USA > Connecticut > Litchfield County > Litchfield > The history of the town of Litchfield, Connecticut, 1720-1920 > Part 12
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But the social, intellectual and commercial leadership of Litch- field was attained under circumstances so unusual, that the story reads like a romance. Still secluded from the great world of the cities, without mails or roads adapted to passenger traffic, with its rigorous climate and the interminable hills, Litchfield won its way forward step by step. It became a pioneer in so many and such important directions because its population were pioneers. There were no drones in Litchfield; the same energy that was converting the forests into meadows was being exercised by a few leading spirits towards converting the rude settlement at the center into a polished and noteworthy society, in which Washington and Lafay- ette could be received as equals. It was the triumph of the puritan spirit, brave, unyielding, severe to itself and just to others; if we think that it was a religion too concentrated upon doctrine and too
THE TALLMADGE HOUSE, 1775. (Mrs. John A. Vanderpoel)
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33 Pack
THE JEDEDIAH STRONG MILESTONE AT ELM RIDGE, 1787
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hard upon the individual, must we not yet confess that it made Litchfield within a hundred years a place looked up to far and wide. Litchfield was a town of happy gaiety as well as of severe learning and work, it had every phase of life represented, except that of scandal. It was sometimes called a staid old town and a prim vil- lage, but those who called it such are quite forgotten now, while the memory of the golden age will always be fresh.
Apart from the indomitable character of the settlers, two chief elements entered into the success of the town. The first was the formation of Litchfield County with the importance given to our legal life by the sessions here of such frequent Courts; and the other was the capture of New York by the British in the Revolution, which threw all the business of the War onto the northern highway from Boston and Hartford to West-Point passing through our vil- lage. When Washington, at some crisis, would call upon Governor Trumbull for help, Brother Jonathan never failed him and the help and supplies would either be sent on forthwith from the stores in Litchfield or they would pass through the town from points further
to the east. Every man in Litchfield was in the War; when the last fourteen men were sent to help in the defence of Danbury they included the boys of sixteen and the old men of seventy five. Happily no such need has ever come again to our country and our town; but it was the need that made our town, in the sense of its prosperity. With the close of the War achievement came with a great rush, that swept before it all the obstacles of location and all the handicaps of our belated start. It may have been another half a dozen years before the government would give the town a post office, but the town was starting its own newspaper and its own Law School within one year, it was starting its own trade and training its own men to become Governors and chief justices for the state, and Senators for the United States.
A half mile from the center, on the Bantam Road, at Elm Ridge, is still standing the old white marble stone, which reads:
30 Miles to Hartford. 102 Miles to New York.
J. Strong, A. D. 1787.
Jedediah Strong, as we shall see, was not a citizen representative of Litchfield at its best; but he had the Litchfield spirit. The only thing that separated Litchfield from other cities was distance, which in turn could always be expressed in miles.
When it became apparent that a government post-office would be slow in coming, it was local enterprise that decided to hasten the day by the establishment of its own office, so that in January, 1791, we find the Monitor issuing the following advertisement:
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"Post-Office Establishment. The Public, particularly Gentle- men in the Town and Vicinity of Litchfield, having some time lamented the want of a regular and weekly Intercourse with the City of Hartford, by a Post immediately from this Town-are respect- fully assured, that a Post in conjunction with Mr. Isaac Trow- bridge, the Rider from New York, will start from this Office for Hartford regularly, once a week, commencing on Monday next, the 31st inst. This Establishment has met the Sanction and Concur- rence of Mr. Trowbridge; and the Undertakers will be subject to the same Regulation and Responsibility required by the Postmaster General. Consequently, every Duty annexed to the Business will be strictly and pointedly observed.
"And that the Public may be better accomodated, and derive a safe Repository for their Letters, &c., a Post-Office is opened at Collier's Printing Office-at which place all Despatches, to be trans- mitted through the medium of either post, must be deposited. Dur- ing the Winter, (till the 1st of May next,) the Post from New York will ride once a fortnight, and arrive on Tuesday evenings; com- mencing the 5th of the ensuing month. Those who have Business or Letters are requested to leave their directions at this Office, for New York on Tuesday, for Hartford on Saturday Evenings, preced- ing the days of departure; as the Posts will positively start at an early Hour. Letters will be received at this Office for any part of the United States".
