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 3
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Inasmuch as complete catalogues of the plants of this state, or of special districts, are easily accessible to botanists, it is quite unnecessary to attempt a full list here. What follows relates mostly to plants that are believed to be extinct or are becoming so, and to others that are interesting because of their habits, their beauty or their rarity, although not, perhaps, rare in other places.
Hepatica (Hepatica triloba), is becoming rare, being much sought after for its beautiful and very early flowers. Gold thread (Coptis trifolia), a plant in some repute for its medicinal properties, and abundant a few years ago in the vicinity of Waterbury, has become rare through the clearing up of its habitat-boggy swamps and wet thickets. The tulip tree (Liriodendron tulipifera), the whitewood of the western states, is occasionally met with, but the finest specimens are dwarfs beside the majestic trees of this species found in the west and south. Canadian moonseed (Menispermum Canadense), never common here, seems to have entirely disap- peared. The May apple or mandrake (Podophyllum peltatum) grew not many years ago, within a limited area, a short distance above Waterville. Sarracenia purpurea, best known as the pitcher plant or the side-saddle flower, was once very abundant in the peat swamp south of the Middlebury road, but disappeared when the fire overran the bog a few years ago. It is doubtful whether it can now be found within our limits, though very plentiful in localities not distant.
The climbing fumitory (Adlumia cirrhosa), often cultivated for festoons and bowers, was for several years common along the rocky banks of Hancock brook, above Waterville. The pale corydalis (Corydalis glauca) is sometimes met with on the bare summits of the hills, where it finds root in the seams and rifts of the rocks. We have ten or twelve species of the wild violet. The round-leaved (Viola rotundifolia) is the rarest of these, being found here only in cool, springy places. It is abundant further north, and this is its extreme southern limit, unless it be met with in the
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PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS.
Alleghany Mountains. The violet wood-sorrel (Oxalis violacea), often cultivated, grew wild for a time on the hillside near the resi- dence of Wallace H. Camp. Rhus typhina, the stag horn sumach, is rare in this region, a few specimens being found in the rocky valley of Hancock brook, below Hoadley's station. The bladder nut (Staphylea trifolia) grows at the base of the hill in the meadow west of the Waterbury Brass Company's mill, and in a few other places.
The striped maple (Acer Pennsylvanicum) and the mountain maple (A. spicatum) are found in the ravine at the foot of Eagle rock, near Reynolds Bridge. The fringed polygala (Polygala paucifolia) sometimes called flowering wintergreen, is one of the most beautiful of our early spring flowers. It is not a rare plant, but is always a puzzle to young botanists. The prickly pear (Opuntia vulgaris) is common on the summit of Beacon Hill, just south of the line of ancient Waterbury, but does not, so far as I know, occur within our limits. The bristly sarsaparilla or wild elder (Aralia hispida) is found in the ravine between Waterville and Hoadley's station. It is very abundant further north on the Green Mountains. Four other species of this genus are found here. Flowering dogwood (Cornus florida) is met with in all parts of our territory and is quite abundant on the hills west of Thomaston. The dwarf cornel (Cornus Canadensis) grows in a swamp half a mile northwest of the Spindle Hill school-house in Wolcott. It is very common on the hills further north. The cranberry tree (Viburnum opulus) was found, a few years ago, on the hill west of the Waterbury Brass Company's mill, and the hobble-bush (V. lantanoides) grows in the ravine at Reynolds Bridge. The com- mon May-weed (Maruta Cotula), introduced from Europe, was formerly one of the most common weeds seen by the roadside. A few years ago it almost disappeared from this region, and for several seasons could scarcely be found. Lately it has reappeared, but is still rare.
The ox-eye daisy (Leucanthemum vulgare), that beautiful foreign pest which some have named as the national floral emblem, is so common that when it is in blossom in June, our hills are as white as if covered with snow. The creeping snowberry (Chiogenes hispidula) was quite abundant in Cedar Swamp before that was made a reservoir; but it is doubtful whether it can be found within our limits. The trailing arbutus (Epigea repens), once common, has almost disappeared through the ravages of Mayflower hunters, who take it root and branch, flowers or no flowers, wherever they can find it. Jamestown weed (Datura stramonium), not rare thirty years ago, is rarely if ever seen now. The fringed gentian
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HISTORY OF WATERBURY,
(Gentiana crinita) is rather common, but is certain to share the fate of the arbutus, as its very pretty flowers are just scarce enough to be sought after. The five-flowered gentian (G. quinqueflora) occurs in Litchfield and in Bristol, and should be found in Plymouth and Thomaston. A thrifty patch of buckbean (Menyanthes trifolia) was found, a few years ago, by J. G. Jones (who has detected several rare plants in this region), in a muddy pool, beside Chestnut Hill brook, in Wolcott. It has since disappeared. Wild ginger (Asarum Canadense) was once common along the banks of Hancock brook, above Waterville.
