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 20
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On the lot bearing the name of Samuel Gridley, with Thomas Newell beneath it, we find Thomas, aged thirty-one years, with his wife, Elizabeth Wrotham, and their infant son Thomas. "He came not according to Articles ; neither built according to Articles. Ye house not finished in time." The time, it will be remembered, was the thirtieth of last May.
John Bronson has the first two-acre house lot that we have met with since leaving Willow street. He has the honor of having per- formed the conditions of his contract to the acceptance of his towns- men and the committee. No complaint has been made. His age is thirty-seven. His wife is Sarah, the daughter of Moses Ventrus. Her age is thirty-two. Their children are:
John, age 11 years, Sarah, age 9 years,
Dorothy, age six years, Ebenezer, age 4 years.
Thomas Judd, Jr., has a larger house lot than has been allotted to any of his neighbors to the westward, for it is two and one- quarter acres. This Thomas Judd, "Junior" in Farmington, is to become our Lieutenant Judd. He will be our first deputy to the General Court. Dr. Bronson speaks of him as, "the leading man of the infant town." He has followed in John Bronson's footsteps. He arrived in time. His family was in Mattatuck by the last of May, 1680, and the last of May, 1681, he was living in his own finished
I7I
MATTATUCK AS A PLANTATION.
house, his family abiding with him. He is now forty-three years of age. About twenty-one years ago Thomas Judd married Sarah, the daughter of John Steel of Farmington. Their children are :
Thomas, about 18 years, Sarah, about 16 years,
John, about 12 years.
The next lot was bestowed upon Daniel Warner. It will be remembered that he died two years ago, when the family was mov- ing from Farmington to Mattatuck. We may expect to find that Mrs. Warner has built her house according to the advice of the committee, and that she is living in it with her children :
Daniel, age 14 years, John, age 10 years, Abigail, age 8 years,
Samuel, age 6 years, Thomas, age 4 years.
The lot of Obadiah Richards lies to the eastward of the Warner lot. It contains three acres. He has built a house, but "it is not according to the dimensions of articles." Whether the length was too long, or the breadth was too narrow, we are not informed ; neither are we told that the house was too small. Dr. Bronson tells us that Obadiah Richards joined the settlement early ; that he had an old Town Plot lot, and that he made his propor- tion of fence in all the divisions, but that he had a tardy, slip-shod way of doing things, and that when the crisis came it was found that he had not rendered a full compliance with the conditions of the articles, and his allotments were condemned-that he mended his ways, however, and his rights were restored. By means of the paper on which Major Talcott recorded the complaints, we learn the exact nature of each proprietor's sin against the law of the committee, and are able to do justice to the memory of Obadiah Rich- ards. So far from being "slip-shod," he certainly has been exceed- ingly enterprising and industrious to have accomplished so much as has been done in the way of house and home building, especially when we stop to consider that he has but one boy to help, and five little girls to hinder him in his struggle with the wilderness. He was granted the only three-acre house lot fronting the green plain. It extended on the north to present Grove street. Before the estate to which this house belongs is settled, the lot and the house will be divided among the sons and the daughters, even to the stones of the chimney. About fifteen years ago, when about twenty- eight years old, Obadiah Richards married Hannah, the daughter of John and Mary Andrews, of Farmington.
John, age 14 years, Mary, age 12 years, Hannah, age 10 years, Esther, age 8 years,
Their children are : Elizabeth, age 6 years, Sarah, age 4 years, Obadiah, age 2 years.
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HISTORY OF WATERBURY.
On March 21st, 1679, in the old meeting-house at Farmington, Obadiah Richards and his wife presented their seven children for baptism. It was probably just before their removal to Mattatuck. We find the same seven children here in 1681.
The next lot will be found marked Thomas Judd, for son Sam", and beneath, Philip Judd. Samuel Judd was not of age in 1674, therefore his father became responsible for him. In the house on this lot we have the pleasure to present to all whom she may inter- est, the first English bride of Mattatuck. She is only eighteen, and the wedding journey has been from Massachusetts to Mattatuck. The arrival and the moving into the new house has taken place this very month. The bride is Mariah, the daughter of Thomas and Mary Strong, of Northampton. In his "Thomas Judd and his Descendants," Mr. Sylvester Judd tells us that this marriage cere- mony took place "about 1681." We are able to add to that testimony that "Samuel Judd built and went into his house in Mattatuck in Novembr, '81: and not fit before-that it was shingled about Mich- aelmus." The above testimony was given by Stephen Upson, Isaac Bronson, and Daniel Porter. The first child of Samuel Judd was born in the October following. Philip Judd did not become the occu- pant until 1687.
