USA > Connecticut > Hartford County > The memorial history of Hartford County, Connecticut, 1633-1884, Vol. II > Part 25
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Ship-building was also pursued at Pratt's Ferry until within the last sixty years. The ancient ship-yard has long since become the bed of
Philip Sellew hutice Peace
the river. The Welleses, Sellews, and Hales were extensively engaged in that business ; and later, between 1840 and 1850, Captain Chauncey
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Gaines built four large sailing-vessels. At South Glastonbury Cap- tain Roswell Hollister and others built a large number early in this Martin Hollister century, and the last (a barge) was built by Captain Martin Hollister about 1870.
Previous to the incorporation of the town a grant was made by the General Court to Thomas Harris of forty acres for a mill-site, which was in the present limits of this town. This grant was afterward assigned to Joseph Bull and John Bidwell, Jr., who in 1669 received an additional grant of two hundred acres for the same purpose. This, I judge, must have been on Salmon Brook, probably at or near where the village of Eagle Mills now stands. Provisions were also made by the town for the encouragement of those disposed to erect mills, by grants of sites and land. In 1706 permission was given to Sergeant John Hubbard, Thomas Hale, Sr., John Gaines, and William John- son, "to erect a saw-mill upon Roaring Brook, where it may not be prejudicial to any particular person, and to get timber from the com- mons for the use of said mill." I do not identify this location. In 1712 permission was given to Gershom Smith, Thomas Hollister, Jona- than Judd, Samuel Brooks, Ebenezer Kilbourn, and Thomas Kimberly " to build a saw-mill on the northernmost branch of Roaring Brook " at Wassuc, and confirmed to the above with John Kilbourn and Joseph Tryon a year or two later. The site of this mill is now occupied by the mill of the Roaring Brook Paper Manufacturing Company.
The several streams were occupied at an carly day by mills, many of which have become by the lapse of years nothing but a memory or an indistinct tradition. On Salmon Brook, having its source in Lily Pond, on the summit of the Hill Minnechaug, was the carding- machine of Stephen Hurlburt1 and his predecessors, the stream just below being now used for a similar purpose by the heirs of George A. Hurlburt, on the site of an ancient still. Below is the saw-mill of W. H. & W. E. Howe. Farther down were the casting-works of Cap- tain Jared Strickland, maker of a patent hand coffee-mill, used in fami- lies before the days of ground coffee and spices. Between this and the Eagle Mills, so far as I can learn, no other site was occupied. The Eagle Mills site was originally a saw-mill ; then, soon after the Revolu- tion, used for a clothing and fulling mill by Fraray Hale, Jr., and others ; and then operated by the Eagle Manufacturing Company, organized under special act in 1822, with Samuel Welles, Robert Wat- kinson, Daniel H. Arnold, Fraray Hale, Jr., and Aristarchus Champion as corporators. By them and their successors a small wooden mill was erected and enlarged, and in 1832 a brick mill was erected a short dis- tance below. The company went through varying stages of prosperity in the manufacture of woollen goods, until it failed in 1848. Since then the mills have passed through the hands of several proprietors, until now the whole property is owned by the Glastonbury Knitting Company (A. L, Clark, president), whose trade-mark on their goods is con- sidered, as it should be, a full guarantee of their excellence. Below is the site (now disused) of a saw-mill, formerly operated by Messrs. Osman and Otis House ; and still farther down is the site of an ancient
1 Mr. Hurlburt was the pioneer in, and inventor of, the art of making felt hats by machinery.
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grist-mill, granted by the town in 1715 to Ephraim Bidwell and Richard, Joseph, and Gershom Smith. This use was continued until 1876, when the property was purchased by the " Case Brothers" of Manchester ; and the mill, enlarged and improved, with auxiliary steam-power, is now devoted to the making of binder's board. Nearer the river was an ancient saw-mill belonging to the Welleses, and used by Oswin Welles in his younger years for that purpose, and as a manufactory of wooden- ware until 1846. Then it was conveyed to Frederick Curtis, and, with the land and buildings connected therewith by succeeding conveyances, was subsequently used as an extensive manufactory of plated silver- ware by him and his successors, F. Curtis & Co., the Curtisville Manu- facturing Company, the Connecticut Arms & Manufacturing Company (they adding thereto the making of firearms), until, by various changes, it is now held by the Williams Brothers Manufacturing Company, and used for the manufacture of cutlery and plated ware with good success. The Island (Wright's) anciently extended north- erly to about opposite the mouth of this brook, with a long stretch of meadow intervening. The brook, or creek, instead of going to the west across this meadow, turned to the south and followed the track now known as " Crooked Hollow," and emptied into Roaring Brook (at that point called Sturgeon River) near its mouth. At an early date in this century (I am unable to state the exact time) a channel was cut from the southward bend westerly to the river, which the stream has followed until the river, by its continued wear at that point to the castward, has reached the meadow hill above and below.
