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 45
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At the same date, "John R. Marshall of Woodbury, missionary, was cited to appear before the court and answer for his inimical temper and unfriendly disposition toward the plans adopted for the defence of the American people." This is the first instance in which a clergyman was called before the court for hostility to the American cause. On the same day, certain inhabitants of Water- bury presented a memorial, in which they advised the court that Capt. Hezekiah Brown was disaffected to the method advised by the Continental Congress, and that he said in the presence of a number of people "that the Congress ought to be punished for putting the country to so much cost and charge, for they did no more good than a parcel of squaws; that it was unnecessary expense, and the Assembly had no right to do it; that Boston had wrongfully undertaken to quarrel about the tea, and we had no hand in it; that our General Assembly was as arbitrary as the pope of Rome, when it cashiered Capt. Bronson and Ensign Scovill; and that he would not go one step further for the relief of people in Boston than he was obliged to go." Definite action on both the cases cited seemed to await the enactment of laws touching this new crime in the com- munity. The laws came two months later, forbidding any person within the colony to supply the Ministerial army or navy with pro- visions, military, or naval stores; prohibiting the giving of any manner of intelligence; the enlisting or procuring any enlistments into the service of that army or navy; the taking up of arms against the Colony of Connecticut or the United Colonies; the piloting of any vessel, or the giving of any manner of aid or assistance-the penalty for offense in any of the above particulars being the forfei-
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ture of estate and imprisonment for a term not exceeding three years. And, to cover cases like Hezekiah Brown's, any person who should libel or defame any of the resolves of the Honorable Con- gress of the United Colonies, or the acts or proceedings of the Gen- eral Assembly made for the defense or security of the rights or privileges of the people, should, on proper conviction, be disarmed and not allowed to have or keep any arms, or to hold or serve in any office, civil or military, and should be punished by fine, impris- onment or disfranchisement, or find surety for peace and good behavior and pay the cost of prosecution. On complaint made to the Civil Authority and Committee of Inspection of any person as inimical to the liberties of the Colony, that person was to be examined touching his innocence of the accusation, and if not proved innocent, he was not to be allowed to have or keep any arms. Any person held or screened under the protection of the Ministerial army or navy, or assisting to carry into execution meas- ures against America, and having real estates, such estates were to be attached and held under the care of appointed persons, and improved for the use of the Colony. The Treasurer of the Colony held the power to sell such estates by auction, or at private sale.
After the passage of the above act, Capt. Hezekiah Brown, “ of the 12th military company in the roth regiment " was, after trial, found guilty of disobedience, cashiered, and rendered incapable of holding any further military office in the colony. The town, how- ever, had relieved him from office in 1774, at the same meeting in which the "very jumbled and unintelligible " vote was rescinded, by which the Church of England had been receiving for four years its proportion of interest money derived from lands devoted to the ministry by the town proprietors of 1715. Hezekiah Brown was a man of about fifty years, the son of Deacon Samuel Brown, who came to Waterbury from "Boston, Hartford County" (and not, I think, related to James Brown). Dr. Bronson tells us that he left Waterbury early in 1777 and joined the Ministerial army in New York, received a captain's commission and died among his new friends, August 27, 1777. His wife, a daughter of Lieut. Prindle, who had eight children to care for, probably remained loyal to the colony, for the real estate belonging to her husband was restored to her.
