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 AN OLD NEW ENGLAND TOWN
 
 EDITION DE LUXE in octavo, limited to twenty- 
 five copies, printed throughout on Japan 
 paper, numbered I to 25. Not for sale. 
 
 Two hundred and seventy-five copies printed 
 on special paper, illustrations on Japan 
 paper, numbered 26 to 300. Net $5.00 
 
 REGULAR EDITION in i2mo. Net $2.00
 
 AN OLD 
 NEW ENGLAND TOWN 
 
 SKETCHES OF 
 LIFE, SCENERY, CHARACTER 
 
 BY 
 
 FRANK SAMUEL CHILD 
 
 With Illustrations 
 
 SECOND EDITION 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 1895
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1895, BY 
 FRANK SAMUEL CHILD 
 
 Press of J. J Little & Co. 
 Astor Place, New York
 
 To 
 
 The Eunice Dennie Burr Chapter 
 
 of 
 The Daughters of the American Revolution 
 
 Perpetuating the 
 
 Old-Time and the New-Time 
 
 Spirit of Patriotism 
 
 2013161
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 THE old New England town has peculiar in- 
 terest for us. It has taken a conspicuous part 
 in the development of our social life and politi- 
 cal institutions. And there are few towns that 
 have achieved a more honorable distinction 
 than Fairfield. 
 
 Mindful of this fact, the Daughters of the 
 American Revolution who constitute the Eu- 
 nice Dennie Burr Chapter invited the writer of 
 the following papers to give a course of lec- 
 tures upon the old New England town which 
 was especially dear to them. He was pleased 
 to accept this courteous invitation, for his love 
 of Fairfield was deep and strong, and he appre- 
 ciated the fact that the town had made large 
 and notable contributions to the life of the 
 Colony and the Republic.
 
 viii PREFACE. 
 
 Arrangements for the lectures were consum- 
 mated ; members of the Dorothy Ripley Chap- 
 ter, of Southport, members of the Mary Silli- 
 man Chapter, of Bridgeport, and other friends 
 interested in local history were invited to be 
 present. The large audiences in attendance, 
 and the close attention paid, evidenced the im- 
 portance of the events, individuals, matters 
 discussed. 
 
 At the conclusion of the lectures it was the 
 wish of many people that the papers should be 
 given to the public in book form. It was also 
 suggested that illustrations would add to the 
 value and pleasure of the book. The writer 
 takes this opportunity of expressing thanks to 
 the kind and generous friends that have aided 
 him in these tasks. 
 
 In respect to the subject-matter of the book, 
 it is to be distinctly understood that the au- 
 thor has not attempted to write a history. He 
 has gleaned from public and private sources, 
 from official documents and family treasures, 
 the numerous facts and incidents related. But
 
 PREFACE. IX 
 
 the purpose has been simply to etch a series of 
 pictures so that the life of former days might 
 come before the hearer or the reader with a 
 fair degree of accuracy and suggestiveness. 
 The author has had every privilege and oppor- 
 tunity granted him by numerous private indi- 
 viduals of Fairfield, and the public libraries of 
 New York, New Haven, Hartford, Boston. 
 The long and persistent task of research has 
 been a continuous pleasure, for it has revealed 
 riches and opened associations that are full of 
 promise. 
 
 In giving these papers to the public the 
 author expresses the sincere desire that there 
 will result some quickening of patriotic senti- 
 ment. It requires only the spirited play of 
 the imagination, and these familiar places are 
 peopled with men and women of the past en- 
 gaged in strenuous and varied activities. One 
 passes along the edges of Pequot swamp (the 
 few remaining acres of this famous battle- 
 ground ought to be converted into a little 
 park and kept like to the days of old for the
 
 X PREFACE. 
 
 sake of coming generations) one passes along 
 the swamp, and listens almost unconsciously 
 for the warning notes of struggle and carnage 
 which once sounded through the woods. One 
 stands on Greenfield Hill looking down Verna 
 Avenue, that stretch of exquisite, shadeful 
 greenery, and for a moment it seems that Tal- 
 leyrand, who once tarried at the old inn, might 
 stand by one's side and gaze enraptured upon 
 the glorious scene, or President Dwight might 
 cross over the way to the observer and recite 
 enthusiastically some of his verses : 
 
 " As round me here I gaze, what prospects rise, 
 Ethereal, matchless f " 
 
 One climbs the remnant of breastworks on 
 Grover's Hill, and it all comes back to him the 
 terror of anticipated assault, the courage of 
 brave soldiers defending the town, the roar of 
 cannon, the mystery of small boats stealthily 
 making their way toward Ash Creek, the stir, 
 anxiety, sacrifice, victory, of long ago. One 
 leans against the ancient whipping-post on the
 
 PREFACE. xi 
 
 Fairfield Green, and again there sounds in his 
 ear the whiz of the lash, the cry of the cul- 
 prit ; the children jeer at the slave in the 
 stocks ; the prisoner taken from the jail is ex- 
 posed to the punishment of public gaze, and 
 all sorts of curious transactions take place be- 
 fore us. It is these things and kindred expe- 
 riences that are evoked by the witchery of our 
 common imagination and the few rude lines 
 drawn by the writer's hand. As we live in this 
 strange past, may it be that some high pur- 
 pose pushing into nobler patriotism shall be 
 communicated unto us, so that the future shall 
 be made the better, happier, brighter. With 
 the hope that men and women whose lives are 
 associated with the grand old New England 
 towns may grow strong in their devotion to 
 these precious nurseries of character, the au- 
 thor commits this book unto the tender mer- 
 cies of the generous reader. 
 
 FAIRFIELD, CONN., 
 
 September i, 1895.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PACK 
 
 I. WOODS AND PLAINS ; HILLSIDE AND 
 
 SEASIDE i 
 
 II. PURITANS AND PILGRIMS .... 15 
 
 III. INDIANS WOLVES TRAIN-BANDS . 25 
 
 IV. DOMESTIC AFFAIRS 43 
 
 V. WITCHCRAFT AND WITCHES ... 63 
 
 VI. THINGS SACRED AND THINGS SECULAR 75 
 
 VII. WAR LOVE CAPTIVITY 95 
 
 VIII. THE BURNING OF FAIRFIELD . . . 125 
 
 IX. POVERTY EDUCATION CONFLICT . 157
 
 xiv. CONTENTS. 
 
 PACK 
 
 X. THE SOCIAL ATMOSPHERE .... 181 
 XI. JUDGE ROGER M. SHERMAN . . . 195 
 
 XII. HISTORIC MEMORIES AND RURAL IN- 
 SPIRATIONS 217
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 JUDGE ROGER M. SHERMAN . . Frontispiece 
 
 FACING PAGE 
 
 VIEW FROM ROUND HILL 7 
 
 FAIRFIELD BEACH AND GROVER'S HILL . . 20 
 
 SAMP MORTAR ROCK 27 
 
 COLONIAL HOUSE ON MILL PLAIN . . . 57 
 
 VERNA AVENUE, GREENFIELD HILL ... 77 
 
 VIEW FROM GOULD'S BRIDGE 105 
 
 GENERAL SILLIMAN'S HOME 113 
 
 FAIRFIELD GREEN IN 1776 126 
 
 (From an old print in Barber's Historical Collection.) 
 
 BEACH LANE 131
 
 xvi. ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 FACING PAGE 
 
 LEFT BY THE BRITISH 142 
 
 ACADEMY BUILDING 166 
 
 THE POWDER HOUSE 171 
 
 VILLAGE ELMS 198 
 
 SHERMAN PARSONAGE FROM THE GARDEN . 204 
 
 THE PRIME ANCIENT SOCIETY'S SIXTH HOUSE 
 OF WORSHIP 217 
 
 PEQUOT LIBRARY, SOUTHPORT 222
 
 " O, who can paint like nature ! who can boast 
 Such scenes as here enchant the lingering eye ! " 
 
 PRESIDENT DWIGHT.
 
 I. 
 
 Woods and Plains; Hillside and Seaside.
 
 I. 
 
 WOODS AND PLAINS ; HILLSIDE AND SEASIDE. 
 
 THIS particular old New England town nes- 
 tles down by an inflow of the sea. The fellow- 
 ship of the " Sound " with Connecticut on one 
 side and Long Island on the other, gives infin- 
 ite interest and variety to the landscape. The 
 Indians were charmed with this sweet enchant- 
 ment of nature. Their wigwams dotted many 
 of the shores. 
 
 What virginal loveliness it was that painted 
 itself upon the eyes of the wearied immigrants 
 when they reached this spot ! In their first 
 enthusiasm we can see them turn aside from 
 the hard toil of rearing log cabins and cultivat- 
 ing patches of corn. Some lad has been on a 
 little tramp back to the elevation now called 
 Round Hill. He has found an opening in
 
 4 AN OLD NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 the trees where the redman is wont to kindle 
 his signal fires. So this brave, curious son 
 urges the family and neighbors to come with 
 him and see the landscape. 
 
 At length they stand in the open on the top 
 of this commanding eminence. To the north 
 they turn, and endless forests upon hill and in 
 dale wave them a welcome. To the east the 
 lands seem broken with the shimmering sur- 
 faces of little indentations from the sea. On 
 the west there spreads out a like variegation of 
 woodland, water-way, and small oases of cul- 
 tivated fields. To the south lies the broad, 
 shifting expanse of the Sound, reaching into 
 the east and the west until the eyes tire of the 
 straining. Beyond, to the farther south, lies 
 Long Island, its many miles of forest-covered 
 sand serving as a sort of breastwork against the 
 too familiar approach of old ocean in its hours 
 of tumult. Whichever way the little company 
 on Round Hill turned, it was to lose self in 
 the dim and shadowy distances of beautiful 
 scenes.
 
 WOODS AND PLAINS. 5 
 
 Picking the way down toward the shore, we 
 see them stopping now and then to gather 
 bunches of wild flowers, rarely precious in 
 their sight ; and they remark upon the abun- 
 dance, variety, and loveliness of the blossoms. 
 For we must remember that these people came 
 from a land of gardens, cathedrals, art galleries. 
 They were men and women of refinement and 
 culture. The beautiful must needs appeal to 
 them ; and when it was not found in artificial 
 forms, it became all the more welcome in 
 nature. Whatever may have been the feeling 
 in respect to old-world beauty, however earn- 
 estly these people thrust from their mind the 
 art-work of the mother country, the instinct 
 and sensitiveness which enabled one to appreci- 
 ate such handiwork as revealed itself in nature 
 still remained active and fruitful. 
 
 One of the things which Ludlow and his as- 
 sociates did was to stake out the village. The 
 central plat was reserved for the Green. The 
 other squares were portioned among the new 
 settlers. It is more than two hundred and
 
 6 AN OLD NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 fifty years since this work was done, but the 
 original divisions remain virtually unchanged. 
 
 There was more or less swamp land that has 
 been converted into garden or meadow. Trees 
 have been felled, others placed in orderly man- 
 ner, roads made and re-made according to the 
 times, houses destroyed and houses rebuilt, all 
 the minor changes that necessarily pertain to 
 the life of a town ; but the landscape is essen- 
 tially the same that greeted the first comers. 
 
 The hand of taste and refinement has been 
 at work through the generations. The soil has 
 been subdued and made productive of all things 
 agreeable to this climate and location. Yet the 
 emotions of the early residents must have been 
 quite like to those which stir us to-day as we 
 look upon the matchless picture. 
 
 Visit Round Hill on a clear October morning. 
 It is a scene that will never fade. There is the 
 park expanse which immediately surrounds 
 one. The hill has just enough elevation to 
 give it dignity and command the prospect. The 
 turf stretches beneath the feet, a mantle of

 
 WOODS AND PLAINS. 7 
 
 velvet verdure. The monotony is broken by 
 smooth, winding roads, small masses of shrub- 
 bery, varied trees artistically grouped. 
 
 This noble promontory is framed with a rural 
 setting it were hard to surpass. Farm lands and 
 bits of wooded territory press close beneath 
 the hill. Beyond is the wider adornment of 
 the shaded towns, north, east, west, south. The 
 white spire of the church in Greenfield Hill 
 shines in the distance. The mansion of Verna 
 Farm paints itself against the background of 
 thick foliage. Southport rests serenely down 
 by the edge of the water, flashing light into the 
 eyes from its half-hidden roofs and steeples. 
 Bridgeport masses its wide-spread surface be- 
 neath the gaze ; its tall chimneys, great shops, 
 various institutions, pleasant homes, woven into 
 forms that suggest busy life and manifold 
 works. Black Rock pushes into the sea. 
 Grover's Hill, crowned with its commodious 
 and restful country seats, imparts a touch of 
 subdued elegance. 
 
 Between Round Hill and the shore lie the
 
 8 AN OLD NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 squares made by Ludlow. The ample propor- 
 tions of the houses are barely discernible amid 
 the embowered streets. One catches a glimpse 
 of a red Norman tower, a shining band of rail- 
 road, now and then a roof, an occasional flag- 
 staff, some portion of the old Town Hall, a 
 dark spire, a white house-front, the straggling 
 rear proportions of a great brown mansion, 
 here and there patches of colonial yellow, an 
 ample and substantial brick barn half clad 
 with vines, vast and interesting variety of ma- 
 terial. 
 
 And all this landscape is brightened and glo- 
 rified by the myriad tints of autumn. Rain- 
 bows have been woven into the whole setting of 
 the picture. Nature is aflame with its splendor 
 and brilliancy of manifestation. Meanwhile 
 the infinite and changeful waters of the sea 
 spread their charm and beauty just beyond the 
 old town and its neighbors, giving tone, relief, 
 suggestion, offset, to the gorgeous scene. Did 
 some one say, " See Naples and then die " ? 
 It were scarce worth while to ring down the cur-
 
 WOODS AND PLAINS. 9 
 
 tain for so small an inducement. See Fairfield 
 from Round Hill on a perfect October day, and 
 live. 
 
 But there is an all-year-round beauty pecul- 
 iar to the place. When winter comes and 
 nature is stripped of bright colors and gay 
 forms, there still remains a wealth of beauty. 
 
 Walk to Osborn Hill some clear, crisp morn- 
 ing, after the rain has frozen upon tree, and 
 bush, and rock. What a transformation : 
 There are the same outlines of beauty. We 
 see the same houses, fields, streets, shores. 
 But every object is hung with crystal. It is a 
 look into fairyland. Gems are scattered with 
 such prodigality that we count them common 
 things. The sunshine has been caught by 
 every tiny twig and rough stone, withered 
 blade of grass, massive tree, and bold rock. 
 The October brilliancy has suddenly returned 
 and assumed fresh, radiant forms. Gold, sap- 
 phire, pearl, chalcedony, all the jewels of the 
 world's royalty, the diamonds of the African 
 mines, the silver of Peru and Nevada are they
 
 10 AN OLD NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 not scattered through the landscape, dimming 
 the eyes with their glory ? 
 
 It is always beautiful, this gem of landscape 
 by the sea. He must be blind indeed who, 
 taking it into his vision, does not nourish his 
 soul upon it. Whether one tramps through 
 the marshes in damp, gray days, studying our 
 flora in order to write " How to Know the Wild 
 Flowers," or lingers in field and forest on a 
 midsummer's day to glean pictures for " The 
 Friendship of Nature," devotees of the beau- 
 tiful treasure the inspirations which come to 
 them amid these scenes. 
 
 And like inspirations belong to you and me 
 as we put ourselves in the mood and open our 
 eyes to the scenes that stretch before us. This 
 setting of nature is not an insignificant factor 
 in the development of character and the deter- 
 mination of events. We have thought it well 
 to point unto this landscape opulence, so that 
 we might get a clearer apprehension of the men, 
 the deeds, the spirit, the life, peculiar to this old 
 New England town. For environment is bound
 
 WOODS AND PLAINS. II 
 
 to express itself in terms of manhood and ac- 
 tion. We may therefore expect that such a 
 landscape as has been described, as well as the 
 many sorts of weather characteristic of these 
 shores, and the manifold trials which sturdy 
 pioneers must face, will contribute generously 
 to character, destiny, achievement.
 
 II. 
 
 Puritans and Pilgrims.
 
 II. 
 
 PURITANS AND PILGRIMS. 
 
 THE first settlers came with a common inher- 
 itance of the best English manhood. They all 
 submitted to a common environment of un- 
 tamed wilderness, Indian peril, fickle weather, 
 stern subsistence. 
 
 These pioneers came in three companies 
 the band from Windsor in 1639, the band from 
 Watertown, and later still the band from Con- 
 cord. 
 
 These Massachusetts emigrants represented 
 three ecclesiastical tendencies. First there were 
 the men that called themselves Independents. 
 Plymouth and Pilgrim are the words which sug- 
 gest them. There were also men that had 
 Presbyterian preferences. And there were men 
 who still loved the Church of England. These
 
 1 6 AN OLD NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 people were Puritans. Circumstances wrought 
 the three classes into the Congregational form 
 of church life. 
 
 The emigrants came from a land that was 
 already quickened unto enlarged prosperity. 
 Holland was doing much for England by way of 
 teaching thrift, trade, commerce, manufacture. 
 A new spirit of enterprise and activity was wide- 
 spread. The emigrants were involved in the 
 contagion. Comrades had been into Holland. 
 There was intimate correspondence between the 
 men who remained in England, the men who 
 tarried in Holland, and the men who adven- 
 tured into America. The spirit of progress 
 prevailed among them. 
 
 The families that came to these shores were 
 variously circumstanced. Some of them never 
 possessed large means ; others had lost through 
 persecution the property which belonged to 
 them ; and quite a number brought a greater 
 or less fortune with them. They all adapted 
 themselves to circumstances with a good sense 
 and a cheerfulness most remarkable.
 
 PURITANS AND PILGRIMS. I? 
 
 We quite properly think of them as men of 
 ideas and principles. This was their shining 
 characteristic. It had been a rough discipline 
 through which they had passed in the mother 
 country. They were largely Puritans, and they 
 insisted upon pure life, pure doctrine, pure 
 worship. Since many of them loved the English 
 Church, their revolt was not necessarily a revolt 
 against it, but a revolt against corrupt practice 
 and tyrannical method. When King James 
 said concerning this class of people, " I will 
 make them conform, or I will harry them out 
 of the kingdom," he said a very foolish and 
 cruel thing. But his foolishness and cruelty 
 wrought to the ultimate gain and triumph of 
 the emigrants. 
 
 Wiclif had long ago set the people of England 
 thinking. A thinking man is like a hidden force 
 in nature. The time comes when the ferment 
 of thought expresses itself in the visibility and 
 momentum of action. Contact with the enter- 
 prise and politics of little Holland served to has- 
 ten the course which events were bound to take.
 
 1 8 AN OLD NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 Men of ideas, they thought for themselves. 
 And they had thought out Church and State 
 problems to the extent that they were prepared 
 to move along the lines of freedom and inde- 
 pendence. 
 
 Men of principles, they believed that right- 
 eousness was the true foundation of personal 
 character and national life. They looked for a 
 rule that was instinct with the spirit of God. 
 It was their conviction that the individual pos- 
 sessed certain inalienable rights. They pro- 
 posed to get into some land where these rights 
 might be freely exercised. In the providence 
 of God, Unquowa, an Indian expanse of terri- 
 tory by the great arm of the sea, was destined 
 to become a nursery of such ideas and princi- 
 ples as were seething in the hearts and con- 
 sciences of the Puritans. 
 
 Given, then, such stock as we have indicated, 
 subject it to the training peculiar to the times, 
 transplant it to this new-world environment, 
 cultivate it in accordance with the hard, rigorous 
 conditions which prevailed, and what is the re-
 
 PURITANS AND PILGRIMS. 19 
 
 suit? Men that are bound to take influential and 
 commanding part in the solution of great world 
 problems, and make the pages of history lively 
 with vast enterprises and noble achievements. 
 Roger Ludlow, the man who spied out the 
 land which we call Fairfield, was a gentleman 
 from Wilts County, England, a man of station, 
 culture, force. Arrived in Massachusetts, he 
 became at once an important factor in the con- 
 duct of public affairs, holding several offices at 
 different times, one of them being that of dep- 
 uty-governor. Disappointed, however, at the 
 choice of Haynes and Bellingham for governor 
 and deputy-governor in Massachusetts Colony, 
 he was glad to turn his thought toward the 
 settlement of Connecticut. He came to Wind- 
 sor with a little company. There was trouble 
 concerning the choice of lands. But the tasks 
 of settlement went forward. Ludlow was a 
 keen observer of men, one swift to measure the 
 needs of the occasion, a thinker intent upon the 
 wise solution of the peculiar difficulties which 
 beset the colonists.
 
 2O AN OLD NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 On January 14, 1639, all the " free plant- 
 ers " of the Connecticut Colony met at Hart- 
 ford and adopted a constitution. Hooker had 
 preached his now famous sermon, in which he 
 asserted the right of the people to choose and 
 to limit the powers of their rulers, some seven 
 months earlier in the year. It is conceded that 
 the germ potentially of the colony constitu- 
 tion was that sermon of Hooker's. But the 
 mind of Ludlow also is seen by some scholars 
 in the important document. As one compares 
 it with Ludlow's Code of 1649, the evidences 
 seem good that the same intellect shared both 
 tasks. 
 
 It was while in the pursuit of hostile Pe- 
 quots that the beautiful scenery and the fine 
 water privileges of these shores attracted the 
 deputy-governor. Permission being granted 
 him to form a settlement in this section, he 
 brought the first little company of pioneers to 
 Unquowa during the summer or fall of 1639. 
 
 Land was purchased of the Indians. Lud- 
 low was the leading spirit, and his were the
 

 
 PURITANS AND PILGRIMS. 21 
 
 shaping influences in the new town. There 
 was a certain arbitrariness and demonstrative 
 energy that suggested how he proposed to have 
 his own way. But the people associated with 
 him knew their own mind about things, and 
 they were not slow to express their sentiments 
 and convictions. While they were ready to 
 hear advice and consider propositions, they 
 were not the kind of men to submit to dic- 
 tation or to repress their opinions. Circum- 
 stances compelled all hands to work ; and while 
 the settlers toiled in the subjugation of the 
 land and the support of life, they kept their 
 minds busy with plans, and they carefully 
 weighed current ideas. 
 
 Scarcely did they rear humble places of 
 abode for themselves ere they chose a site for 
 the meeting-house, and built the rough, sim- 
 ple structure where they could securely house 
 their public worship, and frankly speak with 
 one another upon the great questions of faith 
 and practice. In this little log building the 
 public school was also started and the town
 
 22 AN OLD NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 meetings were held. Religion, education, poli- 
 tics, all centred here, and the men took a 
 hand in the management of these diverse 
 spheres of activity as occasion arose for it. 
 When the Rev. John Joanes came to Fairfield, 
 in 1644, with his associates from Concord, the 
 prosperity of the town seemed assured, and 
 the brave settlers threw themselves with re- 
 newed zeal into making the place a strong and 
 influential part of the colony.
 
 III. 
 
 Indians, Wolves, Train-bands.
 
 III. 
 
 INDIANS, WOLVES, TRAIN-BANDS. 
 
 THE village was platted just as we see 
 it to-day. But it was untamed wilderness. 
 When the trees were cleared away, and the 
 cabins made to dot the squares, it was at best 
 a scraggy, stumpy, uneven stretch of rough 
 acres. 
 
 But it was not long ere it assumed the ap- 
 pearance of comparative liveliness. The men 
 carried their muskets with them when they 
 worked in the field or marshalled the family to 
 meeting. And the only safe way to go into 
 the woods was to go in little companies prop- 
 erly armed. 
 
 Although a friendly spirit was manifest on 
 the part of some Indians, yet there were other 
 redskins that haunted the forests in order that
 
 26 AN OLD NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 they might surprise some thoughtless child or 
 solitary man, and carry away a prisoner or 
 take human life. I find the following in the 
 journal of William Wheeler : " The Indians 
 about Fairfield were fond of war, and often 
 solicited the Old Chief for leave to destroy the 
 English. Once they obtained it on condition 
 of pulling up a large neighboring white oak 
 tree. Well, to work they went and stript off 
 its branches, but still the trunk baffled their 
 utmost endeavors. ' Thus/ says the Old 
 Sachem, ' will be the end of your war. You 
 may kill some of their papooses, but the old 
 plaguey stump t'other side the great waters 
 will remain and send out more branches.' " 
 
 The tragical end which came to the warlike 
 Pequots in the year 1637, when they had re- 
 treated to the swamp which now bears their 
 name, was a sort of warning to the Indians of 
 the neighborhood. They did not venture to 
 harass the white man to any great extent. 
 
