USA > Connecticut > Hartford County > The memorial history of Hartford County, Connecticut, 1633-1884, Vol. II > Part 9
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The church building was begun in 1738. It was taken down in 1831 by George Burleigh Holcomb, who used some of its timbers in the build- ings on the place where he now resides. The present edifice was begun in 1830 and completed in 1831. The first clergyman employed in the parish was a Mr. Wolcott, who preached in 1737. The Rev. Ebenezer Mills was settled in 1741. From 1754 to 1760 there was preaching by candidates. The Rev. Nehemiah Strong, afterward professor in Yale College, was settled as pastor, Jan. 21, 1761, and dismissed in 1767. The next settled pastor was the Rev. Aaron Booge, November, 1776. The society appointed seventeen tavern-keepers for the day of his ordination ! He was dismissed in 1785, but supplied the pulpit four years longer. The Rev. Whitfield Cowles was ordained in 1794; but dissensions arose, he was tried for heresy, and the society fell into discord, and for a while lost its legal existence. The next regular ministers were the Rev's Hervey Wilbur, 1815-1816, and Eber L. Clark, 1816-1820, who were also chaplains at Newgate prison. There have been frequent changes of ministers since then. The Rev. Joel H. Lindsley, who found the church in 1865 in a very reduced condition, owing to quarrels and dissensions arising from the questions of the war, did much to revive it and to endear himself to the people. At that time the church building was renovated and improved. The pulpit is now supplied by the Rev. D. A. Strong.
The Methodist church at Copper Hill was built in 1839, and in 1859 was thoroughly repaired, and moved about five rods westward. Like all Methodist churches, it has had regular changes of pastor. In the
1 This curious and very interesting map is now in the State Library in the Capitol in Hart- ford, and would be reproduced here in fac-simile but that its peculiar proportions make that impossible. It is a topographical and genealogical chart for a considerable part of Simsbury as then settled.
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EAST GRANBY.
ministry of Lemuel Richardson, in 1871, there was an extensive revival of religion, attended with remarkable manifestations. The writer, at a single evening meeting in the church, which lasted from seven o'clock until midnight, witnessed as many as fifteen persons who became appar- ently unconscious. Some were stretched upon the floor ; others were lying or being supported upon the seats. This visitation of "the Spirit" was regarded as a great blessing, and it certainly did strengthen the church in numbers. Mr. Richardson was a large, powerful man, full of strength, zeal, and boldness, and possessed of a strong, loud voice, which he used in singing as well as in preaching and prayer.
The celebrated Simsbury copper-mine, where afterward was located for fifty-four years the Connecticut State prison called Newgate, was first known to the inhabitants of Simsbury in 1705. Two years later there was an association of such proprietors of the town as chose to subscribe to articles of agreement for the purpose of opening and work- ing it. The location of the mine was about a hundred rods from the west ledge of the Talcott Mountain, at its highest point in East Granby, which is a point nearly as high as any in the same ridge in the State. The position is one of much picturesqueness and beauty. The period of greatest mining activity was from 1715 to 1737 ; during these years it was carried on in face of great dangers and greater discourage- ments arising from the newness of the country and the want of proper facilities of every nature pertaining to the business. The articles of agreement under which the subscribing proprietors, in 1707, under- took to work the mine, provided that, after deducting the expenses of the work, there be allowed to the town ten shillings on each ton of copper produced, and the residue be divided among the proprietors in proportion to their subscriptions. The company only dug the ore ; they did not undertake to smelt and refine it. In the same year they entered into a contract with Messrs. John Woodbridge, of Springfield, Dudley Woodbridge, of Simsbury, and Timothy Woodbridge, Jr., of Hartford, all clergymen, who agreed to run and refine the ore, and cast the metal into bars fit for transportation or a market ; and, after deducting the tenth part belonging to the town (of which two thirds was to be given for the maintenance of an able schoolmaster in Simsbury, and the other third to the collegiate school of Yale College), the residne was to be equally divided between them and the proprie- tors, or workers of the mine. The legislature, in 1709, passed an act vesting the right to control all matters relating to the mine in the major part of the proprietors, according to the interests of cach ; and it was under arrangement with this organization that mining opera- tions were carried on until the State began to use the mine as a prison. The act also provided for the adjudication of all matters in controversy between any and all persons connected with the mines, by a board of commissioners. During the mining excitement companies, organized in Boston, in London, and in Holland, expended large sums at Copper Hill. Governor Belcher, of Massachusetts, said in 1735 that he had spent £15,000 there. The mine most improved, and where the great- est excavation was made, was the one purchased for a prison. The most extensive workings, aside from those on Copper Hill, were known as Higley's mine, situated a little more than a mile southward, on
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MEMORIAL HISTORY OF HARTFORD COUNTY.
