USA > Connecticut > Hartford County > The memorial history of Hartford County, Connecticut, 1633-1884, Vol. II > Part 15
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The Rev. Edward W. Hooker, D.D., became the eighth pastor of this church. Dr. Hooker was born in the town of Goshen, Nov. 24, 1794, was graduated at Middlebury College in 1814, was settled over this church of South Windsor from 1849 to 1856, and died March 3, 1875.
The next pastor, the ninth in order, was the Rev. Judson Burr Stoddard. He was born at Pawlet, Vermont, in 1813, was graduated at Union College in 1840, and remained pastor of this church from 1855 to 1863.
The tenth pastor was the Rev. George A. Bowman. Mr. Bowman was from Augusta, Maine, and was graduated at Bowdoin College in 1843, and at Bangor Seminary in 1867. He was settled over this church in 1866, and was dismissed Nov. 30, 1879.
The present pastor is the Rev. Frederick E. Snow, a graduate of the Yale Theological School, who began his labors here in 1883.
The Second Congregational Church in South Windsor, known as the Wapping Church, was organized Feb. 2, 1830. A preaching ser- vice had been maintained for some years previous. The Rev. Henry Morris went there in 1829, and remained till 1832. The Rev. David L. Hunn, a graduate of Yale College and Andover Theological Semi- nary, supplied the pulpit from 1832 to 1835. The first regularly set- tled pastor was the Rev. Marvin Root, a graduate of Williams College and Yale Theological Seminary. He began his work Aug. 29, 1836, and was dismissed April 29, 1840. The Rev. Augustus Pomery sup- plied for a time, and the Rev. Oscar F. Parker, after serving as acting pastor for two years, was ordained in 1844, and continued till 1848. The Rev. William Wright was settled in 1854, and continued in office until 1865. The Rev. Winfield S. Hawkes began his ministry Nov. 12, 1868, and was dismissed March 22, 1871, when the Rev. Charles W. Drake supplied the pulpit until 1875. The Rev. Henry Elmer Hart fol- lowed, and supplied the pulpit from 1875 to 1878 The Rev Charles N. Flanders, a graduate of Dartmouth College and Andover Theological Seminary, has been in charge of the pulpit since 1878.
Mr. Henry Holman, clerk of the Baptist Church in South Windsor, has given the following outline of its history : -
" The organization of the Baptist Church took place Jan. 14, 1823. There had been Baptist preaching by the Rev. John Hastings and others since 1790. In 1820 the Rev. William Bently began his labors here, and continued until 1824. After this the church was supplied by different persons, including, in 1826, the Rev. John Hunt. In 1827 the Rev. Gurdon Robbins began to preach. He was ordained June, 1829, remaining till 1832. The Rev. E. Doty, the Rev. William Bently, and others preached until 1835. In April, 1838, the Rev. William Reid began to preach. He was ordained June 10, 1838, and remained till October, 1839. The Rev. F. Bestor and others preached here until 1842, when the Rev. William C. Walker began to preach, and continued until 1844. After this the Rev. Ralph Bowles and others preached until 1846, when the house was occu- pied by our Congregational brethren while they were building a new house. After this the Baptists and Congregationalists united, and attended the Congre- gational Church. Aug. 10, 1851, the Rev. Gurdon Robbins supplied the pulpit,
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and announced that the house would be open for lay meetings. In the summer of 1864 the Episcopalians began to occupy the house, and held meetings for about two years. From 1866 to 1870 the house was closed most of the time. Then the Rev. Russell Jennings, of Deep River, repaired the house, and the Rev. R. E. Whittemore began his labors, and remained until November, 1871. Since that time the Rev. E. S. Towne, the Rev. Warren Mason, and others have occupied the pulpit. The present minister is the Rev. H. E. Morgan."
The Rev. W. A. Taylor, pastor of the Methodist Church in Wapping, sends a brief notice of its history : -
"The church was organized about the year 1827 by the Rev. V. Osborn, with a membership of eight persons. The house of worship was built in 1833, and dedicated by the Rev. Mr. Osborn. The present membership is seventy. The present pastor is the Rev. Jacob Betts."
After the town was fully launched upon its course of separate ex- istence, nothing of an unusual nature occurred until the breaking out of the War of the Rebellion, in 1861. Of course, in the years inter- vening between 1845 and 1861 events were constantly taking place in the town which would be worthy of record if our space permitted us to dwell much upon details. By the conditions under which we write, we must touch only the main outlines of the story ; and so we come down to the action of the town in 1861.