Six letters, yellowed by time and worn with the touch of a mother's fingers, are all that remain to tell the story of the fourth Stephen Upson in lineal descent from the planter Stephen. From them we learn that he, a lad of seventeen years, indentured to a master with whom he was not happy, ran away, (we infer to Litch-
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field) and there enlisted July 12, 1775, in Capt. Nathaniel Tuttle's company, in the 7th regiment. The first letter, bearing date Sep- tember 15th, is written from New London. In it he tells his mother that the soldiers have little to do with tories at New London; that the troops are throwing up fortifications, but that he is living with the Lieutenant in a house where there is a family; that he lies on as good a bed as he did at his master's, and lives as well and feels better; that he would not go home for anything. It is a boy's letter with an ache in his heart that he stifles to the last and then betrays by telling her that he "has written one letter to her but has had no answer from her, or any letter from any body, and hopes that she will not slite him so much as not to write to him." The second letter is from "Camp at Cambridge, Nov. 5th, 1775, and is written to relieve his mother's anxiety regarding him. He assures her that it is a time of general health in the camp, adding: "We are all of good spirits and not afraid of a Cannon. About swearing, there is some, but not more than can be expected of so many saylors as there are here." He again assures his mother that he is more contented than he should be at home at his master's, and that he shall return to her as soon as his time is out. On Christmas day he wrote again from Camp Winter Hill, at Charlestown, that he had enlisted again, five days after his time was expired, for a year, and that his pay was to be 44 shillings a month, adding: "I should not have enlisted had it not been that I thought my Country was in more Need of me here than at home, but I hope to come home and see you on furlough soon, and to meet with your good affection at my coming home, and your approbation in my engage- ment in the army. Our provisions are good and plenty, and bar- racks are comfortable, considering all things." The third letter is of but eight lines, written from Roxbury, March 15, 1776. His regi- ment, he informs her, had that day received orders to march- adding, "I suppose to New York. Uncle Clark has been to the Colonel to get liberty for me to go through Waterbury, but cannot." In May he wrote from New York: "I am determined not to go to live at my master's any more. If you can get up my indenture I [would] have you do it. If you can get it up, I will not enlist again, but come home and live with you-if you cant"-the remain- der of the letter is gone. There is yet another letter written from New York on his birth-day. It is dated Sept. 12, 1776. In it he writes: "We expect the enemy to make another push very soon. I mean to stay here till my time is out. I shall not enlist again before I come home, for I mean to come home and live with you if my life is spared so long. I would not have you conserned about
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me, but keep up a good spirit, for in time I hope we shall drive our Enemy off from Our land and have peaceful times again. This day I am Eighteen years of age. Whether ever I shall see another birth-day or no I cant tell. God knows. Remember my love to Mark and Daniel (his brothers), and to my sisters and to all my friends. Pray write to me as often as you can." The letter closes with the usual "Your loving son Stephen Upson." The boy folded it-addressed it "To the Widow Sarah Upson at Waterbury in Con- necticut," omitting from the lower left hand corner the usual-" To be left at Landlord Clarks." Three days later, "at the battle of Harlem Heights," Stephen Upson was killed.
By whatever name known, whether royalist or rebel, whether Whig or Tory, the grief of the widow of Hezekiah Brown and the grief of the widow and the mother of Stephen Upson was one and the same. It was the same story, repeated in Waterbury from Northbury's remotest bound to Salem's southern limit; from the borders of Quassapaug's waters to the summit of Benson's hill and to East mountain-a story of mingled patriotism, loftiest courage, heroic endeavor and patient endurance, born out of the sufferings of heroic ancestors, whose vanishing faces were still luminous with the light of that Liberty toward which the children of 1776 were marching. Side by side with these ardent lovers of inherited and chartered rights-in their town, in their homes, in their very lives were inwoven the lives of other men, who were actuated by what they believed to be their duty to king and country-a duty which they honestly pursued through a pathway of suffering. Dr. Bronson has written of these men: "They had reasons satisfactory to themselves for their opinion and conduct. They wished the success of the British government, because on that success depended their hopes of worldly distinction and religious privilege. On that, they supposed they must rely for the permanent ascendency of the Episcopal church in America, its doctrine, its faith and its worship. To England they were bound by the strongest ties. From that country their parish clergymen had from the first received a great part of their support. They owed it a debt of gratitude, which, if they could not repay, they were unwilling to forget. They thought, with some show of reason, that resistance would be in vain, and that the rebels would soon be compelled to return to duty. It is impossible, thought they, for the American Revolutionists, without money or discipline, ill furnished with arms and not perfectly united among themselves, to resist for a long time the whole force of the British empire. And there were others, wise men, that entertained the same views."
