The town and city of Waterbury, Connecticut, from the aboriginal period to the year eighteen hundred and ninety-five, Volume I, Part 10

Author: Anderson, Joseph, 1836-1916 ed; Prichard, Sarah J. (Sarah Johnson), 1830-1909; Ward, Anna Lydia, 1850?-1933, joint ed
Publication date: 1896
Publisher: New Haven, The Price and Lee company
Number of Pages: 922

USA > Connecticut > New Haven County > Waterbury > The town and city of Waterbury, Connecticut, from the aboriginal period to the year eighteen hundred and ninety-five, Volume I > Part 10

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The region in which this prehistoric manufactory was situated abounds in seams and quarries of soapstone. There is a quarry near the top of Chestnut hill in the southwestern part of Torrington, which has been worked of late years, says Orcutt,* "with fairly remunerative success." About a mile east of this, the stone crops out again. There is another quarry in Litchfield, and ledges of soapstone on Bunker hill, Waterbury. In the edge of the wood, near the site of the Spruce brook "workshop," there are excava- tions from which some of the material used by the Indians was evidently obtained.t

No thorough exploration was made by the writer and his com- panions with reference to the sources whence the Indians obtained the material for their dishes. It may be that soapstone quarries as interesting as those discovered within recent years near Provi- dence, R. I., and in Amelia county, Va., may be awaiting some enterprising explorer in the vicinity of Spruce brook, or else- where in the Naugatuck valley.

To these memoranda concerning "relics" found in ancient Mat- tatuck may be added brief accounts of two others, belonging outside of Waterbury territory, but close to its borders, which for obvious reasons are likely to be of interest to readers of Waterbury history.

In the autumn of 1834, a piece of "aboriginal sculpture" was unearthed in the town of Litchfield, which is thus noticed by the Enquirer of October 2d, of that year:

A discovery of a singular carved stone image or bust, representing the head, neck and breast of a human figure, was made a few days since, on the Bantam river, about forty or fifty rods above the mill-dam, half a mile east of this village.

*" History of Torrington," p. 176.

+ At several houses in the vicinity large slabs of soapstone, more or less carefully worked, and soapstone " mortars," were found. As Mr. Kilbourne indicated in the American, some of these were doing service as wash-bowls. The writer brought home with him one of these mortars, measuring seventeen inches by twelve. The hollow, which is nearly circular, is eight inches in diameter and three inches deep. In the door-yard of a farm-house he found a large slab in which three basins had been hollowed out. The stone is more than three feet long, two feet and nine inches wide at one end and two feet at the other, and ten inches thick. One of the bowls is sixteen inches in diameter, another nine, and another six. It is not at all probable that such stones as these were "got out " and shaped by the aborigines; they are doubtless the product of white men's industry at a period when dishes of any kind were scarce.

STONE IMPLEMENTS OF MATTATUCK.

Some boys happened to discover near the banks the head of the figure projecting above the ground, which so excited their curiosity that they immediately dug it out and conveyed it to the mill, where it is for the present deposited The image, which is apparently that of a female, is carved from a rough block of the common granite, some part of which is considerably decayed and crumbly, yet must have required more patient and persevering labor than generally belongs to the char- acter of the natives ; and though in point of skill and taste it falls something short of Grecian perfection, it is certainly " pretty well for an Indian." For what pur. pose it was intended-whether as an idol for worship, or the attempt of some fond admirer to preserve and immortalize the lovely features of his dusky fair one, or whether it was merely a contrivance of some long-sighted wag of old to set us Yankees a guessing, or even whether it is one hundred or five hundred years old- all is unrevealed; though no doubt some tale is hanging thereby, if we could only find it out. All our American antiquities have this interesting peculiarity, that we know nothing of their history. We have not even the twilight of fabulous story to relieve our curiosity. The past is hidden in deeper obscurity than the future.

