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 36
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W HILE we have lingered at the northward, events have occurred at the heart of the township that are worthy of mention. Union Square was at an early date a centre of activity, if not the business centre of the town. Here was the corn- mill, the Mecca where the material bread of life was ground out for all the inhabitants; here was a saw-mill, and here, it is thought, was the tannery that the town encouraged Abraham Andrews to build. Here Joseph Lewis lived, weaving cloth for ten or twelve years before he removed to the Straits mountain at Judd's meadows, to raise rye for export; and here came, morning and evening, the drifts of cattle to and from their pasture lands over the Mill river, passing on their way between the houses of Abraham Andrews, Senior, on the south (on land where Mr. Edward Terrell now lives), and Abraham Andrews, Junior, on Union Square itself on the left (for his house was surrounded by highways). The highways there- about were changed almost with the seasons; so difficult is it to thread their mazes that one becomes highway-blind in the attempt. Abraham Andrews' orchard was a certain number of feet from the north bound of Grand street when that street was reopened in 1709 from Bank street to the Mill river; and in later years it became the property of Joshua Porter and afterwards it was long in the owner- ship of his daughter Hepsibah.
In the house that he had built in 1704, Abraham Andrews died in 1731. He was the last survivor of the signers of 1674.
During the period from 1731 to 1742, new inhabitants came pour- ing their wealth of family life and possession into the township. They came singly and in family groups of two, three, and occasion- ally four brothers. In addition to the names of men already given
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EVENTS FROM 1732 TO 1741.
as having arrived at Westbury and Northbury, we find those of Lothrop, Rew, Weed, Merrill, Punderson, Baldwin, Beard, Camp, Atwell, North, Curtiss, Foot, Hubbard, Nichols, Sanford, Prichard, Gunn, Sherman, How, Matthews, Adams, Baker, Frost, Holbrook, Humiston, Johnson, Smith, Coxwell, Williams, Moor, Royse, Terrill, Doolittle, Gordon, Prindle, Thompson, Truck, Bellamy, Earl, Harri- son, Hotchkiss, Luddington, Osborne, Seymour, Trowbridge, North, Preston, Tompkins, Silkrig, Wakelin, Hull, Trowbridge, and perhaps others.
Despite all this increase of population the proprietors kept on their unwavering course, meeting the changed conditions with unchanged front. Now and again the town would welcome a new man to its list of office-holders-to keep the pound key, or, possibly, to view the common fence, or to dig the graves-but seldom to its higher offices until he had been well tried.
It is not possible to follow clearly the progress of events, because of the missing links in the records. It does not appear at what time the second school house was built, for we find no account of the disposition that was made of the timber drawn to the " Meeting House Green " for it, in 1732. We have no record from January, 1734, to December, 1736, and it was probably during the interim that it was built.
The first bridge across the Naugatuck river at West Main street was also built during that interval. The intimation of it comes through the laying of a tax "to pay the charges of the bridge." This was in 1736. Five years later the freshet must have carried it away, for in March it was voted to repair the bridge over our river, and three men were appointed " to look after and save what timber could be found."
Under date of December 10, 1734, we find the following return of a committee in relation to school lands:
We the subscribers being desired to consult the best method for the school land in Waterbury, and our judgment is that a committee be appointed to make sale of all the school land and propriety belonging to the same, and that said committee make sale of all the meadow lots to the highest bidder at some public time and be impowered to give deeds to such persons-which deeds shall be held good for nine hundred and ninety-nine years and that the buyer shall pay the money down or mortgage lands for the security of the principle and give bonds yearly for the interest of such sums as he shall give for such particular lands as he shall so buy *
and that the use of the money which the above said land shall fetch shall be converted to the use of the school in said Town for the said term of nine hundred ninety-nine years.
JOSEPH LEWIS,
Committee, WILLIAM JUDD, SAMLL HIKCOX.
The above Written Bill was passed into a vote.
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HISTORY OF WATERBURY.
