Tapping Reeve 40—
Elijah Wadsworth 20—
Daniel Sheldon 20—
Uriah Holmes 20—
Frederick Wolcott 20—
John R. Landon 10—
Elijah Adams 15—
Aron Smith 20—
Moses Seymour 15—
Roger Skinner 15—
Solomon Marsh 10—
Asa Morgan 10—
Julius Deming 20—
Sam^l. Seymour 10—
Isaac Baldwin Jr. 15—
Daniel Starr 10—
Moses Seymour Jr. 10—
Timothy Peck 10—
Thomas Colliar 10—
Daniel W. Lewis 15—
Uriah Tracy 20—
Amos Galpin 10—
Reuben Smith 10—
John Allen 20—
James Morris 5—
John Welch 5—
————
Total 385 Dolls
1801–1868.
LITCHFIELD AT THE BEGINNING OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
Many a summer visitor, after toiling laboriously up the circuitous
little branch of the Consolidated Railroad and arriving at Litchfield
for the first time, wonders why, though perched on such a distant
hilltop, it still wears such an air of old established dignity. The
results of the changed conditions of travel are not easily recognized.
Instead of being at the end of a small branch road as it is now, a
hundred years ago Litchfield was on the high road, traversed by more
than one of the main lines of Post Coaches, then the only means of
public travel.
The first of these stage lines were “The Litchfield and New Milford
Turnpike Company, incorporated in October, 1797; The Litchfield and
Harwinton Company in October, 1798; The Litchfield and Canaan Company in
May, 1799. Then followed Strait’s Turnpike from Litchfield to New Haven,
the Litchfield and Cornwall, the Litchfield and Torrington and the
Litchfield and Plymouth Turnpikes.”[10]... “Daily lines of mail stages
were established between this village and Hartford, New Haven, Norwalk,
Poughkeepsie and Albany.”[10]...
“Litchfield was on the great inland route from Boston to New York as
well as from Hartford to West Point so that the amount of travel through
the town was very great.”[10]
This continued until about the year 1840, when the building of railroads
broke up the stage routes and left the town stranded by itself, the
nearest railroad four miles away. Then naturally many of the inhabitants
moved away to new and growing centres of commerce and influence.
When the census[11] of 1820 was taken Litchfield ranked fourth in
population in the State, New Haven, Hartford, and Middletown only taking
precedence. Great red, four-horse coaches with whips cracking and horns
blowing came and went at a great pace[12] all day long through the
town,—from New York to Albany by way of Danbury and Poughkeepsie, from
New York to Boston via Danbury and Hartford, and in many other
directions. A driver and later owner, of one of these stages, Hiram
Barnes by name, was a resident of North Street and so noted a character
in the community that Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe immortalized him in her
“Poganuc People” under the name of “Hiel Jones.” He is therein portrayed
by her graphic pen along with other prominent people of the town, as she
drew largely upon her youthful memories of Litchfield in writing that
volume. So, too, Henry Ward Beecher recalls Hiram Barnes in the passage
from his life quoted later on in this chapter.
Some of the advertisements of these stage routes read as follows:
For Poughkeepsie, New York and Albany.
Daily through in 20 Hours
Stage leaves Litchfield every morning at 5 o’clock (Sundays excepted)
and arrives at Poughkeepsie at 5 P. M.
Steam Boats leave Poughkeepsie every evening at 5 o’clock and arrive
in New York or Albany next morning at 1 o’clock.
This line passes through Cornwall, Sharon, Amenia, Washington and
Pleasant Valley to Poughkeepsie.
This arrangement to continue until further notice.
For seats apply at PHILO C. BUSH,
Deming’s Tavern, WILLIAM STEVENS,
Litchfield, April 1829. _Proprietors_.
In the following one it is interesting to observe the emphasis laid upon
“_no night travelling_” as a special inducement to travellers to take
that line. One doubts its advantages on reading further that the stage
leaves at 3 A. M.!
New Arrangement.
Litchfield, New Milford, Danbury and Norwalk Mail Stage.
This stage leaves Josiah Park’s Hotel, Litchfield, on Tuesdays,
Thursdays and Saturdays at 3 in the morning, passing thro’ New
Preston, New Milford and Brookfield and arrives at Danbury to lodge:
leaves Danbury next morning for Norwalk and arrives in time for
passengers to take the steam boat for N. York. _No Night Travelling._
Fare through to New York 3.25
Returning
Takes the Norwalk passengers at Danbury on Monday, Wednesday and
Friday morning, and arrives in Litchfield the same day.
