'A 
 
 i. 
 
RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 OF A 
 
 New England Town 
 
 BY "FAITH" 
 
 (MRS. FRANCES A. BRECKENRIDGE) 
 
 MERIDEN, CONN. : 
 
 The Journal Publishing Company 
 
 1899 
 
: O 
 
 y^s lys 
 
 7 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 'T^HE interest that attached to the articles on old-time Meriden 
 by "Faith" (Mrs. Frances A. Breckenridge), as printed 
 originally in The Meriden Daily Journal, led to the belief that 
 published in book form they would prove entertaining, not only 
 to present and former Meriden people, but to the readers of 
 New England generally; for Meriden as described in "Faith's" 
 quaint way in the following chapters, is typical of the New 
 England villages of the first and second quarters of the century. 
 
 To the newspaper articles have been added many chapters 
 on subjects that cannot fail to engage the pleasant attention 
 of all who would like to know what rural New England was 
 like half a century and more ago. 
 
 One great value that the work has is the absolutely correct 
 historical information that it contains. What is told here is 
 authenticated by carefully preserved family records, and personal 
 knowledge of the author. 
 
 The character of the men and women who lived here two 
 generations since will surely be better understood and appre- 
 ciated when one has seen them through the eyes of " Faith." 
 
 Thos. L. Reilly. 
 
CHAPTE'R I. 
 
 THE EARLIER TRADITIONS. 
 
 'T^HE southwestern part of Meriden, says Rev. Geo. 
 
 ■*■ W. Perkins, in his "Sketches," and Dr. Chas H. 
 S. Davis in his " History of Meriden," was claimed by a 
 small tribe of Indians, ' ' The Mattabesitts. " Mr. Daniel 
 Parker, who was born and lived all his long life at the 
 homestead and farm, lying on the eastern slope of the 
 hill west of Hanover Village, told the writer that his 
 grandfather, from whom he inherited his property, 
 knew and had told him the names of certain large 
 rocks at the southern bank of the Quinnipiac River. 
 These rocks were prominent features of the river side 
 until the raising of the dam at the cutlery works set 
 back the water and changed the aforetime rapid river 
 into a broad and placid lake, and thus submerged the 
 rocks. These rocks may be even now identified at low 
 water. 
 
 Unfortunately, Mr. Parker could not recall their In- 
 dian names. There is still a flint arrow head in the 
 keeping of an elderly person that was picked up in 1848 
 near the "Copper Mines" at the Walnut Grove Cem- 
 etery. 
 
 It has been pretty definitely conceded that Meriden 
 was named from a parent town in England. The 
 names of Wallingford and Cheshire were thus derived. 
 
 When the very sparse number of settlers and the dan- 
 gers and diiBculties which beset the traveler at that 
 early date are taken into consideration, the idea of 
 ' ' Merry Den " revelries hardly seems consistent. There 
 
4 RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 was no " Public " to speak of, and the few who traversed 
 the country went for business, and were far more likely 
 to be a grave, sedate and watchful people than to be 
 given to wild and noisy merry-making. 
 
 By 1725 the name was identified with all the tract 
 lying between the steep, rocky fells on the east, north 
 and west. 
 
 About that year a meeting house was built near the 
 foot of what is at present known as Buckwheat Hill ; a 
 burying ground was also set off near the summit of the 
 hill. 
 
 Tradition has it that the location was disputed and 
 quarreled over, a method of settling vexed questions 
 not altogether unheard of at this era. 
 
 Those whose farms lay at the west of the Old Colony 
 Road, and those whose farms lay close to the eastern 
 hills, and those at the " Plains," each and all of them 
 miles from each other, severally wanted the new meet- 
 ing house near as possible to themselves. 
 
 The east side people seemed to be the most deter- 
 mined, for they drew the lumber in the night over the 
 hill to some spot selected by them. 
 
 Somehow, those who carried away the materials at 
 night were made to bring them back by day, and there 
 seems after that to have been no more difficulty. 
 
 A cold, bare and comfortless place must that meeting 
 house have been in winter. In summer things would be 
 better. 
 
 Those who attended public worship rode on horses, 
 with saddles and "pillions," carrying double, for there 
 was not then or for years after anything with wheels, 
 except the most primitive ox carts, anywhere within 
 miles. The Sunday nooning by the spring (never 
 known to be dry from that far-off day to the present), 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 5 
 
 must have had something the aspect of a sedate and 
 solemn picnic. 
 
 But, oh, the dreary winter funerals! Nothing of 
 softness or grace or beauty was allowed to mitigate the 
 gloom of the Shadow of Death. 
 
 It would have been thought indecorous to lay a flower 
 upon the coffin made to order by the nearest carpenter, 
 and outlining as nearly as possible the form of the body 
 it enclosed, sometimes clumsily lined, oftener not, some- 
 times stained and varnished, often left the color of the 
 elmwood boards, but sometimes painted acrude blue color. 
 
 In those days the term "bearers " had a meaning of 
 its own, and the coffin with its burden was carried on 
 men's shoulders up the steep slope to the roughly dug 
 grave. 
 
 The words of the prayer and the benediction were 
 fairly blown away by the wind as it swept across the 
 bleak enclosure, bare of either tree or shrub or creeping 
 vine. 
 
 Before the year 1779 the meeting house had vanished, 
 but the foundation stones were there for many years after. 
 
 Many of the old brown headstones were still to be 
 seen in the cemetery until late in the forties. One by 
 one they had been broken down, or had been built 
 into the surrounding wall. 
 
 Some years ago, chiefly through the efforts of the 
 Hon. Dexter R. Wright, then a lawyer in Meriden, a 
 monument was raised on "Burying Ground Hill." 
 This monument records a few names of those buried 
 there. 
 
 The last burial on this hill took place more than a 
 century and a half ago. 
 
 By far the larger number sleep there unknown and 
 unremembered— " Nameless here for evermore." 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 FIRST FACTORIES. 
 
 TN 1833 Meriden was considered to contain between 
 two and three thousand people within the town 
 limits. 
 
 This population, if so many there were, was mostly- 
 distributed in groups. These were known as "the 
 Center and the Corner" in the middle of the town, and 
 Clarksville, Prattsville, Webbsville and Hanover in the 
 outskirts. 
 
 These divisions were at some distance apart — three 
 or four miles in some instances. 
 
 Very prominently to the memory comes the picture 
 of the vividly red building at the head of Prattsville 
 Pond on the east side, with "Clock Factory " painted 
 in brilliant white letters three feet long on the side 
 next the turnpike, and so placed that the attention of 
 the stage passengers might be attracted thereto. 
 
 A very striking piece of color the building made, 
 standing so near the stream that sometimes the shadow 
 beneath the water was nearly as distinct as the sub- 
 stance above it, shaded by the hickory, oak, chestnut, 
 maple and butternut trees of the first growth that grew 
 on the east side of the stream, with an undergrowth of 
 birch, sassafras, sweet osier and dog-wood — for all 
 these grew there, each with its own peculiar tint of 
 green. 
 
 Doubtless the impression was deepened and the retro- 
 spect retained from the fact that one pair of beholding 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 7 
 
 eyes were fresh from the sand-barrens of South Caro- 
 lina, where one could dig an inch or two into the sand 
 and find smooth, yellow clay, and cut into it as one 
 might cut into a n'^w cheese, and fashion from it dolls, 
 marbles and even doll's furniture, which could be hard- 
 ened in the sun. 
 
 True, at the South, the yellow jasmine hung from 
 the trees, and the sweet shrub, which was not a shrub 
 at all, but looked like a little red-leaved weed, perfum- 
 ing the air with its fragrance at the slightest stir, and 
 the trailing arbutus, larger and more fragrant than it 
 grows at the North, could be found in February 
 wherever there was a grove of trees other than 
 pines. 
 
 All these were very well if one had nothing better, 
 but they were as nothing to the lovely green turf of the 
 North and splendid dandelions, the swaying wind- 
 flowers, the liverworts, the white bloodroots, the blue 
 violets, and not least, the lovely but, as one soon found 
 out, despised houstonia. 
 
 All these beautiful and, to the young, unaccustomed 
 eyes, rare blooms were to be found around Prattsville 
 Pond. 
 
 Although even the tradition of a manufactory of 
 clocks in that locality has nearly been lost from the 
 annals of the town, yet it was in its day, and for that 
 period, an extensive business interest, having a branch 
 in Montreal and another in Nashville. 
 
 All the movements of these clocks were made of 
 wood. Some of the cases were elaborately carved, 
 really hand carved, not pressed into different forms. 
 
 The upper part of the clock doors were of plain 
 glass of course, but the lower part would be decorated 
 in oil, with landscapes and brief truisms, such as 
 
8 RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 " Time Flies" or "Time is Money" (the latter not so 
 true after all). 
 
 But more often were depicted the smiling and amiable 
 aspect of a young woman, with her hair dressed to kill, 
 as was the mode of the day. 
 
 Right here one may be permitted to wonder how 
 under the sun those wonderful braids, puffs and im- 
 mense bows of hair were constructed, that were the 
 fashion at that time. 
 
 False hair was only permitted to elderly ladies, who 
 wore "fronts" of aggressive blackness and falseness. 
 The very blackest and falsest being always the Sunday 
 one. 
 
 These clock faces, if they had been preserved, would 
 be far more accurate exponents of the costumes of the 
 period, than any of the fashion plates of that era. 
 
 The brothers Benjamin, Ira and Hiram Twiss were 
 the business firm. 
 
 Ira was the manager at Montreal, Hiram at Nash- 
 ville, Tenn., and Benjamin divided his time between 
 Meriden and Montreal. 
 
 Like most of the enterprises of that day, this one 
 sought the market by sending out "peddlers," who 
 were not in the least disconcerted by the appellation, the 
 term being simply the equivalent of the " salesman " of 
 a later day. 
 
 The factory itself, although one of the most imposing 
 at the time, would now be considered a very small 
 affair indeed. All the decorating was done by two or 
 three young women in a shop no larger than an ordi- 
 nary pantry, located back of the dwelling house at the 
 southwest corner of North Broad and Britannia 
 streets. 
 
 After a good many prosperous years the firm failed, 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 9 
 
 owing, it was said, to the mismanagement of one of the 
 partners. 
 
 The property once owned and occupied by the firm 
 in Montreal is said to be, in the year of 1898, worth 
 more than a million dollars. 
 
 After the failure of the clock business, Ira Couch 
 started in the same building, early in the forties, the 
 weaving of webbing. 
 
 There was nothing significant about that, except that 
 Edwin Curtis invested some money in the concern. 
 
 Those who were familiar with Mr. Curtis and his 
 peculiar traits of character would know this to be very 
 remarkable. 
 
 There was every reason for expecting a profitable 
 result, but Mr. Couch contracted typhoid fever, which 
 terminated fatally. He was the lasit of three brothers, 
 who died in early manhood of the same disease. Mr. 
 Curtis could not be induced to go on with the venture, 
 although urged to do so, therefore the business was at 
 once ended. 
 
 Although it is not, perhaps, exactly germane to the 
 subject, it seems impossible not to pay a tribute to the 
 courage and energy of Mrs. Couch. 
 
 The method of settlement left her with exactly ten 
 dollars. After recovering from the suddenness of the 
 blow, she set herself to the work of providing a home 
 and livelihood for herself and three young children, the 
 youngest a baby boy about two years old. 
 
 Being a woman of superior taste, she settled herself 
 into a fashionable millinery business, brought up her 
 three children excellently, and having long before 
 bought the present site of the Winthrop Hotel for a 
 few hundred dollars, sold it for as many thousands. 
 
 Mrs. Couch died at an advanced age, much beloved 
 
lO RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 and respected by those who had known her as a practi- 
 cal exponent of woman's ability, let the "rights and 
 equality " be where they may. 
 
 The old clock factory was finally burned down, and 
 there is nothing now to indicate that any structure of 
 the kind ever stood on that spot. 
 
 The trees fell long ago, and a railroad track stretches 
 along the bank where their shadows once darkened the 
 stream. 
 
 The wintergreen and arbutus, the yellow and the 
 white violets that were plentiful on the eastern bank of 
 the pond, have been cultivated out of existence for a 
 lifetime. All of it is now " but a picture that hangs on 
 memory's wall." 
 
 A low dam of logs, with luxuriant ferns growing out 
 of the crevices, retained the water which formed the 
 small reservoir of Prattsville Pond. 
 
 This was the water power for the ivory comb works, 
 if the little shop at the south end of the dam could be 
 dignified by the title. 
 
 Sometime in those years the dam above at Baldwin's 
 mills gave way, and the pressure of the escaping water 
 carried the Prattsville dam with it. 
 
 A higher and more substantial dam of stone was 
 built, which, although repaired from time to time, is 
 practically the present one. 
 
 The dam at Baldwin's mills was rebuilt, but was 
 made much more secure at a later period. 
 
 The ivory comb business must have been started in 
 the twenties, for in 1833 it was well established. 
 
 At that time the relations between the employed and 
 the employer were essentially democratic. The former 
 usually found a home in the family of the latter, with 
 a full welcome to all social privileges. 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. II 
 
 If for any reason this was not practicable, the em- 
 ployes were located in some family of known respecta- 
 bility and religious character, and a strict watch was 
 kept upon their morals and manners. 
 
 Ten o'clock was the regulation hour for retiring for 
 the night, and to be absent from the house after that 
 time was a matter for minute investigation. 
 
 Indeed, so exact and strict was this rule, that when 
 Mr. Pratt's oldest son gave what was at that day called 
 "a wedding party," which was held at his father's 
 house, his father insisted that the guests should leave 
 at ten o'clock, and they did. 
 
 The character of an applicant for employment was 
 inquired into and sifted before a favorable answer was 
 given, and a church member had the preference. The 
 result being, as might have been expected, a literal in- 
 dorsement of St. Paul's dictum — that faith without 
 works is dead. 
 
 Although the social methods of dealing with those 
 employed were democratic, the hours of labor were 
 despotic, fourteen and fifteen hours being the general 
 rule. 
 
 In the summer the hours were from sunrise to sun- 
 set, with intervals of three-quarters of an hour for 
 breakfast and half an hour for dinner. 
 
 During the shorter winter days breakfast was at six 
 (or before), and work began at half past six. Four 
 days in the week the working hours were from half 
 past six in the morning until nine at night, with an in- 
 terval of half an hour for dinner and another half hour 
 for supper. 
 
 As Saturday night was religiously kept, the comb 
 factories shut down at a quarter to five. 
 
 Wages averaged from $1.25 to $2.00 per day for men. 
 
12 RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 Women scarcely earned more than fifty cents per day. 
 Board for men averaged perhaps $2.00 per week. 
 Women paid seldom more than $1.25, often not so 
 much. 
 
 It must have been about 1833 that the eleven-hour 
 movement was started in Boston, if one does not mis- 
 take. Strange as it may seem now, it was bitterly op- 
 posed, but finally triumphed by its innate righteous- 
 ness. 
 
 The three ivory comb factories in town in the early 
 thirties were each of them painted light blue, with 
 white trimmings. Why such colors should have been 
 considered the proper insignia of the ivory comb busi- 
 ness is a conundrum without an answer. 
 
 The largest one, in Prattsville, bore on its front the 
 sign, " Howard, Pratt & Co." 
 
 The second in importance was owned and conducted 
 by Walter Webb at Webbsville. This was afterwards 
 partially rebuilt and known as Parker & Whipple, 
 Much enlarged, it is now, in 1898, the Parker Clock 
 Co., with Theodore F. Breese as manager. 
 
 The third, and the smallest of the comb factoriesi 
 was located in the village of Hanover, just below the 
 present dam, which was then only about as high as an 
 ordinary chair. This one was owned and managed by 
 Philo Pratt, and was short-lived. 
 
 The methods of comb making were the same in all 
 three of the factories. 
 
 The factory in Prattsville stood directly at the south 
 end of the dam. The buildings, one supposes, must be 
 spoken of as two stories in front, but the windows in 
 each story were only of half length. At the back it 
 was one story, and the only entrance was on that side. 
 The "office " was a wooden desk fastened to the wall 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. I 3 
 
 opposite the door in the main work room. Here Mr. 
 Julius Pratt sat on a three-legged stool, and here he 
 received visitors, transacted business and arrived at 
 conclusions. 
 
 The machinery used was very primitive. No con- 
 cern, however small or insignificant, would in these 
 later days even look at any appliances as crude as were 
 those, then thought quite progressive. 
 
 Certain young persons used to watch with breathless 
 awe the wonderful man who entered the open shed 
 called the wheel-house, and passing over the narrow 
 plank above the water, with his own marvelous hands 
 threw on or off the leather belt which caused the wheel 
 (about as large in diameter as a small tub) to revolve 
 or become stationary, and thus controlled the rush of a 
 cataract that one did not doubt resembled, if it did not 
 rival, Niagara Falls in splendor. 
 
 The great ivory tusks, too, had been carried over the 
 hot sands of Africa, and had sailed over leagues of 
 ocean before being finally deposited on the floor of a 
 New England factory. 
 
 Often it would happen that the conveying ship would 
 fail of a full cargo of ivory. When this was the case 
 the failure was supplemented by a balance of dates and 
 coffee. Whenever this happened those interested were 
 expected to take each a certain proportion of the latter 
 commodities (and pay for them). 
 
 Thus it came to pass that pure Mocha coffee in bags, 
 sewed together with fibre from the date palm by dusky 
 hands in the far eastern country, and not opened until 
 they reached a New England kitchen, was a common 
 beverage. These coffee berries looked like small dried 
 peas. They were improved by keeping. 
 
 Dates also were used and eaten in such quantities 
 
14 RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN, 
 
 that if there is anything in the food theory they ought 
 to have made chronologists of the whole village. 
 
 One proof of the futility of that theory may be ad- 
 duced from the fact that among the most diligent de- 
 vourers of the sticky fruit, was one individual who 
 could never be perfectly certain in what year Columbus 
 discovered America, or the precise date of the Puritanic 
 debut on Plymouth Rock. 
 
 The ivory tusks, always four or five feet long, some- 
 times six or seven, in rare instances, nine or ten feet, 
 were sawed into blocks or lengths in the lower room 
 facing the road. 
 
 The one upper room was reserved, except the office 
 corner, for the finishing processes. 
 
 The ivory blocks were again sawed into slices or 
 plates, as they were called. The plates were put into 
 a leather-cased wooden block held in the left hand, 
 while the roughness left by the sawing was removed by 
 a sharp knife or "scraper." 
 
 The tooth cutting was done by fastening the ivory 
 plate into a small, vice-like machine, and the cutting 
 accomplished by a movable saw. 
 
 The polishing and cleansing the interstices or brush- 
 ing was done by machinery, but the "setting" or 
 straightening the teeth, which were apt to be crooked 
 after the sawing, v/as done by a small steel tool in the 
 hands of an expert, who thus straightened even the 
 finest teeth one by one. 
 
 The finished combs, of varied degrees of fineness, were 
 of substantial thickness, for at this early period ivory 
 was comparatively cheap, and the life of the material 
 was not then kiln-dried and bleached out of it. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE "SABBA'-DAY" HOUSE. 
 
 COME years before the turnpike road between New 
 York and Boston brought in a new era. A Con. 
 gregational meeting house had been built on the spot 
 where the Center church now stands. Larger than 
 the first one on "Meeting House Hill" (for this was 
 the name of the hill until sometime in the thirties), it 
 was very likely a better built house, but almost equally 
 as bare of interior comfort. 
 
 An ancient lady born in Meriden in 1779, from whose 
 lips most of these reminiscent odds and ends were 
 taken, perfectly well remembered the old " Sabba'-day " 
 house that stood just south of the church. Part of the 
 foundation and cellar wall were there as late as 1838. 
 This " Sabba'-day " house was a sort of joint stock con- 
 cern owned by some of the church members who lived 
 too far from the church to go home and return within 
 the hour-long (or short) noon intermission. 
 
 The one room had a fireplace, and the fuel and a 
 barrel of cider were provided by " joining." 
 
 It must have taken some constancy of purpose to 
 leave the warm fireside for the frigid atmosphere of the 
 meeting house from the present point of view. It 
 seems likely enough that a sense of duty might compel 
 some of the party to stay and see the fire properly taken 
 care of. 
 
 This property (the land) was owned by the Rev. Mr. 
 Hall. It was afterwards bought by John Butler, and 
 
1 6 RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 his son, Lyman Butler, built a house very nearly where 
 the old " Sabba'-day " house stood. 
 
 This house (in 1899) is owned and occupied by Mrs. 
 Lyman Butler and her daughters. Here also was, and 
 is still, a well of delicious water flowing from a spring 
 never known yet to run dry. This spring supplies the 
 house, and also furnishes the adjacent factories of Chas. 
 Parker with drinking water. 
 
 In this second church there were no more means for 
 warmth than there had been in the first one. The 
 seats could not have been much better than mere 
 benches, for it was told of an elderly woman, now liv- 
 ing, that when a restless child she slipped from the seat 
 and made her way under the benches, on all fours, to 
 the door, till finally she was captured by her dismayed 
 pursuers on the last step. 
 
 Something there must have been in the hearts and 
 minds of those bretliren and sisters of that former time 
 differing from ours, this later day, to sit as they did, 
 Sunday after Sunday, in the carpetless, cushionless, 
 fireless, comfortless room, and listen devoutly through 
 the hour of the long prayer which the minister might 
 not curtail, to the singing keyed from the pitch pipe of 
 the two or three tunes which were never changed from 
 one year's end to another. And then to the hour- 
 long sermon, which might not be shortened, although 
 it might be, and often was lengthened. 
 
 There is something pathetic in the thought of those 
 hard-working men and women sitting patiently, hour 
 after hour, on the hard benches, looking intently up to 
 the high pulpit, trying to obtain some spiritual rest 
 and refreshment, while from that altitude the " doc- 
 trines " were expounded. Predestination, foreordina- 
 tion and election were argued over and over to the 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 1 7 
 
 confusion and utter bewilderment of the hearers, and 
 one suspects, maybe, of the preacher also. 
 
 The merciful love, the everlasting patience of the 
 Divine Fatherhood had no place in that austere system 
 of opinions. 
 
■ CHAPTER IV. 
 
 ANECDOTE OF THE REVOLUTION. 
 
 T)Y 1 79 1 the turnpike road from Boston to New York 
 had been projected, disputed, quarreled over and 
 built. 
 
 The completed work was held to be a most wonder- 
 ful achievement, quite as great for that time as its suc- 
 cessful rival, the railroad, fifty years later. 
 
 From Hartford to New Haven the old turnpike runs 
 almost directly north and south. The contractor, one 
 Mr. Peck of New Haven, affirmed his determination to 
 make a straight road between the two cities if (as he 
 profanely declared) it took him through hell. 
 
 Wherever the low, swampy ground required filling 
 in willows were planted thickly by the roadside. Where 
 the grade of the road was raised and the ground dry, 
 Lombardy poplars were planted equally thick. 
 
 The turnpike stock was eagerly taken, and was valu- 
 able for many years. The elder Dr. Hough invested 
 largely in it, and the earnings made a fair income for 
 many years for those of his family who inherited it. 
 After the railroad was built it became valueless. No 
 modern failure of stocks has brought with it more con- 
 sternation than did that turnpike stock failure bring to 
 one family when it was decided that it must be entirely 
 thrown away or sold for a few cents a share. 
 
 But that came to pass later. I am a little premature. 
 Before the growth of the town had begun, while yet all 
 citizens, except the minister, doctor and the store- 
 keeper, were scattered on isolated farms, there was not 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. I9 
 
 wanting what at this distance of time seems like roman- 
 tic incident, but probably most commonplace enough 
 to those most nearly concerned. 
 
 Deacon Ezekiel Rice would often tell, his aged eyes 
 filling with tears, at the recollection of seeing, when 
 peace was declared after the Revolution, the women 
 running from house to house waving their aprons and 
 crying for joy. For life had been hard for them in 
 those years of trying to be a nation and to have a 
 country. 
 
 On the other hand, an ancient maiden lady used to 
 get rampantly indignant while rehearsing to her partly 
 scared, partly amused and partly sympathizing listener 
 the story of how her " honored father " was not allowed 
 to pass the limits of his own farm in the western part of 
 the town, he being a rabid Tory and thus liable to be shot. 
 
 A story told of at least one other town in New Eng- 
 land was certainly told the writer, of a family who lived 
 at the eastern side of Meriden, how the summons for 
 joining the army having come suddenly, suitable cloth- 
 ing had to be provided, and that at once, only having 
 twenty -four hours to do it all. So they sheared a white 
 sheep and a black one, mixed the wool, carded it, spun 
 it and wove it, and then made the mixed black and 
 white into a suit of clothes, which the soldier wore when 
 he left home. The women sat up all night to do it. 
 This story has been told of more than one New Eng- 
 land family, and was doubtless true of more than one, 
 for the daughters of Eve are resourceful. 
 
 Another local story belonging to the days of the Rev- 
 olution could never at least in after years be impartially 
 judged. 
 
 A Meriden man, a Tory, carried his principles so far 
 that he went to Canada and joined the British army. 
 
20 RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 While absent from Meriden he married an English 
 woman of good family, a daughter of an English officer- 
 When the war was over he came home. While on the 
 way two infant daughters were born. His wife the 
 mother of one, the elder, by a few days, a servant girl 
 the mother of the younger ; the man the father of both. 
 The penalty of such a crime, if proved, was then 
 of extreme rigor; even death in extreme cases, and this 
 one, taken up as it was by the thinly scattered but 
 severely moral public, was considered a most heinous 
 affair. 
 
 Arrest and a trial followed. Then the woman and 
 wife arose, and having, as she afterwards said, "taken 
 gunpowder and rum to give her courage," she took oath 
 that both babes were "bone of her bone," and "flesh 
 of her flesh," justifying her act by saying that she and 
 her husband were one. The same woman insisted that 
 all her new-born children should be immediately 
 plunged -into cold water. The wife of Dr. Hough, when 
 
 told of this, observed that " Mrs. ought to be put 
 
 into a tub of cold water herself." This remark was 
 
 never forgiven by Mrs. as long as she lived. She 
 
 used to wither by its repetition an unlucky great-grand- 
 daughter of Mrs. Hough whenever an opportunity was 
 given. 
 
 The two sisters, while young, were called twins, but 
 after the death of the wife and mother this was repu- 
 diated by the elder. The two lived to be very old. 
 The elder died at home, but the younger, who outlived 
 all the family, died at last at a great age at the town 
 farm. The forsaken body rested for one night in St. 
 Andrew's church, and thence was borne to its name- 
 less grave, thus ending a story that began more than 
 a hundred years ago. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 SOME OF THE OLDER FAMILIES. 
 
 T TNTIL about 1785 the real center of the town was 
 ^-^^ the corner of Curtis and Ann streets. On the 
 spot now known as Ann street stood a low, rambling 
 red house. A tragic interest was connected with the 
 place, for in it a little boy had shot and killed his sister. 
 She was buried in the old Broad street cemetery, and it 
 is said this was the first burial there. Nothing more 
 than this is known of the family. 
 
 Dr. Ensign Hough lived in this house for many years, 
 and here all his children were born. His sister, Mind- 
 well, married Daniel Curtis and settled in a dwelling 
 house that stood east of the Edwin Curtis property on 
 Curtis street. She was the great-grandmother of the 
 family of Curtis, so long and honorably identified with 
 the public interests of Meriden. 
 
 The first tavern in Meriden was, of course, the his- 
 torical and somewhat mythical "Belcher Tavern." 
 But the first one in the center of the town was the 
 old house removed, as told before, to make room for 
 the residence of Edward Miller. 
 
 The first store, it will be remembered, was also in an 
 addition to this dwelling house or tavern. This was 
 before the turnpike was laid out. Travelers came into 
 or left town by the old Colony road, or by what is now 
 Curtis street or by Wall street, then known as the 
 Westfield road. When the turnpike was finished, and 
 the stage route between Boston and New York fairly 
 opened up, Meriden began to look up in the world and 
 
22 RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 to see the need of providing for the traveling public. 
 The following scanty chronicles were gathered in the 
 talks with Mrs. Sally Bradley, the daughter of the first 
 Dr. Hough and the sister of the second. 
 
 Mrs. Bradley was born July ii, 1779. She said her 
 father moved into and opened what is now spoken of as 
 the old tavern "just before she was twelve years old." 
 This, of course, fixes the date as 1791. The location 
 once occupied by this old inn is almost exactly half way 
 between the old state buildings in the two capitals, 
 Hartford and New Haven. There used to be a mile 
 stone just about opposite Olive street on the east side 
 of Broad with " XVII. miles to New Haven " upon it. 
 Another one stood just north of the Odd Fellows' build- 
 ing on Broad street with "XVII. miles to Hartford" 
 upon it. It used also to be said that the house stood 
 only twenty miles farther from the state house in Bos- 
 ton than from the city hall in New York. Probably, 
 however, this only meant from the terminus of the 
 stage route in either city. The tavern was famous 
 along the whole line. 
 
 The two Dr. Houghs, father and son, were men of 
 education. A library, and not a small one, was a feat- 
 ure in the house. A good farm belonged to the place. 
 The great barns north of the house were ample in their 
 room for animals, and the yards swarmed with all sorts 
 of poultry. The great garden was laid out in terraces, 
 that descended nearly to Center street. Apples and 
 pears, the earliest to ripen, as well as the latest, were 
 abundant. Great cherry trees grew close to the house, 
 and peach trees, gooseberry and currant bushes edged 
 the terraces. Even in 1835, when the writer's memory 
 of the place begins, this garden and orchard were in the 
 spring a mass that, to the eye, seemed almost dense of 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 23 
 
 glowing color, and on fair, dewy mornings the vicinity- 
 was almost heavy with the fragrance. At the present 
 time (1899) one old pear tree still remains at the north- 
 west corner of the present dwelling house. An ice house 
 was also an adjunct. Most of the large farms could boast 
 of a " spring house," but an ice house then was a rarity 
 anywhere. This one was the only one in town. It 
 was simply an outdoor cellar at the northwest corner 
 of the house, surmounted by a four-sided, pointed roof, 
 with a ball at the apex, as it remained in the memory 
 of the writer. 
 
 A young nephew of the younger Dr. Hough selected 
 this ice house as a hiding-place when it was only par- 
 tially filled. Somehow he slipped and fell. He was 
 found with his back broken, and only lived a few hours. 
 Mrs. Bradley said that the front of the house was a 
 green yard, with a row of Lombardy poplars. These 
 trees were for some unaccountable reason at that period 
 great favorites. A few specimens are still to be seen 
 along the old turnpike road through the country. 
 They are tall, ungainly trees, and in their old age 
 almost destitute of foliage. Mrs. Bradley said these 
 trees were soon removed, being in the way, as their 
 manner of growth is totally unfitted for shade, and, 
 besides, not being in the least ornamental. 
 
 The interior of the house was the common and con- 
 venient one of the period. A wide front door opened 
 into a square hall, from which ascended a narrow, 
 crooked stairway. On either side doors opened into 
 spacious rooms, each with its fireplace. From each 
 room a door gave access to the great kitchen, in which 
 the whole space between these doors was taken up by 
 the vast fireplace and the capacious brick ovens. A 
 bedroom opened off each end of the long kitchen. 
 
24 RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 Each of these bedrooms had also a fireplace and man- 
 tel. An addition contained the pantry and dairy. In 
 the second story a wide hall ran through the house. At 
 one end it opened by a half glass door upon a balcony 
 that ran across the front of the house over the front 
 door. Into this long hall all the chambers opened. 
 Each of these chambers also had its fireplace. In each 
 and all of these rooms, both upstairs and down, fires 
 were kept during the cold months. Wood was plenty, 
 and there seems to have been no lack of help about the 
 place, outside or in. In the kitchen the helpers were 
 the farmers' daughters of the town, who were glad thus 
 to vary the monotony of their home life. 
 
 One of these girls professed herself "ashamed" of 
 Mrs. Hough's flaky pie crust. " It broke to pieces," 
 so she said. "Her mother's," she remarked, "did 
 not break a bit when it was cut." One of the girls 
 became the victim of a strange disease. Her joints 
 enlarged until they almost reversed their normal posi- 
 tion. She lived almost ninety years, and was cared 
 for and supported by members of Dr. Hough's family 
 until her death. 
 
 One of the men employed was an oddity, who never 
 would hurry no matter what happened, but who "ac- 
 complished as much as anybody and more than some." 
 "If he came into the house he brot^ght an armful of 
 wood ; if he went out he took something that ought to 
 be carried out." He was wont to say that "he never 
 hurried but once, and then he did not get anything for 
 it." He ran some distance down the road with a pair 
 of gloves left by a stage passenger, who did not even 
 thank him. 
 
 Another noted character in the family w^as a colored 
 boy named Prince Duplex. He always asserted himself 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 25 
 
 to be a son of an African king. Of his record any man 
 might be proud. It was said of him in the four years 
 of his stay he never told or even acted a falsehood. He 
 was diligent, thoughtful and always respectful. "He 
 was rightly named Prince; his character was noble." 
 He went to New Haven, married, and was for a great 
 many years sexton in one of the churches. He died at 
 an advanced age. If any of his descendants are living 
 they may well be proud of their ancestor. 
 
 A contrast to Prince was a black imp named Fred 
 
 Cable. Fred went into convulsions of snickering when 
 
 Dr. Cogswell of New Haven, who was blind, being 
 
 -helped from the stage by Fred, asked him " if he was 
 
 Dr. Hough's son." Dr. Isaac Hough was a bachelor. 
 
 Another hanger-on was an old colored party who 
 bore the classic name of Priam. He lived " over east," 
 but did odd jobs about the tavern. An enormous porker, 
 when killed and dressed, was found to be what is called 
 "measly," and therefore considered unfit for use. Un- 
 daunted, Priam said he "wasn't afraid of nothin'," 
 begged the carcass, carried it home, and he and his 
 numerous progeny flourished mightily thereon. 
 
 The east front room of the tavern was the bar room, 
 and was also the post office. The mail brought by the 
 stages was spread out for inspection upon a table set 
 apart for the purpose, and afterward placed in a rack 
 affixed to the wall. As in most New England hostel- 
 ries, the bar-room was the village club room, the social 
 center of the men of the town ; the place where politics, 
 local and national, were discussed; where theological 
 points were argued, and where party spirit ran high, in 
 due proportion to the depth of party ignorance. 
 
 The costumes of the two doctors, father and son, 
 were thus described by Mrs. Bradley. They wore knee 
 
26 RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 breeches and long stockings, with buckles at the knee. 
 The elder man wore his hair long, combed back from 
 his forehead and braided in a queue, tied with black 
 ribbon. Both wore frilled shirt bosoms, and at the 
 wrists ruffles of fine lawn made and done up by the 
 daaghters of the house. Clear starching was then con- 
 sidered an art and taught as such. The ruffles, when 
 starched and ironed, were laid in tiny pleats, each care- 
 fully laid down and creased by the thumb nail. The 
 strain on the hands often caused a serious affection of the 
 tendons at the wrist. The younger doctor, Dr. Isaac 
 Ira Hough, wore this costume long after it was discarded 
 by other gentlemen. He used to say he was sorry he 
 ever left it off. He was an enormously large man, but 
 had small, delicate hands and very small feet. He was 
 exceedingly autocratic in his manner and conversation, 
 and considered himself, and was generally conceded to 
 be an authority in most of the world's doings, from na- 
 tional affairs to washing dishes. 
 
 The drinking or tippling habit was universal. The 
 supplies for the bar were kept in the spacious cellars. 
 One great barrel was always kept filled with New Eng- 
 land rum and wild cherries. Once it became necessary 
 to renew the cherries, and the refuse, was thrown into 
 the barn yard. The multifarious live stock partook 
 greedily, and the result was literally too comical for 
 words. All of the barn yard denizens were very drunk. 
 " Most of the fowls lay upon their backs, and the pigs 
 could not walk straight. An old sow lay and squealed. " 
 
 By 1820 travel had greatly increased. Eight stages 
 stopped every twenty-four hours at the tavern. About 
 that year a ball-room was added to the house. This 
 ball-room was a counterpart of most country ball-rooms 
 of the period, the ceiling being somewhat arched, with 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 27 
 
 a low platform at the upper end. A bench ran around 
 the room against the wall. This ball-room was opened 
 by a wedding. Hubbard Merriam and his wife were 
 married in it. The bride at the time was a member of 
 the Hough family. For a good many years it was the 
 scene of the local courts and auctions, now and then a 
 a church fair or a concert took place there. 
 
 To the old tavern came at one time or another nearly 
 all the notable people of the first forty years of the cen- 
 tury. Wadsworth, of Hartford Athenaeum fame, was 
 often there ; also Hillhouse, whose name will live while 
 the New Haven elms flourish. "Squire Hillhouse 
 always called for baked beans," and sensible man 
 that he was, insisted on eating them in the warm 
 kitchen. "Professor Silliman of Yale College was 
 there a great deal." The poet, Percival, also fre- 
 quented the house. " He would order his dinner, then 
 take a book, and forgetting all about his food, would 
 read for two hours, standing all the time." Edmund 
 Kean and Chas. Kemble stopped there when driving 
 from New York to Boston with a private carriage and a 
 pair of horses. 
 
 The writer well remembers standing on the balcony 
 and looking down as President Andrew Jackson stood 
 up in a barouche at the southeast corner of the build- 
 ing. He was bareheaded, and held a soft felt hat in his 
 hand. His hair stood up straight, as it is seen in his 
 pictures. General Walter Booth introduced him as the 
 "Hero of New Orleans," which to a young listener 
 sounded thrillingly fine as the crowd cheered in response. 
 
 It might be noted here that at that time all the citi- 
 zens of Meriden put together would not make much of 
 a crowd. 
 
 General Jackson looked grim and bored. He finally, 
 
28 RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 aftei bowing- low, sat down and the carriag^e bore him 
 away to the northward, President Martin Van Buren 
 was once at the house. Tom Marshall of Kentucky 
 stopped here once. He spoke in Meriden, and was a 
 disappointment in that he had none of his accustomed 
 wit and humor. He was intensely dry and serious. 
 Henry Clay and Commodore Macdonough were also 
 transient guests there. Abraham Lincoln and Horace 
 Greeley have trod its threshold and looked across the 
 valley below over to the unchanged mountains. 
 
 An incident of the early twenties would in these days 
 perhaps be called a " faith cure." Mrs. Bradley was in 
 her brother's time the hostess. When only thirty years 
 of age she was prostrated by paralysis. A traveler, a 
 woman, was told, as an excuse for some omission in the 
 service, that the mistress of the house was ill. She was 
 much interested and very earnest to see the invalid. 
 
 "My case was thought to be hopeless," said Mrs. 
 Bradley, '* and I had lost all courage. The stranger 
 sat down by my bed and told me she had suffered in the 
 same way. She explained to me the method of her re- 
 covery, and then she went on her own way. I never 
 knew her naine, or whence she came, or whither she 
 went, but she gave me hope and inspired me with reso- 
 lution to get well. I have lived a long life since then, 
 and I hope not quite a useless one." 
 
 Mrs. Bradley lived eighty-five years with undimmed 
 faculties. Perhaps in some fair country she has met 
 the stranger whose words " fitly spoken " extended to 
 and influenced another and younger generation. Mrs. 
 Bradley is buried in the Broad Street Cemetery. A 
 brown stone monument near the entrance marks the 
 resting place of the Hough family. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE OLD SCHOOL DAYS. 
 
 CO late as 1850 there stood on the slope between Gale 
 *^ avenue and Holt Hill bridge a little, low red hut 
 with four small windows. So the writer was told by- 
 two old ladies who went to school there in their child- 
 hood. This was the first school-house in Meriden. It 
 stood at first near Ann street, but was moved. The 
 old ladies were certain about it, for they both went to 
 school there in the seventies and eighties. 
 
 " It had a fireplace and the chimney was built out- 
 side." 
 
