USA > Connecticut > New Haven County > Mount Carmel > The old Mount Carmel parish, origins & outgrowths > Part 5
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
VI.
Land Apportionments.
T table:
HE public lands of the town of New Haven were apportioned among the people from time to time according to the outlines presented in the following
When ordered
Acres
Shares
First Division
January, 1640
5,601
123
Second Division
October, 1640
8,253
123
Third Division
December, 1680
8,323
213
Fourth Division
April, 1704
3,616
354
Fifth Division
March, 1710-II
9,745
416
Sixth Division
January, 1726-27
4,872
340
Seventh Division
March, 1737-38
2,436
372
*Eighth Division
March, 1753
2,350
398
+Ninth Division
July, 1760
550
362
In February, 1671-72, action was taken for defining the town commons.
In March, 1674-75, the commons were specified.
In 1701-02, a more explicit statement of the commons was made under the term, Sequestered Lands.
In April, 1704, in connection with the Fourth Division, the pro- portion of the Sequestered Lands belonging to each of the pro- prietors was definitely stated.
The amount of such lands was 7,233 acres, shares 354.
These lands were eventually allotted as follows:
First Division of Sequestered Lands, March, 1713.
Second Division of Sequestered Lands, November, 1713.
Third Division of Sequestered Lands, December, 1721.
The allotments of Sequestered Lands were modified by circum- stances in some neighborhoods.
The total amount of these public lands was less than that
* Completed June, 1756. + Completed December, 1767.
47
Land Apportionments.
sometimes embraced in a single farm. The value of the land for agriculture was by no means high. Yet so careful was the process of distribution that it was carried out through twelve separate surveys and allotments extending over a period of 127 years, beginning in 1640 and ending in 1767. This shows what the founders of New Haven and their immedi- ate successors thought of the tracts they bought from the Indians.
It is worth while to look somewhat particularly into the manner of this New Haven experiment. The aim was the establishment of a well-ordered commonwealth, to bring about which each citizen had his part to play, not for himself first, but first for the state. Personal affairs were secondary; the common good supreme. Eaton, Davenport, and Good- year were allotted large tracts of land, not for each of them to make money out of, but for them to handle in such a way as to surround the village with prosperous farms, to the ad- vantage of everybody. The individual was forbidden to buy land, except with the town's approval, because private inter- ests must bow always to the public welfare. When Lamber- ton wanted a few rods addition to his lot "for a yard to his cellar by the West Creek," it was granted with the proviso that the town might buy it back at a reasonable price when- ever needed. When some wood choppers were getting reck- less with the timber, it was ordered that "if any shall cut a tree without leave where the spruce masts grow, he shall pay twenty shillings fine for every default." When Abraham Doolittle asked for twenty acres of land above Bog Mine Brook, he was granted half the amount for twenty-one years, with the understanding that he was to pay rates on it. When Lieutenant John Nash applied for the "fresh meadow" on the further side of West River, it was objected that a village might grow up at Holmes' Race, in which case it would be needed. When Matthew Gilbert, in 1678, asked of the town a bit of ground for his son-in-law, Robert Augur, to build a house upon, the question had to be debated in three town meetings before a favorable decision was given. Townsmen, fence-viewers, and committees were con-
48
The Old Mount Carmel Parish.
stantly on the lookout against any wasteful practice or harm- ful legislation that might impair the domains of public land.
One can better understand this watchfulness, if some thought is given to the manifold benefits derived from the commons, or sequestered lands, which were not true com- mons, as in England, but lands owned by the proprietors and held in undivided severalty. The habits of the people, brought from their homes in England, led to an employ- ment of the commons in ways so many and so various as to make private ownership less necessary than it afterward be- came, if not less desirable. People herded their cattle in pub- lic pastures. Sheep were tended by shepherds in open fields among the hills, and swine ran at large in forests where they grew fat on nuts and acorns. Timber and wood could be had from the common fields; and where the land was arable, the people might raise crops. This was touched on at the begin- ning of the previous chapter.
