USA > Connecticut > Hartford County > The memorial history of Hartford County, Connecticut, 1633-1884, Vol. II > Part 26
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Eleazar Kimberly (as has been mentioned), was town clerk from the Eleazar Kimberly organization of the town till 1708, when he was followed by Samuel Smith, one of the donors of the Green. Mr. Smith had many peculiarities of orthography and chirography, but he seems to have been assisted in the work of his records by his neighbor, the Rev. Timothy Stevens, who possessed a very characteristic handwriting, plain, but not very forceful. He held the office until 1713, Samuell Smith Register when he was sneceeded by
Thomas Kimberly (surveyor), son of Eleazar, who, in addition to this
Tho Kimberly
office, held by him until his decease in 1730, represented this town in the legislature nearly every session from 1708 to 1730, and the last five years
was Speaker. His writing, after the lapse of nearly two hundred years, is as clear and correct as an engraved plate.
The Rev. Ashbel Woodbridge, son of the Rev. Timothy Woodbridge,
of Hartford, a young man of twenty-four years, was Askb& Wood fridges the second ordained min- ister. He remained as pastor until his decease, Ang. 6, 1755. " A man of eminent piety and distinguished worth, a. ripe scholar, sound divine, and successful peacemaker."
During the ministry of Mr. Woodbridge the society at the East Farms, or Eastbury, was organized (1731), and after calling several clergymen finally secured the Rev. Chiliab Brainard as pastor in 1736. He died Jan. 1, 1739, in his thirty-first year, after a three years' pas- torate. His successor was the Rev. Nehemiah Brainard, settled January,
1 Timothy, Joseph, and Benjamin Stevens.
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MEMORIAL HISTORY OF HARTFORD COUNTY.
1740, and died Nov. 9, 1742, in his thirty-second year. Both these young men are buried in the Green Cemetery, side by side. The next to assume the duties of the pastorate was the Rev. Isaac Chalker, who was installed October, 1744, and died May 21, 1765, in his fifty-eighth year. Financial troubles almost crushed him, but the intervention of kind friends saved him from further annoyance, and he passed the evening of his life in quiet.
Thomas Welles, son of Samuel, grandson of Samuel, and great- grandson of Thomas Welles, the third Governor of Connecticut Colony, was the successor of Thomas Kimberly as town clerk. He was a man Thomas Welles, of great ability, colonel of the militia, representative in 1725 and nearly every year succeeding, and for the larger part of the time every session until 1751, Speaker for the last two years, and Assistant from October, 1751, to October, 1760. He retained the office of town clerk for thirty-six years, until 1766, when it is sadly apparent from his official signature in our records that his "right hand had lost its cunning." He died May 14, 1767, in his seventy-fifth year.
The Rev. Ashbel Woodbridge's successor in the First Church was the Rev. John Eells, John Cello ordained pastor June 27, 1759, in his twenty- third year, and remaining here in his office until his death, in 1791. He was a son of the Rev. Nathaniel Eells, of Stonington, and cousin of the Rev. James Eells, afterwards settled at Eastbury. Under his wise and prudent leadership no dissension seems to have arisen ; and the people were so united in patriotic sentiment that it is reported that only one left his country to become the associate of the Rev. Samuel Peters, for- merly rector of St. Peter's Church in Hebron, in the London colony of Tory malcontents headed by that bitter champion of kingly power.
Soon after the decease of the Rev. Mr. Chalker, the Rev. Samuel Woodbridge, a son of the Rev. Ashbel Woodbridge, was ordained pastor of the Second Society. Mr. Woodbridge was then a young man of twenty-six years. Unremitting study, in his case, produced insanity, and after preaching about a year he was dismissed, to the " great sorrow " of the church and society. He was succeeded by the Rev. James Eells, son of the Rev. Edward Eells, of Upper Middletown (now Cromwell), who was ordained Aug. 23, 1769, and remained with his people until his death, Jan. 23, 1805, aged sixty-three, and in the thirty-fifth year of his ministry. Prior to the pastorates of the Messrs. Eells the church records seem to have been regarded as private property, and no one has given any information where they or any part of them may be found. If ever they should come to light they would undoubtedly elucidate many points which only exist in the misty traditions of the past.
