USA > Connecticut > Litchfield County > Litchfield > The history of the town of Litchfield, Connecticut, 1720-1920 > Part 20
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After the spread-eagle exercises in the meeting house, the com- pany adjourned to the green opposite the Jail, where a collation was served. Here Selleck Osborn had the privilege of looking from his window and hungrily enjoying the feast spread in his honor, but out of his reach. Seventeen toasts were drunk during the after- noon to the accompaniment of martial music and cannon shot. The first of these was "Selleck Osborn! the Later Daniel in the lions' den. He is teaching his persecutors that the beasts cannot devour him!"
With the Festival, the work of the Witness had been achieved. The Democrats had won the notoriety they desired, not to speak of the votes. The paper was continued for a few months to reap the benefits of the advertising. Then it was discontinued, Selleck Osborn's fine was paid, and he left for other fields of endeavor.
The bitterness remained. As a single example we quote from Boardman's Sketches of the Litchfield Bar, the laconic answer of John Allen to an inquiry of him, why he took the Aurora, the County democratic paper: "He replied it was because he wanted to know what they were about in the infernal regions".
Litchfield again figured in the political situation in 1814, when the charter of the Phoenix Bank was being sought in Hartford. This was opposed by the Hartford Bank, then the only one in the city, which naturally feared the competition. The cry that the Phoenix Bank was to be a Democratic and an Episcopal institution was raised, and it was found that the support of the Litchfield representatives and business men would help materially in laying >prehension, as their conservatism was known. In return, Litch-
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field asked for and obtained a branch bank, with privileges of deposit as well as of discount, then unusual privileges for a branch. The charter was obtained and Col. Benjamin Tallmadge became the first President of the Litchfield Branch. In 1865 the First National Bank was organized as the successor of the branch bank, with Edwin McNeill as the first President. The Phoenix Bank of Hartford and the Litchfield Bank now rank sixth in order of length of continuous operation in the State.
The granting of the charter was called the Toleration Act by the Episcopalians. If the name of their church had before been made an argument against the granting of the charter, they argued that when the charter was granted their party deserved the credit. Hitherto, every attempt of an Episcopalian to attain office had been opposed. So much was this the case in the years following the Revolution that the Rev. James Nichols, the Episcopal clergy- man, "presented an address to the General Assembly asking for the appointment of a prominent churchman, Daniel Landon, as Jus- tice of the Peace, 'wishing', as the petition reads, 'the favor of a justice of the peace to adorn the Society'." (Rev. Storrs O. Sey- mour, in Clergy of Litchfield County, 1909, p. 127).
The cry of Toleration really turned Connecticut into a Demo- cratic State. It made an appeal to many conservative men, who had only been disgusted by such demonstrations as that of Selleck Osborn. When Oliver Wolcott Jr., after his return to Litchfield, was asked to become the Democratic candidate for Governor in 1817, his surprise was considerable. His family were all Federal- ists, he himself had been a member of the Cabinet of both the Fed- eralists Presidents; his house had been the meeting ground for the Federalists in Philadelphia and in Washington, especially of course for those from New England, and this at a time when the division of political parties at the seat of government in their social inter- course was more decided than it has ever been since.
Oliver Wolcott would never have run on a Democratic plat- form of the 1806 brand, but Toleration brought in issues with which he and many others were in hearty sympathy. These he outlined in his inaugural address to the General Assembly, May 1817. This address found its way to the London Times, and though at that particular time, few things American found any favor in England, yet that conservative paper printed it at length (July 8, 1817). The editor adds; "When we look at the simplicity and dignity of its manner, the beauty of its style, the purity of its language, the elegance of its diction, and the originality of the composition, we have no hesitance in saying, that we consider it one of the most splendid State Papers that have ever yet appeared".
Successful as Wolcott's administration was from the beginning, the election was bitterly contested. This was especially true of his home town. He wrote of it to his son-in-law, George Gibbs, April 7, 1817, "Our Election has been held here this day. In this Village Gov. Smith had 222, and your humble servant 322 votes.
THE FIRST NATIONAL BANK
GOVERNOR OLIVER WOLCOTT JR.