For seats apply at the Bar at
Park’s Hotel, Litchfield,
H. BARNES, _Proprietor_,
Nov. 10, 1829.
Mrs. H. B. Carr[13] of New Milford writes: “I do not recall any incident
of her school life at Litchfield of which my mother told me, except that
the stage for New Milford left in the morning before daylight, and that,
from fear of being left when going home for vacation, she and her cousin
dressed for the journey—over night!”
To still farther advertise the stage routes the owner of the weekly
paper was called upon to furnish a notice in rhyme with the following
result. It is copied from an issue of 1833:
PEOPLE’S LINE.
This line leaves Sharon Mondays and Fridays weekly,
Arrives at Litchfield, at four o’clock precisely.
Leaves Litchfield, Tuesdays and Saturdays at 6 A. M.
Will arrive in Sharon at 8 P. M.
Returning; will pass thro’ Wolcottville and Goshen,
And through the pleasant villages of Cornwall and East Sharon,
And o’er those bleak and hoary hills in safety it will bound,
And the fleet horses often shed their shoes upon the ground.
Passengers who wish to pass those hills of gloomy shade,
Can know they will not be upset, or in the gutter laid,
With safety they will take their seats, in safety they’ll arrive,
On the fair hills of Sharon, where grow lilies and thrive.
Our steeds are of the finest blood, both young and gay and keen.
No spavins or great ring-bones upon their hoofs are seen,
And passengers will not be disturbed by horses with the heaves;
Which is unpleasant to all passengers but murderers and thieves;
Our coach will be most splendid; the seats are also fine,
The glossy wheels in sunny morn most brilliantly do shine
The driver is most careful and trusty with the lines,
And lazy horses will find the thong around their ears entwined.
Our driver is most honest, and those who trust to him
To do for them small errands, he’ll do them all in time
And those who would send money by him to any docket,
May rest assured he’ll not reserve more than half for his own pocket.
From Litchfield to Sharon our fare is very low
And money will be refunded if we don’t carry you through.
One dollar twenty-five cents will be our regular sum,
It will hardly keep our horses well, and our drivers in good rum.
The owner of this line will always be at his stand
And applicants can always find the gentleman on hand;
He wishes to be patronized by all who wish to go
O’er those hills and valleys of frozen ice and snow.
G. W. HAMLIN,
Proprietor Litchfield Enquirer, 1833.
Not only was Litchfield on the main lines of travel, but it was a
commercial and industrial centre. The “Gazetteer of the States of
Connecticut and Rhode Island” for 1810 says: “The most important
manufactures in the town is that of iron of which there are 4 forges, 1
slitting mill and one nail factory. There are 1 cotton factory, 1 oil
mill, 1 paper mill, 2 cording machines, 6 fulling mills, 5 grain mills,
18 saw mills, 5 large tanneries, besides several on a small scale. 2
comb factories, 2 hatters shops, 2 carriage makers, 1 cabinet furniture
maker, 3 saddlers and a number of house carpenters, joiners and smiths
and other mechanics.” The population then was 4,639. There were 4
companies of militia and “16 mercantile stores.”
The writer mentions a mineral spring of chalybeate and sulphureous water
within one half mile of the Court House—which had been found very
efficacious in curing disease. An iron foundry was situated on the east
side of the upper end of North Street, about where the house of the
Misses Van Winkle now stands. It was owned and run by Morse and[14]
Carrington. A very superior quality of ore from Salisbury or Kent was
here made into anchors, the first and best in the country.
To the north of this were grist and fulling mills which used the water
of the little river to turn their wheels. Wool was “fulled,” as the term
is, for hats that were made and sold on South Street by Ozias and Major
Moses Seymour. This hat factory was afterward moved to the west of the
town and owned by Messrs. Braman and Kilbourne. The first leather
pocketbooks in this country were made by Erastus Lord in Baltimore. He
moved to Litchfield and continued to make them at his house on the south
side of Prospect Street, where Mr. MacMartin now lives. A piece of fine
workmanship in the way of a jewel casket made by him is still in the
possession of his descendants.
