USA > Vermont > Windsor County > Hartland > History and anniversary of Hartland, Vermont > Part 3
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Rosweil Hill
Seth Wood Jr.
James B. Durrer
Benjamin Barron Jr.
Thomas Perkins
Gideon G. Goodspeare
George Marsh
Theron Rust
Timotby Moore
Win. Nutting
James Nutting
Jesse Billings
John Billings
Moses Billings
Jesse Benjamin
Jonas Benjamin
Otez Marsh
From the above it is apparent that defi- nite preparations for a second war with Britain were being made in Hartland three years before the breaking out of hostili- ties. However, only a very few items on these preparations are recorded in the town books; but, of them, the following, entered in the report of the town meeting of March 5, 1812, is of some interest: The Freemen were asked to "act on the article
. 5th To build a Magazine for storing the towns stock of powder & lead and also to build a house for storing the Cannon and apparatus belonging to Capt. Dodge's company.
In reviewing the accessible military re- turns of officers and men prepared by Hart- land for the War of 1812, the author finds more than two hundred reported in the
town records as equipped for service, apart from certain of those listed in the Capt. John Webster papers. The Webster lists show about two hundred trained by Capt. Webster alone; but only a small part of these were fully equipped. If those partly equipped in other companies could be known, the list for the town would be very long; and, as it is, the names given repre- sent nearly every Hartland family of early times.
The equipment required in Capt. Web- ster's company was guns, cartridge boxes, bayonets, bayonet belts, priming wires, brushes and flints.
The captains thus far determined were: Capts. Consider Alexander, Andrew Dodge, Abel Farwell, Caleb Hendrick, Seth Limum (Lyman?) Levi Lull, Humphrey Rood, Jr., David Sumner, and John Webster. Judge Luce once said of his neighbor, "If all men were like Caleb Hendrick (the Capt. of Artillery), there would be no use for poor-houses, jails, court houses, or prisons." [A quotation from B. P. Rug- gles' "Hartland Sayings."]
The lieutenants were: Infantry-Ist Lieuts. William Barrett, Charles Liver- more, John Webster; 2d Lieut. Simon P. Hoffman. Cavalry-Ist Lieuts. Samuel Perkins, jr., Humphrey Rood, Daniel Smith; 2d Lieut. Andrew Dodge. Artil- lery-Lieuts. Andrew Dodge, Simon P. Hoffman; Ishmael Tewksbury.
The sergeants were: Sergs. Daniel Ashley, Marston Cabot, Jr., Benj. Camp- bell, Ezra Child, Cyrus Cushman, John R. Densmore, Sam'l A. Fielding, Sam'l Healey, Jr., Simon P. Hoffman, George Latimer, Levi Lull, Dan'1 Marsh, Hial Paul, Sullivan Rust, Frederick Sillsbury, Adin Spaulding, Alvan Taylor, Ishmael
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Tewksbury, John O. Willard, John V. Williams.
The corporals were: Corps. John Bar- rel, William Benton, Joseph Bryant, Jona- than Burk, George Cabot, Hugh Camp- bell, Lot C. Hodgman, Alexander Holton, George Latimer, Sullivan Marcy, Dan'l Marsh, George Miller, Amasa Richardson, Ruggles Spooner, Edward Swan, Alvan Taylor, Thomas Weeden.
The musicians were: Drummers-Joseph Amsden, Jacob Gillman, Adin Spaulding, Alvan Taylor, Spencer Traeey, John O. Willard; Fifers-Eldad 'Alexander, Elijah Alexander, William Dean, Elisha Rust; Cor- netists- Humphrey Rood, Moses Tewks-' bury; Undefined-Josiah Glading, Noah Shepard.
Two minors are recorded as training in the Hartland militia-Joseph Dunbar and Frederick S. Gallup. Otis Fish, who was enlisted from Capt. Webster's company, was one of the members of the "Ist Com- pany of Matross (?)" recorded June 23, 1813.
