USA > Vermont > Windsor County > Norwich > A history of Norwich, Vermont > Part 12
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Two years after the settlement of Wm. Baxter at Brownington, Capt. Benjamin Burton, after a residence of about twenty years in Norwich, removed with a large family of grown-up children to the town of Iras- burg in the same county. With him went his brother, Jacob Burton, and quite a colony of Norwich families, who became pioneer settlers in the western part of Irasburg, which soon after took the name of Burton Hill, which it still keeps. One of the young men of this colony was Peter Thatcher, Jr., a great wit and comical genius, but more re- markable for his height, which was six feet, four inches. Captain Burton was a much respected citizen of his adopted town, where he lived to the advanced age of ninety-two, and his wife to the age of
I33
MIGRATIONS FROM NORWICH
ninety-four years. Mrs. Burton's maiden name was Hannah Gris- wold and her home was in Stonington, Conn. Maj. Oliver Griswold Burton and Col. Henry S. Burton, both of the United States Army, were son and grandson respectively of these parents.
Four years before Captain Burton went to Irasburg, in 1799, Dea. David Hibbard, who had come to Norwich from Coventry, Conn., to settle in 1782 or '83, removed to Concord in Essex county, with a large family of boys and girls. The first work of Deacon Hibbard was to establish a church at Concord, and to this church he ministered regularly, though a layman, until the settlement over it of Rev. Samuel Goddard in 1809. He was town clerk six years, and four years a member of the legislature from Concord. His son, David Hibbard, Jr., a self-made man and a lawyer practiced his profession in Concord for thirty years, holding the offices of judge of the county court, state's attorney, high sheriff, and town representative, and dying in 1852. Another son, Dyer Hibbard, was also judge and sheriff of the county, as well as representative four years. David Hibbard, 3rd, eldest son of David, Jr., represented Concord in the legislatures of 1838, '39, '40, '43, '44, '58, and '59, and was member of the council of censors in 1856. Asa Hibbard, another descendant, was assist. judge in 1857 and '58. The second son of David Hibbard, Jr., was Hon. Harry Hibbard of Bath, N. H., late a leading lawyer of the New Hampshire Bar, pre- siding officer of both branches of the state legislature, and six years (1849-1855) a member of Congress from the third district of New Hampshire. Harry Hibbard was born at Concord, Vt., June 1, 1816, and died at Bath, N. H., in 1872. He graduated at Dartmouth College in the class of 1835.
Hon. Daniel Buck left Norwich in 1809, removing to Chelsea, where he died in 1816. At the close of the war with Great Britain, his son, Daniel Azro Ashley Buck, resigned his commission in the regular army and commenced the practice of law at Chelsea. Between 1816 and 1836, he represented that town fourteen years in the state legisla- ture, during six of which he served as Speaker of the House. He was also a member of Congress four years previous to 1830.
In the Vermont legislature of 1820 and the years immediately suc- ceeding, there was gathered quite a brilliant galaxy of talent native born in Norwich. At the opening of the session of that year, Lieut,
I34
HISTORY OF NORWICH
Gov. Paul Brigham, full of years and honors, finally retired from that office and from the presidency of the Council which he had held for twenty-two years. In the Speaker's chair of the assembly sat the younger Buck, where his honored father had preceded him a generation earlier, executing the duties of the place with a promptness, ease and dignity which has perhaps never been excelled. Before him in their respective seats sat the two Carpenters, Luther of Orange and Dan of Waterbury, both veteran legislators, whose united years of service in that body covered a quarter of a century. There also was the sagacious Baxter from Brownington and one of the public-spirited and versatile Hibbards from Concord; while to represent the mother town was the erratic but gifted and scholarly Aaron Loveland. These men had all grown up as boys and playmates together in old Norwich twenty-five years before. They were a representation of which any town might justly be proud, and which few if any towns in the State have been able to match, I fancy, before or since. Any one of them, if called temporarily to the Speaker's chair, could have acquitted himself with credit, and the judiciary committee of the House might almost have been made up worthily from the sons of Norwich alone.