John Bronson immediately secured the school land in Buck's meadow, for forty shillings and one penny an acre-Deacon Samuel Brown "four acres in Handcox meadow, for fifty-four pounds ten shillings good and lawful money," and soon very many acres of school lands were leased for nine hundred and ninety-nine years, on merely nominal terms-for school lands were abundant and had. with the exception of the meadow allotments-lain unimproved from the time of the various land divisions. By 1734 the school lands must have numbered well nigh a thousand acres. Nearly two years pass away without record, and then the following entry is found:
Whereas there was considerable discourse about letting out the school money which the school land was sold for as often as there should any of the principle be paid in, that it might not lie unimproved, the town by their vote agreed and im- powered their school committee to let out the money to such as want to hire and to take double security by mortgage for the principle, which mortgages are to run to the school committee for the time being, and to take their notes or bonds for the interest to run to the school committee as above, so to be disposed and improved to the use of the school in Waterbury for ever.
The bonds were to be lodged in the "Town Treasurers office," the treasurer giving a receipt for them. Deacon Thomas Clark held the office in 1736. In 1738 the town appointed "the town clerk to be with, and to take care with the school committee in letting out the school money and taking security, as there should be occasion." The town clerk's was the only permanent office in the town-Mr. Southmayd having held it since 1721. The eleventh of December, 1738, must have been a cold day, for after the above vote (in the meeting house) the meeting adjourned for one hour-"to meet at Captain Timothy Hopkins "-where they chose eight men as school committee, Lieut. Thomas Bronson as town treasurer, and decided that the £1oo that had been agreed upon (on his retirement from the ministry), to be paid to Mr. Southmayd in 1740, should be laid upon the list of 1738. Prudent, thoughtful men! This act included their neighbors at Westbury and Northbury as participants in the indebtedness. Per- haps it was in recognition of this, that Mr. Southmayd gave the men of Northbury, the same year "one acre of land for publick use," on which was " a house which the said inhabitants had already set up under the denomination of a school house, or a house for the said inhabitants to meet in to carry on the public worship of God on the Sabbath when they [should] have the means among them."
In 1740 we learn for the first time that there are Professors of the Church of England in Waterbury, and that services according to the prescribed forms of that church have been held, by the
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EVENTS FROM 1732 TO 1741.
Reverend Jonathan Arnold. Under date of April 14, 1740, that gentleman sent the following acknowledgment:
To the Collectors of the Ministerial Charges in Waterbury.
Then Received of the Professors of the Church of England in Waterbury the Areas of what is Due of their Ministerial Taxes to my satisfaction and Request you will Give them a Discharge. I am
Your Humble Servant,
JONATHAN ARNOLD.
The same professors of the Church of England soon sought, at the hands of the proprietors of the township, land whereon to build their church edifice-the story of which will be told in connection with the history of that church in Waterbury. It is with especial gratification that we are able to add that no family dissension appears to have marred the peacefulness of the departure in the fullness of time of the children of the meeting-house for the little church on the corner of North Willow and West Main streets.
The entrance of the Reverend Mark Leavenworth into the work laid down by Mr. Southmayd seems to have been so natural and quiet, that a ripple of the change of oarsmen failed to strike the shore where we search the sands for signs of tides that rose and fell so long ago. Truth compels us however to admit that there are neither town, proprietors, nor church records covering the period of his ordination, which Dr. Bronson tells us was in March of 1740. Among the papers of the Rev. Isaac Stiles of North Haven is one announcing that he gave the "Right hand of fellowship" at the ordination of Mr. Leavenworth, and that he preached the sermon at the ordination of Mr. Todd at Northbury, but no dates are given.
In 1740 certain inhabitants who were " dwelling in the southwest part of Waterbury woods," together with certain inhabitants of Derby and of "the southeast part of the township of Woodbury woods " petitioned in the usual formula that they might become one entire, distinct, ecclesiastical society. Isaac Trowbridge, the three brothers John, Jonas, and Joseph Weed, and Joseph Osborne . were the petitioners living in the Waterbury woods.
Within less than three years four parishes were formed, whose members went out from the old First Church-Westbury, North- bury, Oxford in part, and St. James's, now St. John's. Of the latter parish, the earliest list of members known to be extant is found in a town rate-book of the tax-payers for the year 1748-and of the forty - three men listed as churchmen, thirty -six were in Water- bury at the formation of the parish-of the thirty-six, twenty-four were born here and brought up in the First Church, being lineal descendants of the planters-thirty had been in the same church
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HISTORY OF WATERBURY.
for nearly a score of years. Of the remaining six members, Caleb Thompson, George Nichols and Robert Johnson must have been attendants at least ten years, and Nathaniel Gunn six years-while John Brown was the son of Samuel Brown, deacon in the First Church from 1730 to about 1735; leaving William "Silkrig" as the only new comer, and he had been here two years in 1740. Surely these churches ought to love one another, for they are bound together by all the ties of a century of existence.
