USA > Connecticut > Hartford County > The memorial history of Hartford County, Connecticut, 1633-1884, Vol. II > Part 30
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1 From Orford in England ; or thus, - Winds-Or, Hart-ford.
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MEMORIAL HISTORY OF HARTFORD COUNTY.
The objectionable site was a few rods west of the present crossing of the branch railroad to South Manchester. After long discussion upon this memorial in both houses, a committee was appointed, who, after thoroughly viewing the premises, established the site according to the desire of the memorialists. The obstacles in the way of building were still more formidable. The work was undertaken on the eve of the troublous times of the Revolutionary War, and the result contemplated by the society's vote in 1772 was not fully realized till twenty years afterward. In 1777 the first grant had not all been paid, and the frame, which then had just been raised, remained for a considerable time without being enclosed. In 1779 it was voted to raise one shilling on the pound to be laid out in covering the meeting-house. This house with only its board covering and its rough slab or plank seats, with no provision for heating, was the Sabbath home of the church, which was organized on the 29th of July, with eighteen members, - sixteen men and two women. The society was moved doubtless to this step toward completing the building by the prospect of having a duly organized church and a settled minister. Further progress toward completing the house was delayed for several years. This was the darkest period of the war. About this time New Haven and East Haven were plun- dered by the British, and Fairfield, Norwalk, and Green's Farms were wantonly burned. Nothing was decisive in military affairs, and every- thing pertaining to the final result of the great struggle seemed to hang in doubt. It was a time of great financial embarrassment. Conti- nental money had depreciated in value till one dollar in silver was worth sixteen dollars of currency, and six months later one dollar in silver was worth forty in currency. About this time the sum of £1,300 was raised by the society as the yearly outlay on the highways, and the allowance to each man for labor thereon was twenty dollars per day. After long delay, however, the matter of finishing the meeting-house was again taken up ; eighty-nine persons subscribed for the purpose sums varying from £1 to £13, and on May 20, 1794, twenty-one years after the Assembly's committee had set the stake, it was "Voted, That the Society is satisfied with the repairing and finishing of the meeting- house in the parish of Orford as per instruction given to the committee to finish said house, provided the pew doors are well hung and the red paint covered on the front side of said house." This was the house which the Rev. Mr. Northrop referred to thirty-six years later as having been "finished after the approved models of ancient incon- venience and discomfort." It had its high pulpit, broad sounding- board, lofty galleries, and square high-backed pews, the true conception of which was suggested to a five-year old lad when taken for the first time to the Sunday school. Becoming restless during the exercises, he went into the aisle, saying to his attendant, who thought he had started for home, "I'm only goin' into the next pen." This house was occupied until 1826. A new one was then erected on nearly the same ground, of better architecture, but like the former in its inter- nal order as to pulpit, galleries, and pews. In 1840 the latter house was reconstructed within, and raised so as to admit of a basement cor- responding in size with the audience-room above. It had an open portico, with stone steps along the entire front. In consideration of five hundred dollars paid by the town, the basement was used thereafter
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for the transaction of public business. Prior to 1826 the town-meet- ings were held in the old church. From 1826 to 1840 they were held for some years in the Methodist meeting-house, and occasionally at the house of George Rich. In 1879 the society sold the meeting- house to the town ; it was removed about eight rods west, and put in good order for public use. The same year the present house of worship was built. It was dedicated on the 3d of December, and on the next day the centennial anniversary of the organization of the church was celebrated. On this occasion about six hundred persons were present, some having come from afar to commemorate the faith and sacrifices of those who here laid the foundations on which three generations have been permitted to build.
