USA > Connecticut > Hartford County > The memorial history of Hartford County, Connecticut, 1633-1884, Vol. II > Part 28
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There is no evidence of any permanent settlement of Indians within the town, though arrow-heads and other implements found in the val- leys show that they hunted here. The first white settler was John Kendall, who came from Granby and built his cabin in the south valley,
1 See Trumbull's " History of Connecticut," vol. ii. pp. 95-99 ; and " Colony Records," vol. iii. p. 225, note.
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MEMORIAL HISTORY OF HARTFORD COUNTY.
cast of where the old Bates house stands, now owned by Leonard Dick- inson. His twin daughters were the first white children born in the town. He moved away in about a year, and the first permanent settler was Thomas Giddings, who came from Lyme, June 12, 1754. He made his home on the land so long owned by the late Willis Wright, in the southeast part of the town. Simon Baxter 1 came next. Joshua Gid- dings, brother of the first settler, came in 1756 from Lyme and located in the east parish, south of the centre, on the farm now owned by HI. Searles. Joshua Giddings had three sons, John, Joshua, and Ben- jamin. John was the first white male child born in Hartland. Joshua, the second son, left Hartland for Pennsylvania, where, soon after, his son Joshua R. Giddings, the famous Abolitionist, was born. The third son, Benjamin, was the father of the Rev. Salmon Giddings, who in 1817 organized the first Protestant church in St. Louis and was installed over it.
Moses Cowdrey came from East Haddam in 1756, and after several changes finally settled in the northeast district in the east parish. He left three sons, Asa, Ambrose, and Moses. In 1760 Jonas Wilder and Consider Tiffany, also of East Haddam, settled on the West Mountain, and Thomas Beman, of Simsbury, made his home in East Hartland. Daniel Ensign, of Hartford, came in 1761. By that time the place had thirty-seven families, numbering two hundred and twelve persons. Uriel Holmes, another of the East Haddam people, arrived and built his house at the southeast corner of the green at the centre of East Hart- land. It stands now, the oldest house in town. Colonel Holmes was a prominent citizen, and represented the town in thirty-six sessions of the legislature. Other early settlers were Josiah and Stephen Bushnell, from Saybrook, Phineas Kingsbury and Nehemiah Andrews, and a number of young men from East Hartford, among them Reuben Burn- ham, whose wife, Chloe Fitch, was a sister of the inventor of the first steamboat.
The first doctor in the town was Dr. Jeremiah Emmons, who came from East Haddam and settled in East Hartland. In 1775 Uriah Hyde, from Windsor, built the first blacksmith's shop in West Hartland, though before this, Jehiel Meacham had worked at the trade in East Hartland. The first tavern in the west parish was kept by Eldad Shep- herd, who came from Hartford in 1770. About 1780 two brothers, Caleb and Timothy Olmsted, came from East Hartford to West Hart- land. Timothy Olmsted was considered the most popular teacher and composer of church music in Connecticut at that time. He published a work of church music. " The Musical Olio," containing many original tunes, such as London, Vernon, etc., long familiar to lovers of church music.
The town was incorporated in May, 1761. The first town-meeting was held at Simon Baxter's house, July 14, 1761. Joshua Giddings was chosen moderator, and Joseph Gilbert town clerk. Until 1795 Hartland belonged to Litchfield County ; in that year it was annexed to Hartford County. This was an important event to the people, for many of them were from Hartford, and from the beginning the chief
1 He enlisted in the British army, and died in Halifax.
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HARTLAND.
business interests of the place had been connected with Hartford. The population at different dates has been: 1756, 12; 1774, 500; 1810, 1,284; 1880, 647.
March 1, 1775, at a town-meeting it was
" Voted, That the town will hear read what the Continental Congress did in their Association, - this meeting being sensible that the liberty of every freeborn American is most atrociously invaded, and having duly considered how the Association of the Continental Congress is most happily concerted to relieve our fears, to recover and preserve uninjured our invaded rights and privileges - we heartily approve of and acquiesce in it, and will to our utmost faithfully adhere to and observe the same, and acknowledge to our worthy dele- gates who attended that Congress, that we have a most grateful sense of the service they have done us and our country in the wise and noble resolutions they adopted."
The list of Revolutionary soldiers from the town is not preserved ; but there was no lack of patriotism. In 1776 a tax was levied to buy stockings and clothing and tents for the Continental Army, and in 1781 it was voted by the town to keep their quota in the army full.
Hartland for many years belonged to the Simsbury probate district. In 1807 Hartland and Granby were made a district; and in 1836 Hartland itself was made a district, with Phelps Humphrey for its first judge.