No town history of Connecticut can avoid the mention of the great excitement and its consequent train of events that convulsed the churches in 1740, and later. Public opinion seems to have pre- pared the way for a great awakening of the people to the religious duties of the hour. In this " Revival " great good was accomplished, and great wrong was wrought. The special feature of it that it is necessary to introduce here is the fact of the. change it effected in the status of the ancient churches of the colony. Hitherto, the teaching and the preaching had been exclusively in the hands of an educated and ordained ministry, there being only "standing ministers" in the land. While this "Great Awakening " was in progress, the Rev. James Davenport, from Southold, L. I., visited Connecticut. He is described by one who witnessed his work, as " a wonderful, strange, good man, under the influence of a false spirit. He not only gave an unrestrained liberty to noise and outcry both of distress and joy in time of divine service, but promoted both with all his might. Those persons that passed immediately from great distress to great joy and delight, after asking them a few questions were instantly proclaimed converts, or said to have come to Christ, and upon it the assembly were told that a number, it may be ten or fifteen, have come to Christ already, who will come next? He was a great encourager if not the first setter up of public exhorters, encouraging any lively, zealous Christian to exhort with all the air and assurance of ministerial authoritative exhorting- although altogether unequal to the solemn undertaking." The exhorters came into credit among multitudes of people who chose to hear them rather than their old teachers, whom Mr. Davenport referred to as "the letter-learned rabbies, scribes and pharisees and unconverted ministers." Very soon "the standing ministers began to fall in their credit and esteem among the people, and thus the seeds of discord and disunion were sown, and a foundation laid for separations." Mr. Davenport made a tour of the churches, examin- ing the ministers in private-such of them as submitted to his questions-and then publicly declared his judgment of their spirit- ual state as converted, or unconverted. Multitudes believed in Mr
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EVENTS FROM 1732 TO 1741.
Davenport as a man who had inquired at the oracle of God, and " a minister could not gainsay or correct his wildest and most unscript- ural words under the price of his reputation." People who had great regard for their ministers were as much concerned lest they should not stand the trial of Mr. Davenport's examinations, "as if they were going before the Judge of all the Earth."
In May of 1742, two men of Stratford made complaint to the Assembly of disorders happening in that town "by occasion of one James Davenport convening great numbers of people together in several parts of said town." Mr. Davenport was brought to trial, the King's attorney producing evidence to prove the complaint, and Mr. Davenport appearing in his own behalf and with witnesses. " The court observing the behaviour, conduct, language and deport- ment of Davenport in the time of his tryal and what happened in the evening after the matter was in hearing and not gone through with," made the following announcement: "This Assembly is of opinion that the things alleged and the behaviour, conduct, and doctrines advanced and taught by the said James Davenport do and have a natural tendency to disturb and destroy the peace and order of this government. It appears to this Assembly that the said Davenport is under the influences of enthusiastical impression and impulses, and thereby disturbed in the rational faculties of his mind, and therefore to be pitied and compassionated, and not to be treated as otherwise he might be." Mr. Davenport was, by order of the court, removed to his home at Southold.
In the light of the above events, it will appear that the rigid supremacy of the established church of the colony was gone for- ever. Notwithstanding the fact that Mr. Davenport afterward returned to Connecticut clothed in his right mind, admitted his errors, and sought forgiveness of the ministers whom he had treated amiss, the people declared that "he was turned against them and was become their enemy-that he had got away from God and joined in a great measure with the world of opposers and carnal ministers. They were disappointed, vexed, disquieted in their spirits, and, on the whole, they all rejected his message."*
Into conditions that are only hinted at in the foregoing allusions, Mr. Leavenworth, Mr. Trumbull and Mr. Todd were brought at the beginning of their pastorates. Each pastor and each parishioner was under the rule of his own mind and the spell of his own tem- perament while passing through the scenes of the "Great Awaken- ing." The new order of things had its attractions and its repul- sions; and without doubt worked its way in some degree into every
* The Rev. Joseph Fish, Stonington, 1740-1763.