Joseph Hickok * is the owner and occupier of the next lot, hav- ing met and fulfilled all the required conditions. We find Joseph Hikcox and his wife in their finished house with their children:
Joseph, age 9 years, Benjamin, age 7 years,
Mary, age 5 years, Elizabeth, age 2 years.
Samuel Hickox, one of the influential men of Mattatuck, lives to the eastward of his brother Joseph. In every way, he seems to have done his duty, and although he is not one of the eleven planters whose interests are represented by f100, we expect to find on his lot a larger and a fairer house than his neighbors have indulged in. His wife is Hannah -. Their children are:
Samuel, age 13 years, Hannah, age II years, William, age 9 years,
Thomas, age 7 years, Joseph, age 4 years, Mary, age I year.
We are now come to the house lot occupied in part in 1892, by The Citizens' Bank and by Mr. Henry Scovill. Richard Sea- mer was the first recipient of it. He built his proportion of the
* This name, now usually rendered Hickox, has been given in many forms, seemingly ranging at pleasure from Hitchcock to Hicks. When Samuel Hickox, brother of Joseph, signed his name to the inventory of the estate of John Bronson in Mattatuck, in 1680, the recorder at Hartford made it Samuel Hitchcock. The baptismal records at Farmington give it as Hitchcock, and as Hickcock. Waterbury Records usually render it Hikcox. While upon the tombstone of a member of the same family was placed the name Hicks. There lies before me an agreement, made in 1707, between William and Benjamin Hickox, sons of Samuel the planter, to which their autographs are appended. The one is William Hickcox, the other, Benjamin Hecock.
MATTATUCK AS A PLANTATION. 173
first division of the common fence, and then left the plantation. Benjamin Barnes was his successor. There is a house upon the lot at this date. Benjamin Barnes is twenty-eight years of age. The name of his wife we know only as Sarah-and the date of the mar- riage has not been found. Benjamin, their first child of which we have record, was born in 1684. Mention is here made of this Ben- jamin Barnes to preserve the fact that his grave-stone is the oldest one known to be within the ancient township of Waterbury. It is here given, and is identified from its date, 17ยบ9, and the ini- tials B. B. Benjamin Barnes died in 1709, aged twenty-five years. The stone was discover- ed in 1890, in the Grand street cemetery. It had sunken until the rough edge only of what appeared to be a common field stone was raised perhaps a half- inch out of the soil. It bears a date at least seventeen years earlier than any other tomb- stone in the township .*
Leaving the green plain, we turn to the left, enter the North highway, and visit the most northern habitation of the plan- tation. No latch-string is out, for A.MUGEOBD.HFD, OJ4 John Newell, his neighbors say, does not stay at home. His house is finished and waiting. John Newell's life-story we may not tell He brings no bride to cheer the North-street house during all the lonely thirteen years that he holds it. His age is thirty-nine years. The name upon the lot is "Thomas Newell son."
We turn to his neighbor on the south, the reliable Isaac Bron- son. He is a man who seems in all ways to have been faithful to his promises, building on his four-acre lot in time, and "according to articles," and therefore not afraid to enter complaints against others. Isaac is thirty-five years of age. His wife is Mary, the daughter of John Root of Farmington. Their children are:
Isaac, age II years, John, age 8 years,
Samuel, age 5 years, Mary, age I year.
* It is now in the keeping of the writer, as is also the tomb-stone of Hannah Hopkins, the grandmother of the renowned Reverend Samuel Hopkins, D. D.
*
174
HISTORY OF WATERBURY.
John Standly, Junior, or, as usually written on Waterbury Records, John Standly, is the occupier of the next lot, containing three and one-half acres. In 1681, this young man of thirty-four years is quite unconscious of the important position he is destined to fill during the coming fourteen years of the town's life. Our regret is that he did not see the importance of copying, for preser- vation, more of the events connected with the early days of planta- tion and town. He was appointed to perform that duty by his townsmen after he left Waterbury. It is now twelve years since Hester Newell (the sister of John, who has the house two doors above) and John Stanley were married in Farmington. It is evi- dent that these parents have known the broadening touch of sorrow, for bereavement has been their lot. Before coming to Mattatuck, they lost two children, Esther and John. Their children in 1681 are:
Esther, age 7 years, Samuel, age 4 years,
Nathaniel, age 2 years.