land now owned by Hilton Griffin, and nearly west of the old vine- yard gap in the mountain, where upon the map of ancient Simsbury Mr. Higley's house is seen to have been located. Mr. Edmund Quincy, of Boston, had a company of miners working here at the outbreak of the Revolutionary War; soon afterward the works were abandoned. About 1737 Samuel Higley, here referred to, manufactured a rude copper coin which to some extent circulated as a representative of value in the vicinity, and has since been known as the Higley Copper. PER. AS YO The coins are said to have passed current for "two and . PLEASE sixpence ;" presumably in pa- per, because their intrinsic value 00 was only a penny. They were 27 37 18 not all of one device ; but one now in the Connecticut His- A HIGLEY COPPER. torical Society, at Hartford, is here represented by engravings, showing both sides. Such a coin has now a cabinet value of perhaps a hundred dollars. The interest in the mines was very much abated after 1737. Of the ore dug, a considerable part was shipped to Europe ; some of it arrived safely, and was smelted. One cargo was reported lost in the English Channel, and one captured by the French. About 1721 smelting and refining works were built and secretly operated (to what extent is unknown) at a place in West Simsbury called Hanover by the Germans, who were then conducting the business. The locality has since retained the name.
At the May session of the General Assembly, in 1773, William Pitkin, Erastus Ellsworth, and Jonathan Humphreys were appointed a committee to "view and explore the copper-mines at Simsbury " with regard to the fitness of that place for a prison, and after their favor- able report they were authorized to obtain possession of the property. They bought up a mining lease that had nineteen years to run, and prepared the place to receive prisoners. The legislature gave it the name of Newgate. Burglars, horse-thieves, and counterfeiters were liable to be sent there to work in the mines. John Viets was the first master, or keeper, of the prison. The first convict, John Henson, was received Dec. 22, 1773, and escaped on the 9th of the next month. The history of the prison is a long record of escapes, uprisings, fires, and other troubles, although it carly acquired the reputation of a very secure place, as appears by General Washington's refer- ence to it.1 In 1777 the prisoners were all taken to the Hartford jail, and probably the prison was not used again until 1780, when it
1 Letter from General Washington to the Committee of Safety, Simsbury.
CAMBRIDGE, Dec. 11, 1775.
GENTLEMEN, - The prisoners which will be delivered you with this, having been tried by a court-martial, and deemed to be such flagrant and atrocious villains that they cannot by any means be set at large or confined in any place near this camp, were sentenced to be sent to Symsbury in Connecticut. You will therefore be pleased to have them secured in your jail, or in such other manner as to you shall seem necessary, so that they cannot possibly make their escape. The charges of their imprisonment will be at the Continental expense.
I am, etc., GEORGE WASHINGTON.
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was rebuilt, and the prisoners were set at other work than mining. Previously they had mined ore, which was sold by order of the legis- lature. There was another sweeping fire in 1782, and the place was then abandoned until 1790. A new prison was completed in October, 1790, and Major Peter Curtiss was appointed keeper. The heavy wall about the premises was built in 1802. The prisoners were confined
NEWGATE PRISON IN 1802.
below ground ; many of them wore iron fetters, and tradition has it that some were chained to rings in the wall. There was a treadmill under one of the buildings, which the convicts operated.
All the prisoners were finally removed to Wethersfield, on the 1st of October, 1827, and the prison buildings and land were sold shortly afterward to persons interested in mining operations. The history of Newgate has been written out with great detail by Noah A. Phelps. After the abandonment of the property by the State for prison pur- poses several efforts were made, without success, to carry on the min- ing of copper. No considerable amount of ore was reduced, and the experiments were abandoned in 1859. Since then the mines have served only to afford a curious interest to those who visit the place on account of its associations as the former prison of the State. Its buildings are now far gone to decay, and soon nothing but crumbling walls of stone will mark the place, once famous alike for its hidden treasures of copper and for being the first substantial stronghold for the criminals of the colony.
Few communities have been less subject to change of inhabitants than East Granby. Its lands are excellent, and those who are engaged in agricultural pursuits have very much to encourage them to remain. Of the families shown upon the map of ancient Simsbury to have been first settlers in the place, those of Clark, Phelps, Holcomb, VOL. II .- 6.