The companies trained in every section of Hartland, and they trained so often that the men and boys became thoroughly acquainted with each other and with the topography of their town-an attainment which would in itself justify universal mili- tary drill today. Among the places men- tioned as parade grounds, in the military orders of Capt. Consider Alexander and Capt. John Webster, were those at Capt. Oliver Stevens', Simon P. Hoffman's, Sam- uel Taylor's, Laban Webster's and "Hart- land Meeting House."
Mrs. H. H. Miller has a scarlet coat and cap which were owned by the Weed fam- ily, used in the drills of the Hartland mili- tia, and which are probably typical in style. Capt. Andrew Dodge's scarlet coat is an- other of Hartland's valued relics.
In the Albert Powers pasture, near the Woodstock line, is a large quartz rock by which a Hartland militia company is said to have camped while on its way to Platts- burgh during the War of 1812. This was the men's first camp on their way out and was called "The White Rock Camp."
On Sept. 19, 1809, there was a Regi- mental Review of arms and exercise at Simon P. Hoffman's.
Included in the First or "Hartland Reg- iment" were companies representing Hart- land, Windsor, Hartford, and Norwich;
and, in the autumn of 1814, these mustered at Woodstock for the famous review of the "Ist Brigade, 4th Division of the Militia of Vermont." Col. Consider Alexander was the commander of the First Regi- ment. A Hartland company of artillery and a Hartland squadron of cavalry, Hum- phrey Rood commander, were attached, with others, to the brigade.
Besides the men already named as serv- ing in the War of 1812 from Hartland were: Daniel Bagley, Park'er Bagley, Alfred Barrell, Phineas Barrell, Rufus Marcy, and Willard Marcy, Jr.
Mr. Lemuel Spooner. though not a Hartland soldier, was the last survivor of America's last war with Britain whom the author remembers. He spoke at Wood- stock one Fourth of July, and being very aged, he seemed like a battered oak of the forest as he rose in the audience; but he was sound at heart and he voiced a pat- riot's soul, while everybody present ap- plauded him roundly.
Mr. Perkins Bagley was Hartland's last survivor of the War of American Seamen, and Isaac Morgan, Jr., who enlisted at the age of fourteen, was the next to the last. Mr. Morgan used to tell many anecdotes of battles in which local men engaged; but the author remembers only the orders at the Battle of Niagara which were "Rush! RUSH !'' One of his neighbors remembers how, when he became excited in an argu- ment, he would exclaim, "You know noth- ing about fighting! You know nothing about fighting! The Falls of Nigary and the Battle of Chippewa!" Sometimes he would say, "You know nothing about fight- ing! Ground arms!"
In looking through the Hartland records of events that occurred immediately before and soon after the War of 1812, one is surprised to find many "Warnings to De- part" issued against perfectly respectable heads of families who came to settle in town, to prevent their gaining a residence. The injustice of the law requiring such warnings was perceived by Vermonters after a time and the statute was repealed.
Some curious entries are those on the marks which were used by stock-raisers in distinguishing their cattle and sheep, as:
David H. Sumner's mark for cattle and sheep is a smooth Crop off the left Ear & a half penny under the right ear.
Recorded June 6, 1814, by E. Spooner, Town Clerk.
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John W. Cary's Mark for Sheep is a swallow, tail in left ear & a half crop the under side of the right ear.
Recorded January 25th, 1823 by D. Ashley, Town Clerk.
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Agricultural development followed the war, and Hartland became celebrated for its farming-for its live-stock, wool, and maple sugar.
For example, we read from an old letter: "Esq. Denison, as everybody called him, represented his town in the legislature-he was generally school committee in my early days and held various offices in town-his
proper care, would furnish watchers, and when they were convalescing would carry them dainties to tempt their appetites- would often dress a spring lamb or chicken or anything he thought would be strength- ening to the patient. His good wife had the same kindly nature; not only would she carry the sick and poor dainties from her own table but would do sewing for them gratis. She was a very fine singer, would always sing in church and at funerals."