On the next and last lot before reaching East Main street, we find the land originally allotted to Thomas Gridley; but it does not appear that he even attempted to make a rod of the common fence, or to fulfill any of the duties incumbent upon a "signer." John Stanley, naturally wishing his own sister, Sarah Gaylord, to live next door, assumed the responsibility of Thomas Gridley's allotments in behalf of Joseph Gaylord, her husband. Joseph Gaylord is thirty-two years of age, his wife is twenty-nine. Their children are :
Sarah, age 10 years, Joseph, age 8 years, William, age 1 year,
John, age 4 years,
and perhaps Benjamin and Elizabeth. The record of Joseph Gay- lord's children is not quite satisfactory, either as to their number, order, or ages. Neither is his house quite satisfactory, but, "it is large enough and ovned."
Crossing "the highway runningeastwardout of the Town Plat, " on the south-east corner of the green plain (now East and South Main streets) we are at the house lot " reserved for such inhabitant as should thereafter be entertained." The " entertained " resident guest proved, as we know, to be the miller, Stephen Hopkins. The mill at Hartford from its beginning seems to have been held in the Hopkins family; Governor Edward Hopkins himself owning the mill or an interest in it. It is not easy to recognize through the centuries the exact condition of this lot in Mattatuck in 1687. It is less than two years since this two acre lot was bestowed upon Stephen Hopkins, who had built the corn-mill in 1680, but what may be found upon it in November 1681, we are not able to record.
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MATTATUCK AS A PLANTATION.
Occupying the next lot to the southward, on which is the name " John Warner, Sr." with " Thomas Warner " beneath it, we find the son, Thomas Warner. This is the land it will be remembered upon which a cellar had been made in 1679, the cellar which the Assem- bly's Committee permitted to stand. Thomas Warner has failed to build his house in time. It is not finished, but that fact does not necessarily prevent our finding that his family is living in it, and as our records tell us that a son was born to Thomas Warner in Mattatuck, March 6, 1680, and the family continued here, we may expect to find him here with his wife Elizabeth, and their children,
Elizabeth, age unknown, Benjamin, age unknown,
John, age 20 months.
Southward of Thomas Warner's homestead lies the house lot belonging to the "Ministry." On a lot south of the above lies the new house lot that was laid out for Stephen Upson, the accepted proprietor. Stephen has without doubt built his house, but his home lot lies in a lonely spot, he having no next-door neighbor, and it may be that he is permitted to live on the south side of the green plain, where he has a merry company of half-brothers, for his mother is now the wife of Edmund Scott. Stephen is destined to wait another year for his home, and his wife, Mary Lee, who will come from Farmington. Nearly all that Mattatuck gains, Farm- ington must lose.
Thus we find that in 1681, Mattatuck is a village of twenty- eight dwelling-houses. Fifteen of the number are finished houses, thereby placing their owners on the Roll of Honor; thirteen are incomplete, or otherwise unsatisfactory. Two of the planters have failed to build; and two house lots are to us as undiscovered terri- tory. We find twenty-two families (including one widow) in which there are ninety-three children; and one household is without children. There is one new home; and there are six planters who are not married men. To these must be added, in our thought of the inhabitants, the unknown number of persons who, in the natural course of town building, made themselves necessary to the young plantation, but whose presence never became a matter of permanent record. It is not unreasonable to suppose that Matta- tuck received some of the Indian captives-the residue of the war- and that they lived here during their term of servitude; for the records of the colony are replete with indications that the early inhabitants utilized the labor of the "Indian" in many ways. Counting only the legalized inhabitants whom we can name we find one hundred and forty-five souls in Mattatuck in 1681.
CHAPTER XIII.
A LETTER FROM FARMINGTON-DIRECTIONS REGARDING THE GREAT LOTS -WAYS FOR PASSAGES THROUGH THE MEADOWS-THE COMMITTEE MEETING OF 1682-ITS CONDEMNATIONS AND FORFEITURES.
