USA > Vermont > Orange County > Bradford > A history of Bradford, Vermont : containing some account of the place of its first settlement in 1765, and the principal improvements made, and events which have occurred down to 1874--a period of one hundred and nine years. With various genealogical records, and biographical sketches of families and individuals, some deceased, and others still living > Part 4
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VI. SURVEY THROUGH BRADFORD VILLAGE, by Benjamin P. Baldwin, Esq., August 12, 1841. From the southeast corner of Deacon Hardy's lot, near the North end of the village, to the Alfred Corliss' house, now George Jenkins', 56 rods ; thence to Prichard's store, 58 rods fur- ther ; thence to the Town House, 114 rods; thence to the corner of Pleasant street, 24 rods ; thence to the brow of the hill West of John B. Peckett's house, now Col. J. Stearns', 56 rods ; making the whole distance through the village in this direction, one mile, lacking 12 rods, from the place of beginning.
According to a more recent survey by J. Stratton, Esq., the distance from the Trotter House, in the central part of the village, to the railroad station, Northeast, is three- fourths of a mile and 41 rods; and from the same house to the station, South, at the Piermont crossing, is one mile and 44 rods. From said hotel to the West end of Bald- win bridge, on the stage road to East Corinth, seven- eights of a mile.
BRIDGES.
Owing to the rapid current of Wait's River, and its sud- den and great overflowings, sometimes sweeping away with resistless force vast quantities of ice, the Town has been subjected to no small amount of labor and pe- cuniary expense to build and maintain the requisite num- ber of some six or seven bridges over it. Still there has been a praiseworthy effort to do so. As early as 1802 it
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was voted to build a bridge across this river, near Peter Severance's, not far from the Corinth line ; also one op- posite to the Southeast end of Wright's Mountain ; also another further down, near Captain Baldwin's. These early bridges were built as cheaply as possible ; supported in the middle by framed work below, and of course very liable to disaster. While the builders were engaged in erecting one across the river, near where the brick grist mill now stands, the structure fell, in 1803, and killed Mr. John Bliss, one of the workmen. And subsequently either the same bridge, when finished, or another in the same place, its underwork being damaged by a freshet, fell, al- most entire, into the roaring current, and was swept away. The bridge at Bradford Center, in 1832, through its own weakness, when no such disaster was anticipated, went down with a sudden crash ! when no one was on it; though it had, up to that time, been in constant use. In March, 1830, it was voted that the Selectmen be author- ized to purchase a patent right for a bridge, or bridges, as they shall think best for the interest of the town. Bridges built in accordance with this plan, with strong support above, and leaving below a sufficiently spacious and free passage for the river, even when greatly swol- len, and sweeping proudly along, are found to be alto- gether the strongest and best.
Accidents by reason of the unsafe condition of roads and bridges have occasionally befallen travelers ; whose claims for damages seem, not much to the credit of the town, to have been very generally resisted. Take, for in- stance, this, though we have not now all the facts before us : 1814, September 6. " Voted not to pay for the horse of Jesse Woodward," which seems to have been killed in consequence of the bad state of a bridge. But the case of an unfortunate woman was, at the same time, treated with a little more favor: "Voted that Mary Mc- Killips be allowed Eight Dollars, and her reasonable sur-
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geon's bill, for setting and dressing her arm, that was bro- ken by the fall of her horse through the bridge by Peter Severance's " !
FRESHETS.
Both Wait's River and the Connecticut, annually, and occasionally more than once in a year, by reason of heavy rains, aided, especially in Spring time, by dissolving snow, rise astonishingly, and extensively overflow the low lands through which they pass; sometimes to a great depth. The general effect, like the periodical overflowings of the Nile, is to enrich the soil, and render it the more produc- tive. But, on various occasions, bridges and mill dams, great quantities of valuable lumber, and the rich produc- tions of the grass and grain and corn fields, to the bitter disappointment of their owners, have been swept away ; and even the courses of the streams essentially changed, by cutting off the soil from one side, and leaving it some- where below, on the other. Events of unique and thril- ling description have occasionally been experienced, or witnessed, on some of these occasions.