This account is reproduced in P. K. Kilbourne's "Sketches." Mr. Kil- bourne adds: "This curious relic is now preserved in the cabinet of Yale College."* J. W. Barber, in his " Historical Collections of Con- necticut," says: " It is a rude sculpture of brown stone, nearly the size of life, representing a female, with head and shoulders, extend- ing down to the waist. It is now deposited at Yale College, New Haven." t

In January, 1879, inquiry was made of Mr. C. H. Farnam, then curator of the archaeological department of the Peabody Museum, New Haven, in reference to this aboriginal relic, and the following reply was received:

I have endeavored this morning to find some trace of the statue you speak of. About 1820, the College turned over to an institution called the "New Haven Museum " all their collection of relics. Upon the failure of this enterprise, the collections were sold, the best specimens going to Boston; but to what museum I can not learn. I suppose the specimen you refer to was among the articles so disposed of, but have no record of it. I have also seen Mr. John W. Barber, but he does not recollect where he heard of the statue. It may be in the Boston Museum, and it might be worth while writing to the owners-though in a show collection of that kind there is probably no one who knows about the particular specimens. I am sorry on my own account, as well as yours, that I cannot give you definite information.

The other relic is of wood, and is said to have been the war-club of Pomperaug, a sachem of the Pootatucks. It is a weapon of uncertain age, evidently old, but in a state of good preservation. Its entire length, head and handle included, is two feet and nine inches. The handle is two feet and two inches long; is two inches thick near the head, tapering to one inch, and is without bark. The head is about six inches in diameter. The club is simply a branch

* P. K. Kilbourne's "Sketches and Chronicles of the Town of Litchfield," Hartford, 1859; p 65.

+ P. 456, first edition.

HISTORY OF WATERBURY.

of a tree, apparently buttonwood-from the lower end of which, at a point where another branch shot out, two large excrescences had developed. The two excrescences have grown together on one side, constituting a large knot, upon which the bark still remains. The branch seems to have been cut from its tree by a hatchet, but the small end of the handle shows obvious traces of a saw.

This interesting relic was presented to the writer by Mrs. Emily Goodrich Smith, daughter of the well known S. G. Goodrich (" Peter Parley") and widow of Nathaniel Smith of Woodbury. Mrs. Smith, in a letter accompanying her gift, dated September 17, 1891, assigns its ownership to Pomperaug, "an early distinguished chief of the Pootatucks," and says that "an aged squaw, visiting the burial places of her tribe, gave this club of her ancestor and chief to Nathaniel Smith, Esq., over fifty years ago."

With the facts before us which Mrs. Smith mentions, it can not be doubted that the club is a genuine Indian relic. But it must be acknowledged that the tradition which ascribes its ownership to a Pootatuck chief named Pomperaug is open to question. Dr. J. H. Trumbull, in his "Indian Names of Places," speaks of Pomeraug as follows:

Local tradition derives the name from a Potatuck sagamore whose fort was on or near "Castle Rock " in Woodbury; but no evidence to support this derivation has been found in the town or colony records, and the form of the name makes it cer tain that it originally belonged to a place, not to a person. A heap of stones in the village of Woodbury is supposed to mark the grave of Pomperaug, on which, says Mr. Cothren, "each member of the tribe, as he passed that way, dropped a small stone, in token of his respect for the fame of the deceased." Such memorial stone- heaps were common in New England. From the one in Woodbury both the locality and the mythic sachem probably received their name, which may be interpreted "place of offering " or "contributing."

That " Pomperaug's " war-club in other days must have passed through severe experiences, is evidenced by the fact that in order to reduce a serious fracture in the handle of it an application of thirty-five or forty feet of fine copper wire once had to be made. But in the time to come its fortunes will be different; it is now likely to rest undisturbed in the quiet and seclusion of a collector's cabinet, and afterward to serve as a nucleus of that collection of abo- riginal remains which is sometime to adorn the walls of the Bronson Library. When that collection is at length brought together, prop- erly classified, displayed and annotated, the people of Waterbury will have perpetually before them a picture of the life of their aboriginal predecessors of deep significance and of permanent value.