T HREE months after the date of the preceding chapter, Timothy Standly and Abraham Andrus, as selectmen, wrote to the Committee for Mattatuck, asking advice. The date of the letter was February 20, 1681. It was near the time of the annual meeting when the letter was written. The committee waited six weeks before answering the questions. The inquiries may be inferred from the replies given. The inhabitants were permitted to choose from among the three great lots, the lot that should be for the minister's use, and were told that in case they could not agree among themselves, the committee would decide the matter. Another question had been asked in regard to the great lots, in reply to which, the committee wrote: "Our answer is, men at present to take up these lots do not appear to us. We are not forward to break them, hoping in time some of worth and useful- ness will appear, and for the present leave it in the hands and power of Sergt. Thomas Judd, Sergt. John Standly and Samuel Hikcox [to] let out the three great lots, and to break up two or three acres in each lot, and to defray all common charges." This reply indicates that the inhabitants had asked if the great lots could be divided so as to admit men who desired to become pro- prietors of small holdings in the township. It also reveals to us that the committee held ambitious hopes for Mattatuck ; hopes which they quietly veil behind the words "Some of worth and usefulness," when they might have written, "some of wealth and station; men fitted to rule a plantation."
The answer to the second question is especially interesting, as it touches the subject of highways. "In reference unto ways to be laid out for passage through your meadow lands, our answer is, that we desire and appoint [the same committee] to lay out ways through sd meadows of twenty foot wide or more if they judge needful, for cart, horse, or oxen in yoke; every man to hold the property of the land taken out of his and their allotments forever, only to be improved for the use afores'd of a passage, the pasturage to belong to him or them through whose lot the way shall be laid
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MATTATUCK AS A PLANTATION.
out." "Serg.t" Thomas Judd, Isaac Bronson and Benjamin Judd had applied to the committee for guidance in reference to herding of cattle. The answer was : "We do order and appoint for the future that the inhabitants at a town-meeting, the major part of the inhabitants so met shall have full power to resolve and determine the way and method for herding, and to state what shall be charged for keeping of cows, and what shall be levied on dry cattle." This letter, announcing the result of the meeting, is signed by three members of the committee, John Talcott, John Wadsworth and Nicholas Olmstead. It was "Taken out of the original " by John Wadsworth. This is the first known meeting of the com- mittee that we have not in the "original." Without doubt, Major Talcott's many duties prevented him from sending this one to Mat- tatuck.
February 6, 1682, the committee met again. The meeting was held at Farmington. It was fraught with momentous consequences to certain proprietor inhabitants of Mattatuck. Fifteen months had passed since the time expired that had been appointed by the committee for the dwelling houses in Mattatuck to stand perfected. In the interval, an annual meeting had been held. Its permits, and one order, we have just enumerated as contained in the letter sent to the selectmen. No hint has been given of condemnation or for- feiture. The inhabitants have been allowed to go on, living in and finishing their houses in apparent security, when suddenly the sword of justice descends upon them, and-wonder of wonders-it is wielded to the drop, through the agency of certain of the planters themselves. In view of the fact that the few men who came first and built first had made complaints to the committee because their old Farmington neighbors tarried in their homes, one would not naturally expect to find the same men again raising their voices in complaint, when their neighbors and their brothers had arrived, and were making their very hearts glad by their presence, simply because the same neighbors and brothers had been a little late in finishing their houses; but this is precisely what they did do. We meet here, among our own planters, one of the surprises that assail us at so many points in the life of the Puritan, affording another proof that there was something in the men of that day that we have never quite understood-that we have never begun to under- stand-and the knowledge of this facts hould cause us to withhold our judgment in numberless instances. This not-understood something, led our planters straight on in the path of law, which to them was the King's Highway of Duty, and valiantly they trod it, even when the journey took away the thing they had most earnestly sought for.
12
178
HISTORY OF WATERBURY.