 They continued their semi-possession of ter- 
 ritory. There were signal fires kindled as of
 
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 INDIANS, WOLVES, TRAIN-BANDS. 2? 
 
 yore. " Samp Mortar," the curious, massive 
 rock on the hill amid the trees, with its 
 capacious bowl in which the corn was placed 
 and converted into Indian meal, still served 
 domestic purposes and gathered the tribes into 
 its vicinity. (It remains to-day one of the 
 most interesting relics of a by-gone age and 
 race. On the west side of Mill River, some 
 three miles from the Sound, eighty feet above 
 the bed of the stream, the precipice hangs 
 over the narrow gorge a wild, rugged, pict- 
 uresque bit of scenery, suggestive of Indian 
 habit and character.) 
 
 Occasionally the Indians came into the set- 
 tlement to trade, although such permission 
 was granted under narrow restrictions. 
 
 Imagine how the children gazed at them 
 with wonder or defiance, while the men watched 
 them with a keenness and fidelity matched 
 only by that of the savage himself. 
 
 The settlers of the town were also griev- 
 ously annoyed by the wild beasts that kept 
 stealing their provisions and domestic animals.
 
 28 AN OLD NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 Nay, the wolves, the bears, the wildcats, as- 
 saulted the very people when the occasion 
 was favorable. Many a night were these road- 
 ways travelled by the destructive and danger- 
 ous beasts. The stealthy tread, or the hungry 
 growl, or the angry snarl sounded distinct upon 
 the ears of the family gathered closely in the 
 log house. 
 
 The town authorities were obliged to offer 
 rewards for the killing of these thieving creat- 
 ures. 
 
 On February 16, 1664, it was ordered "that 
 any one who kills a wolf in the town, if he 
 expects to be paid for it, he shall bring the 
 wolf's head to the treasurer, who shall keep an 
 account thereof." 
 
 It is not stated what the officer did with the 
 interesting relics. According to accounts, he 
 must have gathered a goodly collection in the 
 course of years. 
 
 On August 22, 1666, " The Townsmen order 
 that whoever kills a bear in the bounds of the 
 town at any time between this and the next
 
 INDIANS, WOLVES, TRAIN-BANDS. 29 
 
 Town meeting shall be paid out of the Town 
 Treasury fifty shillings for each old, and for 
 cubs twenty shillings each." 
 
 So we see that the first years in the life of 
 the town were times of thrilling adventure. 
 Richard Lyon would meet Captain Robert 
 Turney and tell how he saved a sheep from the 
 death grip of a bear. Henry Rowland and 
 Andrew Ward would relate how they were 
 watched by a prowling Indian who skulked 
 behind old stumps and great trees. Nathan 
 Gold would gather the villagers about him and 
 narrate his journey to Hartford. Marshal 
 Samuel Morehouse would call to mind that 
 Pastor Hooker's wife was carried in a litter all 
 the way from Boston to the new settlement on 
 the Connecticut River. Roger Ludlow would 
 tell about the preaching of Mr. Hooker, and 
 the impression it made upon the men that went 
 to Hartford to form a government for the 
 colony. 
 
 When training day came everybody expected 
 to see the sight, and enjoy a little neighborhood
 
 30 AN OLD NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 leisure. It was a fine company of men that the 
 women and children looked upon as the drilling 
 was done on the village Green and up and 
 down the village streets. See the men in their 
 jerkins, small-clothes, short cloaks, steeple- 
 crowned hats. The muskets and the long pikes 
 were the favorite weapons, with belt for sword 
 and cartridge-boxes. The soldiers often wore 
 quilted coats or iron breast-plates as a protec- 
 tion against the arrows of the enemy. 
 
 On the training days of 1653 the people of 
 Fairfield discussed the perils of war with the 
 Dutch. England and Holland were not on 
 friendly terms, and it was rumored that the 
 Dutch from New Amsterdam proposed to pass 
 up the Sound and capture the shore towns. 
 What with wringing a living from the soil, put- 
 ting up decent buildings, killing off the wild 
 beasts, guarding against the sly assaults of 
 Indians, keeping up communication with neigh- 
 boring settlements, it was a very toilsome and 
 perilous life. And now the encroachment of 
 the Dutch was added to their difficulties.
 
 INDIANS, WOLVES, TRAIN-BANDS. 31 
 
 Feeling upon this latter subject was intense 
 and bitter. The General Court of Connecticut, 
 in March, 1654, ordered the arrest of Thomas 
 Baxter, of Fairfield, for disturbing the peace 
 of the colony. He proposed to move immedi- 
 ately against the enemy. He gathered a lit- 
 tle company about him, and seized a vessel 
 off these shores, for the purpose of attacking 
 the Dutch. 
 
 When arrested and tried for such conduct, it 
 was testified in court here by John Odell, that, 
 " as Baxter's men went up and down the 
 streets of Fairfield with their swords drawn in 
 their hands, he heard William Ellitt swear with 
 a great oath (but knows not the words) that 
 with them hands of his he would be avenged 
 upon the blood of some of them which had 
 taken his captain ; and he supposed there was 
 about a dozen of them which so run with their 
 swords drawn." 
 
 It would create something of excitement to 
 see to-day a dozen men rushing along our 
 streets shouting vengeance and brandishing
 
 32 AN OLD NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 swords. Doubtless the excitement was wide- 
 spread two hundred and forty-one years ago. 
 But peace was declared between England and 
 Holland in 1654, so that the war cloud lifted. 
 
 It must have been an interesting scene, two 
 years later, when in April there assembled in 
 Fairfield the chief sachems of the neighboring 
 Indians, that they might take counsel with the 
 white brothers concerning the sale of these 
 familiar acres. Although Ludlow had paid for 
 the land which he distributed among the new 
 settlers, the Indians still felt that they had 
 claims upon it. 
 
 This April meeting of 1656 was to decide the 
 matter. A new sale was made, the deed signed 
 by various prominent individuals, and a large 
 quantity of cloth, pots, kettles, looking-glasses, 
 scissors, knives, hatchets, hoes, and spades 
 passed into the possession of the friendly In- 
 dians of Pequonnock and Unquowa. 
 
 And now many questions came to the court 
 and community for settlement. Ludlow had 
 left Fairfield in high dudgeon, and yielded his
 
 INDIANS, WOLVES, TRAIN-BANDS. 33 
 
 efficient leadership to whomsoever circum- 
 stances and the choice of the people might 
 elect (which ultimately signified the leader- 
 ship of Nathan Gold). 
 
 There were questions about land, manage- 
 ment of the Indians, adjustment of boundaries, 
 laying out of highways ; discussion concerning 
 the Golden Hill reservation, and the rights of 
 the Pequonnocks. Things sacred and things 
 secular, matters political and matters ecclesias- 
 tical, they came indiscriminately into church 
 meetings and town meetings, so that it was 
 hard to say whether the church was running 
 the town, or the town was running the church. 
 
 It was a difficult task which the Rev. John 
 Joanes had in hand, the shepherding of such a 
 flock. Edward Johnson, in his book entitled, 
 " Wonder Working Providence of Zion's Sav- 
 ior," gives us a sonnet upon the subject : 
 
 " In Desart's Depths where Wolves & Beares abide 
 Thou Joanes sits down a weary watch to keepe 
 O'er Christ's deare flock, who now are wandered 
 wide." 
 3
 
 34 AN OLD NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 But the reverend scholar did very good ser- 
 vice, and retained the love and confidence of 
 his people to the day of death. 
 
 When Governor Ludlbw took his departure 
 there was genuine sorrow and disappointment 
 on the part of many citizens ; but the sturdy 
 manhood of the people asserted itself, and life 
 flowed along according to the accustomed way 
 with its usual variety of adventure and hard 
 labor. 
 
 The Rev. Samuel Wakeman, successor to 
 Mr. Joanes, threw himself with all zeal into the 
 private and public affairs of the community. 
 In addition to Major Gold he found such co- 
 workers as Captain John Burr and his brother 
 Jehu. It was a sad and singular circumstance 
 that these four men died the same year, and 
 caused a widespread mourning that was very 
 deep and impressive. 
 
 The mention of death calls to mind the fact 
 that the bodies of these faithful citizens were 
 deposited in the " Burial Hill " (just beyond 
 the present residence of Mr. Henry S. Glover),
 
 INDIANS, WOLVES, TRAIN-BANDS. 35 
 
 in accordance with the custom of the times, 
 without any religious services. Mourning rings 
 and garments were quite elaborate those days. 
 So that the whole community must have been 
 plunged into the gloom of death emblems and 
 etiquette. 
 
 Major Gold was succeeded by his already 
 famous son, Nathan the Second. The Rev. 
 Joseph Webb, who pronounced the interesting, 
 all-day-long sermon of commemoration in honor 
 of Major Gold, had been installed in place of 
 the departed Pastor Wakeman, while one and 
 another efficient and intelligent citizen lent 
 a hand to the tasks of common, public in- 
 terest. 
 
 Fairfield was the centre of numerous prepa- 
 rations for war. It being the shire town, and 
 later the half-shire town, affairs naturally took 
 their rise in the place. We read various state- 
 ments in the town records concerning the pur- 
 chase of arms, the days of training, the tax for 
 support of militia, the assault of Indian, Dutch, 
 and French foes.
 
 36 AN OLD NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 Something of the kind continued down to 
 the ending of the American Revolution. The 
 martial spirit became native to the soil. The 
 means and measures of war were as thoroughly 
 canvassed as the condition of the crops. Boys 
 gave their play a soldier character with an in- 
 stinct like to that which drives ducks into the 
 water. Life was such a rigorous and uncertain 
 experience, the town was such a conspicuous 
 mark for all sorts of attack, the times were so 
 restless and eventful, it must needs be that the 
 people who walked these streets and tilled these 
 acres looked upon things with a constitutional 
 seriousness that almost repels their modern 
 successors. 
 
 If we to-day were circumstanced as were these 
 brave and toilsome people two hundred years 
 ago, afraid that wolves or bears might steal our 
 animals or attack our children, watchful lest 
 savages or white men might suddenly make an 
 onset by land or by sea and destroy the village, 
 burdened with the cares and labors peculiar to 
 pioneer conquest, it is quite probable that our
 
 INDIANS, WOLVES, TRAIN-BANDS. 37 
 
 manner of speech and spirit of life would show 
 a like gravity. 
 
 And then there was not a little friction be- 
 tween adjoining towns. Dispute after dispute 
 arose, and these wise, earnest men did their 
 best to settle matters. We find so much con- 
 cerning these small misunderstandings that one 
 is inclined to exaggerate their importance. 
 But closer examination shows us that they were 
 largely the matters that grew out of the new- 
 ness of the country and the satisfactory or 
 unsatisfactory distribution of the lands. 
 
 Communication with sister towns and the 
 great centres of life was by means of post-horses. 
 It was an exciting time when John Perry, the 
 carrier of the mail, the man of news, the indi- 
 vidual who kept Fairfield in touch with Boston, 
 Stamford, and intervening towns, arrived and 
 handed over mail and news together. He was 
 appointed to office in 1687. The whole trip was 
 made once a month during the winter, and 
 once in three weeks during the summer. He 
 was an important person, a trusty man, one that
 
 38 AN OLD NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 was compelled to thread many perils and show 
 considerable wit and discretion in his journeys. 
 
 As he trots along the street, we can see one 
 after another of the citizens hastening down to 
 the inn where his horse is changed, or to the 
 little office where the mail is distributed. The 
 venerable pastor of the Prime Ancient Society 
 or the respected deputies who represent the 
 town in the General Court at Hartford will not 
 consider it beneath their dignity to walk with 
 quickened step down to the meeting-place in 
 order that they may put to Goodman John 
 Perry a few straight questions concerning the 
 trend of events and the weal of the colonies. 
 
 It was during the latter years of the seven- 
 teenth century that Captain Kidd was sent forth 
 to do service against the pirates, and turned 
 biggest pirate of all himself. He sailed about 
 these waters for some years. As his adventures 
 were carried from mouth to mouth, we know 
 something about the feeling here in Fairfield 
 when it was learned that he had been deposit- 
 ing treasure in various places about the neigh-
 
 INDIANS, WOLVES, TRAIN-BANDS. 39 
 
 borhood. While his piracy was stamped with 
 strongest condemnation, yet a justifiable curi- 
 osity was here manifest, and many were the 
 suppositions current in respect to his sudden 
 advent in this region and his cunning conceal- 
 ment of enormous treasure.
 
 IV. 
 
 Domestic Affairs,
 
 IV. 
 
 DOMESTIC AFFAIRS. 
 
 THE ebb and flow of life in the old country 
 influenced to a considerable extent the social 
 conditions of New England. But the colonists 
 themselves were of course the important fac- 
 tors in the significant transitions of the times. 
 
 Fairfield being the heart of county business, 
 it resulted that every question and event of 
 the day was discussed with a thoroughness 
 characteristic of our thoughtful people. When 
 some brawler was put into the stocks on the 
 Green, the children would gather about the 
 culprit and investigate him. When legal mat- 
 ters drew the men of the county or colony to 
 town, the older people gathered in much the 
 same way to know the thing at issue with 
 them.
 
 44 AN OLD NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 Strict regulations governed the sale of liquors 
 at the little inn. No profanity was permitted 
 among the citizens. Idlers were set to work or 
 driven from the town. The moral tone of the 
 community was excellent. Even the slaves 
 (for slavery prevailed to an extent in Fairfield) 
 behaved themselves generally with decency 
 and quietness. There was considerable traffic 
 carried on at this time, although the people's 
 wants were comparatively few and the number 
 of commodities quite limited. 
 
 The first pressure of settlement and conquest 
 had passed. The small cabins had been re- 
 placed by frame houses. A new meeting-house 
 forty feet square, clapboarded, with tower in 
 centre, had been constructed. 
 
 The surrounding forests were grown thin in 
 places where meadow and pasture had been laid 
 out. The vegetable gardens flourished with 
 their variety of products. Sheep, cattle, swine, 
 fowls, made the town lively and musical with 
 their presence. The children went short dis- 
 tances into the neighboring fields, and along
 
 DOMESTIC AFFAIRS. 45 
 
 the borders of the woods, to pick the abundant 
 berries. Fruit trees were cultivated, and helped 
 to supply the people with food and drink. 
 The town prospered and grew influential 
 through the colony. 
 
 Meanwhile, the usual changes of temperature, 
 severe storms, and natural phenomena peculiar 
 to the coasts of this lower New England, made 
 their record. 
 
 Mr. Webb notes several tornadoes and earth- 
 quakes. "On the 23d of May, 1700," he 
 writes, " there happened a most prodigious 
 tempest in Fairfield, of wind, rain, thunder, hail. 
 . . . We had four beds wet very considerably, 
 and were forced to move into the entry to 
 secure ours from the water which ran down 
 in great abundance in both the lower rooms. 
 . . . There fell also very great hail stones 
 as big as a hen's eggs. 'Tis said that one of 
 them taken up was as big as a goose egg. 
 . . . The wind overturned and destroyed 
 twenty barns. . . . Most of the barns in the 
 way of it that fell not were more or less dam-
 
 46 AN OLD NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 nifyed by it. ... It took off the roof of one 
 house endways and took off a good part of the 
 chimney with it. ... It blew down abundance 
 of trees in the woods. The violence of the 
 storm lasted not above three minutes as was 
 considered." 
 
 This seems to have been a time of marked 
 atmospheric disturbances. Mr. Webb notes 
 others. "On Friday, June 6, sun about an 
 hour and a half high in the afternoon, there 
 was a noise in the air (as was supposed) like 
 the report of a great gun, very smart, as if two 
 had been fired. . . . 
 
 " April 30. About noon we were sensible of 
 an earthquake in Fairfield, which was very con- 
 siderable. . . . May 4. Between nine and ten 
 of the clock at night we had another earth- 
 quake, which was also taken notice of at Nor- 
 walk." 
 
 Another storm broke above Fairfield about 
 this time. " It shook the Bible out of the 
 hand of John Baylies, numbed his arm, killed 
 a dog that was lying under a chair where the
 
 DOMESTIC AFFAIRS. 47 
 
 children were sitting. . . ." Still another earth- 
 quake. " The glass rattled in ye windows, and 
 ye floor seemed to tremble under my feet for 
 some time in ye lower room, and some that 
 were in ye garret perceived ye house to shake 
 and heard a rumbling noise." 
 
 These interesting notes are found upon the 
 manuscript of the sermon preached by Mr. 
 Webb in commemoration of Major Gold. The 
 cost and scarcity of paper compelled them to 
 practise rigid economy in its use. 
 
 The same word which Mr. Webb employs 
 to describe the harm done by the first storm 
 mentioned seems quite expressive when we 
 call to mind some of the recent storms which 
 have visited us. " Damnifyed " is emphatic 
 and comprehensive. 
 
 But an examination of the record leads us to 
 believe that the cold was intenser, the snows 
 deeper, and the winters harder in the olden 
 times than during the modern. Certain marked 
 changes seem to have come to the New Eng- 
 land climate and seasons alongshore which
 
 48 AN OLD NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 suggest that we have moved south into Vir- 
 ginia. 
 
 And now let us look upon a rough sketch of 
 the seven calendar days. First comes Mon- 
 day. The traveller starts on his journey. The 
 farmer goes bright and early to his work. The 
 children are sent off to school. The gudewife 
 and her helper attend to the washing, and 
 soon the yards of the town are adorned with 
 spotless linen fluttering in the breezes. The 
 family fares humbly on this day ; but appe- 
 tite is good, so that any food is taken with 
 a relish. And the day ends, as it begins, with 
 family worship ; then a speedy retirement to 
 bed. 
 
 Tuesday dawns upon a busy scene. There is 
 more or less baking to do, and the week's iron- 
 ing is also on hand. But the town is alive 
 with men from neighboring settlements. It is 
 the day when the court holds a session. Law- 
 yers, clients, witnesses, crowd the town " Ordi- 
 nary," and the citizens interested in the mat- 
 ters under consideration leave their work for a
 
 DOMESTIC AFFAIRS. 49 
 
 few hours and tarry in the neighborhood of the 
 Town Hall. 
 
 Everybody is concerned in the business of 
 the court. It has to do with the prosperity 
 and character of the town. Probably some 
 new object of judicial penalty is put behind 
 the bars of the small jail. It may be that the 
 whipping-post is brought into service, and the 
 Green becomes the scene of a lashing bestowed 
 upon a wife-beater, or a lying slave, or a bois- 
 terous ne'er-do-well. 
 
 Wednesday is mid-week, and most impor- 
 tant. This is lecture day. Boston seems to 
 have set the fashion, and Fairfield kept in close 
 touch with this capital city of New England ; 
 although in Boston Thursday was preferred to 
 Wednesday for the mid-week lecture. Work 
 is put one side, and the family is marshalled to 
 the meeting-house. 
 
 The service is much like the Sabbath order. 
 Mr. Wakeman or Mr. Webb may take occasion 
 to speak with greater frankness than on Sunday 
 concerning matters that are more personal. 
 4
 
 5O AN OLD NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 The custom of painting the face has been 
 imported into Boston, and some one of course 
 brings the fashion into this progressive neigh- 
 borhood. We know of one faithful pastor in 
 New England who told his people " that at the 
 resurrection of the Just there will no such sight 
 be met as the Angels carrying painted Ladies in 
 their arms." We are to think of such practical 
 matters being discussed with great candor and 
 directness on Wednesday. 
 
 Then the politics of the day give frequent 
 opportunity for forcible lecture talks. This 
 occasion seems all the more favorable for 
 such addresses, since immediately after ser- 
 vice, with a slight intermission perchance for 
 quenching the thirst with cider and breaking 
 the fast upon doughnuts and pie, the men hold 
 their town meeting. 
 
 Due warning having been given, Wednesday 
 after lecture is a very convenient tkne for 
 the transaction of local business. " At Town 
 meeting April 29th, 1665, it was voted that 
 upon Wednesday every fortnight after the
 
 DOMESTIC AFFAIRS. 51 
 
 conference meeting, there shall be a towns- 
 men's meeting for the attentions of the Town's 
 occasions." 
 
 Fast Day services and Thanksgivings were 
 generally appointed on this day in Connecti- 
 cut. Occasionally court held sessions at the 
 time. A sermon preceded the opening of 
 court. In 1651 court adjourned to " meet on 
 second Lecture Day in March, Wednesday, 
 after sermon." 
 
 Thursday was on occasion a very lively day. 
 The workers now saw their way through the 
 week. Large portion of the toil had been 
 done. A certain freedom and relaxation of 
 life were manifest. Perhaps the militia trained. 
 Gingerbread and home-brewed drinks were 
 prepared in great abundance. Arms were put 
 into bright condition. Clothes were brushed 
 and mended. Everybody appeared spick 
 and span clean. The drum-beat sounded 
 through the streets and echoed back from 
 the neighboring forests. 
 
 All the people that could leave their homes
 
 52 AN OLD NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 and walk the streets or stand about the Green 
 were on hand to admire the men of the town ; 
 and everybody that stayed at home kept run- 
 ning to the small window or the open door to 
 watch the sturdy company as it bravely passed 
 up and down the lively way. 
 
 Frequent refreshment and the admiration of 
 on-lookers stimulated the train-band to do its 
 level best. When the day ended there came 
 over the people of Fairfield a consciousness 
 that as manly a company of soldiers were at 
 the command of the colony for warfare offen- 
 sive and defensive as could be found in New 
 England. 
 
 Friday was the time when the hard work of 
 the week was further relaxed, and friends might 
 drop in upon each other and have supper to- 
 gether. Occasionally there would be a wolf 
 hunt. The swamp down in the salt meadows 
 was one favorite lurking-place of these pestif- 
 erous creatures. The men would surround 
 the swamp, beat up the brutes, and then enjoy 
 the excitement of a chase and a capture.
 
 DOMESTIC AFFAIRS. 53 
 
 Or it might be some fishing expedition which 
 was appointed. Sea food made an important 
 part of the daily fare here in town. It enabled 
 the people to get comfortably through many a 
 season when crops were scant and provisions 
 low. 
 
 Friday was a good day for the boys to carry 
 the corn down to the old mill by the river. 
 This was a pleasant outing for them, and there 
 was opportunity to tell their latest adventures 
 and gather any fresh local news. 
 
 Or this might be the day when, as was voted 
 in 1670, every male " from fourteen years old 
 and upwards, except assistants, commissioners, 
 or ministers of the gospel, shall work one day 
 annually in cutting brush and making public 
 pasture." 
 
 Saturday was a sort of preparation day. 
 There was more baking, fixing best frocks, set- 
 ting the house in order, gathering up the threads 
 of work for the week, and bringing everything 
 into the best condition possible. 
 
 The many things to be done in a rural com-
 
 54 AN OLD NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 munity like Fairfield, during these days, kept 
 repeating themselves over and over again as 
 the weeks went by. Certain kinds of food 
 must be cooked on this day. A generous stock 
 of provision must be stored for the Sabbath. 
 All labor must end at sundown. The family 
 must be quietly settled at home. No noise of 
 any kind was permitted upon the street when 
 the evening had set in. Supper, study of the 
 Bible, reading of an occasional religious book, 
 worship, and early rest that was the way Sat- 
 urday ended. 
 
 Sunday was the great day of the week. 
 When breakfast was done and the family had 
 joined in worship, every one prepared for meet- 
 ing. The drum-beat sounded, and the streets 
 were lively for a few minutes with the little 
 companies marching off to the meeting-house 
 on the Green. 
 
 The first bell was put into the tower or belfry 
 in 1685. " At a Town meeting held April 28th, 
 1685, it was voted, that the townsmen should 
 settle Samuel Wilson's matter, about satisfying
 
 DOMESTIC AFFAIRS. 55 
 
 him for money the Town borrowed of him to 
 pay for the meeting-house bell." 
 
 All having assembled, a guard was placed 
 before the door in order that the congregation 
 might not be surprised or overpowered by the 
 Indians. Mr. John Gold " gets and reads the 
 psalm," as the church records phrase it. Then 
 Mr. Wakeman or Mr. Webb, having set the 
 hour-glass, proceeded with the service. It was 
 long. But the patience of the people was 
 longer. 
 
 At noon the congregation adjourned to the 
 Green, or to the Sabbath-day house if it was 
 winter. They ate their simple lunches and 
 drank their favorite cider, and as the drum-beat 
 sounded again they once more assembled in the 
 meeting-house. 
 
 The second service was like unto the first. 
 The minister frequently continued the same 
 theme that he considered in the morning. He 
 was bound to be thorough in the matter. And 
 when the citizens had enjoyed some five hours 
 of this sort of thing they were kindly dismissed
 
 56 AN OLD NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 and permitted to go home and eat a cold dinner. 
 The Green and the streets were deserted the 
 rest of the day. 
 
 Evening drawing on apace, the men might 
 have been seen attending to their cattle. Then 
 the inhabitants were shut into their homes for 
 the night, and the rest-day had done for them 
 its helpful and peculiar service. Did an Indian, 
 a wild beast, or a traveller appear upon the scene 
 during the day, there was a momentary excite- 
 ment until such time as the intruder was sup- 
 pressed. But the abiding characteristic of the 
 Lord's Day in Fairfield, as in other Puritan 
 towns, was a decorum, silence, repose, simply 
 phenomenal. 
 