 Another one just as red and just as small wasbuilt a 
 few years after on the "old road," now Colony street. 
 Mrs. Jeanette Clark, the sister of the late George R. 
 Curtis, went to school there more than eighty years 
 ago. The second one had also a fireplace, for the alter- 
 nate freezing and roasting process which the scholars 
 underwent during the cold weather. 
 
 "We learned our alphabet," said one of the aforesaid 
 old ladies, and when we came Z we were taught to call 
 it izzard." 
 
 "What sense was there in that? " was asked. 
 
 " I am sure I don't know," was the answer; "but so 
 we were taught." 
 
 On Saturdays the Shorter Catechism was studied, 
 and, perhaps, sometime learned. Also, sometimes, 
 the Commandments; but it appears these were con- 
 sidered less important than the Catechism. The 
 " Primer " for the younger children and the New Testa- 
 ment for the elder were the school reading books in the 
 seventies. 
 
30 RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 The first edition of this primer was strictly religious 
 in its axioms. Thus: " In Adam's fall we sinned all." 
 The woodcut was of an apple tree, beneath which were 
 two figures having a remote' likeness to humanity, one 
 of them offering the other a big apple. 
 
 " Young Obadias, 
 David, Josias, 
 All were pious." 
 
 This was illustrated by three bare-legged boys in kilt 
 
 shirts. 
 
 " Zaccheus, he, 
 Did climb a tree. 
 His Lord to see." 
 
 Zaccheus and his tree were not exactly in proportion 
 to each other, but that, no doubt, was owing to limited 
 
 space. 
 
 " Proud Korah's troop 
 Was swallowed up." 
 
 ' ' Time cuts down all. 
 Both great and small." 
 
 His scythe perilously near the heels of two fleeing 
 boys of different sizes. 
 
 ' ' Youth forward slips. 
 Death soonest nips." 
 
 A youth in kilts and a skeleton were apparently hav- 
 ing what in these degenerate and irreverent days could 
 be called a "spirit." After awhile a more secular 
 primer was published. The couplets in this new 
 primer ran thus : 
 
 " The cat doth play 
 And, after, slay." 
 
 " The dog doth bite 
 The thief at night." 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 3 1 
 
 This was intended as a burlesque on the original, but 
 was not nearly as funny, and, needless to say, was not 
 used as a school text book. 
 
 By 1820 several school-houses had been built. A 
 substantial one in the western part of the town was 
 known as the Stone School-house. It is still standing, 
 but for several years has been iised as a dwelling house. 
 At this time (1825) there were well established board- 
 ing schools in Hartford and New New Haven for young 
 ladies. I believe the Lancasterian school for boys in 
 New Haven was also then established. The Cheshire 
 Academy was then of repute, and until in the forties 
 this was a mixed school. Its single two-story brick 
 school building was considered rather an imposing 
 edifice. In many of the small towns in the state there 
 were barn-like structures called academies. The chief 
 distinction between these and the common school- 
 houses was that the former weie two stories in height 
 and the latter only one. Also, in the interior, the dif- 
 ference consisted by having the seats arranged in rows 
 with aisles between, each seat arranged for two scholars. 
 Only the upper story was used by the school. The 
 lower room, always a bare, comfortless place, was 
 rented for itinerant preachings, or often for a winter 
 singing school. 
 
 "Why were the children compelled to go up stairs? " 
 
 " I cannot tell; but so it was." 
 
 As for the studies pursued at these academies, the 
 feeblest of our modern graded schools would compare 
 favorably with the best. It is quite possible that until 
 the end of time each growing up generation will be told 
 by the grown-ups how greatly superior are the advan- 
 tages they have now enjoyed over those of their own 
 unappreciative youth. One is sometimes half inclined 
 
32 RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 to suspect that the advantages of the day and the hour 
 are quite as many as the young students can manage 
 with advantage. 
 
 Long before 1833 the school districts in town had 
 been set off and school-houses provided. These were 
 so exactly alike, both outside and inside, that a sketch 
 of any one of them would answer for any of the otherb. 
 The dimensions were probably twenty by twenty-five 
 feet ; certainly not more, and perhaps not as much as 
 that. 
 
 In 1832 the center of the town had grown so popu- 
 lous that a quarrel ensued as to the location of the 
 Center school. A compromise was made by a division 
 into the north center and south center. The south cen- 
 ter hired, or bought, a small workshop in a lane that is 
 now the part of Charles street, between Broad and 
 High streets; so close to the northwest corner of the 
 Broad street cemetery that the side of the school-house 
 formed part of the boundary. 
 
 It is, however, with the north center school, in the 
 winter of 1834, that the writer had the most intimate 
 acquaintance. This was her first introduction to a dis- 
 trict school, and also within her memory to a northern 
 winter. The school-house stood nearly at the present 
 junction of Wall and North Broad streets. A large 
 butternut tree grew at the northwest corner of the 
 building. Beneath this tree was the wood pile of logs 
 to be cut for fuel as wanted. This was by no means as 
 often as needed for warmth and comfort. Before the 
 two doors, which gave entrance to the house, lay flat 
 stones, which served as door steps. These might have 
 been taken from the nearest stone wall. The open 
 space around the house was bare of turf, and was worn 
 into hollows. The paths which led directly to the doors 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. ^2 
 
 were simply gutters filled with mud or dust, according 
 to the weather. The doors gave access to two lobbies, 
 where four or five children could stand at once if they 
 stood close. The south door was the boys' entrance; 
 the north door the girls. In the lobbies or entries, as 
 we called them, were kept the outer garments, the din- 
 ner pails and other possessions of the scholars. 
 
 There was not a rubber shoe in America, or any- 
 where else for that matter, and wet feet remained so 
 until they had time to dry. In the middle of the room 
 a raised hearth or platform, about three feet square, 
 made of brick and the thickness of a brick in height, 
 supported a box stove. The room had four windows, 
 two on a side. Around the room on three sides was a 
 sloping counter which served as a desk, on which was 
 kept, in more or less orderly fashion, the books and 
 slates of the larger scholars. In front of this counter, 
 on three sides, was a bench made of slabs, the flat 
 side being uppermost. These benches were an elon- 
 gated and exaggerated counterpart of the wash-bench 
 in common use before the era of city water and set 
 tubs. In front of these were low seats, with an apology 
 for a back. On these the younger scholars and the 
 very little ones were seated, and wore out six hours out 
 of every five or six days of their innocent lives. Oftener 
 than not three dollars a week for a man teacher and 
 one dollar and a half for a woman, for six days teaching, 
 was thought " pretty easy." 
 
 That they might give the district the worth of its 
 money, they were required to teach the half of each 
 Saturday, or the whole of each alternate one. The 
 windows were shadeless ; neither blind nor curtain 
 tempered the glare. They were never washed, unless 
 in summer some young woman teacher, unable to stand 
 3 
 
34 RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 their grimness, essayed, with the help of the girls, a 
 little housecleaning on her own account. The room 
 was swept once a week by the girls in turn. The boys 
 would have considered they had lost caste by doing 
 anything so feminine. 
 
 An acceptable candidate for the winter school must 
 be able to teach reading, writing (for this last he must 
 " set copies ") and DaboU's arithmetic, so far as or in- 
 cluding the rule of three; to make a quill pen, and to 
 "govern" the large boys. He would, no doubt, have 
 been expected to make the fire, but as he "boarded 
 round," it would often happen that his temporary resi- 
 dence was a mile or two from the school-house, so the 
 fire was built by some one living in the vicinity. 
 
 At nine in the morning those who loitered outside 
 were called in by a vigorous thumping on the window 
 sash with a ruler or ferule. This instrument was util- 
 ized as a timekeeper, to line copy books and as a means 
 of castigation, whenever energetic disciplinary meas- 
 ures were in order. The pupils rushed in with all the 
 racket and clatter that vigorous youth, shod in heavy, 
 cowhide boots and shoes, are capable of creating. The 
 boys who entered later perpetrated a curious side long 
 jerk of the head, and the girls a quick perpendicular dip 
 of the person, both contortions being supposed to indi- 
 cate " manners." When fairly seated Testaments were 
 produced and school opened by the first and second 
 classes reading two verses as it came the turn of each 
 scholar. 
 
 But, oh, such reading, such mumbling, stammering 
 sounds ! Such nasal, twanging voices ! An ambitious 
 youth would pitch his voice to a high falsetto that could 
 be heard a quarter of a mile. The next one would be 
 inaudible half across the room. It was positively 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 35 
 
 dreadful to hear sacred words rattled off in such an un- 
 meaning and irreverent fashion. 
 
 The reading over, all the large scholars turned their 
 faces to the wall and addressed themselves to Daboll's 
 arithmetic, Woodbridge's geography or their home- 
 made writing books. Of course, the boys could turn 
 on the long benches easily enough, but the girls had to 
 take pains to perform the gymnastic feat properly. It 
 was done by stooping and placing the hands on each 
 side of the skirts, then by a quick, circular movement 
 throwing the feet over the bench. This was usually 
 done simultaneously. When called upon for anything 
 by the teacher the whole class whirled back again. 
 
 At this juncture the teacher was exhilerated by the 
 sight of a three-sided row of uncouth shoulders, rounded 
 backs and swinging feet and ankles, for only the tallest 
 pupils could touch, even while sitting, the floor with 
 their feet. 
 
 Webster's New Speller was the class book for spell- 
 ing in the school. The revised edition of this spelling 
 book, issued in 1880, differs from the edition used in 
 the early thirties, and that differed somewhat from the 
 first one issued. It was a thin volume bound in blue 
 boards, and had a frontispiece depicting a very tall 
 woman, who looked as though she had gotten out of bed 
 on the wrong side and had draped herself with the 
 blankets. She directed the attention of a scantily clad 
 youth to an overgrown parrot cage labeled "Fame" 
 perched on the apex of a boulder. There was no ap- 
 parent reason in particular why she should not take it 
 down and hand it to him. 
 
 The third class having had their spelling lesson in 
 words of two syllables set for them to study, the little 
 ones were called up one by one to be taught their 
 
36 RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 "A, B, C's." The unlucky infants were kept to their 
 duty by raps on the head with the handle of a pen knife 
 used as a pointer, and always kept in readiness for the 
 exigencies of pen mending. The raps were never 
 severe. They only emphasized such remarks as, '* Look 
 on the book, not at me!" " Look sharp at this letter!" 
 etc. A dozen or two of mere babies were thus tagged 
 one another along down the row of twenty-six letters. 
 Such requests as " Please to g' wout to get 'er drink er 
 water! " (as though there were a choice of drinks), and 
 " Please to mend my pen ! " The statement that "they 
 are a crowdin' on me," and an occasional howl from 
 some over-tired little mortal on the little bench in front, 
 gave variety to the exercises. 
 
 It would now be time for the second class to read and 
 spell. A whirl of feet and petticoats landed two rows 
 of boys and girls standing on the floor facing the teacher, 
 who gave the order, "Manners!" and the jerking of 
 necks and bobbing of skirts gave evidence that school 
 etiquette was understood. The spelling came first 
 afterward the reading from the same page. Here are 
 a few specimens : 
 
 ' ' We burn oil in tin and glass lamps, " 
 
 "We can burn fish oil in lamps." 
 
 ' ' Watts was a very good poet. He wrote good 
 songs." 
 
 A geography lesson, if anybody had one, mending 
 pens, attending to "sums," and a "playtime" for the 
 boys and one for the girls brought the morning session 
 to a close. This "recess," as it was called by the older 
 girls, was announced thus: " Boys may go out." This 
 was a signal for a rush. The expiration of their time 
 was notified by the rapping of the ruler on the window 
 sash, accompanied by, " Girls may go out." 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 37 
 
 This particular winter the boys would wait until the 
 girls came out, and then intercept them and in various 
 ways annoy them. The feminine spirit was aroused by 
 this treatment, and the girls refused to stir until the 
 obnoxious boys were safe in the school-house. The 
 afternoon began by reading in the " Columbian Orator. " 
 The "National Preceptor" came into use a few years 
 later. To some of the scholars this was the best part 
 of the day. More Daboll, a geography lesson and more 
 alphabet for the little ones. 
 
 Poor little things ! They sat patiently three hours on 
 the hard benches, with nothing to do and nothing pleas- 
 ant to look at. The one virtue required of them was to 
 keep still. More spelling by the first and second 
 classes, and at one o'clock, the school day's work was 
 done. " Manners " were required from each scholar on 
 leaving the room, and the genuflection was aimed at the 
 wall, the benches, the door or the teacher as it hap- 
 pened. The summer school was always taught by a 
 woman. The routine differed something from that of 
 the winter. Instead of "manners" she gave as the 
 order " obeisance " as a more elegant word. The rule 
 of three was considered too obstruse for the feminine 
 intellect, and was therefore omitted. The summer 
 school was depended on for the A, B, C teaching. Low 
 be it spoken, but somehow the masculine powers did 
 not seem -adequate to this preliminary lifting of the 
 little feet upon the ladder of learning. 
 
 The teacher of the summer school was also expected 
 to teach plain sewing. She had to superintend the 
 stitches put into certain squares of printed calico, which 
 the housemother or a deputy had basted together. 
 These were eventually made into bed quilts to be 
 exhibited as the little maiden's own work, with an 
 
38 RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN 
 
 embroidery of facts not qiiite unheard of in the later 
 days of floss silk and filoselle. The knitting of yarn 
 stockings, also, had to be looked over and kept in order 
 by the teacher. The vexations of lost knitting needles 
 and dropped stitches, tangled yarn, soiled thread, puck- 
 ered seams and long stitches were unremitting. 
 
 In that bleak winter of 1834 two little maids met for 
 the first time. Both were at odds with their surround- 
 ings and each found the other sympathetic. The 
 friendship begun then lasted for half a century unbro- 
 ken by any misunderstanding or by one hasty or unkind 
 word, until, with the once brown locks silvered, but 
 with the smile of her girlhood upon her lips and in her 
 eyes, one went away to abide forever in the country of 
 eternal peace, for which she was so well prepared. 
 
 In those early years the fitness of the teacher of the 
 winter school was guaged by his capacity for what was 
 called " government." This meant his ability to " mas- 
 ter the big boys." There was no real discipline. It 
 seemed to be a matter of brute force or, one should 
 say, muscular efficiency. There were no rewards for 
 good conduct, although punishments were common. I 
 do not think the teacher of this particular school was 
 especially cruel. He used the ferule severely and 
 often. The writer remembers one boy who was made 
 to stand in the center of the room and to touch the toe 
 of his shoe with his forefinger, and to retain that posi- 
 tion so long that he was ill in consequence. 
 
 One little girl, for some misdemeanor, was ordered 
 to go and sit next to a colored boy. As the culprit had 
 just come from South Carolina and had seen more 
 negroes than she had white people, she saw no humilia- 
 tion in the order, and she could not understand why her 
 indifference caused her further punishment. That 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 39 
 
 winter some of the older boys rebelled at the teacher's 
 severity, and by way of retaliation put live coals into 
 the shoes he had left in the room at noon. He was, of 
 course, very angry, but the guilty ones kept their secret 
 well. With his best efforts he never found out who 
 did it. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE FIRST PRIVATE SCHOOL. 
 
 The first private school in town was taught by an 
 Episcopal clergyman, the Rev. Mr. Keeler. The pri- 
 vate school teachers who succeeded him, a Miss Booth, 
 Miss Julianne Eddy and Miss Henrietta Malone, were 
 his scholars. 
 
 In the summer of 1834 Miss Eddy began a private 
 school in the basement of the Center Congregational 
 church. This room, now much enlarged, with lecture 
 room, parlor, kitchen and all other necessary conveni- 
 ences, was then one large, dark gloomy room filled with 
 benches. 
 
 Miss Eddy's scholars had their desks in the southeast 
 corner, but they themselves sat about the room pretty 
 much as they pleased. The windows, six in number, 
 were high from the floor, and had deep seats formed 
 by the thick walls. In these window seats the larger 
 girls were fond of sitting to study their lessons. Their 
 principal text books were "Watts on the Mind " and 
 Comstock's " Dialogues " on Chemistry and Philosophy. 
 The younger scholars were supposed to study Smith's 
 Grammar and Olney's Geography. 
 
 The author of the latter lived in Southington. He 
 was said to be a very unpractical person. Having en- 
 gaged some one to kill a pig, he was told to have every- 
 thing in readiness very early in the morning. To be 
 sure and be in season, he boiled the water for scalding 
 his porkship over night. His geography, though, was 
 an excellent one, and remained in general use for a 
 great many years. 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 41 
 
 The only bit of geographical information that sur- 
 vives is that of the animals of British America : ' ' Moose, 
 Otters, Bears, Beavers, Martens, Foxes, Hares." 
 
 We were not hurt by over study, and we had a good 
 time. A small house now removed stood next west 
 and close to the church. It was known as the Tibbals 
 place. It stood several feet above the level of the 
 road, and was surrounded by great clusters of the cin- 
 namon and old fashioned cabbage roses, and was shaded 
 by pear trees and the always present cherry trees. 
 The front door was protected by an overhanging porch 
 supported by pillars, having seats on each side. Here 
 the daily recesses and the noon hour were always spent 
 in good weather. Comfortably settled on the seats the 
 older girls would send their satelites and generally 
 obedient slaves, the younger girls, into the lane for 
 green apples, following diligently the ripening of the 
 fruit until the last pumpkin-sweet and fall pippin had 
 fallen from the trees. 
 
 This lane was lovely. On the east side of it a bank, 
 surmounted by a board fence, separated it from the 
 tavern garden with its abundant fruit trees. On the 
 west a low stone wall ran close to a row of apple trees, 
 from which we drew our supplies. These trees had 
 been ingeniously grafted so as to be always fruitful. 
 This lane gave access to the bare open fields, bounded 
 on the north by Liberty street. The soil of these fields 
 was considered to be so cold and wet as to be unfit for 
 cultivation, and although almost every kind of wild 
 flower grew there, and huckleberries, raspberries and 
 blackberries were in profusion, we kept out of the 
 fields, for there were traditions of snakes having been 
 met with there, and reptiles of phenomenal size and 
 venom. 
 
42 RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGI AND TOWN. 
 
 The lane could be entered from one side by a set of 
 bars, but as a means of ingress these were ignored. 
 Our usual method was to start from the house on a run 
 and to go over the wall with a bound and a jump, 
 returning with aprons and dress skirts ladened with 
 apples. The dear woman who lived in the house used 
 to lament and wonder and sigh and hope as she three 
 times each day swept the debris from her front door- 
 steps. 
 
 But in spite of green apple eating and unlimited 
 romping and racing, we remained a very health)^ happy 
 set of children, even if our books did not trouble us 
 very much. Once in a while we were all in earnest. 
 ' ' Comstock " mentioned the Camera Obscura. Straight- 
 way experiments were in order. Shawls, capes, aprons 
 and sun bonnets were pressed into service for darken- 
 ing the windows. These were arranged to leave an 
 aperture for the admission of tiny ray of light. Every- 
 thing adjusted, the obsequious younger girls were sent 
 out to promenade back and forth before the window. 
 If the ray fell properly the moving figures would be 
 seen upon the wall much diminished and in an inverted 
 position. This experiment nearly outrivaled green 
 apple devouring. 
 
 One day Frances Holt, who was usually the instigator 
 of our escapades, one or two others following a very 
 close second, told us if we looked into the well "we 
 could see stars in the daytime." This was sufficient. 
 We at once hung ourselves over the well curb. Of 
 course we saw no stars, but Mary Foster dropped her 
 new fashioned, much beruffled, pink gingham sun- 
 bonnet into the well and was only kept from going after 
 it by the united strength of the company tugging at her 
 skirts. The hubbub and screaming nearly threw the 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 43 
 
 long-suffering inmate of the dwelling into a fit of nerv- 
 ous prostration, though that was not the name for it then. 
 
 The next winter the school was moved into a room 
 more easily warmed in the basement of the old Baptist 
 church on the northeast corner of the Broad street 
 cemetery. Owing to the rise of the ground the most 
 westerly of the two rooms was the higher. This was 
 much smaller than the one used for conference and 
 prayer meetings. The smaller of these rooms was the 
 school-room. 
 
 In course of the winter the older girls took a new 
 departure and gave an entertainment with recitations 
 and dialogues. There was no music of any kind. 
 There was then only one piano in town, and although 
 some of the girls had fine voices, not one of them could 
 have been persuaded to sing in public out of a choir. 
 The school-room was utilized as the dressing-room, and 
 the stage was made by laying boards across some 
 benches before the door, connecting it with the confer- 
 ence room, that in this instance was the auditorium. 
 The curtains were sheets with strings run in the hems. 
 
 Miss Eddy managed the scene-shifting herself, step- 
 ping daintily in her slippers, tied with cross ribbons, to 
 the edge of the stage, drawing the curtain first from 
 one side and then from tne other. The scene between 
 Sir Peter and Lady Teazle was given with great eclat. 
 The young lady who took the part of Sir Peter wore a 
 coat and collar and stock borrowed from a young gentle- 
 man. Such donning of manish garmenrs was thought 
 to verge on impropriety, but on the whole it was much 
 enjoyed. So very well was the affair received that the 
 young men in the town at once started an ' ' Elocution 
 Society, " in which all the prominent young men took 
 an interest. 
 
44 RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 After a year or two the elderly men became inter- 
 ested and took part actively in the speaking and de- 
 bating. The name was changed to the ' ' Debating 
 Society," and soon after to the " Lyceum." The school 
 remained in the basement of the church, as the location 
 was a convenient one. The next summer it was further 
 distinguished by lesson in theorem flower painting and 
 also beadwork. Some specimens of both are still in 
 existence. Calisthenics were also taught and practiced. 
 This exercise Frances Holt confided to her especial 
 affinities as " pious dancing." 
 
 It was in this summer that half a dozen of the little 
 girls had a play-place under a large and very beautiful 
 tree that grew at just the present junction of Olive and 
 High streets. Here they spent most of their noon 
 hours in good weather. One day they found to their 
 dismay they were "awful late." Passing in full view 
 of those within the school-room, they alighted like a 
 row of disconsolate pigeons on the lowest of the high 
 flight of steps that led to the church door. Here they 
 held a consultation. It would never do to go home at 
 that hour that was certain, and they did not feel like 
 playing any more just then. The position was very 
 serious. 
 
 Finally one of them, whose meaning was often better 
 than her method of expressing it, said "she did not 
 care for Miss Eddy; she was going in." As all the 
 young sinners needed was a leader, the little troop filed 
 into the schoolroom. 
 
 No sooner were they fairly seated and Miss Eddy 
 sternly regarding them, than one daughter of Adam, 
 who, whether he was the first man or not, is the first 
 tell-tale on record, took it upon herself to say that 
 Frances B said "she did not care for Miss Eddy." 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 45 
 
 " Did you say that? " demanded the lady. 
 
 " Yes, ma'am; but I did not mean I did not care for 
 you." 
 
 "Take your place in that little chair in the center of 
 the room. " 
 
 Then Miss Esther Gray spoke and gave her opinion 
 
 that Frances H deserved punishment quite as 
 
 much as Frances B did, for had it not been for 
 
 the latter not one of them would have been in school 
 that afternoon. 
 
 Miss Eddy considered for a moment and then sent 
 
 Frances B to her seat. The two F s were 
 
 " mad as fire " at each other for half an hour or so, and 
 then "made up." Not long after this summer Miss 
 Eddy married and went to live in one of the southern 
 states. Except for a visit she never returned north. 
 
 After Miss Eddy's marriage Miss Henrietta Malone 
 opened a private school in what was known as Capt. 
 Collins' "old house," in contradistinction to Capt. 
 Collins' "new house." 
 
 From first to last this was an ideal school. Most of 
 the children sat in their own little chairs brought from 
 home. A table held our extra book Upon rainy 
 days it was drawn into the middle of the room and 
 we sat around it while we ate our noon lunch. In 
 one corner of the room was a " beaufet " cupboard, with 
 curiously shaped shelves and paneled doors. 
 
 In the other corner was a closet which held our out- 
 door things. The fireplace and mantel were between 
 the two. Two south windows and a north window 
 gave the room plenty of light and sunshine. Lilacs 
 and rose bushes clustered close to the door and windows, 
 and apple, pear, plum and cherry trees grew all about 
 the great old-fashioned house. The house itself has 
 
46 RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 b^en gone for many a year, but Mr. Aaron L. Collins 
 has an excellent sketch of it. Miss Malone was ex- 
 tremely particular in her methods. 
 
 When the grass was high on the wide lawn that 
 fronted the house we were at our recess made to walk 
 two by two down the path and to a certain distance 
 outside the gate, and we came back in the same order. 
 When the daily session was over we left the premises 
 in the same way. When the mowing had been done 
 and the grass we marched around the lawn, and our 
 diversions were more varied, but were still sedate. 
 
 Under Miss Malone's tutelage we were not injured by 
 study. Indeed, one cannot remember we learned any- 
 thing except to behave well and express ourselves 
 properly. 
 
 A small scholar, who is a grandfather now, an- 
 nounced that " the sun has come out." 
 
 " My dear," said Miss Malone, " the sun shines." 
 
 The lad corrected himself a little. 
 
 "Ah, that is better." 
 
 A young gentleman, whose home was contiguous and 
 found the daily parade very entertaining, one day var- 
 ied the performance by saying, "How do you do?" 
 every time the phalanx came aronnd. Finally one of 
 the children replied : 
 
 " None the better for seeing you." 
 
 This being duly reported Miss Malone set before us 
 all the extreme rudeness and incivility of such a reply, 
 finishing the lecture by saying the answer should have 
 been: 
 
 "Very well, I thank you." 
 
 At this Frances Holt, who always improved her op- 
 portunities, put on an air of injured virtue and re- 
 marked : 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 47 
 
 '•Why, Miss Malone, suppose we wasn't well ; it would 
 be telling a lie." 
 
 Miss Malone's reproving "My dear" closed the 
 subject. 
 
 The marriage of Miss Malone to Henry Curtis closed 
 this school. She became blind and bedridden before 
 her death. One of her most tiresome old pupils, who 
 had herself seen many vicissitudes, was glad to help a 
 little to relieve the monotony of that darkened life. It 
 gave one a curious sensation to hear again, after the 
 
 long years, the once familiar, " F , you are reading 
 
 too fast." The blind woman could not realize that her 
 whilom provoking pupil was a gray haired grand- 
 mother. 
 
 Previous to 1835 all the children who did not belong 
 to the " Old Road " district went to the stone school- 
 house over west. There was no school-house between. 
 In that year a district was set off at the Corner and a 
 school was opened in a tiny building that had been used 
 for some mechanical purposes, and stood just where the 
 Main street railroad crossing now is. 
 
 A part of the room, which could not have been more 
 than twelve feet square, was taken up by a sort of oven 
 or furnace of brick, which had been made for some 
 experimental project. This room was used for two or 
 three years. 
 
 Meanwhile the Meriden Lyceum had grown, aided by 
 such men as Judge James Brooks, Major E. A. Cowles, 
 and Gen. Walter Booth, into an institution very credit- 
 able to the town. In the year 1838 it was found that a 
 suitable building was needed for its accommodation. A 
 piece of ground was bought and a two-story structure 
 was put up of only two rooms — one above and one 
 below. The upper one was reached by outside stairs. 
 
48 RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 and was for the exclusive use of the Lyceum. The 
 Corner school was moved into the lower room. 
 
 This was the beginning of the present Corner school 
 with its several annexes. The school building on 
 Church street stands on the site of the old " Lyceum." 
 
I 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 GEN. BENHAM's career. 
 
 T has been said before that the eminence now called 
 Buckwheat hill was for a great many years known 
 as Burying- Ground hill ; but the first settlers called it 
 Meeting House hill. So gradual is the slope that the 
 altitude is not felt until the summit is reached. There 
 is no higher land between it and Long Island sound. 
 
 Young men and maidens, who are older now, have 
 in a spirit of sentimental patriotism, climbed it at break 
 of day upon the Fourth of July to plant a flag there at 
 sunrise and sing "The Star Spangled Banner " as the 
 folds floated out. Young men have " stood on the hill 
 at midnight " and watched the moon rise against the 
 shoulder of Mount Lamentation. 
 
 At the foot of the hill, at the junction of Parker ave- 
 nue and Ann street, there stands a large two-storied 
 farm-house, built in the Meeting House hill era. Of 
 the better class of New England farm-houses of those 
 early days, it is one of the best specimens now to be 
 seen. Any lover of old houses will be charmed with its 
 paneled wainscoting and its unique cupboards, with 
 arched paneling in the doors. 
 
 A correspondence with a lady, whose forefathers 
 were among the pioneer families and whose home was 
 in Meriden until her marriage, has recalled a story 
 which has to do with this dwelling. 
 
 During the war of 1812 there came to Canada an 
 Englishman with two daughters. After the war he 
 returned to England leaving behind one of the girls, 
 
 4 
 
5© RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 then about sixteen, to be educated. There alway 
 seemed something strange about this. Soon after she 
 married and was early left a widow with one son, who 
 found a home with English or Scotch relatives, and 
 never seems to have entered his mother's life or inter- 
 ests afterwards. His name was never known here. To 
 the New England young man of that period Canada 
 seems to have been a brilliant land of promise, or a 
 land of brilliant promise, which is not quite the same 
 thing. 
 
 Among others, a son of ' ' old Squire " Benham wended 
 his way there, found the young widow and married 
 her. He did not live long, and again she was left a 
 widow with a little son. Her husband had left her 
 with an impression that his relatives would care for her, 
 and with her boy she started for the " States." 
 
 After she had spent her small hoard she almost 
 begged her way, but was helped by clergymen of her 
 church as often as an opportunity presented. Living 
 on crackers and tea principally, she finally reached 
 Meriden, to find disappointment. She always said she 
 was treated very badly, but she probably expected too 
 much. She knew her hiisband's father bore the title of 
 squire, and very likely had visions of an English esquire 
 and his belongings. She found a New England farmer 
 esquire of a very different type. 
 
 Esquire Benham was known in the community as a 
 man of affairs, and his counsel had weight in town 
 meetings; but he kept his boots and stockings for Sun- 
 days and public days, and in summer traversed his 
 domain like an Arab Sheik minus the sandals. 
 
 After a season of discomfort all round, when, as is 
 usual, everybody and nobody was in fault, the young 
 widow was packed off with her child to her relations in 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 5 1 
 
 England. There she was coldly received. She was at 
 best very plain in feature, and now, reddened by expo- 
 sure and made more unlovely by her hard life, her 
 English relatives declared themselves "disgusted by 
 her coarseness," and she was sent off into the country 
 " out of sight." 
 
 Finally, they set her afloat again for America, and 
 once more she came to Meriden and sought a home 
 with her son's grandfather. Esquire Benham, This 
 was early in the twenties. 
 
 The house to which reference has been made was 
 owned by a miserly widower named Liberty Perkins, 
 who built the house and lived in it. 
 
 A plan of getting rid of Mrs. Benham was suggested, 
 and measures were taken to bring about its consumma- 
 tion. He was represented to her as a man of property, 
 as he was, for he owned large tracts of land in the 
 southern part of the town. An unfenced lot, traversed 
 now by the city line at South Broad street, was known 
 for years as the Perkins lot, and nobody seemed to 
 know exactly to whom it really belonged until the city 
 lines were fixed, and the property was likely to be 
 worth something, then the heirs were easily found. 
 
 The marriage sped to a conclusion. Elderly people 
 used to relate with glee how Liberty, during his brief 
 wooing, resurrected an antediluvian old "gig" and, 
 with his half starved steed, used to drive to Squire 
 Benham 's on the old road (Colony street). 
 
 Perkins wanted a housekeeper, and he thought he had 
 managed to get a healthy woman with " faculty " and a 
 servant for nothing. Mrs. Benham knew nothing of 
 work of any kind, never having done any, and she 
 thought it beneath her to even try to learn. She had 
 but one thought in all the wortd, and that was her 
 
52 RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN, 
 
 darling son. He had been her companion in all her 
 wanderings, which had been all for his sake. Her am- 
 bition for him and her belief in his future never failed 
 her. And now had begun for her a new series of 
 troubles. She had married the dreadful old miser to 
 give her boy a home and some advantages for an edu- 
 cation, and Perkins would have none of him. He called 
 the boy's studious habits laziness and his books nonsense. 
 
 How the boy managed to get books to study was a 
 marvel ; but he did get them, and hidden in his mother's 
 garret, for she was a great deal of the time obliged to 
 keep him concealed there, he actually prepared himself 
 for Yale College and entered there. But hfs pride re- 
 belled against the menial duties (he had undertaken to 
 defray his expenses), and by push and generalship he 
 somehow got from the Hon. Ralph I. Ingersoll an ap- 
 pointment to West Point. 
 
 This was the more remarkable, for at that time none 
 but the sons of officers stood any chance at all, and 
 Henry Benham had nothing but himself. From that 
 time all things went on well with him. He graduated 
 with honor and afterward held for some years a lucra- 
 tive and honorable position at West Point. 
 
 As soon as he was able he rescued his mother from 
 her bondage and made her comfortable and happy 
 thenceforward until the end of her life. Only two or 
 three people now recall her as she chanted in season 
 and out of season the praises of that worshiped son. 
 Clad in a stiff, black silk and decked with a gold watch 
 and chain, all of them his gifts, she would tell over and 
 over again the story of her long and weary voyages and 
 disappointments. She used to tell how from certain 
 circumstances of his birth she "always knew he would 
 be a holy child." 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 53 
 
 Somehow her odd speeches that sounded so funny 
 then have a pathetic echo now. Nothing could destroy 
 her faith in her boy's future. She believed in his suc- 
 cess with the prescience of second sight. This son, 
 known as Gen. Henry Benham, was for many years 
 commandant at the Charleston navy yard. He died at 
 his country seat in a beautiful Vermont town. 
 
 In front of, or rather on the south side of the old 
 Benham house, known now as Higby place, at the foot 
 of Ann street, there used to stand a large black walnut 
 tree then, as now, rare in this region To guard the 
 fruit of this tree from pillage by children and squirrels 
 was the chief concern and occupation of the last years 
 of Liberty Perkins' life. His grave is in the Broad 
 street cemetery. 
 
 The old house is rented to tenants who occupy it for 
 awhile and depart, not knowing that the bleak attic 
 once sheltered a brave, ambitious youth who fought his 
 battle of life single-handed and won it. His mother 
 could only give him shelter, and that secretly. Kind 
 neighbors supplied him with the barest necessaries. 
 
 There, in the cold and darkness, he prepared himself 
 for and he ultimately gained one of the highest positions 
 in the gift of his country. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 FACTS ABOUT THE BROWN FAMILY. 
 
 A BOUT the year 1800 a farmer named Amasa 
 "^^ Brown removed from a town on the other side of 
 the Connecticut river into Meriden. He had been rich 
 enough to make comfortable a family of thirteen chil- 
 dren, among them two pairs of twin daughters, and to 
 give them all the advantages of education that were to 
 be had at that time. 
 
 Just when this chronicle takes them up six of the 
 children had died, among them the eldest twins, thir- 
 teen years old. 
 
 Just at this time, also, Mr. Brown had lost a great 
 deal of his property through over-trustfulness in other 
 people, and he found himself growing an old man and 
 a poor one. An attachment between Jerusha Brown, 
 the eldest daughter, an accomplished young woman, 
 and a young man who belonged to a family prominent 
 in the early annals of the state had been openly 
 acknowledged He was well educated and moved in 
 the best society, and the best society of that day was 
 very good indeed. But he was idle, self-indulgent and 
 purposeless. 
 
 At that period, and for many years thereafter, through- 
 out the central counties of the state the manufacture of 
 tinware was an important business. A market for the 
 finished articles was found by sending out " peddlers," 
 who, with their well-stocked wagons, went all over New 
 England and into the middle and southern states. 
 
 The business was very profitable, and both the 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 55 
 
 manufacturers and the peddlers accumulated what at 
 that time was considered very handsome fortunes. 
 
 The affairs of the Brown family were nearing a 
 crisis, when Archibald Plumb, whose business as a ped- 
 dler of tinware had taken him to the home of the 
 family, proposed marriage to the eldest daughter. He 
 promised if she would accept him to provide for her fa- 
 ther and mother, and that he would also help her 
 brothers find employment, which they had not hitherto 
 done. 
 
 Naturally the young woman hesitated, but she knew 
 that young C , her first lover, had never even sup- 
 ported himself, and very likely never would, and so for 
 the sake of her old parents she married Mr, Plumb. 
 
 He was as good as his word. He owned a house in 
 Meriden, and to this he brought the family. As soon 
 as possible he built another house, and in this he placed 
 Mr. and Mrs. Brown and their children, and so began 
 the family history of the Browns in Meriden. 
 
 In this year of 1899 one house is still standing on 
 Broad street in excellent repair. The older of the two 
 has recently been torn down and a handsome dwelling 
 house erected on the spot 
 
 Mr. Plumb found business for the eldest son that took 
 him to the Southern states, where for a time he seemed 
 going on well, but he went wrong somehow and was 
 executed as a criminal in New Orleans with a severity 
 peculiar to the time and the locality. 
 
 His fate was carefully concealed from his mother. A 
 good many years after an inquisitive child began asking 
 questions about him. Mrs. Plumb rose hastily and left 
 the room. The unlucky little girl was impressively 
 told never to mention his name again. 
 
 The second son stayed at home and took care of his 
 
56 RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 aged parents. He became engaged to a young woman 
 belonging to a very respectable and very strict family. 
 Nobody seems to have made any objection to the match 
 until the time of the marriage was discussed, but then 
 the parents of the young woman took the stand that 
 before marrying their daughter he must join the church, 
 the present Center church. 
 
 This the young man refused to do, and the end of it 
 was that he left town, and from the day of his depar- 
 ture was never again heard from. The young woman 
 married after some years had passed, and called her 
 only son by the name of the man to whom she had been 
 engaged so long before. 
 
 Perhaps it may be well to give here the curious fact 
 that her husband went away suddenly leaving her with 
 a family of seven children, the youngest an infant, and 
 was never again seen in Meriden, and his fate was never 
 known. 
 
 The younger twins had grown into a very lovely girl- 
 hood, but they were delicate and drooped and died 
 within a little while of each other as twins so often do. 
 Of thirteen children only three were now left. 
 
 Meanwhile Mrs. Plumb had become the mother of an 
 only son. It was said from his infancy he showed a 
 singular want of love for his parents or for people in 
 general, his affection being given to horses to the exclu- 
 sion of all other animals. 
 
 At that time and for many years thereafter, usually 
 in the spring of the year, long strings or packs of horses 
 used to be driven from the north, following the turn- 
 pike southward. These always halted at the tavern. 
 If the droves were large, they were cared for by 
 four or five men, two of whom followed in a team 
 while the others walked. If they came into town 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 57 
 
 at the close of the day they stayed at the tavern all 
 night. 
 
 William Plumb was always interested and excited by 
 the arrival of these bands of horse traders, and had 
 only just passed his twelfth birthday when he followed 
 one of them out of town. 
 
 When next his mother looked on his face he was 
 fifty-two years old, gray, bald and seeming every bit as 
 aged as herself. He had been gone thirty years when he 
 first wrote to her. He said he had been all his life a 
 stage driver in the West. He had been married three 
 times to "good women," and had three daughters. 
 One he had named after his mother. 
 
 Some years after writing he came to Meriden, and 
 the mother and son met for the first time in forty years. 
 He stayed a day or two, and then they parted, and 
 never saw each other again. 
 
 Mr. Plumb, the man's father, had become a confirmed 
 drunkard, had lost all his property but one house, then 
 reformed and became a sincere and devout member of 
 the Baptist church. He died long before his son had 
 written home. 
 
 There remains now nothing but the record of the 
 lives of the two youngest children, Roderick and Ann 
 Brown, and we must go back some years. 
 