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I own that I am pleased with obtaining the majority in this Town, as every possible exertion has been made to oppose me. I know that seven eighths of the Town are pleased with the result, though many of them dare not confess it".
Of his administration we cannot properly speak in this book, but mention should again be made of the State Constitution which was adopted the following year, 1818, by the General Assembly. He was the president of the Convention which prepared this admirable document, and is said to have written the greater part of it him- self. It provided at length an adequate Constitution for our State, which was then in the anomalous position of being known to many as the Constitution State, (from the circumstance of its having adopted in 1639 the first of the Colonial Constitutions, which became the model for all later State Constitutions), and yet of having no proper Constitution of its own, to meet the changed conditions of a free government.
Of the provisions of the new Constitution, none seemed at the time more radical to the Federalists than what they considered the disestablishment of the Congregational Church. "It was as dark a day as I ever saw", wrote Lyman Beecher, "The odium thrown upon the ministry was inconceivable. The injury done to the cause of Christ, as we then supposed, was irreparable. For several days I suffered what no tongue can tell for the best thing that ever happened to the State of Connecticut. It cut the churches loose from dependence on State support. It threw them wholly on their own resources and on God".
We may leave this glimpse of the most important political moment in the history of Litchfield with the wise words of George C. Woodruff (p. 56) : "A spirit of liberality has in general existed between different religious sects, and a feeling of good will between all classes. Party spirit it is true has prevailed among political partisans, and formerly embittered to some extent social inter- course. But notwithstanding the calumny which at different times has been heaped upon different individuals, and upon opposing parties, its effect has been temporary, and after the heat of contest has subsided, men have learnt the injustice of which they have been guilty, and that neither all that is excellent is to be found exclu- sively with the one party, nor all that is bad exclusively with the other. And if any there are who disbelieve a truth so obvious, they receive, in this respect, no countenance from those whose opinions are worthy of regard".
CHAPTER XVII.
TREES AND PARKS.
The trees of Litchfield are its crowning beauty to-day. It is hard to picture the village, especially North Street and South Street, before the elms had been planted there. The early settlers were so greatly concerned with the clearing of their fields that they naturally gave no thought to the planting of new trees for decora- tive purposes. Indeed the story goes that when Oliver Wolcott Jr. began to set out trees along the Litchfield streets, one of the by-standers, an old man who remembered the early days of struggle against the forest, exclaimed: "We have worked so hard in our day, and just finished getting the woods cleared off, and now they are bringing the trees back again!"
From very early days a few persons foresaw the desolation that would follow if all the trees were cut, not to mention the economic loss if no future wood supply was provided for. In the Monitor for January 3, 1798, is reprinted an article which sounds a warning in this direction, adding: "Would it not be a regulation well deserv- ing the attention of the General Court, to require every town to plant the sides of the public roads with forest trees? ... The plant- ing quick growing trees, as Willow, Lombardy Poplar, Balm of Gilead, etc., certainly deserves attention. Even the elms, ash-trees, button-woods and maples will pay for planting by their growth".
Coming down to the influences which prompted the planting of our streets, we find two men giving actual inspiration to this work, besides the individual interest of the men who at different times did the planting. These men were James Hillhouse of New Haven and Lyman Beecher.
James Hillhouse had planted great numbers of the elms in New Haven, which gave the name of the City of Elms to that place. He interested many of the Yale students in the work he had done, which was already showing results, and when Oliver Wolcott Jr. returned from the College, he brought with him the inspiration that started the movement of tree planting here.
The influence of Lyman Beecher was very much later, after a great part of the work had already been accomplished. It is worth recording, however. On July 18, 1824, Catharine Beecher wrote to her brother Edward: "Yesterday I heard two of father's very best sermons. The afternoon sermon perfectly electrified me. I wish it could be heard by all young men in the country. Among other things, he exhibited the ways in which they might do good, and the blessedness of it. We saw a small specimen of its effect this after- noon, when, in playful obedience to some exhortations to a laudable
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public spirit, a party of our young townsmen turned out to trans- plant forest trees wherever they are needed through our streets". (Autobiography, Vol. II., p. 15).
