USA > Connecticut > Hartford County > The memorial history of Hartford County, Connecticut, 1633-1884, Vol. II > Part 5
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This is the west half of his father's farm, of two hundred acres or more, lying a mile and a half from the Centre, on the Hartford road. Here for eighteen years he lived, his health entirely re-established by much out-of-door life, and his mind deeply devoted to the interests of Bloomfield. At the incorporation of the town he suggested the new name, which was at once adopted. He did all that lay in his power for its educational improvement, bringing about the building of the neat brick school-house in his district in the place of the ancient little wooden one in the hollow, with its knife-hacked desks and awkward benches, where he had learned his first lessons. More than once when in his possession the old stone house welcomed and gave shelter for a night to the flying slave, whose stories and songs, as he warmed and cheered himself by the fire, made a lifelong impression upon his young listeners. Mr. Gillette's earnest advocacy of the Antislavery cause showed itself first in a fearless speech on striking the word "white" from the State Constitution. This was in the legislature, where he had been sent by Bloomfield in 1838. He had been sent there once before, in 1832, at the age of twenty-four, by Windsor, before Wintonbury had become an incorporated town. In 1841, against his will, he was nomi- nated for governor by the Liberty party ; and during the next twelve years the Liberty and Frec-Soil parties frequently repeated the nomi- nation. In 1854 he was elected United States Senator for the remain- der of the term of the Hon. Truman Smith, who had resigned. Mr. Gillette's election was just in time for him to cast his vote against the Nebraska Bill, which was passed at midnight of the day of his arrival in Washington. He was also active all his life in the cause of temper- ance and in the promotion of education. Hartford had been his home for thirty years, when he died there, on the 30th of September, 1879, at the age of seventy-two. He was buried in Farmington.
Of other natives of Bloomfield who have recently died, a most ex- cellent and widely loved man was Jay Filley, a son of Captain Oliver Filley. He spent his last years in Hartford. Other sons took more or less prominent positions in the West, one of them having been mayor of St. Louis.
Samuel R. Wells, the well-known phrenologist, lecturer, and author, was born in Bloomfield.
38
MEMORIAL HISTORY OF HARTFORD COUNTY.
Of those still living, James G. Batterson is one of the leading citi- zens of Hartford and a prominent business man of New England, the head of the New England Granite Company, president of the Travellers' Insurance Company, and one of the pioneers of Accident Insurance in the United States, - a man of great energy and public spirit.
Lester A. Roberts, a man of unusually wide intelligence and some literary note, is now a resident of Brooklyn, but still makes Bloomfield his summer home.
The population of the town, by the census of 1880, was 1,346.
Elisabeth G. Warners
IV.
BRISTOL®
BY EPAPHRODITUS PECK.
THE town of Bristol lies in the southwestern part of Hartford County, touching Litchfield County on the west and New Haven on the southwest ; it is bounded north by Burlington, east by Farm- ington and Plainville, south by Southington and Wolcott, west by Plym- outh. From 1806, when the Burlington parish was set off from this town, till 1875, when its symmetry was destroyed by the annexation to its territory of a single farm, formerly a part of Southington, it was exactly five miles square. In surface hilly, in soil rocky and somewhat unfertile, it has of necessity become a manufacturing rather than a farming town. With Fall Mountain for its southern boundary, Chip- pins (modernized form of Cochipianee's) Hill on the northwest, and Federal Hill occupying all the centre, there is left but a narrow valley, sloping down from the higher land in Terryville to the eastward plains. Through this runs the Pequabuck River, furnishing power for most of the larger factories. On the plains, at the east side of the town, lies the village of Forestville, which has come to furnish an important part both of the population and of the business of the town.
The history of the town began with its settlement by white people in 1727. To the Indians, as to the early settlers of Farmington, it had been the Great Forest, - too thickly covered with woods, and too valua- ble as a hunting-ground, to become a place of residence. It is probable that no considerable number of Indians ever lived within the present limits of the town. They inhabited the more level regions to the east- ward, and came hither for their supplies of game and fish. The rich- ness of these woods in game, large and small, was very soon discovered by the settlers in Farmington, and " there are men now living," wrote Dr. Noah Porter in 1841, " who remember when venison was sold in our streets at twopence the pound."