 From his first coming to Meriden, Mr. Brown, the 
 father, had suffered from a painful, chronic disease, and 
 soon after the disappearance of his grandson, William 
 Plumb, it became evident that a crisis was imminent. 
 
 He had always been fond of his family and ambitious 
 for them. The failure of his hopes for them had near- 
 ly broken his heart, but all was not done yet. One day 
 the stage brought into town a well-dressed man of good 
 manner and address. He brought with him, besides 
 
58 RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 Other luggage, two large trunks, to which he seemed to 
 attach an especial value. He took lodgings with the 
 Browns, with whom he soon became intimate. 
 
 He called himself Sherman, and said he was the 
 owner of a large and valuable farm in the state of New 
 York, and gave the name of a town where he said the 
 farm was located. He also showed a plan of a house 
 which he said he owned. This plan showed a library 
 among other desirable features. 
 
 He made furious love to Ann Brown, and so ingra- 
 tiated himself with her father, that at last the latter de- 
 clared that he could die happy if he could only see his 
 daughter the wife of Sherman, and they were married 
 at his bedside. 
 
 Six weeks after the marriage Sherman left the house 
 just as usual, and from that hour was never seen or 
 heard of in this part of the country. The trunks so 
 carefully guarded by him were opened, and contained a 
 quantity of stones and nothing else. The place he pre- 
 tended was his home was finally heard from. At that 
 date men had not yet " put a girdle round the earth in 
 forty minutes." No such person had ever been known 
 there, neither was there in that vicinity any such house 
 as he had described. 
 
 Poor old Mr. Brown's heart was broken, and he 
 gladly closed his tired eyes on a world where he had 
 suffered so much. 
 
 Ann did not take her husband's desertion very much 
 to heart. A babe was born and died. She obtained a 
 divorce from her pseudonymous spouse, and then she 
 set up a home, with her mother as her housekeeper, and 
 started the first and, for many years, the only millinery 
 enterprise in the town. 
 
 Roderick Brown, her brother, was an easy-going. 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 59 
 
 happy-go-lucky young fellow, with no vices, even if 
 with no very pronounced virtues, and he had found 
 something to do by which he was making an honest 
 living. 
 
 Of a sudden his friends were shocked to hear that he 
 had been convicted, it was said, of horse stealing, and 
 sentenced to state's prison, whither he went and served 
 out his sentence. He finally returned home. Looking 
 back one is inclined to think that Dr. Hough suspected 
 the truth, for he stood by the young man and helped 
 him in every possible way. 
 
 After a while Roderick married into a most respect- 
 able family in Litchfield county, and it really seemed 
 as though he would be able to make his way. Every- 
 thing bid fair for a successful future, when for no reason 
 that then appeared he ran away. 
 
 It was years and years ago ; but one person is living 
 who was a child at the time, and has never forgotten 
 the look of awful, hopeless despair on that young wife's 
 face as she came suddenly into her presence two or 
 three days after his disappearance. 
 
 One week afterward she gave birth to a dead infant. 
 For a long time she refused to see or be seen by any- 
 body. All this time Ann, his sister, had led apparently 
 a very jolly life. She had so many admirers, both 
 married and single, that many people looked rather 
 askance at her while she was so signally affable and 
 good-natured, or, perhaps, one ought to say, good-tem- 
 pered (not quite the same thing), that people could not 
 help liking her in spite of their prejudices. 
 
 Among those Ann Brown, one time Sherman, capti- 
 vated was a cool-headed, thorough-going business man. 
 When in town he was never long out of her presence. 
 However, his absences from town would often extend 
 
6o RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 over a year or two, and then his natural caution seemed 
 to help him to realize the risk he would run if he mar- 
 ried her. Finally, after fifteen years of dallying, they 
 were, it was said, married in New York. They took 
 up their residence in a distant part of the country, and 
 for some years Ann Brown and her works were nearly 
 forgotten. 
 
 Mrs. Plumb (her eldest sister Jerusha) had taken 
 her mother back to live with her. Poor old Mrs. 
 Brown had grown very crabbed and perverse, and 
 seemed to take especial pains to talk of Ann's affection 
 and kindness when with her. "Ann had left her 
 mother wholly unprovided for," and Mrs. Brown more 
 than insinuated that matters at the present were sadly 
 different. 
 
 Mrs. Plumb bore it all pleasantly, and only seemed to 
 wish to make her mother's life as easy and comfortable 
 as possible. 
 
 One morning she went to her mother's room to assist 
 her in rising as usual, and found her dying. There 
 was only time for a hand clasp, a word of blessing, and 
 then another long and weary life's journey ended in an 
 unbroken rest. 
 
 Twenty years passed by. Ann was dead. Rod- 
 erick's wife had secured a divorce, had made a success 
 of her own life, had a nice home, won by her own exer- 
 tion. She refused to marry again. 
 
 It naturally seemed now as though the troubles of the 
 Browns were over and done with. One day she (Rod- 
 erick's wife) was summoned to a neighbor's. Quickly 
 entering the house she opened the door, and there stood 
 the man who had left her so mysteriously almost a life- 
 time before. A broken-down man, but she married 
 him over again, took him to her own home, and 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 6l 
 
 faithftilly cared for him until his death, two years later. 
 After that she married again and went to another city, 
 where she died. 
 
 After the death of Mrs. Plumb, the truth came out 
 about Roderick Brown. The sister, Ann Brown, was a 
 forger. She had contrived that her brother should ap- 
 pear the guilty party, and for her sake he bore the 
 penalty and made no sign. But when he found that 
 she had done the same thing the second time, flight 
 seemed to him the lesser evil. 
 
 If the real culprit felt any remorse for her crime, or 
 any pity for those who suffered so cruelly from it, she 
 never showed either. To the last day of her life she 
 was gay and charming in her manner, and was veiy 
 truly loved, even by those who had every reason to 
 doubt her integrity. She was doubtless a creature of 
 extraordinary personal magnetism. 
 
 After her death it was found out that she had again 
 forged the names of two of her nearest friends, and that 
 discovery was certain. She died suddenly and very 
 strangely, and her friends kept silence. 
 
 Mrs. Plumb, her sister, lived to a great age, and was 
 greatly beloved. The memory of her unfaultering 
 faith and gentle patience has been a help and comfort 
 to some upon whom the "chances and changes of this 
 mortal life " have pressed heavily. 
 
 Sometimes the "word in season " she has spoken has 
 been passed along to cheer and help some other soul to 
 whom the problem of living was growing a hopeless 
 
 puzzle. 
 
 Harriet and Caroline Brown, the twins, lie in the 
 Broad Street Cemetery, but no one can now tell just 
 where they are buried. Mr. and Mrs. Brown and Mr. 
 and Mrs. Plumb have a monument in the East Cemetery. 
 
62 RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 Ann is buried beside them, but her whole name 
 will not be found there. It was carefully suppressed 
 when the record of the graves was made. Her epitaph 
 reads thus : 
 
 " Ann" 
 " She will never come to me, 
 But I will go to her." 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 THE MANUFACTURE OF IVORY COMBS. 
 
 T N the first quarter of the century all the methods of 
 ^ manufacturing were slow. Those of ivory comb 
 making were extremely so, as the processes were pe- 
 culiarly nice and delicate. The ivory tusks differed 
 much in their fineness of grain. The finer grades 
 were far less liable to warp or break. 
 
 The manner of making a dressing comb was as fol- 
 lows: An especially fine tusk having been selected, it 
 was sawn into blocks of varied lengths, and these again 
 into rectangular bars about half an inch in thickness. 
 
 The next process rounded these, leaving on one side 
 a narrow, flat surface, into which a row of tiny sockets 
 were carefully drilled. The teeth, having been each 
 sawn separately, were rounded and pointed by a deli- 
 cate machine into shape and size to exactly fit the 
 sockets, into which they were driven by a tiny ham- 
 mer. Afterwards they were carefully drilled through 
 the back, and teeth and brass pins inserted, smoothed 
 and polished, making, when finished, a most luxurious 
 hair-dressing implement that would last a life time. 
 
 Sometime, it must have been 1830, or a little later, 
 the Prattsville Co. began the making of wooden combs. 
 A small reservoir or pond was constructed just about at 
 the present crossing of Camp and Pratt streets. A very 
 small building was put up closely adjacent. This ven- 
 ture was abandoned after two or three years, and the 
 pond emptied. The foundations remained there for a 
 good many years. It was an excellent and favorite 
 
64 RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 location for the propagation of snakes and red rasp- 
 berries. 
 
 Mr Pratt usually took the finished goods to either 
 Hartford or New Haven in his own private conveyance, 
 from whence they were shipped by boat. 
 
 It was not until the late thirties that ivory dust was 
 generally known to have any value as a fertilizer. 
 Heretofore the refuse from the factories had been 
 thrown away. When its virtues became known, prob- 
 ably on the principle that one cannot have too much of 
 a good thing, a favorite orchard of young trees was 
 plentifully bestrewn with the substance, some of it wet 
 from the saws, some of it dry from the finishing. 
 
 Great was the dismay at the discovery that the grass 
 in the orchard was rapidly turning brown, in fact was 
 "burnt up." Bat the next year the grass and trees 
 flourished luxuriantly, and the ivory waste soon became 
 coveted and eagerly bought up by progressive farmers. 
 
 About the year 1836, the Prattsville business having 
 attained an importance which made a change necessary, 
 the old building by the dam was abandoned and a larger 
 building erected on the present location of Miller Bros. ' 
 Cutlery. Many important improvements were intro- 
 duced. Many of them by Mr. Fenner Bush. Some of 
 them by Zina K. Murdock, who was a member of the 
 firm, as was aljo Aaron Pratt, Ezra Pratt and Mr. 
 Bush. Mr. Howard was dead, and the new firm was 
 known as Julius Pratt & Co. 
 
 Mr. Murdock invented and, aided by Mr. Bush, per- 
 fected an arrangement for cutting the teeth of the 
 combs, the exact reverse of the old method. The ex- 
 quisitely fine saw remaining stationary while the ivory 
 plate moved, stopping automatically when the length 
 of the plate was reached. These improvements were 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 65 
 
 not patented, but were carefully watched to prevent 
 piracy. 
 
 As the years went on other improved methods were 
 adopted, until much of the manufacturing was done by 
 delicately adjusted machinery that seemed really intelli- 
 gent in operation. 
 
 Most of those employed were young women, the 
 daughters of persons in comfortable circumstances. At 
 that time there were scarcely any avenues of profit open 
 to women. The first young woman who took a posi- 
 tion as clerk in a store in Meriden took that new depar- 
 ture about 1840. She was excused for so daring a ven- 
 ture on the ground that, after all, she was not so very 
 young and had money invested in the stock. 
 
 Mr. Pratt was inordinately proud of being able to say 
 that within the space of a few years eight young women 
 who had been in the employ of the firm married clergy- 
 men, some of whom reached eminence in their profes- 
 sion. Others became the wives of men who reached 
 positions of influence and acquired wealth. 
 
 Fenner Bush had been a member of the firm from 
 the very first, and although his name did not appear, 
 his opinions always had great weight. In character, 
 Mr. Pratt and Mr. Bush were not inapt exponents of 
 the fable of the wind and the sun. 
 
 Mr. Pratt was quick in arriving at conclusions, and, 
 having once got headed in any particular direction, was 
 pretty apt to remain so; although if judiciously let 
 alone his final decisions would be found conspicuously 
 just and benevolent. 
 
 Mr. Bush, like Mr. Pratt, had the "courage of his 
 convictions," and was sufiiciently tenacious of his opin- 
 ions when he had formed them, but was always patient 
 and reasonable in listening to complaints, and gentle 
 
 5 
 
66 RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 and sympathetic, even if he could not redress Mr. 
 Bush had more influence with Mr. Pratt than any other 
 human being, notwithstanding or perhaps because of 
 their opposite characteristics, mental and physical. 
 
 They were associated in business and were close 
 neighbors for a long lifetime, yet it is believed that in 
 all that time no word or look other than kindly ever 
 passed between them. 
 
 Mr. Bush was an inventor, and therefore a thought- 
 ful man, and he would sometimes become literally lost 
 in thought. Mrs. Bush, "a perfect woman, nobly 
 planned," was eminently a housekeeper, and, like a 
 sensible woman, usually preferred to stay at home on 
 Sunday, and see that everything was prepared for the 
 comfort of her family to wearing herself out by walking 
 the considerable distance to "meeting." 
 
 On one of the rare exceptions to this, Mr. Bush, who 
 had become absorbed in his thoughts, forgot her pres- 
 ence and walked home without her. Naturally Mrs. 
 Bush felt hurt, and said she thought that the impres- 
 sion would be given that he did not care very much 
 about her. 
 
 "Now, really," said Mr. Bush, "I was thinking of 
 you all the way home, and what a good dinner you 
 would have ready for me." 
 
 An experience of a quarter of a century of married 
 life emboldens one to recommend the above speech as a 
 text for the serious consideration of young matrons. In 
 the words of the immortal Captain Cuttle : ' ' To over- 
 haul your catechism, and, when found, make note on." 
 Also, to add in the words of the above worthy's chief 
 friend and counselor. Jack Bunsby : ' ' the bearings of 
 this observation lays in the application on it. " 
 
 Mr. Bush was fond of books, and he and Dr. Hough 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 67 
 
 owned the only collections of books in town worthy to 
 be called a library. 
 
 It has been said before that Mr. Pratt was a man of 
 much firmness of will. A certain Frederick Pearl had 
 in some way wronged several Meriden people. How 
 or why has always been a mystery. Children and 
 young persons were then kept from the knowledge of 
 many things that are now freely discussed. Mr. Pratt 
 was among those who had suffered, and he had Pearl 
 arrested and imprisoned in Canada. (Probably Canada 
 was not then a "city of refuge.") There Mr. Pratt 
 kept him at his own expense, and there he said he 
 should stay until the last possible moment. But all 
 things come to end sometime, and so at last Pearl was 
 free. 
 
 In the afternoon of the day before Thanksgiving, 
 1846, Pearl was seen in Meriden, and that night the 
 factory was burned to the ground, the alarm being 
 given by the man who slept in the building. 
 
 All that could be done to save the property was 
 merely nothing, for the fire engine owned by the com- 
 pany was always out of order. This engine was the 
 only one in town. It was nearly as possible like a 
 water cart, with a crank on each side worked by hand. 
 After all was over, Mr. Pratt went home and told Mrs. 
 Pratt that the factory was gone. 
 
 An indication of the character of that most excellent 
 woman and Christian can be discerned in her answer : 
 
 "I hope Mr. Hall (the watchman) is safe." 
 
 Mr. Pratt and Mr. Bush returned at once to the 
 ruins. In the confusion the watchman hadjnot been 
 thought of, and now he could not be found. 
 
 The Rev. George W. Perkins, who was then pastor 
 of the Center Congregational Church, who'Jhad seen 
 
68 RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 disastrous fires in Montreal, where he had lived for 
 some years before coming to Meriden, came to the 
 scene and pointed out the charred remains as they lay 
 near the bell among the smoking embers. 
 
 Mr. Hall was a young man, and was to have been 
 married in two weeks. The messenger who bore the 
 sad tidings to the poor expectant bride never could re- 
 member how he did it; but he said she stood looking 
 steadily at him, and then, without a word, sank down 
 in a heap on the floor. 
 
 The remains of the unfortunate watchman were 
 buried with impressive ceremonies in the old Broad 
 Street Cemetery. 
 
 From the date of the fire Frederick Pearl was never 
 again heard of in Meriden. 
 
 Arrangements were quickly made to rebuild of brick 
 for the second time. Mr. Pratt remarked: " That for 
 anything he could see brick burnt as easily as wood." 
 
 Meanwhile Mr. Webb, who had by this time moved 
 his business to Hanover, offered the use of his factory 
 at night, and in a few days " Julius Pratt & Co." were 
 doing a regular business between the hours of six in the 
 evening and five in the morning, and continued so to 
 do until the new building in Prattsville was completed. 
 
 The making of piano keys was added to the comb 
 business. The last days of the comb-making industry 
 were approaching. For a number of years there had 
 been an adverse element in the concern. (Not a Meri- 
 den man, however.) 
 
 A determination had been openly expressed that 
 sooner or later affairs as they then stood should be 
 broken up. Mr. Pratt and Mr. Bush were growing 
 old, and desired peace and quiet. 
 
 Aaron Pratt was dead, and Mr. Murdock had gone 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 69 
 
 into another business. As is almost always the case, 
 circumstances favored the aggressive party, and the 
 whole business was finally moved to Deep River, where 
 it is still carried on. 
 
 A thriving business was thus lost to Meriden through 
 the potency of envy, jealousy and spite — three disrepu- 
 table factors that have accomplished more mischief in 
 their low, mean line than their ravaging but more re- 
 spectable compeers, " Plague, Pestilence and Famine." 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 DOOR LATCHES AND SLAVERY. 
 
 TN 1 83 1 a blacksmith shop stood on the present site of 
 ^ the William Lewis block on West Main street. 
 Just back of this was a small building in which was car- 
 ried on the making of door latches. 
 
 These latches were an improvement on those of ham- 
 mered iron, in use one hundred years before. They 
 were the joint invention of Homer Curtis and Harlowe 
 Isbell, who entered into partnership and began the 
 making of them in the above year. These latches met 
 with a ready sale, and the business was succeeding, 
 when it was found that an article just about the same 
 was being placed upon the market. The innovating 
 concern was in Maine. 
 
 Being interviewed, the principals explained by say- 
 ing " they were so far off they thought it would not 
 make any difference." A compromise between the two 
 firms was agreed upon, the Maine firm paying the 
 Meriden firm a royalty for the use of their name. 
 
 After a while Curtis & Isbell, finding an inferior 
 article bearing their name upon the market, set them- 
 selves to another inventive effort, and succeeded in 
 evolving a rather cumbrous hybrid between a door 
 knob and a door latch, in which the knob took the place 
 of the thumb piece of the earlier article. These latches 
 were blacked, and the varnish was hardened by baking 
 in a kiln. As the only fuel was wood, and the desired 
 result could not be obtained under a temperature less 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 7 1 
 
 than three hundred, it will be readily seen that difficul- 
 ties lay in the way, for while the varnish would flake o£E 
 at a less heat, the handles, which were made of zinc 
 and some other metals, would not infrequently melt 
 at that point of calidity. 
 
 To indicate when the proper heat was reached, a 
 glass was inserted in the furnace door and a ther- 
 mometer hung inside. This plan has been used in 
 cooking stoves since then, and called a new invention. 
 
 The business grew and met with difficulties, of 
 course; but the company surmounted them. At last 
 the business was moved, for more room, to the locality 
 now more than covered by the spacious buildings of the 
 Bradley & Hubbard Co. Here they prospered for 
 some years until the concern came to grief from a cause 
 which at first sight would seem to have nothing to do 
 with the trouble. 
 
 The subject of southern slavery was beginning to be 
 discussed with a good deal of energy, and Mr. Curtis 
 and Mr. Isbell held very radical views, and expressed 
 them freely. 
 
 Hitherto the slavery question had been treated almost 
 exclusively on the ground of the injustice to the negro, 
 and his sufferings under the sytem. From this point 
 of view the anti-slavery party had been formed. 
 
 Mr. Curtis and Mr. Isbell were then the only persons 
 who voted the anti-slavery ticket in Meriden. The im- 
 mediate result to them was that their factory was set 
 on fire and burned down with all the contents. The 
 firm rebuilt and started again, with a good prospect 
 for success, when their factory was again destroyed 
 in the same way and for the same reason as before. 
 
 It may seem incredible that a sin of political opinion 
 should have been visited so vindictively upon two 
 
72 RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 comparatively obscure men. But the anarchist spirit is 
 the same always— born of self-interest in the leaders 
 and ignorance in the followers. 
 
 Also, it should be remembered, that although there 
 was very little foreign element anywhere in New Eng- 
 land and none at all in Meriden, yet newspapers were 
 not accessible except to the few, and books were scarce. 
 Besides, it was honestly believed, even by those who 
 identified themselves with the obnoxious party, that to 
 anger the South meant poverty and ruin to the North. 
 
 However, the political aspect changed, and the anti- 
 slavery party became the Free Soil party, and many 
 were added to it. 
 
 Looking backward down the vista of the years at the 
 seeming fatuity of this political movement, a new 
 meaning is given to the words: " Despise not the day 
 of small things; " for whether it likes it or not, the Re- 
 publican party of 1899 must acknowledge itself the off- 
 spring of the party that in the first third of the century 
 had but two adherents in Meriden and but seven thou- 
 sand in the whole United States. 
 
 But to return to the door latches. 
 
 The later invention had never met with much favor, 
 and was not profitable enough to go on alone, so the 
 firm added the making of iron toys — tiny spades, 
 shovels, rakes, little kettles and flat-irons. A foundry 
 was built, of which the chimney is still standing, and 
 for the third time the firm seemed on the road to 
 prosperity. 
 
 Soon after this Mr. Isbell left town, and the latches 
 were superseded by another invention, which has been 
 perfected into the present door fastening methods. 
 Matters were progressing very well, when for the third 
 time the latch works were maliciously set on fire, this 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 73 
 
 time the offence being Mr. Curtis' radical views on the 
 temperance question. 
 
 Just at this time another cause hastened the final re- 
 moval of this particular business, and at the same time 
 crippled half the other business enterprises in the 
 town. There are still persons living who remember 
 when a building, now lost somewhere in the depths of 
 F. J. Wheeler's hardware store at West Main street, 
 stood on the present site of the Meriden House. It was 
 a country store, owned by Major Elisha Allan 
 Cowles. 
 
 To this store came as a clerk about the year 1836 a 
 boy who afterwards proved to be one of the strangest 
 characters Meriden has ever known. He was full of 
 business, and to all appearances given up to the inter- 
 ests of his employer. 
 
 At that time church membership was reinforced by 
 religious awakenings or revivals. At these seasons 
 ordinary work was neglected, and nearly the whole 
 community gave their time to protracted meetings and 
 sacred topics. 
 
 One would not seem to speak irreverently, but the 
 exercises and the sermons were, and were meant to be, 
 terrifying, and sensitive persons often suffered extreme 
 mental agony. Afterward, finding relief from this 
 state, they joined the churches they preferred. 
 
 In one of these revivals Curtis Lemuel North, the 
 young clerk, professed himself very deeply moved, and 
 perhaps with some sincerity, for he always seemed to 
 keep his religious principles and his business practice 
 entirely distinct from each other. 
 
 From that time he secured a very strong hold on the 
 confidence of Major Cowles and Mrs. Cowles, so that 
 his influence caused the dismissal and disgrace of an 
 
74 RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 innocent fellow clerk, whose widowed mother died 
 shortly after in consequence. 
 
 Curtis retained the confidence of Major Cowles and 
 his wife through any amount of evil report. He had 
 always some plausible excuse ready, or even a direct 
 falsehood if things looked too shady. At last Major 
 Cowles died, and Curtis was, of course, deeply grieved 
 and profoundly sympathetic. So much was he moved 
 that he offered to go to Hartford and procure a coffin. 
 A suitable one could not at that time be procured in 
 Meriden. 
 
 He went, first of all, to the insurance office in which 
 Major Cowles had held some position. By his repre- 
 sentations he secured the vacant place. He purchased 
 the coffin and came back home, having done a fine stroke 
 of business in more ways than one. 
 
 He lost no time in insuring (all by himself) the life of 
 Dr. Isaac I, Hough, who, knowing himself to have 
 organic heart disease, had never tried to insure his life. 
 Two or three years after this Dr. Hough was found 
 dead on the floor of his room. Curtis managed thus to 
 secure three thousand dollars. 
 
 From this time he began a career that was, finally, 
 nearly or quite the financial ruin of everybody who 
 came in contact with him, and that meant anybody he 
 heard of who had any income, large or small. 
 
 The really strange thing was that although some 
 doubted him when out of his presence, they were pliant 
 to his will when in contact with him. He built the 
 house now owned by Edmund A. Parker, corner of 
 Washington and Colony streets, set up a carriage and 
 pair of horses, and after a flourish of a year or two 
 failed, carrying with him half the population of the 
 town. 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 75 
 
 To this day it is a mystery how he managed so much 
 rascality and escaped. He cheated his benefactress, 
 Mrs. Cowles, out of more than half her property. He 
 ruined Walter Webb's ivory comb business in Hanover. 
 Mr. Webb had loaned him a few hundred, and to his 
 horror found himself liable for one hundred and ten 
 thousand dollars, all he was worth and rather more. 
 
 Homer Curtis loaned him three hundred dollars and 
 found himself ruined. Men found themselves in debt for 
 sums of eight and ten or more thousands, who had no idea 
 of such a predicament. To the question, "Why in all 
 the world did not somebody put Curtis North in prison 
 then and there ? " the answer was made, " Because no- 
 body could put their finger on anything he did in any 
 way that would convict him." He had always made a 
 catspaw of somebody else. He literally "stole the 
 livery of Heaven to serve the devil in, "for all this time 
 he never failed, wherever he might be, if he got a 
 chance, to organize a Sunday school or conduct a prayer 
 meeting. 
 
 "Judgment- and justice are not of this world; "for 
 this man, a known liar and forger, after leaving Meri- 
 den became the husband of a wealthy woman, and 
 preached what no doubt, in spite of Curtis North and 
 all his kind, is the gospel. 
 
 His first wife, a most estimable woman, is buried in 
 the West Cemetery, 
 
 The hardware business conducted by Homer Curtis 
 was ruined. Mr. Curtis was urged to take certain 
 steps which would have secured himself but would have 
 injured others. He said his "own integrity was more 
 precious to him than all else. This remained to him, 
 and not for any fancied gain would he part with it." 
 
 When Kansas became a Free Soil state, Mr. Isbell 
 
76 RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 emigrated thither. His character was too sanguine 
 and visionary to make him a successful man anywhere, 
 and his family endured many hardships. Mrs, Isbell 
 visited Meriden afterward and received many gifts. 
 Feeling, as was natural, grieved by the change in her 
 circumstances, she said, with tears : 
 
 *' Once I also had something to give away." 
 
 Mrs. Julius Pratt's answer to this was the perfection 
 of Christian grace : 
 
 " You must consider we are all sisters." 
 
 There is now, in 1899, one old house on Curtis street 
 that still has affixed to its doors the latches made by 
 Curtis & Isbell. 
 
 Some of Mr. Curtis' family are still living here and 
 sit on good men's seats. 
 
 Of all the men who have come and gone in this 
 "transitory life" of three-quarters of a century, not 
 one has seemed so thoroughly what was said of another 
 than Homer Curtis — ' ' An Israelite, indeed, in whom 
 was no guile." 
 
 Mr. Curtis, perhaps, was too unworldly to be what 
 the world calls a successful man ; but no child of his 
 need blush for or wish to have concealed anything he 
 ever did or said. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 SUNDAY MORNING IN THE EARLY THIRTIES. 
 
 jVTOTHING could be more quiet and idyllic than a 
 ^ ^ June Sunday morning in the early thirties. No 
 sound of labor was heard, either within or without the 
 dwellings. 
 
 The atmosphere was so clear that the tall, weather- 
 beaten hemlock that for many years stood out from the 
 steep face of West Peak could be distinctly seen out- 
 lined against the sky. 
 
 No smoke of coal and no odor of gas was in the air, 
 for coal was not then known in Meriden except by 
 hearsay. The thin vapor which rose high from the 
 chimneys was from the burning logs of oak, maple and 
 hickory. The housewives were very knowing in those 
 matters, and they would accept no other than ' ' hard 
 wood," for they must have coals in the fire-place and a 
 log to cover with ashes in order to "keep fire." 
 
 The nine o'clock church bell was rung Sunday morn- 
 ing by one of the " Butler boys," or by "Uncle John " 
 Butler himself. The tall clock in the corner of the 
 Butler " keeping room " kept the standard time for the 
 town. Every night the clock was wound by Uncle John. 
 The exercise was one of importance. The narrow door 
 in the case was opened and carefully laid back, dis- 
 closing the great pendulum suspended by a long wire. 
 The loaded end of one and then of the other of the long 
 cords which carried the great square weights were 
 drawn out their full length, the winder stepping back- 
 wards as he drew. 
 
78 RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGT AND TOWN. 
 
 The church bell was also rung at nine o'clock e very- 
 night through the week. This bell tells the same hour 
 now (1899) from the same old tower. In those days the 
 sound traveled far, for there were no tall towers to 
 break its resonance. Upon Sunday morning its ringing 
 was the signal for active preparation for " Church " 
 and " Meeting." It then was thought most indecorous 
 to be late at public worship. 
 
 From the "Farms," from the "Plains," from 
 " Webbsville," from " Prattsville," from '' Clarksville, " 
 and from the outlying farms everybody was expected to 
 go except those who were ill or were too young. 
 
 The old people rode but the younger walked, taking 
 their time, for they must start early enough to be in 
 season. The horses took on a decorous, leisurely Sun- 
 day amble, but the dogs knew perfectly well that they 
 were expected to stay at home on Sunday. 
 
 Everywhere in New England the Sunday services 
 were held both morning and afternoon. In the winter 
 there was an interval of an hour at noon. In the sum- 
 mer it was an hour and a half. The heads of families 
 brought capacious lunch baskets, a reticule sufficing 
 for those who had only themselves to think of. 
 
 The elders passed the "nooning" in visiting from 
 pew to pew, interchanging such news and views as was 
 supposed not inconsistent with the day and place. If a 
 point was stretched in this regard, why, they were 
 human. The Sunday school occupied the younger 
 people. The books of the Sunday school libraries 
 seemed to have been compiled to demonstrate how 
 much unreadable and totally uninteresting matter could 
 be put into print, and selected to show how many of 
 such books could be got together. 
 
 The Sunday school library of St. Andrew's was one 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 79 
 
 shining oasis in this desert of no ideas. It had a few of 
 Miss Edgeworth's books, nearly all Mrs. Sherwood's, 
 and two or three of Mrs. Cameron's (Mrs. Sherwood's 
 sister). These books were finally read all to pieces. 
 
 In the warm weather any who lived in the vicinity of 
 the three churches expected their friends and relatives 
 to call at noon. They were regaled with viands espe- 
 cially prepared for such hospitality. 
 
 The Sunday attire of the captains, the majors, the 
 colonels and the squires, of whom there were plenty, 
 with now and then a judge and the deacons, varied 
 little from year to year. If the waist measure lessened, 
 the increased comfort compensated for the slouchiness 
 of the garment's fit. 
 
 If the girth so increased that neither the housewife's 
 needle or the tailor's art were adequate, a new garment 
 was constructed as nearly like the old one as it could be 
 made. 
 
 The Sunday dress of the women had more variety. 
 The " bleaching box " would sometimes take fire, and 
 the ten or fifteen years' old straw bonnet would suffer 
 from the accident, and thus a change became a neces- 
 sity. Even then the remains of the old material would 
 be so incorporated with the new that the novelty was 
 not distracting. 
 
 One old lady, very old at the time, Mrs. Mindwell 
 Merriam, always adhered to the costume of her youth, 
 probably about 1750. Her Sunday dress in the sum- 
 mer never varied in style or material. It was of some 
 dark blue stuff, pongee silk probably, and was very 
 short and straight in the skirt, showing her low shoes 
 tied with black ribbons. The waist was like a short 
 sack. The sleeves came only to the elbow, and were 
 finished there by wide ruffles of black lace, which fell 
 
8o RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 over the tops of her long, black silk mitts. The short 
 cloak of thick black satin was trimmed with wide black 
 lace, and the curious black satin bonnet, something like 
 but not quite a hat, had also a fall of lace around the 
 brim. 
 
 That lace would make a collector break one of the 
 commandments, and be tempted to break another. 
 
 There was in those days a great deal more sec- 
 tarian exclusiveness and stand-offishness than there is 
 now. With a certain air of dignity and self-respect, 
 elderly people carried also an aspect of severity and re- 
 pression that repelled the younger people and kept 
 them out of touch and sympathy with their elders. 
 Vivacity was not deemed becoming, and merriment 
 was almost a sin. 
 
 Doubtless the theology of the period influenced the 
 most of them. They were fairly beaten down by the 
 teaching of most of the sectarian publications, and by 
 the pulpit teaching of the certainty that a dreadful 
 doom must befall them, and those most dear to them, 
 unless they were sure of their "evidences." These 
 " evidences " were often more evident to those persons 
 most sure of them than they were to others. 
 
 Prayer, sermon and exhortation all turned on the 
 justice and wrath of the Creator. Very little was 
 taught of His praise, almost nothing of His love. It 
 was held as a discredit to the Episcopalians that they 
 were a more cheerful set. In numbers they were far 
 in a minority, otherwise they compared favorably with 
 the other denominations. 
 
 It was not possible to hear the grand " Gloria in Ex- 
 celsis," the uplifting " Te Deum," the splendid " Tris- 
 agion," and to repeat over and over again "Our 
 Father," and not be susceptive of some of their spirit, 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 8l 
 
 and thus to look up to the Deity in another light than 
 as an awful avenger. 
 
 This religious, gloomy severity and sadness are now 
 almost wholly of the past. Only the Episcopalians 
 talked of going to "Church," the others went to 
 " Meeting." 
 
 A little girl who had spent most of her short life at 
 the South was asked if she had been to church or meet- 
 ing. Sorely puzzled by the question, she said she 
 "didn't know." 
 
 In the Congregational church, in the seat nearest the 
 door, always sat every Sunday a negro, by name Jake 
 Freeman. Rain or shine, he was always in his place. 
 He was the only colored voter in town. He owned a 
 small property "over East." Next him his wife sat 
 with rolling eyes that took in everything all over 
 the place. In the corner of the seat sat, very 
 upright, Chloe Deming. She was Jake Freeman's 
 sister. 
 
 " Black Chloe " was a very tall woman, and large in 
 proportion. She was very black, and very proud of her 
 complexion. Chloe was also proud of her bonnet. 
 Regarded as a bonnet, this structure was simply colos- 
 sal, crown and front vying in altitude. 
 
 A heavily worked black lace veil was tied around the 
 crown, and always worn drawn exactly lengthwise, 
 leaving just half of her expansive face exposed to sight. 
 Arrayed in this headgear, Chloe comported herself as 
 one who had achieved that crowning glory desired of 
 woman — a perfect bonnet. 
 
 Chloe was also aristocratic. She washed and cleaned 
 house for none but "real good folks." She also re- 
 proved and instructed in "manners" the younger 
 members of the family she worked for, much to her 
 6 
 
82 RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 own edification. The temptation to give Chloe's recipe 
 for soup cannot be resisted. 
 
 Chloe stood at the washtub, with one hand on the 
 rubbing board and the other upholding a dripping gar- 
 ment, her eyes brimming over with tears that ran down 
 her cheeks as she told her sympathetic listener the 
 story of the illness of her son, who had just died of 
 consumption. 
 
 " Willyum dident have no appetite," said Chloe. 
 " Nothing dident taste good, so I took 'er piece of pork 
 — it was fustrate pork. Miss Collins she gin it to me, 
 and it was fustrate. And I biled it jes' nuff ter bile it, 
 not nuff ter make it soft, and I thickened the broth 
 with injun meal, and I cut up some inyun tops inter 
 it, and Willyum said it was good." 
 
 And Chloe finished with an emphatic slap of the wet 
 garment on the board in her satisfaction at the rec- 
 ollection. 
 
 " Willyum " had been the trial of her life; but if he 
 had been the best son that ever lived she could not 
 have grieved for him more. Maybe she would not 
 have grieved so much. 
 
 Upon this particular Sabbath morning which we are 
 recalling, the Rev. Mr. Perkins, at the Congregational 
 church, had just got into the swing of the long prayer, 
 in which he never failed to irritate some of his hearers 
 by his allusions to slavery. 
 
 At the Baptist church Rev. Harvey Miller was read- 
 ing the Scriptures with most original comments of his 
 own thereon. 
 
 At St. Andrew's the litany was being devoutly 
 responded to, and except these low sounds the quiet 
 was absolute. 
 
 Suddenly there broke into the repose a clamor and 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 83 
 
 din of sound that caused the very clergymen to jump in 
 their shoes. 
 
 William Merriam's bees had swarmed, incited, doubt- 
 less, by the unwonted stillness. The unorthodox in- 
 sects could only, it is supposed, be kept from going 
 hopelessly astray by confusing whatever answered to 
 mind in their entomological make-up. 
 
 Therefore it was that those who for the last day or 
 two had been watching their movements, upon this 
 Sunday morning found it expedient to sally forth with 
 poker and tongs, iron spoons and tin pans and kettle 
 covers; even an old brass warming-pan, with clashing 
 lid, adding a kettle drum accompaniment to the racket. 
 
 Up and down the before-quiet street rushed the riot- 
 ous vigilance house committee, doing their best to keep 
 up with the gyrations of the whirling mass above their 
 heads. 
 
 In the churches stern and rather resentful parents 
 watched, with anxious eyes, their wriggling and all but 
 giggling offspring, until, finally, the bees were secured, 
 and once more the stillness returned. 
 
 And now the morning had passed, and the noon in- 
 tervals also, and in all the churches the afternoon ser- 
 vices drew to a close. No one would for his reputation 
 own it, but everybody is glad when they rise for the 
 closing hymn. 
 
 At the Congregational church, John Porter, with his 
 magnificent voice and his violin, had led the singing. 
 At the Baptist church, Joel Miller had led. At St. 
 Andrew's, Edwin Curtis; and he invited the choir to 
 meet at the church at five o'clock. 
 
 This is joyful news, for it really meant a sacred 
 concert at that hour. So the people drop in and sit 
 where they like and listen to the flutes and violins 
 
84 RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 and to the singers as they rehearse anthems and chants. 
 The sun was sinking behind the mountain as the 
 choir sang, softly and sweetly, the hymn: 
 
 " Fading, still fading, the last beam is shining." 
 
 The music went on as the sun went down ; and now 
 it is done, and this Sunday has drifted into the inevitable 
 past. The past of long ago. 
 
 If it be true that no sound is utterly lost, then some- 
 where in the vast phonograph of the spheres the splen- 
 did melody of John Porter's voice, the sweet contralto 
 of dove-eyed Sarah Ives, the harmonies of the flutes 
 and viols, still survive with other tones and other J 
 
 voices heard and lost m the procession of the years. ' 
 
 And we who, in the rush of the busy street or in the 
 quiet of home at nightfall or at break of day, are 
 haunted by the tone — 
 
 " Of a voice from this world gone," 
 
 shall hear again the lost chords. Sometime, but not 
 now; somewhere, but not here. 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 85 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 THE MILITIA AND "TRAINING DAY." 
 
 OOMETIME in the late thirties the Meriden militia 
 *^ were in a badly disorganized condition. Military- 
 rank was by no means undervalued, however. The 
 titles of Gen. Booth, Colonel Seymour, Major Cowles 
 and Capt. Collins dated from the war of 1812, and were 
 as much a part of their personality as were their sur- 
 names. 
 
 Except for the military rank then acquired, and also 
 for certain blue and scarlet uniforms, kept more care- 
 fully than people keep anything in these days of new 
 processes and shoddy goods, the war of 1812 left very 
 little trace. 
 
 The youthful Goddess of Liberty had sent Dame 
 Britannia home, and told her to stay there until she 
 could come back pleasant. And the old lady, wise in 
 her generation, profited by past experience and did go. 
 After that matters got themselves adjusted, and possibly 
 a long continued peace made military tactics seem 
 unnecessary. 
 
 The law required that the citizens should do what 
 was called military duty, but the citizens did not see 
 the sense of leaving necessary work to dawdle about 
 and lose one day in the spring and another in the fall, in 
 the busiest season of the year. Besides, their uniforms 
 were worn out or outgrown, and they had lost their 
 popular captain, Evelyn Beckley, and they were 
 heartily tired of the whole thing. 
 
86 RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 It was at this crisis that a very excellent but rather f 
 
 unpopular man secured the captaincy of the town ^ 
 
 militia, with more eagerness and alacrity than was 
 considered strictly becoming. 
 