While the town was thus giving of its best blood to fill up the vacant places of our own State, the great tide of emigration to the West had already set in, which has known no ebb to this day. In the first year of the nineteenth century, Col. Jasper Murdock, having married Mar- tha, daughter of Rev. Lyman Potter, persuaded his father-in-law to remove with him to Ohio, then the Northwest Territory, where he was interested in extensive land speculations. Two sons of Mr. Potter, both liberally educated at Dartmouth College during the period of their father's ministry in town, accompanied the family in their long and tiresome journey to the Western Reserve, at that time the very out- post of settlement and civilization. Of these sons, one became a farmer in Trumbull county, the other studied law and settled in New Lisbon, the county seat of Columbiana county. Both, afterwards served in the legislature of the new state of Ohio. Colonel Murdock died of malarial fever at Steubenville in 1803, at the age of forty-three. He was a man of superior natural abilities that qualified him for either business or intellectual pursuits. He had popular manners, a hand- some face and figure, an excellent education, with a spirit of enterprise
I35
MIGRATIONS FROM NORWICH
and an ambition which, in the wider field of action upon which he had just entered, would have carried him, if his life had been spared, into high public stations in his adopted state, and perhaps into the national Congress.
Representatives of other Norwich families sought new homes in the far West about this time. Alexander Bush, son of Capt. Timothy Bush and a graduate of Dartmouth in 1800, was, two years later, as far west as Franklintown, now Columbus, in central Ohio, where he died the same year. But previous to about the year 1820, the bulk of emi- gration from Norwich went to central, northern, and western New York, and occasionally to Pennsylvania and to Maine. As early as 1812, however, Thomas and Joseph Emerson had a flourishing mer- cantile business at Detroit, which was maintained for a considerable time.
The evidences of depopulation and disappearance of houses in Nor- wich seems to be especially marked at Beaver Meadow, and along the "turnpike," which thoroughfare can lay claim to less than one-half the dwellings that were there sixty years ago (so says one who resided there at that time), and the percentage of loss in population is prob- ably greater than the percentage of loss of houses.
Table showing the comparative growth in population and wealth of Norwich and two adjacent towns on Connecticut River since settle- ment :
I. POPULATION (1771-1880)
:1771]
1791
[800|
1810
1820
1830
1840| 1850| 1860
1870
1880
Thetford NORWICH Hartford
203 190
862 1 158 988
1,478 1,785 1,486 1,812 1,881
1,985
2,316
2,065 2,218
2,016,1,61I 1,529 1,613 1,978 1,759 2, 159 2,396 2,480 2,954
1,639 1,471 3,000
1,494
2,010 2,044 2,194
2. GRAND LIST (1830 -- 1886)
1830
1840
185c
1860
1870
1880
1886
Thetford NORWICH Hartford
$13,986 15,933 17,435
$14,681 18,590 20,700
5,362 7,156
5,579 8,101
$ 5,573 5,075 9,240
$ 4.457 4,432 10,956
$ 6,098 7,286| 20,847
$13,384
$
5,420
$ 6,344
1,915
2,113
I 36
HISTORY OF NORWICH
It is interesting to note from the above figures, that these three towns, Norwich, Thetford, and Hartford, so similar in their situation, area, and natural resources, kept nearly abreast of each other for three quarters of a century, in material development and prosperity. Even the superior water-power of Hartford did not avail, until after the advent of railroads, to carry that town very considerably in advance of her sister townships. Since that period, however, the growth of Hart- ford has been steady and rapid until its population lacks less than fifty of being greater than that of the other towns combined, while the ap- praisal of its property stands to the united value of both the others in the ratio of 3 to 2.
NORWICH SURNAMES OF FAMILIES
(Numerous in town before the year 1800 and since become extinct)
Ashley
Bush
Hovey
Silver
Baldwin
Carpenter
Howes
Slafter
Baker
Carrier
Hunt
Smalley
Ball
Coit
Huntington
Smith ( ?)
Barrett
Crary
Jaquith
Stoddard
Baxter
Curtis
Miner
Story
Benton
Emerson
Morgan
Thatcher
Bissell
Fellows
Morse
Vinson
Bly
Freeman
Mosely
West
Branch
Gates
Murdock
White
Braughton
Geer
Newton
Wilder
Brayman
Grow
Olcott
Woodward
Brewster
Gould
Percival
Wright
Brownson
Hammond
Pike
Yeomans,
Buck
Hayward
Potter
Tolland, Ct.
Burnap
Hedges
Richards
Burt
Hibbard
Roberts
Burwash
Hopson
Seaver
(Surnames of families of the same period still surviving in town)
Armstrong
Cook
Lord
Rogers
Bartlett
Cushman®
Loveland
Sawyer
Boardman
Hatch
Lyman
Spear
Brigham
Hazen
Messenger
Stimson
Brown
Hutchinson
Nye
Turner
Burton
Johnson
Partridge
Waterman
Cloud
Lewis
Pattrell
CHAPTER XVII .