The first church in Hartland was organized May 1, 1768; but as early as 1761 the Rev. Ashbel Pitkin was employed to preach and hold services in private houses. The Rev. George Colton succeeded him. The first pastor of the church was the Rev. Sterling Graves, who was ordained June 29, 1768, at an open-air service a mile south of the pres- ent church. He was given seventy- five acres of land and £100 as a Starling Graves settlement ; and his salary, begin- ning at £35, was to rise gradually to £75, two thirds payable in wheat, pork, beef, etc., at the stated rate. He died in 1772, and the next year the Rev. Aaron Church was made pastor. He served till his death, in 1823, and was a man held in the highest regard. He was made a delegate to the convention that adopted the new constitution of 1818. Other pastors of the first parish have been the Rev's Ami Lindsley, Aaron Gates, J. C. Houghton, Nelson Scott, David Beales, John B. Doolittle, Lyman Warner, Nathaniel. Bonney, Merrick Knight.
Because of the deep valley through the middle of the town, a division between east and west seemed desirable and natural ; and, on petition, a committee was appointed for the purpose by the General Assembly. They were Colonel Seth Smith, of New Hartford, Daniel Humphrey, Esq., of Simsbury, and Colonel Nathaniel Terry, of Enfield. They made the west parish include the South Hollow west of the river as far north as Samuel Bassett's, now S. P. Banning's. The second church was thus organized in 1780. In 1782 the Rev. Nathaniel Gaylord, of Windsor, was ordained to a successful pastorate which lasted until 1841. He was a graduate of Yale, first in his class. Since then the pastors have
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MEMORIAL HISTORY OF HARTFORD COUNTY.
been the Rev's Adolphus Ferry, John A. Hempstead, Luke Wood, Charles Grosvenor Goddard, Rodney L. Tabor, Rolla G. Bugbee, Fred- erick A. Balcom.
The interference, or rather the regulation, of the town in society matters in early days is illustrated by such votes as these, recorded in 1776 : -
" Voted, To sing the last singing on the Sabbath or Lord's day, without reading."
Also
" Voted, Lieut. Eleazer Ensign and Mr. Joseph Wilder assist in reading the Psalm on the Lord's Day and other public meetings."
A Methodist " class " was organized in the west parish during the early part of this century, holding its meetings in private houses. The church building was not put up until 1833. The first meeting-house of the first ecclesiastical society was built in 1764, by vote of the town. It was used until 1801, when the present building was put up, and it was remodelled in 1875 at considerable expense, so that it is now as attractive a church as is often found in rural New England. The bury- ing-ground, near by, was laid out in 1765 by Joshua Giddings and Jason Millard, selectmen. The meeting-house in the West, or Second, Society was erected in 1775, a very large, substantial structure. Its steeple was put on in 1837, with a bell presented by Mr. Stephen Goodyear. In 1844 a new church building was put up on this site, and dedicated in June, 1845.
The first post-office was located at East Hartland; the second in West Hartland in 1827. First there was a weekly mail from West Hartland by Barkhamsted, North Canton, Simsbury, to Hartford. In 1850 this was made a semi-weekly service. In 1879 a daily mail was established between New Hartford and West Ilartland, and Hartland Centre (the Hollow ) was also made a post-office. It has four mails a week. The others have theirs daily.
In 1782, the custom was established of holding town-meetings alter- nately in East and West Hartland. This held until 1860. In 1859 the town voted to build its own town-hall at the Hollow, near the geo- graphical centre ; Jonathan A. Miller gave the land for the site. and other citizens contributed liberally. The first meeting was held in it in October, 1860.
Hartland was not allowed representatives in the General Assembly until October, 1776, when Phineas Kingsbury and John Wilder were admitted.
Among natives of Hartland there should be mentioned a number whose names have come to be well known elsewhere.
The Rev. Selah B. Treat, D.D., was born in Hartland, Feb. 19, 1804. He was the only son of Selah and Anna (Williams) Treat. He received the advantages of a good academic education, and entered Yale College at the age of sixteen, graduating in the class of 1824. Subsequently he studied law, practised in East Windsor, and Penn Yan, New York. His prospects in the profession were full of promise,
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HARTLAND.
but he gave up the law and entered the Andover Theological Semi- nary to prepare for the ministry. He graduated in 1835. He was soon settled over a church in Newark, New Jersey, where he remained four years. Subsequently he became Secretary of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, holding that office for many years. He died in Boston, March 28, 1877, aged seventy-three years.
