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 7
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THE GREEN IN 1851. LOOKING WESTWARD .*
the north branch of West Main street, a narrow causeway was built with logs,-a corduroy road; and it was not until a time within the memory of persons now living that the ground lost its swampy character. The two streams of water which still cross the street, but are now covered, were then open brooks crossed by bridges. On the one which comes through the grounds of A. C. Northrop a small. pond was made, not far from where the northeast corner of St.
* This view is reproduced from an oil painting by Jared D. Thompson, in the possession of Robert K. Brown of Waterbury.
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HISTORY OF WATERBURY.
John's church now is, to which families living in the neighborhood, whose well water was hard, had recourse on washing days. Where the church stands and for some distance westward was a flaggy swamp which afforded good skating in winter and good flag pods in summer, and which rendered it necessary that the foundations of the church should be placed some fifteen feet below the surface of the ground. Just at this corner the brook entered the lot, and here Esquire Ezra Bronson had what was called a "potash," that is, a place for the making of potash by leaching wood-ashes and boil- ing down the lye. In this vicinity cattle were occasionally mired, even within the present century. A Watertown gentleman * relates that when a party of which he was a member, started on their return from a sleigh ride supper at the old tavern where the store of E. T. Turner & Co. now stands, on the southwest corner of Exchange place, their driver drove off the causeway or bridge near the church and overturned them into the water, and they were so thoroughly wet that they were obliged to return to the hotel, borrow changes of clothing and dry their own before proceeding home- ward. Many years after this swampy place was partially drained and filled, when the earth was wet in the spring, large areas of ground could be made to tremble by jumping upon them, like quak- ing bogs, which indeed they were.
It is recorded that in February, 1691, the Naugatuck river rose and ran through the town. It was doubtless obstructed by trees and bushes in the lower part of the meadows and probably dammed by ice. The water set back from the river across the lower part of Willow street and up the ravine which led from the swampy ground just described across the present line of State street. Coming out where St. John's church now stands it rose high enough to find an outlet through the line of Centre square and Exchange place to Great brook. I have myself seen back water from the river in this ravine east of the line of present State street.
It is probable that floods like this had occurred before, and the soil lying to the eastward of Church street on the line named had been washed away until very little was left but a bed of rocks. The ground on each side, however, rose with a pleasant slope; the soil was dry, free from stone and easily worked, and was attractive for dwelling sites. The first, second and third houses of worship of the old Congregational church all occupied nearly the same ground, just at the east line of the present Green, on the west line of North Main street. The ground about this point was gravelly, dry and
* The late Hubert Scovill.
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THE STORY OF THE GREEN.
firm, and perhaps our present Green pretty nearly designates the extent of a piece of ground left here for public uses, together with that portion beyond which was mostly unusable and worthless. It would probably be giving our ancestors too much credit for æsthetic forecast to suppose that they foresaw at all what an elegant park they were providing for us; but some central common ground about the public buildings was required, and the "village green," too, belonged to their English ancestry, its habits and traditions. So that it was not wholly accident which set apart this tract for public use.
About 1780, a school building, elegant for the period, and perhaps, compared with the ability of the people, more costly than any we have now, was erected on the Green nearly in front of the Bronson Library building, on the corner of Leavenworth street. It is quite probable that there had been earlier school-houses on or near the same site, but I have no knowledge of them. After some years this build- ing was moved off and became the West Centre District school- house, standing near the corner of Central avenue and West Main street. There was a patch of ground filled in sufficiently large for access to the building and for a wood-pile in front of it, but in all other directions the swamp remained. The building is the same, although cut down one story and otherwise changed, which Mr. Israel Holmes removed some years ago to what is now the north side of Mitchell avenue. In this building, while still standing in its orig- inal position, the Rev. Joseph Badger, afterwards a noted western missionary, and Judge John Kingsbury were teachers, and Jeremiah Day, afterward president of Yale college, and Judge Bennet Bron- son of Waterbury, were among the students, preparing for their college course. The building is said to have been removed by Colonel William Leavenworth, in order to get more room to drill the militia regiment of which he was then colonel. The semi- annual May and September trainings always took place on the Green, and the "general trainings " or regimental musters usually did, when they were held in Waterbury.
