USA > Connecticut > Litchfield County > Litchfield > The history of the town of Litchfield, Connecticut, 1720-1920 > Part 6
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The great changes which were to take place in Litchfield in the thirties were foreshadowed by nothing more strongly than by the passing of the church from the individual position it held in the Green to its humbler setting on the street, where houses and stores could command positions on an equal footing. As though loath to go, the old spire, which had been considered unsafe, showed an unexpected strength. Even after half of its timbers were out and ropes had been attached to it and carried long distances in all directions, a line of a hundred men and boys and two yoke of oxen could not move it at all. Then the remaining great timbers, one by one, were sawed, till the last support was gone, and the graceful spire trembled, tottered, then suddenly sprang forward, turning a somersault, and fell burying its point deep in the ground close by the large west door.
CHAPTER V.
COLONIAL DAYS.
The first meeting of the inhabitants of Litchfield for the elec- tion of Town Officers was held on December 12, 1721, and resulted as follows :
John Marsh, Town Clerk.
John Buel, Nathaniel Hosford, John Marsh, Selectmen.
John Collins, (Caulkins?), Grand Jure.
William Goodrich, Constable and Collector.
Benjamin Gibbs, Thomas Lee, Surveyors.
Eleazer Strong, Samuel Root, Fence Viewers.
Daniel Culver, Hayward.
Joseph Bird, Collector of Minister's Rate.
The only other business done at this meeting was to admit an inhabitant, Joseph Kilbourn, of Wethersfield, who had recently pur- chased two Rights, one-thirtieth of the whole township, from two of the original proprietors, who had evidently been discouraged from coming to Litchfield to take up their own Rights. It is interesting to notice that newcomers had to be passed upon. As Woodruff has pointed out, p. 27, "the first inhabitants were peculiarly careful that none but persons of good character should be permitted to settle among them. If a stranger made a purchase in the planta- tion, a proviso was sometimes inserted in the deed, that the Inhabit- ants should accept of the purchaser, and that he should run 'the risk of trouble from the Grand Committee'. On the 1st of April, 1724, it was voted that 'the Commite of hartford and Windsor Chouce Inhabitance. In Cace any new are brought into town, and the town judg them not holsome, then to be Judged by indifrant men, and by them Judged Good inhabitance, the cost to be paid by Litch- field, if not the cost to be paid by the Commite that made Choice of said Inhabitantse'."
This vote was a wise one, as it insured the growth of the settle- ment through the accession of a fine group of pioneers. Henry Ward Beecher bore testimony later to the character of these men. in a passage quoted by Emily Noyes Vanderpoel, (Mrs. John A. Vanderpoel), Chronicles of a Pioneer School, p. 29: "The early settlers were men of broad and liberal mould, and began their work upon this hilltop in a characteristic fashion. They laid out their streets and staked off the village common, with such generous breadth that they remain the delight of residents and the admira-
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THE HISTORY OF LITCHFIELD
tion of strangers to this day. They made such liberal provision for education and religion that the settlement soon became noted for the excellence of its schools and the commanding influence of its pulpit".
It is probable, as stated elsewhere, that the wide streets were planned more for the convenience of the cattle than the delight of the residents and strangers; but the result to us is the same. In the early days, the streets were considerably wider even than they now are, as may be seen by pacing off the measurements given in a pre- vious chapter. The hill was very swampy, from the hardpan sub- soil, so that when the trees had been cleared alders grew up rapidly in the streets. Part of the hill, at least, was said to be an alder swamp even at the time of the arrival of the settlers. Just how. far this was so cannot now be determined. There is a legend that part of the swamp, about where Crutch's Drug-Store now is, or a little to the north, was so boggy that the line of South Street, Town Hill Street as it was then called, was laid out to the east to avoid it, so that North Street and South Street to-day are not a continu- ous line. There is another tale of a very large oak, somewhere in the area of our present Center Park, so beautiful, that the settlers laid out North Street, Town Street as they called it, to the west, to avoid having to cut it. Neither of these stories is entirely con-
The line of the streets at first had no resemblance what-
vincing.
