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Bristol.

Map of the Tory Region

r. Carrington homestead.
2, Nathaniel Matthews homestead.
3. South Chippens Hill School-
house.
4. Constant Loyal Tuttle home
stead, built by Caleb Mat
thews.
5. Hungerford homestead.
6. Jones homestead,
7. North Chippens Hill School-
house.
8. Atount Hope Cliapel.
g. Isaac Welles Shelton home
stead.

10. Cyrus Gaylord homestead,
r T. East Church.
1 2. Site of Ensn. Ozias Tyler's
" New House," destroyed by
fire 1905.
Roadwav entering the ledges
toward Tory Den.
Fork in roads where Graves
was flogged.
Stephen Graves homestead.
Tory Den.
Old Stone Eridge, over which
a cross road anciently led to
Chippens Hill.

13-

14.

THE TORIES OF
CHIPPENY HILL, CONNECTICUT

The Tories of
Chippeny Hill, Connecticut
A Brief Account of the Loyalists of
Bristol, Plymouth and Harwinton,
who Founded St. Matthew's Church
in East Plymouth in 1791

BY

E. LeRoy Pond

^^

m

m
0^
THE GRAFTON PRESS
PUBLISHERS
NEW YORK
MCMIX
Copyright, 1909,
By the GRAFTON PRESS
NEW YORK

C'^lul^M

DEDICATED To
the venerable Rev. X. A. Welt on, discoverer
of the Tory Den, and rescuer of the Tories
from the field of legend

ILLUSTRATIONS
The Tory Den . . . Frontispiece
FACING PAGE
Map of the Tory Region . . . 10
Grave of Capt. Nathaniel Jones . . 32
View Looking South from the Tory Den Clipp 52
St. Matthew's Church at East Plymouth . 74
Rev. Alexander Viets Griswold, D.D. . 82

CONTENTS

Introduction
CHAPTER I Chippeny Hill
II The Rev. James Nichols
III The Tory Principles
IV The Tory Den .
V Captain Wilson's Sons of Liberty
VI Stephen Graves .
VII Moses Dunbar
VIII The Waning of Toryism
IX East Church
Appendix
Signers of Petition
Early Enrollment
Descriptions of Chippin's Hill
The Tory. A Poem .

PAGE 11 17
314045
50 5670 75
8485 8688

INTRODUCTION
THE hamlet of East Plymouth, two miles north of
Terryville, Connecticut, and more commonly
known as "East Church," was brought into existence
about 1792, by the building of St. Matthew's Episcopal
Church by a clan of Tories. These Tories, or, if you so
prefer, loyal members of the Church of England — for
they could not conscientiously be loyal to the head of the
church without bearing the name of Tory — lived in
the farmhouses scattered along the hillsides where
the boundaries of the present towns of Bristol, Ply
mouth and Harwinton now meet. With Chippeny Hill
in the town of Bristol, or Chippin's Hill as it is common
ly called now, as a centre, they had gathered together,
unshaken by the stress of the times as the stone ledges
north of them, united by family bonds, and by the perse
cutions of marauding Sons of Liberty, under the leader
ship of that "designing church clergyman," the Rev.
James Nichols. It is certainly time that some memorial
of their lives is placed upon paper. Their loyalty to
their beliefs, though perhaps not guided by prudence, is
certainly to be admired, and that they were hunted,
robbed, flogged, and driven to the ledges for refuge,
because of this loyalty, deserves not to be forgotten.
They were noble men, some of them, and courageous,
yet there remains little to remember them by save here
and there a family tradition. In this attempt to weld

10 INTRODUCTION
together a collection of facts directly and indirectly
concerning the life of that Tory clan, the writer is
greatly indebted to the research and assistance of Rev.
X. A. Welton, of Redlands, California, who is un
ashamed of his Tory ancestry, and he is also indebted
to Mr. James Shepard, of New Britain.

Chaptek I
CHIPPENY HILL
THE place where the churchmen first came together
was Chippeny Hill, within the confines of New
Cambridge, the present Bristol. From the time of its
settlement by white men, the history of the Hill has
been connected with the growth of the Church of Eng
land in New Cambridge. The Brooks and the Matthews
families settled there between the years 1742 and 1747,
and were soon joined by others of the Church of Eng
land. It was in July, 1747, that a group of the mem
bers of the meeting house at New Cambridge revolted,
owing to the Calvinistic doctrines of the new minister.
Rev. Samuel Newell, and "publicly declared themselves
of the Church of England and under the Bishop of
England." Those who seceded, most of them influential
members of the Society which they were leaving, were
Caleb Matthews and Stephen Brooks, patriarchs of
the families that bore their name, John Hickox, Caleb
Abernathy, Abner Matthews, Abel Royce, Daniel Roe,
and Simon Tuttle. Caleb Matthews was a captain of
militia, and he was also the chairman of the Society's
committee and of the building committee which was
then making plans for a meeting house. Both he and
Simon Tuttle were spared to live until the Revolution.
Abner Matthews was also a member of the building com
mittee. John Hickox had been the Society's treasurer.

12 THE TORIES OF CHIPPENY HILL
Nehemiah Royce, a younger man, within a few weeks
followed the original eight in joining the new congrega
tion, and he was followed in October, 1748, by Benjamin
and Stephen Brooks, Jr., and Joseph Gaylord. It is the
opinion of Mr. James Shepard that the dissenters were
inclined to worship according to the Church of England
even before they were settled at New Cambridge. The
Brooks family, the Matthews family, the Gaylords, the
Rices, and the Tuttles came from Walhngford, where
Church of England services had been held as early as
1740. The selection of the Calvinist, Rev. Samuel Newell,
came after a strong factional conflict within the walls
of the meeting house. The orthodox wished to call him
as early as 1744, but the liberals refused to accept him,
and after a few years of preaching by various candi
dates, among whom were Ichabod Camp and Christopher
Newton, both of whom later became Church of England
clergymen, the orthodox faction became the ruling
majority and obtained the man they desired. The new
church naturally found itself in conflict with the old
Society, which was the legal municipal corporation of
New Cambridge, and it was several years before the
matter of taxation was satisfactorily readjusted. At the
time of the Revolution, the largest part of the Church
of England residents in New Cambridge had chosen
Chippeny Hill as their dwelling place.
It is a tract of land which was well worth recognition,
both as farming land and because of its sightly situa
tion. North of it lie the Ledges, a section of rocky
woodland; west of it are seen the hills of Litchfield
county. The Hill itself is one of those long ranges,

CHIPPENY HILL 13
running north and south, that are peculiar to that part
of the country, and although it escapes by a few rods
from being within Litchfield county, it may truly be
called the easternmost member of that north-stretching
fraternity of hills. Below it, on the east, stretches the
valley of the Farmington, with the houses of Bristol vis
ible at the south, and the distant church spires of Farm
ington visible at the north. It was from this valley that
Cochipiance, the Indian, came, from the band of Tunxis
Indians that encamped there. He found the Hill in
New Cambridge a good place, and claimed it and the
surrounding region as his hunting preserve, making his
home there by a good spring on the eastern slope. After
ward the white men bought it from him. Two high
ways, half a mile apart, run northward along the hill
until they are lost in the woods and ledges. The west
ern one of the two has long been known as Hill street.
A cross road at South Chippeny Hill is called Shumway
from the name of an Indian, Shum, whose trail it
was. By the year 1774 the hill was cleared and fertile
land. Why it was that the farmers of this section were,
mostly Church of England men, it is hard to say.
Whether their long open hill life bred an independence
that rebelled against the Calvinistic tenets of the estab
lished church or whether the bright sun that causes the
strawberries to ripen there warmed the hearts of those
that ate them, we may not know. Certain it is that
by 1774, they were a colony of churchmen.
On Sundays, they rode down the Hill to their church
at New Cambridge, which was east of the meeting house,
across the training ground, near where the north wing

14 THE TORIES OF CHIPPENY HILL
of Federal Hill schoolhouse now stands. There a mis
sionary of the Society for the Propagation of the
Gospel in Foreign Parts conducted the services for them.
First, Rev. William Gibbs of Simsbury, then for a time
the converted dissenters. Rev. Ichabod Camp and Rev.
Christopher Newton ; after them, Rev. Richard Mans
field of Derby : then for a number of years until 1773,
Rev. James Scovil of Waterbury, and, finally. Rev.
James Nichols. Their friends and cousins alighted at
the block in front of the meeting house ; but they entered
the church and joined in the litany, and the choristers
led them in the chant. Then they rode back to the
HiU. Meeting house little boys doubtless twitted church
little boys that they were not as good as they, yet,
methinks, the meeting house little boys wished sometimes
that they might climb up on the pillion and ride away
to Chippeny Hill. Life was not so stem there. There
were good things to eat Sabbath afternoons on Chip
peny Hill and there was time to play. And there were
good things to eat at other times, too. When the
Christmas time came, Chippeny Hill boys had puddings
with raisins in them. And there were Christmas trees,
trees inside the house, with candles on them. And that
was the time when the Yule log was put on the fire and
the stories were told and the songs were sung. Of
course it was wicked. Parson Newell would say that
such things were an abomination of heathendom and
the ruination of souls ; but what fun it must have been.
And girls, and boys too, actually had playthings given
to them. The customs of merry old England, which the
Puritans despised, were certainly cherished there.

