USA > Connecticut > New Haven County > Derby > The history of the old town of Derby, Connecticut, 1642-1880. With biographies and genealogies > Part 38
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Mr. John Whitlock, a manufacturer of Birmingham, has kept a faithful record of the heights of freshets for the last thirty years, and some of the most notable are here given. Novem- ber 13, 1853, the water rose in the Naugatuck, seventeen feet and seven inches. This was one of the most destructive fresh- ets known in town. The water was one foot higher than in the great freshet of 1841, the flats and principal streets of An- sonia being completely submerged. The new bridge at An- sonia built two years prior to this was carried off about seven and a half o'clock Sunday evening, the immediate cause being the undermining of the middle pier. It went unexpectedly, and several persons were on the bridge when it began to reel and totter from its foundations. Two young lovers, John Allen
341
A SAD CALAMITY.
nd Georgiana Bartholomew, failed to escape from the bridge nd were carried down the stream, to an island some rods be- ow partially covered with clumps of alders and overflowed with water seven feet deep. This unfortunate couple clung to he slender bushes, shouting for help, their frantic shrieks be- ng distinctly heard a great distance. Their situation was per- ous in the extreme, not much less than the man who about his time lost his life on the island near the Falls of Niagara. Men and a boat in a wagon were quickly on their way from Bir- ningham to the scene, manned by Charles Hart, A. Kimball, Fred Smith and Herman Baum, but all efforts, with desperate azard, to reach the sufferers, after repeated trials through the orrent of waters rushing and gurgling with lightning swiftness, roved a failure. After clinging to the bushes for nearly three hours with the most piteous cries for assistance, while growing ainter and fainter, they finally sank to rise no more. Oh, what sermon the shrieks of those youthful hearts proclaimed to the housands who stood through those long, dismal hours on the banks of that maddened river, gazing into the gates of eternity, which God in his providence had opened to the victims of that dreadful night ! Men and women wept bitterly, their hearts melted within them, but their right arms and prayers could oring no relief to that perishing girl and young man.
The damage in this freshet was immense. Railroads, bridges, houses, barns and factories were swept away. Every bridge horth of Birmingham as far as New Milford, was either car- ried away or greatly damaged. In Ansonia a man from a dis- ant town who held a heavy mortgage upon a house and lot near the river, on visiting the place, found to his great surprise the house not only down stream, but the lot had gone with it. Since that time a dyke has been built along the borders of the Naugatuck to prevent the freshet overflowing the village.
One of the most disastrous ice freshets, it is believed, ever known in Derby occurred February 9, 1857. Factories, offices, stores and dwellings were flooded, and the damage estimated to different parties in the town was at least $125,000. The water in the Ousatonic, from the blockade of ice at the " Point of Rocks " just below the Narrows, rose twenty-two feet and three inches above the ordinary level of the river. On the
342
HISTORY OF DERBY.
business floor of the Manufacturers Bank, which then stood at the foot of Main street, it rose six feet and two inches, burgla- riously entering the vault, and many a good note that day went under protest through a thorough and good soaking of water. At the Narrows the water was one foot over the counter of Capt. Z. M. Platt's store. In some places the ice was from ten to fifteen feet over the railroad track, the lower story of Capt. Kneeland Curtis's old residence near the river was stove in and literally packed with ice, and the " Derby Building and Lumber Company's " property with great loss was scattered in awful and terrific confusion. The ice in the river was at least twenty-two inches thick, and the weather for several days had been rainy, foggy and warm. With the great devastation and ruin caused by this freshet, the heavy covered bridge across the Ousatonic at Birmingham known as " Judson's bridge," which had stood the fury of floods for twenty-six years, was carried away. As the water rose with its ponderous load of ice, the bridge was raised bodily two feet and three inches from its piers, and there it re- mained for hours. The citizens by hundreds flocked to see the bridge go off, but tired of watching for the sight, being as- sured by Mr. Lewis Hotchkiss that it would settle down again upon its foundations when the waters abated, they retired to their houses, but William B. Wooster, E. C. Johnson, William Hawkins and Dr. Beardsley remained as lookers on. At pre- cisely one o'clock in the morning, the ice cakes began to hurdle like so many dancing topers. Johnson put his cane upon the bridge with a "good-by," and the writer exclaimed, " It's pain- ful to see it go after crossing it so many times." Slowly and gracefully at first it moved down without a break about twenty rods, then yielding in the centre, forming a half moon circle it parted, the eastern half swinging near Birmingham shore, while the western portion took the current, looking like a train of cars with lights burning but no passengers, going with railroad speed down the river upon the swift and angry waters. The moon shining brightly upon the glistening ice afforded a most magnificent spectacle to the beholders. The toll grumblers never realized the value of that old bridge until the next day, when they gazed upon its naked piers standing as monuments of its great public convenience. The bridge was rebuilt by its
O
343
HEIGHT OF FRESHETS.