 "Training day" had come, and on the short green 
 turf, just about where the street car track crosses Charles 
 street, stood an uneven line of men clothed in every 
 absurdity of costume that their ingenuity could invent. 
 One had attired himself Vv4th all his visible raiment, even 
 to an old straw hat inside out. Another genius was bril- 
 liant with strips of tin fastened thickly on coat and 
 trousers, and another wore a most wonderful creation of 
 bed ticking. Turkish trousers made of curtain calico, 
 with patterns far enough away from the artistic prints of 
 later times, were much affected. These were worn 
 with every sort of coat, military or not, upon which the 
 wearers could lay hands. The guns were as varied as 4 
 
 the costumes. ;[ 
 
 One excessively humorous person shouldered a 
 broom, but he was promptly snubbed. The line had to M 
 
 be drawn somewhere. Some men would have dis- ^ 
 
 missed the company on the spot. Captain resolved 
 
 that they should march around the " quarter." 
 
 This was to go from the present intersection of Broad 
 street and East Main by the most direct route to the 
 junction of Griswold and North Colony streets, thence 
 down Colony street to West Main, and thence again to 
 the point of departure. The distance was called three 
 miles. .'. 
 
 Upon Britannia street, just west of Broad, there -^ 
 
 stood at that time a very large, wide-spreading and pe- j.^ 
 
 culiarly low-growing apple tree, the lower limbs resting | 
 
 upon the low stone wall beneath. 'J^ 
 
 Having with infinite travail of soul conducted his re- :, 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 87 
 
 calcitrant command to this point, the helpless and dis- 
 mayed captain beheld his front rank deliberately march 
 up the stone wall into the tree and seat themselves on 
 the sturdy branches. He ordered them down, and they 
 laughed at him. The unhappy man lost his head alto- 
 gether, and directed the men, who, either better be- 
 haved, or maybe because there was no room for them in 
 the tree, had stayed in the road, to fire upon the oc- 
 cupants of the apple tree. 
 
 Probably there was not a spoonful of powder or a gun 
 that would go off, unless backward, among the lot of 
 them. The only result of this order was that the rested 
 and refreshed delinquents in the tree pointed their 
 guns at their grinning comrades in the road. 
 
 At the period we are recalling, a dwelling-house, a 
 small shop where brass combs were manufactured for 
 the southern market, and a country store stood between 
 Piatt avenue and Foster street. 
 
 A properly stocked country store was expected then 
 to have among its commodities certain fluids which no 
 sagacious person mentions in the hearing of a pro- 
 hibitionist. This particular store was noted for the 
 excellence and potency of its New England distil- 
 lations. 
 
 Down what is now the smooth, well-graded Colony 
 
 street, but was then the " Old Road," where the spear- 
 mint grew up to the wheel tracks and the sweet flag 
 thrust its green spikes into the footpath, as far as the 
 aforementioned emporium, did the bothered captain, 
 with much weariness of spirit, contrive to march his 
 company, but when arrived there, whether he liked it 
 or not, his mutinous "train-band " halted. 
 
 Some poet or philosopher has remarked that in our 
 misfit lives smiles and tears alternate with surprising 
 
88 RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 celerity and promptitude. From the sequence of events 
 it is likely that in this instance over-much "smiling'' 
 prevailed. 
 
 A dispute between one of the fatigued warriors and 
 a citizen not long returned from South Carolina finally 
 culminated in a fistici^ff duel that reached a crisis in an 
 adjoining barnyard. The victorious citizen was subse- 
 quently dubbed " General Pickens " because it was al- 
 leged he fought the battle of the "Cowpens." This 
 was not exactly historically correct, but his waggish 
 young half brothers helped to perpetuate it, for they 
 never called him anything else behind his back. 
 
 Captain never got his whole company back to 
 
 the center of the town. Some of them would not go 
 farther, and more of them could not. A great deal of 
 ill feeling ensued, and the captain's poor old horse was 
 maltreated to an extent that left him at the mercy of 
 the flies all summer. 
 
 A law suit was talked of, but nothing came of it. 
 There was only one lawyer in town then, and some- 
 thing ailed his throat. Soon after this an " Independ- 
 ent Company " was formed, with Lyman Butler as 
 captain. They were known as the Meriden Grays. 
 
 Edwin Yale Bull and Henry Peck Judd were the 
 fifers, John Miles and Timothy White drummers. 
 Their uniform was of gray cloth, with sole leather 
 steeple top caps with feathers. "General training" 
 days were events of great importance, or at least then 
 were considered such. Edwin Yale Bull recollected 
 going to Waterbury, Milford and New Haven with the 
 company. 
 
 Capt. Butler resigned after a year or two of service. 
 His health failed, and he died of consumption at the 
 early age of thirty-six. 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 89 
 
 After Capt. Butler's resignation, Almeron Miles, a 
 man of remarkably fine presence, became the captain, 
 and retained that position until "forty-nine," when he 
 and many of his company went to California. 
 
 For a long time thereafter little attention was paid to 
 military matters. But in 186,1 a nation of soldiers was 
 born in a day. From our cities went out husbands and 
 lovers, brothers and sons, some of them to look never 
 again with mortal eyes upon the faces of those who 
 "wept sore" for their going away. And some came 
 back to realize how in their absence "Had grown in 
 Paradise their store." 
 
 As time lapses into the inevitable past, we reap the 
 benefit of such times of trial. In the present admirable 
 drill and discipline of the military, and the other two 
 organizations which have the peace of the city and the 
 protection of property as their especial charge, can be 
 seen the resultant fact — that by voluntary submission 
 to absolute authority men learn that there is such a 
 thing as intelligent obedience. 
 
90 RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 BUTTON MAKING THE " OREGON" ROAD. 
 
 " When Adam delved and Eve span, 
 ' y' ' i Where was then the gentleman ? " 
 
 A ND of course the gentlewoman. She is not mentioned, 
 -**■ because "she "does not rhyme. To this sapient 
 couplet with an interrogation point one answers that 
 where our misguided forbears were thus laudably em- 
 ployed, the gentleman and lady were precisely where 
 they are now — that is, in the individual. 
 
 The matter of work or labor has nothing at all 
 to do with the question of good manners and good 
 breeding, which is what is really meant, or with posi- 
 tion, either, which is another thing and brings its own 
 obligations. 
 
 In the couplet quoted there seems to lurk an insinua- 
 tion that labor is inconsistent with dignified good man- 
 ners. But dignity is not haughtiness. Dignity is a 
 true sense of honor, a hatred of meanness, a high sense 
 of personal worth and a consideration for others, and a 
 fine perception of propriety so constant and unvarying 
 that it has become second nature. 
 
 It happened once that some persons out for a drive 
 found near the Meriden almshouse a number of the 
 male inmates employed upon the road repairs eating 
 their plentiful but coarse noon lunch. 
 
 An impulsive young girl in the party stopped the 
 carriage, and, taking a basket of fruit, handed the con- 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 9I 
 
 tents to the men, who took the apples greedily but in 
 silence, until, one of them, a foreigner, rising, took off 
 his hat and, in a few well-chosen words, thanked her 
 in his own behalf and others. 
 
 He had the demeanor of a well-bred man, and evi- 
 dently. Heaven help him, the feelings of one too. 
 
 By this time it is likely that somebody has recalled the 
 remark made by somebody else to the effect that it is 
 not possible for a woman to go straight at any subject 
 she is intending to discuss. 
 
 "But one hears so many words made about the "dig- 
 nity of labor," and they seem so unnecessary, for the 
 reason that good breeding and honorable work faith- 
 fully done make any man or woman a dignified lady or 
 gentleman. And, besides, these desultory thoughts 
 were called up by the memory of the men and women 
 who were active in the early life of Meriden, 
 
 Sometime in the first fifteen years of the century Dr. 
 Isaac I. Hough amused himself by collecting facts and 
 data relative to the early history of the town. He gave 
 up the enterprise, because he said he was about twelve 
 years too late. The Rev. G. W. Perkins used these 
 notes in compiling a pamphlet history of Meriden, but 
 he omitted many things that seemed to him uninterest- 
 ing, and gave no credit for what he used. Dr. Hough's 
 notes, unfortunately, were not preserved. 
 
 Mrs. Bradley, who has been quoted so often, said her 
 mother, Mrs. Hough, raised silkworms and made and 
 spun silk — of course, woven by hand— and found it profit- 
 able. A piece of silk spun and woven at that time was in 
 the possession of a member of the family for a good many 
 years, when it was unfortunately destroyed, with, at 
 the same time, part of a set of bed curtains once used 
 upon what was called a tent— or tester— bed. These 
 
92 RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 curtains were of heavy home-made linen, embroidered 
 with home-spun linen thread. The pattern was con- 
 ventional, of tulip flower design. The colors used 
 were red, yellow, blue and a few threads of black. 
 These colors were of home-made dyes. The stitch 
 used was the same as the Kensington stitch of to-day. 
 Although more than one hundred years old when de- 
 stroyed, the fabric was good, the colors bright, and 
 the work was very little worn, except in the less heavy 
 parts. Beautiful fine linen thread was spun and woven 
 by the housekeepers of 1800. 
 
 Doubtless there are many specimens of this work 
 still in existence, and valued more highly than when 
 they were less rare. 
 
 Button making was one of Meriden's first manufac- 
 tures. Dr. C. H. S. Davis says in 1794; and doubtless 
 he is right. These first buttons were made of pewter. 
 Very early in 1800 it must have been that Amos Curtis 
 began the making of coat buttons. The eyes of these 
 were made by hand, Mr. Curtis being his own me- 
 chanic. The material of which the buttons were made 
 was " a mixture of lead and tin, or zinc, and antimony, 
 boiled together in a great iron kettle. " " The cooking " 
 of this alloyage was superintended by Mr. Curtis in the 
 basement kitchen of his own house, which stood a few 
 feet south of Broad street. J^; 
 
 Mr. William Curtis, the son of Amos, told the writer \ 
 
 that his part of the business was to separate the cooled 
 buttons from the molds into which the hot metal had 
 been poured, he being five years old at the time. 
 
 Mr. Curtis also said that his father used to set him a 
 "stent," to be done at noon between school hours. 
 Furthermore, Mr. Curtis said that of the only two 
 whippings of his boyhood, one was inflicted for throwing 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 93 
 
 some of his unfinished work under the bench, thus 
 making it appear that he had done more than he had 
 really accomplished. 
 
 Perhaps it may not be out of the way to say just here 
 that the second and last castigation was for letting his 
 sister drive the cattle home instead of doing it himself, 
 as he had been told to do. 
 
 One wonders what would be the effect of such train- 
 ing on the five-year-olds of this decade. That or some- 
 thing else made a successful man of William Curtis. 
 His bodily vigor was remarkable. He was seen at the 
 age of seventy-six to ascend a tall ladder, and, what is 
 quite as much to the purpose, to get down again with- 
 out difSculty. 
 
 All the work of making the buttons was done by 
 Amos Curtis and his children in his own house. Ped- 
 dlers took them, as they did most kinds of merchandise, 
 all over the country. 
 
 One individual who owed Mr. Curtis a moderate sum 
 paid him with a tract of two hundred acres of land in 
 the vicinity of the present city of Cleveland. Mr. Cur- 
 tis was not satisfied with this payment, as he consid- 
 ered it only a little better than nothing, and at an op- 
 portunity disposed of it. From a creditor nearer home 
 he received a yoke of cattle in payment of a debt. 
 
 When Mr. William Curtis was about seventy years 
 old he unearthed from his garden the same knife-shaped 
 tool with which, when five years old, he used to re- 
 move the molded buttons from their constructive frame. 
 Mr. Curtis valued the article as a relic very highly. 
 
 In September, 1892, the Meriden Journal staXeA. that 
 something was to be — or not to be — done to the ' ' Bone- 
 ville " bridge, a lonely nook at the southern part of this 
 town where it would seem that no manufacturing 
 
94 RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 interest could ever have had a place, and yet for more 
 than thirty years it was noisy with the whir of machin- 
 ery, and busy with the events of birth, life and death. 
 
 As most of the circumstances of living are the out- 
 come of beginnings that have apparently nothing in 
 common with final results, so it was here. 
 
 In the early twenties, the most direct road from 
 Meriden to Cheshire lay over the steep hill directly 
 west of Hanover village, or South Meriden. After the 
 long ascent was gained, an abrupt descent led by a cir- 
 cuitous route through the hamlet called Hough's Mills, 
 and from thence, after crossing the river twice, to 
 Cheshire street. 
 
 It must have been about 1828 that a movement was 
 made to open a new and more direct route between the 
 towns. This road was to pass northward of the Quinni- 
 piac, and it would give more direct access to the farms 
 lying upon that side of the river. 
 
 For some reason forgotten now, but thought potent 
 enough at the time, the project was opposed with a good 
 deal of cross-grained maliciousness by the farmers of 
 the vicinity. The most influential man among them 
 effectually put" a stop to the plan by investing his 
 money in a factory and dwelling house upon the only 
 available space between the high bluff on one side and 
 the river on the other. 
 
 The spot was a beautifully romantic one then, but the 
 old bridge which led to it was torn down and the course ^ 
 
 of the highway changed long ago, and it is impossible ' 
 
 to give in words, and idle to attempt to convey, any 
 idea of it. 
 
 The making of wooden pocket combs was the first 
 business venture there, but the making of bone buttons 
 soon took its place, hence the name of "Boneville." 
 
 i 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 95 
 
 That given in joke has clung to the locality more or less 
 ever since. 
 
 For a number of years button making was a prosper- 
 ous business, employing many young women, who 
 were boarded either in Mr. Griswold's, the proprietor's 
 own family, or at a private house near by. 
 
 The prospect of a new road to Cheshire street, which 
 should go around the hill instead of over it, had not 
 been forgotten, and about the year 1847 what is known 
 as the " Oregon " road was begun. 
 
 The name of Oregon was first given by Luther Webb 
 and William Rice, so wild and then almost inaccessible 
 was the region. The boys had been exploring, as boys 
 love to do, and being questioned as to where they had 
 been, replied that they had "been to Oregon." After- 
 ward the name was taken up by the workmen employed 
 there by the Meriden Cutlery Company on a reservoir 
 and dam since abandoned. It became a local title in 
 common use, 
 
 A business man from Greenfield, Mass. , who inquired 
 for Mr. J. C. Breckenridge, looked thunderstruck when 
 told by the heedless interlocutor that Mr. Breckenridge 
 had ' ' gone to Oregon. " Of course an explanation speed- 
 ily followed. 
 
 The rocky cliff on the south side of the river descended 
 steeply and directly to the river side, and to make room 
 for the new roadway a good deal of blasting was neces- 
 sary. A large stone thrown across the ravine crashed 
 through a window of the button factory and instantly 
 killed a young woman who sat there engaged in her 
 usual work. After this misfortune others followed. 
 
 The situation of the dwelling house, set as it was 
 against the face of the cliff, was as unhygienic as 
 it possibly could have been, if that had been the object 
 
g6 RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 in putting it there, and illness and death were frequent 
 in the family of those residing there ; this house being 
 rented by the proprietor of the factory. Finally, the 
 death of his wife seemed to destroy his ambition, and 
 his failure in business put an end to the button industry, 
 so far as one knows, in Meriden. 
 
 Various unsuccessful attempts were afterwards made 
 to establish some kind of hardware business there, the 
 last one by a Mr. Osgood. 
 
 In i860 the factory was burned down. Not long 
 after that sundry improvements by the cutlery company 
 covered the foundations with water, and finally oblit- 
 erated every trace of them, and the building of the 
 Meriden & Waterbury Railroad, that passes over the 
 spot, took up most of the rocky face of the cliff. 
 
 Once lovers met there; marriage vows had been 
 pledged there; fair babies were taken into loving arms; 
 and there a young mother was taken from her little 
 children, and left her husband to a grief that never was 
 comforted in this world. And save for this record, not 
 a trace is left of it all. 
 
 f 
 
 I 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 BROAD street; ITS ORCHARDS AND FLOWERS. 
 
 •yHE often quoted Mrs. Sally Bradley, whose mind 
 •* and memory were unimpaired at the time of her 
 death at a great age, is my authority for any memories 
 anterior to 1834. One has a misgiving that this is a 
 repetition, but age is garrulous. 
 
 Mrs. Bradley told the writer that the ravine south of 
 Charles Parker's residence. Broad street, was, in her 
 young days — that is to say, in 1789, perhaps — called 
 Nabb's Folly, because somebody of the name had 
 tried and failed to make a road across it. 
 
 Now — in 1899 — this ravine is upon the east side 
 quite filled up, on the west side nearly so. 
 
 The permanent filling up of the uncommonly deep 
 chasm, through which ran a rapid, never-failing but 
 narrow stream of water, was supposed to be as nearly 
 impassable as was the making of a solid way over or 
 through the treacherous, quaking green morass called at 
 that time the "Old Fly," but since known disastrously 
 as the "Peat Works," for when the New Haven & 
 Hartford Railroad corporation surveyed for their nar- 
 row one-track road, it was said that the " Old Fly " was 
 a bottomless quagmire that could never be filled in or 
 made safe, no matter what was done there. 
 
 However, the turnpike people filled up the ravine 
 sufficiently to make a narrow road across it, and, on the 
 whole, a safe one, although for a great many years 
 heavy rains and snows would cause ominous crevices 
 where the causeway met the steep slopes at the sides of 
 the " Gulf," as it was locally termed. 
 
 7 
 
98 RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGfAND TOWN, 
 
 In 1833 the street was, as it is now, pretty straight, 
 but its width was a very uncertain quantity, and its 
 level of a varied " up and downedness. " 
 
 For instance, the now beautifully graded grounds 
 upon North Broad street, between Camp and Pratt 
 streets, were then alternately a high, steep, caved-in 
 bank overhanging the road, topped by a dilapidated 
 Virginia rail fence, which was kept from going alto- 
 gether to pieces by the attraction of cohesion probably, ^ 
 and at the head of Camp street was a deep defile in 
 which grew several large butternut trees. The nuts 
 from these trees used to lie upon the ground ungathered 
 all through the winter, so plentiful were they. 
 
 Sometimes, indeed, a frugally-minded youth gathered 
 them, and the equally plentiful walnuts and chestnuts, 
 and sold them in the only markets at Hartford or 
 New Haven, borrowing, or oftener than not hiring, his 
 father's horse and wagon to convey them there. He 
 would sell them for a price varying from twenty-five to 
 fifty cents a bushel, calling himself most successful if 
 the latter price was received. 
 
 The interspace between Camp street and the " Gulf," 
 now built up with handsome residences, was a thick 
 wood of great hickory, chestnut and oak trees, with a 
 dense undergrowth of low-growing trees and bushes, in 
 which was black birch of piquant flavor, not often 
 sought for, as black snakes and adders hirked there. 
 
 It does not seem so very long ago that a flat-headed 
 adder was seen apparently asleep on the south side of 
 the gulf. South of this point, the road on the west 
 side, for a good many rods, was fenced by a low stone 
 wall, its ruggedness softened by a hedge of tall even- 
 ing primroses, such as one verily believes never grew 
 anywhere else. 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 99 
 
 Do any children now know the fun of watching the 
 perfected primrose buds open at the touch of a finger. 
 To be sure, one must go far afield to find the primroses. 
 
 The ground now covered by the sidewalk and green- 
 sward between the Congregational Church and Charles 
 street was the dumping ground for huge piles of tin 
 chips, which accumulated rapidly with the conscientious 
 methods of manufacture then used. The heaps of glit- 
 tering refuse were embedded in an exceedingly luxu- 
 riant growth of wild parsley, known to the children as 
 " poison fennel." 
 
 The green (it really was one in those days) in front of 
 the churches was a parade ground for a flock of geese, 
 reinforced not infrequently by a pig or two or a few 
 stray cows. Their presence never seemed to worry 
 anybody. Likely as not they were the property of 
 some town official. 
 
 But on the first Wednesday in May and the three suc- 
 ceeding days, the green was enlivened in a different 
 manner. Upon those days did the apprentices at the 
 various tinware shops, whose prerogative it was to 
 have a half-week holiday at "election" time, with 
 everybody else that felt like it, seriously and with great 
 decorum play ball. There is no doubt they enjoyed it 
 mightily, but they made it appear a very solemn function. 
 
 Just at the crossing of East Main and Broad streets 
 stood a tall post, from which hung a large, square sign. 
 On one side was depicted a rather robust and florid 
 young woman altogether too thinly clad. She pointed, 
 with an amiable expression, to a miraculous cornucopia 
 of about a peck basket capacity, from which issued a 
 bushel or two of incongruous fruits and vegetables. 
 This was supposed to represent Pomona, the goddess of 
 
lOO RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 The poor thing swung there until time and the wear 
 and tear of the seasons obliterated her bloom; the 
 cornucopia was only a blotch of yellow paint, and of its 
 multifarious contents no trace remained. The iron 
 watering trough stands upon the spot over which for so 
 many years the. old tavern sign hung. 
 
 One cannot be quite certain, but it was probably in 
 the summer of 1835 that a circus was allowed to exhibit 
 in Meriden. Very grave and severe were the criticisms 
 upon the reckless conduct of the selectmen in allowing 
 anything so wicked and demoralizing. Usually a circus 
 passed through the town in the night, leaving no trace 
 but the tracks of the solitary elephant — never more 
 than one — in the dew)^ road. The children thought it 
 very exciting to find the tracks in the road. In this 
 case, the circus being permitted to stop, a tent about as 
 large as a good-sized rooin wa3 pitched close to the sign 
 post. 
 
 Well-brought-up children, particularly little girls, 
 were hardly permitted to look upon the outside of the 
 canvas. Under certain restrictions we might feast our 
 eyes upon the sight of one scrawny camel and the de- 
 spondent elephant that were the processional features of 
 the show, they being natural history, and therefore in- 
 structive. 
 
 Some time in this summer Mrs. Samuel Lester gave 
 a party for her little sister at Broad street, in the house 
 occupied for many years by the Rev. Harvey Miller of 
 fragrant memory. A dozen little girls, most of them 
 in pink or white cambric dresses, white stockings and 
 slippers, crossed over the instep by narrow black rib- 
 bons tied around the ankle, and pantalets reaching to 
 the heels of their slippers, all of them with bare necks 
 and arms, were at the house by two in the afternoon. 
 
 ^■< 
 
 \ 
 
 ' 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. lOI 
 
 The leading feature of the festivity was the waiting 
 for the advent of the New York stage. All in a row 
 and "taking hold of hands," at the proper moment the 
 young revelers dropped a simultaneous curtsy. 
 
 The very evident appreciation of the occupants of the 
 vehicle was highly gratifying. One may as well add 
 that the "boys" came about six o'clock, and all went 
 home at eight. Observe that this was in the summer 
 time. 
 
 Broad street is beautiful for situation, and destined to 
 become more beautiful in the coming years. But in the 
 springs and summers of those bygone years it was beau- 
 tiful exceedingly. The gigantic cherry trees which en- 
 vironed and overtopped every house, also planted in 
 rows by the roadside, were tall pyramids of snowy 
 bloom. 
 
 Every house had a small orchard of choice apple trees. 
 Peach trees were common, and plum trees were abun- 
 dant. Purple and white lilacs and white roses, the old- 
 fashioned sort, single and fragrant, were in every door- 
 yard. A white lilac with twisted stem can be seen now 
 on the north side of Edmund Wilcox's, Broad street, 
 which was set there by Mrs. Sally Bradley in 1836. 
 Others on Broad street have stood for sixty years. 
 
 One cannot forbear recalling two or three lovely 
 gardens of the olden time. One of them, at the head 
 of Broad street, was surrounded by a low terrace or off- 
 set, veiled and curtained by the soft green of pot-moss. 
 Fragrant yellow lilies grew there. The heavy-headed 
 crimson peonies, the tall spikes of purple foxgloves, 
 the blue Canterbury bells, clumps of low growing Scotch 
 roses, which were tiny red roses an inch in diameter, 
 set closely on stems a foot high. The Scotch roses and 
 pot-moss went out together. Nobody sees either now. 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 And the other garden, with plats of the rosy flush of 
 May pinks and great mounds of spicy June pinks and 
 rows of tall white lilies. And still another one farther 
 down the street, with roses and lilies and beds of thyme, 
 and summer savory and sweet clover and beebalm. 
 These gardens are not. No fragrance of herb or rose 
 or lily lingers. Long ago the hands that tended them 
 laid down "their busy work for evermore." And the 
 kindly eyes that watched them are closed here to open 
 upon the lilies of paradise years ago as we reckon time, 
 but for them it may be ' ' the wonder is not yet gone out 
 of their eyes. " 
 
 n 
 
CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 SOME OLD HOUSES AND BRIDGES. 
 
 TT is only an echo of a very far away time, but the 
 frequently quoted old lady was often heard to say, 
 that "when she was a girl, all south of what is now 
 East Main street was thick woods and pasture fields." 
 The woods were so thick that when the cows were 
 turned in there one of them always wore a bell. 
 
 " In the summer the milking was done at the bars." 
 
 These bars were just west of the Center Congrega- 
 tional church, almost exactly opposite the head of 
 Center street. Mrs. Bradley also said that the hillside 
 north of East Main street, from Broad street down to 
 Pratt street, was heavily wooded with "great trees of 
 the first growth, with a good many white wood (tulip) 
 trees among them. They used to look very handsome 
 when they were all in blossom," as may very well be 
 imagined. 
 
 In 1835 a little girl was sitting on the front " stoop " 
 of one of the four dwelling houses — the only four on 
 the south side of East Main street. This was then a 
 steep road that fell in nearly perpendicular patches, 
 alternated with short, abrupt dips or hollows that held 
 water, and were reservoirs of mud even when the rest 
 of the road was perfectly dry. This little girl pro- 
 pounded the question if ' ' anybody supposed there 
 would ever be any streets over there?" 
 
 "Over there" meant the area between East Main 
 street and Britannia street, Colony street and Broad 
 street (known then as the "Turnpike,") the "Old 
 
I04 RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 Road " and the "road down to the Corner," all com- 
 prised "over there." 
 
 The misprophetic answer was: "It is possible, my 
 dear, but not very probable." 
 
 Yet the respondent lived long enough to see at least 
 half a dozen streets opened and more or less built up. 
 There were, in 1834, only five houses on the north side 
 of East Main street. In the first of these there lived 
 and died a gentle young widow, who faced the world 
 bravely in behalf of her little son and four baby daugh- 
 ters. This house has been moved a little north of the 
 original site and is in good repair. 
 
 The next was the Mecorney house, and stands in its 
 old place. It is No. 194 East Main street. The third 
 was removed to make room for the Town Hall and 
 Norwood street. " This was the Captain Cowles place," 
 now No. 25 Twiss street. Here was another old- 
 fashioned garden — a delight to the eyes of two little 
 maidens, who used to gaze laughingly through the 
 fence and make every excuse their small brains could 
 invent to get inside. 
 
 Four or five splendid old maples were destroyed 
 when the house was removed. An ancient house called 
 the " Cornelius Hull place " was moved to make a site 
 for St. Andrew's Church. 
 
 Another row of fine maple trees were sacrificed at 
 that time. This house, one of the oldest in the city is 
 now (1899) in excellent repair as No. 69 Miller 
 street. It will scarcely be credited, but it is true, that 
 so steep was the descent of the road from the junction 
 of Catlin and Liberty streets, that a child standing at 
 that point could not see the roof of a tiny house that 
 stood where No. 104 East Main street now stands. 
 This house was the birthplace and for many years the 
 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. I05 
 
 home of Edward Lawrence, an eccentric imbecile, 
 whose presence used to be a familiar one in the city, 
 but whose poor scatter-brain has been quiet in the 
 grave for many years. This house is also still standing 
 in fairly good repair not far from its original site. 
 
 From a point near Willow street a road diverged, 
 leading over a knoll into South Colony street. The 
 apex of this knoll was just at the point where the Main 
 Street Baptist church now stands. The ground de- 
 scended sharply from the roadside into a bog, consid- 
 ered so hopeless that an amputated limb was buried 
 there, the spot being thought not likely ever to be dis- 
 turbed. When this limb was, many years after, disin- 
 terred, it was for a while thought very mysterious and, 
 perhaps, tragical. 
 
 The building of the Meriden Bank, the Meriden 
 Daily Journal^ the Meriden Republican, the City Mis- 
 sion and other adjacent buildings stand where once was 
 this marsh. Veteran and Crown streets also traverse 
 it. East Main street, from Pratt street to Hanover 
 street, was a narrow highway through a quagmire, 
 guarded on each side by pollard willows, which were 
 cut every year. Nobody ever even tried to walk on 
 the south side of the narrow roadway, and there was 
 not enough for a footpath on the north side. 
 
 The hapless pedestrian who made a misstep could only 
 flounder about in a morass composed of about equal 
 parts of black, sticky mud and water, tin chips, sweet 
 flag and alder bushes. Harbor Brook ran across the 
 road. It was bright, clear, rippling and pure, too, as 
 any country stream need be. 
 
 No country road can show a bridge so tumble-down 
 and unsightly as was the one that spanned the stream 
 on the only thoroughfare between "uptown" and 
 " downtown." 
 
lo6 RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 The other bridge over Colony street, a few rods 
 south of it was its twin. In the spring, when the frost 
 was coming out of the ground, the road for some dis- 
 tance at the east end of the bridge, and for a little way 
 at the west end, was well nigh impassable. 
 
 In the spring of 1836 a little girl standing at the win- 
 dow of a dwelling house, where Palace block now is, 
 saw a Yale student drive rather precipitately ofE the 
 west end of the bridge with his father's horse and 
 wagon. It should be noted that a carriage, as we now 
 understand the term, was not then to be thought of. He 
 had successfully piloted his way through the slough. He 
 may have thought all danger over, for he drove rapidly 
 and with an air over the bridge, only to find himself 
 sitting very upright in the stationary vehicle, with 
 reins in his hands and the mud up to the wheel hubs, 
 while the liberated steed, with the rest of the harness 
 trailing at his heels, was laboriously plucking his mud- 
 begrimed legs step by step from the sticky bog, nor 
 paused until he had gained the short, steep ascent 
 where the streets crossed. The mud was deepest just 
 where the railroad track is now. 
 
 One recalls, also, a certain day when the surveyors 
 were engaged in the preliminary work of the railroad. 
 Rubber boots were in the future, and Mr. Brodhead, 
 the surveyor, who was just a least bit of a dandy in his 
 dress, always wore what was not as common then as 
 now, very conspicuous linen wristbands. On this par- 
 ticular morning he stood, with the wide cufEs on his 
 wrists and enormous leather boots on his legs, shouting 
 orders to his assistants. Evidently he was very cross, 
 for not getting an answer to a question he, with divers 
 unquotable expletives, desired to know if the "fellow 
 was deaf." 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. I07 
 
 The offender, who had been absorbed in executing sun- 
 dry gymnastic performances, at last yelled something 
 in response, in which naughty words and "snake " bore a 
 part, at the same time lifting a long, squirming black 
 snake and throwing it to a distance. Not beyond the 
 swamp, though, for to have done that he must have 
 thrown it beyond Pratt street. 
 
 The often-quoted dear old lady was also at divers 
 times interviewed as to the legend of the Regicides 
 and their hiding under the bridge at Harbor Brook, 
 while their pursuers were passing over it on horseback. 
 Her answers never differed very much from this for- 
 mula: 
 
 " It seems to be the fashion not to believe it, but it 
 might have been true easily enough, for it was all a 
 swamp, and the trees and alder bushes grew so close to 
 the bridge and all around it ; and when I was a girl we 
 all believed it. Everybody did." 
 
 Speaking of the Regicides, one is reminded of the 
 story that, while the fugitives were hiding in the Judge's 
 Cave, rather mythically located upon East Rock in New 
 Haven, it was said a lady in white used to be seen daily, 
 very early in the morning, descending the declivity, 
 always in white, and at a certain point finding a basket 
 of (it is to be hoped) comfortable things waiting for her. 
 
 This continued to be done for the space of two years, 
 if one may believe the legend. How the mysterious 
 female contrived to live in a cave and dress in white 
 gowns is a problem which the modern daughters of Eve 
 would be extremely pleased to have solved for them. 
 
 But, of course, all that has nothing to do with East 
 Main street in Meriden, 
 
 Very singular it is that while the men of each genera- 
 tion are so diverse in their characteristics, the small 
 
Io8 RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 boy remains the same in all generations. We remem- 
 ber that King David when a boy was severely snubbed 
 and sat down upon by his big brother (who. of course, 
 knew how it was himself) for presumably running after 
 the soldiers. To be sure it was not at all as the big 
 brother supposed or, at least, pretended to think, and 
 the outcome of the affair, it is recorded, was extremely 
 creditable to the embryo potentate. The moral of 
 which is that if the small boy will mind his father and 
 make good use of his hands, he will be apt to make a 
 very good hit and strike a big thing sooner or later, 
 one way or another. 
 
 This leads up to the statement that the boys of the 
 last century were very like the boys of the present 
 one 
 
 The writer remembers her uncle, Dr. Isaac I. Hough, 
 and Capt. Lyman Collins, the father of Aaron Lyman 
 "Collins and Charles Hinsdale Collins, as two portly 
 elderly gentlemen of leisure. It was reported that they 
 were oilce seen to occupy between them seven chairs. 
 The two old gentlemen were nearly of an age. Their 
 homes, in the center of the town, were near each other. 
 They were from early boyhood intimate fiiends, and 
 their graves, in the Broad street cemetery, are only a 
 few feet apart. 
 
 Somewhere about 1797 General George Washington, 
 making a journey through New England, spent with 
 his attending gentlemen one night at a tavern in Wal- 
 lingford, where they were " made very comfortable." 
 " In the morning they rode up the Old Colony road." 
 They must have passed the old " Dugway " cut in the 
 steep side of a hill long since leveled, and on up South 
 Colony street. 
 
 The distinguished company must have crossed the 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. IO9 
 
 bridge at the junction of South Colony and Hanover 
 streets, and then passed up Colony street. 
 
 For the ancient lady so often quoted told the writer 
 that when Dr. Hough and Capt. Collins were boys, per- 
 haps ten or twelve years old, they ran all the way from 
 the Center to the Corner and saw, with their own eager, 
 boyish eyes the great man in the flesh. 
 
 " He looked exactly like his pictures, and there were 
 several gentlemen with them, and they were all on 
 horseback." 
 
 And being boys, doubtless they ran after him up 
 Colony street. It used to be said that the party called 
 for a glass of water at the house once the residence of 
 Deacon Walter Booth, since removed to make room for 
 E. J. Doolittle's house. No. 285 Colony street. 
 
 As General Washington and his suite passed up the 
 road, no doubt he looked across toward the Hanging 
 Hills. Did he know that his features were clearly 
 (more clearly then than now) outlined in the rocks ? 
 Maybe somebody told him. I wish we knew. Ah, me! 
 how very much we might learn if dead lips could only 
 speak. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 CHRISTMAS ILLUMINATION AT ST. ANDREW'S. 
 
 T N the very first years of the existence of St. Andrew's 
 * as a parish the yearly Christmas "illumination," as 
 it was then called, was with tallow candles. Wooden 
 frames to fit the windows were so arranged that a can- 
 dle was at each window pane. These panes were about 
 seven by nine inches, and probably thirty panes to a 
 window. The frames were carefully kept from year to 
 year to be produced and used at the proper time. A 
 chandelier of tin, precariously suspended from the 
 arched ceiling in the center of the church, and side 
 lights of tin fastened to the posts which supported the 
 galleries, held the inevitable tallow candles. 
 
 All of these that were accessible were duly visited 
 once in a half hour or so by some one armed with the 
 " snuffers." The inaccessible lights had to be left with 
 toppling wicks to drip tallow onto whomsoever it might 
 fall. The last illumination was in 1833 or 1834. 
 
 About 1830 one William Lawrence of Meriden in- 
 vented a hanging oil lamp to be used in public build- 
 ings. This lamp he patented. It was hailed as a 
 success, and they were soon put into use in each of the 
 three churches. 
 
 These lamps put the yearly church candle lighting 
 out of the way forever. Until the later years of the 
 century the festival of Christmas was only observed by 
 the small congregation that worshiped at St. Andrew's 
 Episcopal church. Except, that persons from the other 
 two denominations would attend there upon Christmas 
 eve to hear the music. 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. Ill 
 
 The little church was always crowded on these occa- 
 sions, as their annual recurrence was the one musical 
 event of the year. The St. Andrew's of 1840 was a 
 tiny, white wooden building on the southeast corner of 
 the old cemetery on Broad street. 
 
 There were youths and maidens then as there are 
 now in these days, and they also had energy and in- 
 genuity according to their lights. We of St. Andrew's 
 were very proud of certain achievements of the previous 
 summer, notably outside blinds and matting at the 
 only door. Vestibule there was none. Some of the 
 younger members had each paid for one blind, a few of 
 the older people also assisting. 
 
 Certainly the cool green light was a vast improve- 
 ment over the glare of the before shadeless windows. 
 Christmas of 1840 was at hand, and after the successes 
 of the summer we felt that much was expected of us in 
 the way of decorations, and in the manner herein set 
 forth did we proceed to realize those expectations. 
 Material was plenty enough. We could have a forest 
 of hemlock for the asking. So we began by setting a 
 pretty large tree in the middle of the building, much to 
 the curtailment of its scanty seating capacity, and no 
 doubt to the discomfort of the occupants of the adjacent 
 " slips." 
 
 To balance the center, a big hemlock was put in each 
 of the four corners down stairs and in the galleries. 
 The fronts of the latter were festooned by thin and 
 ragged looking wreaths made of small twigs of hemlock 
 tied together. Our next move was suggested by an in- 
 genious young girl, who is at this present writing Mrs 
 Marietta Pettee, the wife of the Rev. John T. Pettee. 
 She originated the idea of simulating snow on the 
 branches of our big trees by tying bunches of cotton 
 
112 RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 batting on them. As we were nearly frozen in church 
 every Sunday of our lives in the winter, this further 
 suggestion of frigidity was certainly superfluous. , 
 
 Our sense of the fitness of things must have been in 
 abeyance, for our next step in this renaissance of deco- 
 rative art was to introduce a tropical element. In those 
 days eggs, although not as plenty as hemlock trees, 
 were by no means forty cents a dozen as they are at this 
 writing. Ten cents was thought a sufficient price. It 
 was not difficult to get a half bushel or so of egg shells, 
 which, dipped in yellow wax and fastened to^boughs of 
 laurel, surmounting the square parts that upheld the 
 galleries, might, by making believe a good deal like 
 Dick Swiveller and the Marchioness, pass for lemon 
 trees bearing fruit. 
 
 Being serenely assured in our own minds that the 
 whole affair so far was an immense success, we were 
 unanimous in deciding that an emblem was needed for 
 the perfection of the design, and here arose the first 
 discord in the harmony of our aesthetic efforts. 
 
 We had chosen a star as the most appropriate, but we 
 were divided in opinion as to its location. One set as- 
 serted that, as the wise men were themselves in the 
 East when they saw the star it must have been shining 
 in the western sky, and therefore the proper place for 
 our emblem was at the west end of the church over the 
 pulpit. 
 
 Besides (and this made the east-enders waver), if the 
 star was hung over the pulpit and opposite the door it 
 could at once be seen by every one upon entering. 
 Whereas, if placed at the east end over the singers' 
 seats, it could only be viewed by turning around. 
 
 We all felt that there was a great deal in that ; but 
 then others equally logical maintained that, as the 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. II3 
 
 wise men said they saw the star in the east, why, of 
 course, the star was in the east, or how could they have 
 seen it there. 
 