CHIPPENY HILL 16
Yet there was work to be done on the Hill. There
was corn to plant and wood to cut. In the winter the
long flames went roaring up the chimney, and the winds
that rise in Goshen swept down upon them. It was not
England. No churches with their long choirs had these
people seen, nor cathedrals, where the organ bellowed
gloriously. Yet they had heard of them from the mis
sionaries of the Society for the Propagation of the
Gospel. And they loved their home, England. Not that
they expected ever to see it, but they liked to read of
it, those who could read, and all of them delighted to
hear of it; the great cathedral at Canterbury where
the archbishop lived; and St. James Palace, where
Prince Charles was brought up as a boy and later re
turned to his own again ; and the King, the head of the
Church, and, by the grace of God, Defender of the Faith,
They liked to hear what play had been presented before
him, what noble he had knighted, what hospital he had
founded, what sculptor, poet, or artist had received
favor at his hands. They prayed for him as their
sovereign lord and king, — not lukewarmly, my friends,
as you repeat the Lord's prayer day after day, but
affectionately, — for a living prince, that he might ever
incline to the Heavenly will, that the King of Kings
might endue him with heavenly gifts, grant him to live
long in health and wealth, strengthening him that he
might vanquish and overcome all his enemies, and finally
after this life that he might attain everlasting joy and
felicity. The troubles of 1776 were a great shock to these loyal
people. The Boston port bill had thrown the Puritans
into agitation. It seemed as if they were demented.

16 THE TORIES OF CHIPPENY HILL
They blasphemed the name of the king, and in the
streets of New York they defaced his statue. "If you
pray for the ting," said the meeting house men, "then
we will kill you." So the members of the church in New
Cambridge closed its doors in silence.

Chapter II
THE REV. JAMES NICHOLS
THE principle of loyalty to the king, which was the
guiding light of the Chippeny Hill band, was in
stalled in great measure by Rev. James Nichols. In the
words of the public records of Connecticut, concerning
seventeen of his parishioners, they were "much under the
influence of one Nichols, a designing church clergyman
who instilled into them principles opposite to the good
of the States" and "under the influence of such princi
ples they pursued a course of conduct tending to the
ruin of the country and highly displeasing to those
who are friends to the freedom and independence of the
United States."
Rev. James Nichols*, born in December, 1748, the son
of James Nichols of Waterbury, was graduated from
Yale College in 1771. The churchmen of New Cam
bridge, at a vestry meeting held August 2, 1773, voted
to have him for their minister, and appointed a com
mittee to confer with him. They then owned a small
building at New Cambridge near the training ground,
where Rev. James Scovil occasionally held services but

*Rev. James Nichols was an only son; grandson of Joseph and
Elizabeth (Wood) Nichols of Waterbury. His mother was Anna,
daughter of Daniel and Deborah (Holcomb) Porter and widow of
Thomas Judd. Daniel Porter was a physician. The Nichols family
owned much land in Waterbury.

18 THE TORIES OF CHIPPENY HILL
as he also cared for other parishes, they desired a
permanent minister of their own, and united with the
parish of Northbury (now Plymouth) to procure one.
In the report of the Society for the Propagation of the
Gospel in Foreign Parts read at the annual meeting,
February, 1774, before the distinguished assemblage of
its patrons, at the parish church — the Church of St.
Mary Le Bow, the church of the Bow-bells, in Cheap-
side, which Sir Christopher Wren had built after the
great fire, — the portion treating of the field in Con
necticut says: "The two parishes most distant from
Waterbury, viz., Northbury and New Cambridge, con
sisting each of about forty families, have voluntarily
engaged to support their own minister. Sixty pounds
sterling and a glebe of very good land are to be his
maintenance. The Rev. James Nichols, a gentleman
well recommended, hath lately been ordained to those
parishes ; and the Society, in consideration of his receiv
ing no salary and of the commendable zeal of the people,
have presented him with a gratuity of twenty pounds."
The people of New Cambridge had already, at a vestry
held August 30, 1773, voted forty pounds yearly
for their part of his stated salary and "voted to
raise twenty-five pounds to carry him home." He was
the last man from Connecticut to take holy orders from
"home" before the Revolution. The statement that
Nichols was "well recommended" is worthy of notice.
Nine particulars are named in the reports of the Society
for the Propagation of the Gospel, of which the Society
required those who recommended a clergyman to testify,
and of these, number eight is "His aff^ection for the
present government."

THE REV. JAMES NICHOLS 19
The young priest of twenty-five had a bitter time of
it in his parish. He administered baptism at New
Cambridge in May, 1774. The following day, May 9th,
is the date of the last vestry meeting recorded as held
in the church, for the wave of insurrection was sweeping
over the country, rendering public allegiance to the
king dangerous, and the church only followed the
example of the other churches throughout New England
when it ceased its public services. For the ten years
thereafter of his pastorate, he held meetings in farm
houses, and the people were practically without a
church. His parish, as reported by Rev. Mr. Scovil in
1773, consisted of thirty-three families and forty-seven
communicants in New Cambridge, and forty-five families
and sixty-three communicants in Northbury and in the
bounds of Harwinton. He was the recognized instiga
tor of the strong love for England that imbued his
flock, and the patriots hunted for him high and low.
When they found him hiding in a cellar near Cyrus
Gaylord's home in East Plymouth, they tarred and
feathered him and dragged him in the neighboring
brook. He is also said to have been shot at several
times. He baptised his son, Charles Nichols, January
21, 1776. November 22, 1776, he sold a farm of seventy
acres to Jonathan Pond. With Moses Dunbar, he was
tried by the Superior Court in Hartford, January 27,
1777, for treasonable practices against the United
States, but was acquitted. May 22, 1777, seventeen
Tory prisoners from New Cambridge were examined at
the house of Mr. David Bull at Hartford by a com
mittee of the General Assembly, and were found to be
"much under the influence of one Nichols, a designing

20 THE TORIES OF CHIPPENY HILL
church clergyman." He received his ministerial taxes
in 1778, at Sahsbury, and in 1779 and in 1780 at Litch
field. It is probable that Salisbury was familiar ground
to him for his father's residence was there in 1766. The
receipts for the taxes, as they appear upon the records
of the New Cambridge society, are as follows:
"To the Collector of Minister Rate in Farmington.
This may certify that the People of ye Town belonging
to the Episcopal church have paid ye Minister Rate to
me for the year 1777 and this may discharge the same.
Salisbury, March 7, 1778. — James Nichols, Mission
ary." "Litchfield, February 27, 1779, this may certify the
Collector of minister Rate for the parish of New Cam
bridge that the people of the Episcopal Church of said
Parish under my care have paid their rates to me and I
hereby discharg the Colector said Rate is on. Test.
James Nichols, Clerk."
"Litchfield, Dec. 29, 1780, this may certify the
Colector of minister Rate for the parish of New Cam
bridge that the people of the Episcopal Church under
my care have paid their Rate to me and I hereby dis
charge the colector is on list. James Nichols, Minister."
Receipts like the foregoing were customarily accepted
by the collectors of the "Standing Order" from Church
of England clergymen, but the law did not authorize
the acceptance of them except from a resident clergy
man. Nichols was not of course a resident at New
Cambridge w'hile living as a fugitive at Litchfield. Con
sequently we read that, "At a meeting of the Inhabitants
of the Parish of New Cambridge holden at the Meeting
House on the 17th of February, 1779, it was voted that

THE REV. JAMES NICHOLS 21
our Collector shall collect the Rates of the People of
the Church of England."
Nichols took his nephew with him to Litchfield as a
valet, and there the boy found the girl who afterward
became his wife. From Litchfield, the young minister
made occasional visits to his former parishioners at New
Cambridge. He administered baptism once in 1777,
and not after that until 1780. At a vestry held at Jo
seph Gaylord's In March, 1782, it was voted that he give
one-third of his time to West Britain, now Burlington,
and provision was made for the collection of his minis
terial rate by subscription; Nathaniel Matthews being
chosen to receive the subscriptions. At a vestry meet
ing held at Joel Tuttle's, In 1783, William Gaylord and
Samuel Smith, jr., were elected to make up and collect
Mr. Nichol's rates. The last baptism at New Cam
bridge performed by him was March 21, 1784. It was
on January 30, 1780, that he baptised among others, a
daughter of Stephen Graves, whether at the Graves
home or at some other farmhouse It is not recorded.
The snow came and there was famine In the Amer
ican camp in New Jersey. Two days later, Long Island
Sound was almost frozen over in the widest part so that
persons crossed the ice from Staten Island, an under
taking never before possible since the first settlement of
the country. With Long Island Sound almost frozen
over, Harwinton and Litchfield were certainly cold
places, and Parson Nichols, I wot, was glad when his
pastoral visit was over, and his valet led the horses to
the stables in Litchfield and he could seat himself once
more by the warm fireside.
"Respected for his pleasing manners and eloquent

