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 53
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Indeed, one of the curious things in studying our local history is the absence of evidence bearing upon the relations of Waterbury to the general trend of history-making events. Elsewhere the story is told of the contributions of Waterbury to the war of the Revolu- tion. But when we search for local testimony of the local effects of the war, what we find is of small significance. It is recorded that on December 8, 1783, Col. Phineas Porter, Michael Bronson and Dr. Isaac Baldwin were chosen a committee to "appertain "-which probably means " ascertain "-the sum paid by each class in town "for raising recruits into the Continental army for the last three years," and to report to the next meeting. At the next town meet- ing Ira Beebe was added to this committee, and there the matter apparently dropped. There is also reported the curious case of three brothers, Ozias, Cyrus and Zibe Norton, who were fined £5 apiece for failing to perform a tour of duty when drafted into the Continental army. The town ordered a discretionary committee to examine these five-pound notes to see whether the town treas- urer would be justified in accepting them. He probably was, as no more appears about the matter. On April 12, 1784, this curious minute appears in the record:
Voted: That the selectmen dispose of pots, tents, and camp equipage, belonging to the town, to the best advantage of the town, at their discretion.
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These insignificant, even puerile, items constitute the sum total of our official knowledge of the effect of the Revolution upon Waterbury. The last of the three, that concerning the disposition to be made of the supplies left on the hands of the town at the close of the war, illustrates the spirit of Yankee thrift which dominated the conduct of public business in those days. This may perhaps be called significant, as it shows how painstaking was the economy then practiced in public affairs. That we are denied any larger view, in the local records, of the relation of the community to the world outside is a matter of no small regret.
Turning to the physical conditions of Waterbury at the begin- ning of our period (1783) it may be described as a town thirteen miles in length, with a population of over 2000 and less than 3000. The process of disintegration by the splitting off of settlements within its borders had already begun, Three years before, in 1780, Westbury (now Watertown) had been set off, and in the division Northbury (now Plymouth) had gone with Westbury. Waterbury had thus been deprived of more than half of her population. In 1774 the number of inhabitants in the whole town was 3526. This was a very respectable number as populations were reckoned in those days. For example, Professor Dexter states in his pamphlet, already quoted, that in 1784 New Haven had 7960 inhabitants, and the number must have been considerably smaller ten years · earlier when the Waterbury figures are given above. This shows a closer approximation in size between Waterbury and New Haven than one would have supposed to be probable. In 1790 Waterbury had 2937 inhabitants and Watertown 3170, a total of 6107. This is an increase, taking Waterbury and Watertown together, of 2581 inhabitants in sixteen years, which included the war period; or an increase of seventy-three per cent. The larger part of this increase was probably in Watertown.
The causes which led to the splitting off of these settlements from the original centre were largely ecclesiastical, and are treated more at length in another chapter. It is interesting to note that these town secessions always followed the same order of process. First, there was a demand for what were called "winter privileges;" next, came the establishment of an ecclesiastical society; then at last the settlement, of which the church was the centre, became an independent town. By the phrase "winter privileges" was meant the privilege of having an independent minister in a particular set- tlement during the winter months. The inhabitants of such a set- tlement were thus relieved from going a longer distance to church, and of paying their share toward the support of the minister of the
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town-it being of course remembered that at this time the salaries of Congregational ministers were raised by assessing members of the society according to their showing in the grand list, their church being a state church. As the greater burden was thrown upon the rest of the town by granting "winter privileges " to any special settlement, the request for them was naturally opposed by the town. This opposition was increased when the settlement asked for the privilege of supporting its own minister all the year round, and of being relieved of contributing at all toward the sup- port of the town minister. The last step, the founding of an entirely independent town as distinct from an ecclesiastical society, of course threw heavier burdens upon the original town, and was still more strongly opposed.