The establishment of this private Post gave the necessary spur to the Government, which in a year opened a Post Office in the town. This formed one link on the Post Road from New York to Hartford, passing through White Plains, Northcastle, Salem, Pound Ridge, Ridgefield, Danbury, New Milford, Litchfield, Harwinton and Farmington. At first the Litchfield office was the only one in the County, and it is interesting to read the advertisements of unclaimed letters, like the following, which shows only six letters unclaimed for the whole county for a period of three months: either the number of letters was very small or the interest in obtaining them was so great that every one was diligently called for:
"List of Letters at the Post Office in Litchfield last quarter: Noble Bostwick, New Milford; Justus Cook, Northbury; David Fan- cher, Watertown; Reuben and John Miner, Winchester; Jonathan Werden, Salisbury. B. Tallmadge, P. M. Litchfield, Nov. 1, 1792". "Within the half-dozen years next succeeding this date", Kil- bourne, p. 169, "commenced what may be characterized as the Era of Turnpikes and Stage-Coaches, which continued in its glory for something over forty years. During this period, very much was done to improve the routes of travel and to facilitate communication of town with town. Turnpike Companies were organized in all parts of the State, and turnpike stock was regarded by capitalists as a safe, profitable and permanent investment. The Litchfield and New Milford Turnpike Company was incorporated in October, 1797; the Litchfield and Harwinton Company, in October, 1798; and the
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Litchfield and Canaan Company, in May, 1799. Then followed Straits' Turnpike, from Litchfield to New Haven, the Litchfield and Cornwall, the Litchfield and Torrington, and the Litchfield and Ply- mouth Turnpikes,-so that, in due time, it became almost impossible to get into or out of our town without encountering a toll-gate. Four- horse Stage Coaches gradually came into use from the time that Turnpikes became general; and ultimately Congress enacted that the U. S. Mails should be thus conveyed on all the principal routes. Litchfield now became an important center of travel. . Daily lines of Mail Stages were established between this village and Hartford, New Haven, Norwalk, Poughkeepsie and Albany".
"There is also a turnpike", Morris, p. 93, "on the eastern bound- ary, running contiguously to Mattatuck or Waterbury river, uniting with the Straits turnpike at Salem, and running to Massachusetts line, through Winchester and Colebrook. As the rivers and rivu- lets are small, the Bridges are not worthy of a particular descrip- tion. The expense of keeping them in repair amounts to between two and three hundred dollars annually".
Mrs. E. N. Vanderpoel has preserved a number of the advertise- ments of the Stages in her Chronicles of a Pioneer School, including a long one in verse, pp. 22-23. We will only quote one of these, in which the emphasis is laid upon no night travelling; One doubts its advantages on reading further that the stage leaves at 3 A. M. No wonder the passengers used to sit up all night for fear of being left behind, especially when they were school girls going on their vaca- tions :
"New Arrangement. Litchfield, New Milford, Danbury and Norwalk Mail Stage. This Stage leaves Josiah Park's Hotel, Litch- field, on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays at 3 in the morning, passing thro' New Preston, New Milford and Brookfield and arrives at Danbury to lodge: leaves Danbury next morning for Norwalk and arrives in time for passengers to take the steam boat for N. York. No Night Travelling. Fare through to New York 3.25. Returning Takes the Norwalk passengers at Danbury on Monday, Wednesday and Friday morning, and arrives in Litchfield the same day. For seats apply at the Bar at Park's Hotel, Litchfield, H. Barnes, Pro- prietor, November 10, 1829".
A special importance was given to taverns by the increase of Stage Coaches, as the transient business which followed was added to the regular visitors coming to the town. Besides these, there were the scholars at the two schools, sometimes over a hundred from other places, far and near, to be cared for, so that the houses which were not used as Inns, were often converted into boarding houses, and almost every house took in at least one boarder.
Some of the taverns were specially successful and popular. There was Grove Catlin's Hotel, built about 1800, and later con- verted into the Mansion House. This remained an Hotel till the fire of 1886, and stood on the present site of Crutch & Marley's Drug Store. It figures prominently in Plate 26, and in Plate 27 is shown
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one of the typical old village scenes, the preparation of the annual Mansion House wood-pile. The logs were hauled in by teams, and then a considerable number of men were employed to saw up the pile, all at one time. For some years the pile used to stand out on the street.