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MEMORIAL HISTORY OF HARTFORD COUNTY.
NEWGATE PRISON AS IT NOW APPEARS.
Griffin, Stephens, Alderman, and Owen have always had successors of their respective names living in the town ; and of Thomas Stephens, Samuel Clark, Joseph Phelps, and John Holcomb, their lineal descend- ants, Frederick F. Stephens, Charles P. Clarke, Richard H. Phelps, and Morton Cornish, are cach respectively occupying the homestead estate of his ancestor.
Elmore Clark, now seventy-eight years of age, has been the clerk of the town since its organization, and occupies the same house built by his ancestor, Joel Clark, in 1746. Isaac P. Owen, recently deceased, was the last representative by name of that family in the town ; he, too, occupied the homestead of his first ancestor in East Granby, and while living in the same house represented the towns of Windsor, Windsor Locks, and East Granby, in the legislature of the State. The families of Moore, Clark, Owen, and Forward came directly from Windsor to settle in East Granby ; while those of Higley, Phelps, Holcomb, Viets, and Cornish came to the place from Lower Simsbury, where there was a settlement, mostly by Windsor people, more than forty years earlier than in the parish of Turkey Hills. In the death of Alfred Winchel, in 1879, that family name ceased to have a representative in East Granby. Dr. John Viets, the ancestor of one of the now most numerous families in the town, is said to have come to Simsbury in 1710, being physician to a mining expedition from Germany. There seems to be some reason to question the accuracy of this date, because at that time the copper- mines had hardly begun to attract attention from abroad ; and further, because his name does not appear upon the ancient map made about 1730. His grave is in the cemetery at Hop Meadow, in Simsbury. His son John was the first keeper at Newgate, and was probably the first of the family who lived within the limits of East Granby. The family names of Viets and Cornish do not appear upon the parish record of
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EAST GRANBY.
Turkey Hills until 1743 and 1744 respectively ; those of Gay and Thrall in 1751 and 1754. The first representative in town of the Gays, was Richard, who came from Dedham, Mass., and ever since there have been here lineal representatives of that name. The name of Bates is one prominently associated with the town since 1747, when Lemuel Bates came from Long Island, learned the saddler's trade, and built the house now occupied by his grandson, William H. Bates. The names of Hillyer and Skinner are not found upon the parish register until 1779. Colonel Andrew Hillyer, the father of Charles T. Hillyer, of Hartford, was probably settled in Turkey Hills about 1774. He was then a young man, a graduate of Yale College, - had served under Colonel Lyman, in the English campaign of 1760, against the French in Canada, and was also a soldier in the expedition of Lord Albemarle against Havana. Such was the fatality by sickness in that expedition, that he was, with one exception, the sole survivor of fourteen persons enlisted from Simsbury. He was one of the first to respond to the patriotic call to arms in the War for Independence ; a lieutenant at Bunker Hill, he served throughout the war, holding successively the commissions of lieutenant, captain, and adjutant. His grave is in the old cemetery at East Granby. After the removal to Hartford of General Charles T. Hillyer in 1853, no representative of that family remained in town.
Of the many persons born in East Granby who have obtained dis- tinction in business and professional life, perhaps no other has merited and attained to the renown of Walter Forward. He was the fourth, in order of birth, of ten children born to Samuel Forward and Susannah Holcomb. The place of his birth (which occurred Jan. 24, 1783) is shown upon the map of ancient Simsbury. He lived in Turkey Hills, receiving only the advantages of a common-school education, until in 1803 he removed with his father to Aurora, Ohio. Walter immediately went to Pittsburg, Penn., attended for a short time an academic school, studied law with Judge Young, and was admitted to practice at the age of twenty-four. While engaged in his law studies, in 1805, he also edited the "Tree of Liberty," a JJeffersonian paper, at Pittsburg. His success as a lawyer was immediate, and he soon ranked high in his
profession. In 1822 he was elected to Congress, where he served three terms in succession. In 1837 he was a valuable member of the Constitutional Convention of the State. In 1841 he was appointed by President Harrison first Comptroller of the Treasury ; and by John Tyler made Secretary of the same .. After retiring from the secretary- ship of the Treasury he resumed the practice of the law, in which he continued until appointed by President Taylor Charge d'Affaires to Denmark, a position which he resigned to accept that of Presiding Judge of Alleghany County. This latter he held at the time of his death, in 1852.
