USA > Connecticut > Hartford County > The memorial history of Hartford County, Connecticut, 1633-1884, Vol. I > Part 27
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HARTFORD, 12th of August, 1795.
We the Subscribers, for ourselves and our associates, will give for the West- ern Reserve, so called, the sum of twelve hundred thousand dollars, payable in five years, with interest annually, after the expiration of two years from the signing the deed, and give security agreeably to the act of the Legislature.
OLIVER PHELPS. SAMUEL MATHER, JR. MOSES CLEAVELAND.
WILLIAM HART.
ELISHA HYDE. GIDEON GRANGER, JR.
EBENEZER HUNTINGTON.
MATTHEW NICOLL.
These eight men represented an associated company, known, in common speech, as the Connecticut Land Company, consisting of forty-cight wealthy and prominent men, in different parts of the State, who paid in their several sums of money, larger or smaller, and so became the owners of the territory. The largest subscriber, and the chief manager of this great interest, was Oliver Phelps, the first signer of the above offer, a native of Windsor, but resident in Suffield. He took of this stock, in his own name, $168,185, and he and Gideon Granger, Jr., of Suffield, in company, took $60,000 more. The smallest sum paid in by any one subscriber was less than $2,000. Several of these men gave names to towns on the Reserve, as Cleveland from Moses Cleaveland, etc.
As soon as this syndicate came into the possession of this vast ter- ritory, offices were at once opened for the sale of these lands to emi- grants. For years this work went on, and for years the long procession of emigrant wagons were making their weary journey from Connecticut to Ohio. These moving crowds were followed by the Connecticut Mis- sionary Society, with religious teachers and preachers, who might form churches and schools, and fix the population on the old-fashioned New England foundations. Of course the emigration to the Reserve was not wholly from Connecticut. The emigrants came from many quarters ; but the dominant stream flowed from this State, and the older generation used to like the name New Connecticut better than any other. The years have passed on. This Connecticut Reserve, then so far off, is now only a gateway opening into the " Great West." It is much nearer to New England than it is to Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado, and is only the beginning of the journey from New England to the Pacific Coast.
But with all this far-spreading territory, and with new forms and movements of emigration, the story how Connecticut, in the early years of the present century, transplanted so many of her children to the far- off fields of Ohio, will continue to be read through years to come with living interest.
An earlier enterprise in its beginnings, though not perhaps in its full development, and of almost equal magnitude, in which Mr. Oliver Phelps was the prime mover and chief actor, was the settlement of the Genesee Country in the State of New York. Just as Connecticut had
206
MEMORIAL HISTORY OF HARTFORD COUNTY.
received the Connecticut Reserve in Ohio as compensation for giving up some of the items and provisions of her charter, so Massachusetts, for the same reason, had received a large tract of country in Western New York. Mr. Phelps, associating himself with Nathaniel Gorham, Esq., of Charlestown, Mass., made a purchase of a tract of country, now embracing the whole of Monroe, Ontario, Livingston, Yates, and Steuben Counties, the larger part of Wayne and Alleghany, and smaller portions of Orleans, Genesee, and Wyoming Counties, the whole passing then under the general name of the Genesee Country. Mr. Phelps, as we have already said, was a native of Windsor, son of Charles Phelps, born Aug. 11, 1758. He remained in Windsor until early manhood, when he settled in Suffield. But after he became interested in these great
land enterprises, he had a New York home at Canandaigua, and went back and forth between these homes as occasions called. His chief partner, Mr. Nathaniel Gorham, kept his residence at Charlestown, and never visited the lands which he had helped to buy. His son, however, Nathaniel Gorham, Jr., removed to Canandaigua, and became an active worker in the enterprise. The territory they had bought was computed to contain 2,200,000 acres, which they had purchased partly from Mas- sachusetts and partly from the Indian tribes. The amount of land was less, by more than a million of acres, than the Ohio purchase, which was reckoned at 3,300,000 acres.
When Messrs. Phelps and Gorham had completed their purchase, they opened their offices for the sale of those lands, and were glad of responsible customers, from whatever part of the land or the world they might come. It is stated that their first sale was made to a com- pany of twelve men in Berkshire County, Mass. Of course, in the whole settlement of these lands, Connecticut had but a very small part, and Hartford County only a small part of that. But it is nevertheless true that, considering the size and population of the State, Connecticut bore the larger part both in the number and quality of her emigrants.