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He also tells us that "so great was the alienation of feeling, that parents could not always agree to send their children to the same school," and that in 1775 a vote was passed dividing the school dis- trict on the Farmington and Wallingford road into two-one for the "Presbyterians" and one for "the Church of England;" that, "when, at one period, thick gloom had settled over the prospects of the colonists and the church party felt almost sure of a speedy triumph, some of the more enthusiastic of the party met together and determined in what manner the farms of their opponents should be divided among themselves, after the subjugation of the country;" that "in Westbury the windows of the Episcopal church were demolished, the principal members of that church were not allowed to attend public worship, but were confined to their farms."
We are indebted to Dr. Timothy Hosmer of Farmington, for the following picture of life in Waterbury at this time. It is contained in a letter written by him to his friend Ensign Amos Wadsworth, on July 30, 1775,* and relates to an old red house that is still stand- ing about two miles from Waterbury centre, on the north side of the Middlebury road, and on the lower end of Gaylord's hill. I think, but do not know, that this house was built about 1750, by James Nichols, the founder of The Park. It is generally accred- ited, however, to Capt. George Nichols, and the tradition still lives that two days were spent in raising the large frame, that an ox was roasted, and that unusual festivities attended the occasion.
The house was sold in 1760 by Capt. George Nichols to his son Lemuel, who "kept tavern" there during the war and it was the scene of the events narrated in the letter from which the following is taken: " There hath been a terrible rumpus at Waterbury with the tories there. Capt. Nichols' son, Josiah, enlisted under Capt. Porter in Gen. Wooster's regiment, went down to New York with the regiment, tarried a short time and deserted , came home and kept a little under cover, but goes down to Saybrook and there enlisted with Capt. Shipman got his bounty and rushed off
again. Capt. Shipman came up after him and went with some people they had got to assist them to Lemuel Nichols' where they supposed he was. Lemuel forbade their coming in, and pre- sented a sword and told them it was death to the first that offered to enter, but one young man seized the sword by the blade and wrenched it out of his hands. They bound him and made a search through the house, but could find nothing of Josiah. The Tories all mustered to defend him, and finally got Lemuel from them
* Mr. Julius Gay, of Farmington, gives this letter in his " Historical Address on Farmington in the War of the Revolution," 1893.
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and he and Josiah pushed out where they cannot be found. This ran through Thursday. The Whigs sent over to Southington for help, and the people almost all went from Southington on Friday. They had near roo Tories collected upon the occasion and were together until ten o'clock Friday night. They dispersed and there was nothing done to humble them." Dr. Hosmer also wrote that Capt. Nichols was carried before Esq. Hopkins who had him bound over to the County Court at New Haven. Local tradition tells another story-"that Lemuel Nichols was inclined to the King's side in his heart, but took the oath of Fidelity to the State. One day when a squad of Continental soldiers was passing along the Woodbury road, he standing in his door, and thinking himself secure in distance-the house being at that time more than a thousand feet north of the road-treated them with derision. The soldiers turned and fired into the house. After Lem- uel Nichols-Major Morris lived in the tavern; his son Miles when re-covering the house found three bullets which were supposed to have been fired into it by the soldiers when passing along the road. Dr. Hosmer was in error, in attributing to Capt. Nichols a son Josiah. It may have been his son Daniel or his son William who was the deserter. Tradition asserts that the house of Solomon Tompkins in Nichols' Park was the head-quarters of the Tories, but there was a Solomon Tompkins who was a Connecticut pensioner of the Revolution in good and regular standing, living in New York until 1823 and claiming to have been "born in or near Water- bury, Conn." and, as Lemuel Nichols took "the oath of Fidelity to the State " soon after the "terrible rumpus," and Samuel Scovill was not only active in forming a company on July 4th, 1776, but enlisted for the war in a