* The donor adds : "Committed to the Rev. Joseph Anderson, D. D., with the request that when he has done with it said club shall go to the Bronson Library, of Waterbury, Conn."

CHAPTER VI.

EARLY ATTEMPTS TO ESTABLISH SETTLEMENTS IN NEW ENGLAND-THE LONDON COMPANY-THE PLYMOUTH COMPANY -THE PILGRIMS- LONDON'S PLANTATION IN MASSACHUSETTS BAY-THE SHIPS OF 1629 -- TRANSFER OF THE GOVERNMENT FROM ENGLAND TO NEW ENGLAND-WATERBURY NAMES IN MASSACHUSETTS AND PLYMOUTH IN 1636-WAHGINNACUT VISITS ENGLISHMEN, TO INDUCE MIGRA- TION TO THE CONNECTICUT RIVER-DUTCH AT HARTFORD-JOHN OLDHAM, THE FIRST TRADER -PLYMOUTH'S TRADING HOUSE AT WINDSOR-NEWTOWN'S PETITION FOR REMOVAL-MASSACHUSETTS' EFFORTS TO RETAIN THE SETTLERS WITHIN HER JURISDICTION- THE "FORTY-TON BARK " - THE COURT'S GOOD-BY BLESSING- ARRIVAL ON THE CONNECTICUT RIVER - HARDSHIPS CONTENDED WITH DURING THE FIRST WINTER.

I T IS difficult for the inhabitants of the Connecticut of to-day to become thoroughly conscious of the fact that no man, no record, no library in existence, can give the name of a person who lived in any portion of our State three hundred years ago. The attempt at making this truth our own produces a train of thought not altogether pleasing, and brings home in a way that is new the oft -repeated words: Our fathers were pilgrims and strangers.

New England had been seen of John and Sebastian Cabot in 1497, and, in 1498, they had sailed along the coast, and their passing glance had secured for England, under the reign of King Henry VII, that possession by sight which England held for nearly three centuries.

In 1602, Bartholomew Gosnold with thirty-two men, had landed on Cape Cod, lingered a month with the intention to settle, and then returned to England.

In 1605, George Weymouth found Gosnold's Cape Cod, followed the coast northward, entered the Kennebec River, ascended it many miles, stole five Indians, and returned to England.

In 1607, George Popham, under the direction of his kinsman, Sir John Popham, with one hundred and twenty colonists, entered the same river, landed at its mouth, and built a village Let us hope that the five Indians who had been stolen, were returned by this early and convenient opportunity. Success did not attend this enter-

HISTORY OF WATERBURY.

prise. George Popham, the leader, died, and the adventurer, Sir John Popham, died, and the weary and disappointed colonists returned to England.

In 1606, not an Englishman was known to be in North America. In that year special interest was awakened in England in the un- occupied lands of the New World. Certain "Lords and Gentlemen " formed two companies, for the settlement of parts of America. Men of London and its vicinity called their combination, "The Lon- don Company." Men of Plymouth called their association, "The Plymouth Company." Both companies intended to cause colonies to be established in "Virginia," which name in 1606 served to indicate all that region lying between South Carolina on the south and the most northern part of the State of New York on the north. To the London Company was allotted South Virginia ; to the Plymouth Company, North Virginia. It was provided that neither company should plant within one hundred miles of any settlement already begun by the other. This provision serves to account for the lap- ping of the territory of one company upon that of the other, for South Virginia's northern limit was the south-western point of pres- ent Connecticut, while North Virginia's southern limit ran down into present Virginia. From these two companies of London and Plymouth and their successors, have emanated the many patents and grants that confront the investigator with a net-work of rights, difficult to follow through all the complications arising from uncer- tain bounds.