Phineas Bates, from Durham, was one of the earliest to report him- self in the country in 1789. In 1790 he returned, and removed his family, attended by other settlers. Dr. William A. Williams, a native of Wallingford, and a graduate of Yale, was at Canandaigua in 1793.
There are many yet living who will remember the stir among the families of Connecticut in all the early years of the present century, preparing to leave for this wild territory, or parting with friends who were setting off upon the weary journey. This stream of emigration into New York, as well as into Ohio, continued in force from the closing years of the last century down to the years 1825 or 1830, and in less degrees, still later; and the men and women over all our spreading, busy Western fields, who look to Connecticut as the little State where their fathers and mothers were born, or (if they are young) their grandfathers and grandmothers, would number up a mighty host, and embrace a large measure of the intelligence and enterprise of that new and rapidly growing world.
1
CHAPTER XII.
THE GROWTH OF THE COUNTY.
BY CHARLES HOPKINS CLARK.
THE PROGRESS OF POPULATION. - DEVELOPMENT OF TRADE, MANUFACTURES, AND AGRICULTURE. - PUBLIC IMPROVEMENTS AND WEALTH.
THE earliest census records are those of 1756, 1774, and 1782. At the last of those dates Hartford County comprised twenty-one towns ; but eleven of these, with 23,819 population, were set off in 1785, when Middlesex and Tolland counties were established. Hence comparisons previous to 1790, when the decennial census began, are scarcely significant, since the size of the county was so radically altered between 1782 and 1790. In 1756 the most populous town in the county was Middletown. Windsor was second, Farmington third, and Hartford fourth. In 1774, and also in 1782, Farmington was first and Hartford second. Middletown became third, and then fourth, and Sims- bury took the fourth place, and then the third. Since 1790 Hartford has stood first. The fourteen towns of 1790 have now become twenty-eight by subdivision of territory, and twenty-nine by the annexation of Hartland. The average population of the towns in 1790 was 2,724; in 1880 it was 4,323. This, however, includes those whose growth has been excep- tionally large. Leave out from the calculation the largest three towns of 1790 and also of 1880, and the average population in 1790 is found to be 2,656 against 2,388 in 1880. In 1790 the largest three towns had 10,912 out of 38,129 of population in the county, - somewhat more than one quarter. In 1880 the largest three towns had 63,285 out of 125,382, or more than one half. Six towns in 1880 were each larger in population than the largest in 1790. Hartford alone, in 1880, was larger than Hartford County in 1790 or 1800, while the population in 1880 of Hartford and the towns created from Hartford almost equalled the whole population of the county up to 1840. It is a curious fact that, leaving out Hartford and New Britain in 1880, and Hartford in 1790 (there was no New Britain then), the average population of the towns of Hartford County is practically the same at those dates. This may perhaps be taken to indicate a tendency among people to organize a town when population reaches a certain point in size. The changes of population are in large part due to the gathering of people about manu- facturing centres, and are attributable to the use of the steam-engine, the introduction of railroads, and the invention of other machinery. Yet some marked changes of relative position among the towns - as for instance the decline of Farmington from first to twelfth - are to be explained partly by the cutting off of territory for the creation of new towns. The following carefully verified table will show the population of each town in the county at each census, and its relative position in point of numbers : -
208
MEMORIAL HISTORY OF HARTFORD COUNTY.
The small figures indicate the relative size of each town according to population.
No. of towns in } the county ..
18
20 1774.
21
14
15
18 1810.
18 1820.
20 1830.
21 1840.
24 1850.
27 1860.
28 1870.
29 1880.
Towns.
Hartford
3,627
5,031
5,495
I 4,090
5,347
I 6,003
I 6,901
9,789
12,793 17,966
29,152
I 37,743
I 42,551
Avon.
19 1,025
19 1,001
22 995
23 1,059
24 987
25 1,057
Berlin.
II 2,465
TI 2,702
6 2,798
2,877
3,537
3,111
17 1,869
16 2,146
15 2,436
2,385
Bloomfield
1,473
1,346
Bristol.
