USA > Connecticut > Middlesex County > Haddam > The two hundredth anniversary of the First Congregational Church of Haddam, Connecticut, October 14th and 17th, 1900. Church organized, 1696. Pastor installed, 1700 > Part 4
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Ensign Spencer died in 1685. In his will, dated September, 1683, we read: "A pewter flaggon and a rim bason, I give unto the church at Haddam, if there be one within five years after the date hereof." Although the church was not formally organized within the time limited by this bequest, it is believed that the ancient flagon now owned by the church is the Gerrard Spencer gift, and is probably the only visible possession of ours which links the present occasion with the very begin- nings of our history.
The homestead of Goodman Thomas Smith was bounded northwesterly by that of Gerrard Spencer, and on the opposite side by that of John Bailey, so that it reached southwesterly to the line of Harry Arnold's present house lot. Thomas was evidently without wife or near relatives in his last days, and so he remembered his friends and neighbors. An extract from his will, dated September 22, 1674, the year of his death, will make more real to us the fact that these men and women once lived, and passed up and down these streets :
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HADDAM CHURCH ANNIVERSARY
As for my estate that God hath given me, I dispose of it as fol- loweth: I give my home lot, orchard, and fence about it to the wife of John Baley, and to her children after her. . . . I give to the wife of Daniel Brainwood all my household stuffe and mov- ables that by this will are not otherwise disposed of, and my hay to Daniel Brainwood. I give my tobacco to James Wells. I give my steers to Nicholas Noyes. I give my corn and my grain to John Smith. I give my hog to John Baley, sr. I give my turnips equally amongst James Wells, Daniel Cone, Joseph Stan- nard and John Baley. I give what Timothy Spencer oweth me to Daniel Cone. I also make John Baley, sr. and Daniel Brainwood my executors to see this my will fulfilled and to take care of my burial on which I would have forty shillings expended, thirty of which I would have John Baley allow out of what is given him, and Daniel Brainwood the other ten shillings. I give my cloathes to Steven Luxford.
One of the witnesses was Rev. Nicholas Noyes. He . probably drafted the will, as in those days the ministers frequently performed such services.
John Bailey's house-lot included the land now occu- pied by the houses of Harry Arnold and O. S. Bailey. He had been constable at Hartford in 1656. Two of his sons, John and Nathaniel, settled in the Town Plot, or near by. Benjamin, the other son, settled and had a mill near the falls on Higganum River. Descendants had located at Ponset as early as 1690, and the Bailey name has been found most frequently since that time in the northerly and westerly parts of the township.
Deacon Daniel Brainerd's home lot was opposite the road which leads westerly up the hill, and extended southerly to the line of fence which now indicates O. S. Bailey's southern boundary. His additional lot across the way reached up the hill and included the land where Mrs. Zechariah Brainerd's house is situated, and a portion of Dr. Hazen's homestead.
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THE EARLY SETTLERS AND THEIR HOMES
Deacon Brainerd was ancestor of so many of us, and was so closely identified with the formation and early history of this church, that a few words about his fam- ily will not be out of place.
Of his seven sons, Deacon Daniel, Jr., and Joshua were. among the first settlers from the west side in East Haddam. This was about 1685. Settlers from Saybrook and elsewhere were living on the east side some ten or fifteen years earlier. Creek Row, where the settlement began, is the locality on the hill back of the old Cove burying ground, or, generally speaking, that portion of East Haddam which can be seen from Haddam Street.
Of the deacon's other sons, James settled in Haddam near the center, Elijah in Candlewood Hill district, Hezekiah between Walkiey Hill and Higganum, and Caleb somewhere on the west side of the river. William settled on the Neck between the foot of Quarry Hill and the house of Mr. Cyprian S. Brainerd; his son Samuel, at Brainerd Hill, beyond Higganum. Hannah, the dea- con's only daughter, was wife of Deacon Thomas Gates of East Haddam, and had a large family. There were about seventy-five grandchildren of Deacon Daniel, of whom more than sixty were of the Brainerd name, and the large majority of them were boys. It is recorded by Rev. Elijah Brainerd (1757-1828), a grandson of our Deacon Elijah, that, April 6, 1786, there were com- puted to have been twenty-two hundred descendants of Deacon Daniel Brainerd; and that was only seventy- one years after Deacon Daniel's death.