The first settlement to follow the example set by Watertown was Farmingbury (now Wolcott). Farmingbury had obtained independ- ent church rights, that is, was an independent ecclesiastical society, as early as 1770. It was seven years after Watertown obtained its independence, and seventeen years after it had itself secured its own church rights, that is, on December 26, 1787, that a memorial was presented from Farmingbury asking Waterbury to consent "that Farmingbury make application to the next General Assembly to be made into a distinct town and awarded to one county." The memorial adds :
And considering that nature has formed said parish in such situation as makes it very inconvenient for us to be annexed to any other town, we therefore flatter ourselves that you will not fail to grant us our request.
The town of Waterbury appointed a committee to consider the memorial of Farmingbury, which that committee proceeded to do for some six weeks. On February 5, 1788, this committee found itself in doubt "as to the expediency " of granting the above request "on any consideration whatever." This was rather a high-handed way of treating the would-be seceding town and must have been so regarded by the Farmingbury people. At any rate, not long after this a memorial was presented to the General Assembly by Farm- ingbury asking to be incorporated as a town "in another county." Something more than four years after the first Farmingbury request was made of Waterbury, or in April, 1792, the selectmen appointed a committee to treat with a Farmingbury committee. By the next October the town voted to give up opposition to the wish of Framingbury, but on these conditions, the date being October 8 :
I. Society of Farmingbury within eight days to give to the rest of the societies in Waterbury a legal acquittance of all their right in the public, ministerial and school moneys, and other property.
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2. Secure to the remaining societies twenty pounds lawful money as an equiva- lent consideration for the support of their part of the Great Bridge of the Great river on Woodbury road [what is now the West Main street bridge].
3. Become bound to support their equal proportion to the grand list of all the town poor, or that may be such at the time their memorial shall be granted.
4. Become bound to pay their proportion according to list of all debts that have occurred during their continuance with us.
Three and a half years later, or in the spring of 1796, Farmingbury was made a distinct town by the name of Wolcott, and Waterbury "appointed a committee to settle and adjust all matters and con- cerns" between the two towns .*
Oxford was the next settlement to secure independence of Waterbury. It won its victory in three years and a half, while the struggle of Wolcott lasted nearly nine years. It was on April 29, 1793, as related in Bronson's "History," that Joseph Hopkins, as agent for Waterbury, was directed to oppose the application of the society of Oxford to the General Assembly for town privileges. Two years and a half later, in October, 1795, Waterbury again voted to resist the attempt to obtain independence which had been renewed by Oxford. A third attempt the following spring was met by similar resistance. The following autumn, in October, 1796, Oxford obtained the desired act of incorporation.
The case of Middlebury, which follows that of Oxford, is typical of the process of separation already described: first, "winter priv- ileges," then an independent society, then an independent town. It was in 1786 that these winter privileges were established at West Farms (now Middlebury), an agreement having been reached with the Waterbury ecclesiastical society to allow preaching there for eight Sabbaths of that winter. The next winter the sum of £9 was appropriated for paying for these winter privileges. Three years after, or in 1790, West Farms and the adjoining portions of Wood- bury and Southbury were made into a distinct society under the name of Middlebury. The church was organized in 1797. Its first pastor was the Rev. Ira Hart, who was installed in 1798, and its first deacons were Seth Bronson and Nathan Osborn. Church independ- ence having thus been firmly established, town independence was naturally next desired. In 1800, or three years after the organiza- tion of the church, the society of Middlebury petitioned the Gen- eral Assembly for an act of town incorporation. Again Waterbury
* On the west side of Chestnut hill in the woods by the side of what appears to be an old highway or wood road, B. F. Howland found a stone marked May 17, 17-, an 'original corner (the southwestern corner) of Farmingbury society. It is now the town corner, having been so made in 1801. The slab, resembling an old gravestone, is supported by other stones. On it are the letters R. W. for Richard Welton, S. R. for Street Richards, and A. B., perhaps for Amasa Beecher.