There was a cotton mill near the present bridge at the foot of South
Street. Its owner built the house now occupied by Mr. Crandall. Not far
off was a papier maché factory. Excellent brass goods were made
somewhere in the town, as specimens of andirons, latches, etc., are now
in evidence. They are advertised with other goods in the current
newspapers. There were also extensive dye works for yarns and cloths of
different kinds. Coaches were made at a factory on Chestnut Hill.
Furniture was made by a number of persons. Among them were Silas E.
Cheney, David Bulkley, and George Dewey, who was noted for his fine
carving. He often added his name. There was a well known goldsmith who
must have been a man of genial nature, as he went by the name of “Uncle
Billy” Ward. It is not long since a silver spoon was dug up in the north
part of the village which bore his name. There was a jeweller by the
name of Merriman. There were a number of publishers, Thomas Collier
being a prominent one. He established an early newspaper, the Monitor,
in 1784, and continued to publish it for many years.
North Street was the main business street. Here the friends, Mr. Julius
Deming and Colonel Tallmadge had their dwelling houses opposite each
other, and their shops in smaller wooden buildings south of their
houses. They imported goods from Europe, and with them came the large
wooden panels used in the interior of Mr. Deming’s house. With the
addition of Oliver Wolcott, they bought the ship “Trident” and opened
trade with China under the name of the “Litchfield China Trading Co.”
They also imported two hundred horses to improve the stock in this
country. Mr. Deming started a paper mill in Bantam.
To the north of the Tallmadge house was a small unpretending frame
building, the second home of the first law school in the United States.
Pupils from north, south, east, and west gathered here to attend the
lectures of Judge James Gould. To the honor of his predecessor, Judge
Reeve, be it said that he inaugurated this school, which was held in a
similar simple building adjoining his house on South Street. Judge Reeve
took the initiative in this country with regard to the legal standing of
women, and was the first to advocate their having equal rights with men.
A little further north, on the middle of the land now occupied by the
Underwood house stood Miss Pierce’s little schoolhouse. It was situated
between her own house shown in Plate V, and a small red building on the
site of the present parsonage, where lived her brother, Mr. Brace and
family, including her nephew, Mr. John Pierce Brace, who later became
her assistant. Owing to the density of the alder bushes, which were not
cleared away from this part of the street, it is reported that Miss Mary
Pierce, being sent on an errand to a neighbor’s when a little child, was
lost! A little below here there were not only fences to the houses, but
on the outside of the path were a row of posts with wooden rails
extending from one to another, probably for the purpose of tying horses.
The young men in the law school may have had some of the same feeling
towards this fence that the students in New Haven have toward the one
that formerly surrounded the Yale Campus, as an eye witness tells of
seeing a group of them perched on it and amusing themselves by stopping
and teasing Miss Mary Brace when a pretty little girl of twelve or
thirteen years of age.
Not far off was a government depot for military stores under the charge
at first of Commissary William Richards and later of Governor Wolcott.
This was erected near the site of Doctor Buel’s house. Another was added
to it about where the Court House now stands. A military guard was
stationed here night and day. At the time of the Revolution, Litchfield
was thought to be so far from the fighting line as to be safe from
attack by the British. The leaden statue of King George the Third which
was pulled down from the pedestal on which it stood on the Bowling Green
of New York City was carried up there in pieces for the same reason.
Some of the young people of the village had a frolic in the orchard back
of Governor Wolcott’s house melting it and running it into bullets to be
fired back again at the supporters of the King. An authentic account of
the affair is given in the following letter of Henry Guy Gould, son of
Judge Gould:
An Equestrian statue of Geo-3 stood in the Bowling Green, N. York—It
stood till 1776 when twas thrown down. No part of the horse or rider
was ever seen after its overthrow. An American gentleman in Russia
speaks of it thus. I saw a flaming engraving of it in a black wooden
frame. The ringleader was a negro, straining with all his might at a
rope, one end of which was fastened to the head of the statue, and the
other end tied around the negro’s waist—how this picture got to Russia
is a mystery—A Mrs. Marvin and the Wolcotts melted this statue into
bullets—running the lead into moulds—besides this the Wolcott ladies
made 42,000 cartridges—the statue was lead gilded.