At a town-meeting held in South Windsor Oct. 2, 1861, clear and manly action was taken for the raising of troops to aid in the sup- pression of the Rebellion. South Windsor, during the war, passed through the same essential experiences as did the other towns in the State, and, indeed, the towns in all the Northern States. There was first the free volunteering for three months, then a system of small bounties as new calls were made, then larger bounties, town, state, national, as the pressure for men became greater. In the "Cata- logue of Connecticut Volunteers," a volume published by the State, and showing the enrolment of men during the War of the Rebellion, we find the names of one hundred and one men, officers and privates, from South Windsor.
Leaving aside the recent items of town history, in which South Windsor would not probably differ materially from other towns, it will be more profitable if we turn back to years long gone, and show the great things which were enacted upon this territory in former generations. In some respects, no parish or town in New England can show facts of . greater magnitude than those which belong to this particular spot. From the time when Mr. Timothy Edwards began his ministry here in 1694, onward for nearly a century, that which now constitutes the town of South Windsor witnessed the growth of some remarkable men.
Captain Thomas Stoughton was one of the chief men of the carly 6Thomas Stoughton days. His father was Thomas Stoughton, one of the five men appointed to have special care of the infant colony settling at Windsor in 1636. Thomas Stoughton the son, known as Captain Thomas, having received his military commis- sion from Governor John Winthrop, was the chief man of affairs on the east side of the river when the Rev. Mr. Edwards began his
Oliver Halcolle
John Hansped.
.din y Elpin from & paint & b. Earle in 1784
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ministry there. He was born Nov. 21, 1662, son of Thomas and Mary (Wadsworth) Stoughton, and died Jan. 14, 1749, in the eighty-seventh year of his age. In the history of East Windsor and South Windsor, as also in Windsor proper, the name Stoughton has continued to hold a prominent place from generation to generation. The Hon. John W. Stoughton, a descendant of Thomas, was State senator from the Second District in 1845, while living in East Windsor, and again in 1860 from the same district, living then in South Windsor. His son is John Alden Stoughton, Esq., referred to in this sketch as the author of the volume entitled " Windsor Farmes."
In the history of East Windsor we made reference to the parentage and early life of Roger Wolcott. This was in connection with an account of " the settlements " on the east side of the river. It was in
spor Roger Wolcott ofus pac:
the year 1699, when he was twenty years of age, that he took up his permanent residence in what was afterward East Windsor and is now South Windsor. He was a rare and remarkable man, who would, of himself, make the glory of any township. We will first leave him to tell the outline story of his own life in extracts from his brief Auto- biography as published in "The Wolcott Memorial."
" I was the youngest child of my hond father Mr. Simon Wolcott, tender and beloved in the sight of my mother, Mrs. Martha Wolcott, and was born Jan. 4, 1679, at a time when my father's outward estate was at the lowest ebb. .
" In the year 1680 my father settled on his own land on the east side of the river in Windsor. Everything was to begin ; few families were settled there. We had neither Minister nor School, by which it hath come to pass that I never was a scholar in any School a day in my life. My parents took care and pains to learn their children, and were successful with the rest, but not with me, by rea- son of my extreme dulness to learn. . . . On Sept. 11, 1687, dyed my hond father, in the sixty-second year of his age. . . . We were now a widow and six fatherless children ; the buildings unfinished, the land uncleared, the estate much in debt, but we never wanted. In the year 1689 my mother marryed with Daniel Clark, Esq. ; I went with her to live on the west side of the river. . . . In the year 1690 my mind turned to learning, and I soon learned to read English and to write. [He was then eleven years old]. . . . In 1694 I went an appren- tice to a eloathier. . . . On Jan. 2, 1699, I went into my own business. My hands were enabled to perform their enterprise, and my labor was crowned with success.
" Dec. 3, 1702, I marryed Mrs. Sarah Drake, and went to live on my own land, on the east side of the river in Windsor. My settlement here was all to begin, yet we lived joyfully together. Our mutual affection made everything easie and delightfull ; in a few years my buildings were up and my farm made profitable. In 1707 I took my first step to preferment, being this year chosen selectman for the town of Windsor.
" In the year 1709 I was chosen a representative for that town in the General Assembly. In the year 1710 I was put on the Bench of Justices. .
" In 1711 I went in the expedition against Canada, commissary of the Con- necticut stores. . . . In 1714 I was chosen into the Council. . .. In the year
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1721 I was appointed Judge of the County Court. In the year 1732 I was ap- pointed one of the Judges of the Superior Court. . . . In the year 1741 I was chosen Deputy-Gov! of this colony and appointed Chief Judge of the Superior Court.