 The records give us a fair idea of the well-to- 
 do homes of Fairfield during this first century. 
 
 The house of Mr. Webb was a good example : 
 a frame building with quite substantial doors, 
 small windows with little panes of glass, the 
 entry in the middle of the structure, living- 
 room on the one side, " best " room on the other, 
 kitchen extending along the rear ; a second
 

 
 DOMESTIC AFFAIRS. $/ 
 
 story to the structure with several narrow bed- 
 rooms. 
 
 Wills and inventories tell us how the house 
 was furnished. The floors were carpetless, the 
 rugs and Turkey cloths being used for the 
 covering of tables. There were no pictures to 
 adorn the walls. The rafters were generally 
 visible. Natural wood was seen on every side, 
 although some sort of tapestry was sometimes 
 used, and various chintzes and calicoes were 
 made into curtains and hangings. 
 
 The living-room had its tables large and small, 
 claw-footed, and made from some solid wood. 
 There were cupboards, stools, a few chairs, the 
 spinning-wheel, brass candlesticks in which fish 
 oil was first used and later spermaceti and 
 tallow. 
 
 There was a great fireplace (Parson Daven- 
 port, of New Haven, had thirteen in his house ; 
 his son, the Rev. John, of Stamford, married 
 Martha, daughter of Major Gold). In the fire- 
 place were the andirons ; the bellows hung by 
 the side, and the warming-pan was close by.
 
 58 AN OLD NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 Then there were strewn about the room, or 
 hung upon the walls, the armor, weapons, skins, 
 antlers, which testified to the active life of the 
 men in the defence of their homes or the pur- 
 suit of game; although the town soon passed 
 laws restraining or forbidding the destruction 
 of the deer, whose meat at the first had been 
 one of their chief supports. 
 
 The other rooms of the house were sparsely 
 furnished. A half-headed bedstead was placed 
 in the room opposite the living-room ; it had 
 curtains, valances, a feather or wool or down 
 bed upon a hard bottom of boards. There 
 were sheets, quilts, counterpanes, bolsters. 
 
 It was a cold experience, that which came to 
 the family on a severe winter's night. One does 
 not wonder that they felt the need of flip, a 
 cider preparation into which a hot flatiron was 
 thrown in order to make it steam and sizzle. 
 
 Cotton Mather tells how in 1697, as he sat 
 before the great fire in his fireplace, " the juices 
 forced out of the billets of wood by the heat 
 of the flame on which they were laid, yet froze
 
 DOMESTIC AFFAIRS. $9 
 
 into ice on their coming out." Another ob- 
 server writes that the " bread was frozen at the 
 Lord's table." Yet it was a life accompanied 
 by infinite satisfaction. Few were the com- 
 plaints, and many the fascinations. 
 
 Love-making itself was never more interest- 
 ing. In some parts of Connecticut, courtship 
 was all done in the living-room among the fam- 
 ily. A whispering-rod, hollow so that the 
 lovers could speak through it, was put into 
 their hands. Seated some distance apart, they 
 poured their billing and cooing into the pipe. 
 
 But greater freedom was granted them in 
 Fairfield. Sunday night being only half sacred, 
 it was largely devoted to this important busi- 
 ness. 
 
 When Samuel Wakeman, the minister's son, 
 courted Mary, daughter of Jehu Burr, they 
 had all the liberties of the living-room. 
 
 To be sure, the rest of the family kept an 
 eye upon them. There was to be no such scene 
 as that in New Haven (1660), when Jacob Mur- 
 line went into the room where Sarah Tuttle
 
 60 AN OLD NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 was, and first seized her gloves, then kissed her, 
 although, " being asked in court if Jacob in- 
 veigled her affection, she said, ' No,' " so that 
 the Court fined Sarah rather than Jacob, and 
 called her a " Bould Virgin," to which Sarah 
 replied, " that she hoped God would enable 
 her to carry it better for time to come." 
 
 There was nothing of this kind. Samuel and 
 Mary were discreet and strictly attentive to the 
 requirements of Fairfield etiquette. Matters 
 were quietly arranged, and when their names 
 had been read in public the proper number of 
 times, they invited their friends together, the 
 magistrate made them one, and they set up 
 housekeeping for themselves.
 
 V. 
 
 Witchcraft and Witches.
 
 V. 
 
 WITCHCRAFT AND WITCHES. 
 
 IT was at this period that there swept 
 through the country a curious epidemic brought 
 from the old world by some of these honest, 
 sincere, godly people. 
 
 Hundreds and thousands of men, women, 
 and children had suffered and died by reason 
 of the witchcraft craze in England and on the 
 Continent. When it struck the new land, it 
 seemed for a time that it must prevail with like 
 havoc here. 
 
 The first outbreak in Fairfield was only a few 
 years after the settlement of the place. One 
 tragic death was the result of the trouble at 
 that time. 
 
 We are justified in saying that human nature 
 manifested the characteristics common to all
 
 64 AN OLD NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 ages during these early, strenuous days. When 
 Thomas Staples brought suit against Roger 
 Ludlow for defamation of his gudewife's char- 
 acter, the evidence in court was spiced with 
 much hot, strong speech. Mrs. Nathan Gold 
 testified, that, in a quarrel in the meeting- 
 house, she heard the accused woman ask Lud- 
 low to " show her where she had told one lie ; 
 and Mr. Ludlow had said she need not men- 
 tion particulars, for she had gone on a tract of 
 lying." 
 
 This poor woman was supposed by some of 
 the people to be a witch. But the suit brought 
 by her husband against Ludlow was decided 
 in her favor. " Considering the nature of 
 the charge, and Mrs. Staples's relation to the 
 church in Fairfield," it was ordered, by way 
 of sentence, " that Mr. Ludlow pay Thomas 
 Staples, towards repairing his wife's name so 
 defamed, with trouble and charge in prosecu- 
 tion, the sum of ten pounds." 
 
 Now, while this seemed to settle the busi- 
 ness, the imputation of witchcraft still lingered.
 
 WITCHCRAFT AND WITCHES. 65 
 
 In 1692 the second outbreak is recorded. 
 Four women were indicted, one of them being 
 the same person that Roger Ludlow said had 
 " gone on a tract of lying." 
 
 What a curious scene it is which presents 
 itself ! The governor, the deputy-governor, 
 and assistants have come down to Fairfield to 
 attend the trial. The excitement in the town 
 is intense. Had they not foes enough to fight 
 without meeting Satan and his emissaries in 
 human form ? 
 
 One can imagine the terror of the children, 
 when parents spake guardedly and in whispers 
 about the fresh perils that surrounded them. 
 
 One can see how all the lore of the subject 
 was discussed, and everybody made to feel 
 some indefinable dread, lest the loud and angry 
 winds that bore down upon the place, or the 
 scurrying shadows which had a way of flitting 
 through the streets and along the Green by 
 night, might not be the actual voices and 
 movements of these strange, awful creatures. 
 The town was profoundly agitated. 
 5
 
 66 AN OLD NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 The charge against Mercy Disborow runs as 
 follows : " Mercy Disborow, wife of Thomas 
 Disborow of Compo, Fairfield, thou art here in- 
 dicted by the name of Mercy Disborow, that not 
 having the fear of God before thine eyes, thou 
 hast had familiarity with Satan, the grand 
 enemy of God and men, and that by his insti- 
 gation and help, thou hast in a preternatural 
 way afflicted and done harm to the bodies and 
 estates of sundry of their Majesties' subjects, 
 or to some of them, contrary to the peace of 
 our sovereign Lord and Lady the King and 
 Queen, their crown and dignity ; and that on 
 the 25th of April of their Majesties' reign, and 
 at sundry other times, by which by the laws of 
 God and the Colony thou doest best to die. 
 Fairfield, September 15, 1692." 
 
 Among the witnesses on this trial was one 
 Edward Jesop. The following is his testimony, 
 or a part of it, and a fair sample of other testi- 
 mony adduced at the trial : 
 
 " Being at Thomas Disborow's house at 
 Compo, I saw a pig roasting that looked very
 
 WITCHCRAFT AND WITCHES. 67 
 
 well, but when it came to the table (where we 
 had a good light) it seemed to me to have no 
 skin upon it and looked strangely ; but when 
 said Disborow began to cut it, the skin (to 
 my apprehension) came upon it again. . . . 
 
 " She brought a Bible that was very large 
 print to me, to read the particular Scripture ; 
 but though I had a good light and looked di- 
 rectly upon the book, I could not see one let- 
 ter ; but looking upon it again when in her 
 hand, after she had turned over a few leaves, I 
 could see to read above a yard off." 
 
 The same night, going home and coming to 
 Compo Creek, " it seemed to be high water." 
 He then proceeds to say that when he tried to 
 shove off his canoe, it stuck in the mud " and 
 appeared to be low water." Then he wandered 
 all night trying to get home. 
 
 Now, such an experience to-day would 
 scarcely be laid at the door of witchcraft. 
 When a man sees double and sees single, and 
 sees that it is high tide and low tide in the 
 same minute, and sees all sorts of queer things
 
 68 AN OLD NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 and curious transformations, we are prone to 
 think that he is " half seas over ; " but this was 
 the kind of testimony that helped to convict 
 poor Mercy Disborow. 
 
 The evidence, quite voluminous, was taken ; 
 the case given to the consideration of the 
 jury ; but when it came to a matter of ver- 
 dict, the jury failed to agree. 
 
 Interest in the matter continued. The ac- 
 cusation and the details of the witch work 
 were known to the whole community. A feel- 
 ing prevailed, that while there was something 
 mysterious about the thing, yet there might be 
 less than was generally supposed. 
 
 At the second trial two hundred depositions 
 were taken. The charges, which seem to us in- 
 describably absurd, were sustained by all sorts 
 of curious and amusing testimony. 
 
 At the conclusion of one trial the plan was 
 adopted of throwing the women into a pond 
 of water, and giving them a chance to sink and 
 thus show that they were not witches, or float 
 and prove the Tightness of the verdict. This
 
 WITCHCRAFT AND WITCHES. 69 
 
 test was applied with indifferent results ; peo- 
 ple were not satisfied. 
 
 Four witnesses swore " that Mercy Disborow, 
 being bound hand and foot and put into the 
 water, swam like a cork, though one labored to 
 press her down ; " evidently the " one " being 
 some interested person who wanted proof, by 
 her sinking, that she was not a witch. 
 
 However, sentence of death was passed upon 
 this poor woman by the governor. But the 
 witchcraft contagion had abated to such ex- 
 tent that people were reluctant to see such 
 sentence executed. 
 
 This, I believe, was the last case passed upon 
 by the Connecticut judges. A better mind 
 was coming to men, and Fairfield had always 
 been slow to move in these matters. At length 
 a petition was presented to the General As- 
 sembly in behalf of Mercy Disborow, and her 
 life was spared. 
 
 Thus ended one of the startling and tragical 
 episodes in the life of this town ; an episode, 
 however, which, while revealing the force of a
 
 7O AN OLD NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 prevalent superstition, testifies quite as dis- 
 tinctly to the prevailing common-sense of the 
 community. 
 
 We are all prepared to say that it was no 
 humdrum, prosaic, monotonous life which the 
 people of Fairfield lived during the first century 
 of the town's existence. There may have been 
 little glitter and ostentation about it, and yet 
 there was a tone, impulse, activity, which spake 
 conclusively concerning personal and colonial 
 worth, power, manhood, womanhood. 
 
 The forefathers and the foremothers did their 
 work well. The foundations which they laid 
 were deep and strong in righteousness, liberty, 
 intelligence, industry. 
 
 Many compensations came to them when 
 engaged in their hard, exacting tasks. The 
 felt presence of God, the hope that rises above 
 every besetment, the calm assurance that a 
 great destiny shall unfold to the glory of a 
 people and the praise of the Almighty, the 
 abiding consciousness that the true and the real 
 belong to them, and their successors shall look
 
 WITCHCRAFT AND WITCHES. J\ 
 
 upon its fruition these were the compensations 
 that multiplied and made life, with all its penury, 
 danger, strenuousness, a thing of sweetness and 
 joy to the Puritan pioneers of this old New 
 England town.
 
 VI. 
 
 Things Sacred and Things Secular.
 
 VI. 
 
 THINGS SACRED AND THINGS SECULAR. 
 
 MRS. JANE G. AUSTIN, the novelist, speaks 
 of an eminent Fairfield minister in her story of 
 " Dr. Le Baron and his Daughters." As he 
 takes important part in the period which we 
 now sketch, we will call to mind the incidents 
 narrated by Mrs. Austin. 
 
 Mr. Hobart, a young theologue of Harvard, 
 was engaged to Miss Priscilla Thomas, of Marsh- 
 field. Her father opposed the match. At the 
 same time John Watson, of Plymouth, sought 
 Priscilla's hand, and Noah Hobart heard of it. 
 John Watson was well-to-do, and the young 
 divinity student was poor. So unselfish Noah 
 Hobart advised Priscilla Thomas to accept John 
 Watson. Although somewhat miffed at this 
 suggestion of her lover, she proceeded in time
 
 76 AN OLD NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 to act upon his advice. And wise Mr. Hobart 
 soon comforted his heart by a marriage with 
 Ellen Sloss, " a very pretty girl with a very 
 pretty purse" as Mrs. Austin puts it. 
 
 It was not long before John Watson died. 
 His widow married Isaac Lothrop. " Then 
 Mrs. Hobart died, and Isaac Lothrop died, and 
 at last these two [Priscilla and Noah] stood face 
 to face with only three graves and some thirty 
 years between them." Then they were married, 
 while Nathaniel Lothrop, Mrs. Hobart's son, 
 also married Ellen Hobart, Mr. Hobart's 
 daughter. 
 
 The silver font used in the service of baptism 
 by the First Church for a hundred years and 
 more was the gift of Dr. Lothrop in honor of 
 his wife Ellen Hobart. 
 
 Noah Hobart was the leader of thought here 
 in Fairfield for a generation. Later in the cen- 
 tury his son became eminent in the State of 
 New York, serving the public as justice of the 
 Supreme Court of the State, and then receiv- 
 ing an election to the United States Senate.
 
 linln$rav!irc Ringer Co
 
 THINGS SACRED AND THINGS SECULAR. 77 
 
 He inherited much of his father's intellectual 
 power. It was hard battle which Mr. Hobart 
 was compelled to do when pastor of the old 
 church. 
 
 Mr. Webb, his predecessor, had served faith- 
 fully. Many things of importance occurred 
 during his pastorate. 
 
 The church records tell us that on March 4, 
 1716, the Rev. Joseph Webb baptized Aaron 
 Burr. The family then lived at what was called 
 the Upper Meadow, within the portion of the 
 parish known as Greenfield. It was a long dis- 
 tance which many of the worshippers came in 
 their attendance upon divine service here in 
 Fairfield. 
 
 The neighborhood of Pequonnock had re- 
 ceived permission from the General Court to 
 hold separate services in the year 1692, although 
 the Strathfield church was not organized until 
 1695. In 1711 Bankside had become a separate 
 parish. 
 
 A little later Greenfield petitioned for a 
 church organization. The request puts the
 
 78 AN OLD NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 matter quaintly : " Not only ourselves are fre- 
 quently obliged to be absent from divine wor- 
 ship, but our poor children are under a kind of 
 necessity of perishing for lack of vision." 
 
 The family of Aaron Burr was one of those 
 described by this petition. Nevertheless, the 
 child and youth Aaron seemed to develop with 
 great promise, and the matter of church attend- 
 ance and gospel influence contributed its share 
 to his noble, consecrated character. 
 
 If there was any one of this branch of the 
 family in danger of perishing for lack of vision, 
 it was assuredly not Aaron Burr, Sr. The 
 phrase fittingly describes the state of Aaron, Jr., 
 son of President Burr. 
 
 The colonel was a frequent visitor in these 
 parts, and he makes frequent references to 
 " Uncle Thaddeus Burr," who had matrimonial 
 plans for the man who was to take such prom- 
 inent and tragic part in the early events of our 
 national life. 
 
 It is interesting to note that later in life, 
 when Aaron Burr, Sr., was settled as pastor of
 
 THINGS SACRED AND THINGS SECULAR. 79 
 
 a Presbyterian church in Newark, N. J., he sold 
 the old homestead to cousins of the Bradley 
 name. One of these cousins, Joseph Bradley, 
 was the great-grandfather of the Hon. Joseph 
 P. Bradley, late justice of the Supreme Court 
 of the United States. 
 
 Mr. Webb had joined with nine other minis- 
 ters of Connecticut and founded Yale College. 
 This action expressed the sentiment of his 
 people in Fairfield. They wanted an institu- 
 tion for the higher education of youth, and 
 their pastor was prepared to assist in the 
 work. 
 
 It was felt that the work of the Christian 
 ministry could not be efficiently performed 
 without such help. For the times had changed. 
 The religious sentiment was not as strong in 
 this and other communities of New England 
 as it had been during the first century of set- 
 tlement. An element that seemed more or 
 less antagonistic to religion had crept into the 
 colony. 
 
 There was a great deal of discussion in re-
 
 80 AN OLD NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 spect to citizenship and church membership. 
 Some of the colonies had settled it one way 
 by giving the ballot only to members of the 
 established church. Others gave it to men 
 irrespective of the fact whether they were full 
 members of the church or not. Then the 
 Half-way Covenant was introduced. 
 
 The chief concern in respect to the examina- 
 tion of Mr. Webb, when he was installed pas- 
 tor of the church in Fairfield, centred in his 
 views upon this practice. Shall the children 
 of baptized parents not members of the 
 church be baptized? 
 
 The Half-way Covenant declared that bap- 
 tized children, when they reached the years of 
 discretion, must own the covenant and be- 
 come formal members of the church, although 
 they might feel that they were not prepared to 
 come to the communion. This gave them a 
 vote in the church, and enabled them to have 
 their children baptized. 
 
 This was the view of Mr. Webb and the 
 Fairfield church. It helps us to understand
 
 THINGS SACRED AND THINGS SECULAR. 8l 
 
 why the actual membership of the church was 
 so small through the first two centuries of the 
 " Prime Ancient Society." 
 
 We also see at once a reason for the deca- 
 dence of spirituality in the church. The very 
 strictness and sobriety of Puritanism was instru- 
 mental, perhaps, to a degree, in producing 
 a reaction against the early life of the colo- 
 nists. 
 
 When it was evident that some such re- 
 action had really set in, and the moral tone of 
 this and other towns was lowered, our people 
 tried to resist these and similar encroachments 
 by ecclesiastical pressure of the churches 
 wrought into the form of the Consociation. 
 
 It was in 1708 that the General Court directed 
 the churches of each county to send pastor 
 and delegate to the county seat, and there con- 
 sider the best system of church order. These 
 assemblies elected representatives, who went 
 to Saybrook and decided the matter in debate 
 for the whole colony. The church here was 
 not represented at the Saybrook meeting, but 
 6
 
 82 AN OLD NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 it loyally accepted the platform and became 
 one of its most earnest champions. 
 
 The Fairfield interpretation of the Saybrook 
 articles was strict and narrow. The church 
 seemed to incline toward Presbyterianism. 
 
 During his day Mr. Hobart labored faith- 
 fully in his efforts to uphold and encourage the 
 ecclesiastical authority of Consociation. All 
 that could be said in favor of such a system 
 seemed to be said by him. The times were 
 such that it was necessary every effort should 
 be put forth for the help of the people into a 
 better, stronger life. 
 
 And while the matter of Consociation was 
 a prominent question, the presence of Epis- 
 copacy and its fair prospects of growth dis- 
 turbed the orthodox, conservative citizens. 
 ' It never rains but it pours," is a saying that 
 was illustrated by prevailing religious condi- 
 tions. Here in Fairfield for a time the atmos- 
 phere was emphatically religious religious in 
 the sense that moral, ecclesiastical, and theolog- 
 ical questions and activities were uppermost in
 
 THINGS SACRED AND THINGS SECULAR. 83 
 
 the minds of the leading people. Mr. Hobart 
 took a large part in these discussions, publish- 
 ing several small books upon one or other of 
 them. 
 
 References have been made to the indifferent 
 state of religion during this period. The de- 
 fection of Mr. Johnson, of Yale College, and 
 his ordination to the Episcopal ministry, cre- 
 ated not a little feeling and not a little interest 
 in this community. 
 
 A petition was presented to the Court on 
 May 14, 1725, asking that an assistant might 
 be appointed to serve with Mr. Webb here in 
 the parish. As the petitioners express it, 
 they desired " that their sorrowful and sinking 
 circumstances might be relieved." The breth- 
 ren that inclined to the Church of England 
 felt that the presence of that venerable organ- 
 ization in town would straighten out the moral 
 and religious tangle of affairs both public and 
 private. 
 
 Mr. Johnson, rector in Stratford, fluctuating 
 between that town and this in his ministry,
 
 84 AN OLD NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 said that the people here were just ripe for the 
 transferrence of their affections to the Church 
 of England. Nevertheless when Dr. Laborie, 
 a French physician of some eminence, moved to 
 Fairfield in 1723, he found it was no easy task 
 to organize worship according to that way. 
 
 He came to this country as a teacher, under 
 the patronage of the Bishop of London, and 
 he had a hard time of it. He bought a place 
 of Isaac Jennings, known as "the stone house 
 on the rocks," which he says in a letter he had 
 " destinated to the service of the Church of 
 England." In this house he read the service, 
 but it was " up-hill work " for a time. 
 
 He tells us that he was " disturbed by Indians 
 in the vicinity of Boston," and when he came 
 to Fairfield " he was interrupted (in worship) 
 immediately by one of the magistrates." This 
 was on the principle of tit-for-tat. 
 
 The Independent in the mother country 
 must conform to Episcopacy. The Episco- 
 palian in the daughter country must conform 
 to Independency. But these brethren in Fair-
 
 THINGS SACRED AND THINGS SECULAR. 85 
 
 field " stuck to their knitting," to use a homely 
 phrase, and in 1724, probably, a separate 
 Episcopal parish was organized. 
 
 On November 10, 1725, the Thanksgiving 
 Day of that year for Connecticut, Mr. Johnson 
 opened the new church here, and it was called 
 Trinity Church. 
 
 This task of introducing Episcopacy was a 
 difficult one, as the town records show. May 
 ic, 1727, a petition to the Court at Hartford 
 says that ten of the Fairfield Episcopalians 
 had been lately imprisoned for non-pay- 
 ment of taxes to support the Congregational 
 church. 
 
 The church building probably stood on Mill 
 Plain. The first rector or missionary was Mr. 
 Caner, who came to his work in 1727. 
 
 Although Mr. Johnson had said that "the 
 whole town would embrace the Church if they 
 had a good minister at Fairfield," he did not 
 prove a trustworthy prophet. Mr. Caner was 
 a good minister an exceedingly good one. 
 He did eminent service here. After many years
 
 86 AN OLD NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 of arduous toil he felt obliged to go to a smaller 
 and less exacting parish. 
 
 So in 1747 he removed to Boston and took 
 charge of the famous King's Chapel. He 
 passed from the more important parish of Fair- 
 field to the less exacting parish of King's 
 Chapel, Boston, as he puts it, "not so much 
 out of any lucrative views as out of regard to 
 the weakness of his constitution, which had 
 become unequal to the duties of the large 
 mission of Fairfield." 
 
 This amuses us, and flatters our pride and 
 self-esteem. Boston put second to Fairfield! 
 But it will be in order to state, by way of 
 friendly enlightenment, that Mr. Caner's parish 
 was rather large, compassing, at times, Green- 
 field, the Southport territory, Green's Farms, 
 Pequonnock, Westport, Norwalk, Stamford, 
 Greenwich, Redding, Ridgefield, Danbury, 
 Weston, Wilton, New Canaan, and other like 
 suburbs of Fairfield. 
 
 Mr. Caner started with twelve communicants 
 and some forty families, in 1727, as he testifies
 
 THINGS SACRED AND THINGS SECULAR. 87 
 
 in his correspondence, and they, he says, " were 
 mostly of the poorer sort." A great change, 
 you see, since the first days. That is the last 
 phrase in all the world that we should think of 
 using to describe our Episcopalian neighbors 
 to-day " mostly of the poorer sort." All the 
 more honor to Mr. Caner for that fact, and for 
 his frank truthfulness in stating it. 
 
 One feels quite sure that Oxford University 
 did a just thing when she made this earnest, 
 faithful worker a doctor of divinity; and we 
 are told that he was received in England "with 
 the respect which he so well deserved as the 
 father of the American clergy." 
 
 When he went to Boston the church here 
 had grown from the twelve communicants to 
 two hundred. Sixty-eight of them actually 
 lived in this village. 
 