LOCAL NAMES
Of the little settlements in the township of Norwich which seem to be existing in the sunset of their former glory, may be mentioned Beaver Meadow, or West Norwich. This place presents a notable instance of that decline in population and decay of business interests in a rural community, of which Vermont affords many examples since the advent of railroads and the fever of western emigration set in.
For more than thirty years population, wealth, and enterprise have been drifting away from that section of the town. Probably the set- tlement reached the height of its prosperity previous to 1840. During the decade that preceded this date two churches were built here, a Baptist church in 1835, and Methodist church about two years later. Regular meetings were held, and full congregations gathered from the immediate neighborhood. Large families of children filled the schools, to the number of sixty pupils of a winter, sometimes. The village had for many years its well-stocked country store, and a variety of me- chanics' shops. Intelligent and thrifty farmers cultivated the produc- tive farms.
Before 1850 the exodus commenced. The Baptist society had its last settled minister in 1869, and a few years later, the church having become nearly extinct, the meeting house was taken down, and the lumber used to build a parsonage for the Baptist church in Sharon village. Four years earlier the Methodists had their last regular ap- pointment from the Conference, though regular preachers were had some portion of the time much later. Many farms tilled forty years ago are wholly abandoned as homesteads, and others are in process of abandonment.
It is impossible to repress a feeling of sadness when one views these desolate and dismantled homes, once the scene of active and prosperous
I38
HISTORY OF NORWICH
life. What is to be the future of these desolate places? Will the tide of population sometime flow back and fill these wastes, repeople these hillsides, or will the forests grow up over the hearthstones placed by the forefathers of an earlier generation ?
Pompanoosuc, or, in full, Ompompanoosuc, is situated about six miles northeasterly from Norwich village. It has a postoffice and a creamery, and within its limits is the little hamlet of Pattersonville, where L. S. Patterson has a wood working establishment, which is quite an industry-turning out a large product annually. Mr. Pat- terson also keeps a general country store. Some of the best farms in town are within this territory, and are managed by thrifty and enter- prising proprietors.
There are indications that previous to the settlement of the country the mouth of Ompompanoosuc River had been a frequent resort of Indians (probably of the St. Francis tribe) for the purpose of fishing -doubtless to spear salmon at night by torchlight, on the sand bar there,-a practice they were very expert in, and which was perpet- uated by the white settlers of the vicinity, at the same locality, as long as salmon continued to ascend the Connecticut River. Indian relics are still occasionally found in the neighborhood. When the Passumpsie railroad was being built through town, several interesting "finds," we are informed, including Indian arrow heads, ornaments, etc., were dug up by the removal of the surface soil near the railroad station at Pompanoosuc.
New Boston, a small area of territory in the northwestern part of Norwich, received its name as early as 1784-so used in a road survey of that date.
CHAPTER XVIII
INDUSTRIES
Although the products of the industries in Norwich have not been of great magnitude they have been quite varied in character. Such information in regard to these callings as we have been able to obtain we will present to our readers, though not in strict chronological order.
Among the earliest establishments coming under this head was a grist mill established as early as 1770, by Hatch and Babcock on Blood Brook, on or near the site of the grist mill now operated by J. E. Willard, a short distance up the stream from where it empties into the Connecticut River. As has been stated in a previous chapter, it was voted at a proprietors' meeting held September 17, 1770, to give to Joseph Hatch and Oliver Babcock the "tenth river lot on condition they execute a deed for upholding a grist mill where said gristmill now stands."
Since the ownership by Hatch and Babcock this property has been in the possession among others of Aaron Storrs, who sold it in 1793 to Doc- tor Joseph Lewis; Horace Esterbrook, who sold it to J. J. Morse; the latter to G. W. Kibling; Kibling to Crandall and Burbank; they to Doctor Rand of Hartford, Vt., and from the latter's estate, J. E. Wil- lard, the present proprietor, bought it. During Mr. Kibling's owner- ship of the property he had a department for making doors, window sashes, etc., in addition to a grist mill.
In 1766, Jacob Burton built a saw mill on the north bank of Blood Brook, a little further down the stream than Messenger and Hazen's late tannery (what is now R. E. Cook's mill). The great freshet of September, 1869, carried the mill away. At that time it was owned by George Burton, a great grandson of the original proprietor, and
140
HISTORY OF NORWICH
up to the time of his decease the property had been continuously in possession of that family.
About 1770, Elisha Burton built a grist mill along Blood Brook-a little distance west of Norwich village. The mill is now standing on its original site, and had been occupied by Joseph Amsden, Levi Rich- ards, and, perhaps, others, previous to its ownership by the late Allen W. Knapp, who used it for the purpose for which it was originally built.
