USA > Connecticut > Hartford County > The memorial history of Hartford County, Connecticut, 1633-1884, Vol. II > Part 56
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65
On Sucker or (Mill) Brook may be seen the remains of what probably was the first dam built in Connecticut. It was made to furnish power to Leonard Chester's grist-mill, built in 1637.
Water, from the West Hartford Water-works, was introduced into the north end of the town about fifteen years ago.
Telegraphic communication has been at times maintained via Hart- ford. There is now no office in Wethersfield for that purpose ; but telephonic connection exists.
Two fire-engines were procured prior to 1803, at which time a fire- company was chartered. A new company in place of this was chartered in 1834. Its engine went to pieces in 1872; since which date only a hook-and-ladder company exists.
The Wethersfield Mutual Fire Insurance Company was chartered in 1830. It has been practically extinct for about twenty-five years. Of the forty-five charter members only one, Major William Talcott, still lives.
A " Public Mart or Fair" was chartered for Wethersfield in 1783. The " Connecticut Courant" for Oct. 26, 1784, in giving an account of the fair held that month, says: " A great quantity of dry and West India
483
WETHERSFIELD.
goods, as well as country manufactures, horses, cattle, sheep, and swine, were sold or bartered. The concourse of people was very great ; some laid out to the amount of a thousand dollars." It is said to have been held in Broad Street, and to have continued but a few years.
A work-house was established in 1811. The town had a poor- house before 1787, in which year an addition was built to it. In 1838 the " Rose place " was purchased for a town-farm, including the dwelling-house, which became the poor-house. On the Farm, in 1850, the town-house was built, and in it the poor-house and work-house were established.
In September, 1827, the State's convicts were transferred from Newgate, in the caverns of the abandoned copper-mines at Simsbury, to the new prison at Wethersfield. Newgate had been occupied fifty- four years. The number of convicts transferred was one hundred and twenty-seven. The average number in the prison at Wethersfield dur- ing the past year was two hundred and thirty-five. The buildings are of red sandstone, and have been enlarged from time to time. Two of its wardens have been murdered by convicts, - Daniel Webster by Gerald Toole, in 1862, and William Willard by Dave Kentley, alias James Wilson, in 1870.
When the Union Library Society was formed is not known to the writer ; but it was in full operation in 1784 or earlier, in the upper room of the school-house on High Street. After the academy was built, in 1798, the volumes were kept in that building. It contained many valuable works, all of which were sold at public auction about 1850.
The Rose Library was established in 1866 through the munificence of Chauncey Rose, of Terre Haute, Indiana, a native of Wethersfield. It then had sixteen hundred volumes. Its fund of $1,500 has been increased by private subscriptions. It is kept in the second story of the Congregational chapel.
At Newington several libraries have existed, an account of which will be found in Roger Welles's " Annals of Newington." At Rocky Hill two rival libraries were started in 1795. That known as the Social Library was a few months the elder. Calvin Chapin, D.D., was its president. The other, known as the Free Library, had Joseph Dimock for its president. The two institutions were merged in 1820, at which time there were seventy-eight members. The town possesses one library to-day, dating from 1877.
The order of the Cincinnati was instituted, as is generally known, in 1783. Among the "real " members, three, namely, Colonel John Chester, Colonel Samuel Blatchley Webb, and Captain Ezekiel Porter Belden, were from Wethersfield. Their services in the Revolutionary Army entitled them to wear the badge of the order.
Columbia Lodge of Freemasons, No. 25, was chartered in May, 1793, for Stepney Point (Rocky Hill). It is the only one which has existed in Wethersfield township. It has had its hall in Glastonbury for many years. John Nott was the first of its Worshipful Masters.
The Village Improvement Society was organized for Wethersfield village in 1883, and is in a flourishing condition.
484
MEMORIAL HISTORY OF HARTFORD COUNTY.
Under the head of Mills and Factories there will be nothing of great magnitude to record, since Wethersfield is an agricultural community, and her streams furnish but a limited supply of water-power.
It is quite probable that the first "corne mill" in the colony was that built by Leonard Chester, in 1637, on the stream known as Mill (or Sucker) Brook. In his first will, drawn in November of that year, he devises it to his son John. John Coultman, the schoolmaster of the town, attended this mill in 1648. For about one hundred and twenty years past its successors have been known as the " Adams Mill," hav- ing been mainly owned by descendants of Amasa Adams.