Regiment of Artificers under Col. Jedu- than Baldwin of Mass. (which was authorized by Congress), we may believe that many persons who were at first inimical to the Sons of Liberty found cause for a change of heart and proved valiant defenders of the American cause. As early as 1776, the Rev. Mr. Inglis wrote to the "Society for the propagation of the Gospel in for- eign parts " that every one of the society's missionaries in New Jer- sey, New York and Connecticut had proved faithful, loyal servants, and had opposed to the utmost of their power the spirit of disaffec- tion and rebellion, and that the other clergy of the church, though not in the society's service, had observed the same line of conduct; that to officiate publicly and not pray for the king and royal family according to the liturgy, was against their duty and oath-and yet to use the prayers for the king and royal family would have drawn inevitable destruction upon them-the only course which they
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could pursue to avoid both evils, was to suspend the public exer- cises. Mr. Inglis also wrote that "Mr. Beach of Connecticut alone continued to officiate after Independence was declared, affirming that he would do his duty, preach and pray for the king till the rebels cut out his tongue." Mr. Beach deserved to own his own tongue, and I trust retained it whole and entire until he was able to admit that the rebels were not so black as he had painted them. The poor clergymen! They were exempt, as clergymen, from bearing arms, but I infer that when they had placed them- selves out of active service by closing their churches, the civil government called upon them, as members of the colony, to bear arms; for Mr. Inglis testifies, "that clergymen were warned to appear at militia musters with their arms-that they were fined for not appearing, and then threatened with imprisonment for not pay- ing their fines."
Good Dr. Mansfield of Derby made himself offensively active by writing to Gov. Tryon that if properly protected, several thousand men in the three western counties of Connecticut would join him. This letter was intercepted, and Dr. Bronson adds that Dr. Mans- field was obliged to flee for his life. The above letter was probably the occasion of the following: "On a Sunday morning while Dr. Mansfield was preaching, a guard of American troops marched into his church. The clergyman left his desk in haste and escaped to his home, fleeing from thence to the British on Long Island, leav- ing his wife and infant and seven other children to the care of others." Dr. Mansfield lived so long and lived so well in Derby that his venerable and commanding figure, his large white wig and his broad brimmed hat are still had in remembrance by a few of his neighbors, while his praise is in all the churches. Of Mr. Scovill's church in Waterbury Mr. Inglis wrote that "there was scarcely a single person found of his congregation but what had persevered steadfastly in his duty and loyalty." I think, however, that Mr. Inglis gave too bright a picture for his English society to gaze upon. I think our list of soldiers in the war will include more than "scarcely a single person from the Church of England in Waterbury." Dr. Bronson had the advantage of personal acquaint- ance in his youth with participants in the scenes presented during the war, and attributes the fact that Waterbury was to a mention- able extent free from scenes witnessed in some other towns, in part, to the prudence and wisdom of Mr. Scovill, of whom he says that: "He was sometimes threatened. Occasionally, he had reason to fear injury. In the more critical seasons, it is stated, he often slept from home in order to be out of the way of midnight calls-but he
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had the courage, which the Whigs respected, to remain through the war." Dr. Bronson had evidently never heard of the scenes out- lined in Dr. Hosmer's letter.
While General Washington was still at Boston, in March of 1776, two regiments from Connecticut were at New York "employed in pulling down and carting away the north part of the Fort and erecting a Fashine Battery about eighteen rods north of it across the Broad Way to obtain a clear passage for retreat into the bat- tery, if repulsed by the enemy." A third Connecticut regiment was building entrenchments on Tower hill-a mile east of New York and in plain sight of it and of the Asia (man of war), which young Benjamin Baldwin of Waterbury informs his brother Jona- than (student at Yale college) has not as yet fired a gun at the workers on Tower hill, of which Benjamin was one.
