USA > Connecticut > Hartford County > The memorial history of Hartford County, Connecticut, 1633-1884, Vol. I > Part 41
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As Hartford witnessed none of the rigors of actual warfare during the contest between Great Britain and her revolted colonies, it was all the more desirable as a place of confinement for prisoners, and many tories and British soldiers were kept in durance here. At one time they were confined in the Court House ; but on the 11th of October, 1778, the General Assembly ordered these prisoners to be removed to
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other quarters, in charge of Ezekiel Williams, Commissary of Prisoners. In December, 1776, a detachment of fourteen men, under the command of an ensign and one sergeant, were ordered to keep guard about the prison in Hartford, to prevent intercourse between the prisoners within and the tories without. Jan. 17, 1777, Barzillai Hudson was appointed ensign and commandant of the guards about the jail. May 28, 1777, Captain John Chenevard was paid £77 9s. 1d. for one half the expense of building a yard around the jail. The selectmen of Hartford petitioned the General Assembly, Jan. 8, 1778, that the prisoners of war might be removed to some other place : complaining that the continuing of the prisoners in this town was attended with innumerable ill effects ; that the public stores and magazines were greatly exposed, and in some instances lost ; that intelligence was communicated to the enemies of the country ; that the prices of the necessaries of life-wood, bread, meat, and clothing -were much increased by the British officers and their servants, " who do not stick at any sum to obtain the same ; " and that there was danger of their forming combinations with the blacks, to injure the lives and property of the people. This reference to the negroes recalls an incident at an earlier period of the war, when the V people of Hartford were much disturbed by the election of Governor Skene's negro as Governor of the blacks. This custom of electing a Governor, in imitation of the whites, had been observed by the negroes for a number of years previous. The fortunate individual was always treated with great attention and respect by his colored brethren, and never failed to receive the title of Governor from them. Governor Cuff succeeded Colonel Wyllys's negro, and held the office for ten years preceding 1776, when he saw fit to resign, and appointed John Anderson, Governor Skene's man, as his successor, without holding an election. This excited the distrust and alarm of the people. The Governor and Council convened at Hartford, and a committee was appointed to investigate the subject, who searched Governor Skene's lodgings in West Hartford and examined his papers. Nothing of a dangerous tendency was found, however, and the committee were con- vinced that the whole affair was merely a compliment to a stranger.
At a later date the prisoners were apparently regarded with less suspicion ; and in the "Courant" of Feb. 3, 1777, there appears an advertisement that, by permission of the Committee (of Inspection) of Hartford, arithmetic, geometry, trigonometry, gauging, and dialling, and music on a variety of instruments, would be taught by Fagan and Balentine, officers of the 55th Regiment, who might be found at Mr. Knox's, near the ferry.
Several executions took place here of spies and traitors. March 19, 1777, Moses Dunbar was executed for high treason in the presence of a large concourse of spectators. The Rev. Mr. Jarvis, of Middletown, preached a sermon at the jail to the prisoner ; and the Rev. Mr. Strong improved the occasion by a discourse at the North Meeting- house, to the spectators, which was published. Nov. 10, 1778, David Farnsworth and John Blair, found guilty by the court-martial at Dan- bury, of being spies and passing counterfeit money, were hanged on Rocky Hill. A court-martial, held at Hartford, March 7, 1781, Colonel Heman Swift president, condemned Alexander McDowell, late lieu- tenant in Colonel Welles's regiment, to suffer death for desertion to
VOL. I .- 20.
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the enemy; and his execution accordingly took place in Hartford, March 21, 1781.
The chief supervision of affairs in Hartford during the Revolution- ary period was exercised by the Committee of Inspection. This body was substantially identical with the Committee of Correspondence and Observation, appointed, Dec. 20, 1774, when a meeting was held to express the sympathy of the inhabitants " with our brethren of Boston and the Massachusetts Bay," though the resolutions open with words of loyalty to the Crown. This committee consisted of the following : Samuel Wadsworth, George Smith, Samuel Talcott, Benjamin Payne, Thomas Seymour, John Pitkin, George Pitkin, David Hills, Isaac Shel- don, Aaron Bull, Samuel Wyllys, Timothy Cheeny, Richard Pitkin, Abijah Colton, Noah Webster, Ebenezer Welles, and John Cook. Jan. 22, 1777, a new Committee of Observation was appointed, contain- ing some new names : Oliver Ellsworth, Hezekiah Wyllys, John Welles, Ashbel Welles, James Church, and Solomon Gilman.