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is ready with its futile opposition. On May 22, in anticipation of the expected-the Middlebury petition was presented to the Gen- eral Assembly in June-"Joseph Hopkins, Esq., and Mr. Richard Welton " were authorized by the town to secure an accurate survey of Waterbury and of the Waterbury river (its length through the limits of the town), in order the better " to enter a defence against the petition of Middlebury." At the same time that these gentle- men were appointed, Waterbury, perhaps learning wisdom by expe- rience and perhaps not, chose a committee to confer with the Mid- dlebury memorialists and "hear their propositions." This com- mittee was composed of Messrs. Joseph Hopkins, Noah Baldwin and John Kingsbury. On October 1, 1801, Waterbury again voted in town meeting to oppose Middlebury in her petition. On September 20, 1802, special agents were appointed by Waterbury to go before the legislature and press the opposing argument as strongly as pos- sible. So the fight went on with varying success for five years until October, 1807, when the act of incorporation was obtained. In the following November, Waterbury held a town meeting and appointed a committee to arrange affairs with Middlebury “ agree- ably to the act of incorportion." At this town meeting Dr. Nimrod Hull, one of the selectmen, was "excused" and withdrew. This is something quite unusual, according to the town records, and prob- ably is to be taken as an indication of the bad feeling engendered by the long controversy, which very likely in its different phases led more or less to personal disagreements. The last record closing up the Middlebury chapter reads as follows:
Voted: To appropriate the moneys awarded by the state committee in the affair of Waterbury against Middlebury ($600) as a perpetual fund for supporting a bridge across the Waterbury river.
There is in this use of the award which Middlebury was forced to pay a suggestion of the bitterness which had been stirred up and of a disposition on the part of Waterbury to keep that bitter- ness alive.
The rights of Middlebury in the case are well set forth in her petition to the General Assembly of May 5, 1807. This petition states that there were about 175 families included in the Middle- bury society. Of the heads of these, III signed the petition. Out of these III families, eleven had the name of Bronson and four of Porter. In the petition it is stated that the meeting-house at Mid- dlebury is about six miles from the centre of each of the towns of Waterbury, Woodbury, Watertown, Oxford and Southbury. It is further stated that Middlebury is separated from Waterbury "by a
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rough and uninhabitable " tract of country, which forms a natural obstacle, making travel to the centre of the town inconvenient. According to the petition, the length of the Middlebury society at that time was about five miles, and its width about three and three-quarters miles. Its grand list was estimated to be $20,960.67.
With the separation of Middlebury, we have the last of Water- bury's losses from the incorporation of new towns during the period under consideration. It is true that Columbia (now Prospect) had an independent ecclesiastical society in 1797, but it did not become an independent town until 1827. In Salem (now Naugatuck) an ecclesiastical society was organized in 1773; a church was organized in 1781; an edifice was built in 1782, and its first pastor, the Rev. Abram Fowler, was settled in 1785. But the town of Naugatuck was not incorporated until 1844.
Turning from the physical conditions of Waterbury to its cor- porate structure, if that phrase is allowable, we first note that the town authority found its visible embodiment in the persons of its selectmen. These, acting under the instructions of the town meet- ings, transacted a great part of its business. One of the principal things entrusted to them was the care of the poor, and the frequent litigation which grew up between towns over conflicting claims in regard to public duties owed to the poor was in the main superin- tended by them. This function of the selectmen has been de- scribed at length in another chapter. So we will pass over it here simply noting, as illustrating one curious function which has been entirely lost in these modern days, the duty imposed upon them by the town meeting of December 12, 1785:
Voted: To desire the selectmen to provide for Augur Mallery without setting him up at vendue the year ensuing.
This means that the services of the unfortunate pauper were not to be bid off at public auction beside the whipping-post at the end of the Green.