The commons, therefore, received a good deal of atten- tion in the business of the town. The call for an enlargement of common lands seems to have become urgent before there was much desire for increased private holdings. The pastures became too small for the number of their cows and oxen. The spreading out of the people beyond the Quinnipiac and into the valley beyond West Rock made the old pastures in- accessible to many. More commons were needed, and com- mons in other neighborhoods. This was the talk in town meeting in 1671-72. A committee was then appointed to consider three things: the laying out of commons, the buying of new lands from the Indians, and the mapping out of ter- ritory for another division. In November, 1674, a large tract of land, including Lebanon swamp, in the present town of Woodbridge, was bought of the Indians. A month later, in "the business about common lands":
it was propounded that the land that is capable of improvement be divided, and that lands that are rocky and incapable of improvement be common, and that before any division is made, a portion of land be appointed for the common of the town.
49
Land Apportionments.
In the following March, a report was received and adopted, containing this provision:
For commons, that the lands between Mill River and East River (without the ox-pasture and lands of proprietors) lie for a standing common for the town, and to extend so high northward as the brook above the Shepherd's Plain and where the path runs over the brook, a line westward, or west by north as upon trial may be found, a line that will run one mile above John Sackett's, or more as the com- mittee judgeth; also that other suitable tracts of land in the several parts of the township be passed out for commons by a committee ap- pointed by the town for that purpose; and the same committee to view what lands are fit to be laid out to proprietors.
Immediately after this, a war with Indians came on and absorbed attention to the exclusion of these land questions. When the subject was taken up again, in 1679, the Third Division was ordered and carried out. Then, in 1701-02, in connection with the Fourth Division, a distinct definition of the Sequestered Lands was made, the number of acres care- fully ascertained, and the proportion belonging to each of the several proprietors authoritatively stated .* The state- ment thus made became the basis for the Fourth Division, the amount of land then apportioned to the proprietors be- ing half the amount of their Sequestered Land. On this ac- count the Fourth Division was often called the "Half Divi- sion."
A layout of the Sequestered Lands, in 1709, describes them as being in six different localities: the first between Mill River and West River; the second in the West Haven neighborhood toward Oyster River; the third beyond West Rock in the vicinity of Sperry's Farm; the fourth in East Haven; the fifth in the region of Montowese; and the sixth above Muddy River in the hills east of Bog Mine Swamp. Evidently, these lands were such as had not been especially desired for private holdings in the early apportionments. They were so widely distributed, when marked out as com-
* This shows that the Sequestered Lands were not mere commons, but were held in undivided severalty. The only true "common" that New Haven had was the "Green."-C. M. Andrews.
50
The Old Mount Carmel Parish.
mons, that the people living in the several parts of the town could be well accommodated. At a later date, in 1718, after the old Sequestered Lands had come under process of appor- tionment, an order was passed for a new sequestration, to in- clude West Rock from near Wintergreen Lake to High Rock, and the western half of the Blue Hills, to be "for commons forever for a sheep pasture." In process of time, however, these rocky wilds, like other fields, were appor- tioned to the proprietors.
When preparation was going on for the Third Division, which came off in 1680, an effort was made to have pro- prietors examine their titles, find the exact bounds of their holdings, and have records placed on the town clerk's books. After the proposal, some eight or nine years went by before action was taken, quite time enough for getting ready. Men who had not received allotments which were due them in any particular place applied to the town to have the surveyor lay them out. Some, the boundaries of whose land were not clear, asked to have them defined. Some whose lands were inconveniently located or were otherwise unsatisfactory peti- tioned for an exchange to more desirable ground. And some who hoped that an application for citizenship might be ac- cepted sought the offices of persons of influence to present their claims to the town. All these proposals were heard in town meeting, were then referred usually to a committee, after which they might be discussed and passed upon. In re- cording titles, it was sometimes convenient not to specify the original grant, but to make entry of "having been in quiet possession for a number of years-according to law," saving in this way the trouble of investigation. Robert Foote, who owned land on the Plains, took this course, and on the same day deeded the property to Edmund Dorman. Roger Alling entered some ten parcels of land in this manner.
The people were in no hurry for the Third Division, or it would not have been so many years after the project was started before it was carried into effect. When at length the apportionment was taken in hand, it was not altogether popular. The townsmen made this statement in December,
5I
Land Apportionments.
1681, after the decision had been made and before the work was done:
That some of the people were dissatisfied because the division was not going on, as they wanted the land to use; while others did not desire the layout, and said they would not pay for it when it was made.
It was then voted that the land should be responsible for the cost of laying it out, and the apportionment proceeded.