Although Deacon Brainerd lived more than fifty years after the settlement, his headstone inscription in the old burying ground is the earliest of any inhabitant, and the only one of an original proprietor which has come
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down to our day. Rev. Jeremiah Hobart, who died a few months later than the deacon, also has a monument to his memory. The earliest inscription is that of Edward Shipman, a resident of Chester, near "Ship- man's Pond," who died in 1711, and was brought here for burial, apparently for the reason that our burying- ground was nearer his home than was the one at Say- brook Point. For eighty years this was the only burying- place in Haddam on this side of the river. The yard at Higganum was laid out in 1741; the one at Ponset in 1761; and the one at Tylerville in 1782.
Daniel Cone's "home lot," next south of Deacon Brainerd's, was too uneven near the highway for build- ing purposes, and so at an early date we find his house located on the lot laid out for the blacksmith, next to. Luxford's. He died, probably at East Haddam, in 1706, aged eighty years. Of his four sons, three moved to East Haddam, the eldest having married a daughter, of George Gates.
Joseph Stannard at first built on his "additional lot," opposite his "home lot," about where the little red cot- tage stands near the foot of Pound Hill. Later, he had a house farther down the street near the first meeting- house, and another near Mill Creek. About 1683, he moved with his family to Westbrook, where his de- scendants have been numerous.
Simon Smith's house was on the ridge to the east of the road, about twenty-five rods north of the burying- ground, the land being next to Stannard's. He was grandfather of Joseph Smith, ninth deacon of this church, and was ancestor of all the Haddam Smiths who trace their lineage to the settlement of the town.
William Clarke was Simon Smith's southerly neigh-
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THE EARLY SETTLERS AND THEIR HOMES
bor. His "home lot" and first dwelling-place was on the east side of the highway, just north of the burying- ground. His home at the time of his death in 1681 was probably on his lot back of the court-house, about where the C. T. Russell homestead is. In 1669, William Clarke was the special commissioner of Haddam to. the General Court as to the boundary dispute with Say- brook, with power to employ counsel if necessary. He was also one of the building committee of our first meeting-house. He was the ancestor of the Clarks now living in the central, western, and northern parts of Haddam, and on Haddam Neck. His sons Thomas and Joseph remained in Haddam, John settled in Middle- town, and William in Wethersfield. The Clarks of Tur- key Hill and the neighborhood of Clark's Creek in Ty- lerville are descended from Major John Clark, of Hart- ford, Saybrook, and Milford, who is named as one of the patentees in the Charter of Charles II to Connec- ticut, in 1662.
George Gates, the magistrate, had his house-lot op- posite Captain Russell's and in front of the burying- ground, the northeast corner being about where the court-house stands. The main street now cuts across the corner and takes the whole front of the lot for high- way purposes. The front part of Gates's four-acre lot on the east side of the country road and next to William Clarke's was given up to the town for an enlargement of the burying-ground. George Gates was the leading public man of the town, having been captain of the train- band, first selectman for many years, the first town clerk, twenty-two times representative, and a leader of the movement to have East Haddam set off as a separate society. Many of the early land conveyances were drawn
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and witnessed by him. Having spent his active life here, he went in his old age to live with his sons, all of whom had moved to Creek Row in East Haddam, and there he died about 1725, in his ninetieth year, being the last sur- vivor of the twenty-eight original proprietors.
Joseph Arnold, son of John and Susannah Arnold of Hartford, and father of Joseph Arnold the third deacon of this church, came to Haddam at the beginning, but subsequently resided in Hartford for a few years. The front of his original home lot was given back to the town for a burying-ground, in exchange for another home lot taken out of the common land and located, it is believed, a few rods southerly of the present county jail. His first dwelling seems to have been on his addi- tional lot, near the Field Park entrance. He was proba -: bly settled on the second lot at the date of the following town vote, December 7, 1667 :
It was agreed and voted by the inhabitants that the settled place where the meeting house shall be built is at the front of the minister's lot in the little meadow lying against the end of the home lot of Joseph Arnold that now he dwells in.
As late as 1690, both Joseph Arnold and his wife, Elizabeth Wakeman, were members of the church in Hartford. He died at Haddam in 1691, and his widow became the second wife of Deacon Daniel Brainerd.
Richard Piper's home lot was about opposite the pres- ent stone store, and his "home meadow" included the lot where the post-office stands. James Wells dwelt oppo- site Piper's home meadow. Piper was a man of action, dealt in real estate, was constable, on the committee for laying out highways (about 1671) and establishing the town bounds, and representative in 1674. He was in
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THE EARLY SETTLERS AND THEIR HOMES
litigation with Thomas Dunk of Saybrook in 1675. At his death, April 3, 1678, he left a will, but mentioned no wife or children.