22 THE TORIES OF CHIPPENY HILL
preaching," he became Rector of St. Michael's Church
at Litchfield in May, 1780. This church had been
deprived of the services of a minister from 1774 to 1780
owing to the lack of the usual support from the old
country, but had been held together by Captain Daniel
Landon and other loyal souls who met regularly despite
the fact that the church windows were the favorite tar
gets of hoodlums. Landon's granddaughter remem
bered that when General Washington passed through
Litchfield, the soldiers, to evince their attachment for
him, threw a shower of stones at the church. He re
proved them saying, "I am a Churchman and wish not to
see the church dishonored and desolated in this manner."
Nichols "collected a respectable congregation," wrote
Truman Marsh, who became rector In 1799, "and did
much to remove prejudice and to raise the church from
its low and depressed state." He resigned May, 1784,
about the same time that he left New Cambridge and
Northbury. In 1785 he drafted an "Address of
Thanks" to the Legislature for incorporating the church
society. The historians of Litchfield knew little about Nichols.
Statements that he came from Salem, Mass., are in
correct. There was a church clergyman by the name of
Nichols at that place, and mentioned in the letters to
the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, but his
name was Robert Boucher Nichols and he was a native
of the Barbadoes and a graduate of Oxford. James
Nichols, though ordained by the Society, was not one of
their regular missionaries, which partly accounts for the
scant mention of him in their reports.
Certain correspondence with Jonathan Pond, who

THE REV. JAMES NICHOLS 23
lived at the foot of Fall Mountain, within what is
now the town of Plymouth, throws light on his later
career. On August 23, 1784, in a business letter to
Jonathan Pond, he wrote from Arlington, Vermont,
"Your agent was not sufficiently impowered to make a
settlement on any conditions but payment of money
which was not In my power. I expect to be down at
LltchfieM In about a fortnight, but of this I am not
certain. My business is such I cannot assign time and
place to meet you, but I shall be hereabouts until the
latter part of September. The gentleman Mr. Andrews
will inform you I am willing to submit the matter to men
&c other matters of conversation he can relate to you
which would be tedious to write." Before this, Novem
ber 19, 1782, he had written to Jonathan Pond, the
place from which he wrote being unknown, "I am
desirous of leaving our matter to men Mr. Graves has
nominated, Mr. Prindle, Capt. Phelps, & Lieutenant
Cook of Harwinton. I am fully agreed to those gen
tlemen and I hereby impower ray friend Mr. Stephen
Graves to sign instructions with Lieut. Thomas Brooks
in my behalf." In December, 1785, Jonathan Pond re
covered judgment In the Litchfield county court against
Nichols as an absent and absconded debtor for a debt
of two hundred and fifteen pounds, as a result of which
judgment Judah Barnes, constable, levied execution
upon two pieces of land belonging to the debtor, in
Bristol, appraised at about one hundred and sixty
pounds. His last letter to Pond was as follows :
"Arlington, February 12th, 1787.
"Sir — ^Upon Mr. Tuttle's request and also my own

24 THE TORIES OF CHIPPENY HILL
earnest desire of an amicable settlement between us I
have come to this resolve. I will meet you and him at
any time after the 15th of March at Williams Town
bay state where If we do not settle I will pay you a
reasonable price for coming and I hereby declare I will
not give you any trouble in Law on any account in your
journey and this writing shall be sufficient to assure
you of the same. My meaning is I will not commence
any action whatever against you In the bay or Vermont
State until after the first day of May next.
"Sir — I have an earnest desire to see you but as Mr.
Tuttle will inform you necessary business will prevent
my coming to Connecticut until next summer when
matters might be better settled, but they are now in
such a situation that It seems necessary and a saving
of costs to accommodate matters soon.
"Sir, Wishing you and your family well,
"I remane, Yrs.
"James Nichols."
It is difficult to say whether the Pond correspond
ence Is of any material Importance in judging Nichol's
character, but it has been given for what it may be
worth. The controversy was evidently over the title to
the Pond homestead which Jonathan Pond purchased
of James Nichols. Where Nichols obtained his title was
a mystery that baffled Jonathan Pond and he was
compelled eventually to purchase the farm a second
time from Charles Ward Apthorpe, a Tory of New
York. According to a little old scrap of paper among
the Pond documents, apparently an unsigned abstract
of title, Nichols obtained the farm from certain-named

THE REV. JAMES NICHOLS 26
individuals, who, it was surmised, were heirs of the
parties to whom It had been mortgaged. The mort
gagees, according to the paper, had previously given
a warrantee deed of it "to Charles Ward Apthorp of
the City of New York who (sd Apthorp) has joined
the Enemy and forfeited his estate." The fact that
Apthorpe had forfeited his estate Is emphasized by an
exclamation point. It is true that Charles Ward
Apthorpe joined the enemy. He had been a patron of
the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel since
1758, his name appearing in the reports In company
with that of Rev. East Apthorp, D.D., the rector of
the parish church of the Society, St. Mary Le Bow,
and he was the second assistant manager of the Court of
Police In New York established by General Howe's
proclamation of May 1, 1777, drawing a salary of two
hundred pounds therefor. Of him Judge Jones in his
scathing criticisms of his fellow Tories says : "This gen
tleman never attended; the appointment was designed
as a sinecure." He was a wealthy purchaser of mort
gages In Waterbury and about Connecticut, a member
of His Majesty's Council governing New York, and
was indicted because of the latter fact for high treason
by a rebel grand jury of New York. His estate,
according to Jones, was confiscated together with those
of the other members of the royal council — but, alas for
the title of Jonathan Pond, his estate in Connecticut
was not forfeited. He laid claim to It through his attor
ney, the honorable James Hillhouse, in 1792, and, In
response to repeated demands from Hillhouse, who was
attending Congress at Philadelphia, Jonathan Pond,
honest old blacksmith with a family of eight children

26 THE TORIES OF CHIPPENY HILL
on his hands, raised the cash and paid for the farm a
second time.
Having considered Nichols' life in Connecticut, let
us see how he fared in Vermont.
The little community of Arlington, in Vermont, was a
Church of England town chartered in 1761 by people
mostly from Litchfield, Connecticut, and later settled
by emigrants from Newtown and New Milford, Con
necticut. In 1784 the inhabitants resolved to install
a minister and build a church. "The Rev. James
Nichols, a clergyman from Connecticut, of more than
ordinary parts, was employed, and the services of the
church which for some time had been very irregular were
resumed at private houses." It was about 1786 that
Nichols was called and the church edifice was com
menced. Owing to the poverty of the inhabitants the
building was not completed until 1803, but it had been
furnished with temporary seats and was used for public
worhsip about 1787, and was, in fact, the first church
in the State. The name of the parish was St. James,
and the salary of Mr. Nichols — its first rector — was
twenty pounds a year, raised by assessment upon "the
grand list." On June 4, 1788, "the Rev. James Nichols,
having by his intemperate habits lost the respect of his
people, was dismissed."
Sandgate, a place not far from Arlington, proved to
be a more permanent field of labor for this gentleman
from Connecticut. It was while he was here that he and
the Rev. Daniel Barber of Manchester organized the
first annual convention of the Episcopal Church in
Vermont, which was held at Arlington in September,
1790. One of its purposes was to take action to

THE REV. JAMES NICHOLS 27
preserve to the church the lands which had belonged
to it before the war. Nichols and Barber were
the only clergymen who attended. Barber read the
prayers and Nichols preached the sermon. Nichols
also preached the sermon at the next recorded conven
tion In 1792.
In 1793, the Rev. Bethuel Chittenden and the Rev.
J. C. Ogden, men of a more spiritual type, increased
the number of clerical members of the convention to
four, and the Rev. Dr. Edward Bass of Newburyport,
Massachusetts, was at that time elected bishop.
A special convention two months later at Manchester
elected the Rev. Samuel Peters, D.D., bishop, and
dispatched a messenger post haste to the Archbishop
of Canterbury to have him consecrated. Peters was a
notorious refugee from Connecticut and was an enemy
of Dr. Bass. Nichols and Barber were evidently in
favor of Peters, for they signed a letter of recommenda
tion to the archbishop, and there was considerable cor
respondence between Nichols and Peters. Chittenden
and Ogden protested vainly for Dr. Bass.
This convention was a packed one and but nine out
of twenty-four parishes were represented. Colonel
Jarvis of Toronto, Canada, a son-in-law of Dr. Peters,
was very active in securing a majority of votes for Dr.
Peters and Colonel John A. Graham of Rutland, a rela
tive, placed his name in nomination.
Dr. Peters was at this time in England, living upon
a pension from the government, and was a Tory of the
objectionable kind. He had been driven from his home
In Hebron, Conn., because of rabid loyalty and in
retaliation wrote his "General History of Connecticut,

