USA > Connecticut > New Haven County > Mount Carmel > The old Mount Carmel parish, origins & outgrowths > Part 18
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When the petition for this charter was first presented the Erie Canal was completed and a fair portion of it was in a train of suc- cessful experiment. The proposed canal filled the public eye so effec- tually as to exclude all discernment of the evils which might result from it. As the legislators were not requested to alienate the prop- erty of the State, or to subject their individual estates to the absolute
roadsides to adorn the city in future years. How much it was worth to secure such a man for superintendent of this project, it is not easy to say.
Mr. Hillhouse died on December 29, 1832, and a funeral discourse was pronounced by his pastor, Dr. Leonard Bacon. A passage from this discourse tells of his labors on behalf of the canal, and also reveals the prevalent attitude of mind toward the project itself:
"He resigned his office as Commissioner of the School Fund in 1825, as his fellow citizens were urgently calling him, in his old age, to the con- duct of a new, and in many respects, still more arduous enterprise. A great work of internal improvement, opening a new channel for com- merce, was to be constructed by the contributions of individuals, volun- tarily associating for the purpose, and to none but him could they look to be the leader of the work. At the age of three score years and ten he em- barked in the construction of the Farmington and Hampshire Canal, with all the enthusiasm and hardy vigor of his prime, and for six years he sus- tained the charge, through every discouragement and difficulty. That work will be hereafter accomplished. The men are now living who will live to see it a great and busy thoroughfare. Then the last great labor of him who, for more than half a century, was the unwearied servant of his fel- low citizens, will be acknowledged with gratitude."
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Canal, Railroad, and Factories.
power of commissions, and as there was no person or company pres- ent to object, the petitioners had it in their power to obtain a grant of power and privileges which could not be brought into exercise without a violation of the first principles of our government and the constitutional rights of many of our citizens.
Great benefits to all parties concerned were anticipated. Rivers were said to be made "to feed canals" and the rich valleys of our rivers were made to furnish the beds of canals. From these splendid prospects we have been called to witness the reality. . Most of the persons whose lands have been taken are severe sufferers without prospect of relief. The stockholders and contractors have also suf- fered. The only profits of the enterprise have gone to the draughts- man of this singular charter, to the professional advocates for its adoption, to the commissioners, to the engineers and their trained assistants, to lawyers, courts, appraisers, and last, not least, to the numerous Board of Directors.
In spite of all set-backs, however, the work was pushed through. In 1830, the boats were passing up and down as far as Westfield and by 1835 they had touched the river at Northampton. Nevertheless, it was another thing to make the enterprise pay. The essential problem was one of compe- tition with old-fashioned transportation on the Connecticut River. The maintenance of the canal was found to be enor- mously expensive. It had sixty locks* to be kept in order and attended, and required incessant oversight of the artificial banks throughout its whole length, these banks being always endangered by a heavy downfall of rain. One freshet in 1843 involved a loss of $20,000. No profits appeared and more money had to be raised in one way or another from time to time to keep the concern going. In 1845, the ques- tion of building a railroad to take the place of the canal was raised. This was finally decided upon, a new charter was ob- tained in 1847, and in January, 1848, the railroad was opened as far as Plainville. Soon after this, navigation on the canal was discontinued. In a financial review of this ex-
* See a diagram: "Profile showing the number of Locks from North- ampton to New Haven; and from Northampton to Hartford" (by the Connecticut River).
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The Old Mount Carmel Parish.
periment, the cost was estimated at $1,478,425. This was the loss to stockholders and capitalists.