The territory between the Town Plot and Mill Creek was occupied very soon after the settlement by the homes of the newly arriving inhabitants and of the children of the proprietors. Among the earliest residents in this section may be mentioned Joseph Arnold, Joseph Stan- nard, Rev. Nicholas Noyes, some of the younger genera- tion of Clarkes, and sons of Gerrard Spencer. Here our first meeting-house was built about 1674, which was for nearly half a century the only house of public worship between Middletown and Saybrook Point. Its location was near the two large maple-trees now standing near the southwest corner of the dooryard of Mrs. Austin S. Clark.
The first grist-mill in town, built by Elderkin of Nor- wich about 1668, was located on Mill River, and gave the stream its name. The same year, Elderkin sold to Peter Blatchford "my corne mill that is now built." Blatchford had previously lived at New London, and had been granted land there for his valuable services in the Pequot War. George Gates and he were Had- dam's first two representatives to the General Court, 1670. At his death in 1671, the mill passed into the hands of James Bates.
June 13, 1671, Mr. Bates was given permission by the town to make a dam on Mill River for "penning the water." July 28, 1677, James Bates, yeoman, of Had- dam, and Hannah his wife, for £60 sell to Simon Lynde, merchant, of Boston, "our corne mill standing upon the riveret or mill river in Haddam." May 16, 1690, Ben- jamin Lynde, student at Harvard College, sells his mill
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HADDAM CHURCH ANNIVERSARY
and mill rights, "including the implements in the ruins of said mill," on Mill River in Haddam, to Samuel Hough of Saybrook, millwright. In 1695, the town gave Joseph Rogers the privilege of putting up a saw-mill at the end of his grist-mill. In 1669, the town voted that every Monday shall be the day for every one to carry his corn to mill to grind. All these records doubtless refer to the same mill site. In 1678, a saw-mill privilege in Higganum was granted by the town.
In studying the map of the Lower Plantation, it must be borne in mind that the turnpike road from Shailer- ville school-house northerly by the railroad station to the County Home was not opened until about 1802, and that the earliest dwellings were built along the "old road," which continued to be the only thoroughfare. through that settlement for about one hundred and forty years.
John Wiatt's homestead comprised a tract of thirty acres extending from Mill River southeasterly to a line about half-way between the houses of Martha and Ezekiel Shailer, and from the Country Road to the Great River. Wiatt had previously lived at Windsor and at Farmington. After his death in 1668, the homestead was sold to James Bates and William Ventres. The widow and her children moved to Hartford. The young- est son, Israel Wiatt, afterward settled in Colchester.
The earliest landing-place of record in Haddam was established by vote of the town, April 9, 1667, at the mouth of the creek, then called "Beaver Brooke" (no mill having yet been established on the stream) ; and a convenient highway was to lead from the landing through the land of John Wiatt to the common highway.
The home of Richard Jones, formerly of Farmington,
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THE EARLY SETTLERS AND THEIR HOMES
was next to Wiatt's. His home lot and others south of it were long strips of land containing eight acres, fronting about twenty to thirty rods on the highway, and extending to the Great River. Jones died in 1670, leaving a son, who died young, and two daughters, who married elsewhere. Haddam's earliest tax abatement of record dates from 1671, when it was voted "that the town will forgive the widow Jones her towne rate that is behind of last yeare." John Chappell bought the Jones home lot, but soon sold it to Thomas Spencer, a son of Gerrard, who afterward moved to Saybrook and was the ancestor of the Saybrook and Westbrook Spencers. Chappell returned to Lyme. The portion of the Jones homestead now owned by Ezekiel Shailer has been in the Shailer name continuously since 1689.
William Ventres, from Farmington, sergeant of the Haddam train-band in King Philip's war, owned the next homestead, which has continued in the Ventres name until recent years, and is now occupied by Mrs. Behn, except the small portion owned by Carlos J. Ventres, and a small piece of land on which the black- smith shop is located. William Ventres died July 2, 1701, aged seventy-eight years.
The dwelling-houses of Chester Case, Orrin Shailer, and Israel Shailer are on land which was originally the homestead of Goodman William Corbee, the innkeeper. Corbee died in 1674, leaving a family of small children, of whom Samuel afterward married Mary Crippen and settled in East Haddam; the rest moved away.