This Division had to do, however, only with good lands, those "capable of improvement," as stated in the order. In the case of the Second Division, the process had been one of selecting places that seemed most desirable. It was the same again, only there was more available attractive land, and more people who wanted to own it. Now also, as before, in- dividual choices depended largely on locality and personal advantage. There was a twofold plan in the earlier divi- sions; the people living on the east side had their allotments in the east part of the town and northward; while those on the west side had theirs to the south and west. The Third Division was on a similar plan. For those on the west side, apportionments began with the harbor, on the further side of West River, followed along the shore to Oyster River, then up the Milford line and over to Mill River. For those on the east side, they began on the ridge above East Rock, followed up by the Quinnipiac to the Blue Hills, then down by Mill River, taking the fit lands between the rivers, and then across to the east side of the Quinnipiac going north- ward to the Wallingford line. East Haven people had a separate allotment by themselves.
In this Division, it was stipulated that, while the proprie- tors might improve their new lands as they saw fit:
No one should go out to live on them in settled dwellings, except by particular approval of the town; as they were too remote for attending worship on the sabbath and were liable to damage from the heathen.
No specifications were made for roads, so that these lands were not easily accessible, and most of them were unsuitable
52
The Old Mount Carmel Parish.
for building upon. They were practically wild lands, and wild they were expected to continue. Is it 'any wonder that many of the people did not care for allotments? They al- ready had the commons, looked after by the town officers; what could they do with new allotments, except pay taxes on them? Now it is interesting to observe to what extent the allotments were taken. The number of proprietors was two hundred and thirteen. Most allotments were twenty acres or more, some less than that, one, two hundred acres; the whole amount being eighty-three hundred and twenty-three acres. The town ordered that all persons who had land in the Third Division should have the surveyor's statement re- corded within twelve months. Going to the town records, one finds twenty-seven entries, no more. In keeping with this, few sales are recorded of Third Division lands, indicat- ing that there was not much market for them; whereas in later divisions, such as the Fifth and Sixth, there was a deal of bargaining, much of it for speculative purposes. It seems likely, then, that a large part of the lands marked out for this Third Division was not appropriated. Those who wanted land had it laid out to them, most of them probably where they chose. Those who did not want it were not re- quired to have it. Time was given for making up their minds, and eventually some woke up to their opportunity. There is every reason to suppose, however, that much of the land was left with the town and went to make up the quota of later apportionments.
The twenty years that followed brought many changes. Roads were opened where required. Newly allotted lands were put under cultivation. Some of the bolder people ven- tured to build houses further from the center. In 1683, a fresh purchase of territory from the Indians brought into possession of the town lands lying in the direction of Derby. Demand increased for ground to raise crops upon, so that about forty acres of the Ox Pasture were leased for seven years to a company which planted them with corn. Encroach- ments on the undivided lands became serious, and the town had to make more specific rules to save valuable timber and
53
Land Apportionments.
to protect the growth of young trees. All these things worked in the interest of more private ownership, which led to the apportionment of the Sequestered Lands and the al- lotments of the Fourth Division. The business was better done than in the Third Division. Highways were laid out to accommodate the lots, which were put in regular tiers and bounded with exactness, to be recorded in the archives. The chance for individual selection was less and there was not so much room for procrastination.
The Fifth Division followed about six years after the Fourth. The purpose this time was to lay out all the undi- vided lands suitable for ploughing or pasture, and it was estimated that there was enough to give each proprietor three times as much as in the Fourth Division. About three quarters of this was beyond the West River and West Rock, while the other quarter was east of the West Rock ridge. An important item in this Division was a reservation of land for public uses, establishing a precedent that was followed at a later time.
After the Fifth Division, allotments of the Sequestered Lands, in 1713 and 1721, kept the proprietors busy for some time; till, in 1726-27, seeing there was considerable land of some value left, they decided on having a Sixth Division. They began this by assigning allotments "for public and pious uses as had been done before." Funds were thus estab- lished for maintaining the ministry in three parishes already existing, and in three others that were likely to be formed in several parts of the town. Provision was also made for sup- porting the grammar school. It was decided to make indi- vidual shares half as large as in the Fifth Division, it being understood that proprietors might have scraps of public land adjoining their own laid out in their allotments, before the general drawing. To each of the three ministers was granted a lot of twenty acres. Particular care was taken to provide convenient highways as before. Most of these Sixth Division lands were in the northern half of the present town of Ham- den, though some were east of the Quinnipiac.