The story of our trees has been told several times. Miss Mary Perkins Quincy read a paper on their history before the Mary Floyd Tallmadge Chapter, D. A. R. in 1901, accompanying a tree- map of the Borough, which is framed in the rooms of the Litchfield Historical Society. This was also accompanied by a paper by Prof. W. E. Britton, entitled Tree Notes. Prof. Henry S. Munroe, in 1919, read a paper before the Litchfield Garden Club, on the Age of the Litchfield Trees. The following incidents connected with the planting of our trees are selected from the mass of informa- tion furnished by these admirable Essays.
When Oliver Wolcott returned from New Haven under the influence of James Hillhouse's exhortation to plant trees he set out thirteen Button-wood or Sycamore trees to commemorate the thirteen states of the new Republic. Of these only one survives: "Connecticut", happily enough, which stands in front of the Roman Catholic Church. The large sycamore on East Street, near the Library, is believed by some to be another of this planting; but this is improbable if only because no name has come down for it. Nearly all, too, were planted along South Street, though the exact sites are uncertain. Soon after the planting of these Sycamores, an illness which attacked this kind of tree killed many of those then standing in various parts of town, and turned the attention of the planters chiefily to elms. These grew in many of the outlaying swamps and could be brought in to town on the shoulders. Oliver Wolcott Jr. and his brother, Frederick Wolcott, about 1790, planted many of the elms now so beautiful along both sides of South Street. There is a legend that they omitted to plant any in front of the house occupied by Reynold Marvin, the King's Attorney, now owned by Mrs. H. G. Mendenhall, because of the unpopularity of his Tory views. The story is doubtful, owing to the friendship of the Wolcott and Marvin families; we know at least that at the melting of the bullets in the Wolcott orchard, the ladies of the Marvin household ran the largest number of bullets to be used in defence of the American cause. Further, there are now elms in front of this house, but it may be true that they are of smaller size and of later date.
John C. Calhoun is the next distinguished name among the planters of the Litchfield elms. He was graduated at the Law School in 1805. He had the happy thought to set out a few elms in front of the houses where he boarded, first at the corner of West and Spencer Streets, and then on Prospect Street, where Mr. MacMartin now lives. This was then owned by Reuben Web- ster, and Hosea Webster, the host's little son, used to tell many years later how he held the trees when Calhoun planted them. Only one of the Calhoun trees survives on Prospect Street and one on West Street.
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At about the same time, the Misses Pierce, who built their own house on the site of the present Underwood House on North Street in 1803, planted several maples on their frontage on the street. Two of these survive. Their growth has been less rapid than that of the Calhoun Elms, which now average 113 inches, while the maples average only 91 inches, in circumference.
In 1812, there was an encampment of soldiers on the Bantam Road, a little east of the residence of Milo Beach. During their stay here the men planted a double row of elms by their camp, a number of which are flourishing.
In 1825, James K. Gould, a son of Judge Gould, and Origen S. Seymour, then just graduated from Yale, planted elms on the east side of North Street, from the corner up as far as the present resi- dence of Charles H. Coit. Two are standing west of Miss Edith D. Kingsbury's house on the corner, one on the lawn at the entrance of the Misses Kingsbury's house, and a fourth before the Coit house.
In 1850, Miss Lucretia Deming, the daughter of Julius Deming, planted the row of Lindens before the Deming house, now the home of the Misses Kingsbury, from which the house takes it name. She also planted many of the trees of various varieties in the grounds. The oak grove was planted from acorns somewhat later.
One of the most devoted lovers of trees in Litchfield was Gideon H. Hollister. He was the author of the History of Connecticut, published in 1855, a monumental work, much of which was written while he lived at the Tallmadge house. Like Calhoun, he had the happy faculty of setting out trees wherever he lived; and fortunately he lived in many different houses, some rented and some owned by him. Many of the fine trees in the grounds and along the Street, at the Lindley and Mendenhall houses on South Street and at the Vanderpoel and Frederick Deming houses on North Street were planted by him while he was living in these respective places. He also set out a row of elms on East Street near the Colvoco- resses house, though it does not appear that he lived there. The trees in front of the Vanderpoel house were set out by Col. Tall- madge and William Curtis Noyes.