Judges Horace and Eli T. Wilder, sons of Colonel Eli Wilder, went from Hartland to Painesville, Ohio. The former graduated at Yale, in 1823, and both became lawyers and judges. Horace Wilder was six years judge of the Common Pleas Court and for a time judge of the Supreme Court of Ohio. Subsequently they left Ohio and made their homes in Redwing, Minnesota.
Judge Lester Taylor, of Claridon, Ohio, was born in West Hartland, in the latter part of the last century, and settled in Ohio when twenty years old. He was elected county judge in 1846, and in 1856 he was chosen to the State senate by the counties of Geauga, Ashtabula, and Lake, and the senate chose him for its presiding officer. He had also been a member of the lower house of the Ohio legislature.
Samuel Edwards Woodbridge was born in Hartland in 1788, son of the Rev. Samuel and Elizabeth Woodbridge, who were originally from Hartford. He was superin- Harland 1780 tendent of schools in his native town, and in 1825 opened a boys' school which acquired con- siderable pop- ularity. In 1834 he took charge of a large school on Long Island for neglected children, which had about eight hundred inmates. Leaving there, le established a school for boys at Perth Amboy, which proved very successful. He died in 1865.
The principal industry of Hartland has been agriculture, the soil being especially adapted to grass and grazing purposes. Formerly a great deal of cheese was made in the town. Of recent years butter- making has taken its place. Cattle-raising is quite extensively carried on, and in the fields there are grown the cereals and tobacco.
In manufacturing, Hartland has had the usual run of grist-mills, saw-mills, and fulling-mills, and besides these, wagon-shops, tanneries, a print-factory, and a paper-mill. Uriel Holmes built the first saw and grist mill in the North Hollow on the east branch of the Farm- ington. In 1777 Stephen Bushnell built a grist-mill on Mill Brook, and also a saw-mill. There was another saw-mill higher up the same brook. Samuel E. Woodbridge in 1818 built the saw-mill now owned by Watson E. French. S. Roberts has a saw-mill on the East Mountain. These and portable steam-mills have largely reduced the amount of timber. Most of the mills have gone to decay. Thomas Fuller, and afterward his son Luther, had a fulling and clothiers' mill in the North Hollow. Thomas Sugden had a tannery in East Hartland, and Deodate
VOL. II .- 16.
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MEMORIAL HISTORY OF HARTFORD COUNTY.
I. Ensign had one in West Hartland, which his sons carried on for many years,
Wagon-making was begun in 1824, in East Hartland, by Ezekiel Alderman, from Granby. He was succeeded by Uri Holcomb, and he by Lester H. Gaines. In 1840 Elias E. Gilman began the same business in West Hartland, but went to Winsted in 1854. His brother Samuel carried on the manufactory till his death, in 1869.
In 1836 John Ward and his sons, James and Michael, from Adams, Mass., built large print-works on the west branch of the Farmington, near the Barkhamsted line. They made from two hundred thousand to three hundred thousand dollars worth of goods a year, but in 1857 the firm dissolved. Little was done with the property until 1874, when the sons of Michael Ward began there the manufacture of paper. They are making about two tons of fine manila paper a day.
XVI.
MANCHESTER.
BY THE REV. S. W. ROBBINS,
Pastor of the First Congregational Church.
M ANCHESTER is one of the four towns whose territory was origi- nally included in the town of Hartford. It was incorporated in 1823, and its separate history is comparatively brief ; yet it claims its inheritance in the historic treasures of the ancient town, in the wisdom and valor of the carly settlers whose bequest to posterity renders illustrious the record of two hundred and fifty years. Though the Earl of Warwick gave to the Connecticut Company the entire do- main from Narragansett Bay to the Pacific Ocean, prudence and equity required the confirmation of the title by the original possessors of the land ; the good-will of Chief Joshua being even more essential to a peaceful settlement than the favor of King Charles. The first pur- chase made after the arrival of the Rev. Thomas Hooker and his com- pany from Newtown, Mass., comprised a tract extending six miles west of the river and three miles cast of it, bounded north by the Windsor settlement and south by Wethersfield. The tract west of the river was divided into two sections each three miles wide, east and west. The plantations cast of the river were known as the Three-mile Lots, and were supposed to extend as far cast as the Hillstown road, in Manchester.