April 7, 1777, it was " voted that Messrs. Joseph Church, Zachariah Pratt, Jonathan Bigelow, Jonathan Welles, Timothy Cowles, David Hills, and Abijah Colton be a committee to provide for the families of the soldiers belonging to this town ; " and in succeeding years the same and other committees were appointed for the same purpose. Dec. 27, 1779, two thousand pounds were voted for the use of this committee to enable them to purchase provisions.
On the 28th of February, 1780, twenty-nine persons were appointed to be Inspectors of Provisions, to detain and secure any embargoed provisions which they might suspect were intended to be carried out of the State. Nov. 15, 1780, Captain Jonathan Bull on the west, and Mr. Daniel Pitkin on the east side of the river were chosen to procure the salt, receive the casks, and put up the provisions for the Continental army, for which the inhabitants were taxed 12d. on the pound. During all this period, and later, frequent bounties were offered for able-bodied men to fill up the quotas of the fast-thinning regiments in the Conti- nental line. Many only volunteered for three months, so that a con- stant effort was required to keep up the number of soldiers promised by the State.
Dec. 30, 1777, William Pitkin, George Wyllys, Benjamin Payne, Thomas Seymour, Jesse Root, John Pitkin, and Benjamin Colton, Esqs., were appointed to take into consideration the Articles of Con- federation drawn up by Congress for a plan of union to be adopted by the United States of America, and to lay the same before the people of the town at their next meeting. Jan. 15, 1778, the meeting was held, and the articles did not meet with entire approval.
The treaty of peace with Great Britain was signed at Versailles, Jan. 20, 1783; but the fact was not known in Hartford until the 27th of March, at seven o'clock A.M., when Colonel Wadsworth re- ceived a letter from Philadelphia, dated March 23, containing the information. The news was received with great joy. "As the ex- press came solely to bring the news, and we had no doubt of its being true, the inhabitants of this town manifested their extreme joy by the firing of cannon, ringing of bells, and in the evening fireworks and illuminations." 1
1 Connecticut Courant.
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Although the war was over, the troubles and anxieties consequent upon establishing the new government on a firm foundation were still to be encountered. That the people of Hartford bore their share in these is shown by the resolutions, passed in town-meeting, Sept. 16, 1783, which the representatives for Hartford-Colonel Thomas Sey- mour and Colonel George Pitkin -were requested to lay before the General Assembly. The first was a request that they should strenu- ously oppose all encroachments of the American Congress upon the sovereignty and jurisdiction of the separate States, and every assump- tion of power not expressly vested in them by the Articles of Confed- eration. And in particular they were desired to investigate the great and interesting question whether Congress was authorized to give half-pay for life to the officers of the army, or five years' full pay as an equivalent ; and how, and in what manner, the right was obtained, and if it be found unconstitutional, to attempt every means for its removal. Another was to desire the Connecticut delegates in Congress to protest against sending ambassadors to the Courts of Europe, it being an ex- pense "in our present circumstances unnecessary and insupportable." And, finally, the delegates were desired to exert themselves that place- men and pensioners, and every other superfluous officer of State, be discountenanced and removed, and that the yeas and nays be taken and published upon every important question in the House of Repre- sentatives.
Jan. 1, 1784, Colonel Samuel Talcott, Captain Seth Collins, Mr. Thomas Goodman, Mr. Chauncey Goodrich, Mr. John Trumbull, Colonel Thomas Seymour, Mr. Ebenezer Welles, Noah Webster, Esq., Captain John Cook, Mr. Caleb Bull, Mr. Barnabas Deane, Mr. Peter Colt, Captain Jonathan Bull, and Captain Israel Seymour were appointed a committee to consider and fix the " Limitts " of that part of the whole of the town which is proposed to be incorporated into a city, and to draw up a memorial to the General Assembly praying for such incorporation.
Mary M. Talcott.
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MEMORIAL HISTORY OF HARTFORD COUNTY.
SECTION V.
COMMERCE AND BANKING.
BY ROWLAND SWIFT, President of the American National Bank.