The house now owned by the Phelps House Corporation on East Street, next but one to the corner of North Street, was built by John Collins in 1782. He was a son of Timothy Collins, but he evidently thought that keeping a tavern would be more profitable than follow- ing in his father's footsteps in the church, and he opened the house as an Inn from the beginning. The bar was in the south west front room, with the ball room directly overhead.
In 1787, David Buell built the present Phelps' Tavern. This popular and well-known hostelry is to-day probably the oldest Hotel in point of continuous service now standing in the County, if not in the State. Very few country hotels have entertained so many distinguished men and women. As originally built the entire top floor was a ball-room, in which was given the famous Ball to Lafay- ette in 1824. A fuller description of this room will be found in the chapter on Amusements. The tavern was sold to John Phelps, under whose regime it first became so well known.
The house on the east side of South Street, now owned by Mrs. Esther T. Champlin, was built by Benjamin Hanks in 1780. It was first used as an Hotel by Josiah Parks, in the late 20's. George Bolles later kept a tavern there, and built the addition to the south. Mr. Wadhams of Goshen was the last person who continued it as an hotel, and it passed into the possession of A. C. Smith in the early 50's. Mr. Smith made the division between the north and south sections.
On North Street, a famous hostelry was Sheldon's Tavern, now the residence of John P. Elton. It is the second oldest house now standing in the Borough. It was built in 1760 by Elisha Sheldon, who came to Litchfield in 1753 with several other residents of Lyme, including Lynde Lord and Reynold Marvin. Judge Sheldon was Associate Judge of the Court of Common Pleas from 1754 to 1761, when he was elected a member of the Council at Hartford. He served in this position till his death in 1779. On his death, his son Samuel Sheldon converted the house into a tavern. It was pur- chased by Uriah Tracy, who made it his home till his death in 1807.
The first Court-House was built in 1752, and stood in the center of the present Center Park, between the Church and the School. The second Court-House was built on the site of the present Court-House in 1797. Julius Deming acted for the town in its construction and the contract was awarded to Alexander and Moses Catlin. The contract and plans for its erection are preserved by the Litchfield Historical Society. It is described in the contract "to be 40 feet in front, 60 feet deep and 25 feet posts, with a flat roof to rise 1-5 or 2.9 with four columns in front supporting a peddiment & a Cupola". The School-house was built in 1732. There had been, at first,
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MANSION HOUSE, 1800, AND SECOND COURT HOUSE, 1798
PREPARING THE WINTER'S WOODPILE FOR THE MANSION HOUSE
....
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a good deal of discussion as to whether the Center School should be on Litchfield Hill or on Chestnut Hill, but once the matter was set- tled it appears to have given no further trouble. In the days of the golden age, the town had been divided into school districts, which at one time reached the surprising number of 28, each with its own small school. And in addition there were a variety of private schools. In 1798, the care of the Schools passed into the hands of the First School Society, a body which remained in charge until 1855, when the management was taken over again directly by the town. The Society also had charge of the Burying Grounds. It was directed by many of the prominent men of the town, in the form of a Committee, which probably corresponded very closely to the present School Board. On this committee we find the names of Lyman Beecher, Benjamin Tallmadge, Frederick Wolcott, Julius Deming, Moses Seymour, Uriah Tracy, and many others. Their great concern, at least in the earlier years, was to obtain enough books that were alike.
For a time, about 1798, there was a Public Library, and some- what later a Litchfield Lyceum, with lectures, Debates and weekly meetings.
Such, very briefly, was the setting in which the years of the Golden Age were to unfold, as we will now trace in a series of chap- ters dealing with its several distinct aspects.
CHAPTER IX.
THE LITCHFIELD LAW SCHOOL.