 Meanwhile theological controversy had 
 waxed hot in the colony, and Fairfield was 
 one storm centre. One is led to suspect that 
 so much time and attention were given to the 
 exterior aspects and circumstances of religion
 
 88 AN OLD NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 that the inner life was somewhat neglected. 
 While Mr. Caner and Mr. Hobart both labored 
 faithfully for the cure of souls, we are con- 
 strained to think that politics, dogma, law, 
 business, kept the people of this old New 
 England town absorbed to such extent that 
 spiritual life became stagnant and uninterest- 
 ing. 
 
 Thirteen years after starting their organ- 
 ization here, the Trinity people built a new 
 sanctuary on the land now belonging to the 
 Rowland homestead. 
 
 The town voted on July 27, 1738, that 
 "Liberty to the members of the Church of 
 England " be granted " to erect a house for 
 public worship on the highway near Old Field 
 Gate." The structure was fifty-five feet in 
 length, thirty-five feet in width, and twenty 
 feet in height. The spire shot one hundred 
 feet into the air. A bell weighing five hun- 
 dred pounds was put into the belfry. 
 
 Episcopalians who lived within a mile of this 
 edifice were granted the privilege of paying
 
 THINGS SACRED AND THINGS SECULAR. 89 
 
 their taxes to the support of worship in this 
 sanctuary. Other Episcopalians were for a long 
 time compelled to pay their taxes to the sup- 
 port of the Congregational church. 
 
 At this time the town was a port of entry ; 
 court business increased ; shops and stores 
 multiplied ; wealth, culture, fashion, exerted 
 wide influence. A certain leadership was won 
 and sustained by Fairfield. Lieutenant-Gov- 
 ernor Gold, active in affairs, had finished his 
 honorable life record. Prominent men of the 
 colonies were frequent or occasional guests. 
 Relations with neighbor towns and distant 
 cities were quite intimate. It was a period of 
 signal prosperity, and future prospects never 
 seemed brighter. 
 
 The French war interested the citizens, for 
 the people of Fairfield were always prepared 
 to play a conspicuous part in encounters of 
 this kind. It was Colonel Andrew Burr who 
 led the troops of Connecticut Colony when 
 Louisburg was captured. The old martial 
 spirit had been kept alive through all the
 
 90 AN OLD NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 years. Training days were still the lively and 
 delightful "outings" for the male population. 
 
 Sillabub continued a popular drink. One 
 old recipe said : " Fill your Sillabub Pot with 
 Syder, and good store of Sugar and a little 
 Nutmeg, stir it wel together, put in as much 
 thick Cream by two or three spoonfuls at a 
 time, as hard as you can as though you milke it 
 in, then stir it together exceeding softly once 
 about and let it stand two hours at least." 
 We cannot say positively that this was the 
 recipe followed always, but it was a favorite 
 mixture and served its purposes on many a 
 training day. 
 
 When the call came for men to serve 
 against Louisburg and Ticonderoga, Fairfield 
 responded generously ; and when the suc- 
 cessful campaigns were ended, the people of 
 the town again settled down to the common 
 business of the times. 
 
 Judge Peter Burr had passed to his reward 
 in 1724. Teacher, lawyer, auditor, deputy in 
 the town, speaker of the House, councillor
 
 THINGS SACRED AND THINGS SECULAR. 9! 
 
 on the French and Indian war, judge of the 
 County Court, chief judge of the Superior 
 Court, he made a deep impression upon the 
 life of Fairfield and the colony. But kindred 
 spirits followed in his footsteps, and carried 
 along the work which he and his predecessors 
 transmitted to them. 
 
 It seemed a peaceable period for the town 
 now that Indians and Frenchmen were settled, 
 and there was little thought that the day drew 
 on apace when the great conflict of the age was 
 to be suddenly projected upon them. 
 
 Thaddeus Burr had graduated from Yale in 
 1755, and Jonathan Sturges four years later. 
 They had entered upon the practice of law 
 here in town. When the great questions of 
 taxation were broached in the colonies, excite- 
 ment and discussion prevailed in this provin- 
 cial capital. The old lawyers and the young, 
 business men and farmers, the pastor of the 
 Prime Ancient Society and the keeper of 
 the popular inn they were all alive with 
 the spirit of resistance.
 
 VII. 
 
 War, Love, Captivity.
 
 VII. 
 
 WAR, LOVE, CAPTIVITY. 
 
 WE have reached the period when excite- 
 ment ran so high that speech upon the street 
 was occasionally intemperate and vehement 
 beyond the limits set by the law of the land 
 and the authority of the Church ; although the 
 conditions were such that strong and intense 
 forms of speech might be justified, if ever, on 
 the grounds of passionate loyalty to justice. 
 
 There is recorded the following illustration 
 of Church oversight, November 30, 1765. The 
 communication is addressed by Judge Eben- 
 ezer Silliman to Rev. Noah Hobart, pastor of 
 the First Church. 
 
 " Since my return home I am informed that 
 you have notified the communicants that the
 
 96 AN OLD NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 sacrament of the Lord's Supper is to be ad- 
 ministered the next Sabbath. You, I suppose, 
 are not altogether unacquainted with the late 
 public conduct of Job Bartram, one of the 
 communicants of the church, which not only is 
 offensive to me but many others of the church ; 
 viz., in calling upon God to damn all that 
 had any hand in making the Act of Parliament 
 called the Stamp Act, and in libelling in the 
 most ignominious manner some in the most 
 elevated stations in civil authority ; which ap- 
 pears to me to be plain breaches of the third 
 and fifth commands in the Moral Law, and 
 inconsistent with the Christian character, the 
 consideration whereof I recommend to you 
 and the brethren of the church in the first soci- 
 ety in Fairfield. I am with much considera- 
 tion, 
 
 " Your affectionate brother, 
 
 " E. SlLLIMAN." 
 
 There was more or less correspondence upon 
 this matter of rash and impulsive speech, and
 
 WAR, LOVE, CAPTIVITY. 97 
 
 the trouble was finally settled to the common 
 satisfaction ; Job Bartram working off his pas- 
 sion of loyalty, when occasion came, in bold de- 
 fence of colonial liberties and Fairfield citizens. 
 
 That the good people of this town were par- 
 ticular in this matter of correct speech, is evi- 
 dent from some of the wills on record. One 
 pious citizen, in devising certain property near 
 what is called Devil's Den, does not venture to 
 spell the profane word, but writes a capital D, 
 then a dash, then a final // although another 
 case, which might be construed to the contrary 
 of this testimony, is also found in a certain will, 
 where the good citizen leaves to one of his 
 heirs his " damn." 
 
 Speaking of wills, some of their peculiar 
 phrases are recalled. One man refers to him- 
 self as " crazy in body and merry in mind." 
 Another man begins his will with the state- 
 ment that he is " tender in disposition and 
 weakness of body, but, thanks be to God, of a 
 disposing mind and memory and of as Compos 
 Mentis as ever I was." 
 7
 
 gS AN OLD NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 The subject of wills suggests the extrava- 
 gance of funeral occasions. To-day we even 
 go so far as to form societies for the purpose 
 of doing honor to the dead in better taste and 
 at less expense. But there is something to 
 comfort us when we read the narrative of these 
 occasions a century or two ago. 
 
 At one of the Winthrops' funerals, sixty 
 rings at a pound apiece were given away. 
 There were also scutcheons, hatchments, scarfs, 
 gloves, bell-tolling, clothes, and other necessary 
 expenses, amounting to three thousand dollars 
 a third of the estate. 
 
 How curious this sounds : " It being artillery 
 day and Mr. Higginson dead, I put on my 
 mourning rapier, and put a mourning ribbon in 
 my little cane." The rings had such mottoes 
 as these : " Death parts united hearts ;" " Pre- 
 pared be to follow me." How cheerful a man 
 must feel to carry several articles of such jew- 
 elry about with him ! 
 
 The liquor consumed on these occasions 
 made no small item in the bill of expense.
 
 WAR, LOVE, CAPTIVITY. 99 
 
 Like ordinations, it was a time when the good 
 people of the town sought relief for their emo- 
 tional nature in copious draughts of their 
 favorite beverage. No wonder that such ex- 
 travagance and such customs became matters 
 for public condemnation and discipline. 
 
 But a subtle change was passing over the 
 face of common life. It was ferment and agi- 
 tation all through the century. The character 
 of discussion had been theological and eccle- 
 siastical rather than political, although politics 
 was an element in all the ferment. We have 
 slight conception of the intense, bitter feelings 
 engendered here and in neighboring places on 
 account of religious differences. And yet our 
 own observation teaches us that such differ- 
 ences are apt to lead to all sorts of conflict and 
 persecution. But the time had now come when 
 opinions and practices in respect to Christian 
 faith were to yield precedence unto questions 
 concerning colonial liberty and national life. 
 
 The Rev. Andrew Eliot had been invited to 
 settle here as pastor of the Prime Ancient
 
 IOO AN OLD NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 Society after the death of Mr. Hobart. This 
 promising young minister was the son of the 
 famous man of the same name, pastor of the 
 New North Church of Boston. 
 
 Dr. Eliot had been elected president of Har- 
 vard College, although he declined the honor, 
 choosing to remain in the pastorate. He was 
 the popular minister of his city, judging from 
 the many public services which he performed. 
 He kept a record of the gloves and rings which 
 he received at funerals. During his pastorate 
 he made a list of two thousand nine hundred 
 and forty pairs of gloves. 
 
 Doubtless, young Andrew was well stocked 
 with gloves when he came to Fairfield, and, if 
 there continued any need, his father would 
 supply him, although there were ten other 
 children to draw on this stock. Dr. Eliot did 
 not allow the gloves to go to waste, however ; 
 for he tells us that through the kindness of 
 Boston milliners he sold what he did not use, 
 and such sale brought him in the snug sum of 
 nearly seven hundred dollars.
 
 WAR, LOVE, CAPTIVITY. IOI 
 
 The new minister brought to Fairfield the 
 fresh life of Cambridge and Boston. He was 
 full to overflowing with generous and noble 
 sentiments ; and his patriotism found congen- 
 ial company in the galaxy of educated lawyers 
 and business men resident in Fairfield. 
 
 It was only a few months after his coming 
 that these people sent to the suffering patriots 
 of Boston a present of seven hundred and fifty 
 bushels of grain. The letter of acknowledg- 
 ment is worth remembering : 
 
 " Gentlemen : The testimony which the pa- 
 triotic citizens of Fairfield have given of their 
 attendance to the common and glorious cause 
 of liberty . . . has afforded much comfort as 
 well as seasonable relief to their friends in 
 Boston, who are now suffering under the cruel 
 rod of ministerial Tyranny and Oppression. 
 . . . We are particularly obliged by the assur- 
 ances which you give us that you are not in- 
 sensible of our sufferings, and the hope that 
 you express that you shall yet consider your- 
 selves bound to afford us such succour and re-
 
 102 AN OLD NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 lief as your circumstances and our wants may 
 demand. . . . May a kind Providence bounti- 
 fully reward your liberality and kindness, and 
 the blessings of Him that was ready to perish 
 come down and rest on the heads of the gen- 
 erous inhabitants of the Town of Fairfield." 
 
 The patriotism of the people here had al- 
 ready taken a tangible form. On December 
 29, 1774, this same year, " at a legal meeting of 
 the inhabitants," the action of the recent Con- 
 tinental Congress was discussed. It was ap- 
 proved, and the town took the opportunity 
 "to express their most grateful sense of the 
 good services of the worthy delegates from this 
 colony who attended said Congress." There 
 follow the names of a committee to act in 
 conformity with the suggestions made by the 
 Continental Congress. 
 
 It was also voted expedient to call a county 
 congress to consider these matters of state, 
 and it was voted that " Col. Gold S. Silliman, 
 Jonathan Sturges, Andrew Rowland, Esq., Mr. 
 Job Bartram, and Thaddeus Burr be a com-
 
 WAR, LOVE, CAPTIVITV. 103 
 
 mittee to attend at such time and place as 
 they shall appoint." These gentlemen were 
 also constituted a committee of correspond- 
 ence for the town. 
 
 The announcement of hostilities between 
 the British and the Continental forces came 
 to Fairfield in a dramatic way. It was on an 
 April morning. 
 
 Gold Selleck Silliman and Jonathan Stur- 
 ges had come over to the house of Thad- 
 deus Burr to discuss war prospects. They 
 were all members of the town committee of 
 war. 
 
 As they stood upon the porch of the great 
 mansion earnestly engaged in conversation, a 
 horseman dashed down the street and came to 
 a sudden standstill just in front of them. He 
 carried a sealed packet, which he hastily thrust 
 into the hands of Mr. Silliman. Breaking the 
 seal and glancing at the contents, more or less 
 of the citizens having gathered meanwhile, 
 General Silliman read aloud the following- 
 letter :
 
 IO4 AN OLD NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 " To All Friends of American Liberty : Be it 
 known that this morning before break of day a 
 brigade consisting of about one thousand or 
 two thousand men landed at Phipps's farm, 
 Cambridge, and marched to Lexington, where 
 they found a company of our colony militia in 
 arms, upon whom they fired without provoca- 
 tion, and killed six men and wounded four 
 others. By an express from Boston we find 
 another brigade are on the march from Boston, 
 supposed to be about one thousand. The 
 bearer, Trail Bissell, is charged to alarm the 
 country quite to Connecticut, and all persons 
 are desired to furnish him with fresh horses as 
 they may be needed. I have spoken with sev- 
 eral who have seen the dead and the wounded. 
 
 "J. PALMER, 
 " One of the Committee of S'y." 
 
 That sealed packet sounded a mighty bugle 
 call. It did not take long for the news to 
 spread, and ere it was the close of day, nearly 
 one hundred members of the train-band set
 
 WAR, LOVE, CAPTIVITY. 10$ 
 
 forth on a march to Boston. What emotions 
 swelled within their breasts as they made their 
 way along by the Green, the meeting-house, 
 the home of the new minister ! 
 
 As they cross Gould's bridge we see Colonel 
 Abram Gould step forth to cheer them ; and 
 as he stands facing the marshes this earnest 
 company passes on to share the conflict. 
 
 These were lively times. It was quite un- 
 certain what turn events might take, but the 
 feeling and purpose was common among our 
 people to the end that they must stand by 
 their rights and resist all encroachments upon 
 their liberties. 
 
 There was a small party in opposition that 
 continued in the town. It was natural that 
 Mr. Sayre, the Episcopal minister, and the com- 
 pany of royalists that gathered about him, 
 should show little sympathy with these aggres- 
 sive movements. Politics and religion were 
 one for the time being, since the Church of 
 England must necessarily stand for the author- 
 ity of the mother country.
 
 106 AN OLD NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 As a consequence, there was considerable 
 bitterness manifest toward certain individuals 
 and families in town because their sympathies 
 were naturally royalist in character. In one 
 way or another these people were compelled 
 to suffer humiliation. Many of them were 
 finally driven from the town, and their prop- 
 erty confiscated. Old friendships were broken, 
 and family ties severed on more than one occa- 
 sion, but this was the inevitable result of cir- 
 cumstances. 
 
 When the Articles of Association formed 
 by the Continental Congress were presented 
 to Mr. Sayre, rector of Trinity, he refused to 
 sign them. Therefore he was banished from 
 the town. After seven months of exile he was 
 recalled, and permission was given him to stay 
 within the limits of four miles, and later within 
 the limits of the county. But he and the rest 
 of the Episcopal brethren were forbidden the 
 use of the liturgy in service. 
 
 Many of the Church of England parishes 
 omitted public worship during this period of
 
 WAR, LOVE, CAPTIVITY. IO/ 
 
 prohibition, but Mr. Sayre continued to hold 
 some kind of public worship throughout the 
 whole period. The reading of Scripture, the 
 singing of hymns, repetition of Psalms and 
 the Lord's Prayer, an extempore supplication, 
 and a sermon, these did quite well for a service, 
 and a worshipper might have thought that he 
 had gotten into the place where the Prime 
 Ancient Society was holding service, rather 
 than the dissenting brethren of the Church of 
 England. 
 
 A phrase which denotes the purpose of these 
 faithful people to continue their worship under 
 the most trying circumstances leads one to 
 think that there might have been a certain 
 cheerful freedom and unhampered expansive- 
 ness about it. We read, for example, that 
 they voted " to carry on " in the room of Mr. 
 Shelton. Did we give a present-day meaning 
 to the phrase, we might look for something 
 lively and festive in character. There are sev- 
 eral votes of this kind. Trinity Church " car- 
 ried on " for several years in one place and
 
 108 AN OLD NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 another, until the time of rebuilding a sanc- 
 tuary came to them and they were once more 
 safely housed on Mill Plain. 
 
 Meanwhile people lived at high tension, in 
 perpetual state of expectancy. Soldiers were 
 drilled in Fairfield and sent forth under various 
 commands to answer pressing needs. The 
 mansion of Thaddeus Burr was a centre of 
 social life in the town, and many were the so- 
 ciety events which occurred within its ample 
 proportions. The Burrs were intimate with 
 several Boston families, and the new minister 
 also drew his friends down into the country 
 for various visits. 
 
 While the British occupied Boston, several 
 Bostonians took the opportunity to see their 
 Fairfield friends. Among them were Mrs. 
 Thomas Hancock, aunt of John Hancock, and 
 Miss Dorothy Quincy, daughter of Edmund 
 Quincy. Miss Quincy was engaged to Mr. 
 John Hancock, and they wanted to get mar- 
 ried. But the times were troublous : Boston 
 was beleaguered. A bird in the hand is
 
 WAR, LOVE, CAPTIVITY. 109 
 
 worth two in the bush. And the report came 
 to Mr. Hancock that Aaron Burr, son of the late 
 president of Princeton College, cousin of Miss 
 Quincy's host Thaddeus, was making himself 
 very agreeable to his fiancee. This attractive 
 gentleman was intimate with Thaddeus Burr. 
 
 It was quite natural that young Aaron should 
 share in the entertainment of the Boston 
 beauty. Fortunately for President Hancock, 
 Aaron Burr left Fairfield the summer of 1775 
 and sought renown and promotion in the cam- 
 paign against Canada, serving under Benedict 
 Arnold with Henry Dearborn (later the General 
 Dearborn of Chicago fame). The Rev. Samuel 
 Spring, father of Dr. Gardiner Spring, of New 
 York, was chaplain of the regiment, but accord- 
 ing to tradition his ministrations did not keep 
 young Burr altogether straight. 
 
 During this period arrangements for the 
 marriage of Mr. Hancock and Miss Quincy were 
 made, and Mr. and Mrs. Burr entered heartily 
 into all the plans. When September came the 
 president of the Continental Congress gathered
 
 1 10 AN OLD NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 various friends about him and left Philadelphia 
 for Fairfield. 
 
 The bridegroom was one of the wealthiest 
 men of New England. His station was exalted, 
 and the approaching marriage excited not a 
 little interest. 
 
 We are told that it was quite an imposing 
 cavalcade which came to town as escort to the 
 happy man. Those were the days when, in 
 spite of war, not a little pomp and circumstance 
 might be commanded in case of necessity. 
 
 It must have been an interesting sight. 
 Probably the boys and the girls, and perhaps 
 some of the grown folks in the town walked up 
 and down the streets and watched closely the 
 assembling company. The great massive coach 
 with liveried driver and footman, the attendant 
 cavaliers with gay uniforms and high-spirited 
 animals, the elegant and elaborate costumes of 
 the ladies, the mingling of old-time civil and 
 military display, all the accompanying excite- 
 ment, activity, social cheer in liquid abundance, 
 and good-fellowship of heart and hand what
 
 WAR, LOVE, CAPTIVITY. Ill 
 
 an occasion it was, and how we should like to 
 have been there ! 
 
 But it was a day all too brief and fleeting for 
 the merry onlookers. The old church record 
 compresses the whole thing into one sentence: 
 
 " September 28, 1/75- Married at the resi- 
 dence of Thaddeus Burr, Esq., by the Rev. 
 Andrew Eliot, the Hon. John Hancock, Presi- 
 dent of the Continental Congress, to Miss 
 Dorothy Quincy, daughter of Edmund Quincy, 
 of Boston." 
 
 The honeymoon was occasionally interrupted 
 by the cry of " British." A price had been put 
 upon the head of Hancock, and he thought it 
 expedient to keep quiet. Some of the time 
 their meals were served in the privacy of the 
 chamber. 
 
 We are told that one day when Mr. and Mrs. 
 Hancock attempted to dine in state with the 
 host and hostess, the dinner was hastily aban- 
 doned and the feast was lost on account of an 
 alarm and supposed pursuit of the enemy. 
 But with all these storm-clouds shifting across
 
 112 AN OLD NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 the summer sky of their honeymoon, we may 
 rest assured that the Hon. John and Madame 
 Dorothy drank deep draughts of connubial bliss, 
 and gave grave care a thoughtless go-by for 
 the time being. 
 
 Among the favorite resorts of Fairfield soci- 
 ety at this time was the Silliman home on 
 Holland Heights. The location itself was such 
 that it attracted visitors. 
 
 Fairfield reposed securely to the right of the 
 eminence, and offered perpetual suggestion of 
 prosperity and affluence. To the left was the 
 little hamlet which the years would transform 
 into the busy, energetic city of Bridgeport. 
 Grover's Hill was like an advance guard, keep- 
 ing constant watch upon the sea. 
 
 " A situation perfectly rural," writes Profes- 
 sor Silliman, " on elevated ground overlooking 
 the country for many leagues ; having before 
 us Long Island Sound, a beautiful strait per- 
 haps twenty miles in average breadth, a strait 
 often adorned by the white canvas of sailing- 
 vessels, occasionally fretted by winds and
 
 WAR, LOVE, CAPTIVITY. 113 
 
 storms into waves which adorned the blue 
 bosom of the deep with snowy crests and 
 ridges in such a situation we had only to open 
 our eyes in a clear atmosphere to be charmed 
 with the scenery of this beautiful world. . . . 
 And with it were associated all the attractions 
 of the farm, of the forests and the waters, the 
 beauty and melody of birds, and the activity 
 and instinct of animals." 
 
 This was the home of General Gold Selleck 
 Silliman, a leading man in Fairfield and Con- 
 necticut at this period. He was prosecuting 
 attorney for the county at the time when the 
 Revolutionary ferment manifested itself. Be- 
 coming interested in military affairs, he was 
 made colonel of cavalry in the local militia and 
 took part in several battles. 
 
 We are indebted to the journal kept by Mrs. 
 Silliman for much valuable and interesting 
 information concerning the events of her day. 
 The piety of this noble woman is manifest on 
 many pages. 
 
 " Who among the human race," she writes on
 
 114 AN OLD NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 one occasion, " has greater reason to be thank- 
 ful than I have this day? My dear husband 
 has been at home and made me a short visit ; 
 but although I thought not a ball had touched 
 his clothes, afterward there was one found in 
 his coat pocket, the coat he had on the day of 
 the battle of White Plains. I took his coat to 
 mend it and found it. He supposes it was a 
 spent ball, and as his coat flew open it dropped 
 in. The ball was made ragged that it might 
 not be easily extracted from the flesh of him 
 who was so unhappy as to receive it." 
 
 General Silliman was active in the service of 
 the colony all through the trying days of organ- 
 ization. A devout man, deacon in the parish 
 church, appointed to all sorts of local tasks, 
 engaged in the practice of the legal profession 
 (it is pleasant to note that many of the officers 
 and leaders in the Prime Ancient Society have 
 been eminent and honored members of the bar), 
 General Silliman would naturally be a marked 
 man in the estimation of the British. 
 
 Fairfield itself was a conspicuous object for
 
 WAR, LOVE, CAPTIVITY. 115 
 
 the hatred of the enemy. The town stood 
 seventh among the towns of Connecticut in 
 taxable wealth. So far as social prestige, legal 
 reputation, intellectual vitality, ecclesiastical 
 fame, were concerned, it stood among the first 
 towns of New England. The part which it 
 took in the struggle for independence was con- 
 spicuous. 
 
 It had been voted on October 31, 1776, " that 
 there be a guard of thirty-two men to guard 
 the Town nightly, and every night to be set in 
 the following manner : Four to patrol from 
 Saugatuck River to Cable's Mill, and four to 
 patrol from said Mill to Sasco River, and four 
 from Sasco River to Mill River, and four from 
 Mill River to Pine Creek, and six to patrol 
 from Pine Creek to Ash House Creek, and six 
 to patrol in the town streets, and four at Strath- 
 field. Voted, that each of the guard have three 
 shillings a night for their service. Voted, the 
 guard be taken out of the Prime Society, 
 Green's Farms, Greenfield, and Strathfield." 
 In 1778 a guard of forty-two men was enlisted.
 
 Il6 AN OLD NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 The alarm post here in town was the rallying 
 place of the militia. The alarm list and the 
 muster roll had long been prepared. 
 