The stream next below rises in the region of Nipsic, and was utilized for the site of tanneries by John Cleaver at an carly date, and by David and Norman Hubbard, their predecessors and ancestors. One tannery still exists, on the New London and Hartford turnpike road, owned by Isaac Broadhead, the excellence of whose product (hog-skins for sad- dlery) is noted in our foreign as well as domestic trade. Just below Messrs. Chauncey & William H. Turner, some sixty or more years ago, succeeded John Cleaver (also a tanner) in a clothing works, which the changed methods of housewifery has long since caused to be disused and pass away. A short distance farther down was a grist-mill, on land anciently belonging to John Hubbard, and also a bark-mill and tanneries belonging to David Hubbard about fifty years ago. This privilege is now owned by the J. B. Williams Company, successors of Messrs. James B. & William S. Williams, who established themselves here about 1850 in the manufacture of soaps of all kinds, ink, and shoe- blacking. Their business is now confined to the former articles. Their success, consequent upon a carcer of active intelligent business, is such as to have greatly benefited themselves, their town, and all good enter- prises. Just east of the main street, known to but few, is the site of an old distillery, which the changed ideas as well as habits of the community have long since caused to disappear. A large brickyard was also located near this point. This stream empties into the great meadow-drain whose waters, increased by the intervening streams, debouch into the Connecticut at Red Hill, at a point formerly known as Brooks Island.
The main street crosses the next brook, over a bridge with a hand- somely turned brick arch, which has stood for more than a century,
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and bids fair to stand as much longer. Robert Moseley has a small sash-and-blind factory a short distance above.
The next, or Smith brook, crosses the main street just south of the ancient Kimberley mansion. Zephaniah Hollister Smith, Esq., successively minister, doctor, and lawyer (in which last capacity he was Leph H Smith only known officially in this town, although born here), occupied this house from about 1790 until his death, in 1836. His widow, Mrs. Hannah H. Smith, and her five daughters, remained here until her decease in 1851, and the latter during the remainder of their lives, - except Miss Julia E. Smith, the fourth daughter, who, soon after the decease of her last surviving sister, was married to the Hon. Amos A. Parker, of Fitzwilliam, New Hampshire, and removed to Hartford in 1884. The youngest two of the family were the " Smith Sisters," with whom the town, in collecting its taxes, was obliged to contend. It was a contest in the newspapers and the courts, lasting from 1875 to 1879 ; and notwithstanding all the trouble and expense, and the unreasonable and undeserved abuse and misrepresentation leaped upon the town, its officers, and citizens, it taught us so to make out our assessment lists and rate-bills as not to require a "healing act" to make them legal and collectible. The ladies were somewhat distinguished as linguists, Miss Julia having translated the Bible from the original languages, and published the same at her own expense.
On the brook near the house, west from the main street a short dis- tance, in the early part of the present century, Messrs. Joseph and Thomas Stevens, Jr., erected a forge, with a trip-hammer, on an ancient water-privilege. Being active, hard- Joseph Steven working men, possessed at that time
of considerable means, they soon had a very profitable business in making and furnishing ship irons, anchors, etc. In an evil and ill- Thomas Stevens j. advised hour, it is said, they were persuaded by Esquire Smith to sign a paper, or make an ac- knowledgment amounting to a lease of his land, which their pond had covered for many years without question. Then they were in his power as tenants at will, their dam had to come down after multiplied actions at law, their business was ruined, and they were financially destroyed. They "were compelled to abandon the enterprise ; " not, as has been stated elsewhere,1 " by the neighbors," " on the ground that a trip-hammer was a nuisance in the midst of a village," but by the force of law, consequent upon their un- witting sacrifice of their rights. Rightly or wrongly, the sympathy of the people was with them in their troubles ; and the town itself, at its annual meeting on Nov. 1, 1813, " voted, that the town, on the petition of Joseph and Thomas Stevens, Jr., to join by a committee in their petition to the General Assembly against Zephaniah H. Smith, do grant said petition, and do appoint Messrs. Oliver Hale and Benjamin Hale [one of the representatives ] a committee." But nothing availed to loosen
1 Glastenbury Centennial, p. 126.
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the grip of their powerful antagonist ; and the delicate cars of the "neighbors" were soothed by the continuous silence, and their æsthetic tastes were no longer disturbed by the jar of the trip-hammer, or their slumbers disquieted by the croaking of the frogs.