 I have forgotten who decided the matter for us ; but 
 finally the luminary was hung over the choir. I am 
 sorry to say the effect was very disappointing. Gold 
 leaf was not procurable by us. No wayfaring man but 
 a fool could have mistaken our star for anything but 
 paper. Another thing, it was all it could do to swing 
 around and present its thin edge to the beholders, if 
 there were any. 
 
 But our intentions were good we knew, and accidents 
 happen to the best of people, as we also knew. Our 
 work was done, the aisles swept, an easy thing to do 
 comparatively, for they were carpetless. Indeed, so 
 were most of the slips, and cushionless as well. The 
 lamps were washed and newly filled with whale oil. 
 Mrs. Edwin Curtis' best pair of glass lamps were placed 
 one on each side of the pulpit cushion. The fire (there 
 was.but one) of wood in a box stove by the door ready 
 to light, and the house was given over to silence for a 
 few hours. 
 
 At six o'clock the door was opened again and the 
 church lighted. It was then the custom in all the 
 churches that the south galleries should be set apart 
 exclusively for the young men and boys. It was on 
 this Christmas Eve that a number of them sat in the 
 gallery with their hats on. 
 
 An elderly and eccentric English lady, called by the 
 young people Mrs. " Posie " Andrews, because she cul- 
 tivated with her own hands a rather prolific and very 
 irregular flower garden, observing this irreverence, 
 shocking to her English prejudices, arose in the body of 
 the church just before service, and with an air of giving 
 
114 RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN 
 
 a piece of information, told the violators of good man- 
 ners and tradition that ''■ gentleme^i always removed 
 their hats in the house of God." 
 
 Every masculine head was immediately uncovered. 
 As this Christmas Eve was to be a memorable occasion, 
 the ladies of the choir wore white dresses, with wreaths 
 on their heads — a very daring innovation it was thought. 
 Some of those wreaths were made of artificial flowers, 
 some of white everlastings. 
 
 The singing at St. Andrew's was very good always, 
 but was especially so on Christmas Eve. Edwin Cur- 
 tis led the singing and played the bass viol. He also 
 kept the key of the church, made the fire, swept the 
 building, kept the oil lamps in order and boarded the 
 minister. In the choir he was reinforced by Henry 
 Saltonstall and Alanson Curtis, who each played the 
 violin. Henry Judd and A. H. Curtis, formerly of the 
 Savings Bank, and a Mr. Ford, each played the flute. 
 
 Mr Ford is only remembered as a transient person, Jfi 
 
 whose hair and complexion were blond, who always 
 dressed in light-colored garments, and whose flute was % 
 
 an ivory one. On the whole, he was considered more r^i 
 
 ornamental than useful in the choir. ,| 
 
 I cannot recollect the music sung, but I knov/ the 
 grand old " Gloria in Excelsis " in plain chant was not 
 omitted. At that time it was always sung after the 
 reading of the psalms in the evening service 
 
 Down in the congregation dear old Amos Curtis, 
 who had been himself once a leader in the choir, fairly 
 sung himself out into the aisle. 
 
 He was one of the first of the family to connect 
 himself with St. Andrew's, and the first to organize the 
 choir, and the fruit of his labors have followed through 
 several generations. For about eighty years from his 
 
 'fj 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. II5 
 
 day to this some who bear his name have been found 
 doing their duty in the choir of St. Andrew's. He 
 brought weekly in that early day the beginners in mu- 
 sic to his house, and after "trying their tones, " instituted 
 a course of instruction for their benefit — Edwin Curtis 
 and Mrs. Ann Merriam, her brother Joel, the elder 
 Lillets and others. The change which he lived to see, 
 from the pitch pipe to the gilded pipe organ, might well 
 arouse an enthusiasm airy enough to raise him off his 
 feet. 
 
 Hezekiah Rice stood up, tall and stately and reverent. 
 He was a staunch Universalist, but he loved the Epis- 
 copal liturgy. 
 
 Saintly Esquire Merriam, Elisha Curtis, who dearly 
 loved the Lord's house, the fathers and brothers and 
 cousins of the Andrews family, the brothers and cousins 
 and neighbors of the then numerous Curtis family and 
 others whom I cannot name were there. 
 
 And then when the sermon was preached and the 
 closing anthem sung, and the stillness of the quiet 
 prayer, which followed the benediction, broken, we all 
 went our ways, in the middle of the road mostly, for 
 sidewalks there were none. That was long ago. The 
 violins and flutes were tuneless years ago. 
 
 Those who handled them so deftly and those who 
 listened and admired have long ago " Beheld the King 
 in His beauty and the land that is very far off." The 
 old church is now a tenement house on Liberty street. 
 Here and there in the city of Meriden, in this year 
 1899 you may still find a few elderly ladies who will 
 smile as they recall that faraway time. It was a very 
 good time, that of their youth, but they do not dispar- 
 age the present. Some of them keep something of their 
 tunefulness of voice and brightness of eye. And they 
 have not lost all of their elasticity of spirits. 
 
Il6 RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 They will not tell you that "the former times were 
 better than these;" they are very content with the 
 present, and so they will be with the future as it glides 
 into the present and fades into the past, until to those 
 who are now in the very morning of life the present 
 has become to them in their turn the past of the Long 
 Ago. 
 
CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 CHURCH CHOIRS — THE TIBBALS PROPERTY. 
 
 'T'HE only buildings between East Main and Olive 
 ^ streets in 1840 were the three churches. The Bap- 
 tist Church on the northwest corner of the Broad street 
 cemetery was a plain white structure, surmounted by 
 a steeple, but without a bell. It was entered by 
 two doors at the head of a flight of six or seven 
 wooden steps. These doors opened into a lobby, from 
 which, at each side of the gallery, stairs ascended. 
 The door and stairs on the south side were used exclu- 
 sively by the young men and boys for entering their 
 special domain — the south gallery. 
 
 The arrangement of the interior of the church was 
 exceedingly plain. The ceiling overhead was flat and 
 comparatively low. As the singers' gallery was spa- 
 cious, it might have been to relieve this flatness of the 
 ceiling that the architect had put an inverted bowl- 
 shaped arch over the choir. 
 
 This disregard of acoustics had, of course, the effect 
 of carrying the sound away from the body of the church, 
 and the singing, therefore, was heard to better advan- 
 tage from the seats back of the choir than from the 
 audience room. This dome-like ceiling was afterwards 
 flattened and lowered, and the change was a decided 
 improvement. The Sunday singing was conducted in 
 the usual way. Curtains were drawn, partially conceal- 
 ing the choir as they stood. These curtains were 
 green. Then came the prolonged note giving the key, 
 and rising of the choir after sounding it. 
 
Il8 RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 At one time the resident minister, either Mr. Hervey 
 or Mr. Howard, led the singing from the pulpit, and 
 succeeded very well indeed. Afterward, Joel Miller 
 became the choir leader, and for a good many years 
 filled the place most acceptably. 
 
 In instrumental aid the Baptist Church choir was 
 very fortunate. Samuel Yale — called by his friends 
 " Uncle Sam," and by his enemies " Old Sam " — was 
 conceded by both friends and enemies to be "queer." 
 He was not in the very least a religious man, but he 
 went to meeting pretty regularly and played the bass 
 viol, and did it very well. 
 
 Sundays and week days his costume was always the 
 same. Always a green baize or woolen roundabout 
 jacket, his neck encircled by a very ragged and very 
 dirty black satin stock. His headgear sometimes an 
 old woolen slouch hat. At other times, for a touch of 
 elegance, the cap was left off in favor of a very tall- 
 crowned, stiff black hat, narrow and old-fashioned even 
 in that day. The fate of this remarkable hat may as 
 well be recorded here. Somebody set a lighted candle 
 too near, quite under the brim, and this peculiar piece 
 of headgear shriveled up and disappeared. The rag- 
 ged black satin stock he wore to bed in his last sickness, 
 and died with it on his neck. 
 
 Although he was one of the richest men in town, in 
 this rig he went to meeting, and for his own pleasure 
 played the bass viol, or he would not have done it. 
 
 " Captain " Howard played the double bass viol. He 
 was another character. His full name was Horatio 
 Nelson Howard. The owner of this big name was a 
 very short, rotund Englishman who had drifted to 
 Meriden. Nobody ever knew much about him. 
 
 When he first came he must have had some money. 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. II9 
 
 for he owned at one time and, perhaps, he built the tall, 
 narrow house near the Parker factory gate on High 
 street. A very good house it was then considered to 
 be. 
 
 Sometime or other Captain Howard had been a gen- 
 tlemen. Perhaps strong drink had brought him down. 
 It proved to be the final ruin of him. 
 
 The late Mrs, Bell, as Emily Avery, was for many 
 years the leading soprano, Sarah Ives the leading alto. 
 She left the choir when she became the wife of the Rev. 
 Harvey Miller. Mrs. Miller's singing voice was sweet 
 and sympathetic. She had very beautiful eyes, singu- 
 larly serene and restful in their expression. 
 
 Ira Twiss was also prominent in the choir. He en- 
 tered into musical matters with the greatest zeal, and 
 his evident delight in singing went far to compensate 
 for his somewhat monotonous tenor. 
 
 Late in the forties the Baptist Church was sold to the 
 " Meriden Academical Association." They floored the 
 space between the galleries, thus making a second 
 story. The choir seats were not altered, nor were the 
 old gallery seats. The upper room, formed by the 
 division, was rented as a hall. For a considerable time 
 it was the only public hall in town, the old tavern 
 ball-room having become disused. The lower room 
 was the academy school room. The society of Odd 
 Fellows used the hall for their meetings. St. Andrew's 
 parish, pending the building of their stone church on 
 Broad street, rented the hall for Sunday services. In 
 1849, Rev. A. N. Littlejohn preached in it for ten 
 months. He is now bishop of the diocese of Long 
 Island. 
 
 The building was finally sold, and moved and made 
 into a four-tenement house on Twiss street, where it 
 
I20 RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 now Stands. The ground which it occupied was taken 
 into Charles street, and a slight depression, still visi- 
 ble on the side by the cemetery indicates the site of 
 another vanished landmark. The old Tibbals house, 
 of which an engraving is now the only vestige, in- 
 significant as it appears, was once a dwelling-house 
 of some pretension and of some note in the history 
 of the town. Situated closely under the shadow of the 
 Center Congregational Church, it was, nevertheless, 
 once several feet above the level of the street. A wade 
 covered porch, supported by pillars, projected from the 
 front door, with seats on each side. Large cherry trees 
 shaded it on the street side. 
 
 The house was built about i794-'96 by Samuel Tib- 
 bals. He came from Milford. He was a man of prop- 
 erty, a widower, betw^een forty and fifty years of age. 
 Soon after his advent into the town he married Chloe, 
 the eldest (living) daughter of Dr. Hough. She was 
 sixteen years old. 
 
 Mr. Tibbals bought nearly or quite all the lands be- 
 tween East Main and Charles streets, and between 
 Broad and High streets. The Tibbals house was pe- 
 culiar in this respect : It was never regularly bought or 
 sold; it never changed ownership by actual purchase. 
 This is a fact, unless the writer is mistaken, and in this 
 matter a mistake is not admitted. 
 
 When Mr. Tibbals left Meriden for the far, far West, 
 Ohio, the house by some exchange passed into the 
 hands of his father in-law. Dr. Hough, and at the doc- 
 tor's death became by will the property of his son. Dr. 
 Isaac I. Hough, in whose ownership it remained for 
 many years. It was occupied for the greater part of 
 those years by Dr. Hough's near relatives, and when for 
 a few years these persons left the house, it was tenanted 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 12 T 
 
 by some of his more distant connections. Dr. Hough 
 had some peculiar notions about the devising of prop- 
 erty by will, and selected his nephew and namesake, 
 Isaac I. Tibbals as his heir, who therefore at the death 
 of Dr. Hough became the owner. 
 
 After the death of Isaac Tibbals' first wife, Lucy 
 Cowles (who was also his cousin), Mr. Tibbals married 
 Mary, the eldest daughter of General, or, as he was 
 later known. Deacon Booth. After her death the house 
 by some transfer of interests became the property of 
 Deacon Booth, who in his turn gave it by will. to the 
 Center Congregational Society. 
 
 Mr. Tibbals was a devout and active Episcopalian. 
 At the time of his advent into Meriden the Episcopal 
 Church was only represented by half a dozen families, 
 among whom the Andrews family was the most promi- 
 nent. This family was English, and at the time of the 
 Revolution were strong Royalists. 
 
 An ancient maiden lady. Miss Lucy Andrews, used 
 to tell the writer, getting much excited in the telling, 
 that her grandfather, being a Tory, was not allowed by 
 the authorities to go beyond the limits of his own land, 
 the greater part of which lay south of West Main 
 street and west of the present Meriden & Waterbury 
 Railroad, which now traverses part of the old farm. 
 
 The Andrews family were very well off, and were, 
 almost as a matter of course, with their peculiar political 
 views. Church of England people. 
 
 The only Episcopal services in town were held at 
 their house, and were only occasional. Into this small 
 society Mr. Tibbals was naturally made very welcome. 
 He brought some money and more enthusiasm, and at 
 once interested himself in the building of the first Epis- 
 copal Church. Some of Dr. Hough's family became, 
 
122 RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 through Mr. Tibbals' influence, members of the so- 
 ciety, some of the numerous Curtis family joined, and 
 St. Andrew's Church was fairly started. 
 
 The old dwelling we have been talking of was known 
 and spoken of by the old inhabitants as the "Tibbals 
 house." It is a mere waste of words to try to speak of 
 the house and its environs, as they were so long ago ; to 
 tell of the abundant fruit trees which shaded it, and the 
 flower garden, divided by a rivulet flowing from across 
 the road into the meadows on the other side. The 
 source of this brook was an ever-living spring, which 
 still supplies with drinking water the house occupied by 
 Mrs. Lyman Butler, No. 458 Broad street. 
 
 It is now not possible to see how the house could 
 have stood so high above the level of the street. Yet 
 so it was once. After its decadence a visit was made 
 to the old building. A forlorn hope had been cherished 
 that an old carved cupboard that had stood in the cor- 
 ner of the basement kitchen might have escaped the 
 ravages of irresponsible tenants. Needless to say such 
 hope was futile. This had disappeared, as had also the 
 old partitions that formed the passage-way of the cellar 
 leading past the dark fruit cellar, and the cellar where 
 the charcoal was stored in great bins, and the other cel- 
 lar where the cider barrels and the vinegar barrels and 
 and the winter's supply of salted meats were kept, and 
 which passage led finally into the light, cheerful kitchen, 
 with its wide fireplace and deep, brick oven, wherein 
 had been baked to toothsome perfection the great loaves 
 of daily bread, the rich loaves of wedding cake, and 
 more than once or twice funeral baked meats. 
 
 All were gone, as completely as the flower garden 
 with its rivulet and narrow footbridge of years before. 
 Instead of the doorsill over which one stepped into the 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 1 23 
 
 once bright house place, one went down into a great 
 open cellar. Not one board left to mark the old out- 
 lines, and the cellar itself a yard deep in debris of all 
 kinds. 
 
 The old house, which more than any other save one 
 had to do with the early history of St. Andrew's parish, 
 became at last equally identified with the interests of 
 the Center Congregational Church. The old house is 
 gone, and the smooth grade of the green turf where 
 it stood gives no sign of its old-time existence. 
 
 The old well-sweep that the old-time thirsty school 
 children drew down with upstretched arms to send the 
 bucket splashing into the depths is not even remembered. 
 The well itself was for awhile disused, but has been 
 recovered, and the clear, cool water flows from the 
 same source as it did a century and more ago. It is 
 now (in 1899) carefully guarded. 
 
CHAPTER XX. 
 
 THE FIRST TAVERN WINTER EXPERIENCES. 
 
 TN 1779, the turnpike not yet opened, the most tra- 
 ■^ veled road between Wallingford and Meriden passed 
 through Ann and Curtis streets. Old people described 
 Curtis street as "twisting about a good deal," Its 
 lines led up to the door of the old Curtis homestead, 
 standing some way east of the present line. At the 
 present junction of Broad and Curtis streets the road 
 turned abruptly toward the west, making at that point 
 a sort of square. At the southwest corner of this open 
 space there stood a large two-story farm-house. This 
 was really the first tavern in the town, and, of course, 
 the only one until the old " Half- Way House " was oc- 
 cupied. In an "L," on the south side, was a country 
 store. In this store could be found all the luxuries de- 
 manded by the primitive style of housekeeping. Among 
 these luxurious necessities, or necessary luxuries, were 
 always West India sugar, molasses and spices, and 
 always New England rum. They belonged together, 
 for the rum bought the molasses and spices, the latter 
 unground and unadulterated. When needed for high 
 feasts, such as Thanksgiving (Christmas then did not 
 count at all), ordination dinners or balls, weddings 
 or funerals (to the latter relatives and acquaintances 
 came from afar, and were expected to stay and partake 
 of the funeral baked meats which custom required 
 must be lavishly provided) , the brass or iron — sometimes 
 wood or stone — mortar and pestle wjere brought into use, 
 and, by laborious attrition, the spices were ground to 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 125 
 
 powder. The children and other superfluous members 
 of the family were expected to take turns at the fragrant 
 drudgery. The very greatest and most important of 
 all social functions was the ordination dinner and the 
 ordination ball that followed the dinner. Both for the 
 dinner and ball a liberal supply of liquors was supposed 
 needful and proper. The last ordination ball given in 
 Meriden was in 1803 when the Rev. Erastus Ripley 
 was ordained. This ball was given in the old tavern 
 ball-room. The last real ordination dinner was given 
 when the Rev. Charles Hinsdale was installed in 1823. 
 This dinner was at his own house, situated on Broad 
 street. At this feast onions held an honorable and con- 
 spicuous place, and liquors were so copiously provided 
 that it was whispered a prominent member of society 
 became quite incoherent in conversation. Mrs. Jerusha 
 Plumb was wont to speak with enthusiasm of ordina- 
 tion balls, They were, she said, very serious and 
 stately divertisements, and very rigid and formal eti- 
 quette was observed, also critical attention must be 
 given to the dancing steps. "Very different from 
 these modern balls," Mrs. Plumb would observe. 
 
 Note that Mrs. Plumb's criticism was made in 1840. 
 In the small store before spoken of cotton cloth and 
 calico or "print "could be found in limited quantity. 
 But up to the first ten years of 1800 nearly all textures 
 for common wear were homemade. Linen was used 
 for underclothing ; cotton cloth was thought to be ex- 
 travagant. 
 
 In almost every household would be seen the great 
 wheel for spinning wool, the small or flax wheel, with 
 reel which told off with a "click " every fortieth thread 
 wound upon it. Forty threads made a "knot." In 
 most of the farm houses the loom was the most 
 
126 RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 conspicuous object in the kitchen. The flax grown on 
 the farm was spun and woven into heavy sheeting and 
 table linen, which being once achieved, would last a life- 
 time and more. Ambitious housewives and daughters 
 sometimes span a finer thread, which, carefully woven 
 in intricate damask patterns, were made into towels 
 and napkins. Some such are still in existence without 
 rent or broken thread. The young woman of (then) 
 marriageable age, from sixteen to twenty, who could 
 card the wool into "handsome rolls," light and fluffy as 
 down as they lay in great piles, and then spin them into 
 *' cross-banded " yarn — this was a rare accomplishment 
 — afterward knitting the yarn into Sunday stockings, 
 ornamented with "clocks," was held as a model for 
 her less nimble-fingered sisters. 
 
 If, in addition, she could show a "chest of drawers " 
 filled with household linen of her own spinning and 
 weaving, marked with her initials in cross-stitch, she 
 stood proudly forth as a prize to be coveted by the 
 thrifty young farmers designing to settle favorably in 
 life. 
 
 Besides the more (or less) direct roads to Walling- 
 ford, Westfield or Berlin, there were grass-grown lanes 
 marked by the wheel ruts leading to isolated farms. 
 Well-worn paths led also across the fields and over the 
 hills to the quiet farm houses. In several instances 
 these paths became disputed rights of way, causing 
 family feuds and prolonged lawsuits that lasted for 
 years. It must have taKcn a good deal of energy and 
 strong nerve to get about in those days. A story was 
 told of a certain "Aunt Griswold," who was notable 
 in her time for efficiency in cases of sudden illness. 
 She was called one winter night to attend a person liv- 
 ing on the Westfield road. Taking her infant, wrapped 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 127 
 
 in a white blanket, she mounted her horse and started. 
 She had not gone far when her horse stumbled in a 
 snowdrift and her babe was thrown from from her 
 arms. The fall in the soft snow did not waken the 
 child, and she looked about for what seemed to her a 
 a long time before recovering the little one. 
 
 Hilarious tales used to be told of winter night expe- 
 ditions across the fields to visit the two or three-miles- 
 off neighbors. Upon such unexpected visits or surprise 
 parties the hostess would bring into the kitchen the 
 wheat flour, the sour cream, the eggs and spices, and 
 compound them into twisted cakes. Then, sitting 
 down upon a chair in the chimney corner, she took the 
 cakes from the huge moulding board placed on a chair 
 at her side, and dropped them, one by one, into the 
 kettle of boiling lard suspended from the crane in the 
 fireplace. 
 
 The cakes, hot from the frying pan, were washed 
 down by mugs of cider or cups of milk; rows of apples, 
 mellowed upon the hearth before the fire, and the 
 cracking of nuts and the cracking of jokes went on with 
 about equal briskness. After all, this is a world of 
 compensations. 
 
 With the turnpike came in new times. Horseback 
 riding with pillions, as a common method of trav- 
 eling, went out, and stages and gigs came in. 
 The old house no longer stood in a corner. Its 
 place was now on the turnpike. It lost its prestige as 
 store and tavern combined. It was for a good many 
 years known as the " Seth Plumb" house. Later it 
 was for an equal number of years spoken of as the 
 "Joel Miller" house. It is now, thanks to its solid 
 timbers, standing in very good condition on South 
 Broad street. 
 
128 RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 The elegant home of Edward Miller occupies the site 
 of the old store and tavern. The property has been 
 in the possession of only two families for nearly, if not 
 quite, a century. 
 
 Liberty street until well into the forties had only two 
 dwelling houses upon it. Both of these are standing 
 upon their original sites, owned and occupied by Walter 
 Hall and William Ridley. Upon the south side of the 
 road the land fell toward the north, and was so cold and 
 wet that no attempt at cultivation was made. It was 
 used exclusively for pasturage. 
 
 The whole hillside, from East Main street, between 
 Broad and Camp streets, abounded in living springs, 
 from each of which small but everflowing streams ran 
 through the meadows into Harbor Brook. In the 
 fields traversed by these rivulets grew in their season 
 every wild flower indigenous to New England. Huckle- 
 berry bushes were plentiful there, but, alas, snakes 
 were also. 
 
 Just where Center street crosses Liberty was a ra- 
 vine. Abundant nut trees with oaks of a goodly size 
 grew on the banks. A small artificial pond had been 
 made there. This was locally known as "Jordan," it 
 having been used (so tradition had it) in some prehis- 
 toric 'period as a place for baptismal immersion. A 
 stream flowing from this source is known to-day as 
 Jordan Brook. 
 
 The pond had been made, in the first place, to propel 
 some crude machinery in two or three little shops. 
 These were cramped little places, not more than eight 
 or ten feet square, and containing nothing more compli- 
 cated than a few dies and lathes. The water power, 
 such as it was, was not used a great while, but the tiny 
 pond and the trees which shaded it and the snakes 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 1 29 
 
 which infested it remained until far into the fifties. 
 In the shops the work was the making of some part of 
 tin lamps. Only two or, at the most, three men were 
 employed. The business was supposed to be profit- 
 able, for the principal employe wore boots known to 
 have cost five dollars a pair. He was called — among 
 his friends, of course — a most extravagant person. It 
 was on Liberty street that one of the earliest Meriden 
 manufactures was started. It was here that Samuel 
 Yale set up a forge and made nails by hand, each nail 
 head being separately hammered. 
 
 The first Samuel Yale made nails, the second was the 
 owner of the little shops on Liberty street, when the 
 work was finally removed to a large building. One of 
 these shops was lived in for a number of years by 
 Zilpha. She was the widow of a colored dependent of 
 the Yales. Her husband, "Jack" (the two never 
 seemed to have a surname), was the son of slaves, but 
 he being born after a certain date was born free. 
 
 He did not leave the Yale family, but continued a 
 faithful servant until his death at the seaside by drown- 
 ing. The Yale brothers, Samuel and Hiram, grieved 
 for him very sincerely. His wife was given the little 
 building as her home. Here she was made as comfort- 
 able as a person of her temperament could be. She spent 
 her whole waking hours in complaining. She wished 
 to be thought an invalid, and did her best as far as she 
 understood her role. 
 
 She declared she had swallowed a frog, and she evi- 
 dently thought the circumstance carried with it much 
 distinction. Perhaps she had swallowed a frog, but 
 her personal aversion to water was very marked. 
 
 The making of tinware was probably next to nail 
 making, and contemporary with that very likely was 
 
130 RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 the making of the high back combs, once the extreme 
 of fashion. These combs were — some of them — six or 
 seven inches high, and were cut or carved, not stamped, 
 into fern leaves or roses, with buds and foliage, or oak 
 leaves and acorns, and so on. 
 
 Two shops where these were made stood, until 1838, 
 at the present junction of Center and East Main streets. 
 They were finally moved down to the Corner, and for a 
 while stood on posts to keep them out of the water on 
 the north side of East Main street, about opposite 
 Crown street, certainly not far from that. 
 
 In those days nothing that would be called machinery 
 was in use. All the processes were slow, but — far 
 from us all be insinuations — the finished products were 
 durable. 
 
CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 INTERIORS OF THE CHURCHES. 
 
 T N each of the three Meriden churches the place which 
 ■^ answers to the lecture room of this day was then in 
 the basement. The one at the Congregational Churcn 
 was the most comfortable of them all. For one thing, 
 it was not quite so much underground. The door sill 
 was level with the surrounding yard. 
 
 Here for some years — certainly as late as 1846 — the 
 town meetings were held. Here might be seen the 
 local politicians standing about the door, with a not in- 
 frequent divergence of a large contingent to the old 
 barroom. They returned from there to the basement 
 door to renew with increased zeal and vehemence their 
 weighty arguments. 
 
 There was a pulpit or desk in the room, but I do not 
 think it was ever used as such. A large table with sev- 
 eral deep drawers served all purposes. In these table 
 drawers were deposited the Sunday school library 
 books, and from it the books were distributed. A box 
 stove in the middle of the ror>m and plenty of wooden 
 benches completed the furnishing. 
 
 The Baptist basement had the same general features, 
 only tl'c^' 1'j.e entrance to the room was effected by a 
 step 'om the door. Unless much pre- 
 
 cai^! , .J.... .. caused an unduly abrupt ingress. 
 
 This peculiarity was once the cause of an unexpected 
 pause in the exercises of the weekly conference meet- 
 ing. Certain young men (those who remain of them 
 are now sober and grave upholders of law and order) had 
 
132 RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 lost somehow {at least one of them had) their usual 
 sense of latitude and longitude. It seemed the part of 
 good comradeship to see the unfortunate one safely 
 home, two of the party meanwhile sitting upon the step 
 of the main entrance waiting" the return of the other 
 Samaritans. 
 
 It occurred to their minds while waiting that it would 
 make a good impression if they attended the prayer 
 meeting. No sooner thought than acted upon, and 
 Deacon Goodrich's exhortation was interrupted by the 
 plunging in on all fours of a couple of bewildered sin- 
 ners, who were unable to resume a normal position 
 without help. This little affair was a surprise in more 
 senses than one. It opened the eyes to a state of things 
 unsuspected. 
 
 The engraving of St. Andrew's Church in Dr. 
 Davis' history is not quite an accurate one. The chim- 
 ney did not rise from the apex of the roof, but from the 
 northwest corner. The steps were a single flight, and 
 rose directly from the footpath. They were of stone, 
 so rough that to call them hewn is to compliment them. 
 These steps led, as did those of the Baptist Church, up 
 to an unprotected platform before the entrance door. 
 The steps and the walls at the side formed a lobby with 
 an earthen floor, with a door on the south side. 
 Through this lobby was the entrance into a bare, low 
 room of some size. The inevitable box stove, set upon 
 a hearth of bricks occupied the center. The pipe from 
 the stove intersected with another that went the whole 
 length of the room and through the windows, both on 
 the north and south side of the house. This plan had 
 been adopted to obviate the smoking of the stove, 
 which, it is proper to remark, it did not do. 
 
 Perhaps owing to the terrible dampness of the place 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 1 33 
 
 the smoke and soot condensed, and a black fluid dripped 
 from the joints of the stovepipe onto the floor and 
 benches. Finally, some bright genius caused little tin 
 pails to be hung at every joining of the pipe, and thus, 
 in addition to the box stove and wooden benches, feat- 
 ures of the other damp basements, the Episcopalians 
 had a triple row of tin pails overhead. 
 
 In all the church buildings the pulpit was at the west 
 end of the auditorium, with the choir opposite over the 
 entrance. In all the three choirs curtains were hung 
 in front of the singers. These were of red moreen, 
 and perhaps eighteen inches in depth. 
 
 In all the churches the clergyman was expected to 
 read the metrical psalms and hymns entire given out 
 for singing. While this was being done the curtains 
 were scrupulously drawn together, concealing the 
 singers. Then came the prolonged keynote, given in 
 the first place by the instruments, then in accord with 
 the singers who rose as the sound ceased. 
 
 Another similarity in the interior of the church 
 buildings were the slips with doors, which it was 
 thought decorous to open and close at the ingress of the 
 occupants. These doors were fastened by wooden 
 buttons. As may be supposed, there were occasions 
 when the door clapping was much in evidence. As 
 these wooden buttons were on the outer or aisle side, 
 the reaching over of the one at the head to let the rest 
 of the family out was one preliminary of a closing 
 service. He, if an understander of good custom, held 
 the door open until all had passed into the aisle, when, 
 with emphasis, he closed the door and fastened it. 
 
 The Baptist and Congregational Churches did not 
 differ materially in their order of public worship, and 
 the general plan of the pulpits and accessories were 
 
134 RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 much the same A small plain table below the pul- 
 pit, with a curled maple cane-seated chair placed at 
 each end, were the same in both. At the Congrega- 
 tional Church the drapery of the pulpit was the most 
 elaborate and costly of the three, the material being of 
 crimson damask, while the others were obliged to be 
 content with crimson moreen. The singers' seats of 
 the Congregational Church were also enriched with 
 imitation windows, which were draped with red 
 moreen, damask being altogether too costly in those 
 days to be placed back of the congregation. 
 
 The ritual of the Episcopal Church, of course, re- 
 quired a more elaborate arrangement. The chancel, 
 with its bare floor, was inclosed by a plain railing, and 
 the narrow, wooden kneeling bench encircling the 
 chancel was also bare of covering. Within the chancel 
 stood the bare table with its two plain chairs. Two or 
 three steps led into the "reading desk'" answering to 
 the lecturn of later days. This had two doors, care- 
 fully closed when the minister was within. Above this 
 the pulpit was reached by a short flight of stairs upon 
 each side. Those upon the south side were rarely 
 used; never in the author's experience. The minister, 
 leaving the vestry room near the outside entrance under 
 the gallery stairs, walked the whole length of the 
 church and entered the reading desk, fastening the door 
 after him. 
 
 When the sermon time came he left the desk, closing 
 the door again. (By the way, the ministers at the other 
 churches also always fastened the pulpit doors upon 
 entering or leaving.) The clergyman leaving the read- 
 ing desk, traversed the length of the aisle the second 
 time; returning to the vestry, divested himself of his 
 white surplice, and pulling on a voluminous black silk 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. I35 
 
 gown, passed for the third time throiig-h the 
 aisle, ascended to the pulpit, where he preached 
 the sermon and in the afternoon read the closing 
 hymn. 
 
 Until 1830 the church had a sounding-board sus- 
 pended over the pulpit. It was thought to be unsafe, 
 and was removed. This sounding-board is still in ex- 
 istence; at present it is " put to base uses." It is 
 hoped it may be recovered and restored to something 
 of its former dignity. A clock in use in the auditorium 
 of this old church is still in existence, and keeping 
 accurate time in the present St. Andrew's parish 
 house. 
 
 Of course in those early years there was no thought 
 of chapels or parish houses. Any extra religious ser- 
 vices were held in the basements of the churches. The 
 Lenten services at St. Andrew's were invariably held 
 on the mornings of Wednesday and Friday. Rigorous 
 and austere rites were these weekly, morning prayers. 
 There was never any fire, no matter how cold and 
 stormy the day might be. 
 
 Edwin Curtis, who managed the parish and all its 
 concerns, considered a fire of a week-day to be a sinful 
 extravagance. But in those days nobody expected to 
 be warm in the cold weather. True, some people lived 
 through it, but it was a case of *' the survival of the 
 fittest." The ritual at. these morning services was the 
 Morning Prayer and the Litany. 
 
 As half the time there was no resident clergyman, it 
 would often be the case that the aged senior warden, 
 Elisha Curtis, would read the morning service and 
 Edwin Curtis make the only audible responses, which 
 he always did in a very loud voice, and with great and 
 (as he went on) increasing rapidity. 
 
136 RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 Custom severely endorsed St. Paul's dictum that 
 " women should not be heard in the churches." It was 
 held to be unseemly for the women to respond above a 
 whisper. 
 
 The Congregational society was by far the largest 
 and most popular. The Baptist came next, the Epis- 
 copal very much the smallest, both in respect to the 
 building and numbers, but holding its own in other 
 ways. There were, of course, people who held other 
 sectarian opinions. 
 
 Hezekiah Price and his son-in-law, Calvin Coe, with 
 his family, of whose three daughters Dr. Hough said 
 " they were the most graceful walkers in town" (ad- 
 ministering at the same time a severe snub to an 
 unlucky member of his own family), were often at St. 
 Andrew's. They were Universalists. Esquire Pomeroy 
 and his family, also of the same faith, frequented the 
 Baptist Church. 
 
 The families of Charles and Edmund Parker were, of 
 course, Methodists, the elder brother, John, being a 
 clergyman in that denomination, but they with their 
 families were often at St. Andrew's. Edmund Parker 
 afterward became identified with this parish, and so 
 continued until his death, in 1868. 
 
 Dr. Hough and his nephew, Isaac Tibbals, w'ere 
 supposed to hold heretical opinions. They were Uni- 
 tarians. They were, however, constant attendants at 
 the Center Church. 
 
 Although the observance of the Lenten season was 
 confined to the Episcopalians, a psychologist might be 
 interested in the fact that the protracted meetings, 
 which were a feature of the revival system of the era, 
 were always held sometime in the lengthening or Lenten 
 days. The more unique features of these revival 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. I37 
 
 meetings are of the past. Sometimes — often, indeed — it 
 would be that all but the most necessary work was 
 neglected. The factories were nearly, sometimes quite, 
 closed, and everybody gave themselves up to religious 
 exercises of, it must be conceded, the most lugubrious 
 nature. A deep gloom settled upon all faces. There 
 were few luxuries to give tip, and not many amuse- 
 ments to abandon. 
 
 True, there were people who did sometimes dance, 
 and there were those who sometimes played whist, but 
 their best friends really did not know what would be- 
 come of them if they persisted in such evil doings. 
 This principle or prejudice had nothing to do with 
 Lenten or revival seasons, as dancing and card playing 
 were looked upon as hopelessly demoralizing all the 
 year round by many excellent people. 
 
 Denominational feeling was far stronger and more 
 exclusive than in these later years. There was a great 
 deal of intolerant nonsense. The writer recalls the 
 amusing air of being almost dangerously broad in 
 opinion with which a most excellent man announced that 
 " he believed there were some very good people among 
 the Episcopalians." 
 
 Far away are the old days, and almost forgotten are 
 the old prejudices. Passion Week is now seriously rec- 
 ognized by all Christian sects as a season of peculiar 
 fasting and prayer. Christmas and Easter are now 
 also joyously observed by all classes of Christian 
 people. Easter in the old times was signalized only by 
 extra hymns set apart for that purpose. 
 
 Sitting in the warm, well lighted, cushioned and 
 carpeted church, waiting for the advent of the surpliced 
 choir , one can hardly realize that the Lenten season of 
 1899 means just the same as the ascetic observance of 
 
138 RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN, 
 
 1836. Far apart as are these two periods, they are less 
 remote from each other than are the Eastertide solem- 
 nities in all the churches from the meagre and only one 
 at St. Andrew's in the time gone by. 
 
CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 HOUSECLEANING TIME. 
 
 OOMEBODY who evidently knew all about it said: 
 
 " In the spring a young man's fancy 
 Lightly turns to thoughts of love." 
 
 Of course the verdancy of the season is coincident with 
 the cogitations of the embryo town councillor. One 
 turns with reluctance from a topic so fascinating and 
 replete with possibilities to one of more practical im- 
 port. It was in the spring that the thoughts of the 
 old-time, thoroughbred New England housekeeper 
 turned more especially to the cyclical upheaval of the 
 domestic system known to all men as housecleaning. 
 
 In the former years, even before the branching trees 
 began to respond to the pulsing of the rich juices at 
 their roots, the preparation for the household orgies 
 began. The soft-soap making was the first movement. 
 Did any one of this generation ever by any chance see 
 an ash-leach? One fancies not, for it was a structure 
 obsolete years ago. In its day it rivaled the modern 
 stovepipe as an incentive to an energetic vituperative 
 method of phrasing on the part of the (by courtesy) 
 head of the house. 
 
 Preliminary nagging began about St. Valentine's 
 day, and if all went well the ash-leach was in operation 
 by the first of March. A barrel would answer the pur- 
 pose well enough, but being easy to arrange, the pains- 
 taking matrons would have none of it. The properly 
 built ash-leach was a four-sided, quadrilateral structure 
 
140 RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 of beards, the point supported about a foot from the 
 ground by a rude but stout frame of sticks. Into the 
 receptacle the wood ashes, preferably oak or hickory, 
 which had been carefully saved through the winter, 
 were poured until it was full. Water was then judi- 
 ciously applied that it might neither too fast nor too slow 
 percolate the ashes. 
 
 The lye thus resulting was carefully watched, and as 
 soon as the pale color suggested the strength to be ex- 
 hausted, the boards were taken down and the leached 
 ashes applied to the garden or corn field. 
 
 All the long winter every particle of fat and grease 
 had been carefully saved, looked to and guarded from 
 inroads of "mice and men." One eminent housekeeper 
 went so far as to prepare bits of rags, with which the 
 plates used at meals were wiped, and the result added 
 to the precious accumulation. These rags were care- 
 ixxWy boiled, and the water from them set apart to cool 
 and then skimmed of its accumulated fat. 
 
 The necessary boiling together of the lye and the fat 
 was done either at a chosen spot in the back yard or in 
 the great, deep, open fireplace. After the boiling, the 
 compound was poured into its final receptacle, and, in- 
 consistent as it sounds, water was then added from time 
 to time to thicken it. If the soap ' came " properly, 
 great was the jubilation thereat; and if not (and some- 
 times the most skillful soap-maker failed), it had to be 
 put up with like other misfortunes. 
 
 The inferior economics having been successfully dealt 
 with, the notable housewafe began the real business of 
 the season, which was scrubbing and " nothing but it " 
 — at least not much. Walls and floors, tables and 
 chairs and bedsteads, all had to be scriibbed, except the 
 mahogany articles, which were oiled, and the cherry 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. I4I 
 
 tables that were waxed and then rubbed bright. It 
 was a process that brought out the richness of the 
 grain of the wood as nothing else ever did or ever will, 
 perhaps, and besides, being laborious and, to an ex- 
 hausting degree, weary work, it was much in favor; 
 for to meet the exigencies of housekeeping with any 
 ease of method was "a reproach and a hissing " in the 
 estimation of those assiduous New England house- 
 mothers. 
 