The history of our town during the Revolution and the years imme- diately preceding is of the greatest interest, and is calculated to foster the respect and admiration which our citizens have for our fathers and our town. So early as June 18, 1770, a town-meeting was held at which measures were taken for the support of the non-importation agree- ment, and at which Messrs. Jonathan Welles (a son of Colonel Thomas Welles) and Ebenezer Plummer (long time from 1747 a successful merchant in this town and a prominent and patriotic citizen) were appointed their representatives to attend a meeting of the mercantile
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GLASTONBURY.
and landholding interests to be holden at New Haven on the 13th of the next September, to concert and prosecute "such plans and measures as are necessary for the defending of our just rights, our common liberties, and peculiar privileges, which we (under God) have heretofore long enjoyed." At the same time, " in order to carry into effect the measures proposed," a committee of three (Major Elizur Talcott, Jonathan Hale, Jr., and Ebenezer Plummer) were appointed " to inspect that there be no goods imported into this town from New York until the revenue acts are repealed." The records show com- parative quietness until June 23, 1774, on the reception of the news of the act of Parliament closing the port of Boston, when a meeting was held which passed a ringing series of votes, setting forth the opinion of that statute as " subversive of the rights and liberties of American citizens, unconstitutional, and oppressive ; " and making common cause with the city of Boston and the Province of Massachusetts Bay in re- sistance " to the designs of our enemies to enslave us ; " recommending the continuance of the non-importation agreement for that purpose. And they also expressed their approval of a General Congress as " the most probable method to cement the colonies in a firm union, on which (under God) our only security depends." Colonel Elizur Talcott, William Welles, Captain Elisha Hollister, Ebenezer Plummer, Isaac Moseley, Thomas Kimberly, and Josiah Hale were chosen a " com- mittee of correspondence to answer and receive all letters, and to pro- cure and forward such contributions as shall be made in this town for the relief of our distressed friends in Boston, and to transmit a copy of the proceedings of this meeting to the committee of correspondence at Boston as soon as possible." The letter, signed by these gentlemen and sent to Boston enclosing these proceedings, is to be found in Dr. Chapin's "Glastenbury Centennial, 1853" (page 94). Ebenezer Plummer was probably its author.
The intelligence of the affairs at Concord and Lexington reached here by express on the Sunday following, and was announced by the reverend and patriotic cousins from their respective pulpits. The rest of the day was spent by the members of the militia in casting bullets, replenishing their cartridge-boxes, and repairing their firelocks. On Monday morning a large company assembled at the house of Cap- tain Elizur Hubbard, in Eastbury, and under his command started for Boston. During the Revolution the town's frequent votes making pro- vision for food and supplies to the army and families of soldiers, recruit- ment of men by bounties and drafts, and providing guns for the soldiers, show that the general sense of the people was fully enlisted in the work of achieving our national independence. Barracks for recruits are said to have been erected in the meadows on land long since swept by the river. Tories banished from other towns for safe-keeping found place for repentance and reform among our patriotie eastern inhabitants, and breathed the air of freedom, under surveillance, among the rocks and hills of Eastbury. Tradition has it that at different times nearly every able-bodied man of the proper age was in the ser- vice, so that the crops were made and harvested by the women. Espe- cially so in the summer and autumn of 1776, when the series of engagements took place which ended in the occupation of New York by the British.
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MEMORIAL HISTORY OF HARTFORD COUNTY.