The small stream next south has been improved by Francis Taylor for many years past as the motive-power for a saw and grist mill. Mr. Taylor and the Messrs. Howe, in Buckingham, did formerly a large business in coopering, but the disuse of cider and of wooden powder-kegs has made it much less.
We now come to Roaring Brook, which, rising in the extreme northeast corner of this town, nearly bisects it diagonally to its mouth at South Glastonbury. Although its power is well improved now, the review of its former labors will compare favorably with the present in number. Near its head was formerly a saw-mill run by Nathaniel Hub- bard. Still further down is the site of another and ancient saw-mill on the noted if not valuable " Coop farm." It is now owned, with other lands on the stream below, by Charles H. Owen, Esq. About a mile farther down are the vestiges of another saw-mill. Still farther, and the old blacksmith shop on the Hebron road, remembered by many yet living as the place of the true and faithful work of Deacon Asa Goslee and his son Asa, which formerly, with its large undershot wheel and trip-hammer, took advantage of the water-power and is now abandoned. Hardly a vestige remains of the dam still farther on, which was connected with a clothier's shop some seventy years ago. Passing up the branch known as Slab Brook, we are on the site of the saw-mill grant to Jonathan Treat, used in the early part of the century by Fraray Hale, Jr., as a place for a carding-machine. Some of the dam-logs and the excavation for the raceway are there, but no one living ever saw the building. Still farther east, in a lot carved from the farm a portion of which is owned by the writer, are a cellar and wheel-pit, which the traditions of more than a hundred years fix as the site of a linseed-oil mill. Below, on the main stream, were the saw-mill and carding-machine of Elijah Covell, where for so many years he counselled the boys and praised the girls of succeeding generations. The old stream now passes it unvexed by any wheel. The reservoir of the Crosby Manufacturing Company comes next, furnishing the power for their mill in East Glastonbury village, a short distance below. This mill is a substantial edifice of stone, and was built about 1840 by the Roaring Brook Manufacturing Company for the making of cotton and woollen goods, -that is, satinets. William C. Sparks was the agent until its dissolution in 1862, when the mill passed into the hands of Edwin Crosby and Sereno Hubbard, and was operated by them during the war with great profit, having been considerably enlarged. After the death of Mr. Hubbard it passed to Edwin Crosby, thence to E. Crosby & Sons, and is now owned by the Crosby Manufacturing Company. Aux- iliary steam-power has been put in, and with the latest and best machin- ery a very excellent quality of goods is made. The place has been greatly improved by the enterprise and public spirit of its proprietors, who are all residents in the village. A wise and prudent expenditure has produced its usual effect in promoting the prosperity not only of those who make it, but of the surrounding community. Below is a mill for grinding feldspar and flint, which is not in use. Next comes the estab-
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lishment of the Roaring Brook Paper Manufacturing Company, occu- pying the site of the ancient mill which has been already mentioned. The family homestead of the Hon. John R. Buck is just to the south, on the turnpike and adjoining the Wassuc Green, with its venerable oak and trees of a younger growth. About a mile below the stream receives a noble affluent known as the " south branch," or Flat Brook. It begins in the rough and romantic region of Dark Hollow, associated with legends and weird stories of treasure, both buried and natural, which no human eve, according to tradition, has ever been permitted to see more than once. On or near the meadows on this stream was " Sadler's Ordinary," a noted house of public entertainment on the old road from Hartford to New London two hundred years ago. Nearly south of the old " gate-house," on this stream was formerly a manufactory of fire- arms, occupying probably the site of an ancient mill, where the best of guns were made, but which, like their report, has become simply a memory. A glass-factory formerly stood near the turnpike north of this point, where the vestiges of broken glass may still be found. By the time the brook reaches the main stream, increased by branches from Mott Hill and the northerly sides of rugged Meshomasic, it is nearly as large, and assists in forming a fine water-power for the mills below. The first is a large cotton-mill built by the Hartford Twine Company, since owned by the Wassuc Mills, and now