At Rocky Hill, at Dividend, the Rev. Gershom Bulkeley put up a grist-mill in 1678. The town had granted the land therefor to Governor Winthrop in 1661 ; but in 1668 he released his title to the town, which in turn granted the same land to Bulkeley. A mill was maintained here until some twenty years ago. At Beckley Quarter is the next oldest mill still in use. More recently one was built at Newington, close to New Britain township. At Griswoldville within the past year was erected the only grist-mill running to-day within the present town- ship, Beckley's being now in Berlin township. Bones and gypsum have been ground in most of these mills.
The first saw-mill was built by Thomas Harris, of Hartford, in 1667, on the south side of Hoccanum River, near Spar-mill Swamp. It was be- yond the eastern limit of Wethersfield, but was brought within it by the Indian Purchase of Five-Mile in 1672.
The next one was that built in 1678 by Emanuel Buck, John and George Riley, and Samuel Boardman (all of Wethersfield village), at Pipe-stave Swamp, now in Newington. Saw-mill Path led to it through what is now Welles Quarter. John Hunniwell's saw-mill was built on Beaver (now Tando's) Brook about 1680.
At Rocky Hill, Joshua Robbins, Jr., Eliphalet Dickinson, and Eben- ezer Dickinson built a saw-mill on a branch of Goffe's Brook abont 1713. Between 1755 and 1786 several permits were granted by the town to build a saw-mill at the Folly. One of the busiest saw-mills was that built as an annex to the Chester (or Adams) grist-mill, about 1820, and now discontinued. Ozias Griswold put up one in Gris- woldville, which was demolished about 1815 to give place to a fulling- mill.
Bricks, at first, were mostly used in chimneys and laid in clay. In June, 1653, Matthew Williams employed Samuel Dickinson to assist him in making bricks, paying him sixpence per day in wampum. Where the kiln was is unknown. That of John Hunniwell, in 1680, was on the west bank of the present Tando's Brook. The latest kiln worked was that just south of the Folly, abandoned about ten years ago.
Samuel Smith was a " fellmonger" in 1640. John Smith was ad- mitted an "inhabitant," that he might " set up his trade of tanning," in 1672. Hence it is inferred that the dressing of sheepskins was prac- tised in Wethersfield earlier than the tanning and currying of hides of cattle. There have been at times four or five tanneries coexistent in Wethersfield, including Rocky Hill. Two, Justus Riley's and Abraham Crane's, are remembered by people of to-day.
In early days smithies were numerous, and they consumed large quantities of charcoal before the introduction of "sea-coals." The
485
WETHERSFIELD.
earliest " Cole kill" mentioned is that of Thomas Hurlburt, in 1677, by the brook now called Tando's. No charcoal is now made in the township.
Wethersfield exported thirty thousand pipe-staves per annum, as early as 1641, to the West Indies. Pipe-stave Swamp, now in Newing- ton, was so called in the records in 1677. The industry continued for more than one hundred and fifty years. These, as well as clapboards, were split out or " rived," and not sawn.
Zachariah Seymour, son of Richard, of Hartford, set up a fulling- mill near the confluence of Two-stone and Hang-dog brooks, in 1697. It is supposed that Jacob Griswold, who settled in Griswoldville about 1712, built a fulling-mill there. In 1820 there were three such mills in the township; to-day there are none. The Griswolds, for several generations, were clothiers as well as fullers. Cloth-dressing was be- gun about 1795 by Thomas Griswold, Sr., and continued by the Gris- wold family until 1856.
John Stewart's still, in 1775, is the earliest of which. the writer finds mention ; but there were carlier ones. One below the landing, at Rocky Hill, for making "rye gin," is still remembered ; also one owned by Captain Wait Robbins, near his house, west of Goffe's Brook. This latter made cider-brandy. In 1820 there were five in the township. None remains.
Much might be said of the carding, spinning, weaving, and knitting once done in Wethersfield and Newington. James Wallace was a weaver of stockings of "silk-cotton thread and of worsted " in 1776. A few years ago large quantities of underwear were knitted by stockinet machinery at the two water-power factories in Griswoldville. The in- dustry began in 1849 and continued about twenty years.
Thomas Griswold & Co., at Griswoldville, in 1831, were the pioneers in the use of the power-loom in Wethersfield. They wove satinet until 1849, when they were succeeded by J. Welles Griswold & Co., and the latter by J. Welles and Charles K. Griswold; the two latter firms changing the business to stockinet-knitting. In 1845 forty-three thou- sand yards of satinet were woven at the Wethersfield mills ; and they consumed thirty-five thousand two hundred and fifty pounds of wool. In this same year Wethersfield produced twenty thousand pounds of cotton-batting. No textile fabrics are made in the township at present. The " Brick" factory, at Griswoldville, was the last in opera- tion. It manufactured stockinet underclothes.