2,462
2,723
15 1,428
14 1,362
It 1,707
2,109
2,884
4 3,436
6 3,788
6 5,347
Burlington
Canton ..
East Granby .
East Hartford.
3,816
3,057
3,240
3,373
2,237
2,389
14 2,497
IO 2,951
3,007
3,500
East Windsor ..
2,999
3,237
2,600
2,766
3,081
3 3,400
3,336
3,800
2,633
13 2,580
10 2,882
3,019
Enfield
13 1,050
15 1,360
16 1,562
14 1,800
14 1,761
12 1,846
II 2,065
II 2,129
2,648
4,460
3 4,997
3 6,322
6,755
Farmington
3,707
6,069
5,542
2,696
5 2,809
8 2,748 2,766
6 3,042 3,114
12 1,901 6
12 2,041 3,877 8 2,611
10 2,630 3 3,390 13 2,498
9 3,144
14. 2,616
12 3,017
Glastonbury
1,115
2,071
II 2,346
2,732
2,718
8
8 2,735
2,696
3,012
2,733
18
18
23 848
25 846
789
643
Manchester.
15 1,576
I6 1,695
1I 2,546
3,294
4,223
4 6,462
Marlborough ...
New Britain
3,029
5,212
2 9,480
13,979 26
Newington
934
Plainville.
Rocky Hill.
21 1,012
22 1,102
971
24 1,108
Simsbury
2,245
3,700
4,664
2,576
4 2,956
1,966
12 1,954
2,221
1,895
8 2,737
13 2,410
17 2.051
1,830
Southington.
1,886
2,110
13 1,804
13 1,807
13 1,875
13 1,844
14 1,887
15 2,135
3,315
4,314
5 5,411
South Windsor
10
13
12
IO
12
IO
IO
8
6
6
8 3,260
8 3,277
3,225
West Hartford
2,483
3,iss
3,733
2 3,806
3,992
3,961
3,825
2 3,853
2 3,824
12 2,523
2,705
2,693
16 2,173
Windsor.
4,220
2,125
2,382
2,714
2,773
2,868
3,008
4 3,220
10 2,283
3,294
15 2,278
2,783
3,058
Windsor Locks
2,154
14 2,332
Total of towns? now in county f
19,285
28,861 33,148 38,129
42,147
44,733
47,264 51,141 55,629 69,967
89,962 109,007 125,382
All Connecticut. ..
130,612
198,010 218,850 238, 115 250,902 261,942 275,248 297,711 310,015 370,792
460, 147
537,454
622,700
15
17
17 1,254
1,221
1,060
5 3,563 18 1,720
7 3,560
3,580
Granby.
2,595
1,318
1,284
18 720
18 839
20 704
21 713
24 832
27 682
28 476
391
2
22 1,433
17 1,930
25
3
15
13
4
18
1,688
18 1,902
Suffield
1,438
2,017
2,301
2,467
2,686
2,680
2,681
2,690
2,669
2,962
21 1,296
1,533
20 1,828
Wethersfield
2
6
8
TO
16
19 1,587
23 1,319
23 1,224
16 1,374
16 1,322
16 1,437
I5 1,736
16 1,986
14 2,373
13 2,639
I5 2,301
26 833
26 853
27 754 8
$
20 986
1,412
20 1,401
21
21
12
14 1,467
15 1,360
17 1,301
17 1,201
20 1,161
24 1,031
20 1,517
22 1,340
27
28
Hartland ..
2
2
1782.
1790.
1800.
Date ..
1756.
12
12
IC
2,980
5
18 1,638
17 1,789
6
/
5
12
29
II
6
I3
II
209
THE GROWTH OF THE COUNTY.