 The scouring of the tinware was an important feature 
 of the crisis. Rows upon rows of shining pails and 
 pans and utensils of all sorts were displayed for the ad- 
 miration — and exasperation — of the less muscular or 
 less well provided sisterhood. The store of home- 
 made house linen, blankets and counterpanes was duly 
 looked over, washed, ironed, counted and consigned to 
 another twelve months of oblivion. The weary but 
 complacent old time housekeeper held herself in readi- 
 ness to attend to her butter and cheesemaking, her 
 pickling, preserving and fruit drying. 
 
 Sausage making and curing of hams, the salting of 
 barrels of beef and the preparing of the hung beef 
 for the winter's consumption were presided over with 
 serious ceremonial and solemn incantations. Th|^ try- 
 ing out of lard and tallow and the candle making for 
 the year's supply brought the year nearly to its weary 
 end and the next bousecleaning season. 
 
 But the old-fashioned housekeeper has gone, and the 
 old order has changed. In these days to scour tin with 
 vigor is to scour holes in the same ; and there are lovely 
 granite and agate and enameled wares, and there are 
 all sorts of soaps and powders that, if one believes the 
 advertisers, one has only to shut up the different sorts 
 in a room by themselves, put on one's best gown, and 
 
l42 RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN, 
 
 wait while the compounds, in sheer competition, do the 
 work. 
 
 In the olden time of soft-soap making, which opened 
 the season of miscellaneous scrubbing, very few carpets 
 were in use. The writer remember a best room on 
 North Colony street in which the furniture was a table, 
 six plain chairs and a '"Boston" rocking chair. The 
 only indication of any ornaments were a volume of 
 extracts from Shakespeare and a pitcher of purple 
 lilacs on the table. The floor was bare of carpet or 
 rug, and the walls were paneled with oak; but the floor 
 was as white almost as paper, and the cherry table 
 shone with beeswax and rubbing. 
 
 One has seen since then floor rugs that cost a fortune, 
 tables of carved ivory loaded with costly curios from 
 every known land under the sun; but somehow the 
 picture of that old-time room, with its atmosphere of — 
 well, yes — intense purity, has remained unchanged since 
 that springtime of long ago. 
 
 Candle-making was a very serious affair. " Dipped " 
 candles were used first; afterward tin moulds came 
 into use. As may be supposed, the candles were used 
 with severe economy. The Saturday cleansing and 
 polishing of the steel candlesticks and snuffers was the 
 abhorred task usually alloted to the younger girls in the 
 family. 
 
 Whale oil in glass lamps was a luxury reserved for 
 special and ceremonious occasions, and the glass lamps 
 were often the most conspicuous mantel ornaments in 
 what were then supposed to be the best rooms. 
 
 By 1836 carpeted parlors were common, but I doubt 
 if there were a dozen houses in Meriden where carpets 
 were in use in the living rooms. 
 
 Not far from this time it was that cooking stoves 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 143 
 
 began to take the place of the open fireplaces furnished 
 with crane and hooks. With the advent of stoves and 
 the use of coal came a change in housekeeping methods 
 and new outlets for housewifery energies. 
 
 In some former period of existence (in the spring, 
 probably), Edwin assured Angelina that 
 
 '• The sigh that rends thy constant heart 
 Shall break thy Edwin's, too," 
 
 or words to that effect. Apparently the time had now 
 arrived. At breakfast Angelina would observe, apropos 
 of nothing, that something ailed the kitchen stove. 
 Edwin, of course, would become more or less thought- 
 ful upon hearing this, and when further instructed 
 that before anything else could be properly done the 
 stovepipe must be taken down and cleaned, Edwin, 
 whistling "The Long, Long Weary Day," immediately 
 became plunged in an anxious bustle, and was obliged 
 to meet a man on important business. 
 
 Then Angelina, being an active young woman, af- 
 firmed to herself that anybody could take down a stove- 
 pipe. She burned her hands and blackened her face 
 and dress, but the stovepipe was finally lying in sec- 
 tions in the yard. After an hour's struggle, the pipe, 
 thoroughly cleaned, of course, was ba ;]: more or less 
 in its place on the stove. 
 
 Edwin, probably a wise man in his generation, would 
 accept with ar'' '« 'I'ty ? ^^ry poor dinner, and would 
 remark as he jcticut Havana, with the 
 
 slightest ace. . • ., j<j ououn : 
 
 " You did not get that stovepipe quite straight. " 
 
 Then he changed his cigar to the other side of his 
 mouth, holding it firmly between his teeth, as he rapped 
 the pipe lightly on one side and then on the other. 
 
144 RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGf AND TOWN. 
 
 And behold the sheet iron fiend that resisted the per- 
 suasions of hammer and hatchet, the tongs and the 
 rolling pin, the potato masher and the big shears, yields 
 to the gentle manipulation, and is settled and fixed 
 firmly in its place. 
 
CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 MANUFACTURE OF THE HOOP SKIRT. 
 
 "DEADER, do you remember the learning of " didac- 
 ^^ tic pieces" and hymns, to be repeated to the 
 minister when he made a pastoral visit, or to any other 
 unfortunate on whom parental partiality could lay 
 hands. 
 
 Among- others one recalls, as being of a high moral 
 tone, and therefore especially and most particularly 
 appropriate for the hearing of the victimized parson, 
 was one of which only four or five lines are retained in 
 the memory. The stanzas, after setting forth the folly 
 of being proud of new clothes, went on to assert that 
 the 
 
 " Poor sheep and silk worms wore 
 That very clothing long before." 
 
 Now children are regular Gradgrinds as to facts, and 
 truly this statement seemed to be lacking in veracity. 
 Besides, why should the clothing be worn long before? 
 One was pretty sure it was not so worn ; but being 
 afraid of a sheep, and going nearly into hysterics at the 
 touch of a worm, one could not investigate the matter 
 as one could wish. 
 
 The author (Dr. Watts, probably, it sounds like him) 
 went on giving more enigmatical information, and fin- 
 ished by stoutly affirming that 
 
 " The art of dress did ne'er begin 
 Till Eve, our mother, learned to sin." 
 
 Having grown older since the days of "didactic 
 
146 RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 poetry," one is naturally less particular in the matter of 
 facts, and instead of disquieting oneself, because one's 
 fellow beings have too much idealty, one sees a fine 
 opportunity for criticism. Regarding the above coup- 
 let, there are two points to which exception is taken. 
 
 First, the omission of Adam's name, as though Eve 
 were the only sinner. Exact justice requires that the 
 lines read thus: " Till Adam and Eve," etc. 
 
 In the next place, it is apparent to a reflective (femi- 
 nine) mind that Eve's procedure in this matter of the 
 *' art of dress " was not reprehensible, but, on the con- 
 trary, was laudable and to be approved, since she was 
 simply making the best of the circumstances, being, as 
 well as she knew how, equal to the emergency, in which 
 respect her daughters have diligently followed her 
 example ever since. 
 
 That Eve originated the "art of dress" explains, 
 there is no doubt, why the despotic genius to whose 
 exactions and impositions we submit with long suffering 
 patience, and who initiates and presides over the vaga- 
 ries of bonnets and gowns, not to speak of hats and 
 coats, has hitherto been accounted feminine and spoken 
 of as Dame Fashion. Strict accuracy now requires 
 that the presiding genius be considered complex in 
 character, and be styled Dame Fashion in America, 
 Monsieur Fashion in France. 
 
 Within the last few years elements of comfort and 
 common sense have steadily dominated the rulings of 
 costume, and we must trust to the latter trait for pro- 
 tection in the threatened revival of the hoop skirt 
 atrocity. 
 
 Still, if Dame and Monsieur Fashion require it of us, 
 we shall very likely ignore comfort and common sense, 
 and treat the hoop skirt, as human nature is said to 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. I47 
 
 treat vice, "We shall first pity " (ourselves), "then en- 
 dure, and then" — no, not embrace; nobody can do 
 that. There is a standoffishness about a hoopskirt. 
 Crinoline is another thing, and may possibly add a 
 grace to costume ; but a hoop skirt cannot. 
 
 Crinoline is a modern invention, but hoops were worn 
 in 1744, a century and a half ago. In 1833, it was con- 
 sidered elegant to expand the bottom of the skirt by the 
 use of " Jackson cord " — a stiff hempen rope which was 
 inserted in the hem of the petticoat, and which was ex- 
 tremely apt to break from its fastenings, with results 
 mortifying to the wearer. 
 
 During the fifties the hoop was brought into use 
 again by the Empress Eugenie, who for her own con- 
 venience rehabilitated an old fashion. There were few 
 periodicals in those years that devoted any space to de- 
 tails of costume. "Godey's Lady's Book " is the only 
 one recalled, so the would-be fashionables did the best 
 they knew how, and followed suit with Jackson cord 
 (which had come to the front again), coffee-sack, grass- 
 cloth and starched petticoats. 
 
 The making of hoop skirts in Meriden was brought 
 about, so to speak, by carpet bags. For some years 
 carpet bags had been rather an important production 
 here. Very likely there are yet to be found in attics and 
 closets specimens of these queer traveling appurten- 
 ances. They were of various sizes, but commonly, 
 perhaps, a foot and a half square. The material used 
 was Brussels carpeting; remnants, samples and so on, 
 bought in quantity. They were lined with imperfect 
 dress muslins procured directly from the factories. 
 The handles were stiff rope covered with the carpeting, 
 and they were fastened, 01 closed, by small brass pad- 
 locks. The keys of these locks were hung by a linen 
 
I4o RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 thread, of the kind used in the making, to one of the 
 kind used in the making to one of the handles. 
 
 These keys were, of course, intended to be detached, 
 and kept securely, but it was not unusual to see carpet 
 bags left on a car seat or in a rack with the tiny and in- 
 efficient key hanging by a thread. Queer as it seems, 
 these bags were the fashion ; and a new carpet bag was 
 an essential particular in a wedding outfit. For several 
 years the trade in these articles was a brisk one, and, 
 as the material used was far from being expensive, the 
 manufacture was profitable. 
 
 The shop where the business was carried on was lo- 
 cated on the southwest corner of Broad and Camp 
 streets. A number of yoimg women were employed, 
 and the work was also given out to be done at home by 
 persons, who thus added a nice little sum to their 
 pocket money. Carpet bags had pretty much had their 
 day, and the business was flagging, when the principal 
 of the concern saw while in New York the method of 
 making hoop skirts, then a new manufacture. 
 
 Being a man " who never let the grass grow under 
 his feet, "he came home with the making of the new 
 article fully determined upon. 
 
 "But how," said somebody, "how v.'ill you weave 
 the tapes? You have no looms. " 
 
 "That is easy enough," said Mr. . "It is only 
 
 just three or four sticks and some strings. Anybody 
 can do it. I could do it myself — if I only knew how. " 
 
 The looms were erected and somebody found who 
 "knew how "to run them, and the tape weaving was 
 begun in the old clock shop. The wires were covered 
 in a shop over east, and the articles completed in a 
 building at the corner of Camp and Pratt streets. The 
 cost of making was not great, and for awhile they sold 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 149 
 
 at a large profit. But it was soon found that the tapes, 
 which were woven in a peculiar way for the insertion 
 of the wire, could be bought quite as cheap as they 
 could be woven here, and very soon there were half a 
 dozen "hoop skirt factories" in town, most of them 
 only occupying a room or two. 
 
 In a little while, the war having broken out, cotton 
 became scarce and dear, the market was also over- 
 stocked, and the business ceased to be profitable. 
 
 Not far from this time, too. Queen Victoria had 
 brought the Balmoral skirt into favor, and a factory was 
 built for their manufacture, which afterward, much 
 enlarged, became the " woolen mill " of to-day. 
 
 If the Master of Costume in France and his satellites 
 in America so decree, we shall probably, sooner or 
 later, ignore comfort and common sense, and the hoop 
 skirt will be upon us. (The pun made itself.) 
 
 However, the general taste in the matter of apparel 
 has been educated by the facilities of these later years, 
 and it is to be hoped this will prevent any style from 
 becoming positively ridiculous, as many of the former 
 modes certainly were. An emendation can be seen in 
 the so-called revival of the modes of the "Empire," 
 and of i860. The latter certainly do not have the 
 awkward features of the gowns actually worn at that 
 period. The lines are less abrupt, and are longer and 
 more flowing. The feet are more sensibly shod, and 
 the bonnets and hats at present worn make an entirely 
 different thing of the costume. 
 
 A young and pretty woman will look more or less 
 charming and attractive in anything, and the crinoline 
 may be endured; but nothing, not even custom or a 
 professional beauty, can make a peripatetic hencoop 
 graceful. 
 
C H AFTER XXIV. 
 
 THE FIRST CATHOLICS. 
 
 TTmust have been very early in the spring of 1836 that 
 •*■ Curtis L. North rushed into the room (his tactics 
 were always to seem enthusiastic) where Dr. Hough, 
 Major Cowles and the ladies of the family were at tea, 
 with the announcement : " The railroad is to go through 
 the Corner." 
 
 Major Cowles was not moved out of his usual sedate 
 composure by the news; he knew all about it before. 
 For he and Judge Brooks were among the earliest pro- 
 jectors of the scheme, and were prominent and influen- 
 tial members of the first board of directors. 
 
 A route through South Meriden was talked of, and 
 one on the east side of Meriden had been thought of, 
 but dire was the dismay when either project became 
 known. Nothing less than total annihilation was pre- 
 dicted to crops and stock, and everything else. Visions 
 of dismembered cattle, scattered about the blazing hay- 
 fields, disturbed the sleep of the landowners. For how, 
 they wished to be told, could they spend their time in 
 watching to keep their animals off the rails; and in a 
 dry season it would be madness to allow the fire-laden 
 engine to run the risk of setting fire to everything com- 
 bustible. Men, who lived to know better, inquired, 
 with pathos, what good their lives would be to them if 
 their farms were to be cut into in such reckless fashion. 
 
 The route finally adopted proved altogether the most 
 practicable. For one thing, it was pretty nearly a 
 straight one. It had few curves; for it was then an 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 151 
 
 article of sapient railroad faith that the cars could not 
 be carried with safety around an abrupt, or, rather, a 
 short bend. Also, it could be made less expensive, the 
 cutting at " Holt hill " being the only considerable one 
 between Hartford and New Haven. This cutting was 
 at first only wide enough for one narrow track. At a 
 point not far from the present site at the Curtis home, 
 the highway was really an excavation into the hill- 
 side, nearly overhung by the high bank on the one 
 hand, while on the other was a sheer descent of many 
 feet, making a dangerous declivity, almost without pro- 
 tection. 
 
 The spot was wild and lonely — a favorite haunt of 
 tramps, and was known as " Dugway." The land just 
 here was heavily wooded; but Holt hill itself was a 
 smooth cluster of pastures, famous for its luscious 
 blackberries, whose low vines in the autumn carpeted 
 the ground with crimson. The road over the hill joined 
 " Farms road" just where it does now. At the foot of 
 the hill stood the Holt farm house, a large, old- 
 fashioned dwelling house of an excellent type, with 
 ceilings traversed overhead by carved oaken beams, 
 with paneled side walls and floors of oaken planks, so 
 solid that it was almost impossible to drive a nail into 
 them. The house had its own bit of romantic history. 
 When Russell Holt, who was the owner fifty years 
 ago, was a young man, his mother, as the New England 
 custom was, had bound to her until the age of eighteen 
 a young girl. As might have been expected, the young 
 people fell in love, very truly, as it turned out. 
 
 The mother strenuously opposed the affair, but she 
 was ill, and could not dispense with the young girl's 
 help, even if she might have sent her away, a course 
 which the law forbade, for the state that gave the time 
 
152 RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 and labor of the bound boy or girl to the employer, also, 
 when appealed to, protected the former from injustice. 
 Finding herself near death, and, it may be supposed, 
 thus having the greater influence, she exacted a promise 
 from her son that he would never marry the girl. The 
 letter of the promise he kept. He never married ; but 
 the young woman never left him. She lived in his 
 house as his housekeeper and companion imtil his death 
 at a great age. At first gossip and scandal were busy 
 with the affair, but as time went on it died out. At 
 Mr. Holt's death he left all he could leave to the woman 
 who had been constant to him through evil report and 
 good for sixty years. The house was torn down some 
 years ago, and a modern dwelling now stands in its 
 place. 
 
 Until the era of the N. H. & H. railroad, the only 
 Emerald Isle man in town was a bright, witty fellow 
 named Robert Clark. He was not a Protestant exactly, 
 nor did he call himself a Catholic, although he was once 
 heard to observe "he could be one easy enough." It 
 happened one time that Julius Pratt wished to increase 
 the force of water that propelled the great wheel of his 
 factory, and Robert was engaged to dig a sluice which 
 would give the needed supply. Robert agreed to do 
 the work at a fixed price per foot. He had seen that 
 the soil was soft and porous and the grade downward 
 from the lake whence the water was taken. He cut and 
 loosened the sods to the length and width required, re- 
 moved a few to get the needed pressure, and then sat 
 down to comfortably smoke his pipe while the sluice- 
 way cleaned itself. This exploit so recommended itself 
 to Mr. Pratt that Robert became his trusted factotum. 
 This, however, was after the railroad had been in oper- 
 ation long enough to change a good many things. 
 
RV.COLLECTIONS OF A NKW ENGLAND TOWN. 153 
 
 The contract for the Meriden section of the road was 
 taken by one Colonel Henry. He brought with him a 
 large compijny of laborers, who were settled in barracks 
 built on the rising ground north of Holt hill. These 
 new settlers were a great curiosity to the citizens. A 
 walk to Holt hill became one of the recognized recrea- 
 tions. These dwelling places were, of course, more or 
 less crowded, but they were warm and comfortable, and 
 many of them were kept beautifully clean and nice. 
 There were children in plenty, some of them beautiful 
 little ones. One infant in particular was an especial 
 attraction, so very lovely was it. In every room some 
 emblem of the religious faith of the occupants was con- 
 spicuously placed. Mass was celebrated certainly once 
 while the work at Holt hill was in progress. The 
 writer recollects very well hearing it spoken of, as it 
 was naturally considered an event 
 
 There is a tradition that this mass was celebrated by 
 a French abbe who passed through town and was im- 
 portuned by some of the workmen to give them the 
 privilege. It is also said that the service was held in 
 the open air under a large tree, necessarily cut down. 
 This was very likely the case, as there was no room 
 large enough to hold even a small congregation, and 
 there were many large trees of the first growth scat- 
 tered about. 
 
 Colonel Henry sometimes lamented the want of a 
 pastoral head over his — especially upon pay days — 
 rather difficult contingent. In the course of a few 
 years the changes made by the widening of the railroad 
 track so altered the grade that the narrow — for teams 
 could not possibly pass each other there — and danger- 
 ous " Dugway " was altogether effaced. Probably no 
 one now living could tell exactly where it used to be, 
 
154 RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 although the name was used afterward in connection 
 with a part of the road much farther to the southward 
 and having no likeness to the old Dugway. 
 
 When the work on the road was completed some of 
 the men found employment in the town and settled 
 themselves in homes. By this time, too, the pioneer, 
 Robert Clark, had brought his family and settled them 
 in a comfortable home on Broad street. A relative, one 
 John Conley, had also built a small house near where 
 he lived with his mother, a gentle, quiet old woman, 
 who spoke only the Gaelic, and wore a "mutch" with 
 white borders, and crown encircled with a broad, black 
 band, and who, when her housework was done, seemed 
 to find her chief solace in her rosary. 
 
 Several persons are remembered who were most de- 
 vout in their daily devotions, being in this respect a re- 
 proach to their more lax Protestant neighbors. Other 
 relatives of the two families followed, but they were 
 Episcopalians. The Catholic population increased but 
 slowly. All who wished the especial privileges of their 
 own church went, preferably, to New Haven. In 1847 
 or 1848 a Roman Catholic church was organized, and 
 the building hitherto the property of St Andrew's 
 parish, was bought and occupied by them. 
 
 In 1842, the society of St. Andrew's had bought and 
 set up the first church organ in Meriden. The cost of 
 the instrument was $400. The case was of oak. The 
 keyboard was enclosed behind gothic doors, which 
 rolled to either side when the organ was in use. Its 
 voice was excellent, being pure, firm, and with a rich 
 fullness never excelled by any of the costly instruments 
 which succeeded it. When the newly organized society 
 of St. Rose's parish bought the St. Andrew's Church 
 building at the corner of Broad and Olive streets, the 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 155 
 
 organ went with it. Afterward it was given by St. 
 Rose's society to the Mission at Wallingford, and was 
 at last entirely destroyed in the tornado of 1879. Miss 
 Hannah M. Donovan, of West Main street, sang to this 
 organ for some years. She made diligent and minute 
 search for some traces of it, but could only find some 
 small fragments of the keys, which she has in careful 
 keeping. 
 
CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 WHEN MERIDEN BECAME A CITY. 
 
 /^NE fine morning in July, 1867, Meriden awoke and 
 ^-^ found itself a city, "armed and equipped as the 
 law directs," with mayor, aldermen and councilmen all 
 complete. And then Meriden did not know exactly 
 what to do next. Now, there existed illustrious prece- 
 dent for this state of inertitude. In a two-volume 
 record of the early days of Queen Victoria's court, 
 written by a person who was a member of the house- 
 hold at that time, it is set down that just such a state 
 of matters existed then. Nobody knew precisely what 
 was expected of them, and the young sovereign, only 
 eighteen years old, just about the age of one of our 
 pretty High school girls, could not tell them. 
 
 And, therefore, when assembled in the evenings the 
 court used its best collective endeavors to refrain from 
 yawning the top of its collective head off. For, of 
 course, to yawn at court would have been the death of 
 the British lion. But there was this difference between 
 the Meriden city government and the English court — 
 that the former were in no danger of boredom ; things 
 were made too lively for them to suffer in that way. 
 But, on the other hand, it was like its illustrious proto- 
 type in this particular — that while, individually, each 
 and every man knew precisely his business and how to 
 do it, it was only collectively that a confusion of ideas 
 prevailed. 
 
 Our citizens showed more perspicacity; they decided 
 it to be their parts and duties to give the new mayor a 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. I57 
 
 reception, and accordingly Mayor Parker's house was 
 duly turned upside down. This preliminary settled, 
 all hands addressed themselves to business, the city 
 corporation doing their best to bring order out of 
 chaos, and the citizens to opposing pretty nearly every- 
 thing that was undertaken. It did seem rather hope- 
 less. The streets were most of them, steep; all of 
 them uneven and crooked; and although each individ- 
 ual was really desirous for the city's advancement, yet 
 each was confident in his (or her) own mind that the 
 emendations should begin somewhere else, no matter 
 where the much-badgered city corporation began. 
 
 There had been attempts at improvement in former 
 times, but the days had long gone by when at certain 
 seasons the only safe method of crossing Harbor brook 
 to a point several rods east of the wooden bridge was 
 by a causeway of boards, built upon poles, with trimmed 
 saplings for a railing. Or, when a party of young 
 people, who were to attend an evening entertainment 
 in the western part of the town, had to alight upon 
 some boards at the foot of Linsley's hill while their car- 
 riage was pried out of the mud. Or, later still, when 
 private enterprise had done something remedial for 
 West Main street, the thin layer of crushed rocks 
 -would be covered by a quaking mass of mud, resem- 
 bling nothing so much as a lake of soft soap, in the 
 which, if one lost one's rubber, one was pretty sure to 
 fish up somebody else's. 
 
 But, speaking of Linsley's hill— long, long before it 
 was Linsley's hill— a little girl was sent with a silver 
 fifty -cent coin to a milliner's shoo, the only one in town 
 just then, close by the present railroad station on West 
 Main street. Strolling amid the grass and clover at 
 the side of the road she lost the precious piece of silver, 
 
158 RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN, 
 
 and feeling, as children do, that the skies had fallen 
 and life was over, the small maiden went wailing back 
 home. Almost, if not quite, half a century after, an 
 Irishman digging near the Curtis house unearthed, sev- 
 eral feet below the siirface of the ground, a silver fifty- 
 cent piece, of a coinage within the first thirty years of 
 the century. But, as Kipling says, that's another 
 story. 
 
 There had been sidewalks in the past of plank. One 
 on Colony street was suggested by, and much of the 
 expense borne by, the late Dennis Wilcox. Another, 
 of strips of board laid transversely across timbers laid 
 lengthwise prone upon the ground and following the 
 inequalities, led from a point somewhere east of the 
 bridge to a point somewhere near the center of the 
 town on the hill. These walks were hailed as a great 
 convenience in their early days, but that on East Main 
 street soon became a doubtful one. The timbers be- 
 came thrown out of line by the frost, and the transverse 
 strips of board became disjoined so that finally the 
 wayfarer who essayed a walk from the " Corner " up 
 the hill was obliged to walk delicately like Agag, the 
 careless pedestrian not infrequently finding by the sud- 
 den upheaval of a plank the alternative of a standing 
 position in the mud on one side, or a sitting one on the 
 stone wall on the other. The boys, too, would some- 
 times find a piece of board seductively shaped just right 
 for a ball club, those adjuncts of civilization being 
 mostly homemade in those days 
 
 This sidewalk had the honor of provoking a wiiticibm 
 from Henry Ward Beecher, who lectured in the Town 
 hall at the period of the sidewalk's most marked dislo- 
 cation. Finally, consideration for the lives and limbs 
 of the citizens demanded that it be removed altogether; 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 159 
 
 which was done. But this was also of a day that was 
 past. 
 
 The town was meanwhile rapidly growing, and was 
 outgrowing the town laws, and it was seen that meas- 
 ures must be decided upon which should enable the 
 place to develop its possibilities. Besides, there had 
 come up a tramp and loafer element which was ex- 
 tremely difficult to cope with efficiently. Hence the 
 city charter and incorporation and the entering of the 
 city officials into their labors, which they found per- 
 plexing enough. Did they aspire to straightening a 
 a street ? At once they were beset by weeping widows 
 who could not — and would not, so there ! — see their 
 favorite Japan quince bush or dwarf pear tree sacrificed. 
 Irate householders declared that nothing and nobody or 
 nobodies should compel them to lay flagging in front of 
 their premises when they did not want to do so, and 
 could not afford it. As for their own property being 
 enhanced in value by such enforced disbursement, they 
 scorned the idea. The tramps refused to leave town 
 till they got ready, and the loafers clung to their be- 
 loved street corners. The policemen were desirous of 
 doing their duty; but the limits were undefined, and 
 they did not know exactly what might happen if they 
 exceeded their limitations, so that, finally, all — police- 
 men, tramps, and loafers — did as Israel did of old — 
 " Every man that which seemed right in his own eyes. " 
 
 Things could not, of course, go on in this way for 
 long without coming to a crisis, and a scrimmage be- 
 tween the police and the parties of the other part 
 resulted in the upholding of the former in the course 
 they took by the lovers of good order, and thereafter 
 they maintained and retained their control of the law- 
 less social element. 
 
l6o RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 Gradually, too, the crooked paths became straight, 
 literally, and the rough places smooth. The inequali- 
 ties of Colony street were removed, and one can 
 scarcely believe that there was once an elevation from 
 Washington street to Foster street that completely 
 obstructed the view beyond and north. 
 
 Another street, too, where an indignant housekeeper, 
 dish cloth in hand, once put to rout a half dozen lords 
 of creation who had been deputed to prepare the ground 
 before her front fence for a flagged sidewalk, is now a 
 lovely, level, shaded highway, and within the week has 
 been pronounced by a swiftly-speeding wheelman ' ' a 
 dandy street to ride on." 
 
 Twenty-five years ago St. Andrew's Church was un- 
 finisbed. There was no soldiers' monument, and the 
 spot which the High school occupies was filled by a row 
 of unsightly rookeries. The Town hall was a " reproach 
 and a hissing," albeit much improved from the days of 
 its remarkable and most exasperating echo that, coming 
 from the upper southwest corner of the auditorium, 
 would repeat with ludicrous exactness the last two or 
 three words of every sentence spoken on the stage. 
 This echo was remedied by altering the arch of the 
 ceiling. 
 
 In the vanished quarter of a century much has been 
 accomplished in the perfecting of plans for beautifying 
 a city so beautiful for its situation as this of ours cer- 
 tainly is. Much is still desirable to be done, and with- 
 out doubt much will in the future be achieved. 
 
 Meriden's successive mayors are all living. The rank 
 is at present unbroken. Two of the first four aldermen 
 have departed. Eight of the first sixteen councilmen 
 have also passed away. In the twenty-five years nearly 
 or quite fifty men, prominent in town affairs, either 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. l6l 
 
 socially, professionally or in ecclesiastical matters, have 
 moved off the stage of living men and given place to 
 others who are as ambitious and as absorbed in the 
 issues of the time as were those whom we meet no 
 more at home or in the passing crowd. If this younger 
 element do the duty of the hour as well as did those of 
 whom we now speak in the past, they will not have 
 lived in vain. 
 
 And when the city is fifty years old, and the tram 
 cars propelled by cable or electricity, or compressed 
 air, or something else of which no one has yet heard, 
 and are making hourly trips from here to New Haven; 
 when West Peak with its lower elevations is a public 
 park and the east mountains terraced to their tops are 
 built upon; when hospital and public library are and 
 have been for years in good working order ; when these 
 things have been done, and others now not even 
 dreamed of, it will not matter if the names of those 
 who were instrumental in the carrying of all these 
 things are forgotten of living men, for they will not 
 have spent their "labor for that which is not bread." 
 They will have done their part in building up a city 
 "whose sons shall grow up as young plants," and 
 whose ' ' daughters shall be as the polished corners of 
 the temple;" in whose streets there shall be "node- 
 cay" or "complaining." And the happy people who 
 are " in such a case " are those who have the " Lord for 
 their God." 
 
CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 IN THE EARLY FORTIES — CUSTOMS OF MARRIED LIFE. 
 
 TTALF a century and more ago married life was, as a 
 ■'• -^ custom, entered upon at an earlier age than is 
 now thought advisable. Engagements were not, there- 
 fore, prolonged, and were not often announced, never 
 formally. It happened very early in the forties that 
 thirteen young couples were married within a few 
 months. None of them would now be thought in other 
 than moderate circumstances — that is, worth, perhaps, 
 ten or fifteen thousand dollars; two or three of the 
 brides belonged to families of this class. All of them, 
 however, had the proper "setting out" — feather beds 
 and bed linen, plain and very substantial. Two fortu- 
 nate young women had also some ancestral china and 
 silver. 
 
 Not much money certainly to start in life with ; but on 
 both sides a fund of mutual interests and of very genu- 
 ine, even if not of very demonstrative, affection and 
 respect for and confidence in each other. And, be- 
 sides, an individual self-respect that kept them silent as 
 to the trivial discords which will — owing, maybe, to 
 "too much love and bad weather " — happen in an un- 
 accustomed duet. This reticence was, also, a check 
 upon that bane of young married life — injudicious 
 interference. 
 
 Married life to them was a copartnership not to be 
 entered upon " unadvisedly or lightly," in which mutual 
 love and esteem and discretion formed the capital 
 stock. Capital stock, everybody knows, is subject to 
 fluctuation, but it is not considered to be sound business 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. T63 
 
 methods to throw it away for that reason. And 
 thus it fell out that all these thirteen alliances kept 
 their integrity " till death did them part." Such part- 
 ing came early to two young mothers, who cherished 
 their baby sons for a year or two, and were then called 
 out of sight. 
 
 The wooing of those days was an enterprise con- 
 ducted with a gravity and demure propriety that savored 
 of dejection. A request to be "the company home " 
 from singing school or evening meeting, or the almost 
 equally solemn function of an evening party, was the 
 usual preliminary. This being followed up and becom- 
 ing noticeable, a meek suggestion that permission to 
 call would be a coveted privilege would ensue. This 
 permission accorded, matters fell easily into line, but 
 an engagement was seldom confessed. 
 
 In fact, persons who prided themselves upon their 
 reputation for veracity in other matters did not hesitate 
 for a minute in formulating the most barefaced fibs 
 when any remarks were made relative to matrimonial 
 matters. Such fibbing being considered rather com- 
 mendable than otherwise. 
 
 Church weddings were infrequent and, as at present 
 conducted, quite unknown. The rite of the Episcopal 
 Church was, of course, just the same then as it is 
 now, but other clergymen used each his own taste 
 and judgment. Even the ritual of the Methodist Church, 
 which closely follows the Episcopal marriage service, 
 was very seldom used by their ministers. 
 
 Rev. Harvey Miller was very concise in this regard. 
 " Are you both agreed?" he would ask; an affirmative 
 word by the aspirants; then, "I pronounce you man 
 and wife." A cordial handshake brought the brief 
 ceremony to a close. 
 
164 RECOLIECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN 
 
 As to the wedding' habiliments of the era, a stiff, 
 white satin stock, upholding a very high and sharp- 
 pointed collar, and white kid gloves, gave luster to the 
 costume of the groom. For the bride, a light silk, 
 plaid or changeable, was the coveted material, 
 although white muslin was sometimes but not often 
 chosen. 
 
 The gowns of that time, of whatever material com- 
 posed, or for whatever use designed, were put together 
 with "welting cord" at every seam except upon the 
 skirt. Yards of silk or muslin or calico, as it might 
 happen, were cut into narrow strips, with which 
 the cord was covered, and every "seam, gusset and 
 band " was put together with the clumsy addition. 
 
 The first tight sleeves were worn about that time. 
 (By the way, they were thought at first scarcely deco- 
 rous.) They were worn very tight, and the corded 
 seams were most uncomfortable. Sometimes the "welt- 
 ing" was covered with a contrasting color. 
 
 One young Cheshire lady, whose wedding dress was 
 of light brown silk, had it profusely corded with pink 
 silk. In cut and detail, the present styles resemble 
 those of fifty years ago ; but there is now more latitude 
 in adaptation to the personnel of the wearer than was 
 then permitted. Few young women dreamed then of 
 having twenty new dresses, with hats to match. 
 
 Bonnets should be said; hats for girls were a most 
 improper head covering, for grown people as simply 
 impossible. The wedding dress and bonnet were worn 
 as the. best church-going costume until circumstances 
 made such going — and there was nowhere else to go — 
 inconvenient and unsanctioned by public opinion. 
 
 The following is a description of an early Meriden 
 wedding, as given in letter written to a friend by Mrs. 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 165 
 
 Edgar Munson, formerly of Meriden, now a resident of 
 Williamsport, Pa. : 
 
 "The mention of my sister Amelia brings to mind, 
 with the other statement, her marriage in 1824. It was 
 simplicity itself in comparison, but a sensation at the 
 time. It was a morning wedding — not 'high noon.' 
 No cards were sent out, these appearing first some 
 eight or nine years later. The bride and groom taking 
 a wedding trip soon after the ceremony (instead of re- 
 maining at home over the first Sunday to ' walk out ' 
 — this meaning to appear at church arm in arm) was a 
 new feature worthy of discussion. The cut of the 
 bridegroom's clothes differed, no doubt, from the pres- 
 ent style. The bride was attired in white figured silk, 
 with proportions just ample enough in skirt for an easy 
 movement of the limbs. The gathers were few in the 
 b.ick; the waist about six inches in width, cut low in 
 the neck and joined to the skirt about midway between 
 the upper part of the chest and the waist line. The 
 sleeves were merely a cap, cut in orange quarters and 
 filled in with lace, and finished with a white gimp. Four 
 or five bands of plush ornamented the skirt. The bride 
 wore pink shoes of figured silk, cut low to show her silk 
 open work stockings. She wore a coronet around her 
 head matching the color of her hair. The Rev. Ashbel 
 Baldwin performed the ceremony, bestowing a hearty 
 Kiss at the close as his prerogative. The wedding 
 feast, to make it satisfactory, required only the ortho- 
 dox 'loaf cake,' ornamented with frosting of various 
 colors, aided by sugar mites, and something withal to 
 make merry with from the overflowing decanters of 
 wine from the sideboard. I think at this period no 
 ' Total Abstinence Society ' had been dreamed of. It 
 must have been some eight years later when young 
 
l66 RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGF AND TOWN. 
 
 men and maidens, old men and children, were first 
 awakened to obligations to ' sign the pledge.' " 
 
 Some years ago (time goes fast) it chanced that eight 
 ladies, whose weddings had occurred about the time we 
 are recalling, met in the then parlors of the Uni- 
 versalist Church. The ladies of that society were giv- 
 ing a series of alphabetical suppers — and very good 
 those suppers were. The weather on that particular 
 night was stormy, and the eight, who were from the 
 several religious sects in the city, had each of them 
 thought there would be ' ' nobody there : and it was too 
 bad, as everyone counted;" and so there they were. 
 
 After the supper, wedding dresses came into the con- 
 versation, and it was found that not one of the eight 
 had kept her own wedding dress; some of them had 
 been remodeled into best frocks for young daughters. 
 Two had furnished lining for dressing gowns for the 
 respective heads of families. One of these, prepared 
 with infinite secrecy as a birthday present, had the 
 sentiment of the occasion marred by the accident of the 
 sleeves being sewed in upside down and backside 
 front, giving the tentative wearer, who did his very 
 best to rise to the situation, the look of a man whose 
 arms had suffered dislocation. 
 
 In an old cemetery in the city of Middletown there is, 
 or was a few years since, an old brown headstone, set 
 there many a year ago, bearing on its time-worn face 
 
 the record: 
 
 To the memory 
 
 " Who was in life 
 My own most faithful wife." 
 
 And another in a modern cemetery, cut in a rare and 
 costly veined marble : 
 
 " Loved and honored; 
 Trusted and true." 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 167 
 
 These two epitaphs might, with absolute truth, be 
 written above the last resting-place of every one of 
 those thirteen brides of more than half a century ago. 
 
 A few remain here widowed. Yet fewer, husband 
 and wife, still walk here, hand in hand, as they started 
 in their dual life. But the larger number 
 
 " Home have gone 
 And ta'en their wages." 
 
CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 THE soldiers' CAMP AT HANOVER. 
 
 TN the years before and up to the breaking out of the 
 •^ war, there was between the two sections of the 
 United States a remarkable state of mutual misappre- 
 hension. Some of the sympathy for the slave might as 
 well have been given to the owners. Let any Northern 
 housekeeper select the most idle, insolent, thievish and 
 exasperating servant she ever knew or heard of, and 
 multiply by a dozen or two, and she will have a faint 
 idea of one of the trials of a Southern housekeeper. 
 Add the certainty, also, that only by the expedient of 
 selling could one be got rid of. But this was the do- 
 mestic side, and might have stayed so, but for the 
 political turn which affairs had taken. 
 
 The South had gradually secured predominance in the 
 government, and when they thought it necessary, 
 fought to retain their power, even if the disintegration 
 of the Republic were to be the result. The Northern 
 men were determined that the Republic should retain 
 its structural identity. 
 
 The Southerners were in the habit of assuring the 
 world that they represented the chivalry and bravery of 
 the country, and the Northerners, without thinking or 
 caring much about it, had conceded it. Both seemed to 
 have forgotten that in two previous contests with an- 
 other power the North had show quite as much com- 
 bativeness as the South. 
 
 This paper only proposes to deal with certain events 
 of the summer and winter of i86i-'62, in the village of 
 Hanover (begging South Meriden's new name pardon). 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 1 69 
 
 One Sunday in the summer of the earlier year a young 
 matron was called upon to contribute to the needs of a 
 ' ' company of soldiers from Vermont who, " she was told, 
 " had been three days upon the journey by railroad, and 
 had nothing to eat in that time." Without giving a 
 thought to the absurdity of the statement, she turned 
 over the family Sunday dinner to the supposed famishing 
 patients and then started with her own and some neigh- 
 bors' children to a point which would give them a view 
 of the train on which they would leave town. 
 
 After the cars had gone by she was astounded to see 
 the children run down to the railway and gather up 
 several parts of loaves of bread which had been thrown 
 out by some of the aforesaid starving men. Not until 
 then was it really "borne in" upon her mind that if 
 the men had walked from Vermont they would hardly 
 have taken three days for it, and food was as plenty 
 in one place as another. 
 