The land lying east of the Three-mile Lots was known as the Com- mons, and belonged to and formed a part of the hunting-grounds of Joshma, sachem of the western Niantic Indians, who was the third son of Uncas, sachem of the Mohegan Indians. About the year 1675 or 1676 Joshua sold to Major Talcott of Hartford, for the use and behoof of the town of Hartford, a tract of this common land extending from the aforesaid Three-mile Lots five miles still farther east the whole width of the town of Hartford, and bounded cast by other land claimed by Joshua, which now constitutes the town of Bolton ; but the conveyance was not made till after Joshua's death, which occurred in May, 1676. The Governor and Council, or General Court, nevertheless claimed and exercised authority over this land under and by virtue of the charter of King Charles II., and in 1672 had passed an order extending the boundaries of Hartford five miles farther cast, for the encouragement of planters to plant there, covering the same ground afterward sold to Major Talcott by Joshua. In 1682, after Joshua's death, Captain James Fitch, of Norwich, and Thomas Buckingham, of Saybrook, administrators on the estate of said Joshua, sachem, conveyed the
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MEMORIAL HISTORY OF HARTFORD COUNTY.
same by deed to Mr. Siborn (Cyprian) Nichols, Sergeant Caleb Stanley, and John Marsh, selectmen of the town of Hartford ; and from that time onward till 1772 it was known as the Five Miles.
By the act of incorporation the western boundary of the town of Manchester was placed half a mile west of the west line of the Five Miles. The town therefore included, in addition to the Five Miles, a section, half a mile wide, of the original Three-mile Lots. In 1842 a portion of East Windsor, comprising an area of nearly two square miles, and including Oakland district, was annexed to this town, making its present area about twenty-eight square miles, bounded north by South Windsor, east by Bolton and Vernon, south by Glaston- bury, and west by East Hartford. The face of the country cast of Connecticut River for a considerable distance is generally level, rising into broken uplands in the northern part. Near the centre of the town of Manchester the land gradually rises into a moderately elevated plain, along which extends the broad avenue which is the continuation of the old " country road " from East Hartford Street, beginning at the corner near the mouth of the Hockanum River. This plain gradually terminates on the east in the high range of hills which, sweeping round to the southwest, encloses the extensive valley that forms the southeast part of the town.
The Hockanum River, the outlet of Snipsie Lake, in Vernon, flows through the entire northern portion of the town, receiving as chief tributaries Hop Brook and Bigclow Brook. In the vicinity of these streams the manufactories are located. The chief centres of business and population are North Manchester and South Manchester. Other settlements are Manchester Green, Lydallville, Parker Village, Oak- land, Buckland, Hilliardville, and the Highlands.
The first settlers of the Five Miles located in the western part, in the vicinity of Hop Brook.1 Here, as early as 1711, Thomas Olcott was appointed to keep a house of entertainment, which stood just across the road from the residence of the late Sidney Olcott. Subse- quently a tavern owned by John Olcott was kept on the corner, a few rods farther south. Tradition tells of the great droves of cattle which in the early days passed this point on the way to market, and of numerous emigrants from Rhode Island making the journey to the Western Reserve, which was the westernmost point that anybody then sought.
The first general division of lands in the Five Miles occurred in 1731, when the proprietors appointed a committee to lay out three miles and
1 Prior to any general division, lands in this section were, in some instances, assigned by the General Court to individuals for meritorious services rendered to the colony. For exam- ple ; in 1666 the General Court ordered that four men and horses be speedily sent to Spring- field to accompany such as should be sent by Captain Pynchon to Fort Albany or farther, as should be judged meet to "atteine certeine understandinge concerninge ye motion of ye French." Corporal John Gilbert was one of the men sent. For this service the General Court in 1669 granted him two hundred acres of land, whereof twenty aeres might be meadow. In October, 1672, the Court appointed James Steele and Nathaniel Willett to lay ont to Corporal John Gilbert his grant, and they, in March, 1673, laid out to him two hundred acres on the east side of the Great River, about two miles eastwardly from Mr. Crow's saw- mill, upon a brook called Hop Brook. This land came into the possession of Joseph and Thomas Gilbert, sons of Corporal John Gilbert ; and in 1707 one hundred acres of it were deeded to Thomas Olcott, Jr., by Joseph Gilbert as administrator of Thomas Gilbert's estate. This land, or a portion of it, has remained in the Olcott family one hundred and seventy-five years.
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MANCHESTER.
one hundred rods on the east side, next to Bolton, the whole width of the town of Hartford, to be divided to the original proprietors or their heirs, according to their rate as it stood recorded on the town-book, including necessary ways. The same year this committee laid out four strips or tiers of this land, each tier being two hundred and forty rods wide, running north and south, parallel with Bolton town line from
THE CHENEY HOMESTEAD, SOUTH MANCHESTER.