28 THE TORIES OF CHIPPENY HILL
which contains the famous Blue Laws spun from his
brain that have since been associated with the name of
that State. He hated Dr. Bass as the devil hates holy
water, for that able and good clergyman of Newbury
port had reluctantly yielded to the stress of the Revolu
tion and peaceably held services without mention of the
king and royal family. This cost him the withdrawal
of financial support by the home society, due partly
to the enmity of Dr. Petefs, but he was reinstated and
finally became Bishop of Massachusetts. Dr. Samuel
Peters was a brilliant but eccentric man. His ruling
passion was ambition. He loved kings, admired the
British government, revered the hierarchy, and pos
sessed strong influence in England. His pension was
forfeited by a quarrel with Pitt but he maintained some
sort of a living from fictitious land sales and charity,
until his death in New York in 1826 at ninety-one years
of age.
The church had owned valuable lands in Vermont,
and Peters had hoped, as did Nichols no doubt, and,
in fact, all the church people more or less, that It might
retain Its ancient possessions. It was almost vital to the
existence of the church in Vermont that this be allowed.
A contemporary wrote that there were "no Episcopal
churches in the State, but a few church people and only
two or three strolling ministers who cannot get a decent
support." One reason in favor of Dr. Bass was that he
could continue to live at Newburyport and thereby save
expense. The Rev. Daniel Barber, Nichols' friend, clung to
his glebe land when the town of Manchester brought a
suit of ejectment against him and won out, but the

THE REV. JAMES NICHOLS 29
State immediately legislated glebe lands away from the
church and the struggle was for naught. The contest
for a bishop was abandoned. Peters could not secure
consecration from either the Archbishop of Canterbury
or from the American bishops, and the consecration of
Dr. Bass was not eff^ected at this time. This contest,
however, was the means of drawing a line between the
spiritual leaders like the Rev. Bethuel Chittenden and
Mr. Ogden and those more materialistically inclined like
Nichols and Barber, and fortunately for Vermont the
better class prevailed. Barber, who, according to Peters,
was "expelled from Vermont by starvation," gamely
kept up his struggle for land at Claremont, New Hamp
shire, where he formed a convention of churches
detrimental to the Vermont organization. In advanced
years, wearied with domestic trials, he gave up the strug
gle and In 1815 entered the Roman Catholic priesthood,
being deposed from the Episcopal church in 1818.
The Rev. James Nichols was the only clergyman
present at the Vermont convention in 1795, at which
Colonel Graham made report of his unsuccessful trip to
England to procure the consecration of Samuel Peters.
The convention passed a resolution of thanks for Colonel
Graham and a resolution of thanks and regret for Dr.
Peters. In 1796, 1797, and 1798, Nichols did not appear at
the annual conventions. It is supposed that he con
tinued at Sandgate although there is mention at one time
of his being minister at Manchester. In the convention
of 1799 a letter from William Smith, secretary of the
Convention of the Diocese of Connecticut, written by the
order of the Bishop and Clergy of that Diocese to the
Standing Committee of the Diocese of Vermont, respect-

30 THE TORIES OF CHIPPENY HILL
Ing the Rev. James Nichols, was read and ordered to lie
on the table for consideration. When the letter was
taken up, it was voted "That the Convention do disap
prove of the conduct of the Rev. James Nichols and
that they do recommend to the several churches in the
State not to employ him as a Clergyman until he pro
cures a Certificate from the Standing Commltte that he
has reformed his conduct and that he will do honor to
his profession."
"Rev. James Nichols," reports Bishop Griswold,
"having by his letter dated at Manchester, Vermont,
July 2, 1819, declared his resolution to renounce the
ministry of the Protestant Episcopal Church and in
future not to exercise any of its functions, and in con
sequence, agreeable to the provisions of the 2nd canon
of the General Convention of 1817, he the said James
Nichols, on the 2nd day of September, 1819, in the
presence of Rev. Mr. Crocker and other clergymen, was
declared to be, and is, suspended from his grade of the
ministry." The Rev. Carlton Chase, D. D., in Thomp
son's History of Vermont writes thus: "The writer is
constrained though with sorrow to mention the names
of two other individuals who for a time bore no incon
siderable part among the friends of the Church — the
Rev. James Nichols, who resided at Sandgate, and the
Rev. Russell Catlin who resided at Hartland. The for
mer was a man of talent and eloquence; the latter pos
sessed neither. It is painful to think of, and better not
to describe, the latter days of either."
It was not until June 17, 1829, that the "designing
church clergyman" of Chippeny Hill "died miserably"
at the home of one of his two sons at Stafford, Genesee
County, New York, aged eighty and one-half years.

Chapter III
THE TORY PRINCIPLES
WHATEVER may have been the degree of good
ness or of evil existing in that "designing
church clergyman," the Rev. James Nichols, it is cer
tain that the principles he taught were the principles
which governed the Chippeny HIU folk. How deeply
they had studied them is a matter of controversy. The
report of the committee at Hartford that examined the
seventeen prisoners from New Cambridge states that
"they were Indeed grossly ignorant of the true grounds
of the present war with Great Britain." Yet there
were educated men among them just as there were
among the other Tories throughout the country, and
it is unfair to assume that their actions were based
simply on their love for their church and antipathy to
its opponents, or that they were more ignorant of the
grounds of the war than some of their Puritan neigh
bors. Moses Dunbar, In his life on Long Island, had
had an opportunity to become acquainted with the
thoughts and feelings of the Tories in New York. Rev.
James Nichols at Litchfield had also been able to keep
in touch with events. It was at Litchfield, by the way,
that Governor Franklin of New Jersey, son of Benja
min Franklin, but a royalist governor, was kept In
honorable confinement. There were many Tories in
Western Connecticut, and especially about Stratford,

32 THE TORIES OF CHIPPENY HILL
who were in constant communication with those of Long
Island and New York, and the churchmen of Connecti
cut were all closely allied by family ties. Bishop
Seabury, as he became later, was one of the leaders of
the Tories near the New York State line. It is, perhaps,
well to consider why these were Tories.
There were, as there are and ever will be, m^n who
uphold government and detest lawlessness. A rebellion
that succeeds is a rare thing. It Is called a revolution,
and he who rebels without success, or at least without
good reason, is justly stamped a rebel. Ultimate suc
cess, single-handed, against Great Britain was, from a
practical point of view, a mere dream. The possIblHty
that some other nation, in warfare against the great
enemy, might set up the American colonies as a weapon
of offense was only a hope and did not change the condi
tions. Granting success, were the reasons sufficient? In
efficiency in the home government and taxation without
representation were the reasons given for the rebellion.
Were they g^ood ones, good enough to justify civil
war.? Men like Seabury and Governor Franklin
thought not. There was no great suffering wrong
hanging upon the necks of the American colonists.
They were eating, sleeping, and living In a well gov
erned country, and civil war is a horrid thing. Rotten
ness and inefficiency In administration might exist, but
there were other ways of curing it than by bloodshed.
There was also more than one side to the taxation
question. Great Britain had been fighting a combina
tion of the most powerful civilized nations. One of
these, France, had sought to seize the American colonies.
England came to their defense and did what they could

Grave of Capt. Nathaniel Jones
In East Plymouth Cemetery. He was the leading member
of the New Cambridge (Bi'istol) band of Tories.

THE TORY PRINCIPLES 33
not have done: saved them from a ruler of foreign
tongue and detested religion. Who should pay the
expense of this war if not the colonists.'' England was
not a wealthy land, and the colonies had received the
benefit. Yet when a nominal tax was Imposed, the
colonists became enraged, and exclaimed against
"Taxation without representation!" They did not
petition for representatives in Parliament. They did
not offer to tax themselves. There was reason to sus
pect that taxation with representation would be as
distasteful to the disgruntled ones as taxation without
representation. The taxation reason for desiring in
dependence did not seem important In the eyes of the
loyalists. Three thousand miles of Intervening water, — that
was a good reason for independence ; difference In relig
ious belief, — that was a good reason for Independence ;
lack of sympathy with English life In general was a
good reason for independence. But to the true church
man these reasons did not exist. England was the re
ligious center and place of pilgrimage; it was home.
The mere technicality of a few cents on tea could not
sever their attachment to the home government.
A good example of loyallsm is the following speech
delivered in September, 1776, before a large body of
the inhabitants of Long Island, a speech which Moses
Dunbar himself may have heard:
"Gentlemen, Friends, and Countrymen: — Being ap
pointed by his Excellency, General Howe, to raise a
corps of Provincials for his Majesty's service, I readily
engage in the attempt from principle, and in conse
quence of the fullest conviction that there are yet very