Prior to 1795 the Episcopal church stood at the northeast corner of Willow and West Main streets, on the lot now occupied by Charles M. Mitchell. It was then called St. James's. In 1795 a new church was built (consecrated in 1797) near the southwest corner of the Green, directly in front of the site of the present St. John's, its west end being nearly on a line with the east side of Church street. At that time the parish took the name of St. John. This church remained until 1848, when a stone church was built on the site of the present one.
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HISTORY OF WATERBURY.
Quite early in the present century there stood on the Green, not far from where Prospect street now joins West Main, a small old dwelling house. It was on the highway and I do not know how it came there. It may have been a school-house or it may have been built by some squatter. About the time mentioned it was occupied by a poor and aged couple named Grilley. In those days there were very few outlets for the surplus vitality of youth, and the consequence was that when the respectable young men of that day wanted to indulge their animal spirits they were frequently guilty of acts of which their great-grandchildren would be greatly ashamed. Some of these young men, bent on a frolic, one night placed some levers under the side of this house, and one of their number, mounted on the roof, let down the chimney a goose tied by a string. The goose screamed, the old people, suddenly awak- ened, sprang from the bed to see what was the matter, and then the boys outside the house gently rocked the house to and fro with the levers. The old people were nearly frightened to death and the young ones ought to have been ashamed, but I never heard that they were.
From time to time the roads were improved, and some spasmodic and superficial work was done on the surface of the ground; some rocks were blasted and some holes were filled. But prior to 1825 the Green remained mostly in a state of nature. It was the cow pasture, the play ground, the place for military parades and for travelling menageries. Its surface, especially the southwestern part, was dotted all over with huge rocks, sometimes cropping out in the form of ledges, with inequalities, holding water after a rain or in the wet season, where boys could sail boats after summer showers and skate on winter evenings to their hearts' content. The largest of these hollows was in front of the Scovill house, the City hall and the Bronson Library, and was known among the boys of 1800 as Bushell's bay, being so called after an old lady living near, to whom for some reason they had given the name of Mother Bushell. Probably every boy born in town who is now sixty or sixty-five years of age has skated on that ground. For many years a narrow causeway ran across it to the old academy, having a bridge under which the two parts connected, the planks of which were removed in the winter to make free passage for the skaters.
There were no sidewalks on either side of what is now West Main street, and in fact hardly anywhere in the town. There were pretty well defined roads about where the roads are now on the north and south sides of Centre square, and the main travelled road swept around the front of the Congregational meeting house near
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THE STORY OF THE GREEN.
where the water tank now is, and ran diagonally toward the front gate of the Merriman place until it struck the east and west road. There were worn foot paths in the grass along the sides of these roads, but they were so uneven that after a summer shower the water would stand ankle deep in parts of the path. I remember one old gentlemen, with soft tanned buckskin shoes, deliberately taking them off and walking home in his stockings, knowing that his feet would be no more wet by this proceeding and his shoes much less so. Along the fence line on the north side, nearly all the way from where Prospect street now is to the barns of the old Judd tavern (the present Barlow place) the ground was swampy and covered with standing water in wet seasons. A short distance, say thirty feet, out from this fence, a drain was dug some two feet deep which was finally covered with logs and earth and served to keep the road bed dry. This drain was begun by Colonel William Leavenworth, who built the house now occupied by Henry W. Sco- vill, and by Dr. Edward Field who lived where the Misses Merriman now do, and was continued by other owners of lots on the street. Prior to the building of this drain the road along this line was corduroy. About 1828 or 1830 a stone drain was laid along the south side of the Green, extending from the hollow before described near the site of the City hall to the brook near the Episcopal church; but the work was poorly done, the drain soon filled and was never reopened. It is said that the money with which it was built came from a fund raised by charging one dollar each per season for the pasturage of cows on the Green and adjoining streets. The cows were "allowed to run on the commons," and cows so pastured were called "common cows." Each cow wore a strap around her neck marked with the owner's name, and a cow found at large without the strap was liable to be impounded.