The first pastor, the Rev. Benajah Phelps, was settled in 1781. He was paid a "settlement of £150, and an annual salary of £100," payable in money or in produce, according to the late regulation act ; namely, " wheat at 6s. per bushel, rye at 48., corn at 3s., and all other articles agreeable." Mr. Phelps was a native of Hebron, a graduate of Yale Col- lege, and before his settlement here had preached thirteen years at Cornwallis, Nova Scotia. He was dismissed in 1793, but did not remove his residence. He died Feb. 10, 1817, aged seventy-nine. The Rev. Salmon King was settled in 1800, and after a ministry of eight years removed to Bradford County, Pennsylvania, where at first he itinerated in the forests and at length gathered a church to which he ministered twenty-five years, till his death, in 1839, at the age of sixty-eight. The pastorate of the Rev. Elisha B. Cook, from 1814 to 1823, was distinguished by a remark- able revival of the church from a condition of almost suspended anima- tion, and by the sad circumstances of his decease. He was drowned in attempting to cross a stream while assisting a neighbor in the hay-field. Thus in the prime of manhood, at the age of thirty-six, his career of unusual activity and usefulness was abruptly closed. The pastorate of the Rev. Bennett F. Northrop, from 1829 to 1850, was the longest in the history of the church.1
In 1785 Thomas Spencer invited the Rev. George Roberts, a Method- ist itinerant, to preach at his house ; and soon after, a class of six per- sons was formed. From this germ have grown the two flourishing churches in the town. The church grew in numbers and strength,
1 A notice of the pastors of the First Church may be found in the published account of the One Hundredth Anniversary; also of ministers who have gone forth from the parish, whose names are as follows: Allen Olcott, Rodolphus Landfear, Anson Gleason, Nelson Bishop, Ralph Perry, Chester S. Lyman, Allen B. Hitchcock, Elisha W. Cook, Frederick Alvord, John B. Griswold, Charles Griswold, Charles N. Lyman. Mr. Gleason was a second "apostle to the Indians," having spent over thirty-six years as a teacher and preacher among the Choctaws, Senecas, and Mohegans. Chester S. Lyman has been for many years a professor in Yale Col- lege. There are those who recall the ardor of his early pursuit of science, when, a boy, he studied the stars from the observatories of our eastern hills, constructing his own telescopes and mathematical instruments. Of other natives of the town, Frederick W. Pitkin was a graduate of Wesleyan University in 185S, settled as a lawyer in Milwaukee, Wis., removed to Colorado, and became Governor of that State. Wilbur Fisk Loomis was a graduate of Wes- leyan University in 1851 ; became pastor of the Congregational Church, Shelburne Falls, Mass .; engaged in the service of the Christian Commission during the War of the Rebellion ; and died Jan. 6, 1864, in Nashville, Tenn.
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sometimes through powerful revivals affecting the whole community, as in 1814 and 1821. In 1822 a new house of worship was built at the Centre.
In 1850 the growth of the north village had become such as to re- quire stated religious services. The Second Congregational Church was formed, and its house of worship dedicated Jan. 8, 1851. This church, growing steadily from the beginning, celebrated its twenty-fifth anni- versary in 1876. The Methodists residing in North Manchester, follow- ing the example of the Congregationalists, also organized a church and built a new house of worship in 1851, - the two churches thus resuming relations similar to those of the two parent churches in former years. About two years later the Methodist society disposed of their church property at the Centre, and erected the present house of worship on a very eligible site at South Manchester.
Early in this century a Baptist church was organized, holding ser- vices in a meeting-house, in which also a school was kept, on the trian- gular plot a short distance south of the town-house. A second house was built farther north ; but after some years religious service was dis- continued and the house was sold and removed.
The Protestant Episcopal Church held services first in 1843 at North Manchester. St. Mary's Parish was organized in 1844. In the course of years the place of worship was changed to other points, - Oakland, the Green, and the Centre. From 1874 to 1883 services were held in the Centre academy building. A new and convenient church edifice was erected in 1883, - the church home of the present flourishing parish.
The Roman Catholic Church has a large membership, with two houses of worship. Its religious services were first held at North Manchester, where St. Bridget's Church was erected in 1858. The large and commodious church edifice, known as St. James's Church, erected at South Manchester in 1876, is delightfully located, and is an ornament to the village.
The first school within the present limits of the town was estab- lished in 1745. The third society of Hartford "Voted, That those per- sons living on the Five Miles of land in this society have their ratable part of school money improved among themselves by direction of the school committee, from time to time, until the society shall order otherwise." Josiah Olcott was the first committee ; and the school was near his house, which stood on the site of the residence of the late Sidney Olcott. In 1751 the society passed a vote authorizing several schools on the Five Miles as follows ; namely, one to accommodate Lieu- tenant Olcott, Sergeant Olcott, the Simondses, and those living near them ; one on Jamb-Stone Plain; 1 one near Ezekiel Webster's; one in the Centre, between Sergeant Samuel Gaines's and Alexander Keeney's; and one near Dr. Clark's. When the Ecclesiastical Society of Orford was established, the schools and highways, as well as church affairs, were under its supervision. In October, 1772, the society " Voted, That when any school district in the society shall keep up a master-school three months in the year they shall be entitled to their proportion of the publick money according to their list, and proportionately for shorter
1 The north part of Buckland, where the quarries are located. The use to which the stone was once applied in building suggested the name.