From 1790 to 1840 the population of the county increased exactly 17,500, or 350 a year; practically one a day. After that date a great change set in. Between 1840 and 1850 the increase was over 14,300, and in the next dec- ade over 20,000. The whole State experienced a similar growth. Its in- crease between 1830 and 18401 was 4.1 per cent ; while in the next decade it was 19.6. But Hartford County grew faster than the whole State, as will ap- pear by a comparison of the percent- ages for the decades closing with each date given : -
650 1,001 1,055 Since 1790 Hartford County has in- creased 228 per cent, and the whole Total of towns not now in county .... . 17,283 23,029 23,819 State about 162 per cent. In compari- Total of towns now { 19,285 28,861 in county. 33,148 son with the other counties, Hartford, Total population. 36,568 51,890 56,967 for a period of fifty years from 1800, stood first in the State in respect of All Connecticut. 130,612 198,010 218,850 population ; but various causes, espe- cially the great development of manu- factures, have set New Haven before it in the last three censuses. The following is a table showing the position of each county since 1790, Windham, Middlesex, and Tolland holding throughout the 6th, 7th, and 8th places, respectively : -
1790.
1800.
1810.
1820.
1830.
1840.
1850.
1860.
1870.
1880.
Hartford
ยท2
1
I
1
1
1
1
2
2
2
New Haven ..
5
5
4
1
3
3
2
1
1
1
Fairfield
3
3
3
2
2
2
3
3
3
3
Litchfield.
1
2
2
3
1
5
5
5
5
5
New London
1
4
5
5
5
1
4
4
1
4
Windham
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
Middlesex
7
7
7
7
7
7
7
7
7
Tolland
8
8
S
8
S
S
8
S
8
6
6 3,365
8
8
East Haddam.
1,978
2,808
2,725
Haddam
1,241
1,726
14 1,950
Hebron.
1,855
2,337
2,205
Middletown
5,664
4,878
4,812
16
18
20
Somers.
900
1,027
1,058
Stafford.
1,000
I6 1,334
1,534
Hartford County,
per cent of increase 8.8 25 28.5 21
15
Tolland
15 917
1,262
1,361
18
20
21
Willington.
18
20
21
Date ...
1756.
1774.
1782.
Towns.
Bolton .
12 766
20
1,001
19 1,081
8
Chatham.
2,397
2,873
Colchester
6 2,312
3,258
II
10
13
3
Decade ending ... 1840 1850 1860 1870 1880
State, per cent of increase 4.1 19.6 24 16.8 15.8
14
17
18
To review in detail the development of the material interests of the county would involve a considerable repetition from the town histories, but the outlines may be briefly sketched. The first articles exported from the colony were probably the skins of fur-bearing animals obtained by trading with the Indians ; but as early as 1643 tar and turpentine were produced in sufficient quantity to be exported from Simsbury and
1 To illustrate the slow growth of those days, it may be mentioned that in 1840 only twenty-two "brick and stone houses" were built in Hartford County, - nineteen in Hartford, and one each in East Windsor, Wethersfield, and Windsor. In the same year only seventy- seven wooden houses were built in the county.
VOL. I .- 14.
No. of towns in the } county S
210
MEMORIAL HISTORY OF HARTFORD COUNTY
Windsor. Twenty years later Michael Griffin received a special grant of land in consideration of having so developed the art of making these articles. Mills for sawing logs and grinding grain were set up beside convenient streams in every settlement, and the water-power was early called into service. There are some mill-privileges in active use now that have been constantly employed for more than two hundred years. Agriculture soon developed into something more than mere growth for home consumption, and hops, grain, onions, and tobacco were among the exports of the early days of the eighteenth century. There is a record of the exporting of tobacco from Simsbury in 1750; and during the height of the trade between Connecticut and the West Indies live- stock and other products were shipped away in large quantities.
Pipe-staves, heads, and hoops (for exportation to the West Indies, to make hogsheads for sugar, rum, and molasses) were among the earliest articles sent away from this county. In 1641 the General Court "graunts Sam. Smith, and the rest of the owners of the shipp at Wethersfield, libberty to get and make so many pipestaues as will freight out the said shipp the first voyage." Masts were exported for ships, to be built in England. Flax, flaxseed, and hemp were generally produced ; and flax- seed and linseed oil were largely exported. Beef, pork, and swine were sent to the West Indies. Bricks were sent thither and to South America in the last half of the last century. Timber and lumber were so gener- ally exported that as early as 1687 the General Assembly prohibited the transportation of these articles from the colony without the license of the town whence they were taken.
