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 II > Part 4
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THE BOROUGH AND WATERVILLE.
shadow of a most trying illness, but his path was lighted all the way by the radiance of filial affection, until he had passed at length
To where, beyond these voices, there is peace.
For Major F. A. Spencer, see Volume III, page 1214; for J. B. Spencer, page 50 of this volume.
William Ansel Spencer was born in Waterbury, June 24, 184Q. He enlisted in the Eighth regiment of Connecticut volunteers in September, 1861, and served until January, 1863, when he was dis- charged on account of sickness. On November 6, 1865, he married Caroline Augusta Blackman. She died September 6, 1877, leaving two daughters, Katharine Lewis and Marcia Burton. On August 14, 1878, he married Susie Henrietta Teston, by whom he has one son, Frederick Albert Spencer, born April 9, 1880. After his first marriage Mr. Spencer removed to New York, thence to Boston, and thence to West Medway, Mass., where he was prominent in the Grand Army of the Republic, and where a flourishing camp of Sons of Veterans bears his name. He was also a member of the staff of the commander-in-chief of the Grand Army. He returned to Waterbury and resumed business here in 1894.
CENTRE SQUARE IN 1857 .*
* From a drawing by Charles U. C. Burton, National Magazine, September, 1857.
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HISTORY OF WATERBURY.
THE VILLAGE OF WATERVILLE.
At the date of the incorporation of the borough, and for some time before that, the most important neighborhood and the most definite "centre" in Waterbury, outside of the borough limits, was the village of Waterville, lying about two miles to the north. As the place it fills in the history of the town, and of late years in its industrial record, is by no means inconspicuous, it is fitting that some account of it should be given in this connection.
The beautiful valley in which Waterville is situated, with its lovely meadows stretching away to the river and gently rising into hills on the east and west, is shut in on the north by precipices of rock, whose peculiar rose-tinted sides glistening with mica scales, especially when seen in the light of the western sun, present pic- tures of rare beauty. Early in the settlement of the town these meadows and hills proved attractive to settlers and they pushed in, around the fields at the mouth of Hancock brook, until some of the more venturesome paid a heavy penalty for their rashness, being tortured and carried off by wandering Indians, who, hiding in the hills and biding their time, swooped down on the defenseless labor- ers in the valley .*
In its earlier history Waterville was called Pine Hole. That was the name of the school district and remained so for many years.t It was a little farming settlememt, with a few scattered houses, a school house, and a sawmill up the brook. It was a pleas- ant village, and on a sunny day the passing traveler, especially if he happened to come about the time of the "play-spell," would see the children gather hastily in a line along the roadside, and the boys would bow and the girls courtesy in their very best manner. Of course the traveller returned this greeting, and if he chanced to have apples in his wagon would stop and give one to each. Captain Joseph Bronson was one of the largest landholders, and a leading man in the town of Waterbury. He lived a little to the north of the village, in the place lately occupied by Moses S. Cook, and still owned by his son. On the rising ground just south of the village, and overlooking the valley, lived Daniel Cook, the father of Moses,
* See Bronson's History, p. 105. But compare the elaborate statement occupying Chapter XX of our first volume, pp. 257-262, for the story of Jonathan Scott and his sons.
+ Hole, or holl, is an old Saxon locative, equivilant to hollow or valley. In the early history of this coun- try it was frequently used in place-names. Wood's Holl and Holmes's Holl in Massachusetts are survivals of the word, and hereabouts, besides Pine Hole, we had Hubbard Hole (the hollow between Buck's hill and Long hill), and probably others.
----
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THE BOROUGH AND WATERVILLE.
a most worthy man, with a pleasant smile, and a deep scar across his face where he had been injured when a boy by the bursting of a gun. Near the small stream known as Mac's brook, where Heber H. Welton lives, was another large farmer, Obadiah Warner, whose. eldest son Ransom was for many years rector of St. Andrew's Epis- copal church, Bloomfield, and whose great-granddaughter is the wife of another Episcopal clergyman, the Rev. Mr. Woodcock of Ansonia. Over the river, where Joseph Welton lives, was the house and farm of Heman Munson, and a little further south the red house of Roger Peck, with two tall pine trees in front, a conspicu- ous feature in the landscape. His wife Mary and their daughter Phila were excellent women, and among the founders of the Meth- odist church in Waterbury (see page 703). On the east of the vil- lage, on the slope of the hill, is the place occupied for many years by Asa Bronson, and before him by Edward Perkins, and near by was that of Jesse Brown, who was for many years the blacksmith of the neighborhood. At the sawmill at the upper end of Sheffield street was the home of David Downs, father of Anson Downs, and grandfather of David E. Sprague. The place was afterwards sold to James Wheeler, and it was in this house that the Methodist church in Waterbury, now so large and prosperous, seems to have had its beginning (page 701). Anson Downs spent his early business life in Bristol, but returned and lived many years at the corner of Shef- field street. David A. Sprague, Burritt Judson and Daniel Scott (prior to 1830) lived on the east side of the street below the bridge, and Colonel Henry Grilley and Joseph Hall, the butcher, on the west side.