In another letter occurs this description :
The Judge Luce or B. P. Ruggles Place near the Four Corners, now owned by Arthur Lyman.
farm was one of the best cultivated in Windsor Co. He kept a large dairy of the finest grades and hundreds of merino sheep roamed over his fertile pastures."
Col. Denison, a soldier of the Revolu- tion, settled very early on the place now owned by the descendants of Mr. Truman Slayton. He built first a log house, and its hearthstone and chimney still remain; then he built, in 1794, the present large farmhouse with its beautiful verandas. Here is a picture of Squire Denison and his wife: "He was very careful to give all his children a good education; Geo. W. was a prominent lawyer in St. Louis, Missouri. He was always very kind to the sick, would visit those in the neighbor- hood who were ill and see that they had
"Ward Cotton was a well-to-do farmer, owning several good farms at the 'middle of the town.' He always kept a fine herd of cows, but his monev-making industry was the raising of wool-keeping several hundred sheep - having a shepherd to watch and care for them as they roamed the green pastures. During the Civil War he sold his wool for a dollar a pound. He raised flax and to a certain extent manu- factured his own cloth for family use. Mr. Cotton made a large amount of maple sugar, some years two thousand pounds or more. He used the old fashion wooden buckets for holding sap, and boiled it down in iron pans, in a large sugar house."
In the early part of the nineteenth cen- tury Hartland led the county in the quality
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of its agricultural products, and often in modern times it has taken first prizes on "town teams" of oxen. The raising of sheep and cattle for market was an impor- tant industry here during the last century, and Squire Asa Weed was one of the pros- perous farmers who sent "a drove" to Boston once or twice a year at least. His son Nathaniel continued the business and his grandson Nathaniel did the same.
"Blind French" was a successful drover who was generally known and liked.
On Jan. 11, 1845, Mr. . Leonard H. Ham- ilton of New York City wrote to Luther Damon, Esq .: "I was very glad to hear so good account of my stock. I do not care how much they eat so they do not waste. . Money is now worth in the street 9 to 12 per cent. per annum. The Banks charge 6 per cent. for 60 day paper and over that time 7 pr. ct."
Consequent upon the production of many cattle, sheep, etc., was the building of tan- neries. Mr. Levi Marcy had a tannery early at Fieldsville; but he had a farm like- wise, and, in common with nearly all the other heads of families, he went once or twice a winter to Boston with goods. He carried tanned leather, cheese, dried apple, beans, grains, dressed hogs, etc., bringing back West India goods, quintals of fish (cod, mackerel, salmon, herring) kegs of oysters, boxes of raisins, webs of cotton cloth, prints, etc., and a bladder of snuff for his aged mother. He used a " double sleigh," Miss Helen Marcy, his grand- daughter said, when he started from Hart- land. He went to Windsor, Claremont, Newport, paying tolls often, crossed Sun- apee Lake on the ice to New London, then drove to Nashua where he put up his span of horses. At Nashua, after trains were in use, he loaded his produce upon a car and went on to Boston by rail.
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No one seems to know where the Joel Shurtleff tannery was, it was "so far back."