in lease by the Wassuc Manufacturing Company and owned by the brothers Plunkett, of Pitts- field and Manchester. This mill occupies the site of the Forge, built by Talcott Camp soon after the Revolution for the manufacture of bar-iron from the ore. He was succeeded in the iron business by Samuel and John Hunt, and by Robert Hunt and Henry Dayton, until the location was sold to the Hartford Twine Company. A short distance below is the village of Hopewell, where the large woollen-mill, with steam-power in aid, owned by Franklin Glazier, of Hartford, is situated. The pro- prietor keeps up with the times, and through the good and bad seasons has run his mill with enterprise and profit. This mill was established by Horatio Hollister and his sons more than fifty years ago. The anchor- factory comes next, operated now by George Pratt, with good help and his own clear head and strong arms producing articles for which the demand is constant and the pay good. He succeeds the Glastonbury Anchor Company, and Jedidiah and John H. Post. Below this place the stream breaks through the hills with a sharp descent into the lower grounds near its mouth at Nayaug. In this deep valley, shut in on either side by precipitous hills, is Cotton Hollow, for more than eighty years improved as the site of cotton-mills. It has been owned by many pro- prietors in succession, - the Hartford Manufacturing Company, John H. Post, Green Brothers, Glastonbury Manufacturing Company, and at present by Abraham Backer, of New York. Two large mills, one of brick and the other of stone (the interior of the latter having been burned out about forty years ago and since rebuilt), occupy the succes- sive benches of the ample fall, while steam is used as an auxiliary power. The water-power, formed by a heavy high stone dam and shut in by the high banks above, is one of the finest and best in the county. Prior to the Revolution, and until 1777, gunpowder was made here. An explosion occurring Aug. 23, 1777, caused the immediate death of George Stocking and his three sons, - George, Hezekiah, and Nathaniel,
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-and of Isaac Treat ; and of Thomas Kimberly, Esq., great grandson of Eleazar Kimberly, on the following day. Between this and the Main Street bridge was an ancient saw-mill, as also a saw and grist mill far- ther down, all of which have been disused. On the site of the latter is a large mill for grinding feldspar, which is used in the making of pottery and paints, now under control of the London White Lead and Color Company. The crude material was discovered a few years since to exist in large quantities in a range of hills coming north from Port- land through the southern part of this town, and crops out at intervals for a number of miles. A large quarry sold by George S. Andrews to the grantors of the company, situated in the rear of his house, is being very extensively mined. Mr. Andrews has also other quarries, and a spar-mill just over the Portland line. The material is said to have a large commercial value.
Subsequent to the location of the meeting-house as already men- tioned, and to the date of the act of incorporation, but prior to the first meeting of the people under its provisions and the naming of the town, Samuel Smith and John Hubbard, by a grant under their hands, dated the 4th day of May, 1692, " having a desire to promote the settlement of the public worship and ordinances of God among the inhabitants of Wethersfield that are on the east side of the Great River, and to the intent that the said inhabitants . .. may hereafter possess and enjoy a suitable and convenient piece of land for the erecting of a meeting-house upon, as also for a public burying-place," conveyed to said inhabitants " a piece of land containing by estimation ten acres, . . . to be twenty rods in breadth from north to south, and fourscore rods in length from east to west." The stone bearing the oldest inscription is that of Eunice (daughter of John Chester, of Wethersfield), wife of the Rev. Timothy Stevens, who died June 16, 1698, in her thirty-first year. Generally the cemetery is well cared for, though undoubtedly a careful probing of the soil in the western and oldest part would reveal monu- ments not suspected by many. As the erection of gravestones at an early day was not as common as now, the spaces apparently unoccupied have really been fully used. Here lie the ancestors of the old families, -- the Hales, Hollisters, Kimberlys, Moseleys, Talcotts, Welleses, and many others, some of whose names have faded from this region. The yard was enlarged in 1867 by the purchase of two acres from Mr. James R. Hunt, which has been carefully laid out, and already has quite a number of elegant and expensive monuments.