A tree that, whether cultivated for shade or growing wild, exceeds all others in luxuriance, is the American or white elm (Ulmus Americana). It flourishes everywhere, on high lands and on low, in wet and dry soils alike. Its winged seeds take root and grow in every thicket, in cultivated fields, in gardens and even between the paving stones of gutters and sidewalks. It is a favorite shade tree throughout New England, and it thrives nowhere better than in the Naugatuck valley. The slippery elm (U. fulva) is rather rare, and seldom reaches a large size in this region. The hop (Humulus lupulus), introduced from Europe, grows spontaneously along the Naugatuck river. The family of oaks is represented by the following species: Quercus alba, Q. montana, Q. bicolor, Q. prinoides, Q. ilicifolia, Q. tinctoria, Q. coccinea, Q. rubra, and Q. palustris. The pine family is represented by the pitch pine (Pinus rigida) and the white pine (P. strobus). The latter seems to have been abundant here in early times and to have furnished much valuable timber. The hemlock and the black spruce grew here. The former is now quite rare and the latter exists only as a shade tree around old homesteads. The tamarack or black larch (Larix Americana), once common, is now nearly extinct. The white cedar (Cupressus thyoides) was once abundant in Cedar swamp, and a few scattering trees of small size still grow on the borders of the reservoir which occupies its place; but it is not, so far as I know, found within our limits.
The Indian turnip (Arisaema triphyllum) is very common, but the dragon root (A. dracontium) is rare. It was growing, a few years ago, along the Naugatuck, just below the Watertown railroad bridge and, in a gully now filled up, near the New England station in Waterbury. The water arum (Calla palustris) grows in Wolcott, in a swamp northwest from the Spindle Hill school-house, also in a swamp near the Middlebury road. Three species of lady's slipper (Cypripedium pubescens, C. parviflorum, C. acaule) occur in this territory. C. acaule is quite common, the others are very rare. At
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PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS.
least twenty-five species of ferns are found in this region. One species, the walking-leaf fern (Camptosorus rhizophyllus), has dis- appeared from the only locality where I have found it growing. This was in Watertown, near Nonnewaug river, almost due west from the Watertown fair grounds.
In nothing else does the subjugation of a wilderness by man work such change as in its zoology. The larger wild animals are killed or driven away, and domesticated species, either useful or otherwise, take their places. The smaller animals change their haunts and to some extent their habits. Waterfowl desert the lakes and rivers, and other game birds become scarce and shy, and, though a few species of small birds may increase in numbers, most of them grow scarcer and some disappear, and the birds of prey follow the kinds they subsist upon. Fish are taken to an extent that exceeds their increase, and their homes are poisoned by sewage or closed by obstructions, till they die out, or they are only. saved from extinction by a re-stocking of their haunts. Reptiles, from their habits, are less affected than other orders, but these also suffer through the reclamation of waste places and the war of extermination that is ever waged against the noxious kinds. Among the lower orders, especially among insects, these changes mean the destruction of many of the original tribes and the intro- duction of others.
We have no complete lists of the animals living here at the time of the first settlement of the country, but we know that many changes have taken place. Bears, deer and wolves, once common, are no longer found. Wild geese and ducks and other waterfowl, though formerly here in countless numbers, are rarely if ever seen on the ponds and running streams, and grouse and quail would long ago have become extinct had not the law given them protec- tion. The streams, poisoned by factories, are destitute of fish, and it is only in the small spring brooks among the hills that the trout now finds refuge. Civilization and cultivation mean extermination to the aborigines, whether wild animals or wild men. All give way to civilized man, for not his "rights" but his ambition and selfishness "are paramount," and they have "no rights that he is bound to respect." In enlightened man the cruel instincts of the savage have not yet died out, and he gloats over his more perfect devices for destroying helpless creatures that while living are harmless, and when dead are of no value to him.