Mr. Joseph Morgan, son of James Mor- gan, the farmer, and grandson of Isaac Morgan, Sr., the pioneer, had one of the best farms for stock in West Hartland and the largest apple orchard in town. This farm and orchard have improved with time, and are now owned by Mr. J. S. Darling. Mr. Morgan and his neighbors of the Elisha Gallup family produced excellent honey. The ladies of these two households were famous for their poultry, butter, and cheese,
their fine needlework and paintings and for their old fashioned gardens containing herbs. Mr. Luther Damon had a beautiful farm on the opposite side of the town near Windsor. He made many trips to Boston with produce, and the garden kept by Mrs. Damon and her descendants is one of the loveliest of its kind. The E. M. Goodwin and Henry Britton farms near by are among the best of the meadow farms. The E. S. Ainsworth farm at "The Centre," called "Cornhill" has on it one of the oldest local landmarks-the broken headstones of the graves of pioneers. The "Old Asa Taylor Farm" in North Hartland, now owned by Mr. Walter Wood, is one of the many in that section considered superior. Its farm- house is of the oldest. The Dunbar farms, formerly the Gallup farms, are unsurpassed as corn lands; while the Daniels or Henry Dunbar farm is one of the best on the Con- necticut River. On the Lamb farm was the "Hammond and Lamb Distillery." The firm made cider brandy, rye whiskey, and other liquors, and the copper still is yet in the possession of the Lamb family. The author remembers hearing Mr. Daniel F. Morgan tell of the excellent potato whis- key that used to be distilled on the Mac- kenzie farm in the Densmore District.
Broom corn was raised extensively by the farmers at one time, especially when the Healey family manufactured brooms and brushes. At the Dr. Harding place, silk culture was carried on, and a few of the mulberry trees survived until quite recently.
Shoemakers, tailors, tailoresses, and dressmakers long went from house to house plying their trade for their board and a few shillings a week. Certain erratic and simple persons have always lodged at will among the townspeople. Tin-peddlers have been an established feature of Hart- land life, and to this day they perform an acceptable work in bartering their goods, for odds and ends. Everyone remembers "Tinker" Morrison, who mended clocks and tinware. He was a college educated man, silent and dignified, with a tall lank frame and a swarthy complexion. He had a family of excellent children. There have been several tin shops; also harness shops and shoe shops.
At both the Three Corners and the Four Corners was "The Harding Marble Shop" at different times. At Martinsville a man by the name of Zebina Spaulding made
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guns in a shop opposite "Martin's Mill" on Lull Brook-shot guns and other fowl- ing pieces. He was fatally shot by the accidental discharge of an old Windsor revolver. William Henry Lemmex, born . in 1805, and "a gentleman of the old school," as his biographer styled him, con- ducted a store and a mill in Hartland for fifteen years, beginning with 1829. The mill, called "The Lemmex Woolen Mill" stood by the Mill Gorge and near the site of the carding mill. Before the foundry building was used by Mr .- Francis Gilbert, it had served as a woolen mill for the Stur- tevant brothers when they began milling here, and around 1850 it was used by Frederick Sillsbury as a clothes pin factory. William Colston and James Petrie, British soldiers who settled in Hartland, were weavers. The former lived on the Charles O'Neill farm; the latter on the Albourne Lull farm. The "Petrie and Sturtevant Woolen Mill" was by the Mill Gorge.
For years there was on Lull Brook a large "shop" built by Mr. Frederick Eng- lish, the mechanical genius. Mr. Benjamin Livermore, a relative of Mr. English's, in- vented "Livermore's Permutation Typo- graph or Pocket Printing Machine" in 1857. It was described thus by The Bos- ton Daily Traveller: "The polished steel case, which contains the apparatus, is five inches long, two and a half inches broad, and one and a half inches thick. This contains the type, the ink, the paper, and the machinery. At one end of the case are six keys, on which the fingers of the operator play, as on a piano. The rapid- ity of the printing is about equal to that of writing with a pen, as most persons write. One would not believe all this possible beforehand, but when he is presented with a sentence legibly printed . . and un- deniably printed then and there, he is no longer skeptical." Several college pro- fessors wrote a good word for it, and Will- iam Lloyd Garrison closed his commenda- tion with the words "Success to whatever shall lessen toil and facilitate the action of . the mind."
Mr. Livermore invented also a cement pipe for conveying spring water, and it was manufactured on the old Joseph Dun- bar or T. A. Kneen farm by Mr. Norman Dunbar. However, it proved of little value, as freezing cracked it. Sections of it, which are three or four inches in diam-
eter, may be seen at "Sky Farm," used in borders for flower-beds.