soever to their course at the present day. Their width was so broad, that the present Library Building would have encroached
materially into the theoretical roadway. Through this wide expanse of alders and grass and hummocks wound along at first nothing more than a footpath, then came a variety of footpaths, one on either side of the tract and others crossing it where convenient. Gradually regular roads were developed, not much more than wheel tracks going up and down the tract, with a wide green belt of grass between. This double driveway extended along both North and South Streets, it is said, while oddly enough, on East and West Streets, which then constituted Meeting House Street and which to-day is divided by the parks into two streets, one by the stores and one by the County House, was then just one Street, running past the Meeting House, the School House and later the Court House. The story of the big oak is further rendered improbable by the settlers' hard struggles with the forest in general. Their only use for trees was to cut them down. The probable explanation of the discontinuity of the two streets running north and south is simply that it was most convenient to follow the natural crest of the hill in a more or less winding fashion, and that when later on the actual driveway was straightened out it would not adjust itself into one continuous line. As the line was broken anyway by the buildings then in the Green, this did not matter very much at the time.
It is difficult to think of our beautiful streets as still so unkempt in the period of the Revolution, that little Mary Pierce, a younger
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THE HISTORY OF LITCHFIELD
half-sister of Miss Pierce who kept the Academy, got lost in the alder bushes when sent across the street on an errand to a neigh- bor's house.
The streets have been narrowed from their great early width by repeated town votes, granting strips of land to the abutting house-owners for the purposes of front yards. The earliest houses were built right on the road. As new strips of land have been given up by the town some of the newer houses have been built out onto this sometimes restricted land. A case in point is the house now owned by Miss Thurston on North Street. When this property was last transferred, it was found that a part of the dwelling was on restricted land, so that the town could have insisted on its being moved back. The matter was, however, arranged more simply by a release of the restriction.
The widest of all the streets was the present Gallows Lane, which was then called Middle Street and as we have seen was laid out 28 rods wide. The present name was not given until after May 8, 1780, when Barnet Davenport, a young man from Washing- ton, who had committed several murders, was executed there.
Roads outside of the immediate center were also laid out gradu- ally, though it would appear that there was no established con- nection for two years between what really constituted two separate settlements, one on Litchfield Hill and one on Chestnut Hill. On December 26, 1722, it was voted to lay out a highway from Bantam River to the Chestnut Hill home lots, "in the range where the foot- path now is". This vote was so popular that another town meet- ing was held the next day, December 27, 1722, at which it was voted "to lay out a highway from John Marsh's home lot to the south bounds; and the highway by Mr. Collins house to be continued to the north bounds; and the highway running east to be extended to the east bounds; and west, or south-west, from Thomas Pier's, according to the best skill of the Committee; and the highway run- ning north from Pier's, to be continued to the north bounds".
The holding of town meetings on two consecutive days, as in the case just mentioned, was due sometimes to the rule requiring the adjournment of these meetings at the coming of evening. "No act of the town should stand in force", so ran the vote, "that was passed after day-light failed to record it". This regulation lasted for a long time; the only reference found to its abrogation is at a Town meeting of January 3, 1782, when it was voted that "the Selectmen bring in candles so that further business may be done this evening".
Sometimes the convenience found in this singular regulation has a slightly ironical flavor, as when, on April 14, 1731, it was "Voted, after dark, that Mr. Collins have the choice of pews for himself and family". Taking into account the many difficulties encountered in seating the meeting-house and the debatable popularity of Timothy
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THE HISTORY OF LITCHFIELD
Collins, it looks as though the meeting was reserving to itself a loophole of escape if the minister took an advantage of this vote which was not to the general liking!
Many of these early votes are quaint to our eyes. Sometimes the spelling appears grotesque to us: "Voted to ajurn this meeting to to morah Sun half an hour High at Night"; "Voted that ye owners of schoolers sent to school for time to come shal find fire wood for ye schooll". Sometimes it is the character of the business trans- acted that constitutes the quaintness: "Voted liberty to Mr. Collins, to erect a Blacksmith's Shop joining to his fence the backside of the meeting-house"; "Voted that James Morris and Nathaniel Goodwin be added to the Nuisance. Committee"; "Voted a Committee to assist the Clerk in perusing the town votes and to conclude what shall be transcribed into the town book, and what not"; "Voted unanimously to grant permission for the Small Pox to be com- municated and carried on by Innoculation on Gillets Folly so called, it being a Peninsula or neck of land belonging to Stephen Baldwin in the Northern part of the Great Pond".