Windsor to Glastonbury. Each of these tiers was divided among the proprietors in proportion to their rates, by parallel east and west lines, reserving a strip thirty rods wide for a highway between the first and second tiers, also a forty-rod highway between the second and third tiers, and a thirty-rod highway between the third and fourth tiers. Of these four highways running north and south, the first passed about half a mile east of the Green. The road running north from Oak Grove mill over Academy Hill to the Bryant place corresponds nearly to the western line of the second or forty-rod nath& Olcott Lien highway ; while the main street from North Manchester to South Manchester indicates the place of the third, which separated the third and fourth tiers of land. The balance of the Josiah Olcott unappropriated five-mile tract, lying between the Three-mile Lots on the west and the fourth tier of lots in the former division on the east, re- mained common and undivided till 1753, when it was distributed among the proprietors and their repre- sentatives by Mr. Samuel Wells, Nathaniel Olcott, and Josiah Olcott, a
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MEMORIAL HISTORY OF HARTFORD COUNTY.
committee appointed to distribute said lands and lay out suitable roads thereon.1
The years between 1731 and 1753 witnessed the gradual occupation of the lands assigned in the first division. Many names in the list Timothy Cheny of the early settlers of Hartford designate families whose residence for several generations has been within the limits of the five-mile purchase. On the north side of the street, extending cast from the Centre, a hum- dred years ago were the farms and residences of the brothers, Timothy, Benjamin, and Silas Cheney. On the south side of the same street, also west of the north and south highway, tracts of land were owned Bery a Change by Richard Pitkin. Near his resi- dence, a mile east of the Centre, was
Silas Chepey
the chief place of business at the time of the Revolution. The set- tlement contained a store, a tav- ern, a blacksmith's shop, a pottery, and a glass-factory.
In 1783 William Pitkin, Elisha Pitkin, and Samuel Bishop were granted the sole privilege of making glass in the State for twenty-five years. The glass-factory was an object of curious interest to many who resorted Richon Ditkin hither to witness the process of manu- facture. Its ruins still remain, - the vine-clad walls and graceful arches of the old stone structure being an attractive subject for the artist's pencil. Some years later the business centre was at the Green, now the oldest village in the town. The store had a large trade, much of it from the country lying to the east. The post-office was estab-
Brodat Wood bridge
lished here in 1808.2 The growth of the
village
was
promoted by the opening, about 1794, of the Boston and Hartford Turnpike, running directly west from this point midway between the
1 For the account of the division of the land, also of the purchase of the same, as pre- viously noted, see the Historical Address delivered by Deacon R. R. Dimock at the one hundredth anniversary of the First Church of Christ in Manchester, which has been pub- lished in pamphlet form.
2 Wells Woodbridge, the first postmaster, held the office twenty-six years. The post- office bore the name of Orford Parish till the town was incorporated, when the name was changed to Manchester. At Oakland the post- Gretts Wordbordes office was established in 1841. It was removed to Union Village in 1850, taking the name of Manchester Station, which was afterward changed to North Manchester. At Buckland, previously called Buckland's Corners, the post- office was established in 1840 ; at South Manchester, in 1851.
RUINS OF THE GLASS-FACTORY.
-
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MANCHESTER.
north road 1 and that by the Centre. This was an important route for the stage-lines from Boston and Providence to New York. The public- house kept by Deodat Woodbridge, and afterward by his son Dudley Woodbridge, was a notable stopping-place for numerous travellers, in- cluding judges, statesmen, and high military Quelley Wood bridge officials. This point was in the direct course from Hartford to Lebanon, the headquarters of military opera- tions for the State and the home of Governor Trumbull, - Washington's " Brother Jonathan." The people here, therefore, had the opportunity of seeing men noted in the country's history, especially during the period of the Revolution. A daughter of the proprietor of the hotel was accustomed to relate, as an interesting incident of her childhood, that she gave a glass of water to General Washington at his request, and received his thanks for the favor. The hotel building, now and for many years used for a private residence, is kept in excellent condition, and is a pleasant memorial of the past. It needs only the hanging out of the old sign to recall the bygone time when the fre- quent stage arrivals not only brought welcome guests but summoned from the neighborhood eager inquirers for tidings of great affairs going on in the world. Few stop now to think what grave questions of national and local interest were here discussed with the practical wisdom and common sense which characterized the men of that time. This village, known as " The Green," - after the fashion of naming the villages in the former days, - has not shared the growth of some other parts of the town since the convenience of water-power and railroad transportation has given the advantage to other localities. It, how- ever, still retains the aspect of thrift, and for a place of residence its healthful atmosphere and the commanding views from its graceful slopes are a permanent attraction. A single stage-line does good ser- vice connecting the old post-office with the trains on the New York and New England Railroad at the Manchester station, a mile away.
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