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The Building of Norwalk

1651-1901

Augustus Field Beard

HISTORICAL ADDRESS
IN
COMMEMORATION OF THE
Two Hundred and Fiftieth Anniversary
OF THE
FOUNDING OF NORWALK
SEPTEMBER ELEVENTH, 1651.

DELIVERED IN THE

ARMORY IN NORWALK, SEPTEMBER ELEVENTH, 1901

Augustus Field Beard, D.D.
Of Norwalk, Conn.

Published by the Committee of the
NorwalkJiistorical Association.

YAiE-

0173.^71

The Building of Norwalk.

The founders of Norwalk were not an aesthetic
people, but they must have recognized and rejoiced
in the natural beauty of their location. There was
enough to excite the admiration of the pioneers in the
landscapes which greeted them — the outlook on the
beautiful inland sea, with the islands like pearls on its
bosom, the indented shores beckoning the crested waves
and setting the bounds to their welcome. But the de
lightful landscapes of to-day were to them not alto
gether gladsome. Wild nature at once made a sharp
challenge upon their courage and patience. Great
tracts of unbroken wooded country confronted them.
In the openings of the forest, weeds and thorns, decay
ing and decayed wood from fallen trees — the debris of
centuries — swamps from undrained land, like one vast
sponge, hoarding the rains of summer and treasuring
the snows of winter, asked for something other than
pleasant emotions from these rugged men and brave
women, heroic together in their faith and enterprise.
Here, where since creation no man ever built a home —
unless the wigwam of the restless Indian might be
called a home — came thirty families to put smiles and
laughter in our landscapes as they reclaimed the wilder
ness. Let us look at these, our ancestors. To do so we
must remember that their settlement here was not im
provised when they came from Hartford and Windsor.

The events which both formed their characters and
shaped their history, had their roots extending quite as
widely into times before their day as the branches have
stretched out since they came. Great influences had
been working in patient continuity through centuries,
never halting in God's purpose and never abrupt in
their movements, by which their minds were met,
directed and prepared for the events which asked for
their choices and their decisions. Like other, settle
ments of this period, the story of Norwalk has a great
background of history.
To interrogate it no further back than when our
ancestors were children, we find a wonderful age of
mental activity in England, which had its far begin
nings in the renaissance — the revival of learning —
in Europe. With this quickening of intellectual life
came a new intelligence, with a remarkable succession
of inventions and discoveries, and, better yet, with new
conceptions of life and of the religious freedom and
responsibility of man, which began to change the whole
order of society and to widen the whole domain of
thought and inquiry. England especially felt this new
mental energy. But with this quickening of popular
thought came conflict between the old tyrannies over
the minds of men and the new forces of intelligence :
a growing demand for personal, religious and political
liberty, and a determined and cruel resistance to this
demand, which in the time of our ancestors made the
pages of England a crimson history. The chariot wheels
of God do not turn backward, and when people had
come to realize that the divine right of many not only
is better but also has better foundations than the divine
right of any one, though he may be seated on a throne,
no penalties could convince them to the contrary, and

exile in a wilderness inhabited only by savage men and
savage beasts seemed happiness in comparison with the
surrender of their convictions. It was this spirit which
peopled the rocky coasts of Plymouth in 1620, and later
in 1630 sent the succeeding colonies to Salem, Charles-
town, Boston, Watertown, Mystic, Dorchester and
Lynn, in the Massachusetts Bay Company, with its
seventeen ships, and John Winthrop, Governor, and
Roger Ludlow, one of the Magistrates.
The leaders of this Company were remarkable
men. Roger Ludlow, now forty years of age, was
one of these leaders. The followers were not quite
ordinary men. They were men of strong character,.
picked men, though most of them had ordinary attain
ments. They had taken on the healthy discontent at
home. They had been inoculated with the ideas of
religious freedom and political liberty. They saw no
future for themselves or for their descendants at home.
They came here for a future. Their thoughts went
beyond the limits of the present. Nor is it necessary
to beheve that in their heavenly considerations they
were altogether oblivious of earthly advantages. Not a
few of those who hungered and thirsted after righteous
ness had the land hunger also, and were willing to work
for both together in the wilderness. They could only look
at the land in England ; they could get it here. This is
not to say that no mere adventurers worked themselves
in. The river which starts from the pure streams of
the everlasting hills, on its onward sweep to the sea,.
always bears upon it not only the rich freights of com
merce, but also the logs and rubbish which have f alien-
in. This colonization, however, was comparatively free
from restless and unstable elements.
This Bay Colony settled mainly in Dorchester, and