On the 4th of July, 1776, that event of events-the birth of the United States of America-had taken place at Philadelphia. Every man who signed his name as witness to the deed knew full well that unless the colonists could fight longer and stronger than Great Britain could do, that his signature would prove his own death warrant-and this was done while one hundred and thirty English ships were anchoring at their doors, and General Washing- ton was calling for the militia of Connecticut without loss of a moment's time to be sent to his aid at New York. Two days before the Nation was born, Governor Trumbull and his council of eight trusty men were met at Lebanon to hear the cry from twelve towns "pressing for powder"-under their apprehensions from Canada. Eight hundred pounds of gunpowder from Elderkin and Wales's mill, and one thousand pounds of lead from the furnace at Middle- town were allowed them-the powder at 5s. 4d. per pound, the lead at 6d .; it was ordered that the row-galley Shark should be paid for at a cost of £861; twenty-five carpenters were sent to Crown Point to help build batteries under Gen. Schuyler; it was ordered that the lead on the water-wheel of Jonathan Kilburn's sawmill should not be taken from him for the use of the publick until actually wanted -and then to be taken by the selectmen without further orders (and this suggests that Waterbury's selectmen may have gleaned the lead they gathered for the government from Waterbury's mills); other orders were issued, and officers appointed, and then the important event of the day came before the Council.
It was the consideration of Gen. Washington's appeal for the militia without one moment's loss of time, seconded by "several letters from the Hon ble President of the Continental Congress" urging the ame thing "in strong and pressing terms." The battalion of
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militia ordered to be raised for the relief and support of the army at New York, "by inevitable difficulties of preparation," could not be made ready so as to arrive in New York "seasonably for the expected attack of the enemy." Should that be the case, it was feared that it "would prove fatal to the cause of American liberty." Believing that "in that critical situation no efforts could be too great," it was ordered that the three regiments of light horse lately established should set forward and march to New York to stay until the regiments appointed for that service should arrive.
It was the 20th of June, 1776, that Capt. Phineas Porter of Waterbury was given a Major's commission on the staff of Col. Douglas' regiment in Gen. Wadsworth's brigade of State troops raised to reinforce Washington's army at New York. In less than three weeks this regiment in which so many Waterbury men enlisted was recruited and marched to New York. It reached that city on a most auspicious day. Our weary men were ushered into a great camp of many regiments under all the excitement of the knowledge that Gov. Howe was at that moment landing his forces on Staten Island. The hour was, as nearly as can be determined, 12 o'clock at noon. The day was Tuesday, July 9, 1776. That evening, all the brigades in and around New York were ordered to their respective parade-grounds for a purpose-that purpose was that on each parade ground to each regiment might be read important news. Washington himself, on the spot near where stands the old City Hall, sat on horseback within the hollow square formed by a regiment, and with uncovered head and reverent mien listened to the read- ing by one of his aids of the Declaration of Independence. This was not done under the rosy flush of victory but in the fast- approaching shadow of mighty Britain, strong in all the power, and radiant with all the pomp of war. And what had a few little colonies to meet them with? They had, it is true a new name- that of States, but cannon and camp-kettles alike were wanting. The small powder mills in the Connecticut hive could yield them only a fragment of the powder General Washington had cried for, day and night, from Cambridge and from New York. The houses of the inhabitants, diligently searched for fragments of lead, gave not enough, and it is well known that every homestead in New England was besieged with demands for the last yard of homespun cloth, that the country's soldiers might not go coatless by day and tentless at night. Washington refrained from ordering the regi- ments to be uniformed, knowing full well that his order could not be effected.
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After the reading of the Declaration of Independence-after the grand parade at sunset-after the day was done, there came the same night a hasty march in which the Connecticut men were not too weary to join-a march that no commandant ordered, into Bowling Green.
Only four years had passed since an equestrian statue had been borne by loyal subjects to a loyal Province. It was a noble horse, though formed of lead, that stood proudly on its pedestal, bearing the figure of King George. The Crown of Great Britain was on his head, a sword in his left hand, his right hand grasped the bridle lines, and over all a sheen of gold, for horse and king were gilded. King George faced the bay and looked vainly down on Staten Island, for his brave ships and his eight thousand soldiers on ship and shore could not save him from the sea of wrath surging in the hearts of the colonists at his feet. We all know the story of the overthrow of the statue, and of the bullets that were made from the lead of it in Litchfield-but Major Porter's orderly book reveals to us General Washington's reproof to the soldiers for the act:
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