 She returned home to hear that there had been no 
 service in any of the churches, so absorbed was every- 
 body in the excitement at the time. It has been told 
 over and over again, how in the Revolutionary war men 
 "left the plow in the furrow" to join the army. In 
 1862 men laid down the hammer, turned the belt from 
 the revolving wheel, wiped the pen and closed the desk 
 and said, " I am going." But the women only turned 
 pale and set their lips, but said no word to dissuade 
 them. 
 
 Early in the fall of '6i the news came that a battalion 
 of cavalry and artillery were to encamp in Hanover. 
 They arrived on the 2 2d of October — a raw, cloudy, 
 bleak day that October had picked out of November's 
 pocket. 
 
 Probably nobody expected to see a company of 
 
lyo RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 plumed knights on prancing steeds, yet there was a cer- 
 tain sense of flatness when about four in the afternoon 
 the cavalry and artillery walked down the dusty road, 
 looking anything but exhilarated by the aspect over the 
 river of the wide, open, treeless meadow which was to 
 be their home for the next three months. Certainly 
 the prospect was not inspiring as they passed through 
 the village to the ground selected, with nothing like a 
 shelter to be seen. The place had, however, been well 
 chosen. The soil was very dry and well drained with 
 the river and " raceway " on one side, and on the north 
 the "island" with a number of magnificent hemlocks, 
 besides other forest trees, and the raceway embank- 
 ment, which made a not insignificant shelter for the 
 stables and tents. But at this time these were in the 
 future. 
 
 Arrived on the ground, the scene was changed at 
 once. Like magic, tents were set up, fires were built, 
 and coffee and soup cooked. Certain amateur, juvenile 
 reporters revealed that a cauldron of soup was upset, 
 and some of the men " cried; " and small blame if they 
 did. The camp being unorganized, the men went 
 where they pleased, with the result that some went to 
 prayer meeting and others got very drunk, although at 
 that time there was not a saloon in the place. The 
 next morning found everybody astir and busy, and be- 
 fore night the empty meadow of the day before held 
 shelter tents, and cook tents, and stables for the horses 
 were being rapidly built. Two days after the horses 
 arrived in the evening o*f a very rainy day. The boy of 
 the period was in great glee and had a magnificent 
 time, for it was very dark, and the horses coming on 
 the cars, which were much less well planned for in the 
 transportation of animals than at present, were wild 
 
 I 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 17I 
 
 with hunger and thirst. They broke away and ran 
 about in the rain and darkness, being finally secured 
 after an amount of strenuous exertion, which, judging 
 from the enthusiasm of the narrators, must have been 
 extremely exhilarating. 
 
 The uniforms came, and here again the ubiquitous 
 small boy came to his own. There seemed to be no 
 method of distribution practicable but to call the roll 
 and give each man a uniform, hit or miss, the result 
 being, of course, a uniformity of misfits. With the 
 usual perversity of such apportionments, the tall man 
 found himself provided with abreviated unmentionables 
 and jackets to match, while the garments allotted to 
 the short man trailed on the ground, and his jacket fol- 
 lowed the same perverse rule. By the time the uni- 
 forms were all distributed order and discipline were at 
 an end, and officers and men fairly rolled on the ground 
 with shrieks of laughter that rung beyond the camp 
 ground. 
 
 In less than a week everything had settled into 
 order. The bugle was heard sounding the reveille, the 
 sunrise and sunset gun was regularly fired, and the 
 day's work of the camp begun. From the highway the 
 boys of the village could overlook the watering of the 
 horses at the raceway, and the efforts to subdue a cer- 
 tain refractory horse, who would draw a load with all 
 the patience in life, but positively refused to be ridden. 
 He would stand with a look of meekness unsurpassed 
 until the would-be rider was on his back, and then sud- 
 denly drawing all four of his feet together, dropping his 
 head at the same time, would round up his back and 
 land the aspirant for equestrian honors wherever his 
 good or bad luck happened to put him. At last a 
 soldier, who was an excellent horseman, said he could 
 
172 RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 and would ride him, and be managed not to be thrown, 
 but that was all. After a long contest the man gave 
 it up, and the horse was generally used as a draft horse, 
 although he was a very handsome animal, and very 
 intelligent. 
 
 Recruits came in fast, more stables were built, and 
 tents were multiplied. The camp became the center of 
 attraction for miles around. Omnibusses ran regularly, 
 private carriages were going and coming, and the heavy 
 camp teams were on the road continually. Twice a day 
 the whole battalion was out for drill, and frequently 
 made progresses through the town. 
 
 Several times during the winter Governor Bucking- 
 ham and his wife visited the camp. Mrs. Buckingham 
 was a plain, elderly, motherly-looking lady. She was 
 dressed in a plain black silk and cashmere shawl. The 
 manners of both were entirely without pretense, but 
 had a dignity born of self-respect that ought to have 
 been unmistakable. Yet, some time in the eight years 
 in which he held the governorship he, with his wife, 
 visited some place of resort. Plainly dressed and with- 
 out escort, they were coolly received by the landlord 
 and his subordinates, neglected at the table, and Mrs. 
 Buckingham "looked over" by the lady guests. A 
 newcomer recognized them, and his greeting caused 
 consternation in the first place, and then an immediate 
 mending of manners. But it was too late, and although 
 not otherwise noticing the neglect they had experi- 
 enced, they refused to spend the night in the house. 
 
 The sojourn of the battalion made a lively and bril- 
 liant episode in the social life of the town, but knitting 
 socks and mittens and lint scraping took the place now 
 given to dancing and cards. Still no one, after all, 
 believed in the reality of the war. It was an exciting 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 1 73 
 
 period that would be of short duration, everybody 
 thought. Very little snow fell until late in January, 
 and the dust raised by the horses settling on the ice, 
 made the skating looked to as part of the winter's 
 amusement impossible. The soldiers joined in most 
 of the village gaieties, which, truth to tell, were not 
 excessively extravagant. 
 
 One very pleasant incident seems worth recording. 
 The district school was presided over by Robert T. 
 Spencer, Miss Lucretia Minor assisting. The standard 
 of the school was good, and the scholars excellently 
 trained As everything bore the stamp of patriotism, 
 Miss Minor adapted a dialogue to the prevailing idea, 
 and the scholais gave it in the church. The copy is 
 lost, and very little can be recalled. " Uncle Sam " 
 bewailed the unruly and un dutiful conduct of his chil- 
 dren, and told them their behavior made him " pale as 
 death." "Caroline" announced her alienation from 
 the family; "Louise Ann did not care," she "had a 
 beau regarde; " " Georgiana" declared "they would all 
 go with sister Caroline ; " and ' ' Secessia " only ' ' wanted 
 to be let alone." 
 
 It was very well done. Adjutant Blakeslee had 
 brought a detachment of soldiers to the entertainment, 
 and when the dialogue closed by the singing of ' The 
 Star Spangled Banner," he gave the signal to rise, 
 and the young soldiers joined with the splendid volume 
 of sound always produced by the voices of men singing 
 in unison. 
 
 Looking down the vista of thirty years the scene comes 
 vividly to the recollection. The group of boys and girls 
 on the platform, the soldiers in blue, in the prime and 
 grace of young manhood — -all of them, soldiers and 
 scholars, equally fearless on the threshold of untried life. 
 
174 RECOLLECTIO}^S OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 Of some it must be written, " they are not," of others 
 perhaps it were better if — but God knoweth best. 
 And some have gone out into the world, doing their 
 work in it, and doing it well. 
 
 Upon the thirteenth of January the artillery left the 
 camp, and the sunrise and sunset gun no longer rever- 
 berated from the hill. The cavalry remained until 
 the twenty-second of February. On that day, a sloppy, 
 slushy morning, " boots and saddles " sounded for the 
 last time, and the long line of horses and their riders 
 turned their faces southward and rode out of sight. 
 Some of the horses were sold, the lumber of the camp 
 disposed of, and in a day or two scarce a vestige of the 
 camp was left. 
 
 Some years after, when the war was over, some 
 of the soldiers revisited the spot, or tried to. The river 
 no longer ran rapidly, the "island" was under water, its 
 great hemlocks were dead and the trunks submerged. 
 
 The lake formed by the setting back of the river 
 covered more than half the meadow and all the ground 
 where the tents had stood. One can hardly realize 
 that there are men and women, fathers and mothers of 
 children, who can "only just remember the war," so 
 distinctly is it remembered by those who were then in 
 the prime of life. The home-coming of the soldiers, 
 when at last the long conflict was done, had its own 
 pathetic side. 
 
 After one of the more decisive battles, one of the 
 anxious wives heard that her husband was reported 
 " missing." Try as she might she could get no trace 
 of him. Months passed and she gave him up; but 
 when the soldiers began to come back, she used to go 
 to the station whenever a train came from the South, 
 only hoping to hear, possibly, some last word. 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 1 75 
 
 One day while waiting she saw an emaciated man in 
 the army blue leave the car. As his eye met hers he 
 smiled, and only then did she know him, so worn and 
 ill he looked. 
 
 "Why," said she, as she told the story to a friend, 
 extending her arms as she spoke, "I could have 
 taken him on my two hands and carried him 
 anywhere." 
 
 They led him home, put him to bed and sent for a 
 doctor. As he stood over him, the physician raised his 
 hands; they trembled as did his voice as he said over 
 and over, " How did he get home ?" 
 
 After that first recognition he really never knew any 
 of his family again. All those missing months he had 
 been a prisoner, and when at last he was free, he had 
 but one thought — to reach if he could once more those 
 faithful arms which he knew would not fail him. So 
 with all his might he kept his poor wits together until 
 at last he met the look he had so longed for, and then 
 he gave up the struggle. He only lived a week, and 
 all that time he was living that terrible life of the prison 
 over again, seeming, most of the time, to be fighting 
 for bread. And when the end mercifully came, his 
 wife said the only feeling she was conscious of at first 
 was thankfulness that the agony was over. 
 
 Year by year as Memorial day comes around new 
 graves are added to the already long list of departed 
 soldiers. The village church, whose walls gave back 
 the voices of soldiers and children, has been silent 
 many a day. The voices which sounded there once 
 will be heard there no more. But in the days of which 
 a glimpse has been attempted it was vocal with the 
 echoes of serious thought. In its pulpit the pastor, 
 afterwards Chaplain Jacob Eaton, stood, as with a 
 
176 RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 solemnity born of conviction, he, after having spoken 
 long and earnestly, concluded with the words: 
 
 "My brethren, I must go." 
 
 And he went, and came back as did many others — 
 with folded hands and closed eyes. 
 
w 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 THE MARKET. 
 
 HEN the center of the town was first known as the 
 *' Market," no one now living can tell us. Nor 
 does any one know when what is now the business 
 center was first called the "Corner." This locality- 
 bore the name certainly much more than a century 
 ago, and bids fair to retain it for a century to come. 
 
 The "Market," although it is a later title, is now 
 almost forgotten and quite unheard of by our younger 
 citizens. Elderly people — now " gone beyond" — have 
 told the elderly people 'of to-day of the ' ' wide green 
 yard " to the east and south of the old tavern, of the 
 "row of poplars in front," and of the roads, with 
 " grass growing between the wheel tracks," leading to 
 and from it. Upon this green, on training days and at 
 "'lection time," and when a "vendue" (auction) was 
 held, pies and gingerbread, doughnuts and molasses 
 candy, with metheglin made of honey, and sweet (more 
 or less) cider to wash them down, were for sale; for 
 the thrifty housekeeper did not disdain thus to turn an 
 honest penny. The farmers from Kensington and Ber- 
 lin, and from Cheshire street, for this last was a rather 
 populous locality then, and had a tavern and a store of 
 its own (this property was held in the Miles family for 
 more than a century) came " down " or " over," as it 
 might chance, and halted for rest and refreshment at 
 the tavern bar, as they sought a better road to New 
 Haven, and better prices for their produce than could 
 be had nearer home. Preferably New Haven, for, as 
 
178 RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 they were wont to explain, "it was uphill all the way 
 to Hartford." 
 
 Here, too, rested over night the long "strings of 
 horses," driven down from "up the country " on their 
 way to the seaboard, whence they were to be shipped 
 to the West Indies. These were occasions of interest 
 and excitement. Horse trades were not infrequent; 
 bargain and barter were entered into with boisterous 
 energy, and artful sagacihy and astuteness. To the 
 "Market" the farmers from "over east" or from 
 "over west" drove their grass-fed, corn-fattened 
 stock, to be bargained for and bought by the butcher, 
 for there was in the thirties only one in Meriden. He 
 drove around once a week, and his provisions were 
 often engaged in advance. Later, in 1840, for instance, 
 there were two butchers, and fresh beef could be had 
 twice each week. 
 
 The arrival and departure of the stages were events 
 of interest and wild excitement. These brought the 
 weekly papers, the New Haven Palladium and Register, 
 the Hartford Times and the Courant, with its fort- 
 nightly supplement. Often, too, glimpses could be 
 had of notable men — women did not count for much in 
 those days — as the stages delayed for dinner at the old 
 tavern. 
 
 The people living at the east side of Meriden came 
 "over to the Market;" from the north they "went 
 down " to the Market. From "the Farms " and from 
 Hanover they came "up to the Corner" and "up to 
 the Market," and from the Foundry over west, from 
 the "Coefarm," from the "Rice farm," overflowing 
 then with young lives, the world all before them, from 
 the Andrews, the Johnsons and the Merriams, they 
 came "over to the Corner" and "up to the Market." 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 1 79 
 
 To the latter more usually to do their trading. For 
 " Birdsey's store" was the larger of the two then 
 in Meriden, and had by far the most varied and best 
 stock. Here, also, was the only milliner in the place 
 for some years, Mrs. Ann E. Merriam, a woman for 
 whose sake one must take back the remark, that women 
 were not of much account, for she deserved, no one 
 better, the name of "A Brave Lady." 
 
 When she fully realized the heavy weight she must 
 carry all her days, she took up the burden with a noble 
 dignity, suffering in silence. Asking for no sympathy, 
 and, therefore, seldom comforted by any, she gave to 
 others out of her own heart so abundantly that many, 
 when she departed, rose up and called her blessed. 
 
 Upon town meeting days the voters all came to the 
 Market, for the Congregational Church basement was 
 the town hall for the occasion, and the tavern bar- 
 room did a thriving business. When the town attained 
 to the dignity of having a real post-office of its own, the 
 location was in the brick store of Eli Birdsey, at the 
 southeast corner of East Main street, or in the building 
 owned by Ira N. Yale, next south of the old bank, 
 never farther away. Here tor a good many years — I 
 think more than twenty — Hiram Hall retained his 
 place as postmaster. No matter which political party, 
 was in the ascendant, he kept his position. The reasons 
 given were that he was a "good fellow," "everybody 
 liked him," and "he ought to have it, as he could not 
 work hard with his bad side." This diseased side 
 finally caused his death. 
 
 The market was a rather undefined space, and what- 
 ever of interest took place within several rods of the 
 tavern everybody went to the Market to see what was 
 going on. 
 
ibO RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 The eccentric itinerant preacher, Lorenzo Dow, 
 once at least, perhaps twice, preached on the green. 
 He is almost forgotten now, but was a notable charac- 
 ter in his day. He used to appear in places distant 
 from each other, and, if he thought the field a promis- 
 ing one, would, at the close of his preaching, give out 
 that at a certain time, often a year distant, he would be 
 there again upon a fixed day and hour, and, sure 
 enough, he would keep his appointment. I think the 
 aged lady who was my informant said that in this in- 
 stance he failed to appear at the time set, and it was 
 ascertained that he died on one of his journeys. 
 
 Just here, too, was the only shoe store in town. 
 Very little, if any, ready-made stock was kept, but it 
 was the place — "John Butler's shoe shop" — where 
 every foot in town was measured for cowhide, calfskin, 
 morocco or prunella shoes, all made upon honor, if not 
 with great elegance of workmanship. (His tannery 
 was at the northwest corner of Broad and Liberty 
 streets.) Here, too, were sold the first rubber shoes 
 in Meriden. Ver)^ clumsy things were those rub- 
 bers. They were "warranted not to leak or turn 
 red." I do not think they did, either, but what was 
 by way of a name called the sole of the rubber, 
 had a way of spreading and bulging in the wear- 
 ing that made them look much more like rubber bags 
 than any sort of footgear. The rubber itself in a 
 semi-liquid state was run upon a wooden mold or 
 shapeless last, and the shoes had no more real sole 
 than there is to a stocking foot — not so much, in fact. 
 
 At the Market the band played occasionally, for there 
 was a very good one in Meriden even in those early 
 days. Mr. Edwin Yale Bull, of Yalesville was a 
 member of it, and is still living; as, I think, are one 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. lOI 
 
 or two others. Here, too, the yearly ball games 
 were played. I believe this was called town ball. 
 In this game those who took part stood on each side 
 of and close to the roadway, while the players per- 
 formed a sort of country dance down the middle. 
 Here, also, the men employed in making the high-top 
 carved back combs, so fashionable in the thirties, in 
 the red shops a little way west of the tavern, played 
 their diurnal game of quoits. I do not think they ever 
 missed, in decent weather, playing a game in the 
 middle of the day before resuming work for the after- 
 noon. 
 
 The Market was the scene of the abolition riot in 
 1837. An accurate and concise account of the affair is 
 given by Dr. C. H. S. Davis in his history. What 
 very few people ever knew was the romance that grew 
 out of that episode. The Thompson brothers were 
 brought into town especially to assist in the riot. One 
 of them had seen and become very much in love with a 
 young woman belonging to one of the prominent 
 Meriden families. The writer remembers him, con- 
 spicuous in an expansive red waistcoat, sitting in the 
 south gallery of the old Episcopal Church (the only oc- 
 cupant at the time), with enamored gaze fixed steadily 
 on his lady love, who sat, conscious, on the north side 
 down stairs. The affair was not smiled upon by any of 
 the friends of the young woman saving one old maid, 
 who, having had an undeveloped love story in her own 
 youth, sympathized with the pair in their difficulties. 
 Mainly through her help they were married, and soon 
 left for the West, where they were, when heard from, 
 living happily. But that was sixty years ago. 
 
CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 JOHN D. POST. 
 
 A BOUT 1840 John D. Post started a school in Meri- 
 ***• den. Although it was called ''The Academy," 
 I think the enterprise was his own. It was a boarding 
 school in a small way, and had a fair patronage from 
 other towns in the state. The "Academy" was a 
 plain, very plain, two-story structure on the high 
 ground south of East Main street and east of Elm 
 street. An oak tree marked — and perhaps does now — 
 the exact location. A steep, ungraded path led up to 
 it. In the winter this made one of the finest of sliding 
 places. A long board was the accepted means of 
 transit, and a standing position thereon the most de- 
 lightfully fraught with peril. The felicity of rush- 
 ing into jeopardy and stopping at the brink of a 
 crisis is only experienced by ^^outh with all life's real 
 hazards in the future. 
 
 Mrs. John T. Pettee tells that once taking one of these 
 rapturous standing slides, the velocity made it certain 
 that nothing could save them from going over the 
 bank. What shall we do? was the question. "Jump!" 
 promptly answered Miss Marietta; which they did, 
 landing unhurt in a snowdrift six feet in depth. 
 
 Mr. Post was progressive in his methods. He had a 
 small battery for experiments in electricity. The appa- 
 ratus was kept in a little cupboard back of the teachers' 
 platform. To this the scholars had free access, and the 
 older ones amused themselves with its effects, of course 
 with very crude ideas and little understanding of its 
 laws. 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 183 
 
 One day a circuit was formed, and a delicate young 
 girl, who held the hands of two stalwart young men, 
 received such a charge that she was made seriously ill. 
 
 Mr. Post made us happy with some very successful 
 school entertainments, The Congregational Church 
 was lent for the purpose. A platform was built in 
 front of the pulpit, and a most delightful rendition of 
 Dickens' Dotheboy's Hall ("Nicholas Nickleby ") and 
 from "Oliver Twist " were given. All the parts were 
 taken by boys. A year after this, another of two suc- 
 cessive days was given; this also took place in the 
 church. 
 
 A famous (in that day) debate in Congress upon the 
 abolition question, or some phase of it, was reproduced. 
 The action of this was on the floor of the church, with 
 a Speaker of the House, tellers and pages, all complete 
 as possible. Daniel Webster, Stephen Douglas and 
 the rest of the congressional big guns were copied or 
 counterfeited more or less like the distinguished orig- 
 inals. Persons who were in a position to know declared 
 it all excellently done. An orchestra was, hired from 
 Hartford, and the eclat of the affair was enhanced in 
 that the leader named, I think. King, brought with him 
 his silver cornet, presented him by admiring friends. 
 This was for some years the most noticeable event of 
 the kind among us. After Mr. Post had left town the 
 academy changed owners as well as principals; one or 
 two of the latter were eccentric in character and erratic 
 in their method of conducting the school. It lost its 
 early prestige, and was finally burned to the ground. 
 
CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 EARLY STOVES AND THE SEWING MACHINE. 
 
 OY 1830 the severe plainness of early housekeeping 
 *-^ began to be mitigated. In a few houses "sale" 
 carpets had taken the place of home-made carpets, that 
 had taken the place "of sanded floors. Mould candles on 
 high festivals, such as the meeting's of the sewing so- 
 ciety, for instance, were used instead of the tallow dips, 
 and the japanned snuffer tray, with the polished steel 
 snuffers, were reflected from the waxed surface of the 
 table in the "spare room." About 1830 the open 
 Franklin stove was prominent in the furnishing of well- 
 to-do " front rooms." This stove, with its brass fender 
 and brass andirons, with its brass-bound urn and brass 
 knobs and ornaments, put wherever a place could be 
 found for such embellishment, was, with its bright 
 wood fire, a very cheerful adjunct to an apartment. 
 But the keeping of all that brass work specklessly bril- 
 liant called for incessant care and constant labor. 
 This fell upon some one inember of the family, whose 
 business it became to go over all that brass with salt 
 and vinegar first, and then to polish with whiting. 
 Later, oxalic acid made the work easier. Two or three 
 times each week the work had to be thoroughly done, 
 besides a daily siiperficial rubbing. Three or four 
 houses in town had large, clumsy brass locks affixed 
 to the doors; these also had to be duly polished. 
 About 1834 the " Rotary " stove made its appearance 
 as a kitchen "improvement." These stoves deserve a 
 few words. They had no ovens; the place for the fuel 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 1 85 
 
 was a narrow box. Any excess of heat or overflow 
 was checked by a turn of the crank, which caused the 
 top of the stove to move in any direction required. 
 This would remove the viand away from the fire, and 
 thus, of course, put a stop to any culinary action; so 
 that very nice management was needed to preserve the 
 balance of power. The crank, too, with the "total de- 
 pravity of inanimate things," had a trick of becoming 
 useless, and the tongs had to take its place as the 
 means of propulsion. The rotary stove, although one 
 of the " improvements " of the time, went out finally 
 when coal came in with the railroad. In these last 
 months of the century coal is rapidly giving way to 
 gas, which will soon in its turn be superseded by elec- 
 tricity for culinary purposes, as it already has been for 
 heat and light In those former times the anxious 
 mother taught her eight or nine years old daughter to 
 knit. All the " every day " stockings worn by a family 
 were knitted of homespun woolen yarn or cotton. 
 The well conducted little girl usually did her stint of 
 a certain number of "rounds." When she could "set 
 a heel" smoothly, and "toe off" a pair of hose prop- 
 erl}^, the work was shown with as much pride and 
 pleasure as the fond and proud mother of to-day ex- 
 hibits in her small daughter's music or drawing. At 
 twelve the young girl was proficient in the "digging 
 and ploughing" of cambric, miscalled "hemming." 
 At sixteen the maiden, properly taught, stitched her 
 father's and brothers' shirt bosoms, collars and wrist- 
 bands, taking up, with exactness, upon her needle 
 four threads, two forward, two back. Nor was she 
 thought fitted for marriage unless she could, unaided, 
 cut out and make a shirt. 
 
 The advent of the perfected sewing machine brought 
 
l86 RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 many changes. Factories for making men's garments 
 came rapidly into existence. Here I am reminded of 
 the "Dayton sisters," two maiden ladies who, armed 
 with shears.and tailor's goose, went about from house 
 to house, often engaged months beforehand, the only 
 makers and repairers of men's garments in town until 
 1828. In that year Lewis Greene opened a tailor's 
 shop where the First National Bank now stands. He 
 bought the land, a lot large enough for a dwelling 
 house and a generous garden, besides the shop upon it, 
 for not more than three hundred dollars (I think I rec- 
 ollect being told two hundred) of Major E. A. Cowles, 
 giving his note. I think the method of payment must 
 have been unique, for "as fast as he (Lewis Greene) 
 earned a few dollars — sometimes only one or two — he 
 paid them to Mr. Cowles, who would give him credit 
 on the note for them, and reduce the interest in accord- 
 ance." Mr. Green was the first and, for a good many 
 years, the only tailor in town. The sewing machines, 
 for they multiplied rapidly, did much to relieve the 
 weary tedium of women's work. Yet it was true, as 
 Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe once observed, "That the 
 more obvious effect was that women put seventy-five 
 tucks where they previously put only fifteen." 
 
 There is now a renewal of interest in hand-sewing 
 upon delicate materials. In truth, fine, plain sewing 
 and embroidery done by hand have a grace and finish 
 lacking in the best production of any machine. Some- 
 thing of individuality goes into it. Knitting, too, for a 
 while a lost art, is being revived. Great, also, are the 
 changes in the housekeeping. Does the housekeeper 
 aspire to be past mistress in economy, and finds that 
 soap is a formidable item of expense — lo ! a neat pack- 
 age of alkali and a gallon of water does all and more 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 187 
 
 than the ancient ash-leach and six weeks toil ever did. 
 Nor does she with bleeding and abraded hands scour 
 twice each year, with soft soap and sand, the tinware, 
 which lasted through one generation, and then, mended, 
 half through the next. She finds the modern tinware 
 is not planned for such heroic treatment, so she hies to 
 the five cent store, replenishes her stock and saves her 
 hands. 
 
 Thanksgiving preparations no longer include the 
 making of the winter store of pies, to be frozen and 
 brought into use when wanted. In 1842 a young girl, 
 sixteen years old, the daughter of a wealthy farmer, 
 made sixty pies in one day, heating the brick oven for 
 the purpose. It is only fair to add that the erstwhile 
 young pie maker is now, although past seventy years, 
 a graceful and elegant woman, fully up to all the 
 modern literature and current events of the day. 
 
 Only here and there are to be found, in their old 
 places, the plain, low-roofed dwellings common in the 
 first half of the century. Comfortable and plain houses 
 were they, and nearly uniform in exterior proportion 
 and interior plan. Sound in timber, they have been 
 moved and many of them modernized. Their places 
 are taken by new and handsome dwellings, worthy the 
 title of mansions, with "modern improvements." 
 
 The old-fashioned dooryards, overrun with red and 
 white roses and June pinks, are no more. They have 
 given place to smooth green turf and vases of classic 
 model, from which are shed petals and colored foliage 
 grown from stock brought from lands beyond the once 
 mysterious Eastern seas. The Town Hall and the 
 High school stand where once the wide, straight garden 
 paths defined the generous garden beds, in which suc- 
 culent vegetables grew sociably side by side with glow- 
 
160 RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 ing tulips and peonies, lilies and tall, pale rockets. 
 The broad beds of herbs, burnet (hot, biting and 
 spicy), sweet clover and thyme, saffron and sage, the 
 long rows of red and white currants, with now and 
 then a bush of black currants, are now 
 
 " Only pictures that hang upon memory's walls." 
 
 I think few places can be so blossomy with wild flowers 
 and so fertile in wild fruit as was, in that old time, 
 what is now the heart and center of the city. In 1845 
 all, or nearly all, of. the country between Broad and 
 Colony streets was a rustic wilderness, traversed only 
 occasionally by some one who wished to take a shorter 
 route than the road between Clarksville to the Market, 
 or from Prattsville to the Corner. More than once or 
 twice in the forties a large animal, supposed to be a 
 wild cat from the mountains, was seen by persons thus 
 crossing. In the spring of 1845, while walking with 
 my husband near where now Warren street joins Camp 
 street, we came suddenly upon a m^other quail sitting 
 on her nest. So quiet had been our approach that she 
 was not disturbed, and we left her there. 
 
CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 ECCENTRIC CHARACTERS. 
 
 f~\P the persons who form the class called " charac- 
 ^^ ters," we now see few or none. In the earlier 
 years of the town there used to be several whose advent 
 upon the street was noticeable, and whose round of 
 visits varied the monotony of housewifery toils. Per- 
 haps in the hurry and bustle of these latter days we 
 fail to observe the salient traits. 
 
 Old Amos Austin, who lived in the southern side of 
 the town, believed himself to be possessed of occult 
 insight. He believed his house haunted by witches. 
 These he rigorously kept in abeyance by the fumes of a 
 pungent lye of his own concoction. 
 
 ''The vile odors from his chimney were probably 
 more effective to the neighbors than to the witches. " 
 
 His two daughters, Emily and Phebe, were also well 
 known eccentrics. They lived to a great age, and died 
 at the town farm not many years ago. 
 
 Amos Austin's brother, Caleb Austin, was laughed 
 at and nicknamed the "prophet," from his prediction 
 that his farm and homestead would be laid out in " town 
 lots, and be worth as much as two thousand dollars. " 
 This property of his lay just at the foot of Olive street. 
 There was an enclosed lane or court opening off South 
 Colony street. In it were two houses — one large and 
 old-fashioned, the other small, low and equally old. 
 Caleb owned them both. It was called by the old 
 people of 1835 the "old Atwater place." To the old 
 people of to-day it has seemed a mistake that Olive 
 
igo RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 Street should not have been named after the old 
 " place." 
 
 Caleb was a man of large frame, and would have been 
 tall if he had not been so bowed down as to seem almost 
 humpbacked. He went about carrying a tin trunk, 
 from which he peddled "notions." His business 
 method was a peculiar one. He once refused to sell 
 one of the two darning needles he had in stock, as, he 
 said, by thus selling he would only "break up his 
 assortment." He lived to realize his two thousand 
 dollars. 
 
 The larger house was torn down many years ago ; the 
 smaller house, with land adjoining, was bought by Mr, 
 E. O. Roberts about forty years ago for three hundred 
 and seventy-five dollars. 
 
 Mrs. Edgar Munson, of Williamsport, Pa. , who was 
 Miss Lucy Maria Curtis, of Curtis street, writes that 
 "Caleb Austin's threatening ' tarnal ruin' to the im- 
 penitent and Joab Hall's thunderous appeals to the 
 same were a great stimulus to the attendance under the 
 low roof of the old Baptist basement of the boys, who 
 sought amusement rather than grace." 
 
 Another familiar figure was "Beck" Williams, who 
 periodically left her home in a neighboring hamlet and 
 trailed around town, clad, even in winter, in a thin 
 cotton gown. She went about from house to house re- 
 tailing gossip and settmg neighbors by the ears; be- 
 tween times railing spitefully against two of her own 
 relatives, whom she, supposing herself to be quoting 
 Scripture, piously spoke of as " Bell and the dragon." 
 Poor Beck Williams was at last found dead in the fields 
 near the East mountain, 
 
 A foreigner in town was in those days rarely seen. 
 One, a Spaniard, John Antiwine (Antoine?), lived near 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. I9I 
 
 the Wallingford line. He, with his wife and dog, took 
 long daily walks up and down the turnpike. The wife 
 owned the alliterative and rhymthical "front " names: 
 *' Caroline Catharine 
 Christiana Antiwine." 
 
 These names the small boys of sixty years ago used, 
 upon the appearance of the trio, to chant more or less 
 in unison. 
 
 Antiwine's nearest neighbor was the " Widow Clark." 
 She kept the toll gate between Meriden and Walling- 
 ford. Her time was fully occupied in keeping a sharp 
 lookout for the "ninepences" and "four-pen-hap- 
 pences," and an occasional '•quarter-dollar" for a 
 "four -horse -team," She never allowed either to 
 escape her if she could help it, and vigilance was need- 
 ful, for to "run the gate " was thought a very audacious 
 and funny exploit by the boys. 
 
 "Old Cabin" was another oddity, who used to limp 
 up and down the turnpike "not always on the even 
 tenor of his way." His limp was caused by a sprained 
 ankle, which Dr. Hough mercilessly jerked into place, 
 disregarding the shrieks of "an old liar who ought to 
 be hurt." 
 
 Erastus Evans, who came from and went no one 
 knew whither, was for years a feature on the street, as 
 he twice each day went to the old tavern for his diur- 
 nal dram. It was said that by going into the water his 
 right leg was drawn up into a right angle with the 
 thigh. With the right knee in a rest to keep it from 
 the ground, and a wooden block in each hand to protect 
 them also, he got over the ground in nearly a sitting 
 position, seldom speaking and never complaining. 
 
 Dr. Arza Andrews was another noticeable individual. 
 He was a man of much learning and skill, but he could 
 
192 RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 not always be induced to apply either. He and his tall 
 stately wife used to ride about in his sulky, both of 
 them on the one narrow seat, he bending forward to 
 urge, by slaps with a shingle which he carried for the 
 purpose, his Rosinante to a quicker step, the animal 
 meanwhile keeping unmoved its usual calm aspect and 
 funeral pace. 
 
 One is reminded of the widow of Esquire William 
 Yale, whose homestead at Broad street is still in excel- 
 lent preservation. "Widow Bill," as she was called, 
 was thought eccentric and unfeminine for driving about 
 with her own horse and gig. She and her gray horse 
 ' ' Rochelle " were noticeable. She was only ahead of her 
 time so far as driving went. She was also fond of litiga- 
 tion. Once, however, impatient of the law's slow pro- 
 cess, she brought temporary defeat to her opponent by 
 a volley of eggs, which she had saved until their age 
 made them the more fit for her purpose. 
 
 In spite of her eccentricities she was a brilliant 
 woman. She remained personally attractive until 
 quite aged. 
 
 A tramp woman with two children used to pass 
 yearly through the town in the spring, following the 
 turnpike south. The children, a boy and a girl, were 
 at first quite small. They have probably helped to 
 swell the criminal classes. On their last visit at a 
 house, where they were regaled with a lunch, a gold 
 ring of some value disappeared with them. The chil- 
 dren were then apparently about fourteen years old. 
 There were, also, men of marked character of a differ- 
 ent type than these who have been mentioned. 
 
 Colonel Seymour, "Uncle" Ben Upson, Captain 
 Collins, and Dr. Hough were men who were not com- 
 pelled to exert themselves, and therefore did not. 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 193 
 
 Still, in these electrical times men of greater age than 
 any of them are only happy in active business. Dr. 
 Hough, though, employed part of his leisure hours in 
 the pursuit of knowledge under difficulties. He used 
 to tell with laughter of one rebuff he met with. Driv- 
 ing up Broad street, he noticed at a spring on the left 
 hand (this spring was just west of the residence of 
 A. S. Thomas and Mrs. Russell) a man washing some 
 of his underclothing. 
 
 "What are you doing?" asked the bluff doctor, in 
 his usual peremptory tone. 
 
 " Minding my own business," was the concise 
 answer. 
 
 Events, which now only make a brief newspaper item, 
 weie then a town sensation, talked over for months. 
 Such was the burning of the lonely farmhouse on the 
 " Scovill farm," lying high upon the southern slope of 
 the East mountain (Berlin). Mrs. Scovill was a widow 
 and a notable housekeeper, with a store of house linen 
 of her own spinning and weaving. She had whole 
 pieces of home-made flannel, and carpets (home-made), 
 colored with yellow oak bark, sumach berries, and the 
 indigo weed and sweet fern, for she was expert in such 
 matters. Her imbecile son set fire to the dwelling, and 
 all these household treasures were reduced to dust and 
 ashes. Asked why he did such a thing, the boy said 
 "he wanted to go West, and his mother said she could 
 not leave her house." 
 
 Another event was the finding, by some sportsmen, 
 the dead body of Betsy Todd, one of the town poor, 
 who occasionally wandered into town. She lost her 
 way and fell off or down the " Berlin " or East moun- 
 tain. She had not been long dead when the hunters 
 found her. 
 
 13 
 
194 RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 Sundry comparatively modern versions of the origin 
 of " Mt. Lamentation" have been current at different 
 times. But the story told by the old people of sixty 
 years ago was, that a hundred years ago, or more, per- 
 haps, a " Wallingford man " was missed from his home 
 and never after heard from. A few years later a skele- 
 ton was found on the mountain, and it was thought to 
 be the remains of the missing man. 
 
 The greatest sensation of the time and hour was the 
 hanging of a townsman, Peter Lung, for the murder of 
 his wife. "Young and old flocked from Meriden to 
 Middletown to witness the hanging." Dr. Hough and 
 some of the family started to go, but were so overcome 
 by horror at the thought of it that they, ' ' when they had 
 got over so far as the gate, turned • around and came 
 home again." 
 
 Peter was never in his life of so much importance as 
 at his leaving it Eleven or twelve thousand persons 
 witnessed his execution. It is on record that he was 
 "unmoved by the presence of the crowd and by the 
 military parade." On the morning of his execution 
 service was held in the Congregational church in 
 Middletown, and Peter, sitting in the front pew, listened 
 to his own funeral sermon, preached by the Rev. David 
 Dudley Field, of Haddam, Conn., father of the famous 
 brothers of that name. The sermon preached on the oc- 
 casion was printed, and the pamphlet is in the posses- 
 sion of Mrs. Jane Coe Clark of Hingham, Mass. The text 
 was from Luke xxii : 34 : " And take heed to yourselves, 
 lest at any time your hearts be surcharged with sur- 
 feiting and drunkenness and cares of this life, and so 
 that day come upon you unawares." 
 
 The sermon concludes thus: 
 
 " May God save us all from sin and misery. May 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 1 95 
 
 He have mercy on him who is about to die ; and may 
 the Lord Jesus Christ remember us all when we shall 
 come into his kingdom. Amen." 
 
 The pamphlet is entitled: "Sermon against drunk- 
 enness, preached the day of the execution of Peter 
 Lung for the murder of his wife." 
 
 The title page has also a text : 
 
 " Ye shall take no satisfaction for the life of a mur- 
 derer which is guilty of death, but he shall surely be 
 put to death; for blood it defileth the land, and the 
 land cannot be cleansed of the blood that is shed therein 
 but by the blood of him that shed it." — Numbers 
 XXXV : 31-33. 
 
 The sermon is a strong temperance appeal, as the 
 murder was committed under the influence of liquor. 
 It is a pamphlet of twenty-eight pages in all, six of 
 which are given up to a " Sketch of Life and Hopeful 
 Repentance of Peter Lung." "Printed by Seth Rich- 
 ards, and published at the request of gentlemen in the 
 city of Middletown, July 20, 1816. Sermon delivered by 
 David D. Field, of Haddam, Conn." 
 
 The sapient remarks with which the sketch of Peter's 
 life concludes partakes of the humorous; thus: 
 
 "At the public religious exercise of the day he 
 manifested resignation and composure, and afterward 
 expressed his approbation of the sentiments which had 
 been delivered." 
 
 He had but little time to bring forth fruits meet for 
 repentance. His circumstances were very unusal. A 
 note at the bottom of the page informs us that ' ' how he 
 would have lived had he been reprieved is unknown." 
 
 On his last morning he was unmoved by the military 
 parade and the multitude, amounting, it was supposed, 
 to eleven or twelve thousand persons, who assembled to 
 witness the execution. 
 