And now, what of the profit and loss to the communities through which the canal was run? Trace the canal from the waterside in New Haven through the city, where now is the bed of the railroad; up across Hamden Plains to Shep- herd's Brook, which it took out of its old channel; then over those fertile fields that, in the early days, looked so attractive to Governor Matthew Gilbert and were afterward known as "Gilbert's Farm"; then by the front door of the old Good- year homestead, with the house of Marcus Goodyear oppo- site, having the canal between; thence upon a high embank- ment that had to be built over the little valley of Pardee's Brook; northward along the foot of the ridge, through the meadow land before the Jared Ives place; on by the road- side over which looked down the windows of the house where Captain John Bassett lived and three generations of his children have lived since his time; immediately beyond this, a lock with its double gates; then a close run by the back door of the Jared Atwater house, beyond which the canal ploughed through the ancient Jonathan Ives farm; thence along the valley to the back of the Hezekiah Dicker- man homestead, where another lock had to be built; again through fertile meadows, back of the old Sherman house, only a few feet away; back of the meeting-house and equally near to it; through the front yard of the old Bel- lamy mansion; northward still to the Steps, which had to be blasted away; by the site of Hunt's Mill, taking in Eaton Brook; across the "Fresh Meadows" of colonial times, the farms of Baszel Munson, Amos Peck, and the several Bradleys; then over the Cheshire line and the same thing there; again in Southington, Farmington, Simsbury, Granby, Suffield, Westfield, in every town and village through which the canal passed.
It is needless to say that after this invasion none of these towns could ever be the same as they had been before. There was the disfigurement of a fair landscape all the way from New Haven Harbor across the state to the middle of Massa-
=
Feat
370
PROFILE, 1. AND
HAMPSHIRE
AND HAMPDEN
CANAL.
PROFILE 2
Virchampion
aller " LOCKS irem
From Northampton to New Haven, by
the Canal, eighty seven miles: Rise and Fall five hundred and henty feet, by sixty Locks
NORTHAMTON IN NEW HAVEN
AVRTHAMP TONS HARTFORD --
Connethaut ..
-Massachusetts
240
Či Farmington
Wist an field.
In Northampton
140
40
Level of iserestent Boost at Northampton
Connerbest
Falls
Enfield Falls
40
Min Harn Harbour
Head of storp mesigation of Hotel
Head at Tuli Water
12
1
7. the
PROFILE OF THE NAVIGATION FROM NORTHAMPTON
HARTFORD
From Northampton to Hartford by Connectent River, forty five miles
Fall ninety feel by ten Locks
Diagram of Canal Locks Reproduced by permission from an engraved copy in the New Haven Colony Historical Society
-
...
120
110
500
130
SerLl
OF THE FARMINGTON CANAL
Northampton
& Westfield
Fra
Farmin.It.n
Halley
Springfield
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Canal, Railroad, and Factories.
chusetts; today, seventy-five years after the discontinuance of the canal, one will find many places in which kindly na- ture has labored in vain to conceal the scars. For the devas- tated homesteads and many hundred acres of farm land that were turned from fruitful fields into barren wastes, no speedy restoration was possible.
Under dire necessity, or for a genuine public benefit, rav- ages like these might be borne with equanimity; but in the case of an enterprise so utterly wild, and so futile in results, who could blame the victims for a feeling of resentment? When the scheme was first broached, there seems to have been no decided opposition. While the question of a charter was pending in the legislature, and before it was granted, a special town meeting was held in Hamden, April 1, 1822, "warned on account of the canal from New Haven to Farm- ington"; and all that is recorded of the doings is that it was "voted to adjourn without day." Whatever anxiety may have been felt at that time failed of any substantial support. Manifestly, the expectation of advantages to the community was so high as to quell any spirit of protest. But when the dream vanished in realities so disappointing, it was not easy to exonerate the exploiters who were responsible for the scheme.
Incidentally, a new and strange element was brought in among the people who lived along the route of the canal. Squads of Irish immigrants, with bosses to order them about, were employed in the work of scooping out the channel and raising the embankments. They were a very different sort of laborers from the Yankee farmers who kept to their usual routine in the neighboring fields; and, in spite of the fact that most of the Irishmen had suffered greatly from poverty in the old country, the change was not altogether a welcome or a happy one, either for them or for the New England communities into which they came.