 Although war was in the air, and on the soil 
 for that matter, yet there was not a little busi- 
 ness that demanded attention apart from the 
 conflict with British authority. At one time it 
 was voted that " Liberty for all be granted, 
 and every person or persons to turn any flock 
 or flocks of sheep on the highways within this 
 town with a keeper of more than fifty to eat 
 up and consume the herbage in and upon said 
 highway." 
 
 It was this custom of appointing keepers to 
 look after the flocks, to which the merchant 
 Mr. Jonathan Sturges refers, in his address 
 when the New York Chamber of Commerce 
 honored him with a complimentary dinner. 
 
 " One of the first lessons I received was when 
 eleven years of age," he remarked. " My grand- 
 father had collected a fine flock of merino 
 sheep." (The grandfather was Judge Jonathan 
 Sturges, whose name was signed to the letter
 
 WAR, LOVE, CAPTIVITY. 1 1/ 
 
 sent to Boston in 1776.) " I was a shepherd boy. 
 ... A boy who was more fond of his books 
 than of the sheep was sent with me, but left 
 the work to me while he lay in the shade and 
 read his books. I finally complained to the 
 old gentleman. I shall never forget his benig- 
 nant smile as he replied : ' Never mind ; if you 
 watch the sheep, you will have the sheep.' " 
 This incident binds us to the life which we are 
 etching, the life of one hundred years and 
 more ago. 
 
 The time having come for soldier service, it 
 was voted by the town that " the proportion 
 of soldiers to be furnished in this Town for 
 the Continental service be made out according 
 to the Alarm List and Muster Roll of said 
 Society." 
 
 The Council of Safety of Connecticut voted, 
 on March 25, 1777, " to deliver to Selectmen of 
 Fairfield one six-pound and one three-pound 
 cannon." It seems a limited equipment, does 
 it not ? The whole matter of defence was 
 necessarily put upon a meagre footing.
 
 Il8 AN OLD NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 We know that the British felt they would 
 soon settle the rebellious rabble, and teach us 
 a lesson we never could forget. And such 
 had been the result were it not that the Al- 
 mighty had larger purposes in mind. 
 
 In 1779 General Silliman was stationed to 
 guard the coast in the vicinity of Fairfield. 
 Appeals had been made for help of this kind 
 since the exposed position of the town signi- 
 fied grave peril. The command of General 
 Silliman extended to the various outposts in 
 the county, but he made his headquarters for 
 the time being on Holland Heights. 
 
 On May I, General Clinton, commanding 
 officer at New York, sent a whaleboat and 
 eight men to Fairfield in order to capture 
 General Silliman. Mrs. Silliman, in her jour- 
 nal, continues : " At a midnight hour, when we 
 were all asleep, the house was attacked. I 
 was awakened by his calling out, ' Who's 
 there?' 
 
 "At that instant there was a banging at 
 both doors, they intending to break them down
 
 WAR, LOVE, CAPTIVITY. 119 
 
 or burst them open ; and this was done with 
 great stones as big as they could lift. My 
 dear companion then sprang up, caught his 
 gun, and ran to the front of the house, and, as 
 the moon shone, saw them through the win- 
 dow, and attempted to fire ; but his gun only 
 flashed in the pan and missed fire. 
 
 "At that instant they burst in a window, sash 
 and all, jumped in and seized him, and said he 
 was their prisoner and he must go with them. 
 He asked if he might dress himself. They 
 said ' yes,' if he would be quick. 
 
 "All this time I lay quaking. They followed 
 him into the bedroom where I and my dear 
 little boy were. With their guns and bayo- 
 nets fixed, their appearance was dreadful. It 
 was then their prisoner addressed them in mild 
 terms and begged them to leave the room, 
 and told them their being there would frighten 
 his wife. They then withdrew for a minute or 
 two, and then returned, when he asked them 
 out again. They hurrying him, he went out 
 and shut the door. After that I heard them
 
 I2O AN OLD NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 breaking the windows, which they wantonly 
 did with the breeches of their guns." 
 
 These soldiers then asked him for money, 
 private papers, and other things. Mrs. Silli- 
 man writes : " He told them mildly he hoped 
 he was in the hands of gentlemen, and that it 
 was beneath them to plunder." This seems 
 to have had an effect, although the men 
 took a few things that came conveniently to 
 hand. The communion silver, which is still 
 used by the church, was deftly concealed, as 
 were also certain valuable papers. 
 
 After the soldiers had gone, having taken 
 both the general and his elder son, an alarm 
 was given. But it availed naught. " I heard 
 nothing from them in three weeks," says Mrs. 
 Silliman. " My next step was to look for an 
 asylum in case of an invasion of the town," 
 she continues. The asylum was found with a 
 friend in North Stratford. Here, some three 
 months later, her son Benjamin, the famous 
 and revered professor of natural science, was 
 born.
 
 WAR, LOVE, CAPTIVITY. 121 
 
 General Silliman and his son were trans- 
 ported to Long Island and afterwards to New 
 York. It was a year before the exchange of 
 prisoners was made which set him free to re- 
 turn unto his station. Colonel Abram Gold, 
 the faithful and splendid soldier, had yielded 
 his life two years previous to this period. The 
 battle-ground of Ridgefield was stained with 
 his blood, although his body had been brought 
 in upright position upon his horse all the way 
 from the scene of death to his beloved town. 
 
 One noble patriot after another had given 
 himself and his property to the cause. General 
 Abel, whose home preceded the Benson house, 
 was serving the people with distinction. A 
 full quota of Fairfield men was distributed 
 through the various divisions of troops, so that 
 Fairfield was placed in a critical position. The 
 people besought the governor and council to 
 send an armed vessel to assist in guarding the 
 coast. But the vessel was not forthcoming, 
 and the town was compelled to shift for itself.
 
 VIII. 
 
 The Burning of FairfielcL
 
 VIII. 
 
 THE BURNING OF FAIRFIELD. 
 
 GENERAL TRYON had been a visitor here in 
 Fairfield on several occasions, and a courteous 
 hospitality made him welcome. But when he 
 began warlike inroads among the shore towns, 
 bitter feeling against him became widespread. 
 Several thriving villages suffered under his pes- 
 tilential touch. Fear possessed the people of 
 this place that he meant ill to them. 
 
 When it became known that a small fleet 
 of hostile ships was making its way along the 
 Sound, the townsmen felt that the long-dreaded 
 day was upon them. It is not difficult for us 
 to picture the scene. 
 
 Fairfield was now one hundred and forty 
 years old. Evidences of refinement and pros- 
 perity were scattered all through the place.
 
 126 AN OLD NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 The streets were not as broad as they are to- 
 day ; but trees shaded the walks, commodious 
 houses were distributed through ample yards, 
 the Green was a pleasant spot framed by public 
 and private buildings, trade flourished in the 
 town, and the leaders of thought, enterprise, 
 politics, lived in hospitable way, entertaining 
 many guests. 
 
 On Sunday, July 4th, when Mr. Eliot preached 
 his last sermon in the prim, angular, stately 
 meeting-house, the calm and beauty of the day 
 came like the suggestive quiet which precedes 
 the bursting of the tempest. It was not alone 
 that Fairfield was unprotected at this time ; 
 but it was also that many of her soldiers were 
 absent in the service. To be sure, the coast 
 guard was doing its duty, and there was a can- 
 non or two mounted on Grover's Hill. But 
 what were such resources in face of two large 
 men-of-war, forty-eight row galleys, tenders, and 
 transports? This was the fleet coming along 
 the shore toward the patriotic town. 
 
 It was Sunday night when the British passed
 
 THE BURNING OF FAIRFIELD. I2/ 
 
 Fairfield. Monday and Tuesday they carried 
 on their business of desolation at New Haven. 
 The people here were alert and watchful. It 
 was a nervous, intense life which throbbed 
 along these familiar streets that week. Citizens 
 did not want to leave their homes. There was 
 a lingering hope that the place might be spared. 
 And yet their better judgment told them that 
 Fairfield was condemned to the ravishment of 
 the foe. 
 
 Had not the town done everything in her 
 power to advance the interests of indepen- 
 dence ? Money, supplies, soldiers, had they not 
 all been given with unstinted generosity? Did 
 not generals, judges, statesmen, leaders, make 
 Fairfield their home, and gather about them the 
 chief rebels and conspirators against the au- 
 thority of the mother country? It was a very 
 hotbed of resistance, machination, patriotism, 
 liberty. It was not a fear of wolves, not a dread 
 of witches, not a terror of Indians, that pos- 
 sessed citizens ; but something quite as real and 
 awful. The thought that their streets might
 
 128 AN OLD NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 be invaded by bitter enemies, their families in- 
 sulted and harassed by foreign hirelings, their 
 homes plundered and destroyed by heartless 
 and cruel men this it was which caused them 
 to pass sleepless nights and restless days while 
 awaiting helplessly the pleasure of their foe. 
 
 The British sailed from New Haven on July 
 6th. All day long, men, women, and children 
 had walked the town, tarried down by the 
 shore, climbed the places where better views of 
 the Sound might be obtained, spent the hot, 
 anxious hours in a fever of alternate hope 
 and despair. The few soldiers that gathered 
 for the defence of the place were scattered 
 along the stretch of territory or massed in the 
 fort on Grover's Hill. This latter place had a 
 force of twenty-three men under command of 
 Lieutenant Isaac Jarvis. 
 
 The night of the 6th was spent in making 
 such further preparations as were necessary and 
 possible. The very children found it hard to 
 get sleep, for they had become infected with the 
 consuming patriotism of their parents.
 
 THE BURNING OF FAIRFIELD. 129 
 
 The early morning came, and people began 
 to breathe with that freedom which follows the 
 darkness and suspense of the night. Suddenly 
 the boom of a cannon carried its startling mes- 
 sage to the worn, brave watchers. It was four 
 o'clock in the morning of the /th. The shot 
 had been fired at the British fleet, which just 
 came into sight. It told the foe that we were 
 not a defenceless community. For a time it 
 appeared that this bold, rash shot might have 
 changed the plan of the enemy, for they did 
 not stop. Perhaps Fairfield was to escape, after 
 all. At seven o'clock the fleet was moving 
 towards New York. And then a dense fog 
 settled down upon the scene. 
 
 Thus ends act the first in this drama. 
 
 Two or three hours later the fog lifted. The 
 fleet was close to shore. Little Sam Rowland 
 was watching the course of events from the 
 spire of Trinity Church (which stood on land 
 now belonging to the Rowland homestead). 
 When it became evident that the enemy meant 
 assault, he hastily descended from his lofty 
 9
 
 130 AN OLD NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 perch, jumped astride the old white mare, ran 
 along the main street, turned the corner by the 
 meeting-house, passed the home of Mr. Isaac 
 Jennings, and concealed himself in the woods, 
 where he kept an eye upon the struggle and 
 havoc for many hours, returning at last to his 
 home, which had been spared from the flames 
 on account of the tact and bravery of his 
 mother, Elizabeth Rowland, the daughter of 
 Governor Fitch. 
 
 " The boats being not sufficient for the whole 
 of the first division," says General Tryon in his 
 report to Sir Henry Clinton, " I landed only 
 with the flank companies of the Guards, one 
 company of the Landgrave's, and the King's 
 American Regiment, with two field-pieces, 
 east of the village and southwest of the Black 
 Rock battery which commands the harbor. 
 We pursued our march (under a cannonade 
 without effect) towards the village, but in our 
 approach received a smart fire of musketry. 
 The rebels fled before the rapid advance of the 
 Guards, and left us in possession of it, and of
 
 rlwlturavure Rinjller Co
 
 THE BURNING OF FAIRFIELD. 131 
 
 the heights in the west, until General Garth, 
 who landed two miles in the south, joined us 
 with the remainder of the troops, in the even- 
 ing." 
 
 The landing of the enemy was therefore 
 made in two divisions, according to the official 
 documents preserved in the war office of the 
 Government. It was four o'clock in the after- 
 noon before the troops landed. The division 
 under Garth came by way of Sasco Hill. The 
 division under Tryon came through Beach Lane 
 and made their way to the Green. 
 
 They were exposed to the cannon from 
 Grover's Hill ; Samuel Squiers, Israel Chapman, 
 and Aaron Turney manning the small battery. 
 As they drew nigh the Green, such militia and 
 recruits as could be gathered made a stand 
 against the enemy's approach, from the vantage 
 point of the Court House. One field-piece did 
 excellent service. It threw the foe into con- 
 siderable disorder, and obstructed the advance 
 for a brief time. But it was simply a tempo- 
 rary delay. The citizens felt all the time that
 
 132 AN OLD NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 the British had them at their mercy and could 
 do with them much as they pleased. 
 
 Mrs. Silliman heard the premonitory shots 
 as she watched the action of the fleet from her 
 view point on Holland Heights. She saw the 
 enemy disembark, and she well knew that it 
 meant common desolation. The general was 
 still held a prisoner in New York. 
 
 " From the roof of our house," she writes, 
 " we saw the enemy land, and I thought best to 
 leave my habitation, having before made prep- 
 arations for ordering up the team and loading 
 it with some of our valuable effects. By this 
 time the cannon began to roar, which pleased 
 Selleck [the little boy], and he would mimic 
 them, saying, ' Bang, bang ! ' but they were 
 doleful sounds in our ears. The firing was 
 heavier as we went on." 
 
 The curtain falls upon the second act. 
 
 Late in life Professor Silliman, referring to 
 the severe experience of his mother at this 
 time, wrote : " My mother's cheerful courage 
 contributed to sustain her."
 
 THE BURNING OF FAIRFIELD. 133 
 
 In her journal Mrs. Silliman, continuing her 
 account, exclaims : " Oh the horrors of that 
 dreadful night ! At the distance of seven miles 
 we could see the light of the devouring flames 
 by which the town was laid in ashes. It was a 
 sleepless night of doubtful expectations. I re- 
 turned to visit our house " this was after the 
 withdrawal of the enemy " and found it full 
 of distressed people whose houses had been 
 burned, and our friend Captain Bartram lay 
 there a wounded man." 
 
 Meanwhile many of the inhabitants were 
 doing just as Mrs. Silliman did, hastening back 
 upon the hills and into the remote districts in 
 order to find a place of security. It was infi- 
 nitely sad and distressing to leave home and 
 the beautiful old town. Never did Fairfield 
 seem more precious and enchanting than on 
 the /th of July, 1779. And there were many 
 places where comfort, elegance, refinement, 
 opulence, were manifest. 
 
 Scarcely a thing could be removed. The 
 silver might be thrown into the well. Grain-
 
 134 AN OLD NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 fields were luxuriant and convenient. Odd 
 pieces of choice furniture, and occasional heir- 
 looms of value, were cast into these secretive 
 patches. A few treasures were carried by 
 the women and children in their flight. But 
 the great mass of household stuffs and 
 family possessions was left in the deserted 
 houses. 
 
 There were a few women that braved the foe 
 and remained to protect their property ; but 
 they were cruelly treated, and barely escaped 
 the most frightful abuses. Andrew Eliot, in a 
 letter to his brother, gives a vivid account of 
 the events. "The Hessians were first let loose 
 for rapine and plunder. They entered houses, 
 attacked the person of Whigs and Tories in- 
 discriminately ; breaking open desks, trunks, 
 closets, and taking away everything of value. 
 They robbed women of their buckles, rings, 
 bonnets, aprons, and handkerchiefs. . . . Look- 
 ing-glasses, china, and all kinds of furniture 
 were soon dashed to pieces. Another party 
 that came on were the American refugees,
 
 THE BURNING OF FAIRFIELD. 135 
 
 who, in revenge for their confiscated estates, 
 carried on the same direful business." 
 
 Dr. Timothy Dwight, in his " Travels," tells 
 us how Mrs. Thaddeus Burr (Mr. Burr was 
 high sheriff of the county at this time) tried 
 to save her house. She " probably had never 
 known what it was to be treated with dis- 
 respect, or even with inattention. She made 
 a personal application to Governor Tryon, in 
 terms which, from a lady of her respectabil- 
 ity, could hardly have failed of a satisfactory 
 answer from any person who claimed the title 
 of gentleman. The answer which she received 
 was, however, rude and brutal, and spoke the 
 want not only of politeness and humanity, 
 but even of vulgar civility. . . . An attempt 
 was made in the meantime by some of the 
 soldiery to rob her of a valuable watch, with 
 rich furniture ; for Governor Tryon refused to 
 protect her, as well as to preserve the house. 
 The watch had been already conveyed out of 
 their reach." 
 
 Thus ends the third act of the drama.
 
 136 AN OLD NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 The fourth comes on apace. The town had 
 been condemned. The first house fired was 
 that of Isaac Jennings. Mr. Sayre, the Church 
 of England minister, had done what he could 
 to prevent the conflagration, but it was all in 
 vain. The promise that his own home, the 
 house of Andrew Eliot, and some other places 
 might be saved had been wrung from the de- 
 stroying Tryon ; but the promise was broken. 
 
 Soon the home of General Abel was in 
 flames. Then fire was seen in one and another 
 place along the main street. And now the 
 night settled down upon the doomed town. 
 
 What words can paint the sombre, lurid, 
 frightful scene? Intermittent sounds of guns; 
 loud and profane shouting of heartless men ; 
 occasional shrieks of unprotected women; bois- 
 terous revelling of plunderers fresh from the 
 cider barrel and the wine cellar ; crash of fall- 
 ing timbers and riot of angry flames as one 
 after another structure is caught and held by 
 the contagion of fire ; men separated from 
 wives and children ; women driven forth into
 
 THE BURNING OF' FAIRFIELD. 137 
 
 the gloom and horror of the surrounding hills 
 and woods ; children searching for parents, and 
 wild with fear and terror ; distress, suffering, 
 hunger, sleeplessness, anxiety, sickness, misery, 
 on every side. 
 
 It was while this tumult raged through Fair- 
 field that a storm added its sublime contribu- 
 tion to the general woe. 
 
 " The sky was speedily hung with the deep- 
 est darkness, wherever the clouds were not 
 tinged by the melancholy lustre of the flames." 
 The words of President Dwight are quoted. 
 "At intervals, the lightnings blazed with a 
 livid and terrible splendor. The thunder rolled 
 above. Beneath the roaring of the fires filled 
 up the intervals with a deep and hollow sound, 
 which seemed to be the protracted murmur of 
 the thunder, reverberated from one end of the 
 heaven to the other. Add to this convulsion 
 of the elements, and these dreadful effects of 
 vindictive and wanton devastation, the trem- 
 bling of the earth, the sharp sound of mus- 
 ketry occasionally discharged, the groans here
 
 138 AN OLD NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 and there of the wounded and dying, and the 
 shouts of triumph ; then place before your 
 eyes crowds of the miserable sufferers, mingled 
 with bodies of the militia, from the neighbor- 
 ing hills taking a farewell prospect of their 
 property and their dwellings, their happiness 
 and their hopes, and you will form a just but 
 imperfect picture of the burning of Fair- 
 field." 
 
 Such was the night. "At sunrise," says Mr. 
 Eliot, " some considerable part of the town 
 was standing, but in about two hours the 
 flames became general. . . . All the town 
 from the bridge by Colonel Gould's to the Mill 
 River, a few houses excepted, was a heap of 
 ruins." The British withdrew to their ships 
 about eight o'clock in the morning. 
 
 Thus ends the fourth act of the drama. 
 
 Standing on the spot and looking down upon 
 the desolation, Colonel Humphrey wrote in 
 1779 his elegy on the " Burning of Fairfield " : 
 
 " Ye smoking ruins, marks of hostile ire, 
 
 Ye ashes warm, which drink the tears that flow,
 
 THE BURNING OF FAIRFIELD. 139 
 
 Ye desolated plains, my voice inspire, 
 
 And give soft music to the song of woe. 
 How pleasant, Fairfield, on the enraptured sight 
 
 Rose thy tall spires and ope'd thy social halls ! 
 How oft my bosom beat with pure delight 
 
 At yonder spot where stand thy darkened walls I 
 But there the sound of mirth resounds no more ; 
 
 A silent sadness through the streets prevails. 
 The distant main alone is heard to roar, 
 
 And hollow chimneys hum with sudden gales, 
 Save where scorched elms th' untimely foliage shed, 
 
 Which rustling hovers round the faded green ; 
 Save where at twilight mourners frequent tread, 
 
 Mid recent graves, o'er desolation's scene. 
 
 ' Tryon, behold thy sanguine flames aspire, 
 
 Clouds tinged with dyes intolerably bright. 
 Behold well pleased the village wrapped in fire ; 
 
 Let one wide ruin glut thy ravished sight. 
 Ere fades the grateful scene, indulge thine eye ; 
 
 See age and sickness, tremulously slow, 
 Creep from the flames ; see babes in torture die, 
 
 And mothers swoon in agonies of woe. 
 Go, gaze enraptured with the mother's tear, 
 
 The infant's terror, and the captive's pain,
 
 I4O AN OLD NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 Where no bold bands can check thy curst career ; 
 
 Mix fire with blood on each unguarded plain. 
 These be thy triumphs ; this thy boasted fame. 
 
 Daughters of memory raise the deathless song. 
 Repeat through endless years his hated name, 
 
 Embalm hiscrimes.and teach the world ourwrong." 
 
 A brief account of the "Burning" is given 
 in the Hartford Courant of the following 
 week. It speaks of a district two miles in ex- 
 tent wasted, only sixteen houses in the whole 
 section left standing, the most of these having 
 been set on fire and then extinguished. 
 
 One incident is related to illustrate the bar- 
 barity of the foe. " A Fairfield man in arms 
 with us," says the correspondent, "who two 
 years ago deserted from the king's troops, 
 after being wounded, surrendered and begged 
 for quarter, was after this cruelly pierced and 
 tortured with bayonets, still keeping life in 
 him, then wrapped in a linen sheet wet w r ith 
 ' oil,' which was barbarously set on fire, and 
 thus the unhappy victim perished in flames." 
 
 General Tryon briefly dismisses the whole
 
 THE BURNING OF FAIRFIELD. 141 
 
 subject in these words : " Having laid under 
 arms that night, and in the morning burned the 
 greatest part of the village, to resent the fire 
 of the rebels from their houses and to mask 
 our retreat, we took boat where the second 
 division had landed." 
 
 The fifth scene of the drama reveals the sor- 
 row and misery of the desolated town. Think 
 of the tragic conditions. The withdrawal of 
 the enemy gave the scattered families oppor- 
 tunity to return. They brought with them 
 the few things which they had taken away 
 in the hasty departure before the town was 
 burned. 
 
 As the people came down from Mill Hill, 
 Round Hill, Osborn Hill, Holland Hill, there 
 stretched before them clouds of smoke rising 
 from the smouldering ruins. It was infinitely 
 pitiful. Yonder stood the powder-house on 
 the rise of ground now owned by Mr. Edward 
 Osborn. Here and there through the rifts of 
 enswathing smoke-cloud, the stained form of a 
 solitary house was seen. A half dozen build-
 
 142 AN OLD NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 ings perhaps remained standing. Mrs. Lucretia 
 Redfield stayed in charge of her home, and put 
 out the flames four times. (This noble woman 
 became the wife of Isaac Marquand.) Invent- 
 ive Mrs. Nichols found an original use for yarn 
 and the dye tub, by converting them into a 
 fire extinguisher, so that her home was saved. 
 Tryon made the Bulkley house his headquar- 
 ters, and this was saved. Truth compels us to 
 say, however, that this comfortable mansion 
 came near a later destruction at the hands of 
 the returning loyal citizens, because the owners 
 were royalists. 
 
 What a picture presented itself to the har- 
 assed citizens of the town as they once more 
 walked its streets ! Heaps upon heaps of 
 ashes ; charred remains of timbers, tree trunks, 
 implements of toil, means of conveyance ; 
 yards, gardens, fields, stained and blackened by 
 ashes and half-burnt pieces of wood ; broken 
 furniture, torn garments, remains of things 
 precious and beautiful, tossed about hither and 
 thither in wind and rain ; domestic animals
 
 THE BURNING OF FAIRFIELD. 143 
 
 destroyed, injured, or affrighted ; provisions 
 gone, and small stock of food or clothing upon 
 which to draw in cases of necessity ; the forms 
 of several dead men (the body of a Hessian 
 was buried just by the side of the meeting- 
 house ruins). 
 
 "The distress of this poor people is inex- 
 pressible," writes Mr. Eliot. There were some 
 two hundred and eighteen buildings destroyed 
 the churches, court-house, jail, schoolhouses, 
 ninety-seven dwellings, sixty-seven barns, forty- 
 eight stores and shops. Eighty families had 
 their taxes abated, by action of the General 
 Assembly, on account of their losses. 
 