As we look back to the days of the Litchfield Law School, 1784- 1833, it stands out as the most important single feature in the History of our town. The picture we have of it in our minds is likely, however, to be somewhat fragmentary. The outer side of the pic- ture, what we call the picturesque side, is apt to dwarf the inner meaning of this remarkable achievement. We are likely to have in mind the charming account of the students' life left us in the Personal Memories of E. D. Mansfield, pp. 126-128:
"We breakfasted from seven to eight in the morning, and at nine went to the lecture-room to hear and take notes of Judge Gould's lecture. The founder of the Litchfield Law School was Judge Tapping Reeve, and, if tradition is correct, few better men have ever lived, and scarcely any one was then better known to the bar. He was the author of a Treatise on Domestic Relations, which the lawyers admired, but said was not law, on account, I believe, of its leaning too much to women's rights, a fault which would not be found with it in this day. At the time I arrived in Litchfield, 1823, Judge Reeve had given up the law school to Judge Gould, who had been his partner, and he soon after died. He was a man rather noted for eccentricities. After the death of his first wife, he mar- ried his housekeeper, a most respectable woman, however, dis- tinguished for piety and benevolence. He was quite absent-minded, and one day he was seen walking up North Street, with a bridle in his hand, but without his horse, which had quietly slipped out and walked off. The Judge calmly fastened the bridle to a post, and walked into the house, oblivious of any horse. It was under the teaching of Judge Reeve that such men as John C. Calhoun and John M. Clayton, of Delaware, were law students. The school was now under the sole care of Judge Gould. At nine o'clock we students walked to the lecture-room, with our note-books under our arms. We had desks, with pen and ink, to record the important principles and authorities. The practice of Judge Gould was to read the prin- ciple from his own manuscript twice distinctly, pausing between, and repeating in the same manner the leading cases. Then we had time to note down the principle and cases. The remarks and illus- trations we did not note. After the lecture we had access to a law library to consult authorities. The lecture and references took about two hours. Those of us who were in earnest, of whom I was one. immediately returned home, and copied out into our lecture- books all the principles and cases. My lecture-books made five
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volumes. The lectures, the references, and the copying took me, on an average, from nine o'clock until three or four o'clock, with the intermission of near an hour for dinner. . Five to six hours a day employed in this manner was my regular work at Litchfield, and very seldom was a day missed. At four o'clock in the afternoon I was generally at leisure, and that was usually employed in walking or riding, sometimes in visiting. We prolonged our rides in sum- mer time, having taken an early tea, into the starlit shades of night. In the long days of summer no candles were lit in the farm-houses of Connecticut. When the deep twilight came, every family had gone to rest as completely as the chickens to their roosts; but when the dawn of day came, they were up; and when we lazy students were at breakfast, they had done hours of work. Such were the Connecticut farmers of that day".
These happy days of study, under circumstances unequalled at that time, the distinguished men who then crowded our streets, (men, rather, who were to be distinguished in the years to be), the kindly, lovable figure of Tapping Reeve, and the more serious Gould, made the Law School the prominent feature of the town's life, unless we give precedence to the charm and beauty of the girls' school. Mrs. William Curtis Noyes has described the scene as an eye-witness, (Vanderpoel, p. 28) : "Imagine these now quiet streets with red coaches rattling through them, with signs of importer, publisher, goldsmith, hatter, etc., hanging on the shops with young men arriv- ing on horseback to attend the law school and divide their attention between their studies of the law and studies of the pretty pupils of the Female Academy. Then there were some gay bloods from the South so much at home in the town that they disported themselves in pink gingham frock coats!"
We will return again to this picturesque side of the Law School; but first it is important to try and summarize the real meaning of its achievement. To do so, we must go back to a survey of the legal practices before the Revolution, and see just where the study of law came into the general plan. Taking the country as a whole, the law then occupied a very different position from what it does at the present day. There was much less wealth, proportionately: so much less, that it is hard for us to realize the difference. In con- sequence, there was much less litigation of a strictly business char- acter. On the other hand, the body of the law was much less defined; there were no law reports, till the day of our own Ephraim Kirby, 1789; Constitutional Law, naturally, did not exist; and the interpre- tations of the Common Law were the subject of much difference of opinion. Even more than to-day, the success of a lawyer depended on his individuality, and the roll-call of the lawyers of the County at the time, as given for instance in the Centennial Address of Judge Church, 1851, pp. 54-59, shows an aggregation, the average merit of whom is amazing when we take into account the difference in the population of the County as a whole and the difference in wealth. Our concern is only with the lawyers of the township.