In Mr. Wolcott’s orchard was a shed, where he chopped up the statue
with an axe—& his sisters & daughters had the fun of moulding the lead
into bullets—& making them into cartridges—This is all the record that
I can find—but it is a most amusing account of the fact—Could king
George have heard the conversation during the melting & moulding of
the lead he might have said—
“Let not the heavens hear these telltale women rail at the Lord’s
anointed.”
The “_lead_” was a true satire on the dull heavy old king
George—Indeed, I wonder that the proud English nation should
condescend to make a statue of their honored king of lead. These
bullets were used by our army to shoot at the English.
I hope you will not criticise the penmanship, as my hand is rather
weak—and I am 71 years old.
HENRY GUY GOULD—
Litchf’d—Conn^t Oct. 20. 1872—
In Kilbourne’s History of Litchfield we also find a detailed account of
this frolic and learn that by actual count 42,088 bullets were made.
That the town was a patriotic centre can be learned from the part it
took in the Revolution, but it was also public-spirited and particularly
advanced in movements for education. Not only did the first law school
in America have its beginnings in this little town, and the first school
for the higher education of women, but in the Monitor for 1798 we read
of a public library as having been in existence for some time. The
bookstores not only advertised themselves in the weekly papers, but also
the new books as they came to their shelves. There was a “Litchfield
Lyceum” with its lectures, debates, and weekly meetings, and still
farther, in 1831, we find a notice which proves that even at that early
date the movement toward manual training was taking shape in the thought
of these broad-minded men. A society was incorporated October 27, 1831,
and a notice was published to the subscribers for stock in the “Manual
Labor High School of Litchfield County. Committee: Frederick Wolcott,
Lot Norton, Orange Merwin, Tertius D. Potter and Solomon Rockwell.”
Preparations were to be made for the choice of location, necessary
buildings, etc. Also about this time we find advertised a select school
for business students, mathematics, and the languages, kept by M. R.
Deming. In 1789, long before the temperance movement in which the Rev.
Lyman Beecher became so prominent, a temperance pledge was drafted and
signed by many people. The original pledge was republished, with other
articles bearing upon the same subject, in the Litchfield Enquirer of
September 26, 1833.
A few of Miss Pierce’s scholars boarded in her own house, built in 1803,
but there was no boarding school in the modern acceptation of the term.
The rest of the pupils boarded with different families throughout the
town, as did also those of the law school. There were some years as many
as one hundred or more belonging to each school.
Imagine these now quiet streets with red coaches rattling through them,
with signs of importer, publisher, goldsmith, hatter, etc., hanging on
the shops, with young men arriving on horseback to attend the law school
and divide their attention between their studies of the law and studies
of the pretty pupils of the “female academy.” Then there were some gay
bloods from the south so much at home in the town that they disported
themselves in pink gingham frock coats! So said an eye witness.[15]
To complete the picture, there was the daily procession of school girls
taking their exercise to the sound of flute and flageolet, and surely it
was a lively scene.
Henry Ward Beecher was born in Litchfield in June, 1813, on the upper
part of this very North Street, and was prepared for college by Miss
Pierce. He gives such a graphic and interesting picture of it in his
“Life” that it is well to let our readers see the locality as he saw it:
[Illustration:
PL. V.—MISS PIERCE’S HOUSE, BUILT IN 1802
]
“Equally marked was Litchfield at that day for its social and moral as
for its natural advantages. Its early settlers, mostly from the
excellent stock from which the colonies of Hartford and Windsor were
formed, were men of broad and liberal mould, and began their work upon
this hilltop in a characteristic fashion. They laid out their streets
and staked off the village common, with such generous breadth that
they remained the delight of residents, and the admiration of
strangers to this day. They made such liberal provision for education
and religion that the settlement soon became noted for the excellency
of its schools and the commanding influence of its pulpit.
“The law school of Judges Reeve and Gould, and the young ladies’
school of the Misses Pierce, made it an educational center scarcely
second in the breadth of its influence to any in the land, and
attracted a class of residents of high social position.
“Its courts gathered from time to time some of the leading members of
the bar from the whole country, not for a few hours, as now with our
railroad facilities, but for days and weeks together. All these things
help to create a very high order of public spirit—that force which
often wholly unregarded, is yet so powerful in moulding the character
and giving direction to the life.”