here Roger Ludlow lived four years. He was honored
in Dorchester, but not enough for his ambitions. Disap
pointed, he turned his thoughts to the formation of a
Colony on the Connecticut River, and finally gained
permission for this. Many followed him in this new
emigration, and after a fourteen days' journey — for they
did not take the express trains, which now make it in
four hours — they came to their destinations. The party
divided, some choosing Hartford, some Wethersfield,
and others going with Ludlow to Windsor. Here he
was again recognized by the Connecticut colony for his
masterly ability, and became Deputy Governor; but
feeling that he was not recognized enough, after four
years at Windsor, as at Dorchester, he sought new con
ditions. The General Court at Hartford granted him
a commission to begin a plantation at Pequannocke,
now Bridgeport. Instead of doing this he settled at
what is now Fairfield, giving its name. For exceeding
his commission he was reprimanded by the General
Court, but his purchase was confirmed, and, though
irregular, was sagacious.
On February 26, 1640, he was residing in Fairfield,
for it was then — apparently on his own personal respon
sibility, also — that he purchased from the Indians of
Norwalk the territory which now constitutes the east
ern part of it, viz.: "the grounds between the Twoe
Rivers, the one called Norwalke, the other Soakatuck
to the middle of sayed Rivers a day's walke into the
country." As the name of Roger Ludlow is inseparably con
nected with the beginnings of Norwalk, it may be well
to follow his history. He was either Assistant or
Deputy Governor of Connecticut every year for nine
teen years. In 1639 it was he who drew the Constitu-

tion of Connecticut under which our fathers lived,
which continued in force, with scarcely any alterations,
for one hundred and eighty years, and which historians
unite to say is " the first written Constitution known to
history which created a Government," and which made
Connecticut absolutely a State. " It embodied all the
essential features of subsequent States, and gave to
Connecticut a pre-eminent place in Constitutional his
tory." This Constitution received its chief inspiration
from the greatest mind in Connecticut at this time,
the Rev. Thomas Hooker, of Hartford; but it called
for the first legal mind in New England to give this
Constitution form and expression, and justly ranks him
as the greatest lawyer in the Colonies and among the
leading statesmen of his age.
On the 20th of April following Ludlow's purchase
Capt, Daniel Patrick secured a deed from the Indians
" from the middle of the river to a western bound
called Noewanton," including two islands, and " as farr
up in the country as an Indian can goe in a day, from
sun risinge to sun settinge." This Patrick, a soldier
by profession and a soldier of fortune by nature and
character, was one of the drifts into the Bay Colony
and had drifted here. He came to a violent death,
the record reading: "He was killed by a Dutchman,
who shot him dead with a pistol."
Ludlow held his purchase for ten years, when he
sold it to the founders of Norwalk for the sum of /15,
which included interest, with the principal for his
original outlay. History does not tell us who may
have projected the settlement of Norwalk. We only
know that Ludlow, having reserved a lot for his sons,
young lads at this date, to the value of /200, made
over the deed to the territory here, stipulating that the

8
plantation should be begun within a given time, to be
taken up by no less than thirty families, and that, once
here, they should invite an orthodox and approved min
ister " with all convenient speed." Moreover, that "they
will not receive in any that they be obnoxious to the
publique good of the Commonwealth of Connecticut."
These conditions were inserted in Ludlow's deed in ac
cordance with a Connecticut law at that time, which was
that before a company should be allowed to enter upon
the work of a new settlement, the General Court re
quired that they should prove themselves capable of
colonizing a town and of maintaining a minister.
Nathaniel Ely and Richard Olmstead, in behalf of
themselves and others, at a session of the General
Court of Connecticut, obtained " approbation of the
Court for the planting of Norwalk," having made the
previous arrangement with Roger Ludlow for his
interests on the east side of the river.
Ludlow continued to live in Fairfield until 1654,
when for raising a little home-made army on his own
account, to make war on the Dutch — a rash act but in
spired by patriotism — he again incurred the displeasure
of the General Court at Hartford and again received
a reprimand. This, and the fact that he had just been
fined at New Haven for telling a woman she lied —
which was probably correct — and for suggesting that
she was a witch — and she was queer — made him par
ticularly sore. Feeling that he was unjustly humiliated
and had lost his prestige, he determined to return to
England, which he did.
Roger Ludlow possessed many elements of great
ness. He was a man of political sagacity and prophetic
vision, and was a sound exponent of political and re
ligious liberty. The fact that he was mentally arbi-

trary, and indisposed to allow authority to stand in the
way of his personal wishes, stood in his way, and in the
way of his highest ambitions. When he left the col
ony under a sense of injury and disappointment, he
also left it under lasting obligations for the twenty-
four years of his eventful and fruitful life in it, which
merit and will have the acknowledgments of candid
history. I would be glad if I could, to claim so famous a
man as Roger Ludlow as the founder of Norwalk.
All that history says is, that Ludlow purchased of the
Indians the eastern part of Norwalk and resold it to
the planters. Whatever this transaction makes him in
relation to Norwalk, that he was. There is nothing
easier to believe than that we would like to believe.
He certainly is entitled to be called the Founder of
Fairfield. For one I am not gifted with sufficient
creative, or at least, interpretative imagination to en
able me to call him the founder of Norwalk.
These planters also obtained a confirmation to
themselves of Capt. Patrick's purchase, and on the
February following, secured a deed from Ruckineage
and other Indians for an additional tract west of Pat
rick's purchase at Routon.
The spring of 1651 found the planters on their
way here, with their slim household effects and their
cattle. The women rode on horses, the men tramped,
and all encamped where night overtook them, until
they reached this promised land. Tradition — which is
doubtless well founded — has it, that they were wel
comed by some who had spent the previous winter
here, anticipating the necessities of the company.
They were as to age mostly in middle life. They were
families. Of those fearless women who bore their