The burying-place near the site of the old meeting-house in Bucking- ham was not used much if any before 1745, as the first two ministers (pastors) of that society rest in the Green Cemetery. This cemetery is well fenced, and in the appearance of the ancient memorials bears the marks of honorable and zealous attention, creditable not only to the town, but to others more immediately interested.
The cemetery located at South Glastonbury, on the summit of the hill on the main street below Roaring Brook, was purchased in 1776 of Samuel Goodrich. It has been twice enlarged, and contains the dust of many of our worthiest and best citizens.
The Wassuc Cemetery was established in 1810, in connection with the Methodist Episcopal Church, and has since been enlarged.
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The cemetery (Centre) near the site of the old Episcopal Church was opened in 1823, and enlarged in 1858.
The cemetery near the Congregational meeting-house at Bucking- ham was established about 1820, and enlarged to the south in 1865.
The burial enclosure on the "Hill" has been used for about a hundred years as a place of sepulture for that neighborhood.
Nipsic Cemetery was opened about 1845, and enlarged in 1884.
The foregoing are all cared for by the town, to its great honor. All are enclosed, and are yearly mowed and kept in order.
The St. James Cemetery, laid out in 1859, is pleasantly located, east of the church of that name, and has many elegant monuments.
The Hon. David E. Hubbard and his wife, Mrs. Pamelia (Hollister) Hubbard, are buried near their homestead. Besides this there are but two private yards, -one in East Glastonbury, on the Harmel Weir place, and one at South Glastonbury, near Lyman Hollister's resi- dence.
The "main street " is a continuation of the " country road," which passes through and along the east side of the Connecticut valley. Tra- dition has it that it follows mainly the Indian trail. For but a short distance compared with the whole length of the route does it require causeways to avoid the ordinary river freshets. The General Assem- bly in May, 1676, granted power to the selectmen of the towns holding plantations on the east side to lay it out six rods wide. It was prob- ably located at an earlier day ; for in March, 1706-7, the selectmen, Samuel Hale, Sr., John Hubbard, and Joseph Hollister, surveyed said highway, not by courses and distances, but by evidently following the fences on the west side of an ancient way, but stipulating for the full width (six rods ) east of the west line thereof. The landmarks -trees, ete. - are hardly now discoverable. A more careful survey was made in December, 1762, by Samuel Talcott, Ephraim Hubbard, John Kim- berly, William Welles (surveyor), and Jonathan Hale, Jr., selectmen, in which the whole course of it is set out by metes and bounds. The " white oak tree by Gideon Hale's house," mentioned in that survey, is still standing in its venerable youth just north of the house of Mrs. Pamelia Hale, and is still growing, common to us and our fathers. Other bounds referred to in that document can be definitely located along its west side. And what a street it is, -the pride of every resi- dent and the admiration of every visitor ! Fixed and laid out before the straight and rectangular ideas of highways had come in fashion, every position, as it winds along, gives new views; while the noble trees, the growth of a century, authorized to be planted by the town before the Revolution, greatly add to their elegance.
Glastonbury is left outside of railways. There have been hopes at times for the construction of a horse-railroad from Hartford, long since chartered ; and the Connecticut Central was chartered from Springfield to Portland, but stopped short at East Hartford. The State consti- tutional amendment preventing towns from engaging in railroad-build- ing came just in time to prevent us from making investments town-wise. The ancient ferry called "Pratt's" has been long disused. An attempt to revive a ferry between Glastonbury and Wethersfield some forty years ago failed after a short trial. The ferry at Rocky Hill is well
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patronized, especially since the opening of the Connecticut Valley Railroad.
Our general history has but few salient points. Early it has refer- ence to matters of settlement, churches, and schools. The unanimous call of the Rev. Timothy Stevens (son of Timothy Stevens, of Roxbury, Mass.), a young man of twenty-six, as pastor in 1692, his acceptance thereof, and identifi- Timothy Stavano cation with his people in his family connec- tions, and his growth in worldly prosperity along with them, seeming to have been a quiet, discreet, peace-loving man, living, so far as any records show, in the kindest relations with all his parishioners, until April 14, 1726, when he died, having previ- ously buried his two wives, surviving all his children by his first wife, and leaving but three 1 of the eight children borne to him by his second wife, Alice Cook, - all this is a quiet history, in marked contrast with the carly annals of the mother town. Perhaps there were no other ministers resident here.
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