The earliest mention of any ownership of the land now included in this town is on the Farmington records of 1663; and then probably for the first time had the people of that town become so numerons as to extend their farms to the border of the Great Forest.
" Att a towne meeting held att ffarmington, their was graunted to John Wads- worth, Richard Brumpson, and Thomas barns, Moosis Ventruss, fforty acors of meddow Land Lying att the place we commonly Call Poland, beginning att the Brook att the hither end of it and so up the Riner on both sides ; which was giuen upon Consideration of thirty acors that was taken out of their farm at Paquabuck."
40
MEMORIAL HISTORY OF HARTFORD COUNTY.
This district of Poland was probably in the northeastern part of the present town of Bristol, and this record indicates a much greater an- tiquity to the name of Poland than has been generally ascribed to it. Popular tradition has supposed that the name, which now belongs to a little stream, Poland Brook, in East Bristol, was derived from the name of an Indian who lived upon its bank sixty years later than the date of this record. It may be supposed that "their farm at Paqua- buck " lay within the present town of Plainville ; with the lapse of time the name has been moved seven miles toward the west.
" Jenewary, 1664, their was giuen to John Langton and Georg Oruis twenty acors a piece at poland, after John Wadsworth have taken out his forty acors, if it be Not their to be had to Looke out other Wheer they may find it, and so to Repayer the town for the graunt of it."
Evidently the " meddow land " at Poland was not very abundant, if there was danger of its being exhausted by the appropriation of " fforty acors." For many years after this the people of Farmington extended their farms in other directions, and the Great Forest was undisturbed except by the hunters, who found in it still an inexhaustible supply of game.
In 1721 the eighty-four original proprietors of Farmington made partition among themselves of the undivided lands lying to the west of their settlements. The land was surveyed into six divisions, each a mile wide and five miles long, running from north to south. The last five of these divisions constitute the present limits of Bristol. For six years more no settlements were made ; but in 1727, by a deed bearing date November 22, Daniel Brownson, of Farmington, bought a farm lying near the present corner of West and South streets, known as Goose Corner; and there, in the same year, the first house was built. This house has not been standing for many years.
The next year, 1728, Ebenezer Barnes, from Farmington, and Nehe- miah Manross, from Lebanon, bought lands, built houses, and moved hither their families. Mr. Barnes's house ebenezer Barros has never been removed, and now forms the central part of Julius E. Pierce's residence in East Bristol ; this was undoubtedly the earliest house of which any part now remains. Mr. Barnes's descend- ants have always remained here, and have been among our best-known families. Mr. Manross's house stood a short distance south of the pres- ent dwelling-house of Norman P. Buell, Nehemiah masanof and was long ago destroyed. Captain Newton Manross, whose death at Antietam was so much lamented, was one of his descendants, and others still reside here. It is probable that a house was built on the east Fall Mountain road in this year (1728) by Abner Matthews, a little south of the one now occupied by Munson Wilcox. This house was afterward bought by Elias Wilcox, but for many years no part of it has been standing. In 1729 Nathaniel Mes- senger, from Hartford, and Benjamin Buck, from Farmington, built houses near Nehemiah Manross, - Messenger on the cast side of the road and Buck farther north. near the site of J. C. Hurd's present
N.
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PEQUABUCK RIVER
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DEBENEZER BARNES. 47 20 .
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DAN'L ROBERTS BENY HUNGERFORD
BRISTOL IN 1776.
ELIAS WILLCOX 1728.
COVERING ABOUT, TWO MILES SQUARE, # PREPARED BY JOSIAH T. PECK, #: IN 1876.
MOSES .LYMAN 1736
We RICH
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JOHN BROWN 5730.
SCHOOL Hover;
DAN'Y BROWNSON 1727
JOSEPH BENTON.
Hotel
43
BRISTOL.
residence. Neither of their houses is now standing, nor do any of their descendants remain in Bristol. The next year John Brown, from Colchester, bought land and built a house north of Ebenezer Barnes, on the east side of the road. The land bought by Mr. Brown included the site of the Bristol Brass and Clock Com- pany's rolling-mill, and (man) the house he then built remained till 1878, when it was pulled down. It is not known that any other settlers came here till 1736, when Moses Lyman, of Wallingford, bought land and built a residence on Fall Mountain, on the place now occupied by A. C. Bailey.