About the time the above mentioned mill was built, a saw mill and a grist mill are supposed to have been erected along Ompompanoosuc River, in the territory now known as "Pattersonville" (formerly "Gleason's Flats"). We are informed that the present dam at Pat- terson's mill occupies the site of the one built to operate the first mills. Mention of the grant of land for "upbuilding" these mills may be found in another chapter in this book.
Johnson Safford and Jacob Burton had a fulling and cloth dressing mill along Blood Brook, in the southwestern part of the village, and operated it until 1836, when they sold the property to Sylvester Morris, who converted it into a tannery. In 1853 Morris sold the property to Asa Blanchard, and he to Wardsworth and Felch in 1856. Wards- worth bought out Felch and sold the property to Messenger and Hazen in 1869, from whom it passed to R. E. Cook, the present owner, who changed it into a grist mill.
Ira Baxter, son of Elihu Baxter, had a tannery north of Norwich village and a short distance south of his dwelling house, on property now owned by Messenger and Hazen. The tannery stood on land, now overgrown with alders, on the easterly side of the highway and a short distance south of the road leading to the site of the old "Center" meeting house.
About 1836, Charles P. Hatch had a tannery on the north bank of Blood Brook, a little below Knapp's mill. Azro Johnson succeeded Hatch and made winnowing mills there. Deacon Sylvester Morris pur- chased the building and fixtures, some of which he removed to his tan- nery lower down the brook.
A number of years later, Charles M. Baxter made and repaired furniture in a shop that stood near the south bank of Blood Brook and on the opposite side of the highway from the old Morris tannery, where
KNAPP'S MILL,
BUILT BY ELISHA BURTON, ABOUT 1769.
İ4İ
EARLY INDUSTRIES
he was in business for some years, until his shop was destroyed by fire. Afterwards, Mr. Baxter removed to Woodstock, Vt .; thence to Lebanon, N. H., where he was successfully engaged in manufactures for several years previous to going to Redlands, Cal., his present residence, where he is interested in orange culture. Mr. Baxter was with us "Old Home Day," August 16, 1901, and gave material aid towards the ob- servance of that occasion.
About 1830, Pierce Burton manufactured potash where Nelson Sayers lives-just west of the village cemetery-and in 1817, Water- man Ensworth, father of the present Charles E. Ensworth had a like business where Mrs. Mary Burton's barn stands. The little stream that flows along the northerly base of the cemetery and on by Sayers' garden was known as "Potash Brook." For these facts and for much other aid in compiling this volume, we are indebted to our fellow townsman, C. E. Ensworth, Esq., our walking encyclopedia.
In the early part of the past century Deacon Eleazer T. Raymond made trunks and harnesses in a shop that stood in what is now Mrs. Ruby W. Lewis' garden, where, so we have been told, he made the leather hats worn by the cadets attending the military school here in its early years. The shop was subsequently removed to its present site, where it is the house of Mr. A. B. Nye on Church street.
Deacon Raymond removed to Fremont, Ohio, where he died.
Erastus Leavitt was a harness maker, and his shop was located near where F. W. Hawley's woodshed stands. As Leavitt was a voter in Norwich in 1790, it may be fair to presume that he pursued his trade here at that early date. It is understood that he went to South Carolina and died there. But the old sign that announced his vocation here in Norwich remained in town and showed itself-saddled and bridled-attached to the front of a building in our village during the late Civil War. It is feared that Leavitt was not as mindful of the conduct becoming a church member and a moral citizen as he should have been, for we learn from early church records that he was re- ported to the church for discipline because of "drunkenness and pro- fanity."
In 1805, Jacob Burton, then the first postmaster in Norwich, kept the office in his harness shop located about opposite the present home of Mrs. William E. Lewis.
142
HISTORY OF NORWICH
The first blacksmith in town of whom we have any knowledge, was Elishu Emerson, who came here from Westfield, Mass., in 1792, fol- lowed, three years later, by his two brothers, Joseph and Thomas. Mr. Emerson built a brick shop in what is now the north dooryard of Ed. W. Olds' residence, and there pursued his calling for many years, making axes as well as doing ordinary blacksmithing.
Mr. Emerson was succeeded in blacksmithing by Samuel Currier, who carried on the business for several years in the shop where the former had worked. In 1835, James S. Currier (also a blacksmith and brother of Samuel) moved to town and built a shop just north of and adjoining his brother's shop. After the latter moved onto a farm a little north of Norwich village, James S. took his brother's shop, and worked at his trade there until he retired from business many years afterwards. Several years later the old Emerson shop was taken down, and thus disappeared one of the town's early landmarks.