The lists are not at present accessible which show the full number of our citizens who were in the army ; but we have the names of 151, which must be increased at least 50 per cent. 23 are mentioned as enlisted for three years, or during the war, -a number which the truth will largely increase, - and 31 as having been killed or died in the service. Many of those named in the account of Wethersfield's soldiers were inhabitants of Glastonbury. Colonel Howell Woodbridge (son of the Rev. Ashbel Woodbridge) was the highest ranking officer, and afterward, as then, one of our first men, representative from 1789 to 1795 inclusive, and dying in his fifty-first year, in 1796. Colonel Elizur Talcott commanded a regiment which served in the early part of the Revolutionary War. Captain Elizur Hubbard survived to his eighty-second year, dying Sept. 14, 1818. Captain
Samuel Wells Cap
Wait Goodrich, noted for his energetic bravery as well as being a man of affairs, is said to have been a privateersman. Captain Samuel Welles (son of Thaddeus Welles and nephew of Colonel Thomas Welles), as well as his son, Samuel Welles, Jr., were in the service during a portion of the time.
William Welles, having succeeded his father as town clerk in 1766, retained that office until his death, April 19, 1778. His son William succeeded him, and held the office until July, 1781, when he is said to have removed from town, and was followed by his William Welles brother-in-law, Josiah Hale, son of Benjamin Hale, who continued in that office until 1803. Mr. Hale Um. Welles resided in the south part of the town. His suc- cessor was Colonel John Hale, from 1803 to 1817, the date of his decease. Jonathan Welles (son of Jonathan Welles, Esq., and his wife Katherine, a daughter of Roswell Saltonstall, eldest son of Governor Gurdon Saltonstall, and Josiah Flale grandson of Colonel Thomas Welles) was then chosen town clerk, holding the place till 1829.
Mr. Welles is remembered by our John Hale older citizens as a dignified gentleman of the old school, who recognized his position and all that it implied. He lived in the ancient house on the east side of the main street on the summit of the hill just south of the Smith Brook, the site of which is now occu- pied by David Brainard's house, and which was the residence of his father and grandfather. His uncle, William Welles, lived in the house now standing on the JanaWalles opposite side of the street, where a portion of Yale College was quartered during a part of the Revolution. Jonathan Welles, Sr., had been a tutor in that institution from 1754 to 1756. Mr. Welles's son, the Hon. Henry Titus Welles,
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GLASTONBURY.
after breaking in 1851 the chain of Democratic successes here for more than a generation, removed to Minnesota in 1854, after the death of his father, and is one of the foremost men of that State. Another son of Jonathan Welles, Sr., named Gurdon Welles, was a zealous preacher, - a very " Boanerges," - the sound of whose ministrations could often, as it is said, be heard a mile.
The French spoliations in the latter part of the last and the beginning of the present century very seriously damaged our navigation interests.
The War of 1812 called quite a number of our people into the field for coast defence. Colonel (afterward Deacon) George Plummer was adjutant of the brigade in service, and spent with the whole or a part of George Plummer the command " more than sixty days " in " being ready " for a descent of the British fleet and troops upon New London, which never occurred.
The assembling, in 1818, of the convention forming a constitution in lieu of the charter of King Charles II., and the movements prelimi- nary thereto, aroused great interest here. The careful and able man- agement of the Hon. Samuel Welles, assisted by the Hon. David E. Hubbard, both men of great force of character and sterling good sense, resulted in the election of these gentlemen to the General Sam Welles Assembly in May, 1818, the calling the convention, and their election as delegates thereto. That body met Ang. 26, 1818, and completed its work September 16th of the same year. On a submission to the peo- ple it was approved by a very small majority. The influence of these men in their own town is shown by the fact that while David & Hubbard Hartford County gave a majority of 609 in the neg- ative, Glastonbury was one of the five towns out of eighteen in the county that gave a majority of ycas, - the vote standing 122 yeas to 57 nays.