The Rev. Grant Powers, in his history of the Coos country, says he had the following account from a Mr. Wallace, of Thetford, who, at the time the great freshet of 1771 occurred, was in Bradford, and personally con- cerned in the adventure related. This freshet was re- markably destructive. "Wallace went to the relief of a family in Bradford, who lived on the place now owned by Mr. Hunkins. It was the family of Hugh Miller. His wife was the sister of the far famed Robert Rogers, the hero of St. Francois. When Wallace reached this habi- tation "-which stood in the meadow-" he rowed his ca- noe into the house, as far as the width of the house would receive it, took the family from the bed whereon they stood, and bore them to a place of safety. But Mrs. Mil- ler, the next day, seeing their sheep standing on a small
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eminence in the meadow, surrounded by water, her hus- band being absent, resolved on rescuing them from their perilous situation. She pressed into her service a young man by the name of George Binfield "-probably Banfield- "and they took a canoe and set sail for the sheep. They reached the place, caught the sheep, tied their legs, placed them on board, and set out on their return voyage for the high lands ; but when they came into a strong current, they were carried down stream, until the canoe struck a pine stub, and was capsized ! All were precipitated into the water, of the depth of ten feet. When our heroine arose, and her companion in adventure, they caught hold of a stub, standing about five feet out of the water, and main- tained their grasp until another boat was obtained and they were liberated from their perilous situation ; but the wrecked canoe and sheep were never heard from more. From this time the people sought more elevated situations for their habitations."
The above named author proceeds to say .: "Jonathan Tyler, of Piermont, related an extraordinary fact which occurred in this same great freshet. He said a horse was tied to a log in a stock-yard, upon the great Ox Bow, in Newbury, and when the water arose it took away the horse, and the log to which he was made fast; and the horse was taken out of the river alive, at Hanover,"- some thirty miles below-" but soon died, upon reaching the shore. He would, doubtless, have perished soon after breaking from his moorings in Newbury, had not the log to which he was tied kept his head above the water, and thus prolonged his life many hours."
Another incident: "Colonel Howard told me that, in this same freshet, some swine were taken away by the water, in the North part of Haverhill, and were carried down to the Ox Bow,"-the distance of a mile, or two- " where they made good their standing upon the top of a hay-stack, where they remained, capering about! until the
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waters subsided; and the owners procured their property again." Rather scanty accommodations, one would think, for much capering about.
In the latter part of the winter of 1866 occurred a remarkable freshet in Wait's River, which tore up and swept away the thick ice in a frightful manner ; a great mass of which, having lodged against Baldwin's bridge, so obstructed the current of the river as to cause the water above to rise rapidly to an astonishing height, and to sweep over the interval between the West end of the bridge and the adjacent hill-side with great impetuosity. The four or five houses there were inundated, and in great peril. At about one o'clock P. M. Mr. Samuel Merrill and wife thought it high time for them to escape; which they did in such haste as to leave all their household ef- fects behind. By half-past seven, the same day, the water had become so deep around and within their habitation that it was raised from its foundations, and sailed away like a ship at sea. The bridge, directly after, gave way ; the jam of ice went with it; the accumulated waters went too, with a mighty rush; and the floating house went over the river bank only in season to be left, partly capsized, in the old channel; some forty, or perhaps fifty, rods be- low its old position. It was finally raised, by the aid of machinery, in pretty good condition, and removed to a more desirable location than its first, where it still stands, making a pleasant home for another family. By the same freshet serious damage was done to the dam, and other works connected with Mr. Low's paper mill, on the same river, some half or three-quarters of a mile below the place from which the bridge above mentioned was swept away.
AN EXTRAORDINARY VISITATION.