 Twenty-two days after the conflagration. 
 Andrew Eliot gathered his congregation upon 
 the Green in front of the charred remains of 
 the meeting-house, and there delivered a mem- 
 orable address. That same sermon was pre- 
 served in the corner-stone of the later church 
 edifice. 
 
 The fifth sanctuary was burned on the night 
 of May 29 and the morning of May 30, 1890-
 
 144 AN OLD NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 Who that was present in the Town Hall on 
 the following Sunday, June 1st, can forget the 
 moment in the service when the pastor held 
 in his hand the old yellow manuscript of Mr. 
 Eliot's sermon delivered on the Green one hun- 
 dred and eleven years before ? A quotation 
 from the ancient address thrilled the congrega- 
 tion, and brought tears to many eyes. 
 
 We had just seen a flame compacted temple, 
 walls fire studded, roof fire thatched, tower 
 fire buttressed, fire columns holding aloft a 
 palpitant pillar of fire. We had seen this lumi- 
 nous, flaming house of God caught up into 
 the heavens and vanish from our sight. And 
 as the words of Andrew Eliot sounded in our 
 ears, it did seem for a moment that we were 
 transported into the past, and made to share the 
 grief, the poverty, the desolation, of the people 
 who stood out under the blue sky in the midst 
 of memorable ashes, and worshipped God in 
 nature's sanctuary. 
 
 In his few words of personal statement Mr. 
 Eliot stood forth as an example of many
 
 THE BURNING OF FAIRFIELD. 145 
 
 among his parishioners. " Not a house for my 
 shelter, two-thirds of my personal estate plun- 
 dered and consumed, a wife and three small 
 children dependent on me for their maintenance. 
 ... I feel myself in a state of uncertainty as to 
 many of the necessities of life. . . . And yet, "he 
 continued, " I am ready to undergo any difficul- 
 ties in the work of the ministry for your sakes." 
 
 So this noble workman released his people 
 from the burden of his salary until such time 
 as they might be able to renew their care of 
 him. He struggled along as best he could 
 under the circumstances. 
 
 It is pleasant to record the fact that the 
 New North Church in Boston remembered Mr. 
 Eliot in his extremity, and took up a generous 
 collection for him when the condition of affairs 
 in Fairfield was known. So that another bond 
 was formed between the two towns. The ser- 
 mon was preached on the day of the collection 
 by Dr. Simeon Howard, who took for his text 
 the words, " It is more blessed to give than to 
 receive." 
 10
 
 146 AN OLD NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 So we drop the curtain upon this fifth act 
 of the drama. 
 
 It was a new phase of life upon which the 
 people of Fairfield now entered. Experience 
 had taught them some rough lessons. We do 
 not wonder that they refused to look upon the 
 Tories with favor. The long list of confiscated 
 estates found in the town records is just about 
 what was to be expected under the circum- 
 stances. The people here were suddenly con- 
 fronted with poverty. They had been accus- 
 tomed to the comforts and even the luxuries of 
 life. Prosperity had smiled upon them through 
 well nigh every year of growth. Now they 
 were homeless, foodless, almost without clothes. 
 
 But with all their deprivation and suffering 
 they were far from hopeless. Mr. Eliot struck 
 a responsive chord when he told them he was 
 ready to undergo difficulties with them. 
 Pinched and stricken as they were, a force of 
 rebound and vitality was immediately manifest. 
 
 The people gathered what boards and tim- 
 bers they could find and erected temporary
 
 THE BURNING OF FAIRFIELD. 147 
 
 quarters. Some of the families used old sheds 
 that had escaped the fire. Thaddeus Burr 
 fixed over a little shop. Later his good friend 
 Governor Hancock supplied him with a part of 
 the material for the rebuilding of his mansion 
 on the old site, the simple condition of the gift 
 being that Mr. Burr's house should be modelled 
 after the mansion of Governor Hancock in 
 Boston. 
 
 So there began to rise from the tell-tale ruins 
 humble, modest dwellings, and such shops and 
 stores as the times justified. 
 
 The town watchmaker recovered his wares 
 from the chinks in the old well where he 
 had concealed them. Pewter and silver were 
 drawn up from the depths of their recep- 
 tacles. 
 
 The elaborate clothes of Revolutionary days 
 were forthcoming from some inexplicable 
 source. A new Town Hall was built, where 
 the Prime Ancient Society worshipped. Sol- 
 diers returned from their campaigns and settled 
 down to business. The belief that the Colonies
 
 148 AN OLD NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 were bound to win strengthened. At last came 
 the day of peace. 
 
 In January, 1788, Mr. Thaddeus Burr and 
 Judge Jonathan Sturges were delegates to the 
 State convention at Hartford, called to ratify 
 the new Constitution. When the first Congress 
 convened in New York, Judge Sturges repre- 
 sented Fairfield. " The evening years of his 
 life," as Mr. Silliman tells us in his reminis- 
 cences, " were devoted to the bench of the 
 Supreme Court of the State of Connecticut." 
 " With a fine person," Mr. Silliman continues, 
 11 Judge Sturges had the superior manners 
 of that day, dignity softened by a kind and 
 winning courtesy, with the stamp of benevo- 
 lence." 
 
 There was what might be called a re-organ- 
 ization of things in this old New England 
 town. It was upon the footing of indepen- 
 dence that life was now constructed. There 
 was less of the show and pomp that cling to 
 monarchies. People were compelled by cir- 
 cumstances to be modest in their display.
 
 THE BURNING OF FAIRFIELD. 149 
 
 Government was conducted on a scheme of 
 simplicity that did not call for any great expen- 
 diture of money. 
 
 While the leaders gathered here in Fairfield 
 much as in days of yore, there was a certain 
 atmosphere of economy. The social activity 
 soon regained itself. The little companies 
 which came to the new home of Thaddeus Burr 
 and discussed with Dr. Timothy Dwight the 
 questions of religion, politics, and literature 
 fairly represented the prevailing tone of life in 
 the place. And one can find no more vivid, 
 interesting setting forth of social activity at 
 the time than that which is given us in the 
 home of this honored Thaddeus and Eunice 
 Dennie Burr. Let us picture it as the records 
 give us the precious details. 
 
 There stands the mansion, large, chaste, ele- 
 gant, hospitable, surrounded by trees that had 
 escaped the ravages of the conflagration. 
 There are three stories to the edifice, and the 
 spaces are high between the floors. The dig- 
 nity of pillars in front, sustaining the roof of
 
 150 AN OLD NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 the antique porch contributes to the attractive- 
 ness of the structure. 
 
 One first enters the great hall of the man- 
 sion. Commodious rooms are on the right 
 hand and the left. Furniture has been sent 
 down from Boston, and many curious and 
 beautiful things adorn the generous interior. 
 There is an air of welcome which interprets the 
 spirit of master and mistress. 
 
 Mr. Burr was a man of fine presence, carry- 
 ing with him all the old-time grace peculiar to 
 high life in the Colonies. But the informing 
 spirit of the home is Eunice Dennie the wife. 
 
 Copley made frequent visits here, so that we 
 know exactly how both Mr. and Mrs. Burr 
 looked. The portrait of Mrs. Burr was re- 
 cently exhibited in the New York Academy 
 of Design. The figure is life size ; the dress 
 characteristic of the times. The pose is 
 queenly. The reproduction of the face, which 
 is familiar to many of us, reveals rare beauty 
 and strength. Educated, refined, familiar 
 with the best society of the land, a natural
 
 THE BURNING OF FAIRFIELD. !$! 
 
 leader in the social realm, " adorned with all 
 the qualities which give distinction to her sex, 
 possessed of fine accomplishments and a dig- 
 nity of character scarcely rivalled" (this last 
 sentence is a tribute from Dr. Dwight), Mrs. 
 Burr charmed every visitor and quickened 
 every mind that came within the spell of her 
 sweet and virtuous enchantment. 
 
 It was a distinguished succession of guests 
 which rested in that memorable home. The 
 great and the good of a generation turned 
 often to its gracious privileges. It was not 
 alone that John Hancock, Edmund Quincy, 
 Samuel Adams, and other Boston or Massachu- 
 setts leaders came to visit Mr. and Mrs. Burr. 
 Jefferson, Burr, Lafayette, Franklin, and the 
 company of men that shaped the destinies of 
 the Republic sought the repose and enjoyment 
 of such society. Thaddeus Burr's sister had 
 married Lyman Hall, one of the signers of the 
 Declaration of Independence from Georgia. 
 Dr. Dwight, referring to life in this home, 
 speaks of " the elegant hospitality," " the re-
 
 152 AN OLD NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 fined enjoyments," "the works of charity," 
 "the rational piety, which was at once the 
 animating and controlling principle," so that it 
 " diffused a brilliancy marked even by the 
 passing eye." There were no children to 
 brighten the days for Mr. and Mrs. Burr, but 
 they gave themselves with regal generosity to 
 their friends and the public. In the old house, 
 Susan, the sister of .Colonel Aaron Burr, had 
 been a constant visitor, and here it was that 
 she was married to Judge Reeves, of Litchfield. 
 But any attempt to paint the scenes and chron- 
 icle the doings that belong to the life of these 
 people would prove futile. 
 
 The Burr homestead came into the posses- 
 sion of Gershom, a nephew of Mr. Thaddeus 
 Burr. This Gershom married Priscilla Loth- 
 rop, step-daughter of Noah Hobart. They 
 were the parents of General Gershom Burr, 
 who inherited the property. General Burr 
 married a daughter of Andrew Eliot. The 
 historic place was sold in the early years of 
 this century to Mr. Obadiah Jones.
 
 THE BURNING OF FAIRFIELD. 153 
 
 Circumstances put Mrs. Burr and Mrs. Silli- 
 man to the forefront during this period of 
 struggle and triumph. They were lovely and 
 gifted women, fitted to adorn the most elevated 
 station. The Daughters of the American 
 Revolution have shown their wise, discriminat- 
 ing, appreciative reading of local history in 
 naming two of their chapters after these emi- 
 nent women. Their memory should be treas- 
 ured with fadeless loyalty and affection. 
 
 But let it be distinctly understood that they 
 stand forth as types of women that flourished 
 during these tragic, eventful days. From the 
 necessities of the case the men played the con- 
 spicuous parts. But it was the vital, inspiring 
 patriotism of the mothers, the wives, the sis- 
 ters, that made possible our national indepen- 
 dence. 
 
 There were no tasks from which these brave, 
 great women shrank. Did it come as the 
 stern bidding of duty, they were prepared to 
 handle the musket or fire the cannon. And 
 yet withal there was a beautiful womanliness
 
 154 AN OLD NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 about them which perpetually witnessed to a 
 native worth of mind and spirit that made 
 them peers among the womankind of all ages. 
 So as we think of these Fairfield heroines 
 cheerfully enduring privation, faithfully sus- 
 taining the men in their battle for liberty, sub- 
 mitting without murmur to the sorrows and 
 terrors of war, infusing fresh enthusiasm into 
 life when the tide seemed setting against 
 them, retaining their noble ideals and illustrat- 
 ing their Christian graces through all the un- 
 certainties and desolations of conflict, we are 
 to think of them as precious and illuminating 
 souls, noble in their lives, worthy our imita- 
 tion and the unstinted reverence of all men.
 
 IX. 
 
 Poverty, Education, Conflict
 
 IX. 
 
 POVERTY, EDUCATION, CONFLICT. 
 
 REFERENCE has been made to the mar- 
 riage of the Rev. Noah Hobart. Another in- 
 teresting courtship culminating in wedlock is 
 noted at the period under review. Andrew 
 Eliot was son of the parish minister of the 
 same name, grandson of Andrew Eliot, D.D., 
 of the New North Church, Boston. 
 
 I have been told that recently a man applied 
 to the town clerk for a license to marry, and 
 when questioned as to the name and age of the 
 supposed happy object of his affections, he re- 
 plied with surprise that he had not yet settled 
 upon a woman ; he just thought he would get 
 a license and carry it with him in case he did 
 decide the matter. 
 
 Now, young Andrew Eliot was in love. It
 
 158 AN OLD NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 was Saturday morning that he made up his 
 mind to marry. The object of his affections 
 was well known. So that very day he went to 
 the lady and asked her to become his wife on 
 the following evening. This seemed rather a 
 short time to make the trousseau, send out 
 wedding invitations, and prepare the marriage 
 feast. But Miss Sophia and her mother said 
 they would consider it through the day, and the 
 answer would be forthcoming in the evening. 
 
 As the mother was baking, she concluded 
 that it would make little additional trouble to 
 bake the wedding cake ; and as the daughter 
 found a presentable white dress among her 
 gowns, the way seemed clear for the union. 
 The next morning the banns were published 
 at church, and the happy couple were made one 
 in the evening. This Mr. Eliot was pastor of 
 the old church in New Milford. 
 
 This was doubtless a method peculiar to Mr. 
 Eliot ; but it is doubtful if many of the people 
 made elaborate preparations for these cere- 
 monies at this time. Susan, a sister of this
 
 POVERTY, EDUCATION, CONFLICT. 159 
 
 Andrew Eliot, married the Rev. Nathaniel 
 Hevvit, D.D. She was his second wife. Dr. 
 Hewit's first wife, a daughter of Senator Hill- 
 house of New Haven, died early in their mar- 
 ried life. 
 
 Although the parish church was rebuilt in 
 1786, it was seventeen years before the people 
 were able to complete the woodwork, plaster- 
 ing, and glazing of the interior. It was forty- 
 two years ere the edifice, painted inside and 
 outside, was really finished. This is only one 
 indication of the common poverty. Early in 
 the century, sickness prevailed widely, and the 
 people organized "The Charitable Society" 
 in order to meet the needs of many sufferers. 
 This was another indication of the needs pecul- 
 iar to the town at this period. 
 
 The flag of our country has passed through 
 various changes. In 1818 the Congress of the 
 United States adopted a new design made by 
 Captain S. C. Reid, a distinguished naval officer. 
 It fell to the lot of Mrs. Reid to make the first 
 flag in accordance with the new design. The
 
 l6o AN OLD NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 I 
 
 lady's name, with the names of those that as- 
 sisted her, was inscribed upon the flag. Mrs. 
 Reid was a Fairfield woman. It is pleasant 
 for us to remember that the daughter of Cap- 
 tain Nathan Jennings performed this patriotic 
 service for our country. 
 
 And this was quite in line with the services 
 of many another Fairfield woman whose work 
 has contributed to the history of our land. 
 What the good women of the town suffered 
 through the years that succeeded the Revo- 
 lution was bravely concealed. Few were the 
 complaints heard. On every side retrenchment 
 and closest economy were essential. 
 
 At the time of the burning there were forty 
 or fifty stores and shops, that gave an air of 
 business to the place. A few of these were 
 rebuilt, but many of them had no successors. 
 Trade was gradually diverted to other towns. 
 
 It was during this period, when Fairfield 
 sought to recover her position, that Bridgeport 
 took its start. There had been a scattered life 
 manifest in Strathfield and Pequonnock, but
 
 POVERTY, EDUCATION, CONFLICT. i6r 
 
 the county seat overshadowed such obscure 
 activity. Now the current of enterprise flowed 
 in the direction of what was termed New 
 Field. The excellent harbor was reason 
 enough for the development of this part of the 
 town. And it was manifest ere long that 
 Fairfield had a competitor for leadership close 
 upon her borders. 
 
 As the years hastened it was evident that 
 the scattered houses to the east, which the old 
 citizens of this place considered as a sort of 
 suburb to Fairfield, were rapidly becoming a 
 prosperous village, outstripping the county 
 seat itself. It was not many years before it 
 was generally accepted that business would 
 gravitate to Bridgeport, while Fairfield would 
 be left to its honorable traditions and its his- 
 toric associations. 
 
 There was neither envy nor regret on the 
 part of either people. The residents of Fair- 
 field with few exceptions desired their native 
 place to retain in so far as it was possible its 
 ancient, interesting character. They were re- 
 ii
 
 1 62 AN OLD NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 luctant to see the town given over to trade 
 and manufacture. 
 
 The people of New Field, on the other hand, 
 had already caught the spirit of industrial en- 
 terprise and commercial service. So the busi- 
 ness that according to the nature of things 
 would have centred in Fairfield was handed 
 over to Bridgeport, or sought a larger sphere 
 of operation in New York. 
 
 But while these changes were taking place, 
 Fairfield continued to thrive in a certain quiet, 
 conservative way, and throb with a life that 
 was exceedingly fruitful. The days when 
 cities were to multiply and take larger part in 
 the history of the nation were coming on 
 apace. The days when villages like Fairfield 
 and Litchfield must take a quite subordinate 
 position in the public records were already 
 upon them. 
 
 Nevertheless the old leadership was not 
 yielded without a struggle. If the men that 
 shaped affairs were not as numerous here as 
 during earlier days, it was found that many a
 
 POVERTY, EDUCATION, CONFLICT. 163 
 
 leader reverted to Fairfield as the home of his 
 ancestors. 
 
 The parents of Joel Barlow moved to Red- 
 ding, but the family left traces of their impor- 
 tance in giving their name to that section of 
 our town called Barlow's Plain. The poet and 
 statesman himself was a frequent visitor. 
 When he did his work for literature and the 
 nation, it was felt that this old New England 
 town had a part in it. When his untimely 
 death in Poland occurred, there were sincere 
 mourners in this place. 
 
 It is along these years that the name of 
 Marquand appears in the church records, and 
 the American ancestors of Frederick and 
 Henry Marquand gathered that sterling man- 
 hood which they were to transmit unto their 
 successors. The love of knowledge, educa- 
 tion, music, art, which the sons of the present 
 generation have manifested in their regal gifts 
 to the public shows what kind of stuff they in- 
 herited from this Fairfield stock. 
 
 It is pleasant to recall such names and note
 
 164 AN OLD NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 the part which these men and their descend- 
 ants have taken in public affairs. There was 
 Andrew Ward, an early settler of the place, 
 who was appointed one of the assistants or 
 judges in the first legislative body of the 
 colony, a man who finally chose Fairfield for 
 his home, and became one of the large prop- 
 erty holders and one of the influential men of 
 his day. His honorable descendants have 
 scattered all through the nation. Among 
 them we name the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher. 
 The Society of Colonial Wars has another 
 member of the family for its secretary, a gen- 
 tleman who has rendered most efficient and 
 valuable service to the encouragement of his- 
 torical research and commemoration. 
 
 For generations the Pells of New York and 
 Pelham have been distinguished for their lead- 
 ership in various spheres of life. Dr. Thomas 
 Pell, a London gentleman, was one of the first 
 settlers of Fairfield. His estate passed to a 
 nephew, John Pell. For some years this latter 
 gentleman continued his residence in this
 
 POVERTY, EDUCATION, CONFLICT. 165 
 
 place ; but he at length purchased a large 
 estate in East Chester, N. Y., and came with 
 some ten Fairfield families to settle the virgin 
 territory near the young city at the mouth of 
 the Hudson. Mr. Pell was called "Lord of 
 the Manor," and a part of the town was named 
 Pelham Manor. 
 
 Education was always dear to the people of 
 Fairfield, and many excellent and accomplished 
 men served the public as school-teachers. A 
 large proportion of the active citizens of the 
 place were college graduates. The intellec- 
 tual atmosphere stimulated the youth to study 
 and professional life. The Fairfield men that 
 have preached the gospel, practised law or 
 medicine, become prominent educators, or 
 taken a leading part in public affairs consti- 
 tute a very large company. 
 
 But it was not until the beginning of this 
 century that an academy flourished in the 
 place. When the people had recovered from 
 the Revolution, they set themselves to the 
 task of organizing this higher institution of
 
 1 66 AN OLD NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 learning. The original trustees were Jonathan 
 Sturges, Andrew Eliot, David Judson, Nathan 
 Beers, Jr., and Samuel Rowland. 
 
 There are many famous names in the cata- 
 logue of instructors. Professor Button, who 
 filled the chair of astronomy and mathematics 
 in Yale at a later date; Professor S. J. Hitch- 
 cock, afterward an instructor in Yale ; Rev. E. 
 W. Baldwin, D.D., president of Wabash Col- 
 lege; Hon. Orrin Fowler, minister, orator, 
 reformer, member of Congress ; Rev. G. E. 
 Pierce, D.D., president of Western Reserve 
 College; Hon. Henry Button, governor of 
 Connecticut and judge of the Superior Court ; 
 Rev. Baniel March, B.B.; Mr. Henry Bay, the 
 eminent jurist; Rev. William E. Moore, B.B., 
 ex-moderator of the Presbyterian General As- 
 sembly ; and other like men. 
 
 Such teachers were bound to impart more 
 or less enthusiasm to their pupils. And it was 
 a congenial set of men with whom they were 
 brought into association. The clergy made 
 Fairfield a favorite resort. The courts still
 
 
 
 --
 
 POVERTY, EDUCATION, CONFLICT. 167 
 
 drew the best legal talent of the country to 
 the town. The old families connected with 
 the leaders of thought, fashion, politics, the- 
 ology, in New England, were always entertain- 
 ing guests that contributed to the general 
 fund of intellectual life. 
 
 There was great regret on the part of our 
 townsmen when Timothy Dwight was elected 
 president of Yale College, for it was felt that 
 Fairfield as well as Greenfield Hill would lose 
 one of her eminent citizens. Dr. Dwight was 
 closely identified with the social, religious, and 
 intellectual activity of the whole town. But 
 when he sold his place to Dr. Isaac Bronson, 
 the cultured and sagacious financier, it was 
 felt that some one had come among the 
 people that would help to fill the place 
 vacated by Dr. Dwight. 
 
 Dr. Bronson's grasp of public affairs was 
 national in its proportions. Long and serious 
 were the conversations which he held with 
 Judge Sherman when the public finances were 
 in an appalling condition. And we are told
 
 1 68 AN OLD NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 that it was one result of these wise, pro- 
 found discussions on the part of Judge Sher- 
 man and Dr. Bronson that relief was sug- 
 gested. 
 
 Many are the eminent people that received 
 some part of their education in the academy. 
 There were times when students came to the 
 school from the South and the West, as well as 
 from the East and the North. Among the 
 pupils were John C. Calhoun, Francis C. 
 Granger, afterward postmaster-general, and 
 other men equally notable and conspicuous. 
 
 On the top of the cupola to the building 
 there rests a curious and interesting ball, com- 
 posed of some sixty pieces. It was the gift 
 of Mr. Thomas F. Rowland, who built the 
 famous " Monitor." 
 
 No sooner were the difficulties with Great 
 Britain during the early part of this century 
 manifest, than Fairfield was again thrown into 
 a ferment of unrest and anxiety. The ships 
 of the British navy were familiar objects along 
 these shores, and it was felt that the Connecti-
 
 POVERTY, EDUCATION, CONFLICT. 169 
 
 cut towns on the Sound presented an attractive 
 object for the mischief makers. 
 
 War was declared, and this State showed its 
 bitter opposition. When the President called 
 upon Connecticut to contribute militia for the 
 prosecution of the war, there was misunder- 
 standing and contention. These shores were 
 left without protection. The State militia 
 rallied to the support of local interests, but it 
 was felt that such help was insufficient. 
 
 Then came the famous Hartford convention, 
 in which Judge Sherman took a leading part. 
 In fact, he was pronounced the great man of 
 the occasion. 
 
 Widespread was the concern and dismay 
 which prevailed through the war of 1812. The 
 little fort at Black Rock was manned. The 
 local militia again filled the streets with their 
 music and their excitement. Yet it was 
 apparent that the task were an easy one did 
 the British wish to repeat their assault and 
 again burn Fairfield to the ground. For 
 months the anxiety and watchfulness pre-
 
 I/O AN OLD NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 vailed. New London was threatened, and Mrs. 
 Jonathan Sturges tells in her " Reminiscences" 
 how her family buried their china in the garden, 
 and secreted other valuables as best they could, 
 thinking that the town would be destroyed. 
 
 One day a small fleet appeared off the 
 bar and then anchored in Bridgeport harbor. 
 Breastworks had been thrown up on Grover's 
 Hill. An old twelve-pound cannon, mounted 
 on a pair of cartwheels, was brought forth and 
 placed upon the Green. General Gershom 
 Burr was made commanding officer, and an 
 alarm was sounded about sundown. 
 
 Early in the evening men began to arrive, 
 and by daylight some two thousand citizen 
 soldiers were assembled on the beach. But 
 the British ships had disappeared, and so the 
 troops dispersed. 
 
 The fort on Grover's Hill was constructed 
 of rocks covered with dirt and turf. It was 
 garrisoned by Captain Hanford and about 
 thirty United States soldiers. It was large 
 enough to hold one hundred men.
 
 POVERTY, EDUCATION, CONFLICT. I /I 
 
 During this war the old powder-house was 
 again brought into frequent service. The 
 dangerous explosive was kept away from the 
 centre of traffic and life ; and powder brought 
 to town was always lodged in this little stone 
 building. 
 
