Monday morning, July 5th, 1779, was oppressively warm and sultry in
the Naugatuck Valley. Great Hill, that rises so grandly to the
northward of Union City, and at whose base the red house still nestles
that was built either by Daniel Porter or his son Thomas before or as
early as 1735, was bathed in the full sunlight, for it was past eight
of the clock. Up the hill had just passed a herd of cows owned by Mr.
Thomas Porter and driven by his son Ethel, a lad of fourteen, and
Ethel's sister Polly, aged twelve years.
"It's awful hot to-day!" said Ethel, as he threw himself on the grass
at the hill-top--the cows having been duly cared for.
[Illustration: The Old Porter House]
"You'd better not lose time lying here," said Polly. "There's
altogether too much going on uptown to-day, and there's lots to do
before we go up to celebrate."
"One thing at a time," replied Ethel, "and this is my time to rest. I
never knew a hill to grow so much in one night before."
"Well! you can rest, but I'm going to find out what that fellow is
riding his poor horse so fast for this hot morning--somebody must be
dying! Just see that line of dust a mile away!" and Polly started down
Great Hill to meet the rider.
The horseman stayed his horse at Fulling Mill Brook to give him a
drink, and Polly reached the brook just at the instant the horse
buried his nose in the cool stream.
"Do you live near here?" questioned the rider.
"My father, Mr. Thomas Porter, keeps the inn yonder," said Polly.
"I can't stop," said the horseman, "though I've ridden from New Haven
without breakfast, and I must get up to the Center; but you tell your
father the _British_ are landing at West Haven. They have more that
forty vessels! The new president was on the tower of the College when
I came by, watching with his spy-glass, and he shouted down that he
could see them, landing."
At that instant, Ethel reached the brook. "What's going on?" he
questioned.
"You're a likely looking boy--you'll do!" said the horseman, with a
glance at Ethel, cutting off at the same instant the draught his horse
was enjoying, by a sudden pull at the bridle lines. "You go tell the
news! Get out the militia! Don't lose a minute."
"What news? What for?" asked Ethel, but the rider was flying onward.
"A pretty time we'll have celebrating to-day," said Polly, to herself,
dipping the corner of her apron into the brook and wiping her heated
face with it, as she hurried to the house. Meanwhile, her brother was
running and shouting after the man who had ridden off in such haste.
As Polly entered the house the big brick oven stood wide open, and it
was filled to the door with a roaring fire. On the long table stood
loaves of bread almost ready for the oven. Her sister Sybil was
putting apple pies on the same table. Sybil was a beautiful girl of
twenty years, much admired and greatly beloved in the region.
"What is Ethel about so long this morning, that I have his work to do,
I wonder!" exclaimed Mr. Thomas Porter, as he lifted himself from the
capacious fire-place in which he had been piling birch-wood under the
crane--from which hung in a row three big iron pots.
"It is a pretty hot morning, and the sun is powerful on the hill,
father," said Mrs. Mehitable Porter in reply--not seeing Polly, who
stood panting and glowing with all the importance of having great news
to tell.
"Father," cried Polly, "where is Truman and the men? Send 'em! send
'em everywhere!"
"What's the matter? what's the matter, child?" exclaimed Mr. Porter,
while his wife and Sybil stood in alarm.
At that instant Ethel sprang in, crying out, "The militia! The
militia! They want the militia."
"What for, and _who_ wants the men?" asked his father.
"I don't know. He didn't stop to tell. He said: 'Get out the militia!
Don't lose a minute!' and then rode on."
"Father, _I know_," said Polly. "He told _me_. The British ships, more
than forty of them, are landing soldiers at New Haven. President
Stiles saw them at daybreak from the college tower with his
spy-glass."
Before Polly had ceased to speak, Ethel was off. Within the next ten
minutes six horses had set forth from the Porter house--each rider for
a special destination.
"I'll give the alarm to the Hopkinses," cried back Polly from her
pony, as she disappeared in the direction of Hopkins Hill.
"And I'll stir up Deacon Gideon and all the Hotchkisses from the
Captain over and down," said ten-year-old Stephen, as he mounted.
"You'd better make sure that Sergeant Calkins and Roswell hear the
news. Tell Captain Terrell to get out his Ring-bone company, and don't
forget Captain John and Abraham Lewis, Lieutenant Beebe, and all the
rest. It isn't much use to go over the river--not much help _we'd_
get, however much the British might, on that side," advised Mr.
Porter, as the fourth messenger departed.
When the last courier had set forth, leaving only Mr. and Mrs. Porter,
Sybil and two servants in the house, Mr. Porter said to his wife: "I
believe, mother, that I'll go up town and see what I can do for
Colonel Baldwin and Phineas." Major Phineas Porter was his brother,
who six months earlier had married Melicent, daughter of Colonel
Baldwin and widow of Isaac Booth Lewis (the lady whose name has been
chosen for the Waterbury, Connecticut, Chapter of Daughters of the
American Revolution).
After Mr. Porter's departure Mrs. Porter said to Sybil, "You remember
how it was two years ago at the Danbury alarm, how we were left
without a crumb in the house and fairly went hungry to bed. I think
I'd better stir up a few extra loaves of rye bread and make some more
cake. You'd better call up Phyllis and Nancy and tell them to let the
washing go and help me."