"Hardly could a more touching legacy", says Miss Quincy, "have been left to Litchfield than the long row of elms by the road- side across Harris Plain. In the year 1862, the young men who lived West of the Center, remarkable for their enterprise and known as the flower of the town, were among those who went to the Civil War. Before they left they planted these memorial trees as their last gift to their home district. Among these young men were E. Goodwin Osborn, Lyman J. Smith Jr., Francis Barber, the Vaills. the Plumbs, the Wadhams, and Captain George W. Mason".
It was the father of one of these men, Lyman Smith Sr., a prominent merchant, who planted the beautiful elms from which Elm Ridge received its name.
A number of Memorial Trees have been planted in recent years. but until time has given fuller size to the trees and hallowed the
THE BEECHER ELM
THE LITCHFIELD COUNTY HOUSE AND JAIL, 1812, AND WHIPPING-POST ELM
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THE HISTORY OF LITCHFIELD
occasions which they commemorate they can hardly claim individual mention. Exception should be made for the little evergreen on the grave of William W. Rockhill, in the East Burying Ground, which was sent from China in 1915 by Yuan Shi Ki, as a Memorial to one who did so much to help that unfortunate country at a very difficult moment.
It is impossible to enumerate here all our historic trees; the orchards have not yet been mentioned. There have been many in the town, due at least in part to the popularity of cider in the olden days. Some of the old trees from the orchard of Lynde Lord are still alive at the end of Tallmadge Avenue. There is an old apple tree behind the house of W. G. Rosbach, which is the only survivor of a large orchard planted by Oliver Wolcott, Sr. Frederick Wolcott, who inherited this part of his father's property, was annoyed by the boys stealing fruit from the out-lying parts of the orchard. One transgressor boldly carried a bag of stolen apples to the Wolcott house, and offered them for sale. Frederick Wolcott, recognizing the apples as coming from his orchard, was so enraged that he ordered most of the trees cut down. (Miss Esther H. Thompson, Waterbury American, 1902).
When the buildings were taken out of the Commons, between 1820 and 1827, attention began to be directed to the beautifying of this part of town. In 1835 the sum of $600 was subscribed for grading, fencing and setting out trees in the village parks, and the work was completed in 1836. The Center Park was the thought of Miss Mary Pierce, the younger sister of Miss Sarah Pierce. This land was originally the parade ground of the militia, and it was here that Col. Francis Bacon used to drill his Company. In the East Park Henry L. Goodwin had a large share in the planting and care of the trees; while twenty years later, George M. Woodruff, on his return from Yale College in 1858, planted about 50 more elms, completing the work. The West Park was planted by the late David Bulkley, the cabinet maker and antiquarian.
There are three other elms that should be mentioned, though it is not recorded who planted them, these are the Whipping Post Elm, the Beecher Elm, and the Sign Post Elm. The Whipping Post Elm, by the County House, is the largest elm in the town, and according to Professor Munroe is probably older than the Revolu- tion and possibly close on 200 years old. Gen. Wessells used to tell of seeing a man tied to the tree ,and given forty lashes save one, as was the custom, probably about 1815. The second largest elm in town is the Beecher Elm, which has a circumference of 1461/2 inches compared with 150 inches for the Whipping Post Elm. This marks the approximate site at the corner of North and Prospect Streets of the old Beecher House. The Sign-Post Elm, at the corner of South and East Streets, is not as large as the other two, or as several others in the town, but it has the historic interest of having
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advertised on its calm flank the legal notices and of having seen conducted in its shadow the Sheriff's sales of many years.
The elms of Litchfield have filled with unconscious happiness not only those so fortunate as to live near them, but the many visitors to Litchfield, who carry away the memory of their splendor. They are trees to come back to, and are the first subject spoken of by Henry Ward Beecher, in his Litchfield Revisited, 1856: "The morning after our arrival in Litchfield we sallied forth alone. The day was high and wide, full of stillness and serenely radiant. As we carried our present life up the North Street, we met at every step our boyhood life coming down. There were the old trees, but looking not so large as to our young eyes. The stately road had, however, been bereaved of the buttonball trees, which had been crippled by disease. But the old elms retained a habit peculiar to Litchfield. There seemed to be a current of wind which at times passes high up in the air over the town, and which moves the tops of the trees, while on the ground there is no movement of wind. How vividly did that sound from above bring back early days, when for hours we lay upon the windless grass and watched the top leaves flutter and marked how still were the under leaves of the same tree!"