About 1828 the ground was sufficiently drained, so that a pretty good gravel road had replaced the corduroy near St. John's church, and this was extended diagonally across the Green from near the northwest corner to the southeast. Over the new road the stage coach from New Haven to Litchfield passed, sometimes every day, sometimes only every second day, running the alternate day over the turnpike direct from Naugatuck (then called Salem Bridge) to Watertown; that being a somewhat shorter road and the through travel being of more importance than the business of Waterbury. Sometimes in the winter, when navigation was closed on the Hud- son but open on the Sound, this was the best route to Canada. Well- known Albany names were frequently seen on the trunks at the back of the stage, and in the winter of 1838-9 when the so-called
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HISTORY OF WATERBURY.
patriot war in Canada was at its height, many officers of the British army passed through here on their way between New York and Canada. The stages all stopped at the old Burton tavern in Exchange place. The sheds and stables were across the road where Miller & Peck's store now is, and Little brook, which came out to the street at that point, was used for watering horses and washing . wagons.
In 1825, under the guidance of Israel Coe and some others, the people resolved to utilize their Fourth of July patriotism in clearing out the rocks on the Green. A subscription was taken up to defray expenses; Eldad Parker, a famous rock blaster from Wolcott, was employed for days beforehand to drill the holes. On the night of July 3 the blasts were loaded and on the morning of the Fourth they were fired (Mr. Coe thinks to the number of one hundred or more), and the rocks were thoroughly demoralized. To clear off these and fill the holes, they had what was called a carting-bee, or probably a number of them at intervals, when the people who had teams and were willing to assist came and worked together, remov- ing stone and carting in sand, most of which was obtained from a large sand hill which stood on North Main street, near the ground now occupied by the Waterbury Club house. That portion of the ground thus leveled and filled soon became covered with grass, and made a better pasture for the cows and better parade ground for the soldiers; but the children missed the rocks. The rocky portion was, in general, what is now the southwest quarter of the Green.
As I have said, the first three church buildings of the Congrega- tional society occupied nearly the same situation, at the east end of the Green. The last one which stood there was built by David Hoadley in 1795. It fronted south, and had a spire surmounting a projecting vestibule at that end. It had three flights of stone steps, one for the central vestibule and one for each side aisle, and prior to 1833 it had square pews separated by upright panel divisions, with an open work of turned ornamental balusters and a rail about the top. At about the date named, the pews were taken out and replaced by "slips" in the modern style. The corner stone of this church was laid by Mark Leavenworth, the pastor of the congrega- tion for fifty-eight years, and the fact was commemorated by his initials and the date (M. L., 1795) in letters six inches long, carved upon a block of Portland stone and filled in with white paint. This was placed under the sill on the west side at the northwest corner of the building. When the building was moved to the site of the Second Congregational church on North Main street, the stone was placed at the southwest corner. In the second removal, I suppose,
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THE STORY OF THE GREEN.
it was lost, but it may sometime be found, and if so should be care- fully preserved. This building was always known as the "meeting house," and the Episcopal edifice at the other end of the Green as " the church," this latter word never being applied in those days to the place of worship of any other denomination. The "meeting house" was removed from this spot in 1835. William H. Scovill being about to build a new house on the site of his father's place, directly east of the meeting house, offered to give to the society the lot afterward occupied by the Second Congregational church and to move the building upon it at his own expense, if the society would allow it to be removed. They accepted the offer. When, in 1839, the society bought of Dr. Frederick Leavenworth and Dr. Edward Field the lot on which the First church now stands, Mr. Scovill purchased the old church and the lot, and fitted up the building for a public hall and offices. It was then called "Gothic Hall" and was the public building of the town until the Second Congregational society purchased the site, about 1853, when it was moved to the rear, where it now stands. So long as the meeting house stood on the Green, and for some years afterwards, all town meetings and many other public gatherings were held there,-a practice which served to keep alive the memory of the time when the town and this church were one and the same.