In the fall of 1829, following the advent of the Jacksonian era, the clerkship was placed in the hands of another branch of the Welles
Thaddeus Welles
family. Thaddeus Welles, a son of the Hon. Samuel Welles, and brother of the Hon. Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Henry Dayton) Navy during the War of the Rebellion, was chosen, and retained that office Franay Hale
(with the exception of 1840, when Henry Dayton was elected) un- Benjamin Taylor. til 1848. Fraray Hale having held the office two years, Benjamin Taylor held it from 1850 to 1855, when Mr. Welles held it for two years, followed by Mr. Taylor in 1857 for one year, and succeeded by Mr. Welles in 1858.
VOL. II. - 15.
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MEMORIAL HISTORY OF HARTFORD COUNTY.
Mr. Welles represented this town in 1836, 1837, 1845, 1847, and 1848. He was nominated to the Senate by his party in 1839, 1840, and 1844, and also in 1859, when he was elected, and chosen President pro tem. He held the office of justice of the peace, trying a large proportion of the cases in town for the more than forty years he was in the magis- tracy. He died Sept. 27, 1876, in his seventy-first year. He was a man of great ability, - a born leader of men, devoted to the interests of his native town ; one of those who, while they may have enemies, have the tact to make ardent friends. Known to every one, young and old, he was also acquainted with every one. By a pleasing address he dis- armed the prejudiced, and made even those who might at first look upon him askance, fully believe not only in his ability but his integrity. Emphatically a man of the people as well as a man of affairs, his coun- sel and assistance were constantly sought ; and his advice was not only freely given, but was " timely and good."
The War of the Rebellion, which burst upon us in 1861, proved our citizens worthy of their ancestry. Vote after vote upon our records during the terrible four years of civil strife attests the devotion of this town to the life and welfare of the nation, and a resolution to secure by every proper means the perpetuity of the Union. During that war it furnished 10 three months' men, enlisting in April, 1861; 318 men enlisting for three years, or during the war ; and 62 nine months' men. Reducing all to the standard of three years, equals 334 men. The commissioned officers were Robert G. Welles, captain in Tenth United States Infantry ; Charles H. Talcott and William W. Abbey, captains in Twenty-Fifth Connecticut Volunteers ; and Benjamin F. Turner, lieutenant in Twenty-Fifth Connecticut Volunteers. Doctors Henry C. Bunce, Sabin Stocking, and George A. Hurlburt were regimen- tal surgeons. In the navy, Samuel Welles was constructing engineer (killed at Mare Island Navy-yard, California, in 1866) ; R. Sommers was an ensign ; Charles M. Cooley, Henry P. Cooley, and George F. Goodrich were master's mates ; and Horace Talcott (died in service in Kentucky ) was paymaster.
Until about 1840 the town and electors' meetings were held at the meeting-houses in different portions of the town, but mostly in the First Society. In March, 1837, the old meeting-house being about to be dis- used, a town-meeting was called to " appoint a committee to buy or build a town-house, or for taking such order respecting a town-house as may be thought proper." That meeting was held April 17, 1737, and at first voted to buy the (old) Episcopal church; but the action was rescinded at the same meeting. Messrs. Jedidiah Post, Fraray Hale, Jr., David E. Hubbard, Parley Bidwell, Thaddeus Welles, Chauncey Andrews, and Abner Dickinson were then chosen a committee "to take the subject into consideration and report to a future meeting as to the expediency of buying a building for a town-house, or erecting one, and fixing a proper location." This committee, or a majority thereof, reported a resolution at an adjourned meeting held April 27, 1837, recommending to build a town-house on the " Green " north of the old meeting-house ; but the report was rejected. In January, 1838, another town-meeting was held, but rejected all the propositions sub- mitted to it, and dissolved. However, on the 29th of January, 1839,
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GLASTONBURY.
the town authorized the building of the town-hall on the Green, and appropriated $1,600 therefor. The house was built in 1839 and 1840 as well as possible with the limited appropriation, and the first meeting was held in it Oct. 5, 1840. The controversy was exceedingly earnest and somewhat bitter, and called out a very large vote. But we are to be congratulated, in the light of succeeding years, that the present location of our town-hall, notwithstanding the size of the town, is so convenient of access for our people by reason of converging highways ; especially when it is known that a compromise measure came very near being carried which would have placed the building at Buck's Corner, far from the centre of population, though very near the geo- graphical centre.