" In the year 1745 I led forth the Connecticut troops in the expedition against Cape Breton, and recd a Commission from Gov. Shirley and Gov! Law for major-general of the army. I was now in the sixty-seventh year of my age, and the oldest man in the army except Revd Mr. Moody [Rev. Samuel Moody, of York, Maine]. .
" In the year 1750 I was chosen Governor of the Colony of Connecticut."
We copy also from " The Wolcott Memorial " a description of his personal appearance when in official dress, as given by Miss Marsh, of Wethersfield. He was a visitor at her father's, and the costume of an officer under the regal Government was too imposing to pass unnoticed. Several times a week he rode out on horseback, and never appeared abroad but in full dress : -
" He wore a suit of scarlet broadcloth. The coat was made long, with wide skirts, and trimmed down the whole length in front with gilt buttons, and broad gilt-vellum buttonholes two or three inches in length. The cuffs were large and deep, reaching nearly to the elbows, and were ornamented, like the sides of the coat, as were also the pocket-lids, with gilt-vellum buttonholes and buttons. The waistcoat had skirts, and was richly embroidered. Ruffles at the bosom and over the hands were of lace. He had a flowing wig, and a three-cornered hat with a cockade, and rode slowly and stately a large black horse whose tail swept the ground."
After Governor Wolcott's retirement from public life in 1754, being then seventy-five years of age, he gave himself much to religious medi- tation and study. Through his life he was a devoutly religions man, and in his old age he thoroughly enjoyed the leisure and freedom from public cares which enabled him to give himself more to the study of the Bible and to private meditation.
Governor Wolcott wrote a poem, covering twenty-nine pages, in the fourth volume, first series, of the Massachusetts Historical Collections, where it is preserved. His subject was Governor John Winthrop, of Connecticut, and his agency in securing a charter for the colony from Charles II.
The reader may fancy that this is a very unpoetic theme. But if he thinks so, he does not know what this charter meant to a Connectient man of a hundred and fifty years ago. No other colony in America had a charter like that of Connecticut. Hear what Bancroft says of it, and of the condition of Connecticut under it, in the thirteenth chapter of the first volume of his history : -
" Could Charles II. have looked back upon earth and seen what security his gift of a charter had conferred, he might have gloried in an act which redeemed his life from the charge of having been unproductive of public felicity. The con- tentment of Connecticut was full to the brim. In a proclamation under the great seal of the colony, it told the world that its days under the charter were 'halcyon days of peace.' Those days never will return. Time, as it advances, unfolds new scenes in the great drama of human existence, scenes of more glory, of more wealth, of more action, but not of more tranquillity and purity."
It is a noticeable fact that on this territory of ancient Windsor the Wolcott family on the east side of the river, and the Ellsworth family
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25
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on the west, are not unlike in dignity and in the number of eminent men which they furnished for the public service. Chief Justice Oliver Ellsworth, of Windsor, Minister to France, and one of the very ablest men of the convention which shaped the Federal Constitution, may stand over against Governor Roger Wolcott. The names Wolcott and Ells- worth were common on both sides of the river ; but the name Ellsworth rose to its highest dignity on the west side, and that of Wolcott on the east side.
The Rev. Daniel Elmer seems to have been the earliest college grad- uate from that part of the territory of Windsor lying upon the east side of the river. His name stands upon the Triennial Catalogue of Yale College for the year 1713. His wife, according to Stiles, was Margaret Parsons, sister of the Rev. Jonathan Parsons, of Newbury- port, Mass., at whose house Whitefield died. Mr. Elmer preached at Brookfield and Westborough, Mass., and spent his later years in New Jersey. He died in 1755.
The Rev. Henry Willes, son of Joshua Willes, was the next graduate upon what is now the South Windsor soil. He was born in 1690, and was graduated at Yale College in 1715. He was the first minister of the town of Franklin, beginning his labors in 1718 and continuing until his death, in 1755. Without much doubt, both these men were fitted for college by the Rev. Timothy Edwards.
The Rev. Samuel Tudor was the son of Samuel and Abigail (Filley) Tudor, and was born in Windsor, east side of the river, March 8, 1705. He was probably fitted for college by his pastor, the Rev. Timothy Edwards. He was graduated at Yale College in 1728, and was of the same Vanille Tudor class with Matthew Rockwell, described in the East Windsor history as " deacon, minister, and physician." Mr. Tudor was settled in Poquonnock Parish, Windsor, about the year 1737, and remained there till his death, in 1757.