One other element in this commercial influence must not be omitted—“Its
intense patriotism.”
“Litchfield” revisited, written in 1856 by Henry Ward Beecher:
“The morning after our arrival in Litchfield we sallied forth alone.
The day was high and wide, full of stillness and serenely radiant. As
we carried our present life up the North Street, we met at every step
our boyhood life coming down. There were the old trees, but looking
not so large as to our young eyes. The stately road had, however, been
bereaved of the buttonball trees, which had been crippled by disease.
But the old elms retained a habit peculiar to Litchfield. There seemed
to be a current of wind which at times passes high up in the air over
the town, and which moves the tops of the trees, while on the ground
there is no movement of wind. How vividly did that sound from above
bring back early days, when for hours we lay upon the windless grass
and watched the top leaves flutter, and marked how still were the
under leaves of the same tree!
“One by one came the old houses. On the corner stood and stands the
jail—awful building to young sinners! We never passed its grated
windows without a salutary chill. The old store, and same old name,
Buell; the bank, and its long lean legs spindling up to hold the shelf
up under the roof! The Colonel Tallmadge house, that used to seem so
grand, that it was cold, but whose cherry trees in the front yard
seemed warm enough and attractive to our longing lips and watery
mouths. How well do we remember the stately gait of the venerable
colonel of Revolution memory! We don’t recollect that he ever spoke to
us or greeted us,—not because he was austere or unkind, but from a
kind of military reserve. We thought him good and polite, but should
as soon have thought of climbing the church steeple as of speaking to
one living so high and venerable above all boys!
“Then came Judge Gould’s! Did we not remember that, and the faces that
used to illuminate it? The polished and polite Judge, the sons and
daughters in that little office in the yard, the successive classes of
law students that received that teaching which has so often honored
both bar and bench. Here, too, we stop to retrace the very place
where, being set on by a fiery young Southern blood, without any cause
that we knew of then or can remember now, we undertook to whip one of
Judge Gould’s sons, and did not do it. We were never satisfied with
the result, and think if the thing could be reviewed now it might turn
out differently.
“There, too, stood Dr. Catlin’s house, looking as if the rubs of time
had polished it instead of injuring it. Next there seemed to our
puzzled memory a vacancy. Ought there not to be about there a Holmes’
house to which we used to go and get baskets of Virgaloo pears, and
were inwardly filled, as a satisfying method, of keeping us honest
toward the pears in the basket?
“But Dr. Sheldon’s house is all right. Dear old Dr. Sheldon! We began
to get well as soon as he came into the house; or if the evil spirit
delayed a little, ‘Cream-o’-tartar’ with hot water poured upon it and
sweetened, finished the work. He had learned long before the days of
homeopathy, that a doctor’s chief business is to keep parents from
giving their children medicine, so that nature may have a fair chance
at the disease without having its attention divided or diverted.
“But now we stop before Miss Pierce’s—a name known in thousands of
families, where gray headed mothers remember the soft and quiet days
of Litchfield schooling. The fine residence is well preserved, and
time has been gentle within likewise. But the school house is gone,
and the throng that have crossed its threshold brood the whole globe
with offices of maternal love. The Litchfield Law School in the days
of Judge Tapping Reeve and Judge Gould and Miss Pierce’s Female
School, were in their day two very memorable institutions, and, though
since supplied by others on a larger scale, there are few that will
have performed so much, if we take into account the earliness of the
times and the fact that they were pioneers and parents of those that
have supplanted them. But they are gone, the buildings moved off, and
the grounds smoothed and soft to the foot with green grass. No more
shall the setting sun see Litchfield streets thronged with young
gentlemen and ladies, and filling the golden air with laughter or low
converse which unlaughing then, made life musical forever after!
“But where is the Brace house? An old red house—red once, but picked
by the winds and washed by rains till the color was neutral, thanks to
the elements. The old elm trees guard the spot,—a brotherhood as noble
as these eyes have ever seen, lifted high up, and in the part nearest
heaven locking their arms together and casting back upon their
separate trunks an undivided shade. So are many, separate in root and
trunk, united far up by their heaven touching thoughts and affections.
“Mrs. Lord’s house is the only one now before we reach our own native
spot. This, too, holds its own and is fertile in memories. Across the
way lived Sheriff Landon, famous for dry wit and strong politics.