34 THE TORIES OF CHIPPENY HILL
many among us who still retain the most unshaken
loyalty to our gracious sovereign, and zealous attach
ment to the blessings of the British constitution. Now
is the time to exert our endeavors if we wish to rescue
ourselves from the evils of Republican tyranny, or our
country from ruin. The misrule and persecutions of
committees, conventions, and Congresses are no longer
to be endured; they have become insupportable — they
are too enormous for description. There are none of
us but what have already seen or felt the cruelty and
oppression of their Republican despotism. Without
affecting one salutary purpose, those self-created
bodies have violated all the sacred ties of civil society,
prostrated all law and government, and arbitrarily
usurped an absolute control over the natural rights, the
reason, and the consciences of their fellow subjects.
Instead of supporting constitutional liberty, and re
dressing public grievances, the special purposes of their
original associations, they have denied their fellow
citizens the greatest and most valuable of all possible
privileges: those of personal liberty and freedom of
speech. Instead of endeavoring, by dutiful represen
tations in a constitutional method, for a reconcihation
with the parent state, and thereby restoring to us the
innumerable benefits and advantages of the former
happy union between Great Britain and the colonies,
they have most unjustifiably and perversely erected
the standard of independency. That is not all. They
have Increased and multiplied the distresses of poverty
and want among our poor. They have moreover delib
erately involved their country in all the turbulence of
faction, in all the evils of monarchy and licentiousness ;

THE TORY PRINCIPLES 35
and to complete the transcendent enormity of their
crimes against the interest and prosperity of America,
they have disregarded the liberal and benevolent
declaration of his Majesty's commissioners of peace,
and with the most obdurate and unfeeling dispositions
for the distresses of their countrymen, obstinately and
wickedly precipitated the whole British continent of
America into all the guilt of rebellion, and all the
horrors and calamities of a civil war. In a few words,
gentlemen, they have deluded the populace, they have
betrayed their trust, they have forfeited the confidence
of the public, they have ruined our country. Not to
oppose them and their measures were criminal. Not to
join and assist the King's forces at this time would be
at once unwise, unmanly, and ungrateful. Your
loyalty to your King, your duty to your country, your
regard for your wives and children, the cause of violated
justice and of injured majesty, all call aloud for your
strenuous and united endeavors in assisting the royal
army and navy in re-establishing the authority of his
Majesty's government in the colonies, and with It a
return to America of those happier days we all have
seen, when the voice of peace and plenty was heard in
our land, and we experienced, under the protection and
benignity of the British State, the tranquil enjoyment
of such constitutional and established liberties and
privileges as were equal to our wishes, and known only
to British subjects."
There Is a factor in war time more powerful even than
reason and that is feeling. The Intensity of feeling
among the loyalists was kept at a white heat by the con
tinual persecutions by the patriot bands. Every

36 THE TORIES OF CHIPPENY HILL
loyahst knew how the famous printing house of their
trenchant writer, James Rivlngton of New York, had
been ruthlessly entered and the valuable type and other
property carried away into Connecticut or destroyed.
Such acts were resented. The following Items are
examples of what made the ears of the loyalists ring:
"In November a parcel of rebels in the dead of night
passed the North river from the Jersey shore, landed at
Bloomingdale, the seat of General DeLancey, about
seven miles from the city of New York, surprised and
made prisoners a guard at the landing place, broke into
the house and plundered it, abused and Insulted the Gen
eral's lady in a most infamous manner, struck Miss
Charlotte DeLancey, a young lady of about sixteen,
several times with a musket, set fire to the house, and
one of the wretches attempted to wrap up Miss Eliza
beth Floyd (an Intimate acquaintance of Miss DeLan-
cey's, about the same age, and the daughter of Col.
Richard Floyd) in a sheet all in flames, and as she ran
down the stairs to avoid the fire, the brute threw it
after her. (In consequence of this transaction Miss
DeLancey was rewarded by the government with a pen
sion of $200 per autumn.) One of the party below of
more humanity than the rest advised the young ladies
to make their escape. Miss DeLancey and Miss Floyd
made their flight through several fields until they
reached a swamp into which they entered and there con
tinued until eight o'clock the next morning without
either shoes or stockings and nothing upon them
except such thin clothes as ladies use to sleep In, when
they were discovered and carried to the house of Charles
Ward Apthorpe, Esq., a gentleman who lived in the

THE TORY PRINCIPLES 37
neighborhood and an intimate acquaintance of General
DeLancey. This was In the middle of the night in the
month of November when the weather Is very cold in
this part of America. Miss DeLancey took with her In
her flight, her brother's child, an infant In arms, and
held It safely in her lap the whole time. Miss Floyd's
feet and legs were so torn and lacerated by the briers,
brambles, and hedges that she passed, as to render her
unable to walk for three weeks."
"Some days ago, the daughter of Mrs. Jonathan Knlf-
fin, of Rye In Connecticut*, was murdered by a party
of rebels near or upon Budd's Neck. She was carry
ing some clothes to her father in company of two men
who' had the charge of a herd of cattle. They were fired
upon by the rebels from behind a stone wall. The men
escaped unhurt. They plundered her dead body of its
clothes, cut one of her fingers almost off in order to
take a ring, and left the corpse most Indecently
exposed in the highway. Such are the advocates of this
cursed rebellion!"
"The following odd affair happened at Stratford In
Connecticut, a few days ago : — A child of Mr. Edwards,
of that place, was baptized by the Rev. Mr.  of
Norwalk, and named Thomas Gage. This alarmed the
neighborhood; and one hundred and seventy young
ladies formed themselves Into a batallion, and with
solemn ceremony appointed a general and the other
officers to lead them on. The petticoat army then
marched in the greatest good order to pay their com
pliments to Thomas Gage, and present his mother with

*The author of this quotation apparently meant "Rye in New York.''

38 THE TORIES OF CHIPPENY HILL
a suit of tar and feathers; but Thomas's sire having
intelligence of their expedition, vi et armis kept them
from entering the house."
News of such character travelled fast among the
Tories of western Connecticut, the last two accounts
being published In newspapers having a circulation
about New York, and it is reasonable to suppose that
these or similar stories were recited eventually at Chip
peny Hill firesides. To a man at all ready set in his
convictions against Puritanism, in those days when men
were "sot," such accounts as these would not tend to
alleviate his state of rigidity.
There was a funny side to the American rebellion
which could not but appeal to the descendants of
cavaliers, and at the risk of forever losing my right to
become a member of the Society of the Sons of the
American Revolution, I beg leave to close this chapter
with the following extract from a loyalist paper:
"Thirteen is a number peculiarly belonging to the
rebels. A party of naval prisoners lately returned from
New Jersey say that the rations among the rebels are
thirteen dried clams per day; that the titular Lord
Stirling takes thirteen glasses of grog every morning,
has thirteen enormous rum-bunches on his nose, and
that (when duly impregnated) he always makes thirteen
attempts before he can walk ; that Mr. Washington has
thirteen toes on his feet (the extra ones having grown
since the Declaration of Independence), and the same
number of teeth in each jaw; that the Sachem Schuyler
has a top knot of thirteen stiff hairs, which erect them
selves on the crown of his head when he grows mad ; that
Old Putnam had thirteen pounds of his posteriors bit

THE TORY PRINCIPLES 39
off in an encounter with a Connecticut bear ('twas then
that he lost the balance of his mind) ; that It takes thir
teen Congress paper dollars to equal one penny sterlings
that Mrs. Washington had a mottled tom-cat (which
she calls in a complimentary way "Hamilton"), with
thirteen yellow rings around his tail, and that his
flaunting it suggested to the Congress the adoption of
the same number of stripes for the rebel flag."

Chapter IV
THE TORY DEN
WERE a stranger to ask me the way to the Tory
Den I should tell him to seek out someone who
had been there before and go with him. He could not
find it alone. One hundred and thirty years ago, the
patroits tried to find it and although they scoured the
woods In bands, they failed utterly. So would you to
day, for the cave is a favored spot, open only to Its
friends. Those who were its friends then, always found
it welcoming them, and so, I trust, may you learn to find
it. It lies in the Ledges, and Is backed by a tall cliff, fac
ing southeast toward Chippeny HIU, which an agile
climber can scale in less than a minute. Ferns, and
briers, and sweet smelling things that you will fail to
recall the names of, grow over the entrance. Within,
the impression is that of considerable length. Two
lines of seven men could sit facing each other beneath
the roofs of rock ; three could stand upright where the
rocks are highest. The quickest way for them to escape
would be for the two southernmost men to turn to the
south and, stooping, walk out ; and for the one northern
most man to turn to the north and crawl out. The floor
of the cave is dirt which washed down from the neigh
boring cliff.
Those who came to this haven of refuge and what