The two hundredth anniversary of the authority given for a mili- tary company on the "east side" of the river, in Hartford and Wethersfield, which came around in 1853, was the occasion of a mag- nificent celebration, with a "feast of reason and flow of soul" on the old historie Green. The Rev. Alonzo B. Chapin, D.D., rector of St. Luke's parish, prepared an address which was afterward expanded into a book called " Glastonbury for Two Hundred Years." The com- mittee of arrangements consisted of Messrs. John A. Hale, Thaddeus Welles, Jared G. Talcott, David E. Hubbard, Charles Hollister, Edwin S. Treat, Henry Dayton, Joseph Wright, Sidney Smith, Andrew T. Hale, Walter B. Neau, Elisha Hollister, Henry T. Welles, George Plummer, and Leonard E. Hale.
The ancient west line of this town as well as the east line of Weth- ersfield was the Great River ; but, very singularly, the north line of Wethersfield prolonged east across the river does not correspond with the north line of this town, being about one hundred and twenty rods north of it. In the case of Bulkeley vs. Hollister, in 1684, the defen- dant claimed that the north line of the town should correspond with the Wethersfield line, which would have given him his claimed width at Nayaug. We have a suspicion that Gershom Bulkeley, like some of his successors, understood the manipulation of legislative bodies better than Hollister, and that though the General Assembly gave the case to the plaintiff, no injustice would have been done if they had decided in accordance with the claim of Hollister. The river, coming down through the meadows broadside on, makes in the lapse of years great changes, and the boundary was early a subject of question between the two towns, though not until 1769 was there any attempt to estab- lish a line in distinction from the river. Thomas Welles, representing Glastonbury in 1765, petitioned the General Assembly to establish the river by resolution as the boundary, without reference to its wear on either side. Upon this petition being ignored, the town of Wethers- field in 1769 made its petition to re-establish as the line between the towns as the river ran in 1692. This was supposed to be done in 1770 by establishing a line beginning at a place called " Pewter-pot Brook's mouth," in the Keeney's Point meadow, running in a southerly direction to the branch of the river on the east side of Wright's Island and following to the main stream, and thence in the river to the south bounds of the towns. In 1792 Wright's Island was set to Glastonbury, and at that point, by the action of the towns, the river was conceded to be the boundary. In 1870 Glastonbury petitioned the legislature for
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MEMORIAL HISTORY OF HARTFORD COUNTY.
the establishment of the river as the line, and Wethersfield claimed the old line of 1692-1770. This controversy continued between the towns until in 1874 the Connecticut River, as it now flows or may hereafter run, was established as the boundary between the towns.
The first post-office was established in the old Welles Tavern (now the residence of Charles Chapman) in 1806, and Joseph Welles was postmaster. He retained the position until 1832, when Benjamin Taylor was appointed, retaining office until 1862, when he retired. The office at South Glastonbury was established March 29, 1825, with George Merrick, Esq., as postmaster, who served until the 15th day of June, 1829, when he was succeeded by Oliver Brainard, who continued in office until his death, in 1861.1 Offices have since been established, at Naubuc in 1856, East Glastonbury in 1863, and Buckingham in 1867. Prior to 1806 the mail for different towns was taken from designated post-offices by post-riders and by them delivered. The Rev. Jeremiah Stocking in his early manhood was a post-rider from Hartford to Say- brook. He began in 1799, delivering the newspapers, and carrying the mail from 1801, and continued in the business twenty-five years, in which time he travelled 150,000 miles, and crossed the Connecticut 8,500 times.