CHAPTER II.
ABORIGINAL MATTATUCK-THE INDIAN RACE -THE ALGONKIAN STOCK IN NEW ENGLAND-INDIANS OF CONNECTICUT RIVER, OF LONG ISLAND SOUND-MATTATUCK CLAIMED BY BOTH-ABORIGINAL LIFE-THE TRIBE AND THE "GENS"-TRIBAL OWNERSHIP OF LAND-EMPLOYMENTS-USEFUL ARTS-IMPLEMENTS OF STONE- LANGUAGE-CHARACTER.
T HE history of Waterbury begins with its settlement by white men. But there are certain well known or ascertainable facts concerning its condition previous to the earliest visits of Europeans which some readers will expect to find included in the narrative, and which for the sake of completeness ought to be put on record. These facts relate not only to the topography, the geology and the natural history of the region formerly called Mat- tatuck, but to its aboriginal inhabitants.
These inhabitants belonged, of course, to the American Indian race. It is possible that the Naugatuck valley was at some far off time-say during the last glacial period-occupied by a prehistoric people, represented, as some think, by the Eskimos of the present day. But in the absence of any remains which can be positively assigned to such a people, it is unneccessary to take this possibility into account. The only inhabitants with whom we need concern ourselves are the Indians of whom the first settlers purchased the territory and their predecessors .*
At the time of the discovery of America, and at the settlement of Connecticut a hundred and fifty years later, the entire North American continent was overspread by a people constituting quite certainly a single race. With the possible exception of the Eskimos, they possessed physical and linguistic peculiarities which differ- enced them from other races of men and set them apart as a people by themselves. At the same time this widely extended race was divided into distinct stocks or peoples, separated from one another not only by geographical position but by the possession of totally distinct languages. There are those who, like Roger Williams in his " Key," speak of "the language of America" as if there were
* Chipped implements have been found in the gravel of the Delaware river, at Trenton, N. J., which from their position must apparently be assigned to a glacial era. (See Abbott's "Primitive Industry," chapter xxxiii.) But no great antiquity can be claimed for any remains thus far discovered in the Naugatuck valley.
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ABORIGINAL INHABITANTS.
only one American Indian language, apparently ignorant of the fact that the Indian languages are numbered by hundreds, if not thousands. But, as in other parts of the world, these languages are not all distinct from one another, nor is the relationship between one and another in all cases the same. Some are as closely related as Spanish and Portuguese are, others as remotely as English and Welsh, and others are as completely separated from one another as are Greek and Hebrew. As in Europe and Asia there is an Aryan family of languages descended with all their diversities from a common parent language, and a Semitic family descended from an- other common parent, so is it with the languages of America. They exist in larger or smaller groups, each group entirely distinct from the others, and each consisting of several languages having a com- mon parentage, and characterized by certain close affinities. There is, for example, an Iroquois group, numbering seven or eight lan- guages, a Dakota group, numbering eighteen, a Shoshonee group, numbering thirty-two languages and dialects, and an Algonkin group numbering seventeen. The seven or eight members of the Iroquois group are evidently sister tongues, possessing to a large extent a common vocabulary and other common characteristics; the same is true of the seventeen members of the Algonkin group. But between the Mohawk language of the Iroquois group, and the Mohegan language of the Algonkin group, although the two ex- isted for a long time side by side, there was no more relationship than between English and Hungarian. There was a certain resem- blance between them in structure, but between their respective vocabularies, that is, between the stock of words used by a Mohawk and the stock of words used by a Mohegan, no resemblance or rela- tionship can be discovered.
It may not be strictly scientific to divide off and classify the peoples speaking these various languages according to the group- ing which the languages suggest, but it is very natural to do so, and is not likely to be seriously misleading. While therefore we speak of the American race as one, we speak of it as divided into "races " or peoples. Of all these, the Algonkians-that is, the tribes speaking the various languages of the Algonkin stock-were geo- graphically the most widely distributed. They extended "from Labrador to the Rocky Mountains, and from the Churchill River of Hudson Bay to Pamlico Sound in North Carolina."* Some of these -for example, the Crees, Chippeways and Delawares-were numer- ous and were spread over wide regions. But in the territory now known as New England the population was broken up into compar-
* J. C. Pilling's " Bibliography of the Algonquian Languages," p. iii.
