the Town of Ridgfield are here- by notified and warned that a special Town Meeting will be held at the Town-House, in said Ridgefield, on Saturday the fourth (4th) day of May 1861, at 3 o'clock afternoon, for the purpose of making provision for the families of those persons in said Town who may volunteer their services to the United States ; to lay a tax, if necessary ; to give instructions to the Select- men, if necessary ; and to make any appropriations ; and to take any other steps proper and necessary to fully carry out the purposes aforesaid.
" EBENEZER HAWLEY,
" AMOS SMITH, 1 Selectmen.
" SMITH KEELER,
" RIDGEFIELD, April 26, 1861."
" At a Special Town Meeting, holden May 4, 1861, in pursuance of the foregoing notice, William Lee was appointed Moderator, and Henry Smith, 2ª, Clerk, pro tem.
"On motion, it was voted that the following Pre- amble and Resolutions be, and they are hereby, adopted, viz :
"' Whereas, The people of the United States, within the Union, and under their own Government, have for three quarters of a century enjoyed an unparal- leled prosperity and progress, for the continuance of which the Constitution of the United States is the perpetual guaranty ; and
".' Whereas, An armed rebellion now threatens the very existence of that Government, seizing the forts, arsenals, navy-yards, vessels, and hospitals which
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HISTORY OF RIDGEFIELD.
belong to the people of the United States, and con- summating its crime by firing upon the flag of the nation, the glorious symbol of our unity, our liberty, and our general welfare ;
" 'Resolved, That it was the duty of all persons in the . country to resort to the peaceful and legal means of redress provided by the Constitution, and that when, instead of so doing, they took up arms and organized resistance to the Government of the country, they struck at the very heart of organized civil society.
"'Resolved, That the Government of the United States has properly sought by every kind of forbear- ance to avoid the sad necessity of asserting its author- ity by force of arms ; but that it is at length manifest to the whole world that it must subdue or be subdued.
" 'Resolved, That in forcibly maintaining that author- ity everywhere within its dominions, and at every cost, the Government wages no war of conquest, but simply does. its duty, expecting every citizen to do the same, and to take care that the doom of the rebels and traitors, who would ruin the most beneficent gov- ernment in the world, and so destroy the hope of free popular institutions forever, shall be swift, sudden, and overwhelming.
" ' Resolved, That when the supreme authority of the Government of the people of the United States shall have been completely established, we, with all other good citizens, will cheerfully co-operate in any meas- ures that may be taken in accordance with the Consti- tution fully to consider and lawfully to redress all grievances that may anywhere be shown to exist, yielding ourselves, and expecting all others to yield to the will of the whole people constitutionally expressed.
" ' Resolved, That we, loyal citizens of Ridgefield, hereby before God and men, take the oath of fidelity to the sacred flag of our country, and to the cause of pop- ular liberty and constitutional government which that flag represents, pledging ourselves to each other that by the love we bear our native land, and our un-
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THE WAR OF THE REBELLION.
faltering faith in the principles of our government, we will transmit to our children, unimpaired, the great heritage of blessings we have received from our fathers.'
"On motion, it was voted that an appropriation be made from the treasury of the Town of Ridgefield for the support of the families of the residents of this town who shall volunteer in accordance with the calls of the President of the United States, in the present national troubles ; and the appropriation shall be ex- pended as follows, viz. : to the wife of each volunteer the sum of two dollars per week, and fifty cents per week for each child that such volunteer may have dependent on him for support under twelve years of . age, which shall be paid weekly ; and such allowance. shall continue weekly during the term of his voluntary enlistment.
" Voted, That a Committee of Three be appointed to draw all orders from the Treasury for the support of the families of those persons who may enlist in ser- vice of their country, in the present troubles, accord- ing to the foregoing resolutions.
" Voted, That Samuel M. Smith, William Lee, and William W. Beers, be, and they are hereby appointed said Committee.
" On motion adjourned.
" Attest, HENRY SMITH, 2ª Clerk, pro tem."
TOWN MEETING.
"By request of many of the Inhabitants of the Town of Ridgefield, a Special Town Meeting will be held at the Town-House, in said Ridgefield, on Satur-
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HISTORY OF RIDGEFIELD.
day the gth day of the present August, at 3 o'clock in the afternoon, to take into consideration the propriety of paying a Town Bounty to all persons who may en- list before the 20th day of the present August, under the President's last call for three hundred thousand men, and to do other business necessary and legal.
" EBENEZER HAWLEY, )
" AMOS SMITH, Selectmen.
" SMITH KEELER,
" RIDGEFIELD, August 1, 1862."
"At a Special Town Meeting, holden August 9th, 1862, in pursuance of the foregoing notice, William Lee was appointed Moderator.
" On motion, it was voted that the following Resolu- tion be adopted :
"'Resolved, That the Town of Ridgefield authorize the Selectmen of said town to pay each volunteer who has enlisted under the present calls, or who shall enlist under said calls, the sum of two hundred dollars as bounty for the support of their families, if they have any ; if single, to be paid to the order of the volunteer, to be drawn by each volunteer in monthly instalments of twenty-five dollars; with the understanding that each enlistment thus made, shall go to relieve the good old Town of Ridgefield from a draft : Provided that the number is enlisted by the 15th of this present August ; and that after the requisite number to prevent a draft is raised, the said bounty shall not be paid.
Voted, That the Selectmen pay the same from the Treasury, or if the amount shall not be in the hands of the Treasurer, the Selectmen be authorized to bor- row the same.
" 'Voted, That whenever a volunteer shall present to the Selectmen a certificate of his having been accepted and sworn into the service of the United States in
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THE WAR OF THE REBELLION.
some one of the Connecticut regiments, they shall draw orders on the Town Treasurer for the payment of the bounty just voted.'
" On motion, adjourned.
" Attest, L. H. BAILEY, Town Clerk."
SPECIAL TOWN MEETING.
" Upon a petition of Jesse L. Benedict and sundry others, a special Town Meeting will be held at the Town-House, in Ridgefield, on Saturday the 6th inst., at 2 of the clock in the afternoon, for the purpose of mak- ing arrangements for filling the quota of this town's soldiers, by giving the same bounty to those that may volunteer, as has been given to those that have already volunteered ; or in case a draft shall be made, to vote a bounty to those that may be drafted.
" EBENEZER HAWLEY, 1 Selectmen.
" AMOS SMITH,
" SMITH KEELER,
" RIDGEFIELD, September 1, 1862."
"At a Special Town Meeting, holden September 6, 1862, in pursuance of the foregoing notice, Ebenezer Hawley was appointed Moderator.
"On motion, it was voted that the following Pre- amble and Resolutions be adopted :
" ' Whereas, The Town of Ridgefield in Special Town Meeting, held on the 9th day of August last, voted a bounty of two hundred dollars to each person who had already enlisted, or should before the 15th day of August ; and the time having been extended to the IOth day of September inst., therefore,
".' Resolved, That the Selectmen be, and they are hereby authorized to pay to any person who shall en- list before the Ioth day of the present month, or in
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HISTORY OF RIDGEFIELD.
case of an extension of time, then said bounty to con- form thereto, the sum of two hundred dollars, in monthly instalments of twenty-five dollars per month, upon the presentation of the proper vouchers that they have been accepted by the proper authorities ; providing said bounty shall not be paid to any person after seventy-seven volunteers have been enlisted, which is the number required by the said town.
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