The healthy condition of our elms to-day, when in some towns they have suffered so much from droughts and other causes. is attributed to the subsoil of hardpan, deposited by the glacier on so many of our hilltops, causing those occasional swamps which still surprise us as existing in apparent defiance of the law of gravita- tion. The elm is a swamp tree, growing most luxuriantly on the banks of our streams, and its roots find a congenial environment in the subsoil swamp of Litchfield Hill, below the level to which the drainage has as yet been carried.
DOMESTIC AND WILD ANIMALS.
In Colonial times, animals, both domestic and wild, were a matter of much more general concern than they now are. To-day one's own domestic animals are a source of pleasure or profit to one's self only, and if we go fishing or hunting it is again for our own pleasure. We no longer are concerned in town meetings with the restraint of our neighbor's geese or boars, nor do we offer bounties for wolves and rattlesnakes. Yet time was when these were very serious matters. It may be an exaggeration, but not a very great one, to say that not a town meeting was held prior to the Revo- lution and for twenty years afterwards but one or more votes came up about animals. The great source of discussion was the use of the Commons. Our streets, which delight us by their breadth, were then even wider than they are to-day; but this width was not entirely a matter of foresight, as is sometimes supposed, when our first settlers are given credit for having visualized our broad road- ways, lined with beautiful rows of trees. Trees were not thought
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of before the Revolution, as has been seen, beyond being considered a nuisance in the fields, to be cleared as rapidly as possible. The wide streets were primarily planned as a grazing place for the live stock, especially at night, when they could be brought in from the outlying pastures, and herded safely out of reach of the prowling red man.
The picket fences, now an object of occasional ornament, and the chestnut rail fences, now entirely disappeared from our streets, were then an essential part of any home, which the fence-viewer required to be kept up to the proper standard of strength. After the erection of one's own log cabin and of the meeting house, not even the garrisons against the Indians took precedence over the fences in point of urgency of construction.
At the town meeting on December 17, 1722, it was Voted, "That the swine shall run at large upon the comone and every man whose swine shall do damage to any neighbors shall pay the damage whether there be fence or no till the first of May next and after that time the owner of swine shall have liberty to have said fence proved by the fence viewers and if not lawfull fence not to pay damage".
The hayward had full charge of the commons and of the pound, and the fence viewers were the court of appeal when the animals at large did any damage. Neither was an official greatly to be envied.
Votes were passed regulating in turn every kind of animal and fowl, the sentiment one year being for the greatest possible liberty and another for the greatest possible restraint. Many of these votes appear laughable to us. Some of them follow:
Town Meeting, April 7, 1783: Voted that no Hogs be suffered to go at large on the Highways or elsewhere in this Town after the twentieth instant without being well ringed in the nose or snout on penalty of Forfeiture of two shillings lawful money and Poundage for each Hog so found at large without being ringed as aforesaid and in order to prevent Mischief by such Hogs voted that Capt. Solo- man Marsh, Capt. Lynde Lord, Ens. Ozias Goodwin, Ozias Lewis, and John Horsford be a Committee to carry this vote into effectual execution.
Town Meeting, May 12, 1783: Voted to restrain Horses from running at large on the Highways and Commons.
Town Meeting, December 8, 1791: Voted to restrain Boars from running at large after they are three months old under forfeiture of three shillings lawful money. Voted to restrain the Rams in this Town from the 10th of September to the 1st of November for the year ensuing.
Town Meeting, December 15, 1801: Voted to repeal the Vote making Hogs free Commoners under certain restrictions passed April 1796.
Town Meeting, November 26, 1805: Voted that all Geese taken Damage Feasant after this date shall be liable to be impounded
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and the Proprietor shall pay to the Person impounding said Geese six cents per head damages.
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