This last vote is from the town meeting of March 11, 1783, and takes us back to the terrible Small-pox scare that passed over the whole country during and at the close of the Revolution. For a time the columns of the Monitor were filled with notices of physici- ans offering to inoculate in different parts of the county, though it would appear that the practise of inoculation in our town was care- fully restricted and supervised during the whole period of twenty years that Pest-houses were continued.
Several applications for new establishments, if they deserved so high-sounding a name, are found in the votes of the Town.
April 7, 1783: "A Petition of sundry Inhabitants of South Farms praying for Liberty to set up Inoculation for the Small Pox on Marsh's Point being read and considered was negatived".
October 15, 1798: "Uriah Tracy was chosen Moderator. At which Meeting there was a written request exhibited by several Gentlemen of said Town of Litchfield, praying for the establish- ment of two or more Pest Houses in the Western part of the said Town for the greater convenience of inoculation to the people resid- ing in the Western part of the South Farms Society and so in the Society of Milton. Voted not to add to the number of Houses already assigned by said Town for said purpose".
The most elaborate description in the records of the conduct of these houses is contained in another vote, which may be quoted at some length, as showing the nature of such an early Hospital, and the fear of contagion which surrounded it:
March 20, 1797: "Voted that permission be, and the same is, hereby granted to the civil Authority and Selectmen of the Town to give liberty for the Small Pox to be communicated by inoculation at the house of Daniel Lord, standing on Chestnut Hill, purchased by him of the heirs of Michael Dickinson, also the house of Ros-
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THE HISTORY OF LITCHFIELD
well Harrison, lately the property of Thomas Harrison: Places in the Town and at no other Place; and the Hospitals so to be opened shall be governed by the following rules and regulations and such others as the Civil Authorities and the Selectmen shall from time to time adopt, to wit:
"First, that limits be proscribed over which the Person infected shall not be suffered to go.
"Second, that the limits thus proscribed do not extend within forty rods of any public road except those necessary to be improved for said Purpose on which signals shall be placed at least the afore- said number of rods from each side of said Hospital by which Per- sons may acquaint themselves of the Business.
"Third, that Captain William Bull and James Morris, Esqr., be and the same are hereby appointed Overseers to appoint or approve of the Nurses or Tenders necessary to be employed, to give orders respecting the Time the Persons infected, their Nurses and Tenders, shall continue in the aforesaid Hospital, and also respect- ing their changing and coming out, and such other order and direc- tion as shall be judged most expedient (for) preserving the inhabit- ants from taking the Infection, for which service a recompense shall be paid by those concerned.
"Fourth, that no Person thus infected be suffered to depart with- out first obtaining from said Committee or some Physician by them appointed a Certificate giving his or their Approbation.
"Fifth, and that each Person before inoculation do procure good and sufficient Bonds to answer the Penalty of the Statute in such case made and provided: that he or they will strictly comply with all and singular the foregoing Rules and Regulations and such others as the Civil Authority and Selectmen shall adopt, which Bonds shall be taken by the aforesaid Overseers.
"Sixth, that the several Physicians shall also procure Bonds for security against spreading the infection through their means and not to inoculate anyone who shall not procure a Certificate from one or more said Overseers.
"Seventh, that the Nurses and Tenders shall also procure Bonds not to admit any Person in said Hospital without the consent of the Overseers and to use all due attention to prevent the spreading the same through their means or neglect".
We have no record of any casualties in Litchfield from the Inoculation, fortunately, but may of the people were infected. The beautiful and sprightly Mariann Wolcott, about whom we shall write more presently, was one of these, as we learn from a letter from her father, Gov. Oliver Wolcott Sr., to Mrs. Wolcott, March 22, 1777: "I have this instant rec'd a Letter from Dr. Smith, of the 12th, wherein he tells me that you and the children have been inoculated for the Small Pox, and that he apprehended you was so far thro' it as to be out of Danger, casualties excepted,-News which is very agreeable to me, as I have for some time been much concerned lest you should take the infection of that distressing Disease unpre-
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THE HISTORY OF LITCHFIELD
pared. I perceive that Mariana has had it bad; he writes, 'very
hard'. I am heartily sorry for what the little child has suffered and very much want to see her. If she has by this lost some of her Beauty, which I hope she has not, yet I well know she might spare much of it and still retain as much as most of her sex possess". (Wolcott Memorial, p. 168).