 When the house was first built, it was put 
 under the charge of Thaddeus Burr, Esq.; for 
 we read a vote of the General Assembly, taken 
 during the first years of the Revolution, that 
 Thaddeus Burr was " to take charge of all the 
 powder sent to Fairfield." 
 
 One night during the war of 1812, a large 
 wagon heavily laden with kegs or barrels was 
 driven up to Knapp's tavern on the corner, the 
 horses unhitched, and the men pleasantly 
 housed in very comfortable quarters. Two of 
 the academy boys, sons of an ex-governor, were 
 curious to know the contents of said wagon. 
 Taking an auger, therefore, they proceeded to 
 bore a hole in one of the barrels, when the 
 powder poured forth in a big stream, and the 
 boys left the place in hot haste. An observer
 
 1/2 AN OLD NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 close at hand saw the transaction, gave the 
 alarm, had the stuff transported to the powder- 
 house on the hillside, and quite likely saved 
 the town from a small earthquake. 
 
 It was only a generation since the nation 
 had won its independence. Many citizens 
 living at the time of this second war with 
 Great Britain had shared the first struggle. 
 But this second affair did not have the glory 
 about it that marked the first. People were 
 all the time wishing it to end. At last a settle- 
 ment of difficulties was made and peace declared. 
 Then the country went wild with thanksgiving. 
 
 One of the liveliest and most noteworthy 
 celebrations was held here in Fairfield. The 
 citizens appointed Friday, February 25th, as 
 the day to celebrate. In the morning there 
 was a Federal salute from Fort Union at Black 
 Rock. This was answered by a salute fired 
 by Colonel Burr's artillery located upon the 
 Green. People flocked into the place from all 
 the surrounding country. A great throng 
 filled the streets and ignored the weather.
 
 POVERTY, EDUCATION, CONFLICT. 1/3 
 
 At ten o'clock the procession was formed at 
 Fort Union. Citizens marched in large num- 
 bers, and they were followed by the State troops. 
 Then appeared a very pretty sight. A long 
 boat had been taken and beautifully decorated 
 with the flags of many nations. This gay 
 object was drawn by thirty picked youths. 
 
 "The day of the celebration," says Mr. 
 Henry Rowland, in his graphic reminiscences 
 of this period, " was stormy, a deep snow fall- 
 ing." George Rowland took a boat and put it 
 on sleigh-runners with drag-ropes attached. 
 About thirty youths manned this craft. 
 
 When the two gay and curious boats met in 
 the street, the cry went forth from each of 
 them, " Ship ahoy ! Who are you ? Where 
 from ? Whither bound ? How many days 
 out ? " They were the sensation of the hour. 
 
 The martial music, the brilliant display of 
 colors, the shining weapons of war, the happy 
 companies of men and soldiers it all made a 
 pageant long remembered with keen delight 
 by the thousands of on-lookers. Arrived at
 
 174 AN OLD NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 the parish church, as large a proportion of the 
 throng as was possible passed into the edifice, 
 and there joined in expressions of congratula- 
 tion that the war was ended. Dr. Humphrey, 
 the pastor of the old church, gave an eloquent 
 and inspiring address. Then the procession 
 was re-formed, and after some marching the 
 citizens and the soldiers proceeded to test the 
 quality of the great ox which had been roasted 
 whole upon the Green for their benefit. 
 
 Tradition says that the men who got the 
 first cuts fared better than those who came 
 later. The meat grew very rare as the feast 
 proceeded ; and it was only on the second 
 day that many of the revellers were able to 
 find a piece done to their liking. 
 
 One account of the celebration says : " The 
 ox was served up to rich and poor alike, and 
 they enjoyed it together." But I suspect there 
 was considerable imagination about the enjoy- 
 ment of it, if the truth were known. 
 
 Meanwhile the ladies were having their feast 
 in the second story of the court-house. Five
 
 POVERTY, EDUCATION, CONFLICT. 175 
 
 hundred of them sat down together and had 
 what the Hartford Courant calls " an elegant 
 dinner." 
 
 At sunset another Federal salute was fired. 
 When the darkness had set in, and people had 
 prepared their candles, there was a universal 
 illumination. The amount of tallow consumed 
 that night was simply appalling. A necessary 
 economy in light extending through months 
 followed. 
 
 Dr. Humphrey was opposed on principle to 
 such waste and extravagance. So he left his 
 house without light. But Miss Mary Hobart 
 did not intend that her pastor should be made 
 conspicuous by darkness. She took the mat- 
 ter in hand, and compelled the minister against 
 his mind to fill his windows with the innumer- 
 able tallow dips, and shine his loyalty into the 
 eyes of the shifting throngs upon the street. 
 
 Then when Sunday came Dr. Humphrey 
 enjoyed a mild revenge by preaching from the 
 text, " I will praise the name of God with a 
 song, and will magnify Him with thanksgiving.
 
 176 AN OLD NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 This also shall please the Lord better than an 
 ox or bullock that hath horns and hoofs." So 
 the good man not only showed his disapproval 
 of the illumination, but also took occasion to 
 "let fly" at the poor ox " barbecued " on the 
 Green. 
 
 One feature of the illumination was a tall 
 tree with cross sticks all the way from the 
 ground to the tree-top, capped each by a tar 
 barrel. This pyramid of light shone far into 
 the night. 
 
 While this illumination was blazing away in 
 all glory, men, women, and children perambu- 
 lated the streets, and basked, so to speak, in the 
 unnatural effulgence until about nine o'clock. 
 The Washington Hotel was then the common 
 object of interest. A splendid and brilliant 
 ball gave a touch of elaborate finish to the 
 festivities. Wealth, beauty, fashion, culture, 
 power, they were all on hand to grace the 
 occasion. 
 
 When it was ended, Fairfield felt that she had 
 done the square thing for herself and the coun-
 
 POVERTY, EDUCATION, CONFLICT. 177 
 
 try in emphasizing the common jubilation. It 
 is doubtful if Dr. Humphrey attended the ball, 
 for he was frank to express his disapproval of 
 that particular form of thanksgiving. But one 
 of his predecessors was differently minded, 
 which occasioned the characteristic remark by 
 a parishioner, that " she certainly hoped her 
 minister would be converted before he died."
 
 X. 
 
 The Social Atmosphere.
 
 X. 
 
 THE SOCIAL ATMOSPHERE. 
 
 MANY interesting details of life during the 
 early part of the century are preserved in the 
 journals of Miss Sarah White. This maiden 
 lady was a very active member of society. 
 Her notes extend through a period of fifty 
 years. She was thoroughly versed in the af- 
 fairs of the town, and her means of gathering 
 information were characteristic. 
 
 It was an age when the tea-party was a 
 favorite form of dissipation. The reading of 
 Miss White's journal would convey the im- 
 pression that Fairfield society was kept in a 
 perfect whirl of tea-party gayeties. Cosey lit- 
 tle visits where the company numbered two, 
 the informal gathering of five or six friends, 
 the conventional afternoon when all society
 
 1 82 AN OLD NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 was present, these were the popular varieties. 
 " I took tea with Dr. Dodge [a brother of Wil- 
 liam E. Dodge] at Deacon Judson's," Miss 
 White observes. 
 
 Occasionally the festive company came to- 
 gether at mid-day and enjoyed an orthodox 
 New England dinner. Mrs. Dr. Hull was ac- 
 customed to give an annual noon feast to the 
 widows of Fairfield. This led Miss Mary Ho- 
 bart to do something in the same line, with a 
 certain important difference. If the widows 
 deserved such attention and enjoyment, she 
 was' persuaded that the spinsters deserved 
 something equally fine. So the maiden ladies 
 of Fairfield were all invited to dine with Miss 
 Hobart. Some wag rang the church bell at 
 noon in honor of the unique company. 
 
 Turkey was only eight cents a pound at this 
 time. It was the day of barter. " I bought a 
 pint of gin and some raisins, and paid for them 
 in eggs," writes the methodical Miss White. 
 She gives us many a fresh view into the cur- 
 rent of life.
 
 THE SOCIAL ATMOSPHERE. 183 
 
 Sunday night was the favorite wedding oc- 
 casion. As the people all kept Saturday even- 
 ing, the evening of the Lord's Day was some- 
 thing in the nature of holiday. It was not 
 considered a time to work, and yet the proper 
 number of hours had been devoted to rest and 
 worship. So there was a compromise, and the 
 evening was devoted to light tasks and social 
 activities. 
 
 Illumination was by means of candles. Peo- 
 ple made their own light, supplied themselves 
 with wood, did the family weaving at home, 
 raised a large portion of the produce consumed 
 in the house and on the place. It was, in fact, 
 the age of homespun. 
 
 Training day still continued an occasion of 
 frolic, although the great temperance move- 
 ment, which had been shared with such en- 
 thusiasm by Dr. Humphrey and Dr. Hewit, 
 had toned down the character of the fun and 
 frivolity. Aunt Dinah and Uncle Kit brought 
 their barrel of home-brewed beer on to the 
 meeting-house steps regularly each first Mon-
 
 1 84 AN OLD NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 day of May and September. They sold their 
 cards of gingerbread at two cents apiece, and 
 election cakes at five. The boys and the girls 
 watched the military display with the same 
 intense interest that had marked their ances- 
 tors for five generations ; and many a manly 
 heart beat with new life when admiring maid- 
 ens smiled their approval upon the favored hero. 
 
 Dancing and card-playing had been very 
 popular during the latter part of the eighteenth 
 century here in town. But popular amuse- 
 ments were again put under the ban by the 
 leaders of society. The hours and the ener- 
 gies that had been devoted to the important 
 matters of Church and State in earlier years 
 were now given to the consideration of the 
 small questions which have to do with neigh- 
 borhood relations. 
 
 The community life was familiar. Anything 
 that interested one person interested all. Per- 
 sonal and family affairs were everybody's busi- 
 ness. This is one of the chief advantages of 
 living in a small town. One can benefit by
 
 THE SOCIAL ATMOSPHERE. 185 
 
 the watchfulness and criticism of his neighbors. 
 Often friends will know more about a man's 
 business than the man himself. They take an 
 outside and disinterested view of the situation, 
 as it were, and gratuitously help a man to do 
 what he ought to do. City life has a tendency 
 to destroy this mutual oversight and fraternal 
 cooperation. 
 
 One of the features of Miss White's journal 
 is the concise way in which she refers to this 
 frequent duty and privilege of neighborhood 
 watch-care. They met at Mrs. A's or B's or 
 C's and " talked over the last candidate for the 
 church." He was " opposed by various people 
 because he was too dramatic." This candidate, 
 by the way, became an important and con- 
 spicuous minister later in life. 
 
 A collection was taken in church for the 
 Education Society. Miss White remarks 
 that she never will give to that object, for she 
 doesn't propose " to help support men." Rec- 
 ord is repeatedly made of a death on one day 
 and the burial on the next. The names of
 
 1 86 AN OLD NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 couples to be married are " published " on Sun- 
 day morning, and the connubial knot is tied on 
 the same Sunday evening. 
 
 Brief notes upon the preaching are made. 
 On one occasion it is recorded that Dr. Hewit 
 "preached rather a scolding sermon." Mr. 
 Hunter was famous for his sarcasm. He was 
 prone to hit right and left. On one particular 
 occasion, as he made his point in respect to 
 this and that and the other parishioner, a sym- 
 pathetic hearer in a front conspicuous pew 
 turned his head and nodded suggestively and 
 vehemently in the direction of the particular 
 individual who was hit by that special shaft of 
 wit. This gave unwonted interest and vivac- 
 ity to the sermon, and served to fasten the 
 truth permanently in the mind of the party 
 chiefly concerned. As an every-day and uni- 
 versal method of procedure, its wisdom and 
 charity may be questioned. But it certainly 
 contributed to the enjoyment and liveliness of 
 the town tea-parties, and helped to keep the 
 social life of the place from stagnation.
 
 THE SOCIAL ATMOSPHERE. 1 87 
 
 The second service in the parish church con- 
 tinued to be held in the afternoon. It was one 
 of these afternoons, May 3, 1835, when the inn 
 on the corner opposite the church was burned. 
 The Sunday-school was in session. The or- 
 dinary time for afternoon meeting was two 
 o'clock. For two hours the services were de- 
 layed, the men of the congregation lending a 
 hand in the saving of property ; but when the 
 flames had subsided, the bell was tolled, and 
 the people passed into the meeting-house for 
 the usual services. While the attention may not 
 have been close, doubtless the rest was grateful. 
 
 What a picture it makes, this long second 
 service on a hot summer day ! Here and there 
 a head suddenly yields to its weight and top- 
 ples over to one side. An occasional loud 
 blast indicates that some one has just awakened 
 out of a sleep and is trying to make people 
 think he is simply blowing his nose. Several 
 of the children have nestled down composedly 
 by the side of parents and are gathering 
 strength for coming frolics.
 
 1 88 AN OLD NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 The windows are open, and the gentle cackle 
 of ducks, with the sibilant hissing of geese, 
 floats upon the air. Two naughty boys in the 
 gallery have brought their fish-lines with them, 
 and, having baited them with the refuse of the 
 noonday lunch, they now slyly cast them forth 
 from the windows and dangle them enticingly 
 before the familiar fowls that domesticate 
 themselves upon the Green. A long pull and 
 a strong pull indicates that they have had a 
 bite. 
 
 One boy tumbles from his seat in the excite- 
 ment ; the other becomes suddenly sleepy ; 
 and the poor goose sets up a cry that sets off 
 all the fowls of the neighborhood. For a few 
 minutes the minister's voice is drowned by the 
 inexplicable hubbub beneath the meeting- 
 house windows. And yet the lessons of the 
 day are not forgotten. No sooner is the fam- 
 ily gathered in the home, than texts are recited, 
 the sermon discussed, the catechism taught, 
 and the nail of truth clinched, so to speak, by 
 the finishing touches of the home pressure.
 
 THE SOCIAL ATMOSPHERE. 189 
 
 A bundle of letters, yellow with age, gives 
 suggestive pictures of the period. One writer 
 speaks of the mild winter (1819). On February 
 7th people are ploughing the fields. Another 
 of our good ladies writes that it is a pity the 
 family is not in town, as they might " possibly 
 stand a chance to push off some of the old 
 maids" belonging to them. There are petty 
 disturbances recorded, so we have the satisfac- 
 tion of knowing that theft and iniquity are not 
 peculiarly town characteristics to-day. There 
 are quaint sketches of cottage routine, charita- 
 ble work, village frivolity, public events. One 
 has to use very little imagination to bring back 
 the early days of the century, and live at second 
 hand the life that was simple yet happy, hum- 
 drum yet fruitful, narrow yet satisfying. 
 
 A spiritual tone pervades much of the corre- 
 spondence, which testifies to a reaction from 
 the preceding skepticism. When the boys left 
 home for business, and they were doing that 
 sort of thing in the morning of the century 
 here in Fairfield, the fathers and the mothers
 
 AN OLD NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 yearned over them with a fervent Christian 
 affection. Some of these letters are fragrant 
 with the spirit of loyalty and consecration. 
 They show that while there was much of 
 gayety, sport, political activity, intellectual life, 
 in the town, there was also the grace of deep 
 religious sentiment, the uplook and the inspi- 
 ration of vital faith. 
 
 It is a fact well worth remembrance, that 
 such a condition of things was the result not 
 only of faithful service on the part of Fairfield 
 ministers, but quite as much the result of fine 
 and sterling Christian manhood on the part of 
 laymen. People are apt to ignore or under- 
 value the mercies and advantages which touch 
 them in the closest way. On the principle that 
 no man is a hero to his valet, we are prone to 
 think so much of what we have not got or do 
 not find, that we neglect the things quite as 
 precious which are distributed to us with 
 prodigal hand. 
 
 There has always been a high tone to life 
 here in town. The men that have won the
 
 THE SOCIAL ATMOSPHERE. 191 
 
 leadership through all these centuries have 
 been men of integrity, religious impulses, noble 
 mind. The matters which concern both Church 
 and State have been managed by individuals 
 that stood for righteousness. One after an- 
 other commanding personality, like Roger 
 Ludlow, Major Nathan Gold, Captain John 
 Burr, Governor Gold, Judge Peter Burr, Gen- 
 eral Silliman, Hon. Thaddeus Burr, Judge 
 Jonathan Sturges, Judge Roger M. Sherman 
 one after another layman of such stamp has 
 identified himself with the social, business, 
 political, and religious life of the town to such 
 an extent that affairs reveal a tone especially 
 notable and praiseworthy. 
 
 Judge Sherman used to say that " either 
 human nature was different in Fairfield than 
 elsewhere, or that the people from the frequent 
 exhibitions at the court-house had become 
 disgusted with law, or that his gratuitous 
 advice saved them from going to law ; certain 
 it was that there was less litigation here than 
 in any part of the country." The leading men
 
 192 AN OLD NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 have been Christian men, whether they were 
 farmers, lawyers, merchants, teachers, states- 
 men, generals, physicians, writers, bankers, or 
 whatever they were. It is reason for just 
 pride and unstinted gratitude that such men 
 have shaped the life of the town and given 
 their manhood to its prosperity.
 
 XI. 
 
 Judge Roger M. Sherman.
 
 XI. 
 
 JUDGE ROGER M. SHERMAN. 
 
 ONE is not surprised that Chauncey M. 
 Depew, William M. Evarts, and Senator Hoar 
 refer with keen satisfaction to their kinship 
 with Roger M. Sherman. The sister of Judge 
 Sherman married the Rev. Justus Mitchell, 
 an ancestor of these famous orators. 
 
 Judge Sherman himself was the son of a 
 minister, another illustration of the high favor 
 granted to the offspring of this poverty-stricken 
 class of men. In a recent letter to the writer 
 Senator Hoar observes : 
 
 " I have sometimes thought that the present 
 generation in Connecticut were not aware how 
 very great a man he was. I sat a few years 
 ago, at a Yale College commencement, be- 
 tween President Woolsey and the Rev. Leon-
 
 196 AN OLD NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 ard Bacon. Dr. Atwater sat right opposite, 
 so that all three joined in the conversation. 
 President Woolsey told me that Roger Minot 
 Sherman came nearer his conception of Cicero 
 than any other human being he had ever heard 
 speak. He said Mr. Sherman was unwilling 
 to speak anywhere but in court in his own 
 county. He was invited frequently to deliver 
 addresses or orations at Yale College, but 
 always refused. Dr. Atwater and Dr. Bacon 
 both assented very cordially to President 
 Woolsey's estimate of Mr. Sherman. 
 
 " When I was in Harvard Law School Pro- 
 fessor Greenleaf, one of the most famous 
 lawyers and jurists of the country, told the 
 class one day, in a lecture, that some years 
 before he was journeying in the summer in his 
 own carriage through Connecticut. He said 
 he stopped in Fairfield for dinner. While his 
 horse was being fed and dinner was getting 
 ready, he went to the court-house, where he 
 found Roger Minot Sherman and Judge Gould 
 arguing a case on opposite sides. He was so
 
 JUDGE ROGER M. SHERMAN. 197 
 
 interested in the argument that he remained 
 through the afternoon, and then in the town 
 during the entire week, for the purpose of hear- 
 ing these two gentlemen's legal discussions, 
 although he had intended to remain but an 
 hour or two. 
 
 " I also heard a story of an eminent New 
 York lawyer from whose clients a vessel, with 
 a valuable cargo, had been seized on a replevin 
 process. They thought they had a clear title, 
 and their lawyer visited the lawyer in Con- 
 necticut, under whose direction the suit had 
 been brought, expecting to get an easy and 
 favorable settlement. The Connecticut lawyer 
 really had no case. He had taken the opinion 
 of Roger Minot Sherman, who had so advised. 
 But he took the document and wrote on the 
 outside of it ' Roger Minot Sherman's Opinion,' 
 and put it on his table where the New York 
 lawyer could see it. The name caught the 
 eye of the New York lawyer, who thought his 
 antagonist had got Sherman's opinion and was 
 acting upon it. He was very much frightened,
 
 198 AN OLD NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 and supposed Sherman had given an opinion 
 favorable to his antagonist, and settled the suit 
 on good terms for the other side." 
 
 When Judge Sherman began the practice of 
 law in Fairfield, the town still held its own 
 among the centres of activity in Connecticut, 
 and yet it was rather by moral force, for the 
 trend of population was in other directions. 
 The quiet of the place and the intellectual 
 atmosphere were especially attractive to the 
 young practitioner. It mattered little to him 
 that business sought larger fields and better 
 opportunities. 
 
 " He was a profound metaphysician," says 
 the historian, " a scholar equal to the younger 
 Adams, who seemed more fitly than any other 
 man to represent the lawgiver, Roger Ludlow, 
 and to inhabit the town which he had planted." 
 It is interesting to note that these two men, 
 Ludlow and Sherman, have had as much or 
 more to do with the making of laws for this 
 Commonwealth than any other two men con- 
 nected with our history.
 
 JUDGE ROGER M. SHERMAN. 199 
 
 Mr. Sherman was not long established in his 
 practice ere he gave himself to the various 
 public interests of the town. He never sought 
 office. He often declined honors. But when 
 it was made evident that the people wished him 
 to serve in any particular capacity, and he felt 
 that it was within his power to serve, he mani- 
 fested a conscientious willingness. Moderator 
 of a town meeting, road commissioner, trustee 
 of the academy, member of the assembly, 
 deacon in the church, delegate to the Hartford 
 convention, judge of the Superior Court it 
 mattered not where he was placed. He was 
 faithful to his charge, and he contributed the 
 wealth of his rectitude and wisdom to the 
 problems given him to solve. 
 
 A rapid survey of his correspondence reveals 
 the breadth of his culture and influence. Gov- 
 ernor John Cotton Smith, Chauncey Goodrich, 
 Senator Hillhouse, Mr. Crawford (Secretary of 
 the Treasury), Sir Robert Peel, B. F. Butler, 
 President Dwight, Governor Seward, Charles 
 O'Conor, and scores of men prominent in
 
 2OO AN OLD NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 literature, science, law, religion, politics, educa- 
 tion, statesmanship, were accustomed to take 
 counsel with him on matters of state, national, 
 and international importance. 
 
 In 1823 a young man by the name of Ells- 
 worth wrote to Judge Sherman for advice 
 upon the choice of a profession. Young Ells- 
 worth was a man of fine character and good 
 promise. He was a lawyer, but the ministry 
 seemed to present the larger opportunities for 
 usefulness. Judge Sherman replied : " You 
 have devoted very successfully a valuable part 
 of life to the attainment of requisite qualifica- 
 tions for distinction and usefulness at the bar, 
 and if you persevere will soon arrive, with the 
 blessing of Providence, to highest rank in 
 the profession. . . . You ought to follow the 
 dictates of your own heart ; your inclination 
 should be your rule of duty ; you will be most 
 useful in the employment with which you are 
 most delighted." 
 
 It is pleasant to remember that Mr. Ells- 
 worth continued to shine with the light of
 
 JUDGE ROGER M. SHERMAN. 2OI 
 
 Christian manhood in the legal profession, and 
 that he became famous as professor of law, 
 member of Congress, governor of Connecticut, 
 and justice of the Supreme Court of the 
 United States. 
 
 In connection with this letter is another 
 upon the choice between the ministry and the 
 law. In reply to inquiries, Judge Sherman 
 observes : " All pious men in the profession of 
 law not only may, but many actually do, accom- 
 plish much for the interests of religion and 
 their country. In these respects I have no 
 reason to believe that their usefulness is un- 
 dervalued by the Christian community. But 
 whatever sincerity and zeal any of them may 
 profess, their means are comparatively limited. 
 Without the ministry, piety would languish 
 and ultimately expire ; the liberties of our 
 country not long survive. Jurists are neces- 
 sary to the administration of a good govern- 
 ment ; but the preaching of the gospel is 
 essential to its existence." 
 
 Letters of this sort were sent not infre-
 
 202 AN OLD NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 quently to all parts of the land. Now he 
 writes to Mr. Crawford, Secretary of the Treas- 
 ury, in reference to the United States Bank. 
 
 In 1837 ne writes to another Secretary of 
 the Treasury, Mr. Levi Woodbury, on " The 
 Enormous Expansion of the Currency beyond 
 Natural Limits." 
 
 Again, in 1841 and 1842, Judge Sherman 
 writes to set forth a " Plan for the Safe-keeping 
 and Disbursement of the Public Revenue, for 
 a Uniform Currency, and for facilitating Ex- 
 changes in the United States." This corres- 
 pondence was placed in the hands of the 
 chairman of the Finance Committee, both in 
 the Senate and the House ; and it was made 
 the basis for plans which these committees 
 reported to the two branches of Congress. 
 