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HISTORY OF WATERBURY.
atively small divisions,-the various tribes or bands speaking closely related languages, or dialects of the same language. In Southern New England the tribes best known to us were the Mas- sachusetts, the Nipmucks, the Narragansetts and the Mohegans, to whom the Pequots were closely related .*
Taking our position on the western bank of the Connecticut, say at Hartford, we find ourselves in the midst of an Algonkian people extending for some distance up and down the river, divided into tribes or bands, and perhaps loosely organized into a kind of con federacy. We can not accurately define the nature or extent of their organization, but we learn from the records of the time that at the first coming of the English a certain sachem named Sequas- sen sold land to them extending as far west as the country of the hostile Mohawks. The tribe of which Sequassen was a sachem must have included the Indians of the Farmington river, some of whom had their principal seat at Poquonnock, a dozen miles to the north of Hartford, and others at the bend in the river, eight or ten miles to the west, where Farmington was afterward settled. From this bend in the Farmington river, or from the name of the place at which the bend occurs, these Indians were called the Tunxis. t In Barber's "Connecticut Historical Collections " they are spoken of as "numerous and warlike," but Mr. J. W. DeForest in his "History of the Indians of Connecticut " estimates their number at "eighty to one hundred warriors, or about four hundred indi- viduals." The first Poquonnock chief known to the English was Sehat, who was succeeded by Nesaheagun, whose name has been perpetuated in that of the first Waterbury lodge of Odd Fellows. } The Farmington Indians had a camping-ground at Simsbury also, some miles west of Poquonnock, and claimed ownership of the lands west of there, as far as the Housatonic river. All the ter ritory comprised within the original bounds of Mattatuck was included in their claim.
* By some writers the name Mohegan is used to designate all the Indians between the Narragansetts and the Hudson river. "The Muhhekaneew or Stockbridge Indians, as well as the tribe at New London, are by the Anglo-Americans called Mohegans. . . . This language is spoken by all the Indians throughout New England. Every tribe, as that of Stockbridge, that of Farmington, that of New London, has a different dia- lect; but the language is radically the same. Mr. Eliot's translation of the Bible is in a particular dialect of this language." P. 5 of Dr. Jonathan Edwards's " Observations on the Language of the Muhhekaneew Indians. New Haven, 1788."
+ " The locality to which the name originally belonged was the ' bow' or ' turning ' of the river, where 'it bends' (wut-tunkshau) from a southeasterly to a northerly course." Dr. J. H. Trumbull's " Indian Names of Places," p. 74.
The name " Tunxis " survives in the designation of a " tribe" or lodge of the " Order of Red Men," in Waterbury.
The old-fashioned e of the early scribes having been mistaken, as it often is, for an o, the name has been transformed into " Nosahogan."
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ABORIGINAL INHABITANTS.
Leaving the centre of the state and going southward to the shore of Long Island sound, we enter the country of the Quiripi Indians, who were known around New Haven harbor as the Quin- nipiacs. Their territory extended from the Connecticut river to the western bounds of the state. To the west of the New Haven Indians was another Quiripi tribe or band claiming ownership on both sides of the Housatonic. Their territory extended from West river (which flows between New Haven and Orange), or at any rate from Oyster river (which flows between Orange and Milford), all the way to Fairfield. Those who lived to the east of the Housa- tonic, whose chief seat was near the mouth of the Wepowaug (or Milford) river, were known as Wepowaugs; those to the west and north were called Paugasetts or Paugasucks .*
On the west of the Housatonic the Paugasucks claimed the terri- tory now comprised in the towns of Stratford, Bridgeport, Trum- bull, Huntington and Monroe, and on the east of that river lands extending northward beyond Beacon Hill brook, including what lies between the Housatonic and the Naugatuck, and embracing the Mattatuck bounds. Although their well-known sachem Ansanta- way t is said to have had his wigwam on Charles Island, the chief seat of the Paugasucks was at the mouth of the Naugatuck. On the tongue of land between the two rivers, about three-fourths of a mile above their junction and close to the Housatonic bank, they had a kind of fortress to which they were accustomed to resort in times of danger.