THE varied and always increasing business which at the present makes use of and makes moderately remunerative tlie considerable banking capital of Hartford had its beginning with the very first plans that looked to the settlement of this region. It has followed in its development the processes and progress of a contemporaneous trade with which, from earliest times and amid all changes, it has shared local connections, a free course, and an interesting if not curious history.
Whether Governor Winslow, of Plymouth, was the first white man who had planted his foot upon this soil, or the Dutch representative of the West India Company had been here before him, it may fairly be said that both were prospecting with re- COMMERCE. 1 gard primarily to commercial interests when first they came. The Sachem who had visited Plymouth and the Massachusetts2 doubtless full of fears of his savage neighbors, and greatly desirous of gaining for himself and those whom he repre- sented the friendship and the arms of the Englishmen, seasoned his rather effective eloquence with certain representations that evidently moved the sympathies of his Puritan auditors, however much or little they had previously been interested in him and his strange people. He told them that yonder by the banks of the western river were great magazines of corn. There also could readily be gathered great wealth of beaver. His brethren knew, too, where were treasuries of wampum- peage, and all were waiting there for the advent and the barter of the pale- faced merchant. And of these things the white man had desire enough and much need of some. For corn and for beaver, if he was to get them, he must give in exchange such merchandise as he could command, and not silver and gold. He must offer his gayly colored blankets, his trinkets and knives and hatchets and awls and what not for their wam- pum, and with this again he would buy without limitation the Indians' stores of maize and peltry. So the appeal of Wahginnacut was timely at least ; sagacious indeed could he have had any conception of the material interests to which some of those before him were committed.
A few of the Plymouth colonists, to whom with others the original patent had been granted, became obligated by purchase from their fellow
1 A copy of Bartholomew's design for a statue of Commerce.
2 1631; Winthrop, vol. i. p. 52.
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COMMERCE AND BANKING.
adventurers, some of whom were resident in England, to pay for it the sum of eighteen hundred pounds sterling money.1 This obligation, as well as the problem of temporary supplies, was a constant and press- ing incentive to schemes of trade. It was a burdensome responsibility, requiring a watchful administration, and for the current necessities of their business some ready means other than their own. Governor Bradford gives a suggestive story of the difficulty and cost of getting some pecuniary accommodations, which were obtained in England after having " acquainted divers of our worthy and approved friends (by our letters) with our raw and weak estate and want of ability of ourselves to manage so great an action as the upholding of the plantation."2 In 1626 Mr. Allerton secured for him and his associates in the application a loan of two hundred pounds sterling, " but it was at thirty in the hun- dred interest ; by which appears in what straits we were; and yet this was upon better terms than the goods which were sent us the year be- fore, being at forty-five per cent ; so that it was God's marvellous provi- dence that we were ever able to wade through things." In the course of the following year negotiations were completed by which Mr. Brad- ford, Mr. Winslow, and ten others associated themselves for commercial purposes, and under covenants to pay and acquit the colony of all debts for purchase of the same in consideration that they were to have and freely enjoy the pinnace and boats, and " the whole stock of furs, fells, beads, corne, wampumpeak, hatchets, knives," etc., owned by the colony, and that they were to have the whole trade to themselves, their heirs and assigns, with all the privileges thereof as the colony had, to use the same for six full years. Governor Bradford wrote : -
" We thought it our safest and best course to come to some agreement with the people to have the whole trade consigned to us for some years ; and so in the time to take upon us to pay all the debts and set them free : Another reason which moved us was our great desire to transport as many of our brethren of Leyden over unto us, as we could. . . . We well knew that except we followed our trading roundly, we should never be able to do the one or the other." 3
But the field that immediately adjoined the colonial settlement could not alone support such extensive operations as would meet the wants or sufficiently reward the investments of the company. Almost at the very time the new association was being formed, in 1627-1628, they had established a post upon the Kennebec or the Penobscot, and had met with promising success there. Other plans were maturing as well. From the first, two of the corporators at least had been inelined to follow upon the solicitations of the friendly Wahginnacut, and to secure perhaps the advantages of pre-emption upon the banks of the Connecticut. Mr. Winslow, soon after the Sachem's visit and overtures to him, explored this region personally, by what route of approach or by what company attended is unknown. What he saw sufficiently con- firmed the representations that had urged him to the ground, and upon his return, in company with Governor Bradford, he offered and solicited of their friends at the Bay a participation in their contemplated enter- prise here.4 A week's visit and conference over the proposal failed
1 Massachusetts Historical Society's Collections.
2 See Shirley to Bradford, Massachusetts Historical Society's Collections, vol. iii. p. 58.
3 Bradford's Letters, Massachusetts Historical Society's Collections, vol. iii. p. 59.
4 Winthrop, vol. i. p. 105, and note. (See vol. ii. p. 497.)
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MEMORIAL HISTORY OF HARTFORD COUNTY.