 It is interesting to note that at one time a 
 nomination to the position of representative 
 in Congress was urged upon Judge Sherman, 
 but he declined. At a later date the oppor- 
 tunity came when the State would have been 
 glad to choose him to represent her in the
 
 JUDGE ROGER M. SHERMAN. 203 
 
 United States Senate ; but certain views which 
 Judge Sherman held were not agreeable to his 
 party, and he was not willing to compromise 
 his position. 
 
 It is evident that such a man must exert a 
 large and commanding influence in a commu- 
 nity. The lustre of his name was shared by the 
 town which made his home. Gideon Welles 
 once remarked that in his opinion Judge Sher- 
 man had but one peer as a lawyer in New 
 England, and that man was Daniel Webster. 
 Judge Osborne, who represented this district 
 in the House for four years, said that he had 
 found but one man the superior of Judge 
 Sherman, and that was the one already named, 
 Mr. Webster. 
 
 New York, Boston, the South, the West, 
 sent invitations to Judge Sherman, desiring 
 him to address them upon literary, ethical, 
 and political questions ; but he chose to tarry 
 at home, devoting himself to the narrow 
 round of agreeable tasks peculiar to his station 
 and opportunity in Fairfield and Connecticut.
 
 204 AN OLD NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 His devotion to local interests was unremitting. 
 The stamp of his personality was put upon 
 church life and social life. He conserved and 
 fostered that type of character which is the 
 consummate flower of the noblest Puritan tra- 
 ditions and influences. 
 
 It would scarcely seem fitting to speak of 
 the contributions made by Judge Sherman to 
 the life of Fairfield, and omit to say something 
 about the hospitable mansion which he built 
 and made his home. The amplitude and con- 
 spicuousness of it were unconsciously symbolic 
 of the great man living within its walls. At 
 the time the house was constructed it was 
 said to be the most elegant and imposing 
 residence in this section. 
 
 Tradition says that when the parlor carpets 
 ordered abroad arrived in Fairfield, it was dis- 
 covered they were some seven feet too long 
 for the rooms ; so it was decided to build an 
 extension at the end of each parlor, lengthen- 
 ing out the rooms to the required size. It is 
 not for the writer to assert the truth of this


 
 JUDGE ROGER M. SHERMAN. 20$ 
 
 tradition ; but certain it is that the wings were 
 added, and the rooms assumed the elongated 
 character described. At various periods there 
 were alterations a piazza here and there, an 
 extension, an additional cellar, so that there 
 were finally three, and other improvements. 
 
 The number of closets increased until the 
 time when the property was given into the 
 keeping of the Congregational church. At 
 that period the closets numbered sixty. They 
 were upstairs and downstairs, in the attic and 
 in the cellars, out of the living-rooms and out 
 of the chambers closets in closets, and closets 
 in closets in closets. 
 
 That generous and noble woman, Mrs. Sher- 
 man, daughter of Judge Gould, of Litchfield, 
 was an invalid during the latter years of her 
 life, so she was not able to go into the second 
 story of the mansion. Nevertheless we are 
 told that she kept exact account of all the con- 
 tents carefully stored in this numerous family 
 of closets ; and it was her sweet delight to 
 dispense linen, preserves, flannels, calico, herbs,
 
 206 AN OLD NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 pickles, cotton cloth, hams, and other like com- 
 modities, treasured in separate closets, to a 
 numerous and appreciative constituency of 
 friends or dependents. The beneficence of 
 Mrs. Sherman was limited only by the size and 
 number of her closets. That she was a woman 
 of remarkable mind is evidenced by the fact 
 that she carried in memory this whole laby- 
 rinth of closet mystery. 
 
 Her successors in the mansion have set the 
 limit of closets at forty or thereabouts ; but 
 admiration of Mrs. Sherman increases year by 
 year, as memory fails to keep account of two- 
 thirds the number she arranged. 
 
 When on occasion the parsonage children 
 disappear for hours, and an unnatural, mys- 
 terious silence pervades that realm, and it is 
 at length discovered that the children are 
 simply lost, as it were, in the home territory 
 of some far distant and not recently explored 
 closet ; or when on some other occasion the 
 parsonage dog is conspicuous by his absence, 
 and the neighborhood is explored by anxious
 
 JUDGE ROGER M. SHERMAN. 2O/ 
 
 friends, and his departure widely advertised, 
 and on the second or third day the search 
 party call to mind that they forgot to investi- 
 gate closet number thirty-seven, and after a 
 hasty and thorough inspection of the same 
 the modest animal is found quietly sleeping in 
 a most agreeable retirement from the trouble- 
 some world ; or when a new dress has been 
 secreted with such discriminating sagacity that 
 the person who secretes it loses all traces of 
 journey to the place of security, forgets all 
 about the dress itself, and some two . years 
 later, in a fit of interesting research, conies 
 suddenly upon the garment, only to find that 
 the children have all outgrown it, and it must 
 now be kept for the grandchildren or sent 
 down to the Fresh Air Home ; when experi- 
 ences of the kind just noted occur, and recur, 
 and concur, the tribute to Mrs. Sherman's 
 genius is only matched by the frank expres- 
 sions of shame and contempt which the pres- 
 ent successors of the saintly Lady Bountiful 
 heap upon themselves.
 
 208 AN OLD NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 There are worse things than having forty or 
 sixty closets in a house. The having none at 
 all. for instance. So the minister submits with 
 grace, cultivating a spirit of levity, in so far as 
 that is possible, when a dog, a child, a book, a 
 suit of clothes, a piece of jewelry, a pot of jam, 
 next Sunday's sermon, or some other piece of 
 property goes into strict retirement for a week, 
 or a year. There is a settled conviction that 
 sooner or later somebody will come across 
 the missing article. One has a feeling that 
 he has the thing in his possession, and that 
 it is perfectly safe ; but just at the moment, 
 through some mental aberration or aggravated 
 imbecility, he is not able to put his hands 
 upon it. 
 
 But the goodness of Judge Sherman and 
 his wife is not to be measured by this hospi- 
 table mansion. Their good-will was expressed 
 by the gift of a farm. 
 
 Doubtless they saw, as it were, in a bright 
 vision, the light-hearted minister of the parish 
 rising with the birds on a May morning and
 
 JUDGE ROGER M. SHERMAN. 209 
 
 hastening forth into the fields with all the 
 ardor of youth. Was it grass, wheat, potatoes, 
 or onions that the theological tiller of the soil 
 sought with such enthusiasm ? It mattered 
 not, so long as the faithful minister set his 
 people a notable example of early hours, en- 
 joyed delectable intimacy with nature, and 
 revelled in the profits of enormous crops. 
 
 What did it concern him as to salary or no 
 salary? Did he not have the farm to fall back 
 upon, and would not this large income from 
 the fruit of the ground enable him to keep his 
 carriage or take an occasional trip to Europe ? 
 Little did these generous people, with all their 
 forethought and imagination, conceive the 
 worth of this precious estate to their suc- 
 cessors. 
 
 Let one throw aside all consideration of 
 the immense pecuniary benefit, and dwell upon 
 accompanying advantages. Is not the ampli- 
 tude of the domain like a subtle influence 
 upon the personality of the minister? Room 
 for growth ; perpetual encouragement to ex- 
 14
 
 2IO AN OLD NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 pansion, through this affiliation with broad 
 acres. 
 
 And what an opportunity for children ? 
 Field upon field in which to ramble, fence 
 upon fence to demolish, infinite variety of 
 weeds to classify and become familiar with, a 
 skating park in the winter, a safe pond where 
 they can all get speedily and satisfactorily 
 soaked in the springtime, baseball grounds 
 through the summer, and always a retired and 
 sacred place where the whole family can wan- 
 der on Sunday afternoons and hide the mis- 
 chief, racket, and general desolation which 
 appertain to that particular period on the 
 calendar. 
 
 Think also of the farm as a means of disci- 
 pline. It is a Lord's Day morning, and the 
 minister has just donned his best go-to-meeting 
 coat, when the cry is raised that the calf has 
 escaped into the garden, and the mother cow 
 is exercising her lungs and her heels to the full 
 extent of the law in her chase after the wan- 
 dering and frisky offspring. The minister pro-
 
 JUDGE ROGER M. SHERMAN. 211 
 
 ceeds to join the general disturbance ; and 
 just as the last bell rings, the worshippers in 
 this land of steady habits gaze in amazement 
 upon the whole parsonage contingent, headed 
 by the minister himself, engaged in what ap- 
 pears to be a wild game of tag or fox-and- 
 geese. A discipline in patience ! 
 
 Consider the self-control which such circum- 
 stances develop. The children of the com- 
 munity take happy possession of the fields, 
 leave the bars down and the gates open, and 
 the domestic animals vote to take a walk and 
 a run through town by way of relaxation and 
 variety. The news is hastily conveyed to the 
 student buried in his books. This is a busi- 
 ness which requires haste : so without change 
 of garments he starts in pursuit, sending some 
 seven or ten interested and excited helpers in 
 as many directions in order to gather up the 
 wandering animals. Just in the heat, dust, 
 confusion, of the swift and successful capture 
 of the strayed stock, some of the city brethren 
 drive down the street, and, meeting the caval-
 
 212 AN OLD NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 cade, look with amazement if not alarm upon 
 the hardly distinguishable features of the min- 
 ister, as he seeks to avoid their gaze, and then 
 hears the remark, made with something of sly 
 wit and cunning reproach in it, " I wonder if 
 the pastor of the old church is going into the 
 cattle business ? " 
 
 Patience, self-control, fellow-feeling. For 
 when the minister farms it, he watches the 
 skies in time of drought, and most earnestly 
 desires rain ; and when the season is wet, he 
 most earnestly desires dry weather. When 
 frost and hail and blight and wind come, he 
 goes among the people with the same worn 
 and helpless expression of countenance. 
 
 But it is needless to dwell upon the matter 
 further. The noble judge and his gracious 
 lady did a fine thing in bequeathing all these 
 properties and possibilities to the minister. 
 When we look upon the two beautiful por- 
 traits which adorn the east parlor of the old 
 mansion, and catch something of inspiration 
 from the two notable faces which look down
 
 JUDGE ROGER M. SHERMAN. 213 
 
 upon us ; when we gaze dreamily upon the old 
 clock which fills the corner of the west parlor, 
 and think upon the history which it has seen 
 made, and the famous people it has watched in 
 social fellowship with the master of the house 
 well, it all quickens gratitude, and works to 
 personal enrichment. We rejoice in the memo- 
 ries which cluster about Sherman parsonage. 
 
 It was when the judge was gone that the 
 court-house and jail were removed to Bridge- 
 port. The struggle was a characteristic one 
 while it waged. The daughter settlement had 
 outstripped the mother colony in respect to 
 numbers and enterprise. Business centred in 
 the neighboring city ; and Bridgeport said 
 that she must have the county buildings. 
 Hon. John Gould headed the opposition, and 
 he with other citizens worked faithfully in 
 behalf of Fairfield ; but it proved a losing bat- 
 tle. The old town lost one of its most inter- 
 esting features when the courts convened no 
 more in the little hall on the Green. It came 
 like a break with the past. And this enforced
 
 214 AN OLD NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 gift to Bridgeport was to be followed by gifts 
 of territory and men, until it might almost 
 appear that the old town herself had reached 
 over to the city and quietly taken possession 
 in the name of an honored and illustrious past. 
 The first jail or prison in town was built in 
 1679. This building was set on fire by a pris- 
 oner, and burned to the ground. A second 
 one was soon erected. Destroyed by the Brit- 
 ish, this jail was replaced by another structure. 
 The last one was constructed of brick in 1853, 
 or partly constructed. For it was at this date 
 that the county buildings were removed to 
 Bridgeport, and the old jail property was 
 transformed a little later into an edifice de- 
 voted to more worshipful purposes.
 
 XII. 
 
 Historic Memories and Rural Inspirations.

 
 XII. 
 
 HISTORIC MEMORIES AND RURAL 
 INSPIRATIONS. 
 
 THE life of this old New England town has 
 had an indefinable charm. The present gene- 
 ration still reads Miss Mitford's " Our Village" 
 with delight. And while Fairfield boasted a 
 culture surpassed not a whit by neighboring 
 cities, she still retained that simplicity and 
 freedom of spirit which it is so difficult to pre- 
 serve amid the exacting demands of great 
 business and social centres. 
 
 Nature had dealt generously with the village, 
 and people prized her friendship. To be sure, 
 it was Nature unadorned, for the days had not 
 come when men spent much time upon well- 
 trimmed lawns and landscape-gardening. But 
 even in this respect Fairfield was ahead of her
 
 218 AN OLD NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 neighbors. It may not have been expedient 
 for Mr. Hunter to speak with such wit and 
 sarcasm concerning old fences, brier-grown 
 yards, neglected burial grounds, slipshod 
 houses, but the people early manifested a 
 spirit of community pride and service. 
 
 When Mr. Jonathan Sturges laid out the 
 grounds of his place, a landscape-gardener was 
 employed, and the first work of the kind done 
 in this section of the country became an object 
 lesson of incalculable value to the State. The 
 same spirit which prompted Dr. Samuel Os- 
 good, later in the century, to devote many 
 happy hours to giving Nature a chance to do 
 her best and shine her untrammelled beauty 
 into the eyes of men, that same spirit mani- 
 fested itself on occasion during the early days. 
 But the venerable trees, the old-fashioned 
 flower-gardens, the open Green, the many 
 singing birds, the changeful sea, the beautiful 
 hills that protected portions of the town, the 
 well-tilled acres, and the broad pasture lands 
 where lazy herds of cattle quietly grazed or
 
 HISTORIC MEMORIES. 219 
 
 flocks of sheep were shepherded by the boys 
 these things gave an air of comfort, inspiration, 
 enjoyment, infinitely suggestive and restful. 
 
 Family life was sweet and eventful. Did 
 Tom, Dick, or Harry desire to push fur- 
 ther into the world than farming or the law 
 gave them opportunity, they had simply to go 
 out to the suburbs of Fairfield, and business 
 opened before them with promise. 
 
 There was Southport, scarcely a stone's 
 throw from Fairfield, a thriving, lively little 
 borough. The regard of the mother village 
 for her offspring was so deep that she gave 
 Trinity Church to the new borough. Fearing 
 that one ecclesiastical organization might not 
 be able to cope with the powers of darkness 
 and the inherent tendencies to evil of the 
 neighbors by Pequot swamp, the mother 
 church again contributed a part of her life 
 to form another body of the Congregational 
 order, and a blessing was pronounced upon the 
 missionary task. 
 
 Another suburb of Fairfield that afforded a
 
 22O AN OLD NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 fine chance for a young man was the lively 
 and ambitious city of Bridgeport. When the 
 people on the borders wanted to form a church 
 and support a minister, in 1695, our town was 
 opposed to it. The people were loath to part 
 with these good neighbors. But better coun- 
 sel prevailed, and the first church of Strathfield, 
 or Bridgeport, was formed. When it came to 
 a desire for more territory, during this century, 
 Fairfield was well disposed toward this par- 
 ticular suburb. A generous portion of land 
 was handed over to the enterprising young 
 city. With such gift the growth and activity 
 of the place seemed quickened in correspond- 
 ing measure. So our youth were enabled to 
 turn their minds to trade and manufacture 
 with ease if they so elected. 
 
 When any son of these old and respected 
 families yearned for richer pastures and dreamed 
 of grander scenes, he had simply to push a 
 little farther in a suburban direction and he 
 came to New York. So it occurred that time 
 after time, when the home, the academy, nature,
 
 HISTORIC MEMORIES. 221 
 
 and society here in Fairfield had done their 
 best to equip the boy, he would go down to 
 the great metropolis, fling himself with enthu- 
 siasm into the work, and make a fortune and a 
 name that rendered him conspicuous in the land. 
 Then came the glad return to the place of na- 
 tivity, a fresh courtship of health, beauty, and 
 peace by seaside and in familiar fields or forests. 
 It was a beautiful tribute which the poet, 
 William Cullen Bryant, paid to Mr. Jonathan 
 Sturges, one of these boys that pushed for 
 larger opportunities. The occasion was the 
 retirement of this honored citizen from active 
 business. " I shall not offend, I hope, the 
 modesty of our friend," observed Mr. Bryant, 
 " if I congratulate his friends here assembled 
 that he has closed a long and prosperous 
 course of business without yielding to its 
 temptations and with a perfectly unsullied 
 character." It is such contributions that the 
 country is all the time making to our cities. 
 Brooklyn honors the distinguished lawyer, 
 Benjamin D. Silliman, with a public dinner,
 
 222 AN OLD NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 and she speaks gratefully of her indebtedness 
 to the old New England town. 
 
 When these men return to the place of na- 
 tivity it becomes their joy and pride to put 
 into tangible forms the deep affection which 
 sweetens life. An institution like the Pequot 
 Library, founded by honored philanthropists, 
 named to commemorate the conflict with the 
 Indians in 1637, is a precious fruitage of this 
 noble spirit called local patriotism. Several 
 of the public roads which thread their way 
 along our levels or run back into our hills wit- 
 ness to the same generous and loyal spirit ; 
 while such a structure as our vine-clad sixth 
 sanctuary, with its setting of restful verdure 
 and its company of stately tree sentinels, is a 
 most beautiful memorial to the good, the true, 
 the learned, the eminent, of the past, reared 
 by the reverent devotion of many sons and 
 daughters who treasure the inspirations which 
 are fountained in by-gone generations. 
 
 Through these years there has been such 
 intimacy between the old town and the grow-
 
 J 
 
 .-N 
 
 V
 
 HISTORIC MEMORIES. 223 
 
 ing centres of business, education, professional 
 activity, that never a sign of stagnation appears. 
 It was not an uninteresting and monotonous life 
 which the people lived during these later days. 
 
 The tea-party still continued a popular and 
 useful mode of entertainment. Who could 
 make the most kinds of the best cake, was a 
 question that required perpetual readjustment. 
 The flavor of chipped beef and the quality of 
 preserves were matters frequently discussed. 
 But these things were incidental. People met 
 for the afternoon that they might canvass the 
 diverse and multifarious interests of the com- 
 munity and the nation. Newspapers were not 
 the every-day thing that they now are. Con- 
 versation still supplied the place of periodicals 
 to a large extent. 
 
 Then there came the weekly " sewing socie- 
 ties " for the ladies, and the occasional " bees " 
 for the men. When a building was to be 
 raised, it was considered a community affair. 
 It is a fact that often the assembled citizens 
 did more than raise the building ; that is to
 
 224 AN OLD NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 say, we have it recorded that on many an occa- 
 sion they " raised Cain " as well. For these 
 good people were nothing if not hospitable on 
 such days. Happy thing was it for the town, 
 if no more than one leg was broken, or rib 
 crushed, or head smashed, by a fall from some 
 dizzy height. And there was the annual wood- 
 cutting, with a sort of donation for the minister, 
 when everybody brought something or nothing, 
 and tried hard not to carry away from the 
 festivity more than he had brought to it. 
 
 There was also the singing school. It 
 would be an unpardonable omission, and a 
 notably incomplete picture of the times, did 
 one forget these occasions when music and 
 courtship mingled in varying proportions and 
 furnished unlimited food for gossip, conjecture, 
 anticipation. These were the good old times. 
 A large proportion of the young people had 
 voices ; and the unlucky ones that did not 
 have voices knew some one that did, so that 
 it was necessary for the second class to be on 
 hand that they might look after the first.
 
 HISTORIC MEMORIES. 22$ 
 
 Music appeals to the emotional nature. Is 
 it a wonder that tragedy and comedy found 
 places in these little neighborhood gatherings ? 
 All the arts and artifices peculiar to the two 
 sexes during the mating period of life were 
 manifest in their manifold variations on these 
 eventful occasions. What was said or what 
 was left unsaid, what one did and what another 
 didn't do, how such an one looked and how 
 another one acted well, it is the familiar 
 story that is told time out of mind by people 
 in the same interesting condition. For it is 
 true, as Emerson says, that " all mankind love 
 a lover." The larger freedom of these gather- 
 ings made them happily convenient for those 
 significant and delicious love passes which were 
 not congenial to the parlor, when the parents 
 and small children were close at hand to note 
 each tell-tale look, word, act. 
 
 We are also to bear in mind that Fairfield 
 
 contained the usual number of interesting 
 
 people. It is not necessary for a New Eng- 
 
 lander to have any nasal dialect, and illiterate 
 
 15
 
 226 AN OLD NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 way of modifying or eliding consonants and 
 vowels, in order to be stamped as queer. Peo- 
 ple of cultivation, social standing, wealth, 
 influence, have their peculiarities. So that 
 life here yielded its harvest of characteristic 
 men and women. Many are the memories 
 and anecdotes of these people. Humor 
 and pathos, pride and humility, sorrow and 
 joy, sunshine and shower, they all appear 
 in these personal narratives. A very rich 
 treasure of character sketches might be gath- 
 ered. 
 
 The academy gave its impulse to society. 
 Books multiplied in the pleasant homes of the 
 people. There were lectures upon the various 
 questions of the day. Ministers like Dr. 
 Humphrey, who became president of Amherst 
 College ; Dr. Hewit, who was promoted from 
 Fairfield to Boston ; Dr. Atwater, who served 
 the Prime Ancient Society here nineteen years 
 and then went to Princeton College as profes- 
 sor of mental and moral philosophy ministers 
 like these gathered about them kindred spirits
 
 HISTORIC MEMORIES. 22? 
 
 and communicated intellectual as well as moral 
 vitality. 
 
 And there were many eminent visitors from 
 all parts of the country who continued to make 
 Fairfield a kind of Mecca for occasional pil- 
 grimages. If people could not live here all 
 the year, there were those that counted them- 
 selves happy when it was permitted them to 
 live here a part of the year. Good men 
 and true women, who found life's demands 
 such that they were not able to live here any 
 part of the year, turned with infinite loyalty 
 and affection toward Fairfield during the last 
 days on earth, and were glad to die here or be 
 buried beneath its precious sod. Unto how 
 many people did the rarely beautiful old town 
 come to be like an earthly paradise ! 
 
 The great busy world might sweep onward 
 along the ways of traffic, conflict, ambition. 
 But there was one old New England town 
 begemmed with all the adornments of affluent 
 nature. To the witchery of changeful skies, and 
 the endless variations of form and color in
 
 228 AN OLD NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 landscape, there were added the many moods 
 of the seasons, as they shifted from sad to gay, 
 from passion of April to fretfulness of Novem- 
 ber, from a February thaw to a perfect June 
 day, from the riot of a March tempest to the 
 glory of an October sunset. There were the 
 broad streets guarded by the stately lines of 
 ancient elms and maples, their graceful branches 
 reaching across to each other and getting 
 lovingly entwined, so that the blue of the sky 
 and the sheen of the sun were only occasionally 
 seen through the vivid, green of the living 
 archway. There were pleasant homes framed 
 by generous yards, reposing amid a luxury of 
 manifold trees. There were the songful birds, 
 freely contributing their gayety and inspiration 
 to the scene, now one company lingering a few 
 days or a few weeks, and then another com- 
 pany coming on to take their places. There 
 was the sea, averse to monotony, now blue, 
 now green, now silver, now gold, flashing back 
 into the eyes at eventide all the glory of rain- 
 bows, at one hour sweetly tranquil, at another
 
 HISTORIC MEMORIES. 229 
 
 hour wildly riotous, alternately fondling and 
 abusing those who trusted themselves to her, 
 the subdued melancholy of quiet days shading 
 off into the strong, solemn, majestic symphony 
 of the tempest. 
 
 Amid these scenes there seemed to tarry a 
 throng of honored men and women. Their 
 work, sacrifice, character, had all been wrought 
 into the fame of the place. Their virtues con- 
 tinued to diffuse benedictions. Their spirit 
 still gave tone to life and rendered sacred the 
 ancient place. Historic memories, rural inspi- 
 rations, patriotic impulses, blended into pure 
 white light, making this old New England town 
 a bright, particular star in the firmament of 
 the State. 
 
 Such contribution to the good of men and 
 the glory of this Republic has been made by 
 one fair, quiet village of the Pilgrim and the 
 Puritan. The work achieved by this particular 
 town is a type of the work done by other New 
 England villages. The current of vital influ- 
 ences pressing through the stream of time from
 
 230 AN OLD NEW ENGLAND TOWN. 
 
 old Fairfield is like to many another current of 
 vital influences whose fountain is Plymouth, 
 Litchfield, Concord, Lenox. These venerable 
 and famous centres of life have taken an im- 
 portant part in the shaping of individual and 
 national destiny. It is for the true American 
 to foster this unique phase of life. 
 
 Larger and larger are the demands which 
 the city makes upon the country. May the 
 old New England town continue its generous 
 gifts to the commercial, intellectual, and spir- 
 itual development of our beloved land. May 
 the men who were born in these sequestered, 
 beautiful places return with loyalty to the 
 familiar associations, and write their gratitude 
 in the tangible form of rural improvements 
 and praiseworthy institutions.
 
 A 000 105 143 2