There were several roads from Waterbury to Waterville. One went up through the meadows, crossing the river by a bridge just below where the bridge of the Watertown railroad now is, then going past the Munson place and crossing the river again by a ford. Another went over Burnt hill, the road now known as Cooke street. There was still another which was a continuation of Willow street, and probably came out near where the New England railroad now crosses the main Waterville road. In 1786 a road was worked through near the edge of the river meadows. It was then called the Dug road, and in 1800 it was taken as part of the Waterbury river turnpike. The present road was opened when the New Eng- land railroad was built, about 1855.
In the early history of the place the stream which rises near the Buck's hill school-house and empties into Hancock brook, near Heber Welton's, was known as Wigwam brook, or Wigwam Swamp brook, and the low ground on the line of it west of the Buck's hill
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HISTORY OF WATERBURY.
road was Wigwam swamp. This would seem to point to Indian occupancy in the vicinity, and Joseph Welton was informed by Mrs. Joel Scott, who was born in 1780, that she remembered parties of Indians camping on the brook to fish, and coming to her father's house to beg and borrow. Later, the brook received the name of Mac's brook from one Daniel MacNamara who lived near it and occupied a considerable tract of land in the vicinity. His house is said to have been on the road which is the extension of Cooke street, and from him also the land where the factory of the Tucker Manu- facturing company now stands was called Mac's plain. David's brook is the small brook falling into the Naugatuck on the east side, three-quarters of a mile below the village, and a deep place in the river at that point was known as David's bottom. (See Vol. I, p. 693.) On the west side of the river, a short distance above the factory of the American Pin company, is a steep rock sloping into the river, with deep water at the bottom, known as Larry's rock. "Larry " was a slave belonging to Dr. Preserve Porter, and either by accident or through some pique he slipped or jumped from this rock and was drowned. With true professional instinct and an eye to economy Dr. Porter prepared and preserved his skeleton, doing the work, it is said, at the place where the accident occurred. The skeleton was a school of anatomy for the town, and has been in existence until a recent period, and may be yet.
At the foot of the first great red ledge above the village there is a place called "the cave," a shelving rock spacious enough to shield a number of persons in a shower, with an aperture at the back which was called the chimney, and was sometimes used as such by the boys. On the cliff on the west side of the Hancock brook gorge, a short distance west of Hoadley's station (Greystone it is now called), is a very striking profile resembling the face of Wash- ington on the American dollar. (See Vol. I, p. 711.) The country all about is full of picturesque spots.
But the industrial history of the place demands our attention.
In the early part of this century Lemuel Porter manufactured chairs at Waterville, in a shop near where Heber H. Welton lives, using the power of Mac's brook for the purpose, and later he removed his business to where the factory of the Cutlery company now is, and added the manufacture of clocks. The chairs were well made, and many are still in existence, with "L. PORTER " branded on the under side of the seat, and after almost a hundred years are in good condition. This was apparently the first use of the power of Hancock brook at this point.
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THE BOROUGH AND WATERVILLE.
About 1825 three young men who had become friends while in Yale College decided to undertake the manufacture of gilt buttons. They were David Hayden, jr., son of David Hayden, who was at that time a prominent button manufacturer in Waterbury, William G. Webster, son of Noah Webster, the author of the dictionary, and Thomas H. Bond, a native of Enfield. It was young Hayden, doubt- less, who persuaded them to embark in the enterprise, and looking about for a place they decided to locate on Hancock brook for the sake of its water power, and for some years thereafter the place was known as Haydensville. These young men were without busi- ness experience, and with but little appreciation of the economy, perseverance and hard work which were as necessary then as they are now to success in business. The consequence was that they did not succeed, although for a while they had a "very good time." But perhaps their experience was not lost, as in after years they became useful and successful men. In 1829 the property went into the possession of Mark Leavenworth, his son B. F. Leavenworth, and his son-in-law Green Kendrick. They conducted the business for some years with fair success, under the name of Leavenworth & Kendrick, and were succeeded by Dr. Ambrose Ives and Heman Scott, Mr. Kendrick retaining an interest, and the firm name being Ives, Scott & Co., and later, Ives, Kendrick & Co.