Some public lands still remained, and after about ten
54 The Old Mount Carmel Parish.
years it was decided to have a Seventh Division, with allot- ment to each proprietor of half the amount assigned in the Sixth. For fear that the land might not hold out, it was agreed that any lack should be made up out of the public treasury at the rate of twenty shillings to an acre. These lands were in small parcels, pieces skipped in previous allot- ments and lying in all parts of the town.
So far from the lands falling short, there was quite an amount left, so that there could be an Eighth Division, with allotments equal to those of the Seventh. This was fifteen years later and land had risen in value. These allotments were largely on the rocky eminences, East Rock, West Rock, Pine Rock, Mill Rock, and the Blue Hills; but they did not take in the whole of these heights. Provision was again made to provide necessary highways and to meet any shortage with money from the treasury.
Finally, a Ninth Division was decided on in 1760, on a different plan; the available lands were all appraised and each proprietor was given his share at the rate of eight shillings an acre.
NOTE: The view from the Cheshire border affords a glimpse of the fields above the Steps, where lay the homesteads of the Bradleys and Tuttles, of Daniel Sperry, Wait Chatterton, Lazarus Ives, John Hitchcock, Ralph Lines, and Samuel Dickerman, whose families crowded into the Cheshire meeting-house to hear the preaching of the Reverend Samuel Hall before the Mount Carmel parish was instituted. Here was the home of Baszel Munson, where President Stiles made his visit, and saw the wonderful "Gig Mill," spoken of in his Diary. This, too, was the part of the parish from which wandered forth the larger number of those resourceful pio- neers who planted a fresh crop of homesteads in Litchfield, Berkshire, Vermont, Pennsylvania, New York, and elsewhere.
VII.
Scattered Homesteads.
T HE action taken in the Sixth Division, providing maintenance for three prospective churches besides the three then existing, indicates that in 1727, the remoter parts of the town were being occupied to such an ex- tent that plans could be made to form them into parishes at no distant time. East Haven had become a community by itself with a church of its own, so that it was left out of ac- count. Besides the original parent church, deriving its sup- . port from the town, there was one in the North East Parish, now North Haven, formed in 1718, and another in the West-Side Parish, now West Haven, formed in 1719; these were first considered. Then, in anticipation of future re- quirements, provision was made which ultimately became available for the Parish of Amity, now Woodbridge, where the church was instituted in 1742; for the Second Parish of Amity, now Bethany, where the church was formed in 1763; and for the Mount Carmel Parish, where the church was formed in 1764. This action of the town had in mind more than the maintenance of worship and the ordinances of reli- gion, for which the church is responsible in modern usage; the purpose was a community organization for the benefit of everyone within its boundaries, a church-state, as it was called in the ecclesiastical parlance of the times.
In the accounts which follow, particular attention is given to the part of the old town which lies north of New Haven center, in the valley extending to Wallingford and Chesh- ire. The old parish of Mount Carmel had for its southern boundary a line running westward from the spot where Shepherd's Brook enters Mill River to the top of West Rock; the other boundaries coinciding with those of the pres- ent town of Hamden. Within this territory no evidence is found of permanent dwellings or other substantial buildings previous to about 1720. While lands in the southern portion
56
The Old Mount Carmel Parish.
had passed into private hands and were used for pasturage, logging, and other purposes, most of the region remained as public lands till 1727, when it was distributed in the Sixth Division.