On the hillside near the woods, a few rods southwest- erly of John O. Brainerd's dwelling, may be seen the remains of an ancient cellar. It is pointed out as the location of the house of the emigrant Thomas Shaylor,
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from whom all the Shailers in America are supposed to have descended. The second Shailer house was on the east side of the road, a little below the first, and within a stone's throw of the old chestnut-tree under which Grandma Susannah Cone Shailer spread a luncheon for the soldiers in the time of the Revolution. The well of the second house, across the road from it, is still visible.
Thomas was a sea captain, and there is good authority for the statement that he came from Stratford-on-Avon, the home of Shakspere, although the Shailer name ha's been a common one in the Hadhams of Hertfordshire for centuries. He lived here for a few years after the settlement, and then moved to Killingworth, now Clinton, for a few years more, after which he returned to Had- dam. In 1692, he sailed away for the West Indies, never to return. Twenty years afterward, administra- tion was granted to his sons Thomas and Timothy upon the estate of their father, "supposed to be deceased." Another son, Abel, moved to Bolton in this State and had a large family.
James Bates's homestead was the land occupied in our day by the homes of Elders Simon and Davis and Deacon Russell Shailer. He formerly lived at Dor- chester, and at Hempstead, L. I. The records refer to him as "Mr. Bate." He had crossed the ocean re- peatedly, and was evidently a man of considerable prop- erty, of large experience, and highly respected. He was chairman of the committee for building our first meet- ing-house, and represented Haddam eight times in the General Court. His daughter Hannah was the first Haddam child whose record of baptism has come down to us. It reads as follows :
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THE EARLY SETTLERS AND THEIR HOMES
First Church, Middletown, March 7, 1669. Being the Lord's Day, Hannah Bate daughter to Mr. Bate of Thirty Mile Island (al[i]as Haddum) Mrs. Bate being a member of and in full Communion with the Church of Christ at Dorchester received the Initiatory Seale of ye Covenant by virtue of Communion of Churches.
Mr. Bates died about 1692, and his family moved to other places.
The homestead right of John Hannison was next south of the Elder Davis Shailer place, and included land now covered by the dwellings of Captain Franklin O. Tyler and Mrs. Smith Gilbert. Hannison was in Springfield in 1661, before coming to Haddam. In 1686, he sold his homestead to John Scovil of Waterbury, and moved to Hartford. There are pasture lots on the hill to the westward, which descended from Hannison to his son- in-law James Hadlock, which are known as "Hadlock" in Shailerville to this day. The family name of Han- nison has also been preserved, in the shortened form of "Hanson," in the Bates family, with whom the Han- nisons intermarried.
John Parents's home lot extended from the brook of Mrs. Asa Shailer's to the north line of William Ely's. Parents died July 8, 1686, his only children being two daughters, Mary and Elizabeth, who married Abel and Timothy Shailer. Distinguished among their descend- ants are John Fitch the inventor, and Professor Nathan- iel Southgate Shaler of Harvard University.
Abraham Dibble was a man of prominence in the new settlement. He represented Haddam on the com- mittees for settlement of the boundary disputes with Saybrook and Lyme. It is supposed that he moved to Suffield, and died there in 1690. The Westbrook Dib-
4
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HADDAM CHURCH ANNIVERSARY
bles are said to be his descendants, probably through a son Jonah, who, Dr. Field says, was a settler in Ches- ter from Haddam in 1692. From the record, at Mid- dletown, of a Dibble child baptized while the family was living in Haddam in 1671-72, it appears that Mrs. Dibble was then a member of the church at Farmington. Richard Piper bought Dibble's homestead, 1673, and lived there till he died. By Piper's will, the place was given to John Kinard, a son-in-law of Gerrard Spencer. The houses of William Ely and Charles Scovil are on the same land.
Nicholas Ackley of Hartford is named as one of the original proprietors, but did not come to Haddam till about 1667, when he was assigned about fourteen acres at the southern end of the Lower Plantation, part of which is now occupied by the home of Captain Adrian Shaler. Ackley died there in 1695, leaving several sons, all of whom moved to the east side of the river. The homestead was bought by James Ray of Narragansett, in 1698.