196 RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 To the list of odd characters once in Meriden the 
 name of Chauncy Hall should be added. He lived in a 
 little house on the road to Westfield. He was an in- 
 ventor, or tried to be one. He went by the name of 
 " Quizzy." Sixty years ago he conceived the notion of 
 "stone shingles." About that time, too, he invented 
 a wire fence, and actually enclosed a piece of land in 
 that way, using common wire for the purpose. He 
 also tried feeding silkworms on oak leaves. So san- 
 guine was he, that he prophesied such plenty and cheap- 
 ness of the material "that every servant girl would 
 have a silk dress." Silk gowns are plenty and cheap 
 in these days, and so are wire fences and tiled roofs, 
 but poor " Quizzy 's " ingenuity has not brought the 
 result. 
 
CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 MANUFACTURE OF TINWARE. 
 
 /"^HIEF among the old industries of Meriden was the 
 ^^ manufacture of tinware. "Uncle " Sam Yale had 
 several small shops scattered about on Liberty street 
 and more at Wall and Broad streets. Here also were 
 the extensive barns belonging to his farm. 
 
 Esquire William Yale had a large shop at 465 Broad 
 street (where Mrs. Frank Foster's house stands); Ed- 
 win Yale had large shops on South Charles street; 
 Goodrich & Rutty did a large business on South Broad 
 street, below Ann. One of the largest and oldest of all 
 was that of Esquire Noah Pomeroy, "over east." 
 Nearly, if not quite as large and as old, was that of 
 Esquire Patrick Clark at Clarksville, on North Colony 
 street. In 1840, this was moved to the corner and — 
 for that period — a large two-story building took the 
 place of the numerous small shops on the old site. Some 
 years later it became the Meriden Savings Bank, Ed- 
 win Curtis, President. Later still it went through an- 
 other transformation. The building was cut into two; 
 part of it is on Veteran street. 
 
 The working force of the tinware trade were journey- 
 men and apprentices. The latter had a good deal to 
 learn before they could attain to the dignity of the 
 former. The making of tinware, as it was in those 
 days, is now a lost art. Fifteen separate processes were 
 thought necessary before even a pint basin was ready 
 for the market. Each article was in several parts, care- 
 fully proportioned, and cut out from patterns by the 
 
198 RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 great shears. Nobody dreamed then of making all 
 sorts of tin things by simply dropping a great lump of 
 iron onto a sheet of tin — and a thin one at that. The 
 stock used was in sheets, ten by fourteen inches. This 
 was brought from Albany to New Haven by the old 
 sloop "Tantivy." From New Haven it was brought 
 to Meriden by Joseph Hough, who did a regular car- 
 rier's trade for a great many years between the two 
 places. Mr. Bull says that in the thirties a storm of 
 eighteen days' duration prevented the sloop from com- 
 ing into the harbor, and for a few days Hough made 
 money by bringing up flour from New Haven and get- 
 ting fourteen dollars per barrel for it in Meriden. His 
 harvest was a short one. 
 
 The young men employed in the various tin shops 
 made a large contingent in the younger population of 
 the town. It was remarked when, on one occasion, the 
 men's gallery at the Baptist church was unusually well 
 filled, that every man or boy there was in the tin busi- 
 ness in some capacity. The apprentices were from re- 
 spectable, often well-to-do families. They were boarded 
 either in the family of the principal or in some other 
 where they would be carefully looked after. 
 
 There were not so many temptations for the mislead- 
 ing of youth as there are now. The young men were, 
 most of them, well principled and of moral rectitude. 
 All were intelligent and as well educated as any men 
 out of the professions. They were freely admitted into 
 the best society of the town and welcomed in the several 
 church choirs. One John Phelps had a tenor voice so 
 esteemed that the Baptist church paid him a dollar on 
 Sunday — not fifty-two dollars per year — bargaining was 
 closely done in those days. A little bit of Meriden ro- 
 mance is connected with his name. He was a general 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. I99 
 
 favorite, but had made himself particularly agreeable 
 to an eccentric maiden lady old enough to be his 
 mother. After he left town she followed him, and sought 
 for him in vain. Sometimes she found, or fancied she 
 did, some trace of him. She spent much time and 
 money in her search, during which she traversed nearly 
 the whole of the State of New York. After a number 
 of months thus spent she came back, by that time 
 known to be insane, as she probably was when she left 
 home. She remained quietly and happily interested in 
 her own fancies until her death at an advanced age. 
 
 After leaving town John Phelps was never again 
 heard from by any one here. 
 
 Specimens of japanned and gilded tinware made here 
 seventy years ago may still be seen. A spice box, 
 given by Edwin Curtis to his wife as a Christmas pres- 
 ent, made especially to his order for the purpose, is in 
 use still. There seems no reason why it should not last 
 for another hundred years. 
 
 From about 1840 the value of the local tinware busi- 
 ness declined. Of the old shops, once so numerous and 
 so full of life and activity, not a building now remains, 
 Fifty years ago, in proportion to the population, the 
 trade was as important to the interests of the town as 
 any of the large enterprises are now to the city. 
 
CHAPTER XXXIII. 
 
 SEWING SOCIETIES. 
 
 A mong the " old friends with new faces " the old sew- 
 '**^ ing societies are worth recalling. The three 
 churches had each its own, kept exclusively to itself, 
 but the method and management were alike in all. 
 They met at the houses of the members; wide was the 
 range, but the greater the distance the more enthusiastic 
 the zeal. 
 
 Once every fortnight an announcement from the pul- 
 pit told all concerned that the "sewing society would 
 meet at the house of Mrs. Blank." This the younger 
 members of the family would not for the world miss 
 hearing. They felt that they were for the time being 
 public characters, the observed of their comrades. Very 
 strenuous rules were made and tolerably well kept — 
 as to the providing. Bread (this meant biscuit, mixed 
 with cream, light and hot), butter, of course, home- 
 dried beef or preserves — not both at one time — pickles 
 were always allowed, cake was prohibited. The next 
 meeting place fixed upon and the day approaching, the 
 sacred front room was opened, swept and garnished. 
 This meant a rubbing and dusting, over and under and 
 all about every conceivable thing in the room, already 
 spotless in its purity. The brass andirons had an extra 
 polish, the wood selected and laid ready to light at the 
 precise hour, for warmth, with, at the same time, no 
 unnecessary use of fuel. The conical loaf of glittering, 
 white sugar in its blue wrapping, produced from the 
 cupboard, sacred to the keeping of delicacies. The cut- 
 ting of this into lumps of a proper size was a task much 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 20I 
 
 coveted by the young members of the family. The best 
 table linen and china ascertained to be speckless and 
 flawless, the children lectured and exhorted, under 
 penalties, to decent behavior, and as much fuss as pos- 
 sible made, the preparations were complete. 
 
 It was the duty of the last " entertainer " to send the 
 bag or basket, — both, when work was plenty or press- 
 ing, to the next place. The contents were : first, as of 
 most importance, shirts in process of making, usually 
 for the minister; false bosoms and collars to be made up 
 and stitched by skilful fingers, and ordered by some 
 one desirous of helping the society; skeins of woolen 
 yarn to be knitted into socks, almost always for the 
 minister; but sometimes to be fashioned into stockings 
 ordered by some overdriven housekeeper for her family. 
 In the "society bag " would be also certain square or 
 diamond shaped pieces of calico to be pieced into 
 "blocks "or "stars" for bedquilts. Added to these, 
 if a projected fair was on the tapis, would be pieces of 
 wedding dresses, donated to the society for making 
 (horrible to relate) into kettle holders or pinballs; 
 goose quills to be wound with silk and made into tooth- 
 picks; tissue and lace papers that had been carefully 
 hoarded for some such contingency, and other materials 
 for the manufacture of home-made toys and knick- 
 knacks destined to coax the cash from humbugged 
 pockets. 
 
 It was in the Pierce campaign that two dolls were 
 dressed to represent the opposing candidates. These 
 were put up at auction and certain enthusiastic poli- 
 ticians added fifty dollars to the coffers of the Epis- 
 copal Society by laying opposing bids, each zealous to 
 outdo the other. 
 
 At the sewing society meetings it was one of the 
 
202 RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN 
 
 parts and duties of the ministers to appear in the after- 
 noons and to stay to tea. This ordeal was manfully un- 
 dergone by each and all of them. 
 
 The donation parties were contemporary with the 
 sewing societies. I think Webster's definition of hum- 
 bug fitted them exactly — " an imposition under fair pre- 
 tences." It woiild be whispered, in confidence, of 
 course, that hemlock and chestnut wood, most despised 
 as fuel by knowing housekeepers, were plentiful at the 
 bottom of the loads given by the fanners ; that the bar- 
 rels of apples, potatoes and turnips did not always ful- 
 fil their fair promise to the eye. 
 
 These donation parties were free to all, and every- 
 body went to them, most partaking of the supper pro- 
 vided for by the provisions donated. Not infrequently 
 it was the case that all the food brought in was eaten 
 up, the guests having,. like the locusts of Egypt, de- 
 voured every green thing, except the parson and his 
 wife. Kissing games were the favorite amusements, 
 and the rafters rang with the chromatic concord of 
 
 " The needle's eye that doth supply 
 The thread that passes through. 
 I have caught many and many a lass, 
 And now I have caught you." 
 
 Or this ditty : 
 
 "Green grows the rushes O, 
 Kiss her quick and let her go, 
 Never mind the mitten." 
 
 Sometimes when the plan of the rooms allowed it, 
 "foot races round the chimney" made things lively. 
 The Rev. Mr. Perkins forbade kissing at his house, ex- 
 cept by near connections. As he did not, like the 
 English prayer book, particularize, it was thought at 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 203 
 
 first practicable to invent relationships. But it proved 
 not so easy to hoodwink the parson and his donation 
 parties declined in popularity, no doubt to his much 
 contentment. 
 
 Very seldom did the gifts compensate for what was 
 broken, trampled upon, and wasted at these annual 
 sanctioned parsonage frolics. Mrs. Harvey Miller had, 
 on such an occasion, a counterpane of rare and valuable 
 work, an inheritance from her mother, entirely ruined 
 by the treatment of the careless young people. 
 
 But donation parties are of the things that were of 
 the olden time. The old fashioned sewing society is 
 superannuated. Nor, though he travel far, will the 
 seeker find the prim parlor or "front room " True, 
 the brass andirons have been hunted out of the garrets, 
 polished anew and given places of honor; but they 
 blink in astonishment at their modern environments. 
 Merely to catalogue what is now required for the proper 
 furnishment of our numerous church parlors would 
 make a chapter to itself. 
 
CHAPTER XXXIV. 
 
 BOOKS. 
 
 OEVENTY years ago the question: " Who reads an 
 *^ American book?" might have been truthfully an- 
 swered, "There are none to read." The only books 
 worth much were from the mother country. A book 
 once obtained was a cherished possession. Apropos of 
 this, the editor of the "Notes and Queries" in Boston 
 Transcript told me about the introduction of Scott's 
 " Lady of the Lake " into his home when he was a boy. 
 He is now a man over seventy. 
 
 His mother was, as women in those days were com- 
 pelled to be, an industrious person. She had made a 
 stint for herself for her each day's spinning. She was 
 very fond of reading, but books were few and leisure 
 hours were fewer. She heard of the advent of the new 
 volume, Scott's " Lady of the Lake," in the neighbor- 
 hood, and she longed to read it. The only way to se- 
 cure the coveted opportunity was to do double work for 
 the day. She rose earlier and worked later, and thus 
 secured a holiday to ride on horseback a number of 
 miles and borrow the precious volume. She and the 
 children were made happy for a week with it, when it 
 was returned ; but not before she had learned the con- 
 tents by heart, thus securing them to herself. 
 
 Sixty years ago the only large collections of books in 
 Meriden were owned by Dr. Hough and Fenner Bush. 
 Dr. Hough inherited a small medical library from his 
 father, Dr Ensign Hough. These, except the works 
 of Dr. Rush, of Philadelphia, were English editions. 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 205 
 
 Among the Doctor's books were English library edi- 
 tions of Richardson's "Pamela," and Miss Burney's 
 " Camilla" and '• Evelina. " Each edition, in six vol- 
 umes, bound in calf and gilt. 
 
 Dean Swift had a place, and Smollet, Fielding and 
 Sterne. As no restriction in regard to these was laid 
 upon me, I read, I think, all of them. This was hazard- 
 ous, but the coarse allusions I did not understand, and 
 therefore they were to me harmless. 
 
 "Don Quixote," "The Arabian Nights," " Paradise 
 Lost," " The Pilgrims' Progress," and a satire in verse 
 by Samuel Butler, called "Hudibras," the latter only to 
 be found in some large libraries, came and went through 
 my childish eyes and brain. 
 
 " The American Lady's Preceptor " was (and is) an- 
 other favorite. This was published in Baltimore in 
 1 82 1, and had then reached its ninth edition. Of this 
 book I have never seen a copy, except the one in my 
 own possession. " The Columbian Orator " had its day, 
 and "The National Preceptor" had, in 1836, taken its 
 place as a reading book in some of the district schools. 
 Dr. Hough and Mr. Bush bought all the new books as 
 they came out. 
 
 I remember "Tillman's Journal," and " Fanny Kem- 
 ble's Diary," the record — and a prejudiced one — of her 
 earliest stage experiences in America. 
 
 Children's books were few. All that were good for 
 anything were English. Mrs. Sherwood's "Tales and 
 Tracts," and those of her sister, Mrs. Cameron, were 
 beloved in my childhood. Even now, I think, they have 
 never been excelled as examples of a good, pure style. 
 Mrs. Barbauld's " Hymns in Prose " was popular in the 
 Saturday afternoon school exercises of the day. A class 
 of girls would stand up and recite at the top of their 
 
206 RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 shrill voices, with all the strength of their healthy young 
 lungs, their lithe, young bodies clad in long aprons, 
 swaying in time to the rhythm of the words, these 
 cheerful and appropriate sentences: "Child of Mor- 
 tality, whence earnest thou? Why is thy countenance 
 sad, and thine eyes red with weeping? " "I have seen 
 the rose in its beauty ; it blushed upon its stem ; its fra- 
 grance perfumed the breeze; I looked, and lo, it was 
 gone!" 
 
 Sunday School libraries had been established, but all 
 the books were of a severely religious character. Most 
 of them were biographies of impossible little prigs, 
 who, of course, died early. 
 
 In 1846, Mrs. Sigourney, of Hartford, had begun to 
 write for children and young people. Her "Child's 
 Book on the Soul " was one of my earliest birthday 
 souvenirs. This book was embellished with woodcuts. 
 One intended to convey the idea of Eternity clearly to 
 a child's mind, was a picture of a square pile of slates, 
 the upper layer covered with short lines — ten thousand, 
 I think — the rest, of course, left to the imagination. 
 
 I do not see why, after allowing Smollet and Field- 
 ing, the guardian authorities should have forbidden 
 and tried to prevent, the reading of "The Mysteries of 
 Udolpho," " The Romance of the Forest," "The Chil- 
 dren of the Abbey," and " Alonzo and Melissa." It 
 was, I think, only the prohibition that made these so 
 charming. I doubt if the most omnivorous novel reader 
 of to-day could, or would, wade through the dreary 
 nonsense. The heroes and heroines of those old nov- 
 els got themselves out of one critical state of affairs 
 into another with marvelous and idiotic celerity. Long 
 and high-flown colloquy took turnabout with duels, 
 floods of tears and fainting fits. The warm velvets and 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 207 
 
 furs of the modern novel were lacking. Instead, the 
 lachrymose heroine wore, in all weathers, white mus- 
 lin, once in a while putting on "a lace cloak," by way 
 of comfort. The tantalizing make-believe banquets, 
 now spread for us, would have been much too gross for 
 those refined beings. A " slight refection " was appar- 
 ently sufificient for a lifetime. 
 
 About 1836 Miss Malone introduced " Peter Parley's 
 History and Geography " into the private school. The 
 lessons were interesting, and children easily learned 
 them, and, more than that, remembered what they had 
 learned. 
 
 . Speaking of school books, an extract from a letter 
 written by Mrs. Edgar Munson, of Williamsport, Pa., 
 will be interesting. The incident occurred in Meriden 
 in the late twenties: 
 
 " There were humbugs in those days. Human na- 
 ture in all ages has a relish for them. 
 
 " ' Hall's Grammar ' is now a tradition and a warning. 
 About 1829, I should think, while the old Baptist 
 church stood on the east side of the street, a man made 
 his appearance with a small grammar, not nearly as 
 large as a child's first reader — a miniature compared 
 with Lindley Murray's then in use — and introduced this 
 book on a stand in front of the pulpit, proclaiming to a 
 crowded house, ' The study of grammar made easy; a 
 perfect knowledge of the system acquired from this 
 book in a week's time; he had but a hundred copies 
 at a dollar apiece. Now was the time or never. 
 No press could furnish any more of the kind. ' 
 
 ' ' People were now well brought to a sense of present 
 advantage and a last opportunity. All the town digni- 
 taries were present. 
 
 " Dr. Hough approved the book, and when the Rev. 
 
2o8 RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN, 
 
 Mr. Hinsdale stepped up, and with a few appropriate re- 
 marks laid down his own silver dollar, there was such a 
 rush as was never seen in a sanctuary to receive the 
 article, which the audience whispered to each other, 
 was ' going like hot cakes. ' 
 
 " Wives exhorted their better halves ' to make haste, 
 or they would all be gone. ' Not one book was left to 
 enlighten the absent. The man left town with his one 
 hundred silver dollars, I can see ' Hall's Grammar ' 
 before my eyes to this day and the chagrin I felt when, 
 to my request for a new grammar, the economy of 
 making the misspent silver dollar tell was the result, " 
 
 This was, as Mrs, Munson says, in the old Baptist 
 church. When the new one (the Second) was built by 
 the cemetery, one room of the basement was above the 
 ground, and this was utilized as a favorite place for pri- 
 vate schools. 
 
 Miss Eddy, the Rev. Mr. Atwell and the Rev. Mr, 
 Howard had schools in it, the gentlemen only for a 
 very short time each. They were Baptist clergymen. 
 I think the Rev. Elijah Guion, an Episcopal clergy- 
 man, tried and failed in the attempt to keep one there. 
 
 After the present church was built the deserted 
 building became the Meriden Academy. 
 
 Late in the thirties, one Edward Greene shot meteor- 
 wise across our literary horizon. He started, probably, 
 the first newspaper in Meriden, I do not remember 
 the name of it, and do not think anybody does. Greene 
 began in his paper a story called the "Belles of Meriden. " 
 
 For five or six weeks the young people, more especi- 
 ally, were kept on tiptoe with expectation at what was 
 coming next. By this time, Greene, finding himself 
 getting into rather deep water, brought the story, and 
 I believe, his paper, to a close, by saying that " some- 
 body had made off with the article," 
 
CHAPTER XXXV. 
 
 AN ANCIENT LETTER. 
 
 OOMETIME in the latter half of the seventies Daniel 
 *^ Johnson bought a tract which included a part or 
 the whole of West Peak. He probably made the pur- 
 chase for its supposed mineral wealth. His son Israel 
 inherited the property and built thereupon the finest 
 mansion in the vicinity. The " Johnson house " stands 
 on the high ground at the west side of the city of Mer- 
 iden. This ridge extends irregularly, but continuously 
 to the East and West rock in New Haven. 
 
 The Johnson family were among the earliest comers 
 into the town. Dr. Hough used to tell of their advent 
 with their " equipage." The vehicle thus dignified by 
 the doctor was a two-wheeled gig with a canvas top. 
 An old carriage exactly like it was shown at a Middle- 
 sex county fair early in the nineties. 
 
 The social position of the family was excellent. The 
 father was a trial justice in colonial times. Besides the 
 " equipage " other possessions of theirs impressed the 
 the townspeople with their quality. Silver, cut glass, 
 and china shone on the sideboard, and on the almost 
 sacred table linen, displayed whenever they gave a for- 
 mal tea party. I remember the daughters, Miss Huldah 
 and Miss Amanda, two formal old maids, who might 
 have stepped bodily out of Mrs. Gaskell's " Cranford." 
 Miss Huldah, when dressed for paying or receiving 
 visits, always wore black silk mitts which covered her 
 hands to the base of the fingers, leaving them bare. X. 
 have in memory a very distinct picture of her as she sat 
 
 14 
 
2IO RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 very upright, the black silk mitts on her hands, and her 
 fingers — not her hands, her fingers — crossed with pre- 
 cision, as she gave out " from the chair, " her opinion 
 that red flannel was " very conducive to health." The 
 mother was an invalid, and was as formal and precise 
 as her daughters. I was never a guest at one of the 
 formal tea parties given by the sisters, but I used to 
 hear my elders tell of these functions How Miss 
 Amanda would receive the guests and conduct them to 
 the chairs especially allotted to them, the minister hav- 
 ing the seat of honor, the minister's wife next, while 
 Miss Huldah, at the sideboard, delicately poured and 
 mixed and combined the odorous contents of the cut 
 glass decanters into the cut glass wine glasses. The 
 minister and his wife were always the first served. 
 
 It would seem that neither were averse or reluctant 
 to partake of such refreshment or uninstructed as to the 
 quality or potency of the liquids thus dispensed. After 
 a solemn revel of this order, the whilom guests used to 
 chant, antiphonally, the excellence of the vnands — the 
 ethereal texture of the cream biscuit, the graciousness 
 of waffles and honey, and the translucence of jellies and 
 conserves brought to perfection by secret and carefully 
 guarded rules and recipes. 
 
 A note written by Miss Huldah Johnson, to her 
 cousin. Miss Louisa Johnson, is a very fair specimen of 
 the familiar style of a hundred years ago. It may be 
 explained that the young ladies lived only three or four 
 miles apart. The letter is kindly furnished the writer 
 by Mrs. Edgar Munson of Williamsport, Pa., whose 
 mother, Mrs. Amos Curtis, was the " dear cousin." 
 
 "March 8, 1812. 
 
 "Dear Cousin: — The bright monarch of the day ap- 
 pears just above the eastern hills to remind us of our 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 211 
 
 duty to our benefactor, ourselves and surrounding 
 friends. While the sun sheds its revivifying influences 
 on our fallen world, how many important truths do we 
 learn — that of being up and doing while the day lasts. 
 As the poet says • 
 
 ' Count that day lost whose low descending sun 
 Views from thy hand no worthy action done.' 
 
 I read, and reprove myself for my legion of faults and 
 errors and ingratitude. Gratitude, my friend, doubles 
 every blessing of heaven and every enjoyment in life. 
 It gives a new tone to our minds; it directs us to 
 acquire happiness from unseen things which are laid in 
 store for those that put their trust in the Lord Jesus. 
 The winged moments of time remind us of the transient 
 nature of earthly enjoyments. Soon we shall reach the 
 ultimate end for which we were made. Soon we shall 
 set to rise no more. Our journey being finished, we are 
 prepared to say : ' Now, lettest thy servant depart in 
 peace, our eyes having seen thy salvation.' May our 
 lives be perfected in every good work, acquiring self- 
 knowledge and self-government. When I see you we 
 will talk of the importance of what I have stated. In 
 the m,eantime, remember me at the throne of grace. 
 Write me often, and put me under obligations to you. 
 It is not my design to make imcle impatiently wait for 
 my comments upon the honored visit he had conde- 
 scended to make; the medium of words is insufficient 
 were I to attempt to describe the satisfaction. Do en- 
 courage the visiting, and hope we shall soon see you. 
 My kind remembrance to all. 
 
 " From your cousin, 
 
 " HuLDAH Johnson." 
 
CHAPTER XXXVI. 
 
 AND LAST. 
 
 nPHE year 1799 opened with the wonderful turnpike 
 ^ road completed between New York and Boston. 
 The citizens of Meriden were elated with the prospect 
 of good things to be brought to them by the new sys- 
 tem of rapid transit. The stages brought glimpses of 
 city fashions as the passengers stopped at the famous 
 •* Hough's Tavern," the " Halfway House," to dine or 
 sleep; for the journey of two hundred miles was 
 thought a long and arduous one, and feeble folk were 
 fain to rest on the way. People built houses along the 
 great new road with "modern improvements," and en- 
 vironed them with fruit trees and flowering shrubs 
 grown from stock brought over the sea from English 
 homes. For thirty years the town grew slowly, yet 
 there was an advance of prosperity. 
 
 Dr. Hough, James L. Brooks (afterwards Judge 
 Brooks), Major Elisha Allen Cowles, Patrick Lewis and 
 Elias Holt had each built handsome and commodious 
 houses Lewis built the house owned by Eli Birdsey, 497 
 Broad street. Holt built the house owned by Mrs. Rus- 
 sell Coe, 283 East Main street. In 1836 an enterprising 
 Hartford baker sent, once each month, a wagon with 
 crackers and cookies into town ; and a merchant with 
 advanced ideas had often a whole box of oranges on 
 hand at once. Young ladies went to the Hartford or 
 New Haven boarding schools, returning to Meriden 
 from Saturday to Monday, as the journey could be 
 made by the stage in three hours. Letters came from 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 213 
 
 Boston or New York in thirty-six hours. In 1836 let- 
 ters sent from Meriden to Middlebury, eighteen miles 
 west were a week in transit, and the postage was "nine- 
 pence," — twelve and a half cents. 
 
 In the first half of the century the " emancipation of 
 women " was in the future. They were themselves 
 mainly responsible for the unwritten but rigid rules re- 
 lating to dress. She was a woman of courage who 
 would venture to violate or even to infringe upon these 
 oral laws. For one thing, a matron of thirty must 
 wear a cap, or be considered a vain and frivolous per- 
 son. A dress cap of 1836 was an impressive structure 
 of puflEs and frills with loops and bows of wire stiffened 
 ribbon and floating lappets and strings. Jewelry was 
 not permitted, unless an exception was made in respect 
 of a gold watch. Diamonds were never seen, although 
 one family had in possesion a diamond stock buckle, 
 and a pair of shoe buckles. It must be noted these 
 were for masculine adornment, and although the day 
 had hardly gone when professional men were brave in 
 frilled shirt bosoms and wrist ruffles, for woman such 
 vain frippery as lace frills at the neck or wrists was 
 not permitted. A muslin kerchief neatly folded and 
 crossed on the bosom was the proper finish to a de- 
 corous costume. As the limitations in apparel were of 
 the sex's own setting there was, of course, in them no 
 trial or grievance — at any rate worth mentioning. The 
 real hardship for a married woman was in the laws de- 
 priving her of rights in property which she had in- 
 herited or had helped to get together. A married 
 woman had practically no right in her husband's 
 wealth, except by his will. A woman might manage 
 her husband and all his concerns for a lifetime, yet at 
 his death she was judged incapable of taking care of 
 what he left. 
 
214 RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 An extreme case of the kind occurred at the east side 
 of the town. The husband dying intestate, the property 
 was so managed, that the widow, whose personal labor 
 and economy had made her home one of unusual com- 
 fort, was made to take as part of her " portion " two 
 small rooms at the back of the house and was not 
 allowed the use of the front door. Two friends visited 
 her and she set her tea things on an old chest. One of 
 her children when reproved for allowing this state of 
 things excused it by saying, " of course it was hard for 
 mother, but there was nothing wrong about it for it was 
 the law." But, as was before said, this was an extreme 
 case, showing, however, what the old law could be 
 made to do. 
 
 In those days St. Paul was a much quoted authority, 
 and a favorite apostle of the husbands and fathers 
 (lovers are pretty much the same always). 
 
 St. Paul's prophetic soul must have looked into the 
 'latter days of the nineteenth century when he felt him- 
 self impelled to confess that, in some things, he did 
 not speak from inspiration. There is a long step be- 
 tween " Parson " Hubbard in knee breeches, long black 
 silk stockings and muslin neck bands, and the clergy- 
 man of 1899 in straw hat or fur cap or any other com- 
 fortable headgear, coat and trousers of fashionable cut 
 and neckwear of such form and color as pleases the 
 wearer thereof. The parson of 1800 made his round of 
 parochial visits on horseback; he sipped with grave rel- 
 ish his frequent modicum of wine or spirits, and while 
 thus refreshing the inner man he made suitable inquiry 
 of the "state of their soiils." He was solemn, never 
 laughed in public, seldom even smiled. At each visit 
 he read a chapter from the Bible and made a long 
 prayer; a family would feel themselves slighted were 
 

 RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 215 
 
 the prayers made short. His visits were, to the chil- 
 dren, a sort of sanctified nightmare, and if they saw 
 him coming- they ran and hid. His Sunday sermons 
 were dry, doctrinal essays, an hour in delivering, or he 
 did not earn his salary. 
 
 The minister of 1840 preached, every Sunday, two 
 sermons of at least forty-five minutes; he conducted a 
 Sunday school at noon, he held a Bible class towards 
 night and had a service in the evening. He never took 
 a vacation. A good deal was expected of him and he 
 did it, and, no wonder, broke down and lost his voice. 
 
 The minister of today finds plenty of work to do. 
 Guilds, brotherhoods, societies of many names, but all 
 having "church work" for an object, require his suDer- 
 vision. So far as possible he keeps his mind and body 
 in condition to accomplish what his position demands. 
 He rides a wheel, he knows enough of secular business 
 to be a good adviser. His people confide the key of 
 their skeleton closet to his keeping and he holds it 
 close. The children like him, he does not puzzle their 
 heads with abstruse questions, nor are they made to 
 "stand up and say their verses," for which mercy he 
 and they ought to be devoutly thankful. He plays ball 
 with his Sunday-school boys — and he can beat them if 
 he wants to. Even farther and still farther into the 
 past the old days are drifting. With them are passing 
 the old prejudices with their ineffable Pharisaism. 
 
 In the sixties a leading Congregational paper gravely 
 warned its readers against a recognition of Christmas, 
 or Lent, or Easter, as a "tendency toward Popery." 
 The Meriden Christmas of 1842 saw one poor little 
 church decked in Christmas green, hemlock and laurel, 
 proud of its new four hundred dollar organ. The 
 Christmas of 1898 sees twenty churches vying with 
 
2l6 RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 each other in arch and pillar, pulpit and platform and 
 altar wreathed with woven vines and berried holly from 
 Southern lands. The great organs that uphold vested 
 choirs and trained voices in anthem and chant and 
 psalm, have cost more than four times four thousand 
 dollars. 
 
 In all the churches the Lenten season will be, at least, 
 recognized. On the other hand the season will be less 
 rigorously kept by the sects to whom the observance 
 was once peculiar. By all, Easter will be heralded with 
 heaped up lilies and roses and hyacinths, where once 
 no flower had a place within chancel, or on altar or 
 platform. Denominational exclusiveness is being done 
 away with. In works of charity and mercy, in pur- 
 poses and motives for future public advantage, all 
 the religious sects work together, "owning one Master." 
 
 Sometime in the fifties. Bishop Clark of Rhode Island 
 lectured in the old Broad street Methodist church. The 
 lecture was " Fifty Years Hence." It was, of course, 
 witty. One sentence, and one only, of that lecture, is 
 now recalled. The bishop used the words " going from 
 New York to San Francisco in four days." This was 
 greeted with a chorus of laughter. Yet the prediction 
 is fulfilled, or nearly, 
 
 A walk of a mile shows windows heaped with tawny 
 golden globes, and great clusters of grapes hang heavy 
 and plump with juices fresh as when they were gathered 
 from vines growing upon the shores of the Pacific 
 ocean. 
 
 As I bring to a close these desultory records and 
 memories of a " dear dead day," old scenes crowd upon 
 my mental sight and are loath to leave me. I believe, 
 as I walk abroad, I shall go in the old irregular grassy 
 paths and shall traverse the old uneven streets. The 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 217 
 
 East cemetery is again a bare upland meadow, and near 
 the bars that lead into it is the barnlike Methodist 
 <:hurch, with its bare wooden benches and packing box 
 pulpit. To this house, one bleak, snowy January day, 
 queer " Preacher " Baldwin brought his infant child to 
 be baptized by himself, his wife the only witness. He 
 had the grace and mercy to borrow a bowl of warm 
 water. Here, too, Kate Andrews and the two insepar- 
 able Francis's "played church." As a theatre for their 
 histrionic accomplishments the building did not long re- 
 main It was bought by Horace Redfield, moved onto 
 Curtis street and made into a joiner's shop. It was finally 
 set on fire by some children playing in the old pulpit, 
 and was burned to the ground. The house at present 
 the home of Frank Treat South wick stands pretty nearly 
 on the spot. 
 
 The old Broad street cemetery has once more the 
 Baptist and the Episcopal churches, the school house 
 and the old hearse house at each corner, with the low 
 stone wall between. The long line of posts and chains 
 front the grassy path between the churches where the 
 churchgoers fasten their horses. The poor beasts, im- 
 patient with the four or five hours standing, kick and 
 squeal and fight, and go altogether as much on a ram- 
 page as their tether will allow. This varies the Sunday 
 monotony, besides giving the not at all reluctant owners 
 an excuse for cutting short the afternoon sermon. 
 
 Once more at St. Andrew's, Edwin Curtis gives, on 
 his bass viol the keynote for chant and psalm and hymn. 
 I go up the high steps into the Baptist church, where, 
 once upon a time, at an ordination, " Uncle Sam " 
 Yale, zealous for the success of the musical programme 
 and distrusting, as even the most competent sometimes 
 do, his own and Captain Howard's skill on bass viol and 
 
2l8 RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN, 
 
 double bass, seized an opportune, but at that time very 
 rare, hand organ, had it conveyed into the choir, and a 
 voluntary performed on the instrument to the much sat- 
 isfaction of the listeners thereto. The time moves on ; 
 the clear tones of the Rev. Harvey Miller's voice ring 
 out as he preaches, what, in his daily life, he practices, 
 the Gospel of Peace. The little, white building, the 
 first St. Andrew's, is now the mission where has since 
 grown the stately buildings of St. Rose's Parish. Fair 
 in its proportions, rises, at the corner of Charles street, 
 the coveted stone church, the second St. Andrew's. 
 Here, the Rev. Dr. Deshon began his ministry of more 
 than thirty years. From out its chancel Bishop Brown- 
 ell, worn with cares, bowed with years, went for the 
 last time, and Bishop Williams entered in the prime of 
 manhood, tall and commanding in person, impressive in 
 manner. 
 
 But Memory, the showman, has withdrawn the can- 
 vas, and all the ground is empty space. The portal of 
 the Center church is not altered. It is the same as 
 when it was built seventy years ago, but, when I enter, 
 I find a change in the once familiar precincts. A plat- 
 form and choir seats and the great organ take the place 
 of the crimson-draped pulpit, from which in 1849, the 
 Rev. G. W. Perkins preached a farewell sermon to the 
 party who left Meriden for the gold fields of California, 
 from the depressive text, " Weep ye not for the dead, 
 neither bemoan him ; but weep sore for him that goeth 
 away, for he shall return no more, nor see his native 
 country." Sorrowful words and significant ; for of 
 those who left Meriden that night, some were left in 
 lonely graves ; others had no wish to see again their 
 "native country" and made new home-ties. None re- 
 turned rich save in experience. 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 219 
 
 When, early in the thirties, William Lawrence, of 
 Meriden, invented a hanging lamp with a glass shade, 
 in which whale oil displaced candles, it was thought a 
 far stride in the world's progress. Burning fluid, kero- 
 sene and gas, each in their turn, have followed the 
 whale oil lamps ; now in this year of grace, 1899, the 
 forces of nature are concentrated, and with a touch, 
 street and avenue, hall and audience room, are flooded 
 with cool, brilliant light. Nor is the time distant when 
 the electric fluid will lighten all domestic labor, and the 
 smoke and ashes and grime of coal in our kitchens be a 
 forgotten nuisance. 
 
 The substantial and elegant stone dwelling house 
 (the home of Francis Atwater of The Jolirnal) sIsltiAs 
 in the place of the old " Hough tavern. " Four times 
 each hour the electric cars pass the house, and cross the 
 road where before them, twice each day, the lumbering 
 stages swung clumsily up to the piazza at the old 
 hosfelry. 
 
 The old Broad Street cemetery has been opened, it 
 is likely, for the last time. Within the last ten years 
 three aged women have been buried there The last 
 was taken there by her dying wish that she might be 
 buried by the side of her little child, who dropped from 
 her arms and never grew up; who, for sixty years, 
 had always been her baby girl. 
 
 When, in 1845, the East cemetery was laid out, it 
 was supposed ainple allowance for the future had been 
 made. Ira N. Yale took great interest in the project, 
 and it was through his influence that the principal ave- 
 nues were bordered by flowering shrubs, altheas, most 
 of them. The expense of building the stone arch at 
 the entrance was very seriously objected to by the 
 citizens on the west side of town, and I believe it was 
 
220 RECOLLKCTIONS OF A NEW ENGFAND TOWN. 
 
 partly for this reason the West cemetery was planned. 
 When the location was chosen it was talked of as being 
 quite isolated. 
 
 The first interment in it was a little child. On a very 
 plain headstone in a crowded part of the groimd, is the 
 
 inscription : 
 
 " Her name was EUah, 
 And by this silent grave she passed away." 
 
 For a while the little grave was a lonely one. 
 
 The brilliant electric light throws long shadows from 
 the elm branches over the graves of men and women 
 who rose while it was dark and were lighted by dim 
 candles to their early labors. By candlelight they read 
 their one weekly religious newspaper carefully, accept- 
 ing everything therein printed as articles of faith. 
 
 The summers and the winters followed each other as 
 surely with them as with us, but time seemed to move 
 more slowly then. In those days events did not crowd 
 each other. So they did the work of each season as it 
 came, not worrying overmuch or hurrying at all, but 
 making a virtue of hard labor, and a vice of "taking 
 things easy." To find something to do and to work 
 hard to get the thing done was, to them, the whole duty 
 of man. For all that, commonplace as those lives 
 seemed in their passing, now that it is all over and done 
 with, a plain narrative of all that lies buried out of 
 sight in the old Broad street burial place would make 
 an emotional tale almost too improbable for belief. 
 
 Under the yellow myrtle and the purple asters lie those 
 who despaired of life in the bitterness of disappointed 
 ambition ; who endured the weary waiting of hope de- 
 ferred or the grief for friends lost, or changed, or dead. 
 The gladness of fulfilled promises was theirs in their 
 time, and upon some of them fell that most hopeless 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 22 1 
 
 and most heartbreaking of all the disappointments of 
 life — "the curse of a granted prayer." 
 
 We try to consider how, if they could suddenly be 
 quickened into our everyday life, they would look 
 upon the changed world about them. Nothing familiar 
 to the eye when they went away would their amazed 
 gaze rest upon — except, perhaps, the mountains, and 
 upon their steep fells the finger of time has written. 
 
 The year 1899 opens with the little town of three 
 thousand grown into the city of nearly thirty thousand 
 people. 
 
 It finds the Meriden Hospital permanently founded, 
 with increasing appliances for future useful work. 
 
 A Free Public Library is hopefully initiated, with 
 tokens of prosperity in the new century. 
 
 Cultivated discernment has found rare possibilities in 
 the wild steep mountain side that liberal wealth is rap- 
 idly turning into a benison for the city, and not for the 
 city alone, but almost equally for the adjacent towns. 
 
 Hubbard Park is beautiful now, when it is yet in its 
 early days; very unique, even sublime, are the natural 
 features of the locality. Rare and admirable is the far- 
 sighted munificence which has moved the donor to de- 
 velop their beauties, and to confer upon the city so 
 large a benefaction. 
 
 When the years of the future have drifted far into 
 the past, and the nineteenth century has become the 
 " Olden Days, "this great gift will be — so long as the 
 "Hanging Hills" guard the city — an acquisition of 
 good, growing in utility of possession to future genera- 
 tions. 
 
 As I bring to an end these traditions of more than a 
 century and a half, more than sixty years my own per- 
 sonal memories, I feel a vexatious conviction that, after 
 
222 RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 all, I have omitted many things not less of interest 
 than much I have written. 
 
 Our beautiful city has sons and daughters in every 
 State in the Union, who think of its hills with love, 
 longing for their early home. From the shores of the 
 Pacific to the Gulf of Mexico, and far away to the 
 northern line, hundreds know the name only as the 
 home of their ancestors, whose dust lies under the turf 
 of our cemeteries.