Phyllis and Nancy were filled with astonishment and awe at the command
to leave the washing and bake, for, during their twenty years' service
in the house, nothing had ever been allowed to stay the progress of
Monday's washing.
Before mid-day another messenger came tearing up the New Haven road
and demanded a fresh horse in order to continue the journey to arouse
help and demand haste. He brought the half-past nine news from New
Haven that fifteen hundred men were marching from West Haven Green to
the bridge, that women and children were escaping to the northward and
westward with all the treasure that they could carry, or bury on the
way, because every horse in the town had been taken for the defence.
He had not finished his story, when from the northward the hastily
equipped militia came hurrying down the road. It was reported that
messengers had been posted from Waterbury Centre to Westbury and to
Northbury; to West Farms and to Farmingbury--all parts of ancient
Waterbury--and soon The City, as it was called in 1779, now Union
City, would be filled with militiamen.
The messenger from New Haven grew impatient for the fresh horse he had
asked for. While he waited on the porch, Cato, son of Phyllis, whose
duty it was to make ready his steed, sought Mrs. Porter in the
kitchen.
"Where that New Haven fellow," he asked, "get Massa's horse. He say he
come from New Haven, and he got the horse Ethel went away on."
"Are you sure, Cato?"
"Sure's I know Cato," said the boy, "and the horse he knew me--be a
fool if he didn't."
Mrs. Porter immediately summoned the rider to her presence and learned
from him that about four miles down the road his pony had given out
under haste and heat; that he had met a boy who, pitying its
condition, had offered an exchange of animals, provided the courier
would promise to leave his pony at the Porter Inn and get a fresh
horse there.
"Just like Ethel!" said Polly. "He'll dally all day now, while that
horse gets rested and fed, or else he'll go on foot. I wonder if I
couldn't catch him!"
"Polly," said Mrs. Porter, "don't you leave this house to-day without
my permission."
Poor Mrs. Porter! Truman, her eldest son, had gone. He was sixteen and
had been a "trained" soldier for more than six months; that, the
mother expected; but Ethel, only fourteen, and full of daring and
boyish zeal! Stephen also, the youngest, and the baby, being but ten
years old--he had not yet returned from "stirring up the Hotchkisses."
Had he followed Captain Gideon?
"Ethel is too far ahead," sighed Polly. "I couldn't catch him now,
even if mother would let me; but here comes Uncle Phineas in his
regimentals, and Aunt Melicent and Polly and little Melicent, and O!
what a crowd! I can't see for the dust! It's better than the
celebration. It's so _real_, so 'strue as you live and breathe and
everything."
Polly ran to the front door. At that day it opened upon a porch that
extended across the house front. This porch was supported by a line of
white pillars, and a rail along its front had rings inserted in it to
which a horseman could, after dismounting beneath its shelter, secure
his steed. Long ago, this porch was removed and the house itself was
taken from the roadside on the plain below, because of a great
freshet, and removed to its present location. The history of that
porch, of the men and women who dismounted beneath its shelter, or
who, footsore and weary, mounted its steps, would be the history of
the country for more than a century, for the men of Waterbury were in
every enterprise in which the colonies were engaged; but this is the
record of a single day in its eventful life, and we must return to the
porch, where Polly is welcoming Mrs. Melicent Porter with the words:
"Mother will be so glad you have come, Aunt Melicent, for Ethel has
gone off to New Haven and he's miles ahead of catching, and Stephen
hasn't got back yet from 'rousing the Alarm company. Mother wouldn't
_say_ a word, but she has got her mouth fixed and I know she's afraid
he's gone, too. I don't know what father will do when he finds it
out."
"You go, now," said Mrs. Porter, "and tell your mother that your
father staid to go to the mill. He will not be here for some time."
While Polly went to the kitchen with the message, Mrs. Melicent
alighted from her horse and, assisting her little daughter Melicent
from the saddle, said: "You are heavier to-day, Milly, than you were
when I threw you to the bank from my horse when it was floating down
the river. I couldn't do it now."
The instant Major Porter had set little Polly Lewis on the porch Mrs.
Porter was beside him, begging that he would look for Ethel and care
for the boy if he found him. The promise was given, and looking well
despite the uncommon heat, the Major, in all the glory of his military
equipment, set forth.
From that moment all was noise and call and confusion without. Men
went by singly, in groups, in squads, in companies, mounted and on
foot. It is a matter of public record that twelve militia companies,
with their respective captains, went from Waterbury alone to assist
New Haven in the day of its peril. It is no marvel that they set off
with speed, for the horrors of the Danbury burning was yet fresh in
memory.
In the long kitchen, as the heated hours went by, the brick oven was
fired again and again until the very stones of the chimney expanded
with glowing heat, and the last swallow forsook its ancient nest in
despair. The sun was in the west when Mr. Porter, with a bag of wheat
on one side of the saddle and a bag of rye on the other, appeared at
the kitchen entrance and summoned help to unload, but his accustomed
helpers were gone. Even Cato, the reliable, was missing. Phyllis and
Nancy received the wheat and the rye.
"Mother," said Mr. Porter, "I had to do the grinding myself--couldn't
find a man to do it, and I knew it couldn't be done here to-day,
water's too low. Where are the boys?" he questioned, as he entered and
looked around. When informed, his sole ejaculation was, "I ought to
have known that boys always have gone and always will go after
soldiers."
"Don't worry, mother," he added to his wife, as she stood looking
wistfully down the road.