Mr. A. J. Stevens says that, at the Four .Corners, there was a saw mill, a hotel, and a store before there were any public build- ings at the Three Corners. Thomas Cobb's saw-mill, on the brook west of the L. A. Shedd place, had a sash and blind shop connected with it at one time. Azro Bur- gett, the Hessian, was a wheelwright who had a shop near the Four Corners, and Mr. Gustavus Morey's father had a similar shop. Mr. O. F. Hemenway had a car- riage shop on one of the old Morey places, near the B. F. Hatch place, and west of the Four Corners two miles or so.
At present the oldest house in the vil- lage is thought to be that owned and occu- pied by Mr. and Mrs. J. A. Rich, formerly the home of the Rice sisters. It was origi- nally a tavern and afterwards used for a store. The brick school house of today was the Stocker store, and it contained the town clerk's office when Eben M. Stocker was town clerk. In recent years there has been added to the village a milk station and factory for either butter or cheese. It stands just west of the "Hayes House," on the same side of the road and near the bridge. The building now used as a town hall was put up by Mr. Wesley Labaree, who kept a store on the present Marcy store site and who built the watering- trough near the Judge Luce place. It was made, some say, from the old dance hall that formed a part of the brick hotel that once stood on the corner near the town hall-one of the principal buildings at the Four Corners in 1822. For a while the town hall building was used as a clothes- pin factory. Two years it was used as a Lodge room for Hartland Masons. March 7, 1865 the town voted-"that the Select- men procure a place for the Militia Com- pany to drill in and to keep Equipment in." The hall built by Mr. Labaree was secured. The "Equipment" was stored there, and, in wet weather, the "Boys in Blue" drilled there. This year the Ladies' Aid of the "West Parish" has bought a piano for the hall and has papered the upper room and put it in order.
About a mile west of Hartland Four Corners, on the hill road to Woodstock, is the "Town Farm," which was purchased of Mr. Jacob Tewksbury in the early sev- enties of the last century by A. B. Burk,
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the town clerk, and Asa Weed, the select- man. Mr. Burk said, when he was mak- ing the purchase, "I want as good a farm as there is in town and I want it near the village." The farm had previously been the home 'of Marston Cabot, the surveyor, -a brother of Francis Cabot, the large landholder. It had on it a spring of deli- cious water known as "The Cabot Spring." The "Old Town Farm" was near Barron Hill, where the ancestors of the White Mountain "Hotel Kings" named Barron lived, and it was in the neighborhood of the farms of the pioneers-Solomon Brown and Timothy Grow. The original Solo- mon Brown farm is now the Jerome H. Eastman farm.
The Adventists built in 1902, under the influence largely of the George Williams family, a little church on Barron Hill, and there services have been held much of the time since. The "Densmore Neighbor- hood" years ago was almost an Adventist settlement, and two ministers of that faith -- Revs. Wells Hadley and Henry Holt, went from there.
About fifty years ago, there were many Spiritualists who took the waters at the "Spring House" in Fieldsville, and some- times religious services would be held there attended by as many as two hundred Spiritualists. Now there are no such meet- ings in town.
THE TWO ORPHANS
CUT PLUO
JUNE 27
Representation in the Parade of the Arrival of the First Settlers.
The town house was voted to be built in 1790 as a "work-house erected or pro- cured in said Town for the reception and correction (of) Idle mismanaging persons in sd Town," and Samuel Williams, Will- iam Gallup, and Joseph Grow were elected a committee "to erect or provide said House." A tax was voted "of one penny on the pound for the year 1790 to be paid into the Treasury by the 25th of December next in wheat at I2c per quart or other grain."
After the house was burned, Mr. Oliver Brothers, as agent, sold the farm to Mr. Henry Dunbar, and it is now the property of his son, Mr. Teague Dunbar. The region of this farm is most picturesque and a favorite picnic ground for North Hart- land people.