It appears, then, that at the date of the settlement of Mattatuck, the country lying to the east and northeast of it was occupied by an Algonkian tribe, having for its natural eastern boundary the Con- necticut river, and claiming jurisdiction far to the west, while the country lying to the south was occupied by another Algonkian tribe, having for its natural southern boundary Long Island sound, and claiming jurisdiction far to the north. Mattatuck itself-as any one may see by a glance at the map of Connecticut-lay at the intersection or overlapping of the two claims, and was the common meeting-ground of both tribes. If the tribes had been hostile rather than friendly, the meeting-ground would have been a battle-ground; but not only was there a good understanding
* In the records of New Haven colony, the name appears as Paugasset ; in the records of the Connecticut colony, Paugasuck. It designated the lands "by Derby ferry and about Derby neck," and was superseded by the English name Derby by vote of the General Court in May, 1675. It denotes, according to Dr. Trum- bull (" Indian names," p. 46) " a place at which a strait widens, where the narrows open out," and is descrip- tive of the junction of the Housatonic and Naugatuck rivers. The name was applied, naturally enough, to. the Indians who had their chief seat there.
+ Like Nesaheagun, his name is perpetuated in that of an Odd Fellows' organization in Waterbury-the Ansantawae Encampment.
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HISTORY OF WATERBURY.
between them, there are indications in the various deeds of land signed by their representatives, that some of them were inter- related.
At the time of their first contact with Europeans, the American Indians in different regions were found in different stages of devel- opment. Those of Central America, Mexico and New Mexico lived in villages (pueblos) and depended almost entirely on horticulture for subsistence. There were other tribes that did not cultivate the ground, but depended entirely upon fish, game and bread-roots. Between these two extremes there were tribes which combined both these modes of life in different degrees. They depended partly on horticulture for subsistence, but could not be considered village Indians. To this class belonged the Indians of the Atlantic coast, including those of Connecticut. They had their established camp- ing-grounds, but they were a roving people. This was true of those from whom the territory of Waterbury was purchased. The Farm- ington river Indians had their camping-grounds at Poquonnock, Farmington and Simsbury, and the Paugasucks at the mouth of the Naugatuck. But we must not think of them as dwelling perma- nently at these places, but rather as frequenting the entire region which they claimed as their own, establishing a temporary camp now at one place and now at another, according to the season of the year and the opportunities afforded for hunting and fishing,-an annual visit to the salt water being a matter of course even with those who lived at a considerable distance from it .* Dr. Bronson says:+ "It is believed that at the time of its discovery no Indian settlement existed within the limits of ancient Waterbury." Even if this was the case, it does not follow that the region was not occu-
*" They remove house upon these occasions : From thick warm valleys, where they winter, they remove a little nearer to their summer fields. When 'tis warm spring, then they remove to their fields where they plant corn. In middle of summer, because of the abundance of fleas, which the dust of the house breeds, they will fly and remove on a sudden from one part of their field to a fresh place. And sometimes, having fields a mile or two or many miles asunder, when the work of one field is over, they remove house to another. If death fall in amongst them, they presently remove to a fresh place ; if an enemy approach, they remove into a thicket or swamp, unless they have some fort to remove unto. Sometimes they remove to a hunting- house in the end of the year, and forsake it not until snow lie thick, and they will travel home, men, women and children, through the snow, thirty, yea fifty or sixty miles. But their great remove is from their sum- mer fields to warm and thick woody bottoms where they winter. They are quick ; in half a day yea, some- times at few hours' warning to be gone, and the house up elsewhere, especially if they have stakes ready pitched for their mats. [ once in travel lodged at a house, at which in my return I hoped to have lodged again there the next night ; but the house was gone in that interim, and I was glad to lodge under a tree." (Roger Williams's " Key," pp. 46, 47.)
" Towns they have none, being always removing from one place to another for conveniency of food, some- times to those places where one sort of fish is most plentiful, other whiles where others are. I have seen half a hundred of their wigwams together in a piece of ground, and they show prettily; within a day or two, or a week, they have been all dispersed. They live for the most part by the seaside, especially in the spring and summer quarters ; in winter they are gone up into the country to hunt deer and beaver." (John Josselyn's "Account of Two Voyages to New England, made during the years 1638, 1663," P 99 of reprint.)
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