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 9
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From hence they have their great stone pipes which will hold a quarter of an ounce of tobacco, which they make with steel drills and other instruments. Such is their ingenuity and dexterity that they can imitate the English mold so accu- rately that, were it not for matter and color, it were hard to distinguish them. They make them of green and sometimes of black stone. They be much desired of our English tobacconists for their rarity, strength, handsomeness and coolness.t
So closely does this description correspond at some points with the Waterbury pipe that we might easily suppose the author had it before him while he wrote. Very probably its Mattatuck owner obtained it by traffic rather than by manufacture, but with such facts before us as these furnished by Wood we need not suppose that it came from the Ohio valley or from any tribe more remote than the Narragansetts. And what Wood says in regard to the use of steel drills suggests that this and other articles of aboriginal manu- facture may belong to the period subsequent to the first coming of Europeans. At any rate, it is difficult to believe that such work could have been done without metal tools-without the "steel drills" of the English, or the copper instruments of the Mound Builders.
The streets next west of Prospect street, namely, Central and Holmes avenues, run northward across land formerly owned by the late Samuel J. Holmes. On that part of the land now crossed by
* P. III, reprint of 1865 .. + Part 2, chap. 3 ; p. 69, reprint of 1865.
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STONE IMPLEMENTS OF MATTATUCK.
Central avenue there were formerly several places which afforded evidence of early (perhaps aboriginal) excavations. The several depressed areas varied in extent from six to twelve feet square, and in two of them charcoal was found, with other traces of fire and also flat stones. Near the centre of the land, where Holmes avenue now is, was formerly a low bluff, with springs at its base. Mr. Israel Holmes reports that arrow-heads, mostly of white quartz, used to be found here in considerable numbers.
Mr. Israel Holmes's present residence, "Westwood," stands on a beautiful plateau on the west side of the river, overlooking the extensive meadows of the Naugatuck. Here also many arrow- heads and larger chipped implements have been found, and on the north side of the house traces of an arrow-maker's work-shop are constantly occurring. Mr. Holmes's collection of "relics" picked up about the house and in the garden contains twenty or thirty white quartz arrow-heads, several of flint and of red sandstone, two " pestles," two interesting fragments of soapstone dishes and two implements evidently designed to be mounted as hoes and probably used in cultivating corn.
On the bluff next north of Mr. Holmes, where the house of Mr. Loren R. Carter now stands, arrow-heads are still picked up. On Hospital bluff, a little distance to the south, some interesting pieces have been found, among which are those here represented.
The soapstone dish was given to the writer some years ago by the late C. B. Merriman. Its general outline is triangular, but the corners are rounded off so much that it is almost circular. Its length, not reckoning the projecting handles, is eight inches, its great- est breadth seven inches and its height four. The excavation is so shallow -less than two inches- and it is upon the whole so rude, that it may be supposed to have been left in an unfinished state, and perhaps never used. The chipped im- plements figured in the SOAPSTONE DISH AND CHIPPED IMPLEMENTS, HOSPITAL BLUFF, WATERBURY. cut were received from the late A. B. Wilson, the famous inventor of the Wheeler & Wilson sewing machine, who built the house which has since become the Waterbury hospital .. They were found by him at the
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HISTORY OF WATERBURY.
time the cellar of his house was dug. They are each three inches long, of a greenish gray chert. One of them has been worked quite symmetrically; the other, which is but little more than a semi-circu- lar flake, smoothton one side and chipped on the other, may have been used as a "scraper" for cleaning skins, or may be regarded as an unfinished spear-head.
On the high ground south of Hospital bluff and just north of Sunnyside avenue, on the land which has been set apart as a "town" cemetery, the large axe figured in the following cut was dug up a few years ago by Mr. S. M. Judd. He found it in digging a grave, at a depth of four feet below the surface. This specimen is interesting as illustrating the ease with which the primitive man could on occasion provide himself with necessary tools. The "axe " is but little more than a large wedge-shaped flake of compact sand- stone. It is eight inches long, is square across the top, showing the natural cleavage, is an inch and a quarter thick on one side and tapers to half an inch on the other. It is nicked, not grooved, and is rudely chipped on the thin side. It is not so much an unfinished implement as one that was fitted for a withe handle by a few minutes' labor, and afterward cast aside.