Thus we find at the very opening of this meeting at Farmington, in February, 1682, the following statement from the committee: " We having heard the complaints ; and Alligations of Serg. Thomas Judd, and Sergt. John Standly and other Friends sent from Mattatuck, as persons impowered to implead sundry of the proprietors there, for that they have not erected their dwelling Housen, and finished the same, according to provision and enjunc- tion by Articles concluded by the Committee for Mattatuck, November 26, 1679." We have no reason to think that it gave either John Standly or Thomas Judd any pleasure or profit to have their brothers dispossessed of their allotments, or to lose one-half of the householders, and yet they laid and pursued the plan for precisely that result. It was from these " complaints and alliga- tions " that we were able to draw the picture of Mattatuck in 1681. At the risk of being wearisome we will give them in their due form and order. As the committee listened to the story, Major Talcott made notes upon a piece of paper seven and one-half by eight inches. That piece of paper, yellow with age, crumpled and worn, was among the discovered documents so often alluded to ; and by its light we have been able to throw color and form into a region that seemed destitute of both.
The first act of the committee at this meeting was to adjudge and condemn all the granted allotments, formerly laid out to Ben- jamin Judd, Samuel Judd and Thomas Hancox, to be condemned as forfeited.
Benjamin Judd was arraigned on two charges. The first charge was because he was not living with his family in Mattatuck on May 30, 1680. The second was that his house was not finished on May 30, 1681. Testimony was offered that it was done in September of that year. Another aggravating circumstance was that Benjamin had "drawn oft from ye place." The temptations to linger long in Farmington must have been very great to most of the early settlers here. There, they had homes. There, family ties still held them. Their church relations continued there. Schools and comforts, unknown in Mattatuck, existed there. These things must have appealed strongly for sweet delays and long visits to men like Ben- jamin Judd, and to his wife, who was the daughter of Captain Will- iam Lewis, and to others.
Samuel Judd had "not built according to time prefixed. He built and went into his House in November, :81, and not fit before." Stephen Upson, the carpenter, testified that "it was shingled about Michaelmuss." Daniel Porter and Isaac Bronson testified.
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MATTATUCK AS A PLANTATION.
Thomas Hancox was the next culprit. Of him it was said: He "hath a House covered all most all and clabborded and noe chim- ney, within the time stated." He had deserted the place, "being gone all or the greatest of the year past."
It was agreed that the persons to whom the committee should thereafter grant the above allotments should "reside and dwell in Mattatuck the full term and time of four years in a steady way and manner with their families after subscription to the act and order." If the owners of the buildings on the condemned lands should refuse to sell them at a reasonable rate, or if the parties should fail to agree in the matter of purchase and sale, the new grantees were at liberty to build upon the land such mansion houses as the com- mittee required at the beginning. The same penalties for forfeiture were re-enacted for the new incumbents. The committee evidently made this condemnation and forfeiture of the allotted lands with genuine regret, for, almost in the same breath, certainly in the same sentence with the above conditions, we find the words: "And, in case those friends whose lands are at this meeting by us con- demned, do desire to be re-possessed of their present lands condemned as forfeited, [they] shall subscribe to this present act and order, in case we see reason to re-possess him of them." Under the above act, David Carpenter's formerly condemned lands were also to be admitted.
The "friends sent from Mattatuck," also complained of "Timothy Standly, Joseph Gaylord, John Carrington, Abraham Andrews, Cooper, Thomas Nuel, Daniel Porter, Thomas Warner, Thomas Richison, Obediah Richards and John Scovel," for their not building in time. Edmund or Edward Scott, Jr., was complained of at the same time; but his father came to the rescue, and he escaped. Benjamin Jones and John Newell were also the subject of com- plaint. To begin with the list, we find that Timothy Standly and Joseph Gaylord had each of them a house that was "Big enough, and ovned." [Ovened ?]
John Carrington was complained of, because his house was not large enough.
Abraham Andrus, the cooper, had not built a house on John Judd's house lot, which had been conferred upon him by the committee.
Thomas Newell had failed to gain a residence in May, 1680, and his house was not finished in May, 1681, neither was it done when the complaints were made.
Daniel Porter had built a house, but it had no chimney.
Thomas Warner, whose father, John Warner, the old "Pequot warrior," had his cellar in readiness when he died, had failed to
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HISTORY OF WATERBURY.
comply with the building regulations. The house was still unfin- ished.
Thomas Richason, poor fellow, was living in a cellar, and even the cellar was not his own, for the record tells us that he "hired it to live in."
Edmund Scott, Junr., had a house, but it was without a chimney. Obadiah Richards had not built his house according to the dimen- sions required by the committee.
This paper of Major Talcott's bears evidence of the Major's weariness of white men's complaints, for the latter part of it runs along in this sleepy fashion:
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