In his History of the Coos Country, the Rev. Grant Powers gives an account of an astonishing multitude of
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worms, of uncommon size and destructiveness, which passed through this section of the Connecticut River val- ley in the summer of 1770, overspreading to a great breadth the whole surface of the ground ; destroying the luxuriant fields of wheat and corn, and leaving desolation behind them. He says he had his information from Rev. Dr. Burton, of Thetford, who was an eye witness of the scene. No better testimony could be desired ; for, from the biography of Dr. Burton, it appears that he was at that time about eighteen years of age, living in Norwich, and laboriously engaged with his father in agricultural business. That was the year in which the charter of this town was obtained. There were then in this place about thirty land holders, mainly located in the valley ; who must, with their neighbors of other towns, have seriously suffered by the loathsome and distressing calamity. I will give the account substantially as I find it, though considerably abbreviated. The army of worms seem to have commenced as far North as Lancaster, N. H., and ex- tended their ravages as far down as Northfield, Mass., òn both sides of the river. They began to appear the latter part of July, and continued their ravages until Septem- ber. The inhabitants styled them the Northern Army. They were multitudinous almost beyond imagination. Dr. Burton said he had seen whole pastures so covered that he could not put down his finger in a single spot without touching a worm! He said he had seen more than ten bushels in a heap. They were unlike anything the present generation has ever seen. They were of dif- ferent sizes, but in their maturity were as long as a man's finger, and proportionally large in circumference. There was a stripe along the back like black velvet; on each side a yellow stripe, from end to end ; and the rest of the body was brown. They appeared to be in great haste, ex- cept when they halted to devour their food. In their right-onward march they would go up the side of a house,
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and over it, in such a complete column that nothing of boards or shingles could be seen! or if any door or win- dow, on the side which they approached, happened to be open, they would enter and fill the houses of the inhabi- tants, as did the frogs of Egypt. They did not take hold of the pumpkin vines, peas, potatoes, or flax ; but wheat and corn they devoured with the utmost greediness. In the wheat fields their principal aim was to secure the bending heads, filled with juicy kernels. To prevent this, men would " draw the rope," as they termed it; that is, two men would take a rope, one at each end, and, pulling from each other till it was nearly straightened, they would pass along their wheat fields, and brush off the worms from the stalks, and by often so doing retarded some- what the work of the destroyers; but found the effort of no ultimate importance. There were fields of corn on the meadows in Haverhill and Newbury, standing so thick, large, and tall, that in some instances it was difficult to see a man standing in the field at the distance of one rod; but in ten days from the first appearance of the Northern Army, of that corn nothing remained but the naked stalks ! Men dug ditches around their fields, some foot and a half deep, hoping this might prove a defence ; but the worms soon filled the ditches, and the millions that were in the rear went over on the backs of their fellows in the trenches, and took possession of the interdicted food. Every expedient was resorted to by the inhabi- tants to crush, or in some way destroy, their detestable invaders ; but all in vain. The fields of wheat and corn were almost entirely destroyed. But of potatoes, and es- pecially pumpkins, great crops were gathered; and the inhabitants, somehow, contrived to live.
About the first of September the worms suddenly dis- appeared ; but where, or how, is unknown, for not the car- cass of a worm was to be seen. In just eleven years af- terward, in 1781, the same kind of worms appeared again,
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and the fears of the people were much excited; but they were comparatively few in number; and have had, in the course of now one hundred and three years, no suc- cessors.
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CHAPTER III.
Ecclesiastical Affairs-Meeting Houses-Churches; Congregation- al, Rev. J. K. Williams, Rev. L. H. Elliott; Methodist, with List of Pastors; Baptist-Cemeteries-Present Population of the Town.
ECCLESIASTICAL AFFAIRS.
The first settlers of this town, while few and poor, man- ifested a commendable desire to secure for themselves and families such religious priviliges as they had left in the various older places from which they had severally emigrated ; and, at an early date, put forth the corres- ponding endeavors. The majority were in favor of Con- gregational preaching, and, in accordance with the laws and usages of that day, when they began to act as a regularly organized township took in hand, by town au- thority, the business of not only employing and paying ministers of that persuasion, but of building a meeting house for their occupancy. Those only who filed with the Town Clerk an authentic testimonial that they belonged to another denomination, and protested against being taxed for the support of this, were legally exempt from such taxation.
In 1782 the town voted to raise £20, to pay town charges for preaching, &c. Chose Doctor Andross, Cap- tain Robert Hunkins, and Noah Ford, to procure preach- ing, to be paid for out of the funds above mentioned.
April 2. Voted to hire Mr. Steward or Mr. Store to preach with us two or three months this Summer. These were worthy ministers of the Congregational order, and were employed to preach at Bradford and Fairlee alter- nately.
In May, 1783, at a town meeting, called for that pur- pose, at the house of Widow Gault, it was voted to pay Colonel Morey, of Fairlee, nine pounds, for boarding min- isters ; and the ministers the same amount for their ser- vices the past year.
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1785. Sept. 15. Voted to hire a minister to preach on probation for settlement, and that £10 be added to the £30 voted for that purpose last Spring; the said tax to be paid in wheat, at six shillings a bushel. Esq. Bliss, Jo- seph Clark and Capt. MeConnell were appointed a com- mittee to carry out the above resolutions.