In the meantime the name of Haydensville had been appro- priated by a thriving village in Massachusetts, and it was thought best to abandon it here. At the suggestion of Mr. Kendrick the name Waterville was chosen, and it has been in use ever since.
About 1840, the manufacture of pocket cutlery was introduced, and after various changes the business became organized in 1847 as the Waterville Manufacturing company, with Green Kendrick as president. In 1853 a "private act" was passed by the General Assembly, permitting this company to change its business. It was succeeded, later, by the firm of Sprague & Boyden, which was suc- ceeded in turn by the Waterville Cutlery company, incorporated in 1890 with a capital of $20,000.
Other companies have been organized, some of which have ceased to do business. But in 1886, the Tucker Manufacturing company, deriving its name from G. W. Tucker, was incorporated, for the manufacture of furniture trimmings, and in 1890 the H. L. Welch Hosiery company was incorporated, with a capital of $80,000, to carry on the work which its name indicates. The business had already, for many years, been carried on by Mr. Welch and his pre- decessors, a Union Knitting company, with Jonathan R. Crampton as president, having in fact been organized as long ago as 1855, for the manufacture of woolen under-clothing.
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HISTORY OF WATERBURY.
The introduction of the cutlery business into Waterville brought in a number of English workmen who were members of the Church of England or at least attached to its services. Mr. Lyman Bradley, who at one time had charge of the business, Mr. Downs and Mr. Burritt, Mr. B. H. Morse, who was in charge later, and some others were Episcopalians. In response to the natural demand, the Rev. J. L. Clark, D. D., rector of St. John's church, began to hold services there, and the attendance so far increased that the little school- house no longer afforded sufficient accommodation. The cutlery business promised well, the Naugatuck railroad had been opened, and the expectation was that the place would grow. Under these circumstances it seemed wise to build a chapel. The history of St. Paul's chapel, and also of the chapel established some years after- ward by the Methodists, which led to the organization of the Water- ville Methodist church, is related in another place.
The most important fact in the later history of Waterville is the removal to the village of the works of the American Pin company. This corporation, having determined to sell their valuable site on East Main street, near the centre of the city, purchased land near the Waterville station, and erected there a large factory, to which they removed in the early part of the present year (1894). "Their gong," in the language of the newspaper reporter, "adds music to the din of the merry toilers of Waterville."
DAVID E. SPRAGUE.
David Elias Sprague, son of David A. and Anna (Downs) Sprague, was born at Waterville, February 8, 1833. He studied at the Waterville district school and at the old academy at Water- bury centre. For ten years he represented the cutlery business of Waterville as a travelling salesman, and afterward became himself a manufacturer. The changes through which the business passed are indicated in the foregoing history of the village. Mr. Sprague has always exerted his influence in behalf of local improvements, so that he is recognized in the community as a man of enterprise and public spirit. He has invested largely in real estate, and is a bank director in Waterbury. On February 5, 1865, he married Frances J. Taylor, of Warren.
HENRY L. WELCH.
Henry L. Welch, who at the time of his death was president and treasurer of the H. L. Welch Hosiery company, was born in East Hampton, in 1820. His brothers were Harmanus M. Welch of New Haven, and E. N. Welch, of Bristol, both of whom died before him.
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THIE BOROUGHI AND WATERVILLE.
He removed to Bristol in early boyhood, and at the age of fourteen entered a store in Plainville. He afterward became engaged in the manufacture of cotton web, and was manager of the Plainville mills. He also opened a branch of the same business in Hartford, where he resided.