Next to the care of the poor, the most important duty devolving upon the selectmen was the care of the roads, determining their location and alterations (of course under the direction of the town meeting), attending to cases of encroachment and to giving leases, taking in charge suits brought for damages-for example, the claim of John Baxter for injuries he received on the Mad River bridge, the settling of which was referred by town meeting to the selectmen, December 16, 1790-and other similar matters too numer- ous to mention. The selectmen also handled the public money and had charge of the odds and ends of town business.
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It may be interesting to know the names of the selectmen in Waterbury at the beginning of our period. The town meeting of December 8, 1783, chose five selectmen: Col. Phineas Porter, Capt. Isaac Bronson, Capt. James Porter, Charles Upson and David Hotchkiss. The same town meeting chose Michael Bronson as town clerk. The question of the pay the selectmen received is an interesting one. On December 14, 1789, the town meeting voted "to desire the selectmen to do the business of selectmen, except in perambulating and surveying the highways, gratis, or without fee or reward." The town meeting of ten days later voted "to recon- sider the vote requesting the selectmen to do the business of selectmen gratis." The town meeting of a week after that voted to reconsider this last vote and to adhere to the original, or "gratis," vote. The selectmen evidently objected to being paid simply with honors and the gratitude of the town, for the town meeting of a year after, on December 13, 1790, voted "to give the selectmen who have served the town the year past three shillings for each day they have spent in the service of the town during that time." This rate of pay continued to be the usual allowance to selectmen for years afterward.
Though receiving so moderate a remuneration, the selectmen must have handled a large revenue, considering the size of Water- bury and the general amount of money in circulation. They raised a rate of fivepence on the pound by the grand list of 1783, which was paid in wheat, rye, Indian corn, oats, flax, beef and pork, at such market price as the selectmen deemed it right to accept at the time of payment. A rate of threepence on the pound by the list of 1788 was payable in merchantable goods, such as wheat at six shil- lings the bushel; rye, three shillings and sixpence the bushel; Indian corn, three shillings the bushel; buckwheat, two shillings and fourpence the bushel; oats, one shilling and twopence the bushel; flax, fivepence per pound, and sheep's wool two shillings per pound.
The matter of bridges comes up again and again as one follows the records of the town and notes the duties of the selectmen. The principal bridges of Waterbury are described in full in another chapter, but it may be interesting to note in passing a contempora- neous description of the river, the "Great Bridge" over which was the cause of so much trouble, to be found in President Dwight's travels. He writes:
The Naugatuck river rises in the Green Mountains, in the township of Norfolk, near the north line of the state. Thence, in a course generally south, it passes through Winchester, Torrington, Harwinton, Plymouth, Waterbury and Oxford to
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Derby. Its length is about forty miles, its current rapid, and, when swollen by freshets, as it often is very suddenly, violent and destructive. It furnishes a great number of mill-seats, and is in many places lined with beautiful intervals. Not- withstanding the roughness of the country through which it passes, its bed is worn so deep, and to so uniform a surface, that from Waterbury northward one of the smoothest and most level turnpike roads in the state has been formed on its banks.
It may be also interesting to note in this connection that during the Revolution the road leading through Waterbury east and west was a fine one, much used in army movements.
In the work of superintending the roads the principal assistants to the selectmen were the "surveyors." The term is not used in its modern sense, but means simply overseers, or as we should say in modern phrase, "bosses of the job." The number increases as we follow the records down. Thus, in a record of a town meeting held December 13, 1784, we find that thirty-nine surveyors were chosen, while at a town meeting held December 9, 1793, we find that there were fifty-nine chosen. This increase in numbers does not proba- bly mean any great increase in the number of roads, but simply that the work of road making and road mending was done more carefully. The citizens "worked out" their road tax, and the sur- veyors were the men who saw that it was properly done. At the town meeting of December 9, 1793, above referred to, some reformer raised the question whether this was the best way of doing it. A motion was made "to mend the highways in this town in future by a tax," that is, presumably, the taxpayer was to con- tribute money instead of his time and work. The consideration of this motion was postponed and it was rejected at the following meeting.