We are without data as to the manufacture of hats of wool and of fur. Captain John Palmer's works, on the east side of Broad Street, were the last, and they are still remembered. Palmer "felted " large quantities of the fur of muskrats.
In 1819 and 1820 Miss Sophia Woodhouse (afterward Mrs. Gurdon Welles) was awarded premiums for "leghorn hats," which she had plaited. In 1821 letters-patent were granted to her as the inventor of a new material for bonnets, etc. She used the stalks, above the upper joints, of the " spear-grass " and " red-top " grass, commonly growing about Wethersfield. The articles made therefrom acquired a national reputation for excellence. The London Society of Arts, in 1821, awarded her twenty guineas for a bonnet exhibited in its fair; certi- fying that the material used was " superior in color and fineness to the
486
MEMORIAL HISTORY OF HARTFORD COUNTY.
best Leghorn straw." The wife of President John Quincy Adams wore one of the bonnets, and her husband wrote of it that it was "an extraor- dinary specimen of American manufacture." The industry was broken up about 1835 by a conflagration which consumed the workshop.
Wethersfield, perhaps, has the honor of having made the first corn brooms in this country. They were made by Levi Dickinson, a native of Stepney parish ; certainly after his removal to Hadley, near the close of the last century, and perhaps before he removed. In 1845 they were still made at Rocky Hill in considerable quantities ; the product of that year having been five thousand five hundred brooms.
Rope-making was done in Stepney parish by Jonathan Bill, a hun- dred years ago. His rope-walk was a little north of the landing there. James Church, of Hartford, took the business in 1800, and continued it until 1827. Asher Robbins, Esq., in 1830, built a fine hemp-mill, on Sucker Brook ; but it, with other enterprises, ruined him financially. The Churches, of Hartford, bought the works in 1834, and removed them to that city. The building which remained became a wagon- factory. Robbins also had a rope-walk, which the Churches bought, removing the machinery.
Potash was made in 1815, or earlier, at the south end of Broad Street. In 1831 the late Dr. Erastus F. Cooke and others were incor- porated as " The Eagle Laboratory Company." Their works (now put to other use) still exist. For some years they did a large business in the manufacture of saltpetre, copperas, etc.
Books were published in Wethersfield during the first forty years of the present century. Nearly all the works of Frederick Butler, A.M., were printed there. Probably the earliest local printer was Abel Dem- ing. A volume entitled, "Life, Writings, and Opinions of Thomas Jefferson, by B. L. Rayner," an octavo volume of 556 pages, bears the imprint, "New York : published by A. Francis and W. Boardman, 1832; " but it was printed in a building now the dwelling-house on the north corner opposite to the old May's Tavern. Both publishers lived in Wethersfield.
William Adams and Hiram Havens began wood-working by water- power, a little up-stream from Adams's Mill, in 1837. About their first work was the remodelling the interior of the Congregational meeting- house. The Plough-Works succeeded to these.
William Boardman, now of the house of William Boardman & Sons, of Hartford, was the first to start the important industry of coffee and spice grinding in this vicinity, if not in the State, about forty years ago, in Wethersfield.
In 1843 Hiram Havens began the manufacture of ploughs for Thomas Smith & Company, of Hartford, now Smith, Bourn, & Co. They were for the Southern trade. In 1845 the number made was one thousand. The works were removed to Hartford in 1848.
The Griswoldville Manufacturing Company manufactured the first edge-tools and hammers, at Griswoldville, in 1837. The charter mem- bers were Thomas, Jacob, Justus, and Stanley Griswold, and Asher Robbins ; and their works were in the brick factory, which they built. This was destroyed by fire in 1847. They were succeeded by Bailey & Wolcott (Arnold Bailey and Oliver Wolcott) in 1847-1848, whose works were in the old cloth-dressing mill next west of the Jacob Griswold
LUURN
RESIDENCE OF S. W. ROBBINS, - OLD WETHERSFIELD CHURCH IN THE BACKGROUND.
489
WETHERSFIELD.
dwelling-house. The manufacture of axes was begun at Dividend, in Rocky Hill, about 1830, in the old grist-mill standing on the site of the Rev. Gershom Bulkeley's mill. The same works were kept going until about 1867 by several parties, including Israel Williams, William Butler, and Welles & Wilcox (General Leonard R. Welles and Alfred Wilcox), respectively : the latter adding chisels and " plantation " hoes to the list of goods made.