wners in the summer of 1857, and is now a free bridge owned / the towns of Derby and Huntington. B.
Height of water freshets above high tide at Birmingham, as corded by John Whitlock :
November 13, 1853,
17 feet, 7 inches.
April 30, 1854,
" 8 1-2 " 19
February 9, 1857,
22
3
March, 1863,
14
February 12, 1866,
13
I 1-2 "
February 10, 1867,
14
5-8
March 15, 1868,
12
2 I-8 4
October 4, 1869,
16
February 19, 1870,
13
5 I-4 "
April 19, 1870,
January 8, 1874,
17
4 I-2 "
February 25, 1874
II
6
9 1-2 "
February 4, 1875,
8
5 1-2
February 25, 1875,
II
9
March 26, 1876,
12
66 8 1-2
March 29, 1876,
I2
2 I-2
April 4, 1876,
IO
II I-2
March 9, 1877,
12
5
March 28, 1877,
IO
5
February 23, 1878,
IO
5
December 10, 11, 1878,
15
66
9
66
February 12, 1879,
IO
9
60
II
7 1-2 "
66
August 19, 1875,
II
6
66
66
CHAPTER XII.
BIRMINGHAM.
ISTORY repeats itself " is a maxim often spoker but the instruction of it is little heeded. Great c: lamities might be avoided if little experiences or hi: torical transpirations were regarded so as to mak one wise to know the inevitable of the laws of forces. Noth ing is new under the sun, while all is new to the actors on th drama of life.
A great change has come upon the town of Derby, begir ning at Birmingham Point, and moving with steady and sur prophecy of increasing and ennobling renaissance unto grea honor and fame. But this transforming of a little town bounded on one side by a river, and sleeping in an Indian's la] two hundred years on both shores of another, as in an infant': cradle, was prefigured on a vastly larger scale, in the Old World when England emerged suddenly from feudal life into the man: ufacturing age ; the age of money for the common people as well as the courtier and ruler. A description of that change is thus given :
" With the two-handed swords, heavy coats of mail, feudal keeps private warfare, permanent disorder, all the scourges of the middle age retired and faded into the past. The English had done with the Wars of the Roses. They no longer ran the risk of being pillaged to-morrow for being rich, and hung the next day for being traitors ; they had no further need to furbish up their armor, make alliances with powerful nations, lay in stores for the winter, gather together men of arms, scour the country to plunder and hang others. The monarchy, in England as throughout Europe, established peace in the community, and with peace appeared the useful arts. Domestic comfort follows civil secur- ity ; and man better furnished in his home, better protected in his ham- let, takes pleasure in his life on earth, which he has changed and means to change ..
" Toward the close of the fifteenth century the impetus was given ;1 commerce and the woolen trade made a sudden advance, and such an
11488, Act of Parliament on inclosures.
345
CHANGE IN ENGLAND.
enormous one that corn fields were changed into pasture lands, 'whereby the inhabitants of said town (Manchester) have gotten and come into riches and wealthy livings,' so that in 1553, 40,000 pieces of cloth were exported in English ships. It was already the England which we see to-day, a land of green meadows, intersected by hedge- rows, crowded with cattle and abounding in ships ; a manufacturing, opulent land, with a people of beef-eating toilers, who enrich it while they enrich themselves. They improved agriculture to such an extent that in half a century the produce of an acre was doubled.2 They grew so rich that at the beginning of the reign of Charles I. the Com- mons represented three times the wealth of the Upper House. The ruin of Antwerp by the Duke of Parma sent to England ' the third part of the merchants and manufacturers who made silk, damask, stockings, taffetas and serges.' The defeat of the Armada and the decadence of Spain, opened the seas to English merchants.3 The toiling hive, who would dare, attempt, explore, act in unison and always with profit, was about to reap its advantages and set out on its voyages buzzing over the universe.