22
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HISTORY OF WATERBURY.
meeting-house in the colony. That it wrought to the benefit of the Church of England there can be no question-many of the staunch- est Congregationalists making the very highest type of Episcopal- ians-while the most ardent followers of Davenport and the en- thusiasms of religious exaltation seceded in the opposite direction in order to form new societies in accord therewith. The General Assembly enacted vigorous laws in the endeavor to restrain minis- ters from going into other parishes than their own to preach, with- out invitation from church or minister, and in various ways sought to quell the spirit of rebellion that had come into action against the established order. All town, church, and society records relating to the years in question being lost, it is impossible to give local facts, but there are indications that Mr. Leavenworth and Mr. Todd, both young and impulsive men, sympathized with the new order of things. Dr. Bronson, whose information was derived from the manuscripts of the late Judge Bennet Bronson, tells us that "some of the meetings of the New Lights were extremely boisterous and disorderly, so that on one occasion John Southmayd Jr., a constable of the town, felt himself justified in appearing in their meeting and commanding the peace of the commonwealth." This must have been as early as 1742. Tracy, in his "Great Awakening," makes the statement that in 1744 the Association of New Haven County suspended the Messrs. Humphreys of Derby, Leavenworth of Waterbury, and Todd of Northbury from the ministry, for assisting in the ordination of the Rev. Jonathan Lee, on which occasion Mr. Leavenworth "preached the ordination sermon." Stephen Hopkins accompanied him, as "worthy mes- senger" from the Waterbury Church. Mr. Todd made the last prayer with imposition of hands, and gave the right hand of fellowship"-while the worthy messenger from the Northbury Society was Moses Blakeslee. In fact, the trio of ministers from the Naugatuck Valley formed the "Select Council," and ordained Mr. Lee-who later received from the General Assembly an invita- tion or appointment to preach the Election Sermon, which is sufficient evidence that his ordination was ultimately considered according to " Law and Order." The first appearance in the public records of Mr. Leavenworth's name is when the ear-marks of his cattle are given in April of 1741-they were "three half-pennies on the foreside of the near ear;" Mr. Todd's name first appears in the same manner before December, 1740-his cattle-marks being “ a slit in the top of each ear and a half-penny the foreside each ear." Mr. Trumble's name appears in 1745, when Mr. Southmayd records : " the [town] meeting opened by prayer and supplication by the Rev. Mr. John Trumble."
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EVENTS FROM 1732 TO 1741.
Among the lost records was one appointing a committee to sell the ministry land; for we find it, later, ordered to "recover damages of persons who had bought of it and refused to stand by their bargain." Mr. Southmayd was appointed "to keep the notes and bonds of interest that the ministry land was sold for, and deliver the same to the several societies' committees when orderly called for." It was also "voted to sell the remainder of the ministry land -if under circumstances that it may be sold." It may have been because the previous sales of ministry land were held to be invalid, that the purchasers had declined to receive them. Nevertheless, in 1741 "it was agreed that the remainder of the ministry land sequestered by the Grand Committee may be sold, and the use of the money be to the use of the ministry in said Waterbury." The "remainder of the ministry land " referred to the one-sixth part, or its representative, of all that part of our city bounded to-day by Bank street on the west, East Main street on the north, South Elm street on the east, and Grand and Union streets on the south. This, after several changes within the bounds named, was leased on December 17, 1722, to Samuel Porter and Thomas Upson. In 1728 the town allowed Thomas Porter to have this ministry land, if he would give in exchange for it "two acres for one, of his land lying above the Clay pitts." * What became of this ministry land, and how in 1738 Thomas Porter had become possessed of it has not been investigated. Fortunately, the Little Pasture was safe in the life-keeping of Mr. Southmayd at this time.