As early as 1710 there were iron-works near the line of Suffield and Windsor, making iron from bog-ore; and about that period the copper- mining excitement in Simsbury was at its height. In 1728, in that town, Samuel Higley set up, under protection of the Government, the manufacture of steel by the "transmutation " of iron. In 1722 a slitting-mill was set up by Ebenezer Fitch on Stony Brook, in Suffield ; and in 1747, at East Hartford, Colonel Joseph Pitkin carried on a mill for iron-slitting under an exclusive permission granted to him. It was about this time that the manufacture of tin-ware was begun in Berlin, and the foundations of the trade of the tin-pedler were laid. The inven- tion of cheap and simple clocks about the beginning of the present cen- tury furnished added inducement to the pedler, and with tin goods and clocks an enormous business was built up by people who travelled all over the country, and, sharpening their Yankee wits by wide experience in bargaining, came home to make large fortunes in business. The inventive skill and the mechanical gifts of the people led them into the manufacture ; and the search for a market for the goods thus pro- duced had a much greater share in developing the Connecticut business sagacity than has been accredited to it.
Gunpowder was made in East Hartford before the Revolution, and of course also during and after that war. It was made, too, in Canton and in Enfield ; and its manufacture is still extensively carried on in the last-named town, at Hazardville. The manufacture of glass, at- tempted very early in some of the other colonies, was undertaken in Manchester in 1783 by persons who were granted the sole privilege of making it in the State ; their work is marked only by the picturesque ruins of the factory. Paper-making was undertaken in East Hartford
211
THE GROWTH OF THE COUNTY.
in 1775. This was the second paper-mill in Connecticut. The indus- try has become a very important one in the county, and there are now large mills in East Hartford, Manchester, Unionville, Windsor Locks, and other places. The first cotton-mill in this county was set up in East Hartford, now Manchester, in 1796. The manufacture of snuff, under a fourteen years' monopoly which covered the whole State, was undertaken in East Hartford after the Revolution. The first manufac- ture of modern axes - that is, axes ground and polished and ready for use when sold - was in Hartford County, at Collinsville, in Canton, in 1826. In 1828 carpet-making began at Thompsonville, in Enfield, and large industries have grown out of these beginnings. In 1836 the manufacture of safety-fuses began in Simsbury, and was the first in the country.
Apples were once among the leading products of the soil of Hartford County, and at the time of their greatest abundance cider-brandy distilleries were astonishingly plenty. It is worth a small table to see their increase in a single year, and abundance at a certain period. Between 1819 and 1828 the number Distilleries in Hartford County. of distilleries, starting at over a hun- dred, was doubled, and in the single 1819. 1820. 1828. year between 1819 and 1820 the in- Hartford. 2 12 2 3 crease was 81. In 1828 only four Berlin. 11 4 8 towns in the county were without at Bristol. 0 0 10 0 Burlington 25 8 1 least one, while Granby actually Canton 20 0 reached 52. In 1840 there were 168 East Hartford 1 33 East Windsor. 8 9 5 5 distilleries in the State, of which 114 Enfield 5 22 13 5 were in Hartford County, and as late Farmington 18 Glastonbury. 3 2 21 as 1845 the county produced 75,000 Granby. 0 41 9 10 gallons of cider brandy, and nearly Hartland 9 52 0 Manchester 300,000 gallons of gin. In the last Marlborough 0 16 17 11 census only four distilleries were re- Simsbury 12 0 0 Southington 13 14 ported in the county.
Suffield
0
0
0
Wethersfield.
1
2
1
Windsor 4 21 17 The first bridge across the Connect- icut River was built at Enfield in 1808, In the County 106 187 213 Hartford following in 1809. Next after In the State .. 232 384 409 the bridges, in the way of public im- provements, came the canals. The eanal around the Enfield Falls was built in 1828, and in that year the Farmington Canal was opened, which until 1846 offered a line to tide- water line from the Connecticut River at Northampton, Mass.
Railroads followed the canals. The first railroad in the county was from New Haven to Hartford, opened in 1839. After that it was extended to Springfield.