THE TORY DEN 41
they did beneath the rocks and ferns will never be known
to history. There is no record nor sign. It is a tradi
tion that Ruth Graves' oldest child was bom there, but
while it is possible that the father, Stephen Graves,
was hiding there at the time of the child's birth. It is
improbable that the cave was ever the refuge of women.
As foot tracks would show in the snow. It is doubtful
if it was occupied in the winter, and It Is also doubtful
if a fire was built there even in the day time, as the
smoke might be seen by the Sons of Liberty. When the
cave was in use, both entrances were so carefully hidden
that it was never discovered. In spite of most careful
search of the ledge above. The late Mr. John J. Welton
thought there must have been an entrance partly under
ground, but nothing of the kind is now known.
The den was discovered on Thanksgiving day in the
year 1838 by X. A. Welton, a grandson of Stephen
Graves, and Bela A. Welton, boys of fourteen, who after
hunting all day accidentally came upon the south and
larger entrance.
Come! oh, rocks of the Ledges, and tell me who of
the Tory clan came oftenest to the den. First of all
there was Stephen Graves of Harwinton; and many a
time did he run from his log cabin to hide himself
beneath its moss grown roof. And many a time, doubt
less, did the secret meeting of men that he was harbor
ing adjourn thither post haste. His home was nearer
to it than were any of the Chippeny HIU farmhouses,
and therefore It is possible that It was he who discovered
It in the first place. It was Ruth Graves, his young
wife, who fed the men In the den. She carried the food
from the house and left it for them on a flat rock near

42 THE TORIES OF CHIPPENY HILL
the edge of the woods, for she dared not risk betrayal by
going nearer.
I wonder if there was anyone In the cave the night
Joel Tuttle crawled into the entrance. The day before
he hung by the neck from an oak tree on the Federal
Hill Green at New Cambridge. Captain Thomas
Hungerford, a patriot neighbor whose name later ap
pears as a fellow churchman, cut him down, and he lay
at the foot of the tree insensible until sometime in the
night, when he so far revived as to be able to make his
way to the cave in the Ledges, about four miles distant.
I wonder how many of the Tuttle family saw the
inside of the cave. There was Simon Tuttle, an old
man, and Daniel, his son. Daniel went openly over to
the Tory forces, and his land and homestead were con
fiscated by the State of Connecticut and sold at pubhc
vendue. Ebenezer had a son born in January 1775,
who was given the name Constant Loyal Tuttle. And
there were the Carrlngtons, Lemuel and RIverius. The
Carringtons always loved the old and deUghted in say
ing so. Lemuel afterward kept a tavern on the Hill,
and Lois, his sister, once heated a great kettle of water
for the purpose of giving the patriot raiders a warm
reception; but they did not come. That was almost
too bad, for if she was a true Carrington she certainly
would have thrown the water, and she lived to a ripe
old age to tell about it. Then there was Captain
Nathaniel Jones, an elderly sea captain who lived on
the very summit of the Hill. He had a son, a captain
of marines, In the home service, or rather thought he
had, for he did not know that his son lay dead and
buried, killed in his first battle for the preservation of

THE TORY DEN 43
the Union. It was the grand niece of Captain Jones
who testified that the Tory hunters used to go about
visiting cellars and pantries and destroying provisions,
thus doing what they could to starve the women and
children. And there were the Mathewses, good folk of whom
any community might be proud, who loved the church
and were leaders in Its services. I wonder if they were
driven to the Ledges too. And the Jeromes — ^but they
would enjoy such life more than the Mathewses.
Ruth Graves was a Jerome. She and her brothers,
Zerubbabel Jr. and Chauncey, were the loyalist mem
bers of this adventuresome family. Chauncey was a
young man and lived on Fall Mountain which rises far
off on the southern horizon, as you look from the cliff.
The den was a long way from his home, and had it not
been for Jonathan Pond, his brother-in-law, he would
once have suffered severely for that very free tongue
of his. They caught him on the mountain and led him
to an apple tree, with his shirt up over his head, then
strung him up by his thumbs to a limb, his feet barely
touching the ground. They selected a strong hickory
rod and struck a terrific blow. Tradition says that a
scar was left on the tree, where the rod came down.
Athletic Chauncey Jerome had torn from his bonds
with a leap, leaving his shirt hanging on the tree, and
in his small clothes he ran like a deer down the moun
tain. He sought refuge in the house of Jonathan Pond,
who stood gun in hand at the door and commanded the
pursuers not to enter. Chauncey Jerome finally went
to Nova Scotia to live until the war was over, and he
outlived most of his contemporaries and always bore

44 THE TORIES OF CHIPPENY HILL
the name of Jerome the Tory. He was often to be seen
in his old age walking toward Chippeny Hill, dignified,
erect, and with a determined step, his strong, intelligent
face surrounded with long white locks, cordial to those
that he knew but turning quickly with a startled glance
at the step of a stranger.
Another Inmate of the den, maybe, was the man —
name unknown — ^who lived in the first house east of the
Waterbury line on the old road from what is now East
Plymouth to New Cambridge. A band of Tory hunters
stopped at his house once with a number of bound
prisoners, of which he was one. When the only armed
man of the squad, in order to get a drink at the well,
left his gun leaning against the house, the housewife
seized it, and, cutting the bonds of her husband, placed
It in his hands. Then under his protection she released
the bonds of the other prisoners. The most distin
guished visitor to the den was Rev. James Nichols.

Chapter V
CAPTAIN WILSON'S SONS OF LIBERTY
THERE were no more patriotic men In Litchfield
county when Lexington rang with the sound of
musket shots than the men of Harwinton. The older
of them had known the encompassing hills when all was
a wilderness where wolves howled at night. Now homes
were scattered here and there; roads had been built,
there was a busy mill, and a blacksmith shop, fertile
fields lay where formerly forests had thrived, and law
and order prevailed everywhere. No king in England
or his nobles could have accomplished this. It Is the
work of the man of energy that reaps the laurels in a
land such as this.
Captain John Wilson was such a man. He had
come Into the wilderness as one of five settlers, a Caleb
in Israel, who had wandered into the land to possess
It and remained, hale and hearty, to judge therein.
Deacon, captain, selectman, and deputy In the General
Assembly, during the stirring days that followed the
battle of Lexington, he was a moving spirit, although
he was then sixty-four years old. So was Daniel Catlin,
Justice of the Peace. When It was the mind of the
town that the mode of taxation be altered and a com
mittee was selected to confer with a committee at Litch
field on the subject, it was Captain John Wilson and
Daniel Catlin, Esq. who were chosen. Catlin was the

46 THE TORIES OF CHIPPENY HILL
judicial authority; but when it came to the executive
It was Captain John Wilson. I suspect that the Cap
tain was a member of the secret debating club session
of the legislature, called by Governor Trumbull at
about the commencement of the disagreement with the
home country, when six of the ablest jurists of the
State were appointed to debate the right of parliament
to tax the colonies — three affirmatives and three nega
tive — ^when every one went home, after two or three
days' argument, convinced to the marrow of the justice
of the American cause.
The Sons of Liberty were the "Klu Klux Klan", of
Harwinton, and Captain Wilson was their natural
leader. The freemen In town meeting volunteered to
supply thirty-six men for the war and guaranteed their
pay, sent four men to assist in guarding the sea-coast
at Horse Neck, and directed that cattle should be col
lected for the soldiers at the front. Committees ap
pointed by them provided shoes, stockings, shirts, and
other "cloathlng" for the soldiers, and cared for their
families. Daniel Catlin, Esq. swore in all who took
the oath of fidelity, and kept a record of their names.
Militia men who refused to serve when called on were
fined. All these things were done under the law and
with the sanction of the authorities.
Captain Wilson and his "Sons" knew no authority.
They defied authority. Independence had been the
characteristic of the Sons of Liberty, ever since the first
society was started in Connecticut in 1766 for the pur
pose of preventing the enforcement of the stamp act.
By actively defying law they caused the rebellion, and
they did not hesitate to break the law, if by so doing

CAPTAIN WILSON'S SONS OF LIBERTY 47
they could forward the success of their cause. They did
many services for their country, however, which no law
could do. They patroUed the towns in which they lived
and rode those, who believed as they did not, on a rail.
Tar and feathers, a peculiarly American mode of pun
ishment, was the product of their ingenuity; and they
were no respecters of persons. The churchmen, who
were also worshipers of the king, were their special prey,
and any sign of sympathy with the government of
Great Britain set them In immediate action.
The reason that we have to do with the Harwinton
Sons is because the southeast corner of Harwinton town
reaches down almost to Chippeny Hill, and Stephen
Graves, the loyalist, lived In that corner, and the im
pression made by the Harwinton Sons upon Stephen
Graves was so strong that It was handed down and
preserved by his descendants. There were patriots In
Farmington in which town New Cambridge and Chip
peny Hill lay; and there were patriots in Waterbury,
in which town Northbury lay, and they were active;
but the Harwinton Sons were the most active, for they
had Captain Wilson. There was only one Captain
Wilson, and he watched all Harwinton. The church
men in the comer did not escape him although his home
was in the further northwest section, almost in sight of
where Torrlngton now stands. A characteristic of a
Harwinton Wilson, according to a typical living mem
ber of that family. Is that he is "dreadful full o' zeal."
Captain Wilson was dreadful full of zeal. There were
miles of hills, rough paths, and mud for the elderly
man, but rough paths were a mere Incident to the Captain.
By night and day, in season and out of season, he