He was a man of most kind and generous nature, and interested himself to aid his younger brothers to education and position. His brother Chauncey, born in 1793, studied law in his office, and settled in Somerset, Penn. He was a member of both houses of the legislature of Pennsylvania, and three terms, from 1825 to 1831, a member of Con- gress. The daughter of Chauncey Forward became the wife of the Hon. Jeremiah Black, who also studied law in the office of Walter
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MEMORIAL HISTORY OF HARTFORD COUNTY.
Forward, at Pittsburg. Two sisters, Hannah Forward Clark and Betsey Forward Fowler, lived to the advanced ages of ninety-eight and ninety- seven years respectively.
Of those born within the limits of East Granby, who have achieved great wealth and prominence in business affairs, may properly be men- tioned Anson G. Phelps and George Robbins, of New York City, Allyn Robbins, of Chicago, and General Charles T. Hillyer, of Hartford.
The following persons, residents of the town, were soldiers in the War for Independence : -
Colonel Andrew Hillyer, Hon. Samuel Woodruffe, Isaac Owen, Lemuel Bates, Mathew Griswold, Roswell Phelps, Richard Gay, Joel Clark, Reuben Clark, Zopher Bates, John Forward, Hezekiah Holcomb, John Cornish, Asahel Holcomb, Thomas Stevens, Jesse Clark, Joseph Clark, John Thrall, Luke Thrall, David Eno, Reuben Phelps, and Samuel Clark.
Soldiers in the War of 1812 were : -
Dan. Forward, Joseph Cornish, Appollos Gay, Orson P. Phelps, Calvin Holcomb, Alexander Hoskins, William K. Thrall, Erastus Holcomb, Gurdon Gould, Peultha Clark, Uriah Holcomb, Elihu Andrus, John G. Munner, Alexan- der Clark, Abiel Clark, Chandler Owen, Sardius Thrall, Charles Buck, Elihu Phelps, Ephraim Shaylor, William Rockwell, Joseph Dyer, Jesse Clark.
The widows of Joseph Cornish and Gurdon Gould, aged respectively eighty-five and ninety-four years, are now living in town, and are pensioners of the Government.
Citizens of the town who enlisted as soldiers in the War of the Rebellion were : -
Colonel Richard E. Holcomb, Leeds Brown, Oliver K. Abels, Francis V. Brown, Wesley J. Fox, William W. Morgan, Lafayette F. Johnson, Henry H. Davis, Corporal Sidney H. Hayden, Robert Hohnes, James Odey, Lewis S. Porter, Delos R. Pinney, Daniel W. Griffin, Homer Russel, Edward W. Pierce, Nelson W. Pierce, Newton P. Johnson, Lieutenant Edward Pinney, Sergeant Eugene C. Alderman, Corporal Henry W. Davis, Corporal Emery M. Griffin, Wagoner John O. Holcomb, Lyman J. Barden, Luther W. Eno, Henry E. Griffin, James Boyle, Tryon Holcomb, Webster B. Latham, Alexander Patter- son, Alfred A. Phelps, Lewis C. Talmadge, Charles W. Talmadge, and James Jackson, - 34.
The town furnished more than one hundred men to the service; but the above list is believed to include all who were residents at the time of their enlistment.
leh Horaer Melenter
VIII. EAST HARTFORD.
BY JOSEPH O. GOODWIN.
T THE town of East Hartford has a population of 3,500. It covers an area of about five miles in extent north and south, and about three and one half miles east and west. Fertile meadows lie along the Connecticut River from the northern boundary of the town to the Hockanum, and half a mile below this stream the land again descends to the meadow level. On the eastern edge of the meadow the ground rises fifteen feet or more to the upland. The town as a whole is quite level. It is crossed from east to west by the Hockanum River, running tortuously, and, below Burnside, through a shallow valley of pasture-lands. The surface of the town is further seamed by the courses of several brooks, crossing the town in the same general direc- tion with the Hockanum. Spencer Hill, a fine rounded knoll south- cast of the village of Burnside, and Great Hill, covered with forest, just north of it, are among the most prominent elevations. There are sev- eral other moderate undulations, affording a gentle relief from the general level. The soil is a sandy loam, easily tilled. A hidden ledge of sandstone underlies the falls at Burnside and extends southerly sev- eral miles. It is said that the first settlers found the town, excepting its meadows, covered by a forest of white and yellow pine. The eastern half of the town is now partly covered by wood.