About a hundred years ago Captain Thomas Danforth, at Rocky Hill, was a manufacturer of pewter and tin wares, mostly for the Southern States. He used horse-power to drive some of his machinery. He had among his apprentices Ashbel Griswold (born in 1784), also of Rocky Hill. The latter, in 1808, removed to Meriden, and there began the manufacture of articles of block-tin. He thus was one of the earliest promoters of the britannia industry for which that city has become famous. IIe died wealthy, in 1853.
In 1775 Leonard Chester, then twenty-five years of age, a brother of Colonel Jolm, had six men employed in the manufacture of pins. He then memorialized the General Assembly for a bounty from the State, and a committee of that body found that he had expended £1,700 in building up the industry.
The oldest carriage-works, those of Neff & Merriam (William Neff & Edmond Merriam), were a few rods below the landing, at Rocky Hill, in buildings subsequently used by Sugden & Butler as a foundry. They were established about 1830, and their products were almost wholly sold in the South. At Wilmington, North Carolina, this firm built and owned a "repository " for carriages in 1839. The business was continued until about 1849.
We have not space to give an account of the remaining manufactures ; most of them later than those above mentioned. They include wood- carving, cabinet, and chair-making, foundries (one, that of the Wethers- field Novelty Co., established in 1872, still in operation), wagon-making, buttons, coffin-making, and a mattress-factory ; which last is still doing a large business, conducted by the Hewitt Brothers.
The little space we have left will not permit us even to mention all the items of farming, live-stock, fruit-culture, the dairy, etc. We must be content to give a passing notice to some few of these matters. There are indications that John Oldham sowed wheat or rve in Wethersfield in 1634. When he was murdered, in July, 1636, the General Court directed Thurston Raynor to harvest Mr. Oldham's "corne [grain], as he hath hitherto done." If this means that Raynor had looked after Oldham's grain the season before (which is reasonable, seeing that Oldham was a mariner), - then it is nearly certain that Oldham had harvested a crop in 1635, which had been sown the previous fall. He also left several horses, and the Court speaks of " two of the mares." Cattle, horses, and swine were in Wethersfield in 1635. Goats, at first, were much more common than sheep, being less in danger from wolves. Maize ("Indian corne") and "Indian beans" - the latter supposed to have been the small, flat pole-bean known to-day as the Seiva bean - were found cultivated by the savages. Hemp, and prob- ably flax, was raised as early as 1640; and both these fibres were cultivated down to forty years ago, and to a small extent later. Barley
490
MEMORIAL HISTORY OF HARTFORD COUNTY.
was grown within the memory of people now living. Malt was made therefrom soon after 1640.
Tobacco-raising was practised very early. In 1704 a town vote pro- hibited people from establishing any more " tobacco-yards, or gardens " in the public highways. Wethersfield to-day produces large crops of the finest " seed-leaf" tobacco, and Cuban tobacco is raised by some growers.
The onion has been a staple crop here for very many years; the "Wethersfield large red " being recognized as a distinctive and favorite variety. As early as 1710 Benjamin Adams sold seventy-one bushels of these bulbs to Dr. James Poisson.
In later years some experiments have been made in the culture of the " top onion," whose small bulbs grow at the top of the flower-stalk ; also with the " potato onion," the bulbs of which are held together at the roots. Neither of these have proved profitable. The practice has been to "bunch" the onions on ropes of straw ; the bunches weighing from two to two and a half pounds each. Of late years the biggest onions have been sold by the bushel. Nearly all are sent to New York. The culture of the crop is mainly done by women and boys.
The Rev. Samuel A. Peters, the unveracious author of the " History of Connecticut" (London, 1781), says: " It is the rule with parents to buy annually a silk gown for each daughter above the age of seven years, till she is married. The young beauty is obliged in return to weed a patch of onions with her own hands." This is about as true as his other statements, - that the township is " ten miles square " (making it contain at that time one hundred square miles instead of thirty-six), and that "the people are more gay than polite."
Closely connected with onion-culture is that of the garlic. This member of the leek family has been cultivated for many years. The product is shipped to New York, whence it is nearly all exported to the West Indies and South America. They are bunched by the roots in- stead of the tops, as is the case with onions, - the ropes weighing about a pound each.
Broom-corn was early cultivated here. It was a Wethersfield man, Levi Dickinson, who, in 1797, is said to have made the first broom from the panicles of this plant. It was at Hadley, Mass., whither Dickinson had removed. As he began to cultivate the plant at the same time, it is quite likely that its culture was then begun in Wethersfield, where large crops were grown as late as twenty-five years ago.
It is probable that teasels were cultivated from near the beginning of the present century, soon after cloth-dressing became an important industry of the town. The woollen-mills of the State became a market for these natural wool-cards, and the writer remembers many fields of them in Wethersfield.