48 THE TORIES OF CHIPPENY HILL
swooped down upon the loyalists to their discomfort
and terror. The men fled at his approach, and the
women watched over the long northern hills for his
men. They saw violence there and force; a deacon and
a gentleman, who stood in the doorway, hat in hand,
but with an armed force at his back, demanding ad
mittance. He was hunting for men that he might take
them and tie them to a tree and bare their backs and
flog them until the blood ran. For Connecticut must
be free, and shame would it be for the goodfolk of
Harwinton that traitors should dwell in their midst.
The loyaUsts united and worked their fields together
in bands for protection. The housewife kept watch,
and, at the first sight of a prowling patriot, blew a
blast on the dinner horn. Other women, Ustening in
distant farm houses, blew the warning farther over the
hills, giving the men opportunity to escape to the den
or to a place of safety. Mrs. Ebenezer Johnson, who
of the loyalists was the nearest to Harwinton center,
one day espied one or more of Wilson's raiders, and
blew her tin horn. They searched the house for It
without success. Waiting until they were fairly out
side, she untied the horn from her garter and blew a
defiant "toot ! toot !" They returned and searched the
premises thoroughly but again without success.
There is another story of Harwinton that Is worth
telling before we pass on to the life of Stephen Graves.
Once upon a time two Whigs, each by himself, went
Tory hunting. One was a leading citizen of Harwin
ton, later commonly known as "Squire Brace", who
discovered something or somebody on or near the
Graves farm. The man also discovered him and made

CAPTAIN WILSON'S SONS OF LIBERTY 49
for him, supposing him to be a Tory. Brace, less
courageous, turned and fled, closely followed by his
pursuer, until he finally fell down exhausted. What
was said by each to the other has not been recorded
in the chronicles of Whig and Tory, but tradition says
that the prostrate runner was never allowed to forget
that race for life. Brace was later a strong Federalist,
and became Mayor of Hartford, State's Attorney for
Hartford county, and a member of Congress. Asa
Smith, once a teamster in the latest French war and
who died about 1828, aged ninety, was thus remembered
in rhyme by his son Miles, who lived not far north of
the Graves place, and, like most of the conservatives of
the Revolution, was a Republican.
As for Uncle Ase,
He thinks it no disgrace
To vote for federal Brace,
Fall down and skin his face.
An echo, probably, of town meeting day.

Chapter VI
STEPHEN GRAVES
STEPHEN GRAVES, whose family has left the
most complete story of those stirring days of the
loyalists, was the particular object of Captain Wilson's
raids. His home was a storm center, because it was a
rendezvous for the loyalists.
Graves was a modest young man, and loved the ways
of peace. His father, who lived in Northbury, owned
nearly two hundred acres of land in the southeastern
corner of Harwinton; and when young Graves decided
to marry, he built his cabin there. On the same site,
he later built another house which is now the summer
home of Professor John C. Griggs.
From the hill-top looking toward the northwest were
the hills of Harwinton; away toward the southeast
was Chippeny Hill, and close on the north and east
lay the Ledges, which to this day is a wild and rocky
region. Stephen Graves brought his bride from Chip
peny HIU to this place in December of 1778, and there
they made their home.
It was probably a number of years after the war
commenced when the Sons of Liberty decided that
Stephen Graves was a person needing their attention.
Whatever opinions he may have had, he seems to have
kept them to himself for some time. In 1778, with
other good men of Harwinton, he appeared before

STEPHEN GRAVES 51
Daniel Catlin, Esq. and took the oath of fidelity and
the freeman's oath. The original oath of fidelity, as
he took it, was drastic and compelled a conscientious
denial of the king's power; but the one afterward
adopted and used was little more than swearing fidelity
to the State of Connecticut as an independent state and
promising to do one's duty as a good subject to sup
port its rights and privileges. It is a family tradition
that Graves was drafted for service in the American
army, hired a substitute, and, according to his daugh
ter's statement, "starved his family to pay the wages
of his substitute." While this man was still In the field,
Stephen Graves was drafted a second time. It Is related
that Samuel Alcott, the grandfather of Mr. James
Shepard, of New Britain, voluntarily enlisted, and upon
his return home was three times drafted and served out
his period each time. Jonathan Pond also hired a
substitute in September, 1777, and was obUged to
engage another three months later.
But Stephen Graves vowed that he would neither
fight nor continue to pay a substitute. His sympathy
with the King thus being made known, the Sons of
Liberty undertook to break it. They didn't. Stephen
Graves was a quiet man but he was as independent as
the rest of Harwinton people. His sympathy for his
Church and King was natural. His father was a
member of St. Peter's church in Northbury, and the
Graves name appeared prominently among the mission
aries of the church in New England. Rev. James
Nichols was his close friend, so much so that after the
war he appointed him his agent in a business matter
in which he was interested.

62 THE TORIES OF CHIPPENY HILL
Every attempt to break his loyallsm only increased
it. A mob once seized him and carried him to a fork of
the roads on the northern line of Waterbury town,
a half mile south of his house. There was a cherry tree
there, and they tied him to it and scourged him with
hickory rods. He told his daughter years afterwards
that while that stump remained he should remember his
whipping. Yet the whipping did not change his mind.
Once, while on a visit to Saybrook, the home of his
grandfather, he was arrested and brought back to Har
winton, his captors accusing him of desertion. They
rode while he walked, and they required him to pay all
the tavern bills. Finding that he made no attempt to
escape, they relaxed their vigilance and sometimes when
climbing a hill allowed him to get some distance ahead.
Such were their relative positions one day at dusk,
coming up Pine Hollow Hill from New Cambridge,
about three miles from home, when he stepped up the '
steep bank, bade them good evening, and disappeared
in the woods. Being well acquainted with the region
thereabout, he reached home and lay on a fiat rock
within hearing of the colloquy that took place between
the pursuers, who arrived later, and Mrs. Graves who
affirmed that he was not at home but had been absent
some weeks at Saybrook. At another time, he escaped
capture by climbing a pine tree.
He had an unusual disposition. He was non-com
bative and peaceful, but almost devoid of fear. He used
to tell his children that he had never been alarmed but
twice and then when he was a small boy. Once he had
climbed a tree to rob a woodpecker's nest, and, putting
his hand into the hole, a black snake had thrust its

View Looking South from the Tory Den Cliff
Old Marsh in the foreground; Chippens Hills at the left, and East Plymouth at the right.

STEPHEN GRAVES 53
head out. The next instant he found himself on the
ground. He was an honorable man and leader, and
before his death had held office as selectman of Harwin
ton and was looked upon as a respected citizen despite
his reputation as a Tory. A grandson, Carlos Welton
of Thomaston, according to family tradition, strongly
resembles him In personal appearance and in tempera
ment. The wife of Graves was a resourceful woman. She
was Ruth Jerome of Chippeny HIU and as a bride of
eighteen came to live in the house In the woods. She
was a timid woman, of whom her daughter is recorded
as saying that she used to tremble with fear when she
heard at night the "ooah! ooah!" of the bears in the
neighboring wood. He who fishes on the Old Marsh
now after dark knows how lonely the Ledges are; but
in those days there were loons in the Marsh, and a
forest covered the hills.
One day Mrs. Graves, who had just blown her warn
ing conch shell, was surprised by the entrance of
Captain Wilson just as she was stooping to hide the
shell between the straw bed and the feather bed. With
quick wit she took something from under the bed, hid
it under her apron, and walked out of doors. The
Captain, supposing she was going out to hide the shell
which he was quite anxious to capture, closely followed.
When he was well outside, she suddenly turned and
threw the contents of the vessel In his face. Thus
roughly assaulted, the Captain in his wrath threatened
the life of Mrs. Graves' young girl companion, with a
pistol at her head, until she showed where the conch
was concealed. Many years afterwards, when Mrs.