The principal aboriginal occupants of this town were the Podunks. a small clan numbering from sixty to two hundred bowmen, - the lower estimate probably being nearer the truth. Their principal place of habitation was along the Podunk River at the northern boundary of the town. Certain rights of territory reserved to them in the meadows here were recognized by the General Court, which ordered a fence about it in 1650, at the cost of adjacent proprietors. Here they spent their summers beside the well-stocked river, cultivating their slender crops, - passing their winters in sheltered lodges by the inland streams. The valley of the Hockanum and the adjacent uplands were also favor- ite haunts of the Indians, their abundant fish and game affording an easy sustenance, while the skins and furs of animals provided a ready means of barter with the Dutch or English. Fort Hill, a promontory projecting southerly into the valley about a quarter of a mile east from Main Street, was once a stronghold of the Podunks. It had a ditch and palisades across its northern side, cutting off approach except through the swamp. Several of their burial-places have been discov- ered in South Windsor, one lying near Main Street a little north of the East Hartford town line, from which numerous relics have been taken.
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MEMORIAL HISTORY OF HARTFORD COUNTY.
Skeletons have been dug up near Colt's Ferry, and many stone relics have been found in the fields adjacent to their haunts. The Indians in peaceful times shifted their lodging-places as the presence of game or spots fit for their rude tillage invited them. The meadows, kept partly cleared by their autumnal fires, attracted the deer and perhaps other large game, and afforded rich interval-lands for their maize and beans. They " drove" the woods in the fall for their winter's supply of provisions ; and their quests for grapes, nuts, acorns, herbs and roots, and their still-hunts and trapping-circuits, made them familiar with this whole region.
One of the first among the Indians to invite the English here was Wahginnacut, a Podunk, who went to Boston, and afterward to Plym- outh, in 1631, desiring their aid against the Pequots, who had driven the Podunks from their lands. The Indians freely gave up their lands here to the English, expecting nothing but good from the presence of such shrewd and powerful allies ; and the young colony carly as- snmed a sort of tutelary care of the savages, which their lawless natures soon found rather irksome; but the courts protected their rights, and arbitrated in their continnal differences. The most famous of their troubles was their quarrel with Uncas, the Mohegan, and Sequassen, chief of the Hartford Indians, concerning the killing of a sagamore by a young Podunk. By request of Uncas the parties came before the magistrates at Hartford. The blood of the murderer and that of his friends was demanded ; but the Podunks offered wampum in repara- tion, claiming that the slain sachem had murdered the young man's uncle. After much persuasion by the English, Tantonimo, the one- eyed chief of the Podunks, agreed to deliver up the murderer, but instead stole away to Podunk Fort, at Fort Hill. Upon this the Eng- lish gave them over to their own devices. Uncas assembled his war- riors, but was met near the Hoekanum River by Tantonimo with a nearly equal force. He threatened to bring the dreadful Mohawks upon the Podunks, and left withont hazarding a battle. He afterward em- ployed a crafty warrior to fire a Podunk wigwam and to leave Mohawk weapons upon his trail. These the Podunks found, and in alarm gave up the murderer and sned for peace. The quarrel was brought to the notice of the Commissioners of the United Colonies of New England, who, in September, 1657, ordered that " Uncas bee required to p'mit the Podunk Indians to returne to their dwellings & there abide in peace and safety wthout molestation from him or his."
The English were also solicitous for the spiritnal interests of their savage wards. According to De Forest, the Podunks "were the first Indians of Connecticut who had an opportunity of hearing the preach- ing of the gospel." In 1657, John Eliot spoke to their assembled chiefs and great men in their own language, in the meeting-house in Hartford. At the close he asked them whether they would accept Christ or not. They scornfully replied, "No; yon have taken away our lands, and now want to make us your servants !" The Rev. Mr. Woodbridge, the first minister here, says, with a strong interpreta- tion of Divine justice, that these scoffers all died soon after, and that in his day (1683-1746) not one remained. The reserved rights of the Indians to certain lands in Podunk, part of which Tantonimo had bar- gained or leased to Thomas Burnham and Jacob Mygatt in 1658, were
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the subject of numerous orders by the Court. There were conflicting claimants among the whites to these lands. The looseness and munifi- cence with which the tatterdemalion sons of the forest gave away their airy title to vast tracts of land is shown by the will of Joshua, third son of Uncas. His wife was Sowgonosk, daughter of Arramamet, a Podunk chieftain. To the wedded pair the latter gave all his lands in Podunk, entailing them to his daughter's children, or to her nearest heirs by English law. This laud Joshna, at his death in 1675, willed to his two sons, with remainder to his two squaws. His administrators, in con- sequence of a prior agreement of his, in 1682 deeded the " five-miles tract," now Manchester, to the town of Hartford.
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