In another letter from Dr. Reuben Smith to Oliver Wolcott Sr., dated April 17, 1777, is preserved an account of the origin of the scare:
"Some soldiers having brought home the small pox, I found a number had ventured upon innoculation without making proper pro- vision that it might not spread in the town. The people were much divided; some warmly engaged for innoculation, others as warmly opposed. Unhappily for me, I was chosen one of the Selectmen this year and was therefore under a necessity of interposing in the matter; and thought best, as it was against law, neither to encour- age or oppose, but endeavor to bring it under a proper regulation, in which, however, I failed of the wished for success, our counsels being very much divided. Several having taken in the natural way from those that were inoculated, Captain Marsh was engaged to crush innoculation wholly ; and some people have been so unreason- able as to say Mr. Strong was both for and against it. Be that as it may, it served as a game. Both had like to have been losers."
No accurate record has been preserved as to who was the last survivor of the original settlers of Litchfield. Supply Strong, the father of Jedediah Strong, lived to the age of 90, and died in 1786; but it is possible that others lived to a later date. Among the
children whom the settlers brought with them into the wilderness, should be mentioned Zebulon Gibbs, who was only nine years old when his father, Benjamin Gibbs, came to Litchfield in 1720. He died in 1803, at the ripe age of 92 years. It so happened that the first male child born in the settlement was his younger brother, Gershom Gibbs, born July 28, 1721. We recognize in the latter's name the old Puritan knowledge of the Bible; for in Exodus, II. 22, it is written: "And she bare (Moses) a son, and he called his name Gershom: for he said, I have been a stranger in a strange land". In the Revolution, Gershom Gibbs, was taken a prisoner by the English at Fort Washington, and died in prison. The first white child born in Litchfield was Eunice, the daughter of Jacob Griswold; she was born on March 21, 1721, and was afterwards the wife of Captain Solomon Buel.
Certainly the two most prominent of this gallant band of men were John Marsh and John Buel, of whom we will quote the follow- ing accounts from Kilbourne, p. 70:
"John Marsh had long been a prominent citizen of Hartford before he interested himself in the Western Lands; and from the time when he came out to 'view the new plantation' in May, 1715, till about the year 1738, his name was intimately associated with
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THE HISTORY OF LITCHFIELD
the history of Litchfield. He served this town in the various offices within her gift during the entire period of his residence here. While an inhabitant of Hartford, he was often a Representative in the Legislature, a Justice of the Peace, an Associate Judge of the County Court, and a member of the Council of War. He returned to Hartford from Litchfield in his old age, and died there. He was interred in the old Burying Ground back of the Center Church. His children remained in this town, and his descendants here and else- where are very numerous.
"John Buel was about fifty years of age when he became a resident of this town, and had previously filled the office of Deacon of the church in Lebanon. He was repeatedly elected to almost every office within the gift of his fellow citizens, besides being appointed on nearly all the most important Committees. As a Deacon in the Church, Captain of the Militia, Selectman, Treasurer, Representa- tive, and Justice of the Peace, he discharged his duties efficiently and
faithfully. A brief anecdote, as given by Mr. Powers, in his Cen- tennial Address at Goshen, will serve to illustrate the benevolence of his character: In the winter of 1740-41, a man came from Corn- wall to purchase some grain for himself and family, who were in great need, and was directed to Deacon Buel. The stranger soon called, and made known his errand. The Deacon asked him if he had the money to pay for the grain. He answered affirmatively. .Well', said the Deacon, 'I can show you where you can procure it'. Going with the stranger to the door, he pointed out a certain house to him saying, 'There lives a man who will let you have grain for your money. I have some to spare, but I must keep it for those who have no money'. Deacon Buel died April 6, 1746, aged 75 years. His wife survived him 22 years. Both were interred in the West Burying Ground".
These two leaders of Litchfield were associated in every move- ment for the progress of the town. On the 6th of February 1722, the use of the stream of Bantam River and thirty acres of land was voted to them, on condition that they would erect a Grist Mill and keep the same in order. And it was they again who were directed to petition the General Assembly the same year "for liberty to set up a church and society in Litchfield".