entirely, however ; Winthrop, thoroughly dreading the difficult naviga- tion of the stream and the dangerous character of the savages who inhabited the adjacent parts, could but discourage the idea of planta- tion here. Indeed, his notions of this extended region appeared to be uniformly alarming, and even upon maturer information were tenaciously held. He records later by two years at least that " the country on the west of the Narragansett Bay is all champaign for many miles, but very stony and full of Indians." 1
But the interests and sentiments behind the Company of Plymouth allowed no abatement of their intentions. Various individuals were get- ting acquainted with the locality and with the possibility of gain. John Oldham and three others came to the Connecticut in September, 1633, to trade. This, presumably, was the first overland pilgrimage hither by the eastern colonists, unless Mr. Winslow had taken the forest paths on his exploration. Trading parties generally, perhaps in the interest of the Plymouth Company, had taken ship hither for the same purpose occasionally during the previous two years and found their enterprise rewarded by encouraging profits, with experiences, however, demon- strating the necessity for a house and a company located to receive the commodities brought down by the river Indians and their allies from remoter parts. Beaver was brought here in abundance. It was told that the Dutch had bought in a year not less than ten thousand skins. From Plymouth and Massachusetts there were sent sometimes to Eng- land the worth of £1,000 sterling in a single ship for which there had been always a ready market and for several years a growing demand. In the mean time every account amplified their estimate of the extensive opening to the north and the northwest for commerce in all kinds of furs and skins and in every product of the distant lake regions and Canada. A precedence then in locality here and in trade and alliances among the resident tribes was of manifest importance, - a calculation verified somewhat by the known regard of the same considerations by the Dutch, - while it was as reasonable in some respects that Oldham's private enterprise should command their especial attention and suggest dili- gence and promptness on their part. His neighbors at the Bay cer- tainly regarded him with some dislike and caution. They had been forewarned of a certain boldness and selfishness in his disposition, and of his determination with a few others to trade at large with the natives regardless of any grants of the exclusive privilege to others.2 Neither Mr. Bradford nor Mr. Winslow, it may be supposed, was unacquainted
1 Winthrop, vol. i. p. 146.
2 " Mr. John Oldham came from New England not long before your arrivall there, by whom wee have had noe small Disturbance in our Business, having bin cast behinde at the least two months tyme in our Voyage, through the varyetie of his vast conceipts of extraordinary gaine : . . . with whom after long Tyme spent in sundry Treatyes, finding him a man alto- gether vnfit for vs to deale with, wee have at last left him to his owne way. . . . But hee doth interest other men who for ought wee knowe are never likely to be benefitiall to the plant- ing of the country ; their own particular Profitts (though to the overthrowe of the general plantacon) being their cheife aime and interest. . . . Wee feare that as he hath bin obstinate and vyolent in his Opinions here soe hee will persist and bee ready to draw a partie to himself there, to the great Hindrance of the common quiett ; wee have therefore thought fitt to give you Notice of his Disposicion to the end you may beware how you meddle with him, as also that you may vse the best Meanes you can to settle an Agreement with the old Planters, soe as they may not harken to Mr. Oldham's dangerous though vaine Propositions." - Gov. & Dep. of the N. E. Co. for a Plantation in Mass. Bay, to Cap! John Endicott, Apr. 17, 1629. (Mass. Records, vol. i. p. 388.)