The abandonment of the canal for the construction of a railroad was a further innovation. A new charter was ob- tained, and while the general plan was to go over the same ground as the canal, it was found convenient to diverge from
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The Old Mount Carmel Parish.
that path now and then. This involved the appropriation of other lands and the making of more trouble for many peo- ple. In Centerville, the high embankment that had been raised with great labor was left at one side and a new road- bed made at a lower level nearer the village; further north, it was decided to take the side of the turnpike and keep along by the travelled road for a mile or more, going in front of the Jared Atwater place, the Hezekiah Dickerman place, the Sherman place, and the meeting-house, instead of close be- hind them all. This was said to have been done in deference to the wishes of some of the landholders, who thought they would rather have the trains pass their front doors than run by their kitchens and through their back yards. It proved, however, to be a bad arrangement and was attended with serious dangers to people going along the highway. As there was no railing between the track and the travelled road, horses were frightened by the locomotives, cattle were fre- quently maimed or killed; occasionally, even a man or a woman was struck. Eventually, after some thirty years of such liabilities, the railroad was removed, about 1880-82, to its present route through New State and off to the west of Centerville.
Like the canal, the railroad was built chiefly by the labor of Irishmen and after its completion the ceaseless work of making repairs on the track and roadbed was carried on by the same means. Thus the inflow of a foreign population was continually on the increase. After awhile, the newcomers proceeded to make themselves at home, renting tenements, at first, where they could find them and later, as their accu- mulated wages made it possible, buying land and building thereon, till they became a considerable part of the com- munity.
Canal and railroad alike pursued a policy of fostering manufactories. The canal locks afforded convenient locations with a measure of water power for driving machinery. At each of the Mount Carmel locks there was a factory doing a brisk business at the time when the railroad superseded the canal. Of course the manufacturers wished to go on as they
1
Homestead of Jared Dickerman The lay-out of railroad and highway between 1847 and 1880
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Canal, Railroad, and Factories.
had been doing, with the locks undisturbed and no interfer- ence with their use of the canal for water power. Undoubt- edly this was the principal reason why the railroad at that particular part was taken away from the canal bank and car- ried over to the side of the turnpike; for that left the fac- tories entirely unharmed. As a safeguard against trouble in time to come, the proprietors of these establishments sought from the canal company a perpetual renewal of the license that had been granted them theretofore. Accordingly, the company made them a quit-claim deed to all its rights in the premises, but was careful to specify that the manufacturers should obtain rights "from the proprietors of lands adjoin- ing said river and canal."* This put upon them the necessity of negotiation with every landholder who disliked having the canal continue to flow through his property. In the course of time, some of these landholders began to protest. The manufacturers, however, were not disposed to pay much attention to their protests. Thereupon one of the landholders thought he would test the case by throwing a flimsy dam across the canal a few rods above the upper lock. On the night following this action, a lot of men gathered at the spot and with a big hullabaloo tore up the dam. Immediately, the landholder set out to cart in loads of cobble stones, dumping them into the canal and building a dam that was not so easy to tear up. This brought the manufacturers to terms. A sat- isfactory agreement was entered into, after which the manu- facturers were allowed to send their men by broad daylight to pick the stones out of the icy water and open a new channel.+
* Hamden Town Records, Vol. XXVIII, p. 628.
+ This "village Hampden" was my honored father, and I well remem- ber many incidents of a strife which sadly disturbed amicable relations with some of the neighbors, greatly to our discomfort. Father had a fine young orchard of apple trees south of the house which he had set out a year or two before and tended with much care till they promised an early fruitage; one morning we found that someone had come in the night and cut down all the trees close to the ground. In front of the house and grounds was a white picket fence, with a high board fence continuing on by the barn-yard; on another morning, we found that someone in the
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The Old Mount Carmel Parish.
The interests of these two small factories were by no means important enough to warrant all that was undertaken in their behalf. Not to dwell upon the sad blunder of putting the railroad by the highway instead of where it belonged, a continued deflection of Eaton Brook from its former plunge into Mill River above the mountain, into the artificial chan- nel of the canal for nearly two miles, was not according to sound business principles. The general disadvantage was too great to be balanced by any value accruing to the two con- cerns. It was not many years before the manufacturers them- selves saw this and, of their own accord, removed their es- tablishments to the old neighborhood of Hunt's Mill, where for a number of years they were conspicuously prosperous.
The discontinuance of the canal released the streams by which it had been supplied and let them return to their origi- nal channels. Mill River at once felt the effects in a consider- able enlargement and increased power, wherever a dam had been built or there was fall enough to invite new construc- tion. An impetus was given to manufacturing such as had not been known theretofore. The increase in the number of for- eigners provided the laborers requisite for the coarser work, while many sons of New England parents lost their interest in the farm and were glad to be employed in the manufac- tories in positions of some responsibility.