Naugatuck (Salem Bridge) was a part of Waterbury until 1845, and the Naugatuck people all came here to vote. The first business of the day was the choice of a "moderator," which was conducted by actual count. The two parties took the two aisles of the church and extended their lines out upon the Green, curving around to the west so as not to block up the roadway, and there stood till they were counted. A sight of the two lines and the men who composed them ought to have been a great moral lesson, but I do not remem- ber ever hearing of its producing any effect. Occasionally a voter whose views thus early in the day had become somewhat obscured would get into the line where he evidently did not belong, and was pulled across to the other side by his friends there without cere- mony, though sometimes with a little resistance, as he did not fully take in the situation. One active politician, always ready for office and anxious to stand well with both sides, was said generally to be found between the lines, very busy, separating, straightening and arranging them; never in a position to be counted very much himself.
After Mr. Scovill removed the old meeting house in 1835, the east end of the Green was graded and its general appearance improved, and perhaps a few trees were planted. But the road still
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HISTORY OF WATERBURY.
ran diagonally through the centre of it, and the long depression on the south side, which I have spoken of as Bushell's bay, still remained.
On the south side, a short distance from the corner of Exchange place, in front of where the Park drug store now is, was the whipping post, and alongside of the whipping post stood the stocks. This whipping post was last used for penal purposes about 1820. An elderly gentleman told me some years ago that he remembered an instance early in the century, probably about 1805, when school was dismissed and the boys sent to see the punishment, that they might more clearly understand that "the way of transgressors is hard." The punishment seems to have been seldom resorted to; these two cases being all that I know of within the present century. The stocks were occasionally used, but I have not been able to find any definite facts in regard to them. The remains of them were still to be seen about 1820. In 1830 these methods of punishment were dropped from the statute book.
On the south side of West Main, in the street and nearly opposite the old West Centre school-house, there was a depression in the ground, where a building had once stood. This was a famous play- place for the school children and was called by them the "Pily Hole." They played a game called pily. I never heard of a pily hole, or of such a game elsewhere. Pila is a Latin word for ball, but this was not a ball game. It was, as I remember it, more like the game called "puss in the corner." It may be that the name originally designated a ball game played at this place or somewhere else, but I know nothing in regard to its origin.
On the night of July 3 (1823, I think) some young men, desirous of expressing their patriotism by noise, loaded a small cannon with powder, gravel and stones, put it in Exchange place, set a slow match to it and ran. It exploded, and one piece weighing about fifteen pounds burst through the door of C. D. Kingsbury's store, made a deep dent in one of the beams of the ceiling and fell just at the foot of a bed occupied by two young men. In the summer of 1835, a wooden building standing at the corner of Centre square and Exchange place, and two other buildings south of it, were burned. The fire occurred in the middle of the afternoon. The corner build- ing was occupied as a store by W. & A. Brown. There were several kegs of powder in the building, but they were safely removed. The next Sunday night between eleven and twelve o'clock, when all was quiet, the town was roused by a terrific explosion which broke glass, threw open doors and was heard and felt through a circuit of three or four miles. The site of the explosion was at the foot of an
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THE STORY OF THE GREEN.
old apple tree standing in the middle of an open lot then used as a cow pasture, but which is now occupied by the Scovill house and several other buildings. It was supposed that one of the kegs of powder had been surreptitiously concealed at the time of the fire and was utilized in this manner.