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Our most distinguished lawyer at the period of the War, was Andrew Adams. He was born in Stratford, 1736, and came to Litch- field in 1764. He was one of our Representatives to the General Assembly, 1776-1781, after which date he became a member of Cou- gress. In May, 1793, he was appointed Chief Justice of the Superior Court of the State, in which office he died, November 27, 1797. Of him, Morris wrote, p. 110: "As a lawyer, few exceeded him; especially in managing causes before a jury. He was an able judge". The Monitor mentioned it as a sad coincidence that he and Governor Oliver Wolcott Sr., the two highest dignitaries of the State, residing on the same street of the same village, were lying at the point of death at the same time. Governor Wolcott survived his distin- guished neighbor only four days, dying on December 1, 1797. (Bench and Bar, p. 217).
Reynold Marvin came to Litchfield from Lyme in 1751, and was appointed King's Attorney in 1764. He was a distinguished lawyer, but the coming on of the War led him to resign his office, and there is no record that he remained in practice. His sympathies appear to have been strongly with the cause of Independence. He died in 1802. Another temporarily successful lawyer, Jedediah Strong, who is mentioned elsewhere, also died in 1802.
John Allen, who is also mentioned elsewhere, was born 1763 and died in Litchfield in 1812. He was a member of the Council and of the Supreme Court of Errors of the State and member of the Fifth Congress.
Isaac Baldwin, who came to Litchfield from Milford, and mar- ried a daughter of Timothy Collins, was an active lawyer for many years prior to his death in 1805. He was County Clerk forty two years, Town Clerk thirty one years, Clerk of the Probate Court twenty nine years, not to speak of some ten terms in the General Assembly and other services.
To this distinguished company, in 1772, came Tapping Reeve. He was the son of the minister at Brookhaven, Long Island, where he was born in 1744. He was a graduate of Princeton, 1763.
He not only proved himself a successful lawyer from the first, but a striking personality. The word striking is perhaps mislead-
ing, for there was nothing obtrusive about him. And yet it is cor- rect, for he won affection, interest, sympathy, without effort. Men liked to be with him. Years later, Lyman Beecher exclaimed of him, (Autobiography, p. 216) : "Oh Judge Reeve, what a man he was! When I get to heaven, and meet him there, what a shaking of hands there will be!"
"The rules of court, at this time, in Connecticut, required as a condition of admission to the bar, two years of study with a practic- ing lawyer in the state, by those who had been graduated at a col- lege, and three years by all who had not been". (Simeon E. Baldwin, Great American Lawyers, James Gould, 1909, p. 460).
It is not to be wondered at that many young men were coming to Litchfield, and to all parts of Litchfield County, for these two
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TAPPING REEVE From an Engraving by George Catlin
MOVING THE REEVE LAW SCHOOL TO WEST STREET, 1846
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THE HISTORY OF LITCHFIELD
years of study. So, in 1780, we find Noah Webster, of the Dictionary, coming to Litchfield to study with Jedediah Strong.
Another young law student was Ephraim Kirby, who studied his two years with Reynold Marvin, and afterwards married the daughter of his teacher. Kirby was born in Litchfield in 1756. He was a man active in body and in intellect. After being admitted to the bar, he took a prominent part in local political affairs. He was a democrat. He represented Litchfield a dozen or more times in the General Assembly. On the election of Jefferson to the Presidency in 1801, "Col. Kirby was appointed supervisor of the national revenue for the State of Connecticut. Upon the acquisition of Louisiana the President appointed him a Judge of the then newly organized territory of New Orleans. Having accepted the station, he set out for New Orleans, but died on the way, aged 47 years". (Bench and Bar, p. 170). He is remembered especially as the compiler of the first Law Reports, which he published under the title: Reports of Cases Adjudged in the Superior Court, from the year 1785 to 1788. The manuscript of this epoch making work is now in the Litchfield Historical Society. It was the model on which the states of Con- necticut and Massachusetts based the Reports they published a year or two later, which have since then been universally followed.
The majority of young law students, more and more, drifted to Tapping Reeve; and then they stopped drifting, and came long dis- tances purely to be under his influence.
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