The lively stream which tumbles down between the Hospital grounds and the land north of the town cemetery is known as Sled Hall brook. On the old Town Plot road near this brook arrow-heads have recently been found, and-what is of more interest-several fragments of aboriginal pottery bearing traces of decoration, the de- sign being that which is sometimes described as the basket pattern.
Some distance to the northwest of this last named locality, and alongside of the Middlebury road, lies a large swamp, bounded on the northeast by a ledge of rocks crowned with large trees. On the edge of the swamp, close to the rocks, the soap-stone dish figured in the ad- joining cut was found by the late Isaac Boughton, and deposited by him in the writer's collection. Its length, not including the projecting handles, is eight inches and a DISH, AXES AND "CHUNGKE STONE," WATERBURY. half, its width six and a half. Its general shape is a rectangle, with rounded corners and bulging sides. The bottom is not flat, so that it is higher at one
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STONE IMPLEMENTS OF MATTATUCK.
end than at the other. The excavation measures six and a half inches by five and a quarter, and is two and a half inches deep. The material is a coarse soap-stone of very light color. Although a good deal of work has been laid out upon it, taken as a whole it is unshapen and clumsy.
Near the swamp just referred to, a well-known road branches from the main highway and passes through what is called the Park. Beyond the Park, on high ground overlooking the road from Naugatuck to Watertown, lives Mr. Thomas Lockwood, who has picked up on his little farm some very pretty arrow and spear heads. A mile or two north of there, on this same Naugatuck and Watertown road, a little to the northwest of " Bunker Hill," is the residence of Mr. Charles Cooper. With the exception of the large spear-head, the specimens figured in the following cut were picked up within a short distance of Mr. Cooper's house. The spear-head was obtained from Mr. Stephen Atwood, at the sawmill on Wattles brook. It is over five inches long, of a dark gray chert, and very
SPECIMENS FOUND NEAR BUNKER HILL.
neatly chipped. Of the sixty pieces in the Cooper collection ten are of dark chert, one (at the centre of the cut) of yellowish brown flint, and another (the large one directly below it) of light gray flint, flecked with white. The rest are of white quartz, one of them very transparent. Great pains were evidently taken with this, but it was probably broken in the making. Most of the arrow-heads are perfect, but thick and clumsy.
The soapstone dish figured on the next page is said to have been dug up in building the Watertown branch of the Naugatuck railroad. It is of the same general character as that received from
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HISTORY OF WATERBURY.
Mr. Boughton, but larger and less smoothly finished. It is ten inches long and about eight inches wide. The projecting handles are large and strong. Although the dish is six inches high, the depth of the excavation is less than two inches; so that it is very heavy. The entire surface bears the marks of the pecking tool.
The pestle here figured was found in the village of Watertown, and was presented to the writer by Dr. Isaac N. Russell. It is seven- teen inches long and almost cylindrical in form, its diameter being two inches at one end and an inch and a half at the other. The sides are smooth and exhibit signs of use; the ends are rounded, but not smooth. The material is a compact and hard argillite, of a reddish brown color.
For some years past an agricultural fair has been held annually at PESTLE AND SOAPSTONE DISH FROM WATERTOWN. Watertown, at which from time to time stone implements have been exhibited. At the fair held in June, 1880, an interesting collection was exhibited by Mr. Frederick Judd, consisting chiefly of implements found in the northern part of the town, in the district known as Garnseytown. On Mr. Judd's farm, which is separated from the valley of the Naugatuck by a high ridge, there is a " bog-meadow pond," drained by the Shepaug river. Most of the pieces in Mr. Judd's collection were found near that. It includes a number of arrow-heads and spear-heads, among which a white leaf-shaped spear-head is specially worthy of mention, a small celt, a gouge, three "pestles" of medium length (one of them flat), and one pestle specially noteworthy because of its size and shape. It is very symmetrical and is twenty-three inches in length .*
If we return to the centre of Waterbury and go out from there in a different direction from that in which we have thus far pro-
* The large "chopping-knife " of semi-lunar form, pictured in the above cut, was obtained by the writer from Mr. Judd's collection, but is understood to have been found in Derby. It is of light-brown slate, has smooth sides, and in its best days had a good cutting edge. It is nearly seven inches long and measures two and a half inches across the middle. The rounded back, which strengthens the knife and makes it convenient to handle, is about an inch in diameter. Taken as a whole it is a fine specimen of a comparatively rare instrument, and if it was found in Derby its manufacture may safely be attributed to the Paugasuck Indians.