I can recall the old Green as it appeared of a summer afternoon sixty years ago: A few cows nipping the short grass, a few children playing on the meeting house steps; the three or four clerks from the three or four stores enjoying a game of drive ball on the Green; the doors of the stores standing wide open, and an occasional glance in that direction to detect the approach of a chance customer; or, if the clerk wished to appear very careful, he would lock the door and hang the key at one side on a nail. Late in the afternoon the sweet smelling loads of hay would come up from the river meadows, and after a while the few business men would congregate about the post office or the hotel and wait the coming of the New Haven stage which brought, in a small leather bag, the one daily mail. For years nearly all the mail was kept in a candle box, and for the postmaster's convenience two or three leather straps were nailed inside for such customers as might be supposed to have letters every day. It was the quiet, drowsy life of a New England village; but very soon came a change. In 1842 the town was growing fast, and the characteristic village life was rapidly dis- appearing. A new plan of improvement was formed, and at a town meeting held on April 18, of that year, the following vote was passed:
WHEREAS, Certain individuals in the borough of Waterbury have proposed to enclose the public Green, forty-six rods long, not to exceed nine rods wide at the east end and eight and a half rods wide at the west end, to be done for the public generally, by a railing around said Green, leaving a highway four rods or more wide on the north side, three rods and twenty-three links wide on the south side, and about five rods wide at the east end; therefore,
Resolved, That any individuals may have liberty to enclose the same for the purpose aforesaid on condition that they put in good repair the roads about the said Green, all to be done free of expense to the town, and when done said Green to be and remain under the supervision of the wardens and burgesses of said borough.
In accordance with this vote the ground was graded, the soil prepared for grass and the roads changed to their present loca- tion, not without some discontent. The dimensions in the vote are: 148 feet and six inches wide at the east end, 140 feet wide at the west end, and 759 feet long. The present plat is about 686 feet long by 148 wide. A good many of the trees were planted in 1842.
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HISTORY OF WATERBURY.
I find a record on the books of J. M. L. & W. H. Scovill of payments for 108 trees for the Green that year. But some of the rows have been thinned out, as a few were planted the following year, and quite a number in 1848, at which time the wooden paling (removed in 1872) was built by William Perkins. The money for doing the work was raised by subscription. I find a record of the payment for grading, fencing, trees, etc., of $1,028.32 of which J. M. L. & W. H. Scovill paid $563.32 and the remainder was contributed by sun- dry persons in smaller sums, the largest being from Green Ken- drick, $100. The watering tank at the southeast corner was erected by Dr. Henry F. Fish, while mayor of the city, at his own expense. The present winding paths were laid out by N. J. Welton and concreted by Horace B. Wooster in 1873. Earth walks laid in straight lines preceded these, having been made about 1854.
. The only thing further which calls for mention in our narrative is the liberty pole, or "flag staff," referred to on page 21, and pict- ured on pages 21 and 25. This liberty pole was erected probably in 1851, and stood on the Green a short distance west of the Prospect street line. It had formerly done duty as a ship's mast, and was procured by Austin Steele .* It fell in a gale of wind, November 3, 1870, and its overthrow is a matter of interest because it led to the first public suggestion in the newspapers of a soldiers' monument for Waterbury. In an article in the American of November 26 of the year just mentioned, the gentleman who was editor for the time being, after expressing satisfaction at the removal of the "unsightly mast that had swayed in the wind so long," said : "The overthrow of this pole will afford special reason for congratulation, if it shall suggest to those in authority, or rather to our men of taste and wealth, the erection in its stead of some work of art-whether a monument or a fountain-which shall be a real ornament to the Green and an honor to the city." This was the first of a series of articles on this subject; t but the erection of the monument (which was finally placed not at the centre but at the west end of the
* The bill for the pole and the flag was as follows:
Orrin Slate, flag, materials and making,
$23.00
M. Munson, Bridgeport, mast and topmast, 20.00
S. M. Judd, travelling expenses to New Haven, services and telegraphic dispatches, . 4.05
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