lO

husbands' names history is silent. It were fairer his
tory had it told us something of the fairer part of that
company who bore their full share in the sacrifices of
those early days, and without whom the settlement here
would have been impossible.
These Norwalk planters did not have among them
eminent men. They were simply honest, earnest Eng
lishmen and women, who in their early years had
shown character and resolution enough to break with
hostile conditions, and to leave a land that was unkind.
Hollister — the historian of Connecticut — finds, how
ever, that " more than four-fifths of the early landed
proprietors of Hartford, Wethersfield and Windsor" —
whence came our ancestors — "belonged to families
which had arms granted to them in Great Britain."
Whatever their ancestry, they were here, battling with
nature, making for themselves not the records of family
pedigree, but the patents of extraordinary history.
Their home discontent was quickened, no doubt, by
the instinct of colonization, which is natural to many,
and which enables us to understand in part, why it was,
that after previous settlements had become comfort
able, so many were moved to leave them and to pene
trate anew into the deeper wilderness west. It was the
stirring of that same instinct which has ever since been
whispering of boundless possibilities further on, in the
magic words " go west," and which beginning with the
Pilgrims, has belted the continent with their descend
ants and their ideas. Our ancestors read in their
Bibles — their one book, which they literally accepted —
" The earth is the Lord's." They had the assurance
that they were the Lord's people. They read, " The
meek shall inherit the earth," and they appropriated
both th'e text and the territory.

1 1

The names of Norwalk's founders are in the ancient
records. Among them are some very familiar now.
Fitch, Marvin, Gregory, Hoyt, Bouton, Ely, Holmes,
Keeler, Morgan, Olmstead, Richards, St. John, Sey
mour, and a little later, Benedict, Betts, Belden, Church,
Comstock, Ketchara, Lockwood, Nash, Raymond,
Stewart and Taylor.
Once here and organized, the " Towne Street " was
staked out, that part of East avenue which extends
from the ancient burial ground to the top of Earl Hill.
Home lots were assigned, other land being held in
common. The limitation af about four acres was for
the sake of compactness and common safety. It is
pleasant for us to be able accurately to locate these
early homes.
The building of their shelters was the first neces
sity. This meant the beginning of the end of the for
ests. The trees swayed and fell, but with their de
parted pride came their usefulness. Log upon log the
little cabin structures arose. The floors, when not of
the solid earth, were of split logs as smooth as their
axes could hew them. The seed for the next season
must be got into the ground as soon as the patches
could be made ready. These were busy days. Mean
while the women were not meeting in their respective
clubs. They were " stepping lively " at home. These
men did not convert trees into habitations living on
faith only. The inner man could have faith, but it took
the outer man to swing an axe and to dig the soil that
never had been disturbed since it was created ; and the
outer man called for his breakfast, dinner and supper.
Besides everyone knows that eating is one of the Eng
lish traits. It was already a characteristic before 1651.
Their meals were not served in course, but they were

12

served of course, and if not elaborate, yet were sub
stantial that iron might be in the blood of these hungry
English pioneers. The next door neighbor of this new
settlement was Stamford, ten years old. New Haven,
also, where Davenport had led his followers thirteen
years before this settlement, was accessible. There
could, therefore, be some trading from the first.
We read, for example, in our town records, that a
corn mill, which had been erected almost immediately,
did not prove to be satisfactory, and that in 1654 it was
voted to discontinue it. There had been a grist mill in
Stamford for nearly ten years. The planters were thus
tided over the bars until three years later a second corn
mill was erected, which answered until a third one was
provided. After the dwellings and the absolute and immediate
provisions for life were assured, they turned their first
attention to the erection of a " meeting house." Their
theory was that the people themselves were the church,
and the meeting house was for the people. Without
stretching their logic much, they came to think when
they met in it, to transact town business, that this was
church work. Accordingly, on the 22d of May, 1655,
after four years of meetings with Rev. Thomas Han-
ford, preaching where he might, they voted " to send
after the nayles for the meeting house with all speed."
Their idea of speed, or at least their realization of it,
may be noted from the fact that three years and eight
months subsequent, the meeting house was yet only an
idea. One cannot drive " nayles " into an idea nor into
a vote. The meeting house, however, became a re
ality, " thirty foot in length and eighteen foot in width."
As the years rolled on the wilderness was incessantly
invaded by these determined workers. Lots as they