In 1830, the Episcopal church at North Hartland was removed from its site on the George P. Eastman place to the present one, since which time it has been a true "Union Church."
The Congregational church, built in 1834, and the Methodist church, built in 1839, are at Hartland Village. They have been remodeled and beautifully finished inside, and they are both doing good Christian work. East of the Congrega- tional church is a beautiful cemetery.
Union services were held the day follow- ing the Anniversary Celebration, at the Universalist church at Hartland Four Corners, which Mrs. H. H. Miller describes thus: "An invitation was extended to the other Churches to unite in this 'Old Home
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Service.' They accepted, and the out- come was one of the finest services ever held in the church, Revs. Hill and Parker, from the other Churches, Mr. and Mrs. Barney assisting in the service. The ser- mon was given by Rev. Stanley G. Spear and was very interesting, being of a remin- iscent nature. There was a splendid choir with all the singers from the other Churches, Mrs. Alice (Sturtevant) Wills at the organ. Solos were rendered by the Misses Minnie Barbour, and Florence M. Sturtevant of Hartford, Conn., while the Centennial Hymn composed by · Mr. Sturtevant for our Church Centennial was used. The congregation was very large."
In 1828, Sumner's Village or the Three Corners was laid out by the selectmen- Stephen Paine, Asa Weed, and Alvin Tay- lor, according to the "Village Law," and became Hartland Village. Of this place Mr. W. R. Sturtevant spoke thus in his historical address given at the Anniversary Celebra- tion: "The first store . was built near the site of the old Pound on the Quechee road and was kept by Johnny R. Gibson, and Jacob Dimick, late a highly respected citizen of Hartford, Vt., who kept a store in Quechee Village, was his clerk. . The first schoolhouse was built here and the second at Hartland Village half way up the hill on the place lately occupied by B. F. Labaree. It was of brick and was heated by a fireplace, in one end of which was kept a bunch of withes, with which the master used to chastize unruly boys. They were kept there for the purpose of keeping them dry so when they were used they would cut more smartly than if green. . The hotel, the old Congregational Parson- age House are (among) the oldest houses in this vicinity. The hotel was built by Isaac Stevens, grandfather of the present generation at Hartland. He was a soldier of the Revolution, enlisted Nov. 26, 1775. He owned a large portion of the land in this vicinity. . The hotel was occupied certainly as early as 1804, for my grandfather stopped there then on his way to Woodstock from Pittsfield, Mass. My grandmother told me at that time the country west of the hotel was covered with a heavy growth of pine timber. The road to Hartland 4 Corners led out of the vil- lage by the Quechee road and veered west near the site of the old Pound and came into the present' road near the large elm
tree opposite the Barbour place, This elm tree stands on the corner of one of the 100 acre lots as originally laid out. It is related that the late Daniel Ashley, when a boy, while at work in a field near by, hung his jacket in the fork of this tree which is now 40 feet or more from the ground."
Daniel Ashley afterwards owned the pres- ent Guy Graham place and had extensive brickworks there.
Mr. F. C. Sturtevant, in his Anniver- sary address on "Quaint Characters of Hartland" said of the old hotel, "I remem- ber when the stage, with from four to six horses, would come thundering into town with a toot of the horn and a crack of the whiplash and pull up to Merritt's Pavilion (Lewis Merritt's), change horses, all pas- sengers go into the bar-room and get a good drink of Santa Cruz rum and then continue the journey."
The "Old Road" at Hartland Village followed along by Lull Brook in very early times, Mr. A. J. Stevens says, instead of turning across the bridge at the head of the Mill Gorge. This was probably be- fore the Stevens hotel was built and in the days of Lull Tavern.
Mr. Pliny Smith, whose family were notoriously fine singers, drove the stage from Hartland to South Woodstock by way of the "Burk Tavern Stand" for many years.
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