George Merrick
The Hon. Sidney Dean, member of Congress from the Third District of Connecticut in 1855 and 1857, lived in the south part of Glastonbury during all the early part of his life. Some of his family still reside in the town.
The Hon. John R. Buck, member of Congress from the First Dis- triet of Connecticut in 1881 and 1885, is a native of Glastonbury.
The migratory character of our town-clerk's office, due to frequent changes in the incumbent, resulted, in 1881, in the erection of a Town Records Building on Welles Corner for that and the other town offices, with a large fire-proof vault for safely keeping the records.
William S. Goale
1 At this time Judge Merrick was in the mercantile as well as the law business. He was a descendant of the Rev. Noah Merrick, of Wilbraham, Mass., and his wife, Abigail Fisk, widow of the Rev. Chiliab Brainard, first pastor at Eastbury. Judge Merrick was born at Wilbraham, Feb. 1, 1793, being the son of Dr. Samuel F. Merrick ; read law with the Hon. Sylvester Gilbert, of Hebron, and the Hon. Hunt Mills, of Northampton, Mass. ; was admit- ted to the bar in 1815, and continued in practice in South Glastonbury until his death, Oct. 6, 1879. He married for his first wife Nancy, daughter of Roswell Hollister and his wife Elizabeth, by whom he had two sons, - George Hollister, who died before his father, and Roswell E. Merrick, who survives him. Mrs. Nancy Merrick having deceased, Judge Mer- rick married Miss Betsey Aun, daughter of Thomas and Betsey Ann ( Welles) Hubbard, and sister of the Hon. John W. Hubbard, who survives him. He was a true gentleman, always affable, a safe and prudent counsellor, and a good lawyer. He was a magistrate for the whole term of his life here until attaining the constitutional limit of age, judge of the county court for many years, and served in the legislature of 1866 with marked credit and success.
XIV.
GRANBY.
BY WILLIAM SCOVILLE CASE.
A LTHOUGH Granby has existed as an independent township only since 1786, the history proper of the tract enclosed in its present limits antedates that period by considerably more than a century. A hasty résumé of the history prior to the final separation from Simsbury is necessary for a complete and satisfactory understanding of the later chronicles. The town, as incorporated in October, 1786, comprised an area of about fifty-nine miles, with an average length of nine and one half miles, and a breadth of about six miles. Still later, in 1858, this territory was in turn divided, - about one third of the eastern part of the town going to form the present township of East Granby, which includes the famous Newgate Prison. The location of Granby cannot perhaps be better described than by saying that it lies adjacent to and directly south of the irregular noteh in the Massachusetts and Connecti- cut boundary line. It consists of a hilly and irregular district, like most of the towns which make up the northern and northwestern por- tions of the State. Its lowlands are traversed by the waters of two large brooks, with their several tributaries, which, coming from nearly oppo- site directions, meet near the southeastern boundary of the town, and together flow on to the crooked Farmington River about three miles distant. The soil is generally sandy, although the well-watered lowlands are as fertile as those of the adjacent towns. Farming is the prevailing occupation of the people, the distance from good water-power, as well as from railroad conveniences, rendering the place undesirable for manufacturing purposes. Copper in quantities too small to warrant the expense of mining is an indigenous product, and traces of iron have likewise been found in sufficient quantities to arouse the enthu- siasm of enterprising people ; but Granby mining ventures, of what- ever description, have so far proved most dismal failures to all who have embarked in them. Although nothing definite is known concerning the earliest period of the town's history, yet there is good reason for supposing that the first house in the town stood at the Falls, - now in East Granby, and a little less than a mile north of the village of Tariffville. This was occupied by John Griffin as early as 1664, and he may with reasonable certainty be called the first settler. He held the first Indian deed, given by Manahanoose on account of the Indians having set fire to some of his tar, which he manufactured in considera- ble quantities.1 The next settlers in the town located at Salmon Brook,
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