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terms." At the same time it was voted to set out the society of Orford into school districts, which were numbered and named as follows : first, or middle ; second, or west; third, or southwest; fourth, or south ; fifth, or east ; sixth, or north.1
In 1795 the General Assembly provided for the formation of school societies. The first meeting of the school society of Orford was held Oct. 31, 1796, - Deacon Joseph Lyman, moderator, Dr. George Gris- wold, clerk. The principal business of the annual meeting of the school society was the appointment of committees. In the list of school visitors at the beginning of the century we find the names of the Rev. Salmon King, the Rev. Allen Olcott, Dr. George Griswold, Moses Gleason, Richard Pitkin, Timothy Cheney, Deodat Woodbridge, Joseph Pitkin, Alexander M.Lean.
In the early history of the society the district school furnished the only opportunity for education, except the occasional select school, and private instruction sometimes given by the minister. Before the days of seminaries and high schools the village academy, usually under the direction of a board of trustees, was a useful institution. In this town, thirty years ago, two imposing academy buildings might be seen, - one at the Centre, the other on the eminence castward, from its command- ing site a prominent object of observation. A stranger might have in- quired the meaning of these two institutions in such close proximity. His natural and true inference would have been the zeal of the people in the cause of education. He might also have judged with equal truth that there once existed in the town an East and a West, that on occasion were accustomed to differ ; and in the matter of locating the academy, the difference was about three fourths of a mile. At that time there was no committee of the General Assembly, as in 1773, to set the stake. However, the academies served a noble purpose. In them able in- structors dispensed their stores of knowledge, and many educated in these schools are doing grand work in the world. But the schools were long ago given up. The increasing efficiency of our public-school system has superseded the village academy.
The public schools in the town at present comprise one school with six departments at North Manchester, one with eight departments at South Manchester, three with two departments each and four with one department each in other districts. The larger schools are open to pupils from all the districts. The number of children between four and sixteen years of age was in 1830, 497 ; in 1840, 517 ; in 1850, 584 ; in 1860, 812; in 1870, 872 ; in 1880, 1,587 ; in 1884, 1,675.
The incorporation of the town was a matter seriously agitated as early as 1812. From that time till 1823 the annual meetings of the town of East Hartford were held alternately with the First Society and at the meeting-house in Orford Parish. Opposition to the act of incor- poration was made by the people of East Hartford for the same reason that the formation of the Ecclesiastical Society was opposed in 1772; namely, that the boundary line did not correspond with that of the
1 The order of school districts established in 1859 corresponds with the present order ; namely : 1. Northeast (Oakland); 2. East (the Green); 3. Southeast (Porter district); 4. South; 5. Southwest; 6. West ; 7. Northwest (Buckland); 8. North (North Manchester); 9. Centre, including South Manchester.
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original five-mile purchase. The latter boundary is near the Hillstown road, in Spencer Street. The town boundary agreeing with that of Orford society is half a mile farther west, about eighty rods beyond the cemetery.
The first meeting of the town of Manchester was held June 16, 1823. Dudley Woodbridge was chosen town clerk ; George Cheney, Martin Keeney, and Joseph Noyes, select- George W. Cheney. men. The first representative in the General Assembly was George Cheney. Mr. Woodbridge was suc- ceeded by George Cheney as town clerk in 1825, and the latter in 1828 by George Wells Cheney, who held the office until his decease, in 1840. The office has since been held by William Jones, Ralph R. Phelps, Ralph Cheney, Samuel R. Dimock, and Daniel Wads- Daniel Hausevonth worth, - the last by an- nual election from 1855 to the present time.