" At the base and on the summit of society, in all ranks of life, in all grades of human condition, this new welfare became visible. In 1534, considering that the streets of London were 'very noxious and foul, and in many places thereof very jeopardous to all people passing and re- passing, as well on horseback as on foot,' Henry VIII. began the paving of the city. New streets covered the open spaces where the young men used to run races and to wrestle. Every year the number of taverns, theatres, gambling rooms, beer-gardens, increased. Before the time of Elizabeth, the country houses of gentlemen were little more than straw-thatched cottages, plastered with the coarsest clay, lighted only with trellises. 'Howbeit,' says Harrison (1580) ' such as be latelie builded are commonlie either of bricke or hard-stone, or both ; their rooms large and comelie, and houses of office further distant from their lodgings' The old wooden houses were covered with plaster, 'which beside the delectable whiteness of the stuffe itselfe, is laied on so even and smoothlie, as nothing in my judgment can be done with more ex- actness." This open admiration shows from what hovels they had es- caped. Glass was at last employed for windows, and the bare walls
2 Between 1537 and 1588 the increase was from two and a half to five millions.
3Henry VIII. at the beginning of his reign (1509), had but one ship of war. Eliz- abeth, his daughter, sent out one hundred and fifty against the Armada. In 1553 was founded a company to trade with Russia. In 1578 Drake circumnavigated the globe. In 1600 the East India company was founded.
4 Nathan Drake, "Shakespeare and his Times," 1817, I. 72.
44
346
HISTORY OF DERBY.
were covered with hangings, on which visitors might see with delight and astonishment, plants, animals and figures. They began to use stoves, and experienced the unwonted pleasure of being warm. Harrison notes three important changes which had taken place in the farm houses of his time :
"'One is the multitude of chimnies lately erected, whereas in their young daies there were not above two or three, if so manie, in most up- landishe towns of the realme. . The second is the great (al- though not generall) amendment of lodging, for our fathers (yea and we ourselves also) have lien full oft upon straw pallets, on rough mats covered onlie with a sheet, under coverlets made of dagswain, or hop- harlots, and a good round log under their heads instead of a bolster or a pillow. If it were so that the good man of the house had within seven years after his marriage purchased a matteres or flocke bed, and thereto a sacke of chaffe to rest his head upon, he thought himself to be as well lodged as the lord of the town. Pillowes (said they) were thought meet onlie for women in childbed.
The third thing is the exchange of vessell, as of treene platters in pew- ter, and wooden spoones into silver or tin ; for so common was all sorts of treene stuff in old time, that a man should hardlie find four peeces of pewter (of which one was peradventure a salt) in a good far- mer's house."
"Now that the ax and sword of the civil wars had beaten down the independent nobility, and the abolition of the law of maintenance had destroyed the petty royalty of each great feudal baron, the lords quitted their sombre castles, battlemented fortresses, surrounded by stagnant water, pierced with narrow windows, a sort of stone breastplates of no use but to preserve the life of their master. They flock into new palaces with vaulted roofs and turrets covered with fantastic and manifold or- naments, adorned with terraces and vast staircases, with gardens, fount- ains, statues, such as were the palaces of Henry VIII. and Elizabeth, half Gothic and half Italian, whose convenience, splendor and symmetry announced already habits of society and the taste for pleasure. They came to court and abandoned their old manners ; the four meals which scarcely sufficed their former voracity were reduced to two ; gentlemen soon became refined, placing their glory in the elegance and singular- ity of their amusements and their clothes. They dressed magnificently in splendid materials, with the luxury of men who rustle silk and make gold sparkle for the first time ; doublets of scarlet satin, cloaks of sable costing a thousand ducats, velvet shoes embroidered with gold and sil-
5Nathan Drake, " Shakespeare and his Times," I. 102.