For various causes, the population has been steadily changing from year to year. An indication of this appears in the honor roll of soldiers posted at the town hall in Center- ville. The list of some three hundred and fifty names con- tains only about fifty that one will recognize as belonging to the old Hamden families, while at least half of the whole number are manifestly foreign; not Irish only or mainly,
night had gone along these fences and smeared them from end to end with a brush of black paint. On the way to school, we children had to go by the factory, and some of the less considerate young fellows who were em- ployed there used to come out and scare us, so that we ran as fast as our legs could carry us. The vindication of legal rights, however necessary, is often costly in more ways than one anticipates. Yet, in the far retrospect, unfolding results make all costs look less than trifling for the ends at stake. -The Author.
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Canal, Railroad, and Factories.
but Italian, German, French, Scandinavian, and Slavonic, with others not easy to classify .*
The immigrants who came in with the new order were generally adherents of the Roman Catholic Church and for a number of years went to New Haven for worship and priestly ministrations. As they became more numerous, it was thought desirable to have services in the neighborhood. The first mass was celebrated by the Reverend Matthew Hart in 1852 and two years later, in 1854, steps were taken to put up a church building, which was small and unpreten- tious. This church was subsequently enlarged and is still standing by the side of the superior edifice of more recent construction. The number of families associated with this church in 1919 was one hundred and seventy, among whom were native Americans, French, Italians, and a few Poles, besides those of Irish nationality.
Mill River showed great changes in a few years with the growth of manufacturing. In 1850, the road going down the hill across the street from the meeting-house crossed the river by a ford and proceeded southward over Spruce Bank.
* In the summer of 1849, the teacher of the Mount Carmel public school was Caroline A. Dickerman, afterward Mrs. Charles M. Tuttle. The roll of her pupils, now preserved by her daughter, Mrs. Florence A. Baldwin of New Haven, does not contain a single foreign name. Those on the roll are the following:
Margaret Anderson
Cynthia Dickerman
Albert Ives
Jason Barber
Willis Dickerman
Emily Ives
John Bassett
Susan Dickerman Julia Ives
Mary Bradley
Fanny Dickerman
Frederic Jacobs
Burton Bradley
Ezra D. Dickerman Alice Jacobs
Merrit Brainard
Sherwood Dickerman
Emma Mathews
Mary Brainard
Watson Dickerman
Jane Mathews
George Brainard
Lyman Goodyear
Maria Miller
Augusta Carpenter
Adelia Grannis
Willis Miller
Amelia Crowley
Almira Grannis
Josephine Peck
Elford Dickerman Sumner Dickerman
Ann Eliza Hubbard
Sarah Peck Elizabeth Pritchard
John H. Dickerman
Emily Hubbell Jane Hubbell
Josephine Root
Mary E. Dickerman
Mary C. Hubbell
Minervaetta Scovil
Emily Todd
George E. Dickerman John Hubbell John Ives
Kirtland Todd
Mary Dickerman Joel Dickerman
Brainard Ives
Richardson Todd
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The Old Mount Carmel Parish.
The water was then so shallow that the stones appeared above it and one could, by stepping from stone to stone, go across without wetting one's feet much. The boys used to drive the cows across to the pasture on the Rexford land by Spruce Bank and they took this way of getting over, unless they were barefoot and chose to wade. When the dam was built for the Ives factory, about half a mile below, the water here was deepened to about the depth of a foot, and a log with the upper side hewn flat answered for a footbridge, while cattle and teams still waded as before.
It was a picturesque spot. A little way to the right, nearly under the west end of the bridge as it is today, was a lovely moss-covered bank, shaded by a clump of hemlocks and slop- ing down to a mass of ferns by the water's edge; while on the opposite side there looked out from under two great elms a red, one-story farmhouse which was known as the "Sam Dickerman Place," an old homestead whose associations even then had passed into forgetfulness; and away to the north, seen through a vista of willows and other trees, stood the mountain, as it does now, the silent guardian of the valley.