Three burying-grounds were opened east of the river prior to the incorporation, in 1783, of East Hartford, which for forty years after included the Five Miles. Two of these are now known as the east and west cemeteries in Manchester. The west cemetery is doubtless the older, the oldest stone there bearing date 1743. There are doubt- less unmarked graves of still carlier date, since the highway as it now runs takes in a portion of the oldest part of this yard. It is probable that for a number of years after the first settlement the people in this section in many cases buried their dead in the first yard, now belonging to East Hartford, as the family names often correspond, and the burials here succeed in the order of dates the burials there. The east cemetery was opened about 1750, the oldest stone bearing date 1751. This yard, enlarged in 1867, now contains seventeen acres. It includes a portion of the diversified upland on the south, which has been laid out at liberal expense and with excellent taste. In the east cemetery are found the names of Bidwell, Cheney, Cone, Griswold, Keeney, McKee, Lyman, Pitkin, Woodbridge ; " in the west, Bidwell, Bunce, Caldwell, Elmer, Hills, Keeney, Kennedy, McKee, Marsh, Olcott, Spencer, and Symonds, most of them of people who had to do with the welfare of the 'castermost parish' in its early days." 1 The northwest cemetery, at Buckland, was opened in 1780. It is beautiful for situa- tion, occupying a plateau raised thirty feet above the surrounding plain. Here are the graves of Dr. William Cooley and Dr. William Scott, each of whom was for thirty years honored in the profession. The names of Buckland, Jones, Hilliard, and others recall the memory of persons identified with the interests of the town.
It is evident that the spirit of " seventy-six " was intense in this section of Hartford in the Revolution. Several votes of the Orford society are recorded, abating the rates of soldiers in the public service. Timothy Cheney was captain, and Richard Pitkin lieutenant, of a company that went into the field. Washington, learning of Captain
1 See J. O. Goodwin's History of East Hartford.
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Cheney's mechanical genius, desired his services for another purpose, and he was ordered home to manufacture powder-sieves for use in the army, Lieutenant Pitkin succeeding to the command of the company. Lebanon was the headquarters of military operations for this part of the State, and soldiers, passing to and from Hartford, were entertained at Olcott's tavern in the west district. The Rev. Benajah Phelps had a severe experience in connection with the war. Residing in Nova Scotia, he was put to the alternative of leaving the Province or taking up arms against his country. He found means to escape, leaving his family and nearly all his effeets. Afterward, having obtained a permit to go back for his family, he was taken by a British man-of-war, and after some time was put on board a boat with a number of others about fourteen miles from land in very rough weather, and left to the merey of the seas, but finally arrived at Machias, and never returned to Nova Scotia. His family came to him a year afterward at Boston. In con- sideration of his losses he received some years later from the General Assembly a grant of £150.
The record of Manchester in the War of the Rebellion cannot here be fully given. The outburst of indignant patriotism when Fort Sum- ter fell, the war-meetings, the response to the first call for volunteers to defend the national capital, subsequent enlistments, bounties paid, aid-societies organized, encampment of the boys in blue on the grounds of the old Centre Church, the enthusiastic departure, the gallant record of suffering and death, defeat and vietory, -- in all this we have the witness that this historic ground could still produce heroes worthy of the old days " that tried men's souls." Manchester1 sent to the war two hundred and fifty-one men ; namely, volunteers two hundred and twenty-four, substitutes and drafted, twenty-seven. Of the whole num- ber the record includes killed in action six, and died in service from disease or wounds, thirty-two.2 The two hundred and fifty-one men were scattered into widely separated commands, - in all twenty- seven. Forty were in the First Connectient Artillery, forty-four in the Sixteenth Regiment Infantry, thirty-eight in the Tenth, fifteen in the Fifth, and numbers varying from one to eleven in other regiments, and three in the Navy. Among the officers from Manchester were Captain Frederick M. Barber, who was killed at Antietam, Lieutenant-Colonel Frank W. Cheney of the Sixteenth Connecticut, who was severely
1 The Spencer rifle, invented by Christopher M. Spencer, of Manchester, should be noted as a valuable contribution of this town to the war. It was the result of patient study and experiment, on the part of the inventor, in the machine-shop of the Cheney Brothers. The manufacture of the rifle for the Government was carried on by the Spencer Rifle Company, in which the Cheney Brothers invested a very large sum of money before the successful develop- ment of the invention. The works, for the sake of convenience, were established in Boston. The merit of the weapon proved so great that the demand for it exceeded the capacity of the factory in Boston, and for a time the works of the Burnside Rifle Company, in Providence, were also employed to fill the orders. One hundred thousand of the rifles were in the field.