When in 1689 the General Court feared the coming of Governor Andros, it will be remembered that it made haste to give to Wind- sor and Hartford the large tract of lands lying west of their town- ships and extending to the Housatonic river. In the subsequent complication of interests between the colony and the towns, it was settled that the colony should have returned to it certain lands, which lands were divided into seven townships; each township was divided into a certain number of rights, varying from thirty to fifty pounds per right, and these were sold at public auction at the sev- eral court houses in the several counties. The money obtained from the sales was to be used for the benefit of such towns as had,
* As clearly as the records permit us to locate the " Clay Pitts," they were on or near the Little brook, north of Grove street, and between Cook and North Main streets. In 1687, Sergeant Samuel Hikcox had " one piece at the Clay Pitts," bounded south and west on highways-which would be at the corner of Grove and Cook streets. In 1738 Nathan Beard became the owner of "one piece at the Clay Pitts, containing two acres, bounded south and east on highways, north on the parsonage land belonging to Thomas Porter and Southmayd's land, west on Judd's land." South of Grove street, the second Joseph Hikcox owned a triangle of two acres, bounded by Grove, North Main, and Cook streets (except for a strip of land on the Cook street side, belonging to George Scott), and, in receiving the grant, the condition was that Hikcox was "not to hinder men coming to the Clay Pitts."
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HISTORY OF WATERBURY.
in 1732, made and computed the lists of their polls and ratcable estate. Each town was to receive the money according to the pro- portion of its list in that year, and each parish in proportion to its own list given in in that year-the money to be let out, and the interest improved for the support of the respective schools forever, and to no other use. If applied to other use than for the support of a school in the town, then the money was to be returned into the treasury of the colony, and the town or parish misimproving it was to forever lose the benefit thereof. Such was the origin of the present Connecticut School Fund.
There had been no parish formed in 1732 in Waterbury, but the list of the Northern inhabitants, it will be remembered, was returned in that year under the head of Northbury, and perhaps in anticipation of this event, for the practice was not continued. However that may have been, the subject of the "Western-lands " school money was one that disquieted the First Society and the two parishes until 1741, when the services of Col. James Wadsworth and Col. Benjamin Hall were solicited and the whole matter was to be left with them for their decision, and so the trouble was put aside for ten years. The school-money had, undoubtedly, been used by Northbury to pay ministerial charges. At the same meet- ing, Daniel Scott (of Westbury), Ebenezer Elwell, and Gideon Allyn (of Northbury)-all of whom had been fined for killing deer (either out of season or within a deer-park)-prayed that their fines for so doing might be abated, but the prayers were of no avail. Laws were made to be respected in 1741.
In the same year we find this entry: "they made choice of a committee (Capt. Wm. Judd, Lieut. Stephen Upson and John Judd) to go about re-building our bridge over our river in the Country road to Woodbury." Directions were given for taking advice as to the form or manner in which the bridge should be built, and leave was given the committee "to hire it done by the Grale or other- wise," as the members should agree.
At this meeting, Mr. Southmayd and Capt. Samuel Hikcox were appointed to represent the town at the County court in " an action there depending concerning Joseph Gennings becast upon us by Farmington." Farmington probably won the case, for the outcome of it lies before me in the form of an indenture executed the same month-March, 1742. It was prepared by Mr. Southmayd-signed by Joseph Jenners and Samuel Hickcox and witnessed by John Warner, Elnatha Bronson, and William Hick- cox. It contains the usual formula wherein: "I Joseph Gennings do put and bind myself a servant man unto Capt. Samuel Hickcox
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EVENTS FROM 1732 TO 1741.
to live with him the full term of five years-all of which term the said Gennings his said master shall faithfully serve according to the best of his Ability, his secrets Keep Close, his Lawful and reasonable Commands Everywhere Gladly do and perform. Damage to his Master he shall not wilfully do, his Master's Goods he shall not waste Embesel or purloine nor suffer the same to be wasted or Purloined, but to his power shall forthwith discover and make known to his said Master." After the usual negative promises re- garding taverns, games, etc., on the part of Gennings, appears Cap- tain Hickcox's agreement. He had evidently given a bond to the town to save it from charge regarding Gennings. Captain Hickcox promised according to the usual formula regarding meat, drink, lodging and apparel during the five years, promising to dismiss Gennings "at the end of said term Except three indifferent persons, two chosen by the Master and one by the servant should adjudge that the master had not had sufficient Recompence for his charge and trouble-and then Jenness, or Gennings, was not to dispose of himself without securing his master from one bond, wherein he was bound to secure the town of Waterbury from being a charge to them." Before the document was signed, another hand than Mr. Southmayd's added that neither Captain Hickcox nor his "hiers" were to dispose of Gennings to any person whatsoever without the servant's free consent. We will hope that Mary Hopkins, the wife of Capt. Samuel Hickcox, proved a gentle mistress to poor Joseph and that he escaped service, and bondage likewise, in due time.
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