13
were reclaimed were planted and fenced, orchards were
begun, gardens were cultivated. The rude log cabins
with their oil-papered windows gave way to framed
houses with massive timbers, with two rooms on the
lower floor and the great stone chimney in the centre,
and little diamond-shaped glass windows. Those within
the house were patient workers also. We read of no
servants in the kitchens. The " lady of the house " was
cook, laundress, soap maker, candle maker, tailoress,
dressmaker, shirt maker, stocking knitter and general
repairer, and there were growing children in the family.
The Indian bread and cornbread, the samp and hominy,
the succotash — the art of which they had learned from
the Indians — the bean soup or porridge, the hasty com
puddings for the table, repeated their invitations three
times a day for seven days in the week. For meats there
was wild game galore. Wild turkeys, partridges, quails,
wild geese and pigeons in their season, and wild ducks,
with bear meat and venison — which were abundant —
helped to spare the lives of their sheep, swine and poultry.
Wild strawberries and blackberries, whortleberries and
wild grapes were plentiful. The fish of the streams and
the fish of the salt water, bluefish — and especially bass
— were easily obtained, and the shellfish, to which we
are accustomed, were found in rich abundance. Then
there was the wool to be carded and spun, the flax to
be rotted, hackled and dressed for their own weaving.
As the cloth gave out, many a lad and man wore his
daily garments, in the style of short clothes, made of
the skins of animals ; made at home and often " fearfully
and wonderfully made."
Preparing tea and coffee, however, did not add to
the household burdens. There were neither of these in
Norwalk for a hundred years to come, and among their

14
vegetables, probably the potato, a rare vegetable as yet,
had no place. Their pewter plates and dishes must be
made to shine like silver, but they were spared the ne
cessity of care for their forks, since they never saw one.
Nor was much time used in millinery. Hoods and sun-
bonnets went with them to the meeting house and
homespun was correct fashion. Calico was as costly as
silk. I have not mentioned their special environments.
Wolves were not dangerous, but they were troublesome.
Bears would have been unwelcome neighbors but for
the fact that they could be made serviceable. The In
dians were relatively few, numbering about six thousand
in the entire State, or twelve hundred warriors. Those
in Norwalk were ready for friendly alliance with the
settlers. Some entered the service of these English
farmers, learning meanwhile the English tongue. One
Norwalk Indian did this to good purpose, namely,
Cockanoe, who taught his Indian language to the great
Indian apostle Eliot. I quote Eliot's own testimony:
" I found a pregnant-witted young man who had been a
servant in an English house, who pretty well understood
our language, and well understood his own, and hath
a clear pronunciation. Him I made my interpreter. By
his help I translated the Commandments and many texts
of Scripture." Peaceable as the Norwalk Indians were,
they were nevertheless Indians, and the weapons of our
ancestors were ever ready in the field and in the house
of worship. So far as the records show, the subject of education
did not greatly add to the burdens of the people. One
generation probably had to content itself with such in
struction as could be acquired at home. There may
possibly have been public instruction previous to the

15
time of the first record of it, but twenty-seven years had
passed before the vote is recorded, that Mr. Cornish
was engaged " to teach all the children to lerne to read
and write." It does not appear that the gentle art of
spelling had then been discovered. The spelling of their
records was according to the moods of the one who
made words his agents, but would not submit to their
being his master. Almost any combination would do,
with a supreme indifference as to how the words came
out, and if they were never twice alike, as they seldom
were, it only added to the interest in the way of a pleas-
ureable variety, in 1686 Mr. Cornish was again " hiered
for that cervice." There was a school law made by the
General Court in 1644, for all the settlements in the
colony, " That every township, after the Lord hath in
creased them to the number of fifty households, shall
forthwith appoint one to teach all such children, as shall
resort to him, to read and write, and when any town
shall increase to the number of one hundred families,
they shall set up a grammar school." You may imagine
the school house of those days, twenty feet square —
with a fireplace — the pupils seated on benches made of
slabs, supported by straddling wooden legs set into augur
holes. Few of the children had books. Blackboards
they never saw. The ink usually was made of soot
and vinegar, and the ink bottle of leather. The main
text book was the Bible, but they had lessons in ancient
and general history so far as to learn, that
" In Adam's fall
We sin-ned all."
There were in the settlement at this time one hundred
and thirteen children.
In 1681 the second meeting house, "forty foot
square and sixteene foot between joynts," the great geo-

i6
graphical monument of the town — as our Town House
now is — was erected, and Thomas Barnum was " ap-
poynted for to over see and keep good Decorum
amongst the youth in times of exercise on the Sabbath
and other Publique meetings, and the Towne doe im-
power him if he see any disorderly for to keep a small
stick to correct with, oneley he is Desired to do it with
Clemency." At the end of the first thirty years the one
street, then but little more than a cart path, had not ex
tended from the cemetery beyond the top of Earl Hill,
and the Indian's trails were the white man's highways.
We may remember also that during all this period
there was not what we call a store of any kind in the
settlement. It was the age of barter. We read neither
of a physician, lawyer or dentist.
At this period there were twenty-five settled towns
in Connecticut, with twenty-one churches.
In 1694 — forty-three years after the settlement — the
names of fourteen of the founders still appear on the
records. The Rev. Thomas Hanford had finished his
ministry of forty-one years and had died in 1693. Mrs.
Hanford lived until 1730, and died at the age of one
hundred years. When fifty years had ended, the little
compact settlement had gradually expanded up the river
towards the bridge and the mill — over the river at the
"Old Well " and towards New Canaan and Saugatuck.
The paths were being worked into roads rough and
rocky. The children and grandchildren of the founders
were now the social forces.
With the year 1700 we may say that the pioneer
stage had ended. I have spent time upon it, because
the original stamp is not obliterated and the type is per
sistent. I meet men now in Norwalk whom I think
the fathers would immediately recognize as the seventh