About 1870, he purchased the woolen mills at Waterville, but conducted the business, as he managed his other interests, from Hartford as a centre. In 1880, he removed to this city, and resided here during the rest of his life, riding to and fro daily between his home on Hillside avenue and the factory at Waterville. A few years before his death he purchased a southern home at Marietta, Ga., and for two or three seasons spent the inclement months of the winter and spring in that place. In 1871, he married Miss Jennie C. French, who with a niece, Miss Alice L. French, constituted his family at the time of his death. One of his daughters by a previous marriage, Mrs. Frederick Sampson of Hartford, survived him; another was killed in a collision on the Old Colony railroad a year before his decease.
Mr. Welch was in early life a member of the Baptist church. Politically he was "a staunch democrat of the old school-one who never sought office, but was interested in great public questions and in the development of party policy." He was specially influential in politics as a woolen manufacturer who supported "tariff reform." He represented Waterbury in the legislature in 1889.
He died on March 4, 1893, and was buried at Plainville.
JOSEPH WELTON.
Joseph Welton, son of the Rev. Joseph Davis and Eunice (Tom- linson) Welton, was born in Woodbury, May 15, 1814. He was edu- cated in Waterbury, where he has spent most of his life. At the age of fourteen, while a school boy, he made a careful survey and pre- pared an outline map of the Green, which has been preserved until now, and has furnished useful memoranda for the History of Water- bury. He lived on the Wolcott road, near where his brother, Hobart V. Welton still resides, until 1836, when he removed to a farm on the west side of the Naugatuck river, opposite Waterville. The farm is rendered conspicuous by its large and dense grove of Spruce trees standing near the river, some of which are fifty or sixty feet in height. This grove is what remains of a business venture made, a good many years ago, by Mr. Welton and Leonard Platt. Mr. Platt went to England and brought with him to this country 200,000
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HISTORY OF WATERBURY.
Norway spruce seedlings, which were planted on Mr. Welton's farm. They were set in rows about three feet apart, and acres were covered with them. Afterward Mr. Platt brought from Ohio 260,000 arbor vitæ plants which were set out with the spruce seedlings. Many of the trees were afterward sold from this extensive nursery, but a large number are still in place, constituting the grove above referred to. (In the view given below, part of it is visible on the left.)
On January 20, 1836, Mr. Welton married Mary Salina, daughter of Seabury Pierpont, by whom he had a son, Homer Heber Welton, of Waterville, who married Ellen J. Garrigus, and two daughters: Eunice Clorana, who married first Owen E. Scott, and afterward Lewis Garrigus; and Lucy Adaline, who married Austin Beecher Pierpont. (See Vol. I, Ap. pp. 151, 103.)
THE NAUGATUCK RIVER. LOOKING NORTHWARD TOWARD JOSEPH WELTON'S FARM.
CHAPTER III.
WATERBURY AS A CITY-THE CHARTER OF 1853-CITY BOUNDARIES- POPULATION-FIRST OFFICERS ELECTED-BY-LAWS-EXPENSES AND TAXES-CITY HALL-THE CHARTER OF 1871-WATER SUPPLY- SEWERAGE-LIST OF MAYORS-POLICE FORCE-CITY PRISON-STREET NAMES-CONTINUOUS PROSPERITY -THE FIRST MAYOR AND SOME OTHERS.
A CCORDING to the United States census of 1850, the popula- tion of Waterbury in that year numbered 5137. From 1810 to 1840 the increase had been very small-less, in fact, than 800; but during the next ten years it was more rapid than in any previous period of its history. Various improvements were at the same time being introduced. St. John's church-a handsome stone edifice-was built in 1847; the Naugatuck railroad was completed in 1849; and, passing over into the next decade, the borough was lighted with gas in 1852. Very naturally, the business men of the place began to consider seriously the subject of a city charter. The powers conferred by the borough charter, which had existed since 1825, were not deemed sufficient for the requirements of the growing community. The men of that day were laying deep and broad the foundations of Waterbury's prosperity, and they saw that the time was near at hand when greater powers and privileges and a stronger central government would be required to secure good order and the best interests of the citizens.
The first definite result of the agitation was an application to the General Assembly held at Hartford in 1853 for an act of incor- poration. It met with a favorable reception. "An Act incorporat- ing the City of Waterbury" was passed by both branches of the legislature, and was approved by the Hon. Thomas H. Seymour, then governor, June 25, 1853. The writer of this article was at that time a member of the senate from the old fifth (or Waterbury) district, and assisted to the best of his ability in securing favorable action upon the charter. The representatives from Waterbury were Hobart V. Welton and Joseph Smith.