How many attended these town meetings? We have no way of forming any very accurate estimate. At the annual town meeting held the second Monday in December, 1800 (just at the end of the century), the vote on the proposed road from the centre of Water- bury to Naugatuck stood sixty-two in the affirmative and seven in the negative. This was probably a full meeting, but there is no means of determining what proportion of those who attended voted.
Where were the town meetings held? Almost invariably in the meeting-house of the Congregational society. But between 1787 and 1793 we find various records of adjournments to the "com- pany " school-house-owned by a private corporation-and to the house of Capt. Samuel Judd. All the significance that attaches to these adjournments is probably that the meeting-house was undergoing repairs, or for some other reason was not in its usual condition to accommodate a town meeting.
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What was the time of working on the roads, the principal busi- ness that concerned town meetings? There is a record that on December 27, 1784, the town meeting voted "to desire the surveyors of highways to call out the inhabitants of the town to work in the highways four days in the year, two in the spring and two in the autumn, but not later than the last of October." A similar vote four years after adds that the days must be chosen "seasonably," and the surveyors are ordered "to make presentment of parts of days in all cases where people shall be guilty of late coming or mis- spending their time." It is very evident from this that the habit of shirking road work was perceptibly growing, and this may account for the increase in surveyors already referred to.
As has been said in speaking of the selectmen generally, a not unimportant part of their duties was the disposition of cases of encroachment upon the highway, or of cases where the use of the highway was granted to individuals upon certain conditions. Thus on December 27, 1784, we find Joseph Hopkins complaining that Moses Frost has erected a dwelling house in the highway so as to prevent the complainant from using his only convenient lot for building, and that he is encouraged in this by some of his neigh- bors. Hopkins, the complainant, further avers that Frost will thus secure a legal title to the part of the highway he has appropriated -which, however, would have been next to impossible in law-and thus perpetually injure the value of his own lot. The town meet- ing in passing upon the case put it into the hands of the selectmen, instructing them to remove the house and other encroachments, or grant relief in some other way. A few weeks later, the town meet- ing received a memorial from Joseph Boardman, a shoemaker, who asked permission to extend his house on to the highway, as it would be the most convenient place for him to put a shoe-shop, and the town meeting granted him the permission. Two years later was granted the petition of Ephraim Warner, John Cossett, Benjamin Upson and Noah Baldwin, to obtain the lease of a certain public piece of ground for the purpose of building a cider mill upon it. Two years later, in 1789, the town meeting referred to the select- men the petition of Widow Martha Welton for the lease of a certain piece of ground near the meeting-house for her use as a garden, "desiring them to do what appears to them just and right," but not to lease "said ground for a term exceeding ten years." A few months later the town meeting granted a lease of a small piece of land near his house to Noah Candee for a garden spot, but for a term not exceeding five years. These are typical cases of encroach- ments on the highway which came up for disposition before the
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town meeting, and which were often referred to the selectmen for final adjudication. Their decision must often have required the exercise of unusual good judgment to keep the peace and to pre- vent hard feelings.
In this connection, as it concerns highways, it may be noted that the question of allowing swine to go at large was one con- stantly before the town meetings. It seems to have been largely a question of the size of the swine. Thus one town meeting in 1788 voted to allow all swine "weighing fifty pounds and upwards" to go at large, while a town meeting in 1793 made "free common- ers " of all swine weighing "forty-five pounds and upwards," and of all swine under forty-five pounds, provided that they were "well yoked."
One of the minor duties of the selectmen included the charge of the less important articles of property coming into the possession of the town, for example, books. These were probably Statutes such as are distributed to-day by the General Assembly, or such as may be obtained in the form of public documents through congress- men from Washington. The care which was taken in distributing these books, to see that they passed into the proper hands, illus- trates the thrift of those days and the way in which public prop- erty was guarded, even in the smallest matters. One vote may be cited as typical of many others, that of the town meeting of Decem- ber 13, 1784 :
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