Sir John Popham's adventure of 1607, already referred to, seems to be the first fruit of the attempt of the English Company of Ply- mouth to settle North Virginia or New England.

For seven years we are without a record of any attempt at colonization.

In 1614 Captain John Smith explored the shore from Cape Cod to Penobscot River, and gave to the country the name of New Eng- land. The following year, he is said to have set sail for the New World, prepared to plant a colony-to have been made a prisoner by a French fleet, and his colony not to have been planted. In the same year Adrian Block, the Dutch navigator, sailed through Long Island Sound, and it is said that he discovered the Connecticut river, and ascended it as far as present Hartford.

If we look for the motives that prompted colonization down to this date we shall find them in the words, profit, proprietorship, and freedom in a new land to do, and, to be.

But here we come to the landing of the Pilgrims, and the strange story of their grant of land along the Delaware River

LONDON'S PLANTATION IN THE MASSACHUSETTS BAY.

from the London Company, but with no charter from the King, and their landing, no man may tell why, on bleak Plymouth shore with- out grant or charter, and their everlasting growth from that day to this-their motive, first and last, being "freedom to worship God," with all the profits and proprietorships possible added thereto.

Mention should here be made of merchant Thomas Weston's seventy-five men, gathered in 1622 from the streets of London, and planted at Wessaguscus, now Weymouth, where they disagreed with the Indians, and, being unwholesome members of society, were aided, most willingly, by the men of Plymouth in their return to England ; of Thomas Morton and his followers, who came in the same year, and whose yet-to-be-told history we may not follow, from the time when Miles Standish paid him a visit and sent him across the sea, down to 1630, when he was again returned to England by the Massachusetts Bay Company, his goods confiscated to pay his debts and expenses and for " a canoe he unjustly took from the natives, and his house burned down to the ground in the sight of the Indians, for their satisfaction for many wrongs he had done them from time to time." The above is from the Records of Massachu- setts, while a modern historian tells us that the accusation against him "seems to have been based upon the fact that he used the Book of Common Prayer," but the Records give us no hint that he prayed at all.

Soon after the Pilgrims were established, fishing vessels began to visit the coast. They were sent out by English merchants, and were, apparently, the heralds of the great Puritan colonization scheme. A fishing village began to grow on Cape Ann, but it did not thrive. Troubles came upon it, which were softened by the ministrations of Mr. Roger Conant. Thus early we come upon a trail that leads directly to our Waterbury, for, in 1771, Dr. Roger Conant, the grandson in the fifth generation of this Mr. Roger Conant, settler at Salem before 1628, came to Waterbury, where he married in 1774 Elizabeth, daughter of "Thomas Bronson, Esq.," and died during the war of the Revolution, on Long Island. Mr. Roger Conant, by appointment of the owners in England, became the leader of the settlement. The English capitalists soon grew weary of their unprofitable adventure and withdrew from it, leaving the little colony of fishermen and planters ashore, and adrift from help. Roger Conant stood by and drew them away from Cape Ann to Indian Nahumkeeke, often called Naumkeag, and now Salem. When the Puritans came to New England, these men from Cape Ann were already in possession, and are the old planters so often referred to, and to whom special rights adhered because of their

HISTORY OF WATERBURY.

possessive priority - the beaver trade and the raising of tobacco being of the number.

There was another venture made that deserves mention, that of Captain Wollaston, who, about the year 1625, brought over a com- pany of " indented" white servants ; but not finding a market for their labor he, it is said, after a tarry at Mount Wollaston, other- wise Morton's Merry Mount, and now Braintree, " carried them to Virginia and sold them [their labor] there."