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STONE IMPLEMENTS OF MATTATUCK.
ceeded-to the northeast rather than the northwest-we come at once upon an interesting site, near the corner of Cooke and Grove streets. Here, where the venerable brothers Edward and Nathan Cooke lived side by side for many years, the channel of Little brook is still visible, although walled in on both banks. In the garden which slopes upward from the brook toward the northwest, Mr. Walter H. Cooke has from time to time picked up perfect or imper- fect arrow-heads and numerous chips. Of the arrow-heads in his collection, twenty-five were found on the "home lot."
A third of a mile further on, we reach the foot of Burnt hill, where Dr. Amos S. Blake, some years ago, picked up the grooved axe represented in the cut on page 66. Through Dr. Blake's kind- ness, it now belongs to the writer's collection. It was found on the roadside in a populous part of the city, where it had lain unob- served by passers by for perhaps two hundred years. It is six inches long and four wide, and is divided into two nearly equal parts by a well wrought and deep groove. Below the groove it is more than two inches thick, and tapers rapidly to a cutting edge. The upper end is flat and unworked; there is in fact no trace of work upon the axe except in the groove and on the edge. It is of trap rock, very heavy for its size, and rather clumsy.
In the same cut (on page 66) is figured a bi-concave discoidal stone very similar in its general character to the so-called "chungke stones" found in the southern states. It is round and quite symmetrical, is three and a half inches in diameter and an inch and three-quarters in thickness near the circumference. The depth of the concavity is three-eighths of an inch, and is about the same on both sides. The rim is slightly convex and the edges are rounded off. In one or two spots it shows traces of polishing. Elsewhere, except in the concavities, it bears the marks of the pecking tool. The material is yellow sienite. This stone was pre- sented to the writer by Mr. Charles R. Tyler, of Buck's hill, who is a grandson of David Warner and a descendant of John Warner, one of the first settlers of the town. It was in the Warner family for many years, and is believed by Mr. Tyler to have been found in Waterbury. Such stones, though of frequent occurrence in the south, are rare in the northern states. Dr. C. C. Abbott, in his "Primitive Industry," which refers chiefly to the "Northern Atlan- tic seaboard," has a chapter on discoidal stones, but it is very short, the northern specimens which had come under his observation hav- ing evidently been very few. The game of "chungke," of which the southern and southwestern Indians were passionately fond, is described by James Adair as he saw it, a hundred and fifty years
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HISTORY OF WATERBURY.
ago, and more fully by C. C. Jones, in his work on southern antiqui- ties .* The writer is not aware of any references to it in authors who have described the New England Indians, but the game may have existed among them without being so prominent as among the southern tribes. If the stone here figured is a Connecticut speci- men, and not a modern importation, its existence may be accepted as evidence that "chungke" was played in ancient Mattatuck,- although it is of course possible that this was an implement designed for some entirely different purpose.
That part of ancient Mattatuck which lies to the east and north- east of Buck's hill, now embraced in the town of Wolcott, is prob- ably as well stocked with prehistoric specimens as the rest of the territory, but the writer is not informed in regard to discoveries in that quarter. Wolcott is represented in his collection by a few specimens secured through the late Samuel Orcutt. One of these is a grooved axe of sienite, of rather neat form, six inches long and three and a half wide. A deep and polished groove divides it near the middle. Below the groove it is carefully worked, but there is little trace of work above. There is a well-defined notch in the top, of more recent workmanship than the rest.
In the village of Waterville, two miles above Waterbury centre, a number of interesting specimens have been found. At the southern end of the village, on a small stream named Mack's brook, Mr. Heber Welton has found a number of arrow-heads. Mr. G. W. Tucker reports " the oldest inhabitant " as stating that there used to be an Indian camp on the banks of Mack's brook, that the Indians were drawn there by the abundance of fish, and that at certain seasons the stream was full of salmon. Mr. Welton has found in this vicinity several pestles, one of them in the bed of the river.