The evidences of wealth in the early records are practically confined to the lands, houses, live-stock, and silver plate of the people, with pos- sibly some such minor suggestions as the possession of watches and similar articles might afford. The tax-list was at its first entry, 1796,1 and for a long time after, made up on a different plan from those of
1 See records in the office of the Comptroller of the State.
212
MEMORIAL HISTORY OF HARTFORD COUNTY.
modern days. Real estate was assessed at three per cent of its value, and was so entered, and then the tax was levied upon that. A tax of ten per cent would therefore have been only a tax of three tenths of one per cent. Personal property, for purposes of taxation, was entered at six per cent of its value. Thus the total apparent tax-roll for Hart- ford County, in 1796, was only $964,407. But if the average assess- ment was four per cent, this would represent over $24,000,000 of property, which is, in round numbers, half the taxable wealth of Hart- ford city alone to-day. So the State, in 1796, shows only $5,882,827 of taxables, or, on the same estimate, $147,000,000 of wealth. Hart- ford County stood second in the State in wealth in 1796. Litchfield stood first, Fairfield third, New Haven fourth. There was a steady decline in the list of the State up to about 1830. At that date the total taxables were $3,734,009, a falling off of about $2,150,000, which at four per cent represents $53,750,000. If the amount of silver plate is illustrative of the wealth of the people, these few figures will be of service : -
1796.
1800.
1810.
1819.
Ounces of silver plate in the State.
18,623
17,050
14,680
11,635
" Hartford County.
3,453
2,998
2,572
1,991
66
66
" Hartford
817
760
1,157
728
66
66
" Wethersfield
846
572
442
456
Wethersfield began by having more than Hartford, but a half dis- appeared in fourteen years. Hartford's share fell off forty per cent between 1810 and 1818. Perhaps the hard times of 1812 had to do with this ; but there are suggestions, all through the figures, that there has been a progressive skill in the art of making out one's tax-list which has been an important factor in the problem.
In 1796 there were only 47 gold watches in Hartford County. There was not one in Bristol, East Windsor, Farmington, Glastonbury, Hart- land, or Simsbury. There were only 173 in the whole State, so that this county had more than a quarter of all. In Hartford alone there were 28, or nearly one sixth of all in the State. Wethersfield had 7. There were 524 silver watches in the county, of which 130 were in Hartford, and 55 in Wethersfield. In 1818 there were only 93 gold watches in the county, and only 724 silver, while in 1810 the numbers had been respectively 369 and 934.
In 1796 carriages were very scarce, although horses were more abundant than they were later. This county had 7,608 horses, or " horse-kind," in 1796, and 6,459 in 1810, a decrease of more than eleven hundred ; but during that period vehicles had increased notice- ably. At the date first mentioned there was only one carriage in the State designated as a " coach," and taxed as worth $84. It was owned in Hartford, and for several years it remained the only coach. New Haven had a "chariot " taxed at $67; and, of less pretentious vehi- cles, Hartford had two "phaetons," and Suffield one. There were also " coaches at $17," of which Hartford had twelve, East Windsor three, and Granby one ; these were all in the county. In 1799 Windsor pos- sessed a " coach at $84," sharing with Hartford the highest dignity on
213
THE GROWTH OF THE COUNTY.
wheels. In that year Hartford had ten coaches, but a year later the number was reduced to eight. In 1806 Hartford had advanced to the honor of possessing a coach taxed at $168, which was the only one in the county. Shortly after this, four-wheeled vehicles became more abundant, and less care is shown in the record of them ; but while they were so very few their number must have been correctly given, else the error would have been noticed. These figures are cited to indicate the primitive condition of things at that period ; 1 and it is of interest to notice that horses were then much more numerous relatively than they now are. In 1796 the county had one horse for each five persons of the population ; in 1810 one for each seven persons. In 1880 it had but one horse for each fourteen people. The increase and improvement of vehicles has probably enabled one horse to do far more work than one could at that early time. Horses, as is said, have relatively decreased, and their actual increase is only 1,164 in the county since 1796. Sheep, on the other hand, show no actual increase whatever, but a very marked decrease. In 1810, and for years at about that period, the State offered a bounty for sheep-culture, by deducting seventy-five cents from the tax for each sheep raised. In that year there were 314,138 sheep in the State against 59,431 in 1880; in Hartford County, in 1810, there were 49,711, but in 1880 the number had fallen to 4,961, or a little less than one tenth.
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