Here, too, was born, Oct. 5, 1703, Jonathan Edwards, that remark- able man whose name has long since become illustrious throughout the civilized world. Seldom has a greater impression been made in the intellectual circles of the world than when the published writings of Jonathan Edwards President Edwards, a hundred and thirty years ago, were first read by the leading thinkers of Europe. That such a voice should come sounding to them out of the wilderness of the West was something so wonderful that they could hardly find words to express their astonish- ment and admiration. The very greatness of the themes which Edwards chose, not ambitiously, but as one born to this high vocation, served in themselves to suggest and illustrate the reach and grasp of his mind. It has been generally agreed among the leading scholars and men of thought, both in the Old World and the New, that Jonathan Edwards. by the power of his intellect, as also by the moral purity and beauty o. his life, stands as one of the elect among the children of men.
The Hon. Roger Wolcott, son of Governor Roger and Sarah (Drake) Wolcott, was born Sept. 14, 1704. He married Mary Newberry. Oct. 10, 1728. He died Oct. 10, 1754. " He represented the town of Windsor -
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in the General Court, was a major of the Connecticut troops, a member of the Council, judge of the Superior Court, and one of the rerisers Rugn wolcottan Agent. of the laws of the colo- ny." Stiles, from whose history of Windsor
the above sentence is copied, suggests that nothing but his early death (he died at the age of fifty) prevented his election to the office of Colonial Governor.
Alexander Wolcott, M.D., was the son of Roger and Sarah (Drake) Wolcott, and was born Jan. 7, 1712. He was fitted for college, without doubt, by the Rev. Timothy Edwards, who has an item in his account- book against Roger Wolcott as follows : " To teaching his son, Alexan- der, besides what he paid in March, 1730, as I remember, 000-04-01."
Alexandere. Wolcott agent
Alexander Wolcott was graduated from Yale in 1731. He was married to Lydia, daughter of Jeremiah Atwater, of New Haven, Dec. 4, 1732. He lived for several years in New Haven, and went with his father as surgeon in the Louisburg expedition. After that he returned to his native town and became a prominent physician, practising upon the west side of the river. He was a bold defender of the rights of the people against the usurpations of England, and in the time of the Revo- lution was the chairman of the Windsor Committee of Inspection. He was a man of noble person, commanding aspect, and great abilities. Dr. Samuel Wolcott, in " The Wolcott Memorial," says his father told him " that Dr. Alexander Wolcott, whom he saw, when a child, far advanced in years, was very tall, and erect as a plane-tree, with hair hanging down his shoulders, of silvery whiteness, and with an eye and eyebrow and complexion of a dark hue ; his appearance was exceeding noble." Dr. Wolcott lived to old age, dying in 1795, at the age of eighty-three.
Oliver Wolcott was born in Windsor, east side of the river, Nov. 20, 1726. He was the son of Roger and Sarah (Drake) Wolcott. He was graduated at Yale College in 1747. He received the degree Doctor of Laws from Yale College in 1792. He was married, Jan. 21, 1755, to Lorraine, or Laira, daughter of Captain Daniel Collins, of Guil- ford. The French and Indian War coming on just then, he received a captain's commission from Governor George Clinton, of New York, raised a company of men, and led them to the defence of the Northern Frontiers. After this military episode he returned to Connecticut and began the study of medicine under the direction of his elder brother, Alexander. This brother had been graduated at Yale in 1731, and was now in middle life, and had attained an established reputation as an able physician. Oliver Wolcott expected to make the practice of medi- cine his life work ; but about this time he was appointed high sheriff
Friedrich Matury
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of Litchfield Connty. He removed to the town of Litchfield, and ever after made that his home. He soon became one of the most prominent men in the State, and was constant- ly in the public service. He often represented the town of Litchfield Oliver Wohnort in the General As- sembly. He was one of the Gov- ernor's Council. He was chief judge of the Court of Common Pleas. He was an ardent patriot, and at the breaking out of the War of the Revolution he became a member of the Continental Congress and a signer of the Declaration of Independence. He was also an army leader, and was at one time in charge of fourteen regiments of troops about New York. He was Lientenant-Governor of Connecticut from 1786 until 1796. In this last-named year he was chosen Governor, and died in office in the month of December, 1797. He was a man naturally adapted to greatness. Intellectually, morally, and physically he was of large and commanding proportions.