Although the title of the act was simply, " An Act incorporating the City of Waterbury," the new body corporate and politic had a very ponderous corporate name in the text of the charter, in accord- ance with the phraseology of other old charters existing at that
3
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HISTORY OF WATERBURY.
time. It was, "The Mayor, Aldermen, Common Council and Free- men of the City of Waterbury," a designation which it was neces- sary to insert in any writ by or against the city, or an abatement of the writ might follow. The charter provided for the election of a mayor, four aldermen, and not more than twenty common council- men, a city clerk, a treasurer, two sheriffs, and an auditor of city accounts. It also provided for a city court of limited jurisdiction, but of a rather cumbrous character, as it consisted of a recorder, to be elected by the common council, and the "two aldermen first chosen at the annual meeting" as assistant or side judges, with ample provision for supplying their places in case of absence or disability .* The practice of establishing inferior courts with assist- ant or side judges was common fifty years ago, and the side judges were not supposed to know much about the law, though they could outvote and overrule the chief judge when the question of decision or judgment was reached, or in the admission or rejection of evi- dence. It used to be said of such courts that the chief judge, if he knew any law, which was not always the case, was apt to ignore the existence of the side judges, and did not often advise with them, except upon the state of the weather or the hardness of their respective seats. Very little business was done in our old city court, however, until it was reorganized by an amendment to the charter in 1866, which provided for a single presiding judge, and a much larger jurisdiction than before. A police court was also pro- vided for by the same amendment. The city court as thus consti- tuted was transformed into the present district court by act of the legislature of April 14, 1881.
The limits of the new city, as established by its first charter, were as follows :
Commencing at the entrance of Steel's brook into the Naugatuck river, thence easterly to the Buck's Hill road, ten rods northerly of the dwelling-house of the late Isaac Sutton, thence to the bridge where the Cheshire road crosses Carrington brook, thence to the dam of Brown & Elton across Mad river, thence south- westerly to the Naugatuck river at the lower end of Mad meadow,-said point being the present southwest corner of the borough of Waterbury,-thence westerly to the northeast corner of the dwelling-house of Erastus P. Potter, thence northerly to the intersection of the Middlebury and town plot road, on West-side hill, thence northerly to the place of beginning.
The population of that part of Waterbury thus incorporated could hardly have exceeded 4000, as the villages of Waterville and Oakville and the large farming portion of the town outside of the
* Joseph G. Easton was elected as the first recorder of the city court, but he declined to serve, and Corydon S. Sperry was elected in his stead.
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1142416
WATERBURY AS A CITY.
city limits must have contained at least eleven or twelve hundred inhabitants, and the entire population, as we have seen, numbered something over 5137. The smallness of the population, in view of the old mistaken idea that a city ought to have at least 10,000 inhabitants before its incorporation, led to a good deal of harmless witticism at the expense of the young city. But it needed only one census more, that of 1860, to show that the population of town and city together exceeded 10,000. It was a common saying in the - rural districts of the neighboring towns, soon after the incorpora- tion, that the people of Waterbury were very anxious to get a case or two of cholera from New York, to give prestige to the new city. The historian Hollister, then a practicing lawyer in Litchfield, writing his "History of Connecticut " about this time, which was first published two years later, spoke of Waterbury as follows:
For many years, and until the commencement of the present century, Water- bury was not thought to be a town that could offer any very strong inducements to those who were seeking a favorable situation for a permanent abode. But a change has come over the aspect of the place, that reminds us of the transformations we find in tales of Arabian enchantment. The river, once so destructive to those who dwelt upon its banks, though sometimes even now in its more gamesome moods it loses its self-control and deluges the lands and houses of the inhabitants, is no longer the instrument of destruction to them, but is, notwithstanding its lively looks and the racy joyousness of its motions, their common drudge and plodding laborer in all departments of their manifold enterprises. The difference between the twenty-eight families at Mattatuck, flying from the meagre settlement where poverty, inundation and disease threatened their extermination, and the young city of Waterbury with its stone church towers, its rich mansions, its manufactories, and its population that is now numbered by thousands, affords to a reflective mind a practical illustration scarcely equalled even upon the prairies of the west, of the self-renewing vigor and boundless exuberance of health that characterize the blood of the old pioneers of New England. The Naugatuck valley, but a few years ago unknown, almost unexplored even by the citizens of Hartford and New Haven, is now one of the most interesting and busy thoroughfares in New England .*
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