In 1738, or thereabout, Ebenezer Hamblin, of Barnstable, Mass., built a house on the road to Farmington, near Poland Brook, farther to the east than any house had yet been built. The cellar-place may still be seen. Three years later he built another house, between Nehemiah Manross and Benjamin Buck. This man was somewhat prominent among the early settlers, but has left no descendants in town, and no part of either of his houses is standing.
Two Gaylord families came to Bristol in 1741 or 1742. Joseph Gaylord settled on Chippins Joseph Taylor Hill on the place which has been owned by his descend- ants until lately ; and David Gaylord, afterward one of the first deacons, built a house on the lot where Henry A. Pond now lives, on East Street, near the railroad.
Benjamin Hungerford, who, through his daughter, was an ancestor of another Gaylord family of Bristol, settled upon Fall Mountain, near the site of Hiram Gillis's house, in 1746. About 1747, Zebulon Peck, from whom most of Zebuhun Perk those here bearing that name are
descended, built a house near Daniel Brownson, and nearly back of G. S. Hull's present tenement house, and very soon began to keep a tavern there. Ben- Garshum & Turtle jamin Brooks, Ger- shom Tuttle, and Caleb Matthews set- tled on Chippins Hill at about the same time as Joseph Gaylord, and that corner of the parish played for many years quite an important part in local history.
The men whose names and the dates of whose settlement are still preserved were probably the more prominent of the inhabitants, but others before this date had come hither, and had erected houses, of which nothing is now known. Several houses were built very early, perhaps before the middle of the century, on the road which runs east from N. P. Buell's house. An early settlement was also made in what is called the Stafford District, and houses still standing there show
44
MEMORIAL HISTORY OF HARTFORD COUNTY.
great age in their materials and workmanship. The houses in the eastern and central part of the town were framed, built with the mas- sive timbers of that age. Log houses were built on Fall Mountain, and it is said that when the heavy doors were open during the day the women used to pin up blankets across the doorway, that it might not be entirely open to the bears and the Indians. It was still not an uncommon event for the more isolated families to see bears prowling about near their houses; and so late as 1750 a huge bear was killed near her father's house by Abigail Peck, a sturdy girl of fourteen, who had been left at home from meeting by her parents.
The Indians, who had found these woods a fruitful hunting-ground for many generations, were greatly enraged at the white men, who had driven away their game and were levelling the forest; and the set- tlers whose houses were remote from neighbors were in constant fear of injury from the savages. Gideon Ives, of Middletown, was on a hunting-tour on Fall Mountain at one time with a Mr. Gaylord, when they discovered an Indian trying to shoot them. They separated, and the Indian, following Mr. Gaylord, was shot by Mr. Ives. The two men buried his body, not daring even to keep the valuable weapons which he wore. The locality was named from this Indian, and is still called Morgan's Swamp. Early in the history of the town a Mr. Scott, who had begun to clear a piece of land on Fall Mountain, intending to move hither from Farmington, was seized by a party of Indians and horribly tortured. His screams were heard a long way ; but the In- dians were so many that no one dared to go to the rescue, and a consid- erable number of the settlers, fearing an attack from the infuriated Indians, hid themselves all day in the bushes near the river.
These early families were all Congregationalists. Every Sunday a little procession went through the woods eight miles to the old church at Farmington. A few families had two-horse carts, in which all rode together ; but more often the father rode on horseback and the mother behind him on a pillion, while the young people walked, taking great care not to break the Sabbath by any undue levity.
In 1742 the hamlet had become so numerous that the people felt able to maintain preaching for themselves during a part of the year ; and in October of that year a memorial was presented to the General Assembly reciting the distance from the place where " publick Worship of God is sett up," and asking the " Liberty of hireing an Authordox and suitably quallifyed person to preach ye Gospel " for six months of each year. This petition was granted, and the desired permission was given. The first meeting of the inhabitants was held Nov. 8, 1742, to organize, and take necessary action in compliance with the Assem- bly's resolution. This meeting voted to have preaching, so long as the Court had given them liberty, and to hold the meetings at John Brown's house. Edward Gaylord, Nehemiah Manross, and Ebenezer Hamblin were elected the society's committee.