1788. Nov. 22, the town voted to send a letter to Mr. Store, desiring him to come and preach and settle with us as a minister, if we can agree-not without. It would seem that the lack of such agreement prevented the min- ister's coming.
ACTION OF THE TOWN IN REGARD TO BUILDING THEIR FIRST MEETING-HOUSE.
1788. Sept. 2, at the freemen's meeting, the town ap- pointed a committee to " drive a stake where to set a meeting-house," and report at the next town meeting.
October 18, it was decided by the town that the meet- ing house should be set on the flat, near Esquire Peters' barn, and that it should be fifty feet long, forty feet wide, and twenty-three feet posts.
Then arose the serious questions : who should build said house-who be responsible for the expense, and in what way the means of payment should be obtained ? Town meeting after town meeting was held, extending through the lapse of four years and a half, in which a va- riety of plans and methods were earnestly advocated and opposed-some of them at times adopted, and again re- jected-until, on the 19th day of March, 1793, it was de- cided that the town committee appointed for that pur- pose should go forward, and see the work accomplished. This committee, having entered into a definite contract with certain builders, to make the thing sure, after so much delay and altercation, required and received from them the following bond :
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" Know all men by these presents, that we, Joseph Clark, of Bradford, in the County of Orange, and State of Vermont, and Edward Clark, of Haverhill, in the County of Grafton, and State of New Hampshire, gentlemen, stand firmly bound unto John Barron, Nathaniel White, Robert Hunkins, and Thomas May, all of said Bradford, in the' County and State aforesaid, Esq'rs, in the sum of two thousand pounds, L. M .- we bind ourselves, our heirs, ex- ecutors and administrators-which payment to be made by the 1st day of July, 1795.
The condition of the above obligation is such, that if the aforesaid Joseph and Edward Clark shall build and complete a meeting-house in said Bradford, on the rising ground between Edmon Brown's and Andrew B. Peters', of said Bradford, fifty feet by forty feet, with a porch at one end, and a porch and steeple at the other end, like a plan that hath been shown to the above said John Barron and others, aforesaid-said house to be well finished, well glassed, well underpinned with hard stone, with good hard door-stones-said house with a steeple with a good weather-cock -- the workmanship in every part to be com- pleted equal to Newbury, or to the acceptance of an in- different committee that shall be chosen by the parties- said house to be completed by the first day of July, 1795 -When completed, the above obligation to be void and of none effect-otherwise to be in full force and virtue."
" Dated at Bradford, this 23d day of April, Anno Dom- ini 1793.
EDWARD CLARK, L. S. JOSEPH CLARK, L. S.
" Signed, sealed and delivered in the presence of us, John Underwood, Levi Collins."
The builders fulfilled their contract, and the house was ready for the ordination of the elected pastor on Septem- ber 2d, following.
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By vote of the town the pews had been sold in advance, at public auction, before the above contract with the builders was made, so that the means of defraying the expense were furnished without resort to general taxa- tion. The pews below sold from 32£ to 4£ 11s each: and those in the gallery from 8£ to 6£ 6s. That was the first meeting-house the writer of this article ever saw, and the one in which he was some twelve or fourteen years after ordained as pastor.
We have now a meeting-house ; let us go back a little, . and see how the first pastor was obtained.
1793. October 12, at a town-meeting called for that purpose :
" Voted to hire some preaching this fall, if some candi- date should chance to come this way."
It seems that Mr. Gardner Kellogg chanced to come along, and was employed.
1794. March 31. Voted to raise 16£ lawful currency to pay for preaching.
July 3d. Voted to hire Mr. Kellogg three months longer.
Sept. 24, 1794. Voted to give Mr. Kellogg a call to set- tle here in the ministry.
Nov. 10. Voted to give Mr. Kellogg 200£ in labor and materials for a house-part to be paid in a year ; part in two years; and the remainder in three years. Also, to give him 50£ for the first year, and to increase by the addition of 5£, till it amounts to 75 £ or $375, which shall be the regular salary. One quarter to be paid in money -the remainder in wheat, at 5s. a bushel-or neat stock equivalent to said wheat.
1795. Jan. 13. Voted to give Mr. Kellogg, in addi- tion to the above, twenty cords of wood yearly, if need- ed. Also, to give him 200£ settlement, in land. This offer, considering the times and circumstances, was very liberal.