Before very long the march of enterprise dispelled all this enchantment. The "Big Dam" with the bridge over it and the well-kept road and the broad sheet of water, covering the meadow lands that lay on either side of the stream, extin- guished the life of trees, alders, and wild growths of every sort which had flourished there. The dam was built for the purpose of forming a reservoir for the water power below, though there was also some expectation that manufactories might be established in the immediate vicinity at no distant time. The manufactories never came, and the lake still finds its purpose fulfilled in being a reservoir. It may be said, however, that the loss of the old charm of the shallow stream has been more than made good in the delightful landscape a passer-by now looks upon from the bridge or the margin of the lake.
The river has undergone similar alterations of outline at several other points, particularly toward New Haven. I can remember when the dam at Whitneyville was only a few
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Canal, Railroad, and Factories.
feet high with a corresponding depth of water behind it, and the road from the north ran along a narrow stream at a much lower level than now. Raising the dam to its present height flooded wide tracts of lowland and deepened the river as far as Centerville, forming the extensive lake which is so fine a feature of the country there.
Manufacturing was promoted by the policy of the rail- road in encouraging local traffic. A station was maintained at Centerville and three or four at Mount Carmel, where trains would stop on signal by a red flag and take on freight as well as passengers. This helped the factories very much, enabling them to bring in their raw materials at small cost, and facili- tating a speedy shipment of their products to market. A number of enterprises became very prosperous, and these en- couraged others to come in. Substantial buildings were put up; houses for mechanics multiplied; people found they could make more money in the factories than on the farms, and for a number of years it looked as if mechanical pursuits were to prevail over all others. But with the turning aside of the railroad to its new route, and the adoption of a policy that looked to through traffic at the expense of local business, things became less favorable. Some concerns removed to other parts where they could be better accommodated and manufacturing industries met with a decline. The time has now come when the water that turned Hunt's Mill is no longer utilized and even the historic dam of old Joel Mun- son, between the Steps and the mountain, is valued only for its relation to the reservoir of the New Haven Water Com- pany. Manufactories further down the river are still main- tained, but hardly with the confidence of former years.
In my childhood days, the passing of a canal boat drawn by a horse toiling along the towpath was a familiar scene and the working of the lock by which the boats were lifted or lowered from one level to another was one of the interesting operations that visitors were often invited to watch. The schoolhouse was opposite the meeting-house on the road; be- hind the meeting-house was the canal over which there was a bridge for the travel to New State, and the school children
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The Old Mount Carmel Parish.
often made a sort of playground of the place below the bridge by the side of the canal. One spring day, when the ice still edged the canal, inside the open channel where the boats went, a number of small children were finding their fun in stamping on this ice, and I myself among them, when suddenly the ice broke behind and threw me in. My brother Ezra saw me go, hollered to the big boys to get me, and then jumped in after me; so that the two of us were in danger of drowning. He was near the shore and one of the fellows caught him and pulled him up on the ground. Another pushed out a rail to me, which I grabbed; so I was drawn out with no greater harm than a good sousing. It was so cold, though, that we were hurried home, where mother dried us off and put us into a feather bed that had been heated with a warming pan, most thankful to have us safe in the house.
In those days, the turnpike was a well-travelled thorough- · fare, the horses and oxen usually stopping to drink at the watering trough a few rods below the meeting-house, where the brook ran across the road. Then came a time when the ground all along the west side of the street was worked up and graded for the railroad; ties were brought and laid down at intervals, and finally the iron rails were strung upon them and spiked down-all wonderful processes to chil- dren's watching eyes. Next was seen the puffing, hooting lo- comotive crawling up the street, a wonder so strange that some of the girls and little boys got up on the wood pile to be in a safer place while the train was going by. Lastly, to crown all, people of all ages, including the children, of whom I was one, and their friends, were invited to a free ride on the cars up to Plainville, which was as far as trains were running at that time.
Mention of the old school and the road over the bridge to New State brings to my mind a truant adventure I had when I was a very little boy. Three or four children of the Ed- mond Bradley family, whose home was in that part of the town, proposed that I go home with them after school; and, against the decided objections of my older brother, I ran away with them. It was about a mile to their house; and,
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