At a meeting a month later they voted to hire Mr. Thomas Canfield to preach during the winter. This clergyman, the first to preach the gospel in this town, was born in 1720, graduated at Yale College in 1739, was settled at Roxbury in 1744, and died there in 1794. He preached here only one winter; the next fall (1743) the society
45
BRISTOL.
empowered the committee to choose a preacher for the coming winter, and it is not known who was hired. This same fall of 1743 the people began to consider the subject of asking for incorporation as a regular ecclesiastical society, and appointed a committee to seek an act of ineor- poration from the General Assembly. In 1744 the consent of the first society in Farmington was obtained, and another petition was sent to the Assembly with the same request.
Among the signatures to this petition are several which did not appear on the former one ; those which probably denote the settlement in the parish of new families are Hezekiah Rew, Joseph Graves, Caleb Abernethy, Ezekiel Palmer, Zebulon Frisbe, Thomas Hart. Of these, Heze- Hex : Rew kiah Rew, afterward one of the first deacons of the Congregational Church, lived on the corner where Elias Ingraham's residence now stands. Caleb Abernethy, in 1742, built a house near Nehemiah Manross and Nathan- Call Abernethy iel Messenger, on the south corner, opposite N. P. Buell's present house ; Thomas Hart was one of the first settlers in Stafford District, so called. The General Assembly granted the petition, and gave the society the name of New Cambridge. The first society meeting was holden June 4, 1744, and at this meeting it was "Voted, That we would apply ourselues to the next Thomas Hart Assosiation for aduice in order to the bring- ing in a minister amongst us as soon as Con- uenontly may be." Three days after this the society voted to apply to Mr. Joseph Adams as a candidate for settlement in the ministry. He graduated at Yale College in 1740, and died in 1782. Apparently he was not acceptable to the people, for his name is not mentioned again.
In September the society voted to invite Mr. Samuel Newell to preach with them until December 1. Mr. Newell was a stanch defender of the Calvinistic doctrines, and on this account he was strongly opposed by some of the society. In December of the same year a resolution to hire Mr. Newell, in case it should be the advice of the Association, received seven opposing votes, and the council which was summoned advised the calling of some other minister, in hopes that the society might be more united. Accordingly, in 1746 Messrs. Ichabod Camp and Christopher Newton, men whose doctrinal views agreed with those of the opposition to Mr. Newell, were successively invited to preach. They appear to have had no better success ; and in March, 1747, another call was given to Mr. Newell, subject to the advice of the council, the vote standing thirty-six to ten. This council advised the settlement of Mr. Newell, and he was ordained Aug. 12, 1747.
" And here it must be noted," says the record, " that Caleb mathews, Stephen Brooks, John hikox, Caleb Abernathy, Abner mathews, Abel Royce, Daniel Roe & Simon tuttel publikly declared themselves of the Church of England and under the bishop of london." Nehemiah Royce and Benjamin Brooks followed in a few months, and these ten men formed the first Episcopal society in New Cambridge. Abner Matthews afterward returned to the Congregational Church, and again became
46
MEMORIAL HISTORY OF HARTFORD COUNTY.
a leading member. These seceders were among the prominent men of the society, and their secession must have been a severe loss. The society contracted with Mr. Abel Roys Newell to pay him a sum grad- ually increasing from £140 in 1747 to £300 in 1758. and there- after. This sum was to be paid in bills of credit of the colony or in grain, and the society agreed to make each year's salary "as good to him as 3 hundred pounds is now." 3) MONTIHel They also built him a house (the old house now known as the " Dr. Pardee place ") and furnished him with firewood. The extent to which our local currency had depreciated is shown by the fact that in 1759 a committee arbitration agreed on £55 a year in silver as a full equiva- lent for the £300 salary due to Mr. Newell in bills of credit.