They were also among those appointed to negotiate a settlement of the boundary line between Litchfield and Waterbury. The sev- eral boundaries of the township continued to be a cause of dispute for over fifty years, but as the bounds as finally adjusted appear to be satisfactory to-day, and wholly a matter of course, it is not neces- sary to review all the transactions that took place in detail. The bounds on the east and west being formed by the Naugatuck and Housantonic Rivers, there was little question as to their where- abouts. But on the north and south, the various white oak trees and trees with stones about them which are mentioned in the Town Patent were naturally open to increasing variety of interpretation as the years passed. The North line was run by Roger Sherman,
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THE HISTORY OF LITCHFIELD
afterwards a signer of the Declaration of Independence. He lived in New Milford, and was appointed County Surveyor of the then new County of Litchfield in 1754, and his manuscript account of our northern boundary is still preserved. The determination of the southern bounds was a more disputatious business and no one of such distinction was involved in its settlement. After the settle- ment of the Waterbury boundary in 1722, the Woodbury boundary remained in dispute for some twenty years. A committee of Litch- field men 'perambulated' this part of the wilderness in 1727 with a committee from Woodbury. In 1728, two Agents were chosen to act in the 'controversy'. In 1731, they were re-appointed to enquire "what light can be had concerning our line". Taxes were laid in the same year and again in 1742, to defray the expenses involved in all this perambulating and searching. As no one could know
where such a line did run, there never having been any carefully defined line anyway, the matter dragged on, and apparently adjusted itself in the end, for no definite record of the settlement has sur- vived, though the line is now happily established somehow. When
Old Judea was set off from the town of Woodbury in 1779, under its present name of Washington, the boundary came up once more, the inhabitants of the new township arbitrarily changing the line in their petition for an incorporation so as to include within their limits all of Davies' Hollow and the adjoining sections of Mount Tom. At first the Litchfielders, in great excitement, resolved to defend their claim before the General Assembly, appointing Andrew Adams to appear for them. Finally, perhaps because of the strong Episcopalian sentiment in that region, which was not considered any too desirable at a period when the Church of England and the tories were always linked together, it was decided not to oppose the change in the line, and Colonel Adams was again appointed, this time to appear before the General Assembly with a petition that Washington be allowed to "regulate the line of the town" in its own way.
The boundaries of South Farms were established and defined in 1767; those of Northfield in 1794; and those of Milton in 1795, when each of those separate parishes was organized. Much later. in 1859, South Farms was set off as a distinct township under the name of Morris.
"It is an interesting fact", (Kilbourne, p. 61), "that the town of Goshen was organized at the house of Deacon John Buel in West Street. On September 27, 1738, the proprietors of Goshen, then called New Bantam, met there, and again on the following day, when the organization of the town was completed. Dating from this day, the Centennial anniversary of Goshen was celebrated on September 28, 1838, on which occasion an interesting historical discourse was delivered by the Rev. Grant Powers. Several of the original proprietors of Goshen were residents of Litchfield". A fuller account of the meetings held in Deacon Buel's house is given in Rev. A. G. Hibbard's History of Goshen, 1897, pp. 31-35.
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THE HISTORY OF LITCHFIELD
Rivalry between Woodbury and Litchfield again developed in connection with the establishment of the new County, and this time Goshen was also a rival, not to speak of Canaan and Cornwall. The rivalry was over the location of the County Seat, which was established finally in Litchfield, and the County was called Litch: field County. Woodbury had of course no chance to be made the County Seat, because of its remote position, but it took the oppor- tunity to try to organize a separate County, or to be re-annexed to Fairfield County. These and later attempts of the same kind were not successful. The claims of Goshen to be the County Seat were much more considerable, chiefly because of its central position in the territory. Several families who were coming into these parts at that time moved to Goshen in the expectation that its claims to leadership would be successful; among those who did so, and who came to Litchfield when, in 1751, the matter was finally decided, was Oliver Wolcott, who was appointed the first High Sheriff. The County Treasurer was John Catlin; the County Clerk was Isaac Baldwin; one of the Associate Judges was Ebenezer Marsh; all of Litchfield; the remaining County officers and Judges were from other parts of the County.
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