17
or eighth editions of the original, the same text in mod
ern binding.
As the outward circumstances of the people gradu
ally improved, society took on another cast. The out
side world was coming nearer. Boston, with now a
population of 1 7,000 and New York a large village,
were accessible. In 1 72 1 the first newspaper was pub
lished in New York. Travel between Boston and New
York now and then enlivened the isolated life of the
town. Norwalk was getting out of the woods. In 1 723
the third meeting house was erected on the same street
still further north. Soon the town granted to the in
habitants of Saugatuck permission to have their own
minister, and a little later the same liberty to New
Canaan, and 1 734 to the " Professors of the Church of
England," freeing them from all obligation to the
"Ancient Prime Society."
The houses at this time were "indifferent" — gener
ally a story and a half in front and sloping to the rear to
within six or eight feet of the ground. But if there
were as yet no colonial mansions in Norwalk, there
were growing up some notable children. Thomas Fitch,
grandson of the first Thomas — original settler — had en
tered the young Yale College, not yet out of its own
teens, and was graduated in 1721. He studied theol
ogy, was licensed to preach, and did preach in his
home church several times. For some reason he direct
ed his attention to law and civil government and be
came eminent as chief justice of the colony, Lieuten
ant-Governor of the Colony, and afterwards Governor
for a period of twelve years, from 1754 to 1766. When
the odious stamp act was being considered by the Brit
ish Parliament, and the news reached Hartford, the
General Assembly ordered a document to be prepared,

i8
protesting against the measure. This was drawn up by
Governor Fitch in a paper of great clearness, insisting
upon the right of the colonies to tax themselves, and
"shows," says Hollister, " an intimate acquaintance with
the principles of the British Constitution and the rights
of the subject under it that is unsurpassed by any paper
originating in any other colony during that exciting
period." If Governor Fitch did not live to share in
the Declaration of Independence he was yet one of the
fathers of it.
There was also his greatly distinguished son, who
figured in the French and Indian wars, from 1754 to
1763 — in which Norwalk's patriotic grandsons of the
first settlers had a full share of service, at Cape Breton,
Louisburg, Montmorenci and Crown Point. While
Governor Fitch was honoring his native town as the
head of the Connecticut colony, his son. Col. Thomas
Fitch, was leading his soldiers in the battle of Crown
Point. Selleck's history is my authority for saying that
while he was thus engaged, an English official, in deris
ion of the appearance of his continental command near
East Albany, wrote the jargon which has become
national — " Yankee Doodle came to town
Riding on a pony,"
and it is the historian's personal conviction that the
horse thus made immortal also came from Norwalk.
The boyhood neighbor of Col. Fitch, and who mar
ried his sister, was another descendant of Capt. John
Thacher, who commanded with great valor the galley
" Lady Washington " in the battle of Lake Champlain,
and who being wounded and captured by the British,
had his sword returned to him in recognition of his
bravery.

19
Thus the development of the colonies — and of the
town — was going on, and with it the unconscious, but
steady evolution of the Englishman into the Yankee,
with their fundamental differenriations. The climate, the
abrogation of the caste feeling which lives upon rank and
titles, individual independence, the modes of life and
thought, continued to evolve a distinctive spirit and
traits. Environment was changing the characteristics of
heredity. The English face and features were passing
and the special qualities of the American appeared. The
contentions which had been somewhat sharp between
the motherland and the colonies had already slackened
the loyalty of many, so that they were not unready in
spirit and temper for the Declaration of Independence
in 1776, when the evolution of the Englishman into the
Yankee was completed.
This colonial period of transition has much of inter
est in it, as the comforts and luxuries of the old world
came to the new.
The church was still the germ of the town and in
the meeting house the people were still divided in their
worship as they were in the days of their fathers. The
old men in one place, the old dames in another, the
young men and maidens prudently removed far apart,
nourished their faith and their principles.
They took their time for it. There, in the presence
of Almighty God, it was not for man to be in haste.
Not for short prayers nor short sermons did they con
gregate. They settled themselves down for a regular
religious siege, which would not be raised for three or
five hours. Sermons and prayers in our day are not of
this longitude, but the sermons now are much wider in
latitude. They are shorter and sometimes thinner.
These people did not come to the church for mental di-