Hitherto the meetings had been held at private houses : the houses of Ebenezer Barnes, John Brown, Stephen Barnes, Abner Matthews, Stephen Barns and John Hickox having each been used for that purpose. In May, 1745, the society voted by a more than two-thirds majority to build a meeting- house "as soon as with Convenience may be." In October, 1746. a committee of the General Assembly, which was at that time the general director of Congregational churches. selected a site about sixty feet northeast of the present church building, and drove there a stake to mark the centre of the building. Here the society " with all convenient speed " built the first meeting-house, forty feet by thirty. It was northeast of where the meeting-house now stands, and almost directly in the present line of Maple Street. It was furnished with the great square pews then in vogue, the best one of which was re- served for the deacons and the poorest for the negroes. The church expenses were then paid by general taxation, and each year a committee assigned the pews among the members of the congregation according to their wealth. In order, however. to pay proper respect to age and official rank. it was provided that every person should be allowed fifty shillings for each year of his age, and that a captain should be al- lowed in addition twenty pounds, a lieu- tenant ten, and an ensign five. This custom was called "dignifying the meet- ing-house." It furnished a convenient official designation of the social status of the different persons and families of a DEACON'S CAP. community. After the gallery was put into the meeting-house the negroes were directed to sit there ; and so when the theatres established their gallery regulations they were really borrowing an old rule of the church. The children were seated on benches in the aisles; the old men in front, each one with a white starched cap upon his head. In 1752 it was voted that the men and women sit together in the pews : seeming to indicate that the sexes had hitherto been separated. In 1753 it was
47
BRISTOL.
voted that the young people should be seated in the meeting-house (that is. in the pews instead of on benches). "menkind at sixteen years of age, and female at fourteen." When the church was gathered for the fast preparatory to the ordination of Parson Newell, it included about twenty families. These, with the eight or ten families who had de- clared themselves Episcopalians. probably constituted almost or quite the entire population of the parish. Parson Newell is said to have been an able preacher. His fame spread through the neighboring towns. and many families moved hither to listen to his preaching. He remained pastor of the church till his death in 1789.
The second Congregational meeting-house was completed in 1770, sixty-five feet by forty-five in size, nearly upon the site of the old one; and in 1831 the third building was erected, which. having been twice remodelled inside. is still in use.
For some time after the withdrawal of the ten members to the Church
BESEE
HOUSE BUILT BY ABEL LEWIS.1
of England they seem to have had no rector and no regular place of meeting. They protested against the payment of the ecclesiastical taxes, and in 1749 the society compromised with them. the Churchmen agree- ing to pay half their tax until they should have a pastor of their own to support. Most of the Churchmen, as they were called. lived on Chippins Hill, near the borders of Northbury (now Plymouth). and attended service in that town. In 1758 they hired Mr. Scovel to preach for them a part of the time. The charge of this clergyman included the parishes of Waterbury, Westbury (now Watertown). Northbury. and New Cambridge : and in 1762 his time was further divided by the addition of Farmington to his charge. A small Episcopal church building had been completed in 1754, opposite the Congregational meeting-house.
1 The arched windows were taken from the old Episcopal Church.
48
MEMORIAL HISTORY OF HARTFORD COUNTY.
north or northwest of the present First District school-house. In 1774 Mr. Scovel was succeeded by the Rev. James Nichols, who acted as rector until the outbreak of the Revolution. The Episcopalians were nearly or quite all fierce Tories, and bitter hatred was felt toward them by their more loyal neighbors. The excitement was so great that attempts are said to have been made upon the life of the rector and of one at least of the laymen. Some of them went to New York, others stayed very quietly at home, and public services were abandoned until 1783. Attempts were made in that year, but without success, to build a new church, and services were again held in the old building, Revs. James Nichols, Samuel Andrews, James Scovel, and Ashbel Bald- win successively acting as rectors. In 1790 the Episcopalians of North- bury, Harwinton, and Bristol united, and built a house for worship which is still standing, known as Plymouth East Church, and for forty- four years no Episcopal services were held in Bristol. It has been a
INLAID CHEST BROUGHIT TO NEW CAMBRIDGE, 1744-47. - PARSON NEWELL'S ARM-CHAIR. -- CARVED POWDER- HORN, 1755. - SWORD AND CANTEEN, USED BY LIEU- TENANT ROGER LEWIS IN THE REVOLUTION. CANTEEN PIERCED BY A BULLET AT MONMOUTH COURT-HOUSE.
RELICS OF OLD TIMES.
local tradition that the church property was confiscated as belonging to the Bishop of London, and therefore forfeited by the war; but this is a mistake. The church building and land were sold (after the removal of the church) to Abel Lewis, who used the building as a barn. The win- dows are still used in the tenement-house of Mrs. Theodore Stearns.
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