2 Those who were killed in action were Captain Frederick Barber, John HI. Couch, Amandor C. Keeney (only sixteen years old), Charles Robinson, Julius C. Wilsey, and Lucius Wheeler. The others who died in the service, of disease and wounds, in hospitals, etc., - a more lingering but no less heroic death, - were as follows: Hobart D. Bishop, James Brookman, James B. Chapman, Thomas Connor, Matthew Covel, Orrin J. Cushman, James Dawley, Daniel Haverty, John Horsley, Loren House, Rufus N. Hubbard, Michael Hussey, Peter Johnson, Samuel W. King, James M. Keith, Marvin Loveland, Levi F. Lyman, Frederick Munsell, Ezekiel L. Post, John Rynes, Watson C. Salter, John Smith, James Touhey, Francis H. Wright, George Wright, H. T. Gray, George A. Marble, George Wal- bridge, George Brookman, George F. Knox, J. Sweetland, George Keeney.
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wounded at Antietam, and Brigadier-General John L. Otis, who went out as Lieutenant of the Tenth Connecticut.
The amount paid by the town during the war for bounties, pre- miums, commutations, and support of families was $47,212.70; individ- uals paid $8,000 : total, $55,212.70. The soldiers' monument, standing in the park in front of the Centre Church, was dedicated Sept. 17, 1877. It consists of a square granite pedestal about eight feet high, sur- mounted by a statue of a soldier in uniform looking with firm and thoughtful features toward the south.
Drake Post No. 4, G. A. R., named after Colonel Albert W. Drake, of the Tenth Connecticut Volunteers, was organized July 9, 1875, with ten members. It has now one hundred and fifty-five, and has been from the first a flourishing organization.1
Manchester was made a probate district in 1850. The town has had two representatives in the legislature since, and beginning with, the ses- sion of 1882. The census of 1880 showed that the population had passed the figure (5,000) at which by State law a town is entitled to such representation.
Seventy-five years ago the larger portion of the inhabitants of Orford were in the east and west sections, and agriculture was the chief industry. Union Village contained only seven small dwelling-houses, and the entire population of what is now called North Manchester is estimated to have been not more than one hundred and fifty. From the present site of W. H. Cheney's store in South Mancheser might be seen perhaps half a dozen houses. There was no road at that point running east and west. A lane led down by George Cheney's house to the house of Robert McKee, which stood on the present site of Jolin Sault's residence, thence over the hill to the Hackmatack Road, which then, as now, extended east from Keeney Street across the north and south road to Wyllys Falls. There were no stores, and no mills except the saw-mill, grist-mill, and fulling-mill of George Cheney ; Hop Brook, winding down from Bolton hills, gave a charm to the valley. On the southeast, Mount Nebo raised its wooded crest toward the sky ; named, doubtless, from the delightful view it afforded of the land, fair even in its primitive aspect, before it had been called, as in later times by high authority, the "Eden of the world."
The population of the new town in 1823 was about 1,400. In 1830, it was 1,576; in 1840, 1,695 ; in 1850, 2,546 ; in 1860, 3,294; in 1870, 4,223 ; in 1880, 6,462. The taxable property in 1823 was $62,009; in 1883 it was $2,792,600.2
1 Many of the facts here given pertaining to Manchester's record in the late war were furnished by Major Robert H. Kellogg.
2 The labor of preparing even so brief and imperfect a sketch cannot be known by one who has not undertaken a similar task. The above would have been far less complete with- out the aid of previous researches by- Judge R. R. Dimock, and of facts furnished by others, especially by Colonel F. W. Cheney and by Messrs. James Campbell and Olin R. Wood.
J. M. Robbing
XVII. MARLBOROUGH.
BY MISS MARY HALL.
M ARLBOROUGH lies in the extreme southeastern part of the county, and is fifteen miles distant from Hartford. It was formed from portions of Glastonbury, Hebron, and Colchester, which are situated in the three counties of Hartford, Tolland, and New London respectively, and is bounded north by Glastonbury, cast by Hebron, south by Colchester, and west by Chatham, the latter until 1767 being a part of Middletown.
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