347
EFFECT OF THE CHANGE.
ver, covered with rosettes and ribbons ; boots with falling tops, from whence hung a cloud of lace embroidered with figures of birds, animals, constellations, flowers in silver, gold, or precious stones ; ornamented shirts costing ten pounds apiece. 'It is a common thing to put a thou- sand goats and a hundred oxen on a coat, and to carry a whole manor on one's back.' The costumes of the time were like shrines. When Elizabeth died, they found three thousand dresses in her wardrobe. Need we speak of the monstrous ruffs of the ladies, their puffed out dresses, their stomachers stiff with diamonds? As a singular sign of the times, the men were more changeable and more bedecked than they. Harrison says :
"' Such is our mutabilitie, that to daie there is none to the Spanish guise, to morrow the French toies are most fine and delectable, yer long no such apparell as that which is after the high Alman fashion ; by and by the Turkish manner is generalie best liked of, otherwise the Morisee gowns, the Barbarian sleeves . . and the short breeches
And as these fashions are diverse, so likewise it is a world to see the costliness and the curiositie, the excesse and the vanitie, the pompe and the braverie, the change and the varietie, and finallie the ficklenesse and the follie that is in all degrees.'
" Folly, it may have been, but poetry likewise. There was some- thing more than puppyism in this masquerade of splendid costume. The overflow of inner sentiment found this issue, as also in drama and poetry. It was an artistic spirit which induced it. There was an incredible outgrowth of living forms from their brains. They acted like their engravers, who give us in their frontispieces a prodigality of fruits, flowers, active figures, animals, gods, and pour out and confuse the whole treasure of nature in every corner of their paper. They must enjoy the beautiful, they would be happy through their eyes ; they per- ceive in consequence, naturally, the relief and energy of forms."
Such was the change in England, instituted, caused or cre- ated by the introduction into that country of manufacturing enterprises for the production of staple commodities. The ef- fect of the change was to lead many at first into extravagance of personal show and splendor, but the secondary result was learning, science, literature and the study of the Bible and re- ligion ; and out of it grew the revival of practical piety, called Puritanism, which held fast to many errors and superstitions, but with sublime devotion pushed forward for "further light" in the way to the future life.
348
HISTORY OF DERBY.
Such was the change in many respects ; the renaissance which came suddenly, mysteriously and marvelously upon the town of Derby, as the coming of the birds in the spring ; wak- ing in the morning, lo! they are here, with all their beauty, their joyous flight and their songs. Quietly the magic power of art in its preparatory steps began its march of new life on Birmingham Point, the very spot where, just two hundred years before (lacking only six) the first stroke of the ax of Wakeman's men, broke the long, long night of silence in the wilderness. It was fitting that, upon this landscape of enchanting beauty, the genius and skill which were to put in motion ten thousand times ten thousand wheels of mechanic art should first plant the standard, lay the corner stone, and display the ensign pro- phetic of the future comfort and joyful life which should cover the entire region with beautiful homes, spreading lawns and the magnificence of money.
It was in the following simple record that the first foot-prints were made of that power which should transform the entire re- gion from the old to the new, from the plain farmer life to the conveniences, comforts, polish and grandeur of city life. And as if the magic of that power was to reach every living form it seemed to have reached the pen, so that the record of that first transforming act is written in the very best style of the town clerk.
" April. 1836. We, the selectmen of the town of Derby, upon the application of Sheldon Smith and Anson G. Phelps, both of the city, county and state of New York, and on due enquiry into the reasons of said application have laid out a highway through the land of said Smith and Phelps, lying at a place called the Point, now Smithville, in said Derby, having found that the public convenience and necessity required the same ; which is laid sixty feet wide and will form one of the north and south parallel streets of said Smithville."
In the next June, 1836, the selectmen lay out a street in Birmingham "at the request of Sheldon Smith and Anson G. Phelps, both of the city of New York, at a place lately called The Point, now Smithsville, beginning at the west end of the wall inclosing said Sheldon Smith's lot on which his new house is built, on the Ousatonic turnpike road.". That road was called Second street.
349
BIRMINGHAM POINT.
This was the beginning of changes in the physical appear- nces, which foretold the coming of a city to adorn that locality. "The engraving below, shows the appearance of Birming- ham from the shore at Derby Landing. This village was commenced in 1834. There are at present (July 1, 1836) about wenty dwelling houses and three mercantile stores; there is n and about to be put in operation, one factory for making sheet copper and copper wire; one for making augers; one for naking carriage springs and axles; one for making nails or acks; one for flannels and satinets, with some other minor nanufacturing establishments. The water by which the mills ind factories are put in operation is taken from the Naugatuck
BIRMINGHAM IN 1836.