Thus it is found that the only band of immigrants that had held to the soil, despite every disadvantage, had been the Pilgrims of Plymouth, and they had lived largely on things invisible to Lords of Trade in England or elsewhere. This little band of one hundred and one in 1620, and forty-five in 1621, had, in 1628, become three hundred, when the Puritan exodus began. "Mr. John Endicott and some with him were sent to begin a plantation, in 1628, at Massachusetts Bay." These were followed, in 1629, by three hundred men, eighty women, and twenty-six children, with one hundred and forty head of cattle and forty sheep, which set sail, in three ships, for London's Plantation in the Massachusetts Bay. It is difficult to resist the temptation to give items concerning the fitting out of these ships. No Arctic expedition of to-day could be more carefully and thoughtfully equipped than were the George Bonaventure, the Talbot, and the Lion's Whelp, by the English Company of men (and one woman whose name is unknown), who ventured their money in the enterprise. There had been great content the year before when Mr. Endicott had given himself to the company, and when Rev. Mr. Higginson adventured himself in 1629, great was the joy among the capitalists. It gave good heart to the work. Mr. Higginson came in the Talbot, Rev. Mr Skelton in the George Bonaventure, bringing with him his library of fifty volumes. Rev. Mr. Bright, who had been trained up under Rev. John Davenport, came in the Lion's Whelp. It is interesting to note that Mr. Davenport and Mr. Theophilus Eaton were both adventurers in the Puritan settlement of the Bay, and that its first three ministers were approved by Mr. Davenport.

Besides the three ministers, the ships bore almost everything, including the "English Bible in folio of the last print," the Book of Common Prayer, the Charter itself, in the care of Mr. Samuel Sharp, and the oath that was to be administered on the ship's arrival to Mr. Endicott, the elected Governor. In their cargoes were mill stones, and stones of peaches, plums, filberts and cherries ; "kernells" of pear, apple, quince and "pomegranats ;" seeds of liquorice, woad, hemp, flax and madder ; roots of potatoes and hops ;

LONDON'S PLANTATION IN THE MASSACHUSETTS BAY.

utensils of pewter, brass, copper, and leather ; hogsheads of wheat, rye, barley, oats, beans, pease, and "bieffe ;" thousands of bread ; hundreds of cheese, and codfish; gallons of olive oil, and Spanish wyne; tuns of water, and beer ; thousands of billets of wood, beside the loads of chalk, the thousands of brick, and "chauldrens of sea coales," that were cast in the "ballast of the shipps."

To these, and other items, must be added the apparel of three hundred men, and the long list of the munitions of death with which each ship was freighted. There were ensigns-"partisans, for captain and lieutenant," halberts, for sergeants-muskets with fire locks, four foot in the barrel, without rests-long fowling pieces, six and a half feet long-full muskets, four feet in the barrel, with " match-cocks " and rests-bandaleeres, each with a bullet bag- horn flasks, to hold a pound apiece-"cosletts," pikes and half pikes-barrels of powder and small shot-eight pieces of land ordnance, for the fort-whole culverings-demiculverings-sackers and iron drakes-great shot, and drums-with a sword, and a belt for every one of the three hundred men.

After this manner was carried on the great Puritan exodus be- tween 1630 and 1640. Time and space have been given to the three ships named, because Waterbury is, in a certain way, linked to them in its history. Their passengers came under the conduct of a close corporation, fully entitled to govern and make its own laws, subject only to the Crown of England. The Governor and Council of Massachusetts Bay, in New England, came, governed most minutely by the General Court of the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay, in London-and many of the laws, the severity of which has hung like a pall over the memory of Puritan and Pilgrim, will be found to have been imposed upon them by the power that lay behind the local government. A list of the passen- gers in the three ships, if it exists, will give to us, among others, the names of the men who came as planters, and paid their five pounds each for passage-the names of those who came under engagements to the company for special services-as vine dressers, makers of salt, hunters, shipwrights, iron-workers, and other arti- sans necessary to the achievement of a successful plantation. The Pilgrim, the Mayflower and the Fower Sisters soon crossed the ocean, each undoubtedly bringing its one hundred and twenty-five passengers-the number permitted. These were soon followed by scores of ships, eight having arrived within a single week.