20

version, nor for oratory. They were there for instruc
tion, for an educative, thorough-going discussion of great
themes. They had no use for sermonets. Without
newspapers, lectures or modern entertainments, the
sermon had no competitor, and because of the emphasis
put upon it, it must not be weak nor little. It must
not deal with little themes. It must be large and strong.
The meeting-house in Norwalk never lacked hearers who
demanded this, and its ministers were men of such brain
power and moral earnestness that the history of these
days in the town is honorable. Nevertheless, with all
their virtues, I cannot say that these early ministers were
more loyal to duty or to the spirit of true religion than
are their successors of to-day, in the more complex and
perhaps less appreciated Christian service of our time.
Their meeting-house never knew the heat of any
fire except that which was in the minister's theology.
That was sufficient even when the mercury hovered
about zero.
When the era of the beautiful colonial architecture
came in, it did not put itself greatly in evidence in Nor
walk. Nevertheless the furnishings of the homes when
wealth had come were made richer. Brassware supple
mented the English pewter. Mahogany was the new
furniture, sideboards with curving fronts, swell front
bureaus, long, oval mirrors, bedsteads with arched canopy
frames, while the tankards were put aside for fluted de
canters and wineglasses. A new social etiquette and
stately manners were affected. The table was graced
with silver spoons, and forks had been introduced. Tea
costing several dollars a pound and coffee and chocolate
appealed to new tastes on special occasions. Tinware
was displacing the earthenware crockery and cooking
grew to be a fine art. Even now in its decadence, there

21

are echoes of it that could well-nigh convert one to the
theory that the days of glory were in the past. Those
mercies have gone from the sight and taste of men now
living. When our grandmothers went to heaven they
took the secret with them.
We find that the schools at this time had increased
their studies. Arithmetic, through decimal fractions to
the climax of the "rule of three," was added, and con
siderably later, grammar as a study, and algebra, and the
elements of geometry. Geography was not taught un
til nearly the end of the century. Those who were pre
paring for a liberal education sought the tuition of the
minister. In the way of trade and commerce the custom of
barter had yielded to the more complex organization of
society. There was a freer circulation of money and
there were stores and shops in Norwalk. Two-wheeled
carriages, called chaises, were in town in 1750. New
York held a direct trade with Europe, and vessels from
our harbor knew the way to New York. Among those
whose ambitions tended to social distinctions fashion
was not a little bit of a god even then. Ruffles and
embroideries, silk gloves, white silk stockings, poplin
and gauze fans and ribbons, with gold and silver orna
ments were all here. This also was the era of wonder
ful stitching, from the samplers up to the marvelous il
lustrations of what could be done with a needle.
Meanwhile — as in the later days of the pioneer period —
the shoemaker went from house to house, the tailor
likewise, to cut, fit and make the clothing — the cooper
to make and hoop barrels for the cider and the soap,
and barrels for beef and barrels for pork. Even in this
colonial stage individualism had enough to satisfy itself .
Each home had its ceaseless industries. The pork and

hams and sides of bacon and tongues must be preserved
for winter use. The sheep were sheared at home ; the
wool carded and woven at home. The flax was made
ready for spinning at home. The skilful woman could
spin two threads with one hand while the foot kept the
treadle of the flax wheel moving and a baby slept in her
lap, and could look as pretty as a picture while doing it.
Matters were after this manner when the warnings
of war were heard in Norwalk. It was Thaddeus Betts —
a descendant of the pioneer — who made application to
the General Assembly in behalf of the town for six can
non. He procured them " with a hundred round shot
to suit them and grape shot in proportion."
As the war came near to our coasts, the exposed
location gave the people especial reason for alarm.
What they feared came. British soldiers under General
Tryon, and hired Hessians under General Garth, on
July 7th burned to the ground the neighboring town of
Fairfield. Norwalk next was the expectation, and such
small household goods as could be concealed were hid
den away. Governor Trumbull ordered the continental
troops at New London to " hasten to Norwalk with all
possible dispatch," but before the orders were received
Norwalk was in ashes. These house-burners landed on
both sides of the river — at "Fitch's Point" and at "Old
Well" — on Saturday afternoon of July loth, and with
the light of the Lord's day, July nth, they were seen
concentrating at " Grummon's Hill." There Tryon sat
overlooking the town, safe with his 2,500 soldiers
against a few continental companies, while he wrote his
orders. At six o'clock in the morning the torches were
lighted and eighty dwelling-houses (some accounts say
132), the two churches, 87 barns, 22 storehouses, 17
shops, 4 mills and 5 vessels were consumed, together

23
with the crops of hay and wheat which had been gath
ered. The general who never distinguished himself by
any nobler or more dangerous service than this, then
left what had been the town and left his record.
The next winter, uncommonly severe, came to these
largely houseless people without adequate provisions
and in great privations. Poverty was the common lot.
The ordinary necessities of life were only to be secured
by almost prohibitory prices. Salt was $27.00 a bushel,
molasses $20.00 a gallon.
It was lived through, however, and there are those
in this presence who have heard the story of it directly
from those who could say, "all of which I saw and a
part of which I experienced." Two years later, in Oc
tober, 1 78 1, down in Virginia, the end came. With the
surrender the British drums beat the air "The world's
turned topsy-turvey," and Lord Comwallis thought it
had. Indeed it had.
While the great body of the people had been willing
to bring about this issue, the element loyal to the Brit
ish government was much more troublesome than cur
rent history shows. To some, the allegiance to Eng
land was a matter of Church, to others of conservatism,
and to others of a cowardly confidence that Great Brit
ain would win, and that they would be present when the
band-wagon would come to town. These were those
who secretly aided the British and betrayed their own
neighbors. Norwalk had all kinds. After independence
was secured, those who did not remove, inherited the
"Fourth of July" with as good grace as necessity re
quired. Now, after a century and a quarter, the records
of this part of our history may well be forgotten.
With the triumph of the war, Norwalk shared in
the new impulse which came to the State and to the