Joseph Emerson built the house where Henry Lary lives. There he manufactured wool hats for a number of years. Subsequently he had a shop on what is now known as Elm Street, where he was succeeded in business by one Cottle George, whom we have already mentioned. The building is now the residence of Mrs. Emma Hatch. Mr. Emerson built for his residence the house that is now the home of Mrs. Baxter B. Newton.
Among the early painters in Norwich, though not the earliest, prob- ably, were Samuel Nye, who came to an untimely death in Canada in 1844, while visiting there; Morris L. Nichols, who followed this calling for many years previous to his death in town, in 1870, aged seventy-five years; and David Morrill ("Uncle David" as he was familiarly called) who came into town from Strafford, Vt., where he had previously plied his trade. Many of us remember how entertain- ing it was to visit Uncle David's shop and view some of the products of his brush, notably the band wagon with its prancing steeds, and load of musicians, arrayed in gorgeous uniforms; and to listen to his dissertations on free-masonry.
A firm believer in the mystic order, Mr. Morrill governed his daily life by the square and rule, and passed to his reward some years since, having reached a ripe old age.
There may have been brick-masons in Norwich at an earlier date
-
143
EARLY INDUSTRIEŚ
than those of whom we have any record, who were: Joseph Cutting, Cyril Pennock, Samuel Sproat and Luman Boutwell.
Cutting, who married a daughter of Reuben Hatch, moved into town in 1808, or earlier, and built the house, on the Plain, where David Stewart lives. Later he removed to Rochester, N. Y. Pennock and Sproat were long-time residents in Norwich, and worked at their trade until declining years forced them to cease work, when the former removed to St. Paul, Minn., where he died several years since, and the latter left his "turnpike" home to be with a daughter with whom he died. His remains were brought to Norwich for burial.
The writer has been told that Pennock was the first cadet of the A. L. S. & M. Academy to sleep in the Academy building and the first to wear the uniform of that institution.
Sproat and Boutwell built, on joint account, at the Plain, the "Seven nation house," so called, that stands on the site of a former dwelling occupied by one Marshall Hodgeman until its destruction by fire, at which time the following incident is said to have occurred :
Judge Aaron Loveland owned a frame building near the fire, and evidently fearing greater injury to his property from the fire hooks that the local firemen were using in tearing down a nearby structure than from the flames, directed the men to cease using those "hellhooks" and use the "squirt gun" (a hand fire-engine that constituted a part of the armament of the fire company)-language truly expressive- perhaps judicial-surely not Chesterfieldian.
That St. Crispin has had many disciples in Norwich the list of boot and shoe makers abundantly proves. Reuben Partridge, son of Elisha Partridge, was the first of the craft, of whom we have any knowledge, to locate in town. His shop was in a building, already noted in this article, in one part of which Erastus Leavitt had a harness shop. As he was married in 1791, we may reasonably suppose that he was in business at that time. Daniel Russell had a shop very near where the creamery building stands at the north end of the village, and he lived on the opposite side of the street, in the house now occupied by C. C. Sawyer. Levi Blood, James Harrison, Eber N. Clark, Cyrus Tracey, and Abel P. Hatch worked, at different times, in a shop that stood until within a comparatively few years about on a line with F. W. Hawley's woodshed-perhaps a little further west. At another time Harrison had
144
HISTORY OF NORWICH
a shop in a small building on his own premises, which were those now occupied by Miss Ellen Hutchinson, on North Main Street. It is be- lieved that this shop was moved to the south side of what is now Church Street, and became the home of Lydia Haskell.
Thomas Brigham, of strongly marked physical characteristics, is re- called by many persons of the present day. He followed his calling of boot and shoe making in the second story front of what is now Ed. W. Olds' residence. He was proverbial for promising many more pairs of boots to be completed by the next Saturday night than it was possible for the most industrious craftsman to accomplish.
George Clark worked in a shop that stood where Egbert Blaisdell's barn is. There he performed his six days' labor, and rested on the seventh by playing the bass viol in the choir of the Congregational church in the village.
Later, about 1856, Abel P. Hatch had his shop where Henry Lary lives (a building that has sheltered more mercantile ventures, work- shops and postoffices than any other structure in town). Subsequently, Hatch built a shop on Mechanics Street, where Hazen Batchelder's house stands, where he worked at his trade until fire destroyed the building. Another shop was erected on that spot, and there Hatch worked until failing health compelled him to cease labor. Mr. Hatch had a remarkably retentive memory and his mind was well stored with events in the town's history, and to him many people went for in- formation on various matters.
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