The writer's collection contains an interesting and shapely imple- ment taken from Factory pond in Waterville. It is six inches long, and an inch and three-quarters wide in its widest part. It may perhaps be classed with stone chisels, but is flat on one side and handsomely rounded on the other. At the upper end it tapers to a blunt point, and the cutting edge measures about an inch. It has lain so long in the water that it is difficult to say of what kind of stone it is made.
Across the river from Waterville is the home of Mr. Joseph Wel- ton, sheltered on the northwest by a ridge which runs in a south- westerly direction as far as the Waterbury almshouse. Mr. Welton
* Jones's " Antiquities of the Southern Indians," pp. 341-358 ; Adair's " American Indians," pp. 401, 402; Abbott's " Primitive Industry, " pp. 341-343.
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STONE IMPLEMENTS OF MATTATUCK.
has picked up around his house a number of arrow-heads and other chipped implements, some of which he has contributed to the writer's collection. Among these is a semi-lunar knife of slate, similar to that already described, but smaller and somewhat imper- fect, and evidently very old. Some years ago, while working the road near the almshouse, Mr. Welton came upon the grave of an Indian child. The skeleton was in a sitting posture. The skull, taken from the earth in a somewhat fragmentary condition, was sent to a friend in a neighboring town. But Mr. Welton reserved for himself, and afterward gave to the writer, certain objects which make the "find" one of peculiar interest. These are toy imple- ments, four in number, some idea of which may be obtained from the accompanying cut. One is a diminutive celt, two inches and a quarter long and three quarters of an inch wide at the cutting edge. Another, two inches and five eighths in length, might be considered a miniature pestle, were it not that at one end it is wedge- shaped. Of the other two pieces, one is axe-shaped, the other nearly square. The latter measures an inch and a half on each side, and neither of them is more than an eighth of an inch in thick- ness. That these two were designed for toy pendants ("gorgets," as they are sometimes called) is evident from the fact that a perforation had been begun in each. The objects possess a unique interest; associated as they were with TOY IMPLEMENTS FROM A CHILD'S GRAVE. the remains of a child, they help us to bring vividly before us what may be called the home life of our aboriginal predecessors. There is nothing to forbid our thinking of these buried trifles as the handiwork of some fond father or elder brother, unfinished at the moment of the child's death and deposited in his grave by a mother's hand.
A short distance above Waterville, at Hinchliffe's bridge, there is a ledge called the Deer-steak rocks. In this ledge, near the river, there is a rock-shelter, open to the south, the "roof" of which pro- jects ten or twelve feet. In the spring of 1881, Mr. John Stevens, digging here, picked up within a space ten feet square about sixty arrow and spear heads, perfect or broken. Most of them are of white quartz, some of them carefully finished. Three or four are of a bluish flint-like stone, and one of these is two and a quarter
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HISTORY OF WATERBURY.
inches in length. A fragment of pottery was also found, bearing traces of a simple decoration; also three fragments of a perforated article, apparently the remains of a large pipe of European manu- facture.
Some distance further north, on the Thomaston road, just above Jericho bridge, there is a bluff, now under cultivation, where quanti- ties of quartz chips are ploughed up. They can be traced sometimes the whole length of a furrow, and may pretty certainly be regarded as indicating the place of an arrow-maker's open-air work-shop .*
A little further up the river, at Reynolds bridge, on the west side, is the residence of Mr. H. F. Reynolds. It stands on a plateau overlooking the river and the road. On the slope near his house, and on the strip of meadow between the road and the river, Mr. Reynolds has picked up arrow-heads and numerous chips. In his small collection is one of the finest specimens the Naugatuck val- ley has thus far produced. It is a beautiful leaf-shaped spear-head, five inches long and three inches wide. Its outline is symmetrical, the edge is carefully chipped, and the color is milk-white.
In the writer's collection Thomaston is represented by a single specimen. It is an axe, very similar in outline to the sole of a shoe. The length is six and a quarter inches, the width, just below the groove, two inches and a half, whence it narrows gradually to the cutting edge. The groove, which is shallow, is within an inch and a half of the top.