24
country. The war had been a great educator. Com
merce took on new enterprises. Private ventures were
bolder and more successful. The battles for freedom
had shown to the people the inconsistency of slavery,
and all slaves born after 1 784 were declared free. At
this time there were forty-one slaves in Norwalk.
With the year 1800, not all the losses had been
recovered, but the town was flourishing in a quiet way
with a population of 5,105 people, including Wilton and
New Canaan yet in the bounds of Norwalk.
We come now to the Nineteenth Century stage.
There are persons now living in Norwalk whose .years
have compassed nearly all of the last century. We have
heard them tell of the wonderful changes in their day.
This past is so near to us that we may not dwell upon it.
In 18 1 2 came the set-back of the embargo and of
the blockade of our own harbor, but with the ending of
the war in 181 5, the British ships left the Sound and
the people were free again to work out the blessings of
peace. In 1824 the first steamboat — the General Lafayette
— was making its trips from New York to Old Well,
when one could go to New York in one day and posi
tively return the next day. The railroad, whose whistle
echoed the tune "The world's turned topsy-turvey,"
began the change of the centre of gravity in Norwalk
to the west end in 1848.
We parted with New Canaan in 1801. It was
named after the Canaan which in Bible times flowed
with milk and honey, and doubtless because it was sup
posed that from its hilltops the people would be nearer
the New Jerusalem than they could be at tide-water.
Wilton became a separate town in 1802 and Westport
in 1835.

25
The year i860 brought the event of that century in
our nation's history. Those who had been mourning
the decay of patriotism and were piping their pessimistic
strains because in the material changes and great
growths of luxury the children of to-day had become
degenerate sons of those noble sires who had left us
their precious legacy of freedom, were amazed to dis
cover how their eyes had been holden that they should
have seen only the surfaces of life.
The elders here well remember what answer was
made when the Government called. The record of
Norwalk in that life and death struggle, which did not
pause nor hesitate until the national unity was forever
secured, and slavery abolished forever, was worthy of
the men and women of 1651 and 1776.
We are now standing before the questions of the
twentieth century. In all this past local history the
time could be spanned by three successive lives of
eighty-three years each. This brings the fathers near
to us, but how far away they are in the changes which
the years have wrought. It has come to pass that we
can no longer isolate ourselves. One's home may be in
Norwalk, but he belongs to the world and the world
belongs to him. We are not only heirs to the people
of 165 1 but we have the inheritances of all nations.
When the century began which has just closed its gates
upon us, John Adams was President of the United
States with 5,000,000 of people, with the Mississippi
River our western boundary, with a budget of receipts
and expenses one-tenth that of the present city of New
York. George the Third was king of Great Britain,
and Napoleon Bonaparte the first Consul of the French
Republic. The people of the foremost nations of the
earth were reading by candle light the very beginnings

26
of the sciences of the chemical and physical properties
of matter. Most of the work of the world was done by
the muscles of men and horses, instead of by mechanical
power. People traveled at the rate of six miles an
hour, where now we fret at forty miles an hour. Then
an interview from Norwalk with a man at Boston would
take three weeks, now we dispatch it over the telephone
in five minutes. The nineteenth century has given us
the railroad, the steamship, the telegraph, the phono
graph, the photograph, photo-engraving, the sewing
machine, the reaper, the mower, the tremendous power
of machinery that works like intelligence, the develop
ment of manufactures, the electric light, the trolley car
and the horseless carriage. It has given us the science
of chemistry, the wonderful advance in scientific medi
cine, the miracles of surgery, the new domain of phys
ics, the theories of light and heat and energy, the reve
lations of the spectrum analysis — the X rays, the achieve
ments of astronomy and the hypothesis of evolution.
It has given us archaeological unfoldings of people who
lived and celebrated their anniversaries six thousand
years ago; the geographical, ethnological, biological
sciences with their new worlds for the coming genera
tions to develop and to conquer. It has planted civili
zation in Japan and the seeds of it in China. It has
builded universities for women that they may be
scholars. It has brought us a new literature, a new
library development with public libraries in every town
not already in its grave clothes. It has been a strenuous
century, a fruitful century in which every town and per
son has shared.
We look out upon the century before us when the
wide world is brought to our vision every morning,.
when people cross the oceans at the speed of 500 miles