John Bates, of Stratford in 1669, possibly a brother of James, moved to Haddam about 1672, and bought of Thomas Shailer a six-acre lot adjoining the lower side of the Ackley homestead. At a later date he set- tled near Roaring Brook, where his descendants lived in considerable numbers for a century and a half. August 14, 1693, for thirty-five shillings and six pence, Nicholas Noyes, "minister of the gospel at Salem," sells to John Bates of Haddam fifteen acres of up- land, abutting east on lands of Edward Purple, south on Roaring Brook, west on Country Road, and north on common land-that is, land in front of the Tylerville school-house.
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THE EARLY SETTLERS AND THEIR HOMES
There were a saw-mill and grist-mill on this land a century ago, and there is an old house there now which was built by the Bateses. The locality was known as "Bates's Mills" as late as 1800. The Bates family and name have now wholly disappeared from the neigh- borhood.
We have now located the home lots of all the twenty- eight proprietors except two, Samuel Gaines and John Webb. If either of them ever lived in Haddam, it was very early and for only a brief period. Webb was as- signed land which he sold early to Richard Piper. He may have been the progenitor of the Webbs of Chester.
The home lot next south of Corbee's, opposite the site of the first Shailer house already referred to, first appears of record in the name of Thomas Richeson. A man of this name left Farmington about the same time with Wiatt, Jones, and Ventres, and afterward settled and died in Waterbury. The same land is referred to in the will of the second Thomas Shailer, 1753, as his "Gaines lot." The supposition is that the land was first allotted to Gaines, and by him sold to Richeson, who sold it to Shailer. Gaines died in Glastonbury in 1700.
Among the other residents on the west side of the river whose names appear of record within the first forty years after the settlement, may be mentioned : Rev. Jonathan Willoughby and Rev. John James; Wil- liam Porter ; John Blackleach ; Peter Miles the tailor ; Ed- ward Scovil, yeoman; Andrew Benton; Benjamin Scovil, tailor, who moved to East Haddam about 1715; Edward Purple, who lived near Rutty's Creek and owned large tracts of land in the lower end of the town; and Samuel Ingham and John Conners, whose homes were between Clark's Creek and Saybrook (now Chester) line.
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The only churches in what is now Middlesex County, organized prior to our own, were Old Saybrook, 1646; Killingworth (now Clinton), 1667; and Middletown, 1668. From the organization of the church at Middle- town, in 1668, to the installation of Mr. Hobart as pastor of the Haddam church, November 14, 1700, a period of thirty-two years, about twenty-five Haddam families had about fifty of their children baptized at Middletown, which appear of record. The records indicate that the parents were connected with different churches, as fol- lows :
Eight with the church at Lynn, being of the Gerrard Spencer family ; seven with the first church of Hartford ; six with the first church at Middletown; three with the church at Haddam; two with the church at Dorchester ; . and one each with the churches at Farmington, Strat- ford, Saybrook, New London, and Hadley.
Dr. Field estimates the number of families in Haddam at the date of its incorporation, in 1668, at about thirty, all living on the west side of the river. At the time our church was organized, about 1696, there may have been sixty families on the west side of the river, and half as many more in East Haddam.
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ADDRESS
REV. WILLIAM A. BRONSON
I DESIRE to express my thanks for the honor shown me by the pastor of this church in extending an in- vitation to unite with you on this anniversary occasion,- the bicentennial celebration of this church.
I had expected an invitation to my church, and had there been none, I had planned to present a form of reso- lutions to our people and to send greetings. But it was unnecessary, for the pastor's letter ran thus: "Will you bring greeting from your church? You seem so thor- oughly one of us that the occasion would be incomplete without your address."
The kindness thus expressed laid upon me an obliga- tion-and not only so, gives me great pleasure-to bring my own greetings and that of my church; indeed, I should have done my church great injustice had I re- fused, which I could not have done.
Then I said how can I better express our greeting than in the words of the grand old Apostle John in sending greeting to the elders,-"Unto the elect lady and her children, whom I love in the truth; and not only I, but also all they that have known the truth."
To this elect lady, now two hundred years old, with- out a wrinkle on her brow, and with undimmed vision, I bring greeting from a sister church. We present our congratulations to her children for her health, vigor,
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influence, and power; for her history of helpfulness and long-continued service to her exalted head; for her sacrifices and benevolence during the two centuries of her life.
We are reminded at this period of her life, and on this occasion, of the words of the prophet: "The fathers, where are they, and the prophets, do they live forever ?" and the answer is: "Though dead, they yet speak to us; they live in their influence and the work they wrought- in the mission fields of the past. They builded better than they knew, and have bequeathed to their children the inestimable heritage of a Christian church."
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