The raising of garden and flower seeds was begun by James Lock- wood Belden in 1830, and has continued to be an important industry of the town ever since. The business has since been carried on by Butler N. Strong & Co., Comstock, Ferre, & Co., Johnson, Robbins, & Co., Thomas Griswold & Co., and William Meggatt ; all which, except- ing Strong and Co., continue in the industry.
Potatoes and other tubers are grown in great abundance. Car- rots are mostly grown with onions, being sown with them. Market-
491
WETHERSFIELD.
gardening is carried on somewhat extensively. Among the wild fruits and plants may be mentioned the large grapes of the meadows, fox grapes, choke pears, the meadow plum (now quite scarce), the wild cherry and choke cherry, the barberry (introduced as a hedge-plant ), the black currant, the Jerusalem artichoke, asparagus (probably natu- ralized), and most of the wild fruits and nuts found in other parts of the State. Nearly all the cultivated fruits found in this latitude are grown in Wethersfield. Some of the mulberry (Morus multicaulis) trees, planted in the days when the silk-worm fever was raging, some forty years ago, still remain.
The safflower, spikenard, comfrey, opium-poppy, smallage, rue, wormwood, coriander, thyme, and other plants which formerly were found in many gardens have pretty generally disappeared.
Live-stock breeding has become an important item. The "native," or oldest breed of neat-cattle is supposed to have been of Devon and Hereford origin mixed. Later, the Durham has been introduced; and at present, Wethersfield breeders are importing Ayrshire, Jersey, Hol- stein, and Swiss cattle. Sheep-raising is no longer practised, except by a very few. The Leicestershire was the most common until the intro- duction of the merino variety. A few years ago some of the South Down and Cotswold breeds were imported.
The writer had purposed, space permitting, to add a chapter contain- ing biographical notices of some of the sons of Wethersfield. This must be omitted ; but the reader will find in the preceding pages special mention of some of the most prominent of these men.
We must also neglect the quarries, old buildings, lawsuits, crimes, conflagrations, disasters by hurricane and flood, adventures, etc. One subject, however, is of such historic importance that its omission here would be quite inexcusable. We refer to witchcraft, or, as the law-books sometimes termed it, " conjuration and sorcery."
It is not surprising that a belief in the existence of witchery pre- vailed in New England so late as about two centuries ago, considering that in England so recent a law-writer as Sir William Blackstone recognized it as a possible and punishable offence ; and the penalty provided for it by our General Court was in conformity with the Mosaic Code, and was directly borrowed from the English Common Law.
It is probable that Wethersfield may rightfully claim the unenviable distinction of having furnished a majority of the proven (?) cases of witchcraft in Connecticut, leaving out New Haven Colony. Mary John- son, in 1648, was, " by her owne confession," found guilty of " familiar- ity with the Devil." It does not appear whether she was executed, but she is not heard of afterward. She is supposed to have been the same Mary Johnson who was publicly whipped at Wethersfield, in 1646, for theft.
John Carrington, a carpenter, with his wife Joane, came to Wethers- field before 1643. They had a homestead on Sandy Lane, near the cor- ner of Fort Street. Carrington was probably a somewhat lawless man, for in 1650 he had been fined £10 for " bartering a gun with an Indian." In March, 1651, he and his wife were indicted separately for witchcraft. The charge was in the usual form, that, "Thou hast entertained famil- iarity with Sathan, the greate enemy of God and mankinde ; and by his
492
MEMORIAL HISTORY OF HARTFORD COUNTY.
helpe thou has done workes above the course of nature ; for which, both according to the lawe of God and the established lawe of this Common wealth, thou deservest to die." The unfortunate culprits were convicted ; and the husband certainly, and the wife probably, executed. The Court, administering upon Carrington's estate, directed that the inventory thereof be filed, but not recorded.
John Harrison and his wife Catharine came to Wethersfield to live in 1647 or 1648. Their home was on the west side of High Street. The husband, having in the mean time held office as a town-crier and a surveyor of highways, died in 1666, leaving three daughters (the oldest sixteen years of age), and an estate inventoried at £610. In May, 1669, the widow was convicted of witchcraft by a jury of the Court of Assist- ants. The General Court, at its May session, 1670, on appeal, directed the Court of Assistants to re-try the case without the jury. This was done, and that tribunal, as thus constituted, was wiser than when it had the assistance of a panel of the peers of the accused person ; for the release of the prisoner was directed. The Court, however, ordered Mrs. Harrison to pay the costs of prosecution, and advised her to remove from the hostile township. She probably took the Court's advice.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.