27
a day, as if they were ferries, when we flash our thoughts
dry shod over the bed of the sea on the nerve of a wire,
from continent to continent ; when one converses with
another a thousand miles away as if they were face to
face. In 1 65 1 the age was narrow and the people were
narrow, but they were broader than their times. They
turned their faces forward, leading their age. This
gave them a work and they did their work.
Ever to be remembered are the eminent Norwalk-
born sons who in this work have brought conspicuous
honor to their native town. Thomas Fitch, governor,
and Thomas Fitch, Jr., patriot soldier; Captain John
Thacher, Rev. Abraham Jarvis, the second bishop of
the Episcopal Church in Connecticut; Prof. Moses
Stuart, forerunner in Oriental literature in this country;
Dr. Jonathan Knight, the eloquent professor in Yale;
Rear-Admiral Francis Gregory, of the United States
Navy; Nathaniel Bouton, father of the National Amer
ican Home Missionary Society; Hon. Charles H. Sher
man, Judge of the Supreme Court of Ohio, and the
Norwalk-born parents of Hon. John Sherman and
General William Tecumseh Sherman, men of world
fame. Others who have gone out from us have also
been founders of towns, so that Nonvalk is also in Ohio,
Wisconsin, Iowa, Missouri, Florida and California.
As we rejoice to-day in our beautiful town of twenty
thousand people — a suburb of the metropolis of this
continent within the distance of an hour — heirs of a
thousand privileges of which with all their hopes the
fathers never dreamed, it is not for us to forget how
they blazed the way for our smoother paths. They did
not recoil from grappling fearlessly with the duties
and the evils of their time. We, their children, can

28
best honor them by being as true to our times as they
were to theirs.
The day has not yet come for us in the outlook from
our higher civilization to cease to honor the fathers
and their principles, while we, for our part, are seeking
to work out our own problems of destiny in honest duty,
that our day may be as wholesome and true as it is free
and great.

29
NOTE.
The celebration of the Two Hundred and Fiftieth Anniver
sary of the founding of the Town of Norwalk was inaugpirated
by the Norwalk Historical Association, Frederick St. John
Lockwood, Esq., President. Hon. Asa B. Woodward was Chair
man of the Executive Committee.
The Committee on Literary Excercises was constituted as
follows :
Rev. a. F. Beard, D.D., Abiathar Blanchard, Esq.
,, ^ „ „ John J. Walsh, Esq.
Miss Dotha Stone Pinneo, Secretary. Rev. Charles W. Shelton.
James G. Gregory, M.D. Mrs. Henry H. Barroll.
Hon. John H. Light. Miss Mary A. Cunningham.
Rev. Charles M. Selleck. Mrs. Thomas K. Noble.
Under the direction of this committee a Memorial Discourse
was delivered by the Rev. Charles Melbourne Selleck, in the
Church of the "Ancient Prime Society," on the afternoon of
Sunday, September the Eighth, Nineteen Hundred and One.
On Tuesday afternoon, September the Tenth, the schools of
the town assembled in the Armory. The order of exercises was
Chairman. ABIATHAR BLANCHARD, Esq.,
Secretary of the Board of School Visitors.
MUSIC, Star Spangled Banner.
ADDRESS, "Yesterday, To-day and Tomorrow."
Miss Mary Merriman Abbott, President of the State
Federation of Women's Clubs.
MUSIC, Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean.
ADDRESS. "Citizenship." Rev. Romilly F. Humphries.
MUSIC. Fair America,
Hail Columbia.
ADDRESS, "The Men Who Made Connecticut."
Walter Seth Logan. Esq.. President of the Sons of the
American Revolution.
MUSIC. America.
In the evening of the same day there were in the same place
Historical Allegories, by the " Red Men."

30
Founders' Day, September the Eleventh, in the after
noon was celebrated with exercises in the following order:
Chairman, HON. E. J. HILL.
MUSIC, - ... Band
NATIONAL HYMN, - - - To Thee, O Country
PRAYER, Rev. Charles A. Downs.
MUSIC,  Band
HISTORICAL ADDRESS, "The Building of Norwalk."
Rev. Augustus Field Beard. D.D.
MUSIC, ..... Star Spangled Banner
POEM, "A Sweet and Hallowed Time."
Rev. John Gaylord Davenport, D.D.
ADDRESS,
Hon. Orville H. Pratt, United States Senator. Connecticut.
ANTHEM,
Composed by Mr. Alexander S. Gibson.
BENEDICTION. The evening of the Eleventh was dedicated to a "Home
Gathering." Chairman, HON. JOHN H. LIGHT.
MUSIC. - - Band
INVOCATION. ADDRESS, "A United J"own."
Rev. Paul Moore Strayer.
ADDRESS, "The New England Parson, Then and Now."
Rev. George Drew Egbert.
MUSIC, - - - Band
ADDRESS. "Response for Wilton."
Rev. Charles M. Belden.
ADDRESS, "The Growth of the Catholic Church in Norwalk."
Right Reverend Michael Tiemey, Bishop of Hartford.
MUSIC, .... Band
ADDRESS, Howard H. Knapp, Esq.
ADDRESS, Rev. William J. Slocum.
MUSIC, - - Band

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