by a canal which extends upwards of a mile and a half north- ward of the village. A steam-boat is about to commence run- ning between this place and New York. Part of the Leaven- worth bridge over the Ousatonic is seen on the extreme left. The dwelling of Sheldon Smith, Esq., is seen a little eastward of this, on the elevated ground above the copper factory. This edifice is elegantly situated, and commands a most beauti- ful and interesting prospect to the southward, particularly of the village at the Landing, and the passage of the Ousatonic through what is called the Narrows. A small, round structure is seen on the right; this is the reservoir from which water is
350
HISTORY OF DERBY.
supplied to the inhabitants of the village. It is raised fifty feet from a well under the grist-mill on the canal below."6
The further story of the rise and progress of Birmingham and Ansonia is told by Dr. A. Beardsley :
The palmy days of agriculture and commerce in Derby had not long disappeared when the enterprising founder of Birming- ham, Sheldon Smith, by his adventure gave a new impulse to the town. Perplexed and discouraged at first, success finally followed experiment, and it now requires no stretch of im- agination to foresee that Derby and its environs are sure to fill a conspicuous place on the map of Connecticut. Almost every day develops some new project, some unthought of enterprise of importance among our business men. Extensive factory seats are being located and built upon ; superb mansions to adorn this or that street, overlooking our dashing rivers, are in process of erection, while neat little cottages or cozy dwellings are constantly springing up to dot our hillsides and accommo- date our growing population. The oldest inhabitant, with pride and satisfaction, may contrast the present with the almost for- gotten past of his native town. Things have changed. Derby took its first and most successful start in Birmingham. The first shovelfull of dirt, moved September 1, 1833, in the con- struction of the Birmingham reservoir, has proved to be the motive power to nearly all the enterprise that now surrounds us. Stimulated by Birmingham old Derby Narrows has, so to speak, emerged from her fossil remains, and to-day is a vigorous and populous locality. Stimulated by Birmingham Ansonia sprang into existence, and we are proud to say is now one of the most flourishing spots that adorn the Naugatuck valley. Stimu- lated by Birmingham the little city over the river, christened after its self-sacrificing and energetic pioneer, Edward N. Shel- ton, is rapidly building up her solid factories, and now the noisy hum of their ponderous machinery blends in grateful sympathy with the roaring music of the Ousatonic dam. With all these flourishing suburbs around us, so charming in their scenery, filled with enterprising men and women, and centrally located, who believes that Birmingham that first set the ball in motion will retrograde or remain in statu quo ? The residents of Bir-
6Barber's Historical Collections, 198, 199.
35I
HAWKINS POINT HOUSE.
mingham who can look back more than forty years may call to mind many pleasing and useful, as well as painful, recollections. At that period there were only twenty-one dwellings, two or three finished factories, as many stores, and neither a school- house nor a church. The beautiful park that now is, was then a rough, rocky, barren slope, and the very grounds whereon so many fine residences now stand were dotted and grassed over with little corn hills or potato mounds, just as they were left by the rude plough-man, seemingly as evidence of his lazy or un- handy work, with here and there a native tree remaining. Even the venerable rocks, relics of centuries, have rapidly disappeared before the march of improvement. Little now remains as re- minders of the famous "Smith farm." The old "Hawkins Point House " (the birthplace of a father in Israel named Smith, connected with this farm, and who died a few years ago at the Neck), with its red coat of forty years old paint, has long ago yielded to the mansion now owned and occupied by Mr. Amos H. Alling. For years it was scarcely tenanted, but the advent of Birmingham, first called Smithville, made it a good home for many, for no less than thirteen sons and daughters of Erin were born in one year within its dingy walls. Just below, around Alling's factory, was a storehouse built sometime in the eighteenth century. This place, Hawkins Point, was the orig- inal landing of traders with the Indians at Derby, when the now main road at the Narrows was only a foot-path through the woods. Along the broken shore, in front of this ancient store- house, small and many sloops
Did roughly ride on foaming tide, Where weary, faint and slow, The Indians drew their light canoes Two hundred years ago.
Warner's Tavern, the first hotel, has long since been rolled from its foundation walls of half a century. It was built in connection with the Ousatonic bridge by Donald Judson and Philo Bassett. It was once the centre of attractions in Bir- mingham, and many a rude dance and rustic gathering con- spired to make it celebrated.
The bridge gate, with its huge padlock, stood upon this side, and some may well remember when scarcely a traveling mendi-
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