Nehemiah Smith's venture with his sheep, before 1650, was a bold approach toward this wild country, but he hardly went beyond the brook which was named for him, and he found the life there so hard that he did not care to stay many years. Matthew Gilbert's venture, in 1664, went beyond the brook and became permanent. The forty acres granted him by the town for his horses remained in his possession as long as he lived and were then passed on to his children to be kept in the family for many generations. On this account the term "Shepherd's Pen" went out of use and the neighborhood came to be known as "Gilbert's Farm." Adjacent lands were added to the original grant and the farm gained a prestige that made the country around more desirable. Some allot- ments of the Third Division were near here and the Gil- berts had their share in them; for, in 1704, seventy-eight acres of Third Division land was divided among the sons, Matthew, Samuel, and John, and a grandson, Thomas Gil- bert. North of this farm, John Goodyear had a tract of land in the same Division; next on the north of the Goodyear tract, fifty acres were allotted to Noadiah Russell; beyond that, there was an allotment to Abraham Dickerman. Russell had studied for the ministry and became pastor of the church in Middletown; so he sold his land to William Thompson. Between John Goodyear's and the river was a tract belong- ing to Stephen Whitehead, 2d, whose daughter Sarah mar- ried Leverett Hubbard. Others who owned ground adjacent to Gilbert's Farm were Thomas Morris, John Prout, Wil- liam Johnson, and Obadiah Hotchkiss. None of these, how- ever, so far as known, lived on the land in those early times.
Some allotments of the Fourth Division, and some of the Third Division of Sequestered Lands, were in this neighbor- hood. To the northwest were some Fifth Division allot- ments, and thence Sixth Division lands up to Cheshire. In the later Divisions there were also lands in this region. Thus
57
Scattered Homesteads.
there came to be many owners of land in this neighborhood, with an increase in their numbers from time to time. A large part of these owners had no use for the land except to dis- pose of it on the best terms they could make. So the chances to buy were always abundant and when the times grew ripe for settlement, one could easily secure for himself such a spot as he wished. Those, too, who wished for large holdings found little difficulty in getting adjacent lands to add to their own allotments. In this way some hundreds of allot- ments were absorbed by degrees into a few score estates.
Among the earliest to build homesteads was Enos Pardee, who had lived before in the western part of the town on Milford road. In January, 1719-20, he sold his house and other property in that locality and bought a tract in what is now the heart of Centerville, forty acres from Abigail Goodyear and twenty-seven acres from Obadiah Hotchkiss. He probably built a house there as soon as he could and made it his home from that time on. He had a large family and his descendants still live near the old place. Another of the early settlers was Thomas Leek, 2d, who bought prop- erty to the west of the Gilbert lands, built a house, and came there to live in 1719. His descendants also live upon the same ground to this day. Not far from his property was that of Benjamin Warner, 2d, who is mentioned in the land rec- ords in 1725; and whose house is referred to in 1732 as a recognized landmark. From him has come the numerous family that gives to the neighborhood the name of Warner- town. Near Warner's land, as early as 1731, was the prop- erty of Samuel Peck. Further to the west, at the spot now known as "Wolcott Falls," Daniel Tolles, in 1733, sold about twenty acres of ground to Noah Wolcott, who then moved up from the Plains and made it the home of his family, some of whom lived in that vicinity till recent times.
And now there began to be settlements "above the Blue Hills." The part of Wallingford which is now Cheshire had proved attractive to many of the Wallingford people and a prosperous community was growing up there. This no doubt had some influence in bringing people to this neighborhood.
58
The Old Mount Carmel Parish.
The Tuttles, who were very early on the ground, had been near neighbors of the Doolittles in North Haven and sev- eral marriages had united the two families very intimately; as a family of Doolittles lived in Cheshire, it was natural for the Tuttles to wish to be near them when they ventured out into a new country. At the town meeting, March 9, 1723-24, Nathaniel Yale was allowed to have his Sixth Division allot- ment "adjoin three acres of land recently granted him near the Blue Hills"; and John and Joseph Bassett were "entitled to take theirs between Mr. Yale's and the river." Then in November, 1729, Daniel Bradley, 2d, bought of Richard Miles sixty acres lying above the Blue Hills, bounded on the west by a country road and on all other sides by undivided land; and about the same time he bought of Theophilus, Andrew, and Nathaniel Goodyear some thirty-four acres more in the same neighborhood, Sixth Division land that had been laid out in the name of their father, John Good- year; he also bought Sixth Division lands of Nathaniel Kim- berley, Enos Stone, Joseph Ives, and three or four other proprietors. He soon built upon the land and came out to live on it. Before very long he was followed by his brother, Amos Bradley, whose farm was immediately north of Dan- iel's; and by another brother, Moses Bradley, much younger, who obtained land further north, some of which was within the bounds of Cheshire. There was also a nephew, Elisha Bradley, who bought another farm near by and who was followed later by his brother, Stephen Bradley. These settlers all had families and were very influential.
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.