By his removal to Litchfield his son Oliver, the second Governor of Connecticut of that name, had his birthplace in Litchfield, and not in Windsor, the home of his ancestors. A large number of distinguished men have come from the Litchfield branch of the family, whose names would be out of place in our record.
John Fitch was born in the town of Windsor, east side of the river, Jan. 21, 1743. In addition to a common-school education, such as the times afforded, he studied surveying, which he afterward turned to practical account. He also in carly life learned the trade of clock-
FITCH'S STEAMBOAT.
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MEMORIAL HISTORY OF HARTFORD COUNTY.
making. He was a man of a remarkably inventive genius. In 1784 he entered upon the project of propelling vessels upon the water by the power of steam. It is claimed, with a good show of reason, that he was the first to conceive this plan and to put it in operation. He was deeply interested and engaged in this enterprise some fifteen or twenty years before Fulton's experiments were made. In the month of May, 1787, his steamboat was propelled by steam at the rate of three miles an hour on the Delaware River. The next year he increased this speed ; but he wanted money to perfect his plans. People were unsympathetic and unbelieving. He was baffled in his endeavors, and died an utterly dis- appointed man, probably by his own hand, in 1798, at Bardstown, Ken- tucky, at the age of fifty-five. He is very generally regarded as the real inventor of the steamboat. In 1798 a committee of the New York Legis- lature made a report on steamboats, in which they say : "The boats of Livingston and Fulton were in substance the invention patented by John Fitch in 1791, and Fitch during the time of his patent had the exclusive right to use the same in the United States."
Ursula Wolcott, the youngest of the thirteen children of Governor Roger Wolcott, by her marriage with Matthew Griswold, of Lyme, brought fresh honors to her father's house. Like her father, Mat- thew Griswold had no advantages for early education, but by his native strength, and breadth of understanding, he rose to high dis- tinction in the legal profession, both as lawyer and judge, and was Lieutenant-Governor and Governor of the State. He was born in 1716, was married in 1743, and died in 1799. His wife was born in 1724, and died in 1788.
Governor Roger Griswold was one of the children of the above marriage. He was born in 1762, and died in 1812. He was Governor of Connecticut in 1811 and 1812. Like his father, he was eminent in Blingworld the legal profession, and was judge of the Superior Court. He "was regarded as one of the first men in the nation in talents, polit- ical knowledge, force of eloquence, and profound legal ability." There were other rich fruits of the marriage of Matthew Griswold and Ursula Wolcott, but we cannot now trace them out.
Upon the territory covered by the towns of East Windsor and South Windsor, since the settlements on the east side of the river in Windsor began, it is found that eighty-eight men have received college honors, - sixty-three from Yale, nine from Amherst, and the rest from Dart- month, Williams, Western Reserve, and Trinity Colleges, and from Wesleyan University. Of the eighty-eight, thirty entered the profession of the ministry, and the rest were lawyers, physicians, and men of pub- lic offices, while a few of them became men of business. Of these men of college education the Wolcott family furnished seven, - a number larger than came from any other one family.
XI.
ENFIELD.
BY GEORGE W. WINCH.
E NFIELD is situated in the northeast corner of Hartford County. Originally the town extended " from the mouth of Longmeadow Brook to the south, six miles," and "from the Great River, to the east, ten miles, or to the foot of the mountain." From this terri- tory a large tract has been surrendered on the east, and a smaller portion in the northwest corner, so that the township now is hardly six miles in either of its dimensions. The present boundaries of the town are on the north, Longmeadow, Mass .; on the cast, Somers; on the south, Ellington and East Windsor; on the west, the Connecticut River.
The surface of the township is somewhat diversified. Eastward from the Connecticut River, for half a mile, the land rises in a gentle slope, and then it descends again, so that a ridge is formed which over- looks the river and the country to the east. This ridge extends through the town. Along its top the first street was laid, and here the first settlers built their homes. The soil on these slopes is quite productive. To the east the surface sinks into a low plain of two or three miles in width. This is either sandy or swampy, and much of it is useless for agricultural purposes. Beyond the plain, upon the eastern border of the town, the ground rises again, in many places very abruptly, and spreads out into a large beautiful tract which offers rich advantages for cultivation. No large streams of water flow through the town. The most important are the Scantie River, which by a serpentine course winds through the eastern part of the town, and Freshwater Brook, which passes through the northern part in a westerly direction. These both empty into the Connecticut River, and furnish power privileges which have been improved to some extent.
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