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with their pushing competitor, nor indifferent to the reports regarding this journey of his and the entertainments and traffic at Indian towns "all the way." 1
Their bark was in commission within a month. William Holmes was its master, and as resolute a man as has ever navigated the devious channel of the Connecticut River. The threatening Dutchmen already planted near the present site of the eity of Hartford, although they for- bade his passage at the mouths of two cannon, failed to frighten him from his course, and the first house on the Connecticut was brought from his deek and erected and palisaded at the confluence of the Tunxis River. Several sachems, original proprietors of the locality, who had been driven away by the Pequods, returned with Holmes. Satisfactory purchase was made from them of an ample tract of land, and the plucky navigator was soon prepared to address himself to the wants and fan- cies of his aboriginal neighbors, who were found to be readily accessible, if not eager to possess such merchandise as he had in store to offer them. We have every reason to suppose that the business here inaugu- rated was for the time being vigorously prosecuted, and that the com- pany at New Plymouth afforded every resource at its command for its success. The representatives of the Dutch West India Company also immediately set up their trading-house near by, and the two establish- ments pursued their trade under the disadvantages of uncontrollable competitions and almost hostile misunderstandings, while numbers of individual adventurers like Oldham from time to time appeared on the ground, adding considerably to the volume and diversity of the mer- chandise offered for sale or exchange to the natives. The plainest tools that could aid them or their squaws in their rude husbandry, coarse colored stuffs that were convenient for loose garments or blank- ets, the simplest hardware, and the cheapest trinketry were disposed of broadcast to them. A brass kettle they greatly coveted. Over it they would stretch and fasten a dried skin, and with the novel drum make noisy music for their pagan dance-worship. Sales of fire-arms or am- munition were prohibited by the colonial laws and deprecated in Gov- ernor Bradford's astonishing doggerel, but seemed to prevail to some extent regardless of the inflictions of either.2
1 Winthrop, vol. i. p. 111. 2 " For these fierce natives, they are now so fill'd With guns and muskets, and in them so skill'd, As that they may keep the English in awe, And when they please, give to them the law ; And of powder and shot they have such store As sometimes they refuse for to buy more ; Flints, screw-plates, and moulds for all sorts of shot They have, and skill how to use them have got ; And mend and new stock their pieces they can, As well in most things as an Englishman. Thus like madmen we put them in a way With all our weapons us to kill and slay ; That gain hereof to make they know so well, The fowl to kill, and us the feathers sell.
The Indians are nurtured so well, As by no means you can get them to tell Of whom they had their guns or such supply ; Or, if they do, they will feign some false lie : So as, if their testimony you take
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MEMORIAL HISTORY OF HARTFORD COUNTY.
With the advent here of the colonies from Dorchester and Water- town and Newtown in Massachusetts, the consequent assumption and re- adjustment of territorial ownership, the organization of the colonial government with its immediate protection and restraints, there came no very sudden or severe modifications of commercial modes or endeav- ors, although a more completely local interest and administration en- sued, and as time went on a gradual extension of relations with the surrounding regions and more frequent and important signs of other commerce appeared.
It is not easy at this day to appreciate how even the comparatively limited business of the pioneer merchants could be for so long a period conducted with the use of so little money. In the simple exchange of one commodity for another the savage followed a mode taught him by his fathers, to him the safest and the best; and it was long before ex- perience suggested to him the convenience and necessity of a medium of general adaptability to the more extended practices of buying and selling, which the Englishman with his education and his multiplying affairs had hardly the tact to get along without. The expansion of the fields of operation, with the increase in magnitude of individual trans- actions, proved the primitive standards too cumbersome for the mani- fold adjustments between man and man among the colonists or between the colonist and the native. Gold and silver were present in the coun- try in unappreciable amounts, certainly not to be found in quantity or form to fulfil adequately the office of money; one party had never learned of such a term or such a use for the precious metals, or indeed for anything else, and there was no artificial device extant to suggest or answer this convenience for the native. The colonist and the foreign trader imported scant stores of coin, mostly of silver, and this was known and handled among them as money, and in the few exchanges which it served to effect was passed at rates which the negotiators for the time being should agree upon. The Court after a time interposed its order for uniformity, as in 1643, "that good Rialls of & and Reix Dollers shall passe betwixt man & man att fine shillings a peece, in all payments."1 The few definite allusions to coined money appearing upon the public records for many years thereafter hardly relieved the rule of barter which prevailed, and which was supplemented by a system of debit and credit accounts practised among all, which answered for the preservation and adjustment of most transactions of a mercantile na- ture, after a fashion.
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