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March 21, 1795, Mr. Kellogg returned an affirmative answer to the call which had been given him, and at a town-meeting held June 6, 1795, it was decided that the ordination of Mr. Kellogg should be on Wednesday, the 2d day of September next ; and that the ministers called to unite in the ordaining council should be Rev. Nathaniel Lambert, of Newbury; Stephen Fuller, of Vershire, Asa Burton, of Thetford; and Lyman Potter, of Norwich, Vt .; Rev. Joseph Willard, of Lancaster; Ethan Smith, of Hav- erhill; John Richards, of Piermont; John Sawyer, of Or- ford; William Conant, of Lyme; Isaiah Potter, of Leba- non, and Seth Payson, of Rindge, N. H .; Joseph Lyman, of Hatfield; Samuel Hopkins, of Hadley, and -Kel- logg, of Framingham, Mass.
The council was entertained at the public house of Col. John Barron, and the ordination services were performed according to appointment. In all these transactions ev- erything seems to have been done by town authority ; not the least reference being made to even the existence of a church. There was, however, such a church, under the ministry of Mr. Kellogg; but when it was formed, of how many members it consisted, or what it did, cannot now be stated, as no record has been preserved; and within a few years after that pastor's dismission, that church voted to dissolve, and a new one, consisting partly of members from the old one and partly of new converts, was formed in June, 1810, and still exists.
MINISTERIAL LANDS.
In the grant of this township, made in trust to Smith, Harvey and Whitelaw, there was a reservation of three hundred acres of land, the same being a part of the four thousand called the Hazen lands, to be deeded to the town and reserved for the benefit of a minister or ministers to be settled in said town. It was from this reservation that land to the estimated value of 200£ was promised to Mr.
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Kellogg as his settlement, as it was called. As he was the first minister settled by the town, it was for a time maintained that the whole of this land in justice belonged to him. But as a Calvinistic Baptist church had been formed about the same time, and built a meeting-house, and were supporting a minister entirely at their own ex- pense, they claimed that a due proportion of the ministe- rial lands ought to be granted to them. After much dis- cussion, deciding, and reconsidering what should be done, the town finally came to the conclusion to deed two hun- dred acres to Rev. Gardner Kellogg, his heirs and assigns forever, and one hundred acres to a committee appointed for that purpose by the said Baptist Society, for their use and benefit. Both deeds were made by the Selectmen the same day, August 4, 1796. The consideration on the part of Mr. Kellogg, as specified, is 141£ 15s .; and on the part of the Baptist Society, one penny, lawful money, duly paid. This Society, in the course of a few years became extinct, their meeting-house, which stood in close prox- imity to the cemetery on the upper plain, on the north side of the same, was, after standing for a long while des- olate, taken down; and the land which had been appro- priated to them, or rather the consideration for which it was sold, is now possessed by another society, calling themselves Christian Baptists or Christians, in quite a dif- ferent part of the town, and used for the support of their ministry.
This method of supporting a minister by town taxation was attended with many difficulties, and finally proved a failure. In view of his settlement, and during its contin- uance, those who were unwilling to pay for his support were prompt to give the requisite notice that they be- longed to some other denomination, and did not consent to be taxed by the town for the support of their minister. And so the matter grew more and more embarrassing, both to the minister and his adherents, (still called the
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town) until the town, at their March meeting, 1809, ap- pointed a committee to request Mr. Kellogg to ask for a dismission. To this application he replied that he would be ready to join in a Council for his dismission, when the town should pay up what they were owing him. April 6, 1809, it was voted that the Selectmen be author- ized to make up a tax of $483, to be paid by those not exempt by law, to settle up with Mr. Kellogg. By the payment of this balance due, the town seem to have con- sidered the connection between them and their first, and in fact only, minister dissolved. There is no record of the calling of a council, or of any ecclesiastical action in the case. And thus after a lapse of nearly fourteen years from its commencement, the ministry of this good man in Bradford was terminated.
The Rev. Gardner Kellogg was a man of fair, ordinary ability, well educated, mild, moderate, and conciliating in his spirit and manners, evangelical in his sentiments, and without reproach in his Christian and ministerial charac- ter. Not long after his removal from this place he was constituted pastor of the Congregational church in Wind- ham, Maine ; where he finished the work on earth which his Lord had given him to do, and passed away to his final rest ; leaving an exceedingly amiable family, rich, not in this world's goods, but in faith and good works.
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