To Governor Matthew Craddock, by far the largest adventurer in this colony-building, although he seems never to have visited America, belongs the honor of having suggested the removal of the

HISTORY OF WATERBURY.

government itself from England to New England. The transfer was made in 1630 in the ship Arbella, which arrived on June 12. It brought, as a passenger, John Winthrop, who had been elected in England as governor of the Company to succeed Governor Crad- dock, and who superseded Governor Endicott, who had governed the Massachusetts Bay Colony in this country but six months. There are no lists, known to the writer, of the passengers who came in the six ships here mentioned, by which the great emigra- tion was inaugurated.

While it is apparent that the number of men who were made freemen in the colony was not more than one in five of the inhabi- tants subject to military duty, yet we find among the freemen in the first list, that containing the names of those who were admitted to the honor on the eighteenth of May, 1631, three family names, held by three of the first proprietors of Waterbury. They are Richard- son, Gaylord, and Jones. Richards, Welton, Porter, Andrews, and Gridley had been added to the list by 1634; Warner, Hopkins, Stanley, Newell, Scott, and Lanckton, before March of 1635, while Judd-and his name was Thomas-and Carrington appear before June of 1636 ; thus connecting more than one-half of the first settlers of Waterbury with the Puritans of the Bay. If we turn to the Plymouth Colony, we shall find there also the names of Hopkins, Barnes, Andrews, Jones, Richards, and Stanley, while, in both colonies, we may find many other names that have made, and are making, worthy records in the history of our town, whose bearers were already residents in New England before the migration to Connecticut began.

Going back to the statement that no man can give to us the name of an inhabitant of Connecticut three hundred years ago, we may add to it, that the most distant recorded echo of human footsteps on its soil comes down to us through only two hundred and sixty years. The footsteps are those of Wahginnacut, an Indian. The story of white men in the Massachusetts had come to him, and he perhaps thought, in his human, Indian heart, that white men would be good to have in Connecticut. Wahginnacut had a good and human reason for his thought. As nearly as the story can now be told, the Indians of Connecticut River had passed through a quarrel with the Pequot or Thames River Indians, the outcome of which had been that the Pequot tribe had seized the lands of Wahginnacut's tribe along the river ; and the hope that illumined his dusky mind was, that the presence of white men would restore to the native Indians the lost valley of their fathers. Inspired with this hope, Wahginnacut traveled in 1631 from the Connecticut

LONDON'S PLANTATION IN THE MASSACHUSETTS BAY.

River to Massachusetts, and paid a visit to Governor Winthrop at the Bay, and to Governor Winslow at Plymouth, to induce migra- tion to his noble river. He offered, in his princely way, to furnish eighty beaver skins a year-and this was at a time when beaver was as good as gold, and we have Governor Craddock's word for it, that it should fetch in the English market pound for pound. It was a large salary that Wahginnacut offered to Englishmen for dwelling in his land, for he added to the beaver the promise to furnish corn for the white men; and yet, we have been told that the Indians were not husbandmen before their demoralization began -and this in face of the fact that captain, or passengers, or crew of the Mayflower, robbed the storehouses of corn, that the Indians of Cape Cod had laid up for the season of 1621.

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The town and city of Waterbury, Connecticut, from the aboriginal period to the year eighteen hundred and ninety-five, Volume I, Part 10

Author: Anderson, Joseph, 1836-1916 ed; Prichard, Sarah J. (Sarah Johnson), 1830-1909; Ward, Anna Lydia, 1850?-1933, joint ed Publication date: 1896 Publisher: New Haven, The Price and Lee company Number of Pages: 922

Author: Anderson, Joseph, 1836-1916 ed; Prichard, Sarah J. (Sarah Johnson), 1830-1909; Ward, Anna Lydia, 1850?-1933, joint ed
Publication date: 1896
Publisher: New Haven, The Price and Lee company
Number of Pages: 922