About a mile and a half above Thomaston, on the eastern bank of the river, there used to be a factory and a few houses, bearing the name of Heathenville. The writer was informed by the late Horace Johnson that in his boyhood he used to find arrow-heads and quantities of stone chips at this place. The ground close to the water's edge was full of chips, mostly black ..
Some years ago, in the Litchfield correspondence of the Water- bury American, appeared the following paragraph:
In a late issue, you speak of a discovery of soapstone dishes, in Rhode Island. There are plenty of them nearer home. I have in my possession a bushel or so of
* About a mile above Jericho bridge, on the east side of the road, which here runs very near the river, is a so-called Indian mortar. It is an excavation in the rock, close to the road. The rock, which is a stratum of mica-slate, dipping to the northwest, is broken away across the mouth, so that the east side of the hole, next the bank, is much higher than the side next the road. The excavation is nearly circular, and is twenty- one inches in diameter. The depth of the main "shaft," measured on the side next the bank, is two feet; measured from the level of the road, it is eight inches. But within and below this there is another hollow, fourteen inches by six, and five inches deep. The stratification of the rock is easily discerned throughout the cavity. That it was ever used by the Indians as a mortar (for grind ng corn), there is no reason to sup- pose. An Indian trail may have run close by it, but the conditions favorable for the establishment of a vil- lage or camping-ground are altogether wanting here. Under almost any circumstances the excavation would have been inconvenient to use as a " mortar." It is undoubtedly of natural rather than artificial origin, and is what geologists term a pot-hole. It would not have been worth while to describe it so fully, except that tradition has so long regarded it as of Indian origin.
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STONE IMPLEMENTS OF MATTATUCK.
fragments of such dishes, and know of two localities where the soapstone was quarried and manufactured. The dishes are very commonly in use among the farmers here, for washing hands, etc.
Having learned that the correspondent from whom this statement came was D. C. Kilbourne, Esq., of East Litchfield, the writer, accompanied by Mr. H. F. Bassett, called on him, and under his guidance visited one of the prehistoric manufactories of soapstone dishes which he had discovered. This manufactory, or open - air work-shop, is situated near "Watch hill," on Spruce brook, a beauti- ful stream which empties into the Naugatuck a mile and a quarter below the East Litchfield railroad station. Mr. Kilbourne had gath- ered his large assortment of broken dishes from a strip of meadow- land lying along the left bank of the brook. A new examination of the same ground brought to light many more fragments, of all sizes and shapes, most of them evidently representing dishes that had never been finished but were broken in the making. They were covered outside and inside with tool-marks, and all of them were very rough. In some cases the projecting handles showed a nearer approach to completion than any other part of the dish. Of the specimens collected, that which comes nearest to being a perfect dish is noteworthy for its diminutive size. It is only four inches and a half in length, and three inches high. It is conformed to the regular type, the projecting handles not being lacking; but it is so small that one can not help asking to what use, in cooking or eating, the red man could have put it.
The broken dishes were interesting-sufficiently so to justify carrying away a large quantity of them; but a more important dis- covery was yet to be made. The writer, going back and forth over the ploughed ground, picked up a piece of quartzite which bore marks of chipping. He soon found another and another, and very readily discovered their character: they were the tools used in shaping and hollowing out the soapstone dishes. Before his explor- ation was ended he had collected sixty of these stone tools, twenty- five or thirty of which were closely conformed to a well-defined type. They measure from three and a half inches to five inches in length, and in size and shape resemble a man's clenched fist,-sup- posing the thumb instead of being turned inward to be extended and to rest against the forefinger. The end of the tool represented by the top of the thumb is in each case chipped to a point, and the larger end is chipped and rounded in a more careless way. In addi- tion to the unbroken tools, numerous fragments were found, and a half bushel of quartzite chips, besides two or three good arrow- heads. In the brook quartzite pebbles like those from which the
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HISTORY OF WATERBURY.
tools were formed could easily be gathered. A few other tools were found of a different character. One of them is of mica-slate, one end of it remaining in its original condition, the other end reduced by chipping to such a size that it can readily be grasped by the hand. It is, in short, a rude beetle, about a foot long. Two other pieces, pointed like the quartzite tools, are of entirely different material and form. One of them is eight inches in length; of the other only the pointed end remains.
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