54 THE TORIES OF CHIPPENY HILL
Graves heard of Captain Wilson's death, she exclaimed :
"I'm glad on't." Her husband reminded her of the
Christian duty of forgiveness. She replied that she
could not forgive him, for he had not brought back her
conch shell that he had stolen.
Stephen Graves could afford to own only one cow,
so he was forced to borrow a second from a neighbor.
As the Sons were In the act of driving off Graves' animal,
Ruth appeared and warned them not to take what was
simply a loan. The Sons therefore thought they had
made a mistake and were taking the wrong property,
so they returned the Graves' cow to her stable and
drove off the other. As soon as the sun set, the Graves'
household drove their cow down to Chippeny Hill and
had it butchered rather than have it fall into the hands
of the Sons. What the owner of the pilfered bovine
said Is not recorded.
This young girl was surely a helpmeet to the good-
man Graves. And I venture that she had Ideas of her
own, even if the ooah! of the bears In the neighboring
wood did frighten her. Her aged father, Zerubbabel
Jerome and a brother shouldered their guns and
marched to the aid of Boston. Another brother fought
the British in New York, and one who Hved in Wyoming
died fighting for Washington In New Jersey. Two of
her brothers were loyalists like herself and were not
afraid to say so. Captain Wilson found her a typical
Jerome. What a striking figure she must have made
that day when she turned about in the back yard and
soused the Captain! A poor log cabin, one cow, and
the simple life of an old time farm ! I wish I could have
seen the wrathy Captain and the drippings from his

STEPHEN GRAVES 55
aged locks. No wonder that his eyes snapped at the
laughing woman. But when he was gone and the excite
ment was over, there was nothing for her to do but to
throw herself down on the bed where her precious shell
had been kept. She had not realized how much the shell
had meant to her, until she could feel it no longer in
its place. How well she remembered when she first put
her lips to it and could not blow it. And how proud
she was when after trying again and again for the
first time the sound came forth and her husband praised
her for it. She could hear it now, resounding through
the air, she could see the birds among the trees scatter
at the noise, and the cows, feeding over on the hill,
raise their heads. She wondered where her friends,
who always listened for it, were then. She always heard,
whenever the women gathered together, how this one
stopped the loom to Hsten, and how that one was pick
ing berries miles away. Then she was proud to blow
until her face was red, standing right there where she
had faced the Captain. Now she could blow It no more.
She hated the Captain, — old meeting house deacon!
Poor girl, how could she know that the rebellion was
sacred !

Chapter VII
MOSES DUNBAR
THERE was one man who drew to Chippeny Hill
the critical eyes of the entire State. He was
Moses Dunbar, who was captured on or near Chippeny
Hill, and who was the only person executed as a
traitor as a result of trial by law in Connecticut during
the Revolution. It was a tragedy meet for a poet's pen.
The best account is that given by Moses Dunbar
himself in his short biography, and by some of the con
temporary records of the day. I wiU give them here
as they are given, asking that in reading the unadorned
written records you forget not the green hills near the
Ledges and the loyal farmhouses that loved him weU.
Dunbar's biography is as follows:
"I was born at Wallingford in Connecticut, the 14th
of June, A.D. 1746, being the second of sixteen children,
all born to my Father by one Mother. My Father,
John Dunbar, was born at Wallingford, and married
Temperance Hall of the same place, about the year
1743. I was educated in the business of husbandry.
About the year 1760, my father removed himself and
family to Waterbury* where, May ye 30th, I was mar-

*The Waterbury Land Records show that on March 21, 1775, Moses
Dunbar bought, for ten pounds, of Thankful Bachelor, eighty rods of
land in Waterbury, with a dwelling house thereon. The same premises
were bought by Bachelor from Ebenezer Cook, being taken off the west
side of Cook's farm in Northbury parish, the land lying across the Great
Brook.

MOSES DUNBAR 57
ried to Phebe Jearman of Farmington [I. e. Phebe
Jerome of Chippeny Hill] , by whom I had seven chil
dren, four of whom are now living. The first year of
our marriage my wife and I, upon what we thought
sufficient and rational motives, declared ourselves for
the Church of England, the Rev. Mr. Scovill being
then missionary at Waterbury. May 20th, my honored
mother departed this life. She was a woman of much
virtue and good reputation, whom I remember with the
most honor and gratitude for the good care and affec
tion she continually showed me. My joining myself to
the Church occasioned a sorrowful breach between my
father and myself, which was the cause of his never as
sisting me but very little in gaining a livelihood, Uke-
wise it caused him to treat me very harshly In many
instances, for which I heartily forgive him, as I hope
pardon from my God and my Saviour for my own
offences. I likewise earnestly pray God to forgive them
through Christ." [Dunbar's father later offered to
furnish the hemp for a halter to hang him with.]
"From the time that the present unhappy misunder
standing between Great Britain and the Colonies began,
I freely confess I never could reconcile my opinion to
the necessity or lawfulness of taking up arms against
Great Britain. Having spoken somewhat freely on the
subject, I was attacked by a mob of about forty men,
very much abused, my life threatened and nearly taken
away, by which mob I was obliged to sign a paper
containing many falsehoods. May 20, 1776, my wife
deceased in full hope of future happiness  The
winter preceding this trial had been a time of distress

58 THE TORIES OF CHIPPENY HILL
with us.* ... I had now concluded to Uve peacable
and give no offence, neither by word nor deed. I had
thought of entering into a voluntary confinement with
in the limits of my farm, and of making proposals of
that nature, when I was carried before the Committee
and by them ordered to suffer imprisonment during
their pleasure not exceeding five months. When I had
remained there about fourteen days, the authority of
New Haven dismissed me. [Waterbury was in New
Haven County.] Finding my life uneasy, and, as I had
reason to apprehend, in great danger, I thought it my
safest method to flee to Long Island, which I accord
ingly did."t
"But having a desire to see my friends and children,
and being under engagement of marriage with her
[Esther Adams] who is my wife, the banns of marriage
having been before published, I returned, and was mar
ried. Having a mind to remove my wife and family to
Long Island, as a place of safety, I went there the
second time, to prepare matters accordingly. When
there, I accepted a captain's warrant for the King's
service in Colonel Fanning's reglment.ff
"I returned to Connecticut, when I was taken and be
trayed by Joseph Smith, and was brought before the
authority of Waterbury. They refused to have any-

*According to the Northbury parish records, a child of Moses Dunbar
died early in the year, 1776.
t On July 17, 1776, Moses Dunbar sold to Ebenezer Cook, for five
pounds, the same half acre that he bought of Thankful Bachelor, for
ten pounds. On June 25, he sold 30 acres, also in Waterbury. —
Waterbury Land Records.
•ff Act of Conn. General Assembly, Session lasting from Oct.

MOSES DUNBAR 59
thing to do with the matter. I was carried before
Justice Strong and Justice Whitman of Farmington,
and by them committed to Hartford, where the Superior
Court was then sitting. I was tried on Thursday, 23d
of January, 1777, for High Treason against the State
of Connecticut, by an act passed in October last, for
enUsting men for General Howe, and for having a cap
tain's commission for that purpose. I was adjudged
guilty and on the Saturday following was brought to
the bar of the court and received sentence of death.
The time of my suffering was afterward fixed to be the
19th day of March, 1777.
The Indictment of Dunbar in abbreviated form was
as follows:
"The jurors for the Governor and Company of the
State of Connecticut present that one Moses Dunbar
of Farmington, not having the fear of God before
his eyes and being seduced by the instigation of the
Devil, on or about the 10th day of November last past,
and also on or about the 1st day of January, instant,
did go from said Farmington to the city of New York
to hold traitorous correspondence with the British
troops and navy, and did join himself to the British
Army and enter their service and pay, and did engage
to levy war against this State, and did procure and
persuade one John Adams [Dunbar's second wife's

loth to Nov. 7, 1776. "If any person, shall knowingly aid an enemy at
open war against this State, by joining their armies, or by enlisting, or
procuring, or perswading others to enlist for that purpose, etc., every
person so offending, and being thereof convicted shsul suffer death."

60 THE TORIES OF CHIPPENY HILL
name was Adams] of said Farmington and divers
others to enlist for the purpose of levying war against
this State, etc."
The Cormecticut Courant of Jan. 27, 1777, published
the following:
"At the adjourned Superior Court held in this place
last week, Moses Dunbar of Waterbury was convicted
of having a captain's commission from General Howe
and of enlisting men to serve In the ministerial army.
Sentenced to suffer death but the time of his execution
Is not fixed upon. At the same time Rev. Mr. Nichols
of Waterbury was tried for treasonable practice
against the United States and was acquitted."
And on Monday, March 17 of the same year:
"Thursday last the Superior Court ended their ses
sions in this place. During the session the infamous
Ellsha Wadsworth was convicted of treasonable prac
tices against the State for attempting to rescue Moses
Dunbar, under sentence of death ; said Wadsworth was
ordered to pay a fine of forty pounds, to suffer one
year's imprisonment, and pay costs of prosecution.
[With the aid of a knife brought by Wadsworth, Dun
bar cleared himself of his irons, knocked down the
guard, and escaped from the jail, but was recaptured.]
Next Wednesday is the day appointed for the execution
of Moses Dunbar. A sermon will be preached at the
Gaol to the prisoner by Rev. Mr. Jarvis of Middletown.
A sermon will also be preached in the North Meeting
House to the spectators by Rev. Mr. Strong of this
town."

MOSES DUNBAR 61
Dunbar's biography continues :
"Which tremendous and awful day now draws near,
when I must appear before the Searcher of hearts to
give an account of all the deeds done in the body
whether they be good or evil. I shall soon be delivered
from all the pains and troubles of this wicked mortal
state, and shall be answerable to All-Seeing God, who
is infinitely just, and knoweth all things as they are.
I am fully persuaded that I depart in a state of peace
with God and my own conscience. I have but little
doubt of my future happiness, through the merits of
Jesus Christ. I have sincerely repented of all my sins,
examined my heart, prayed earnestly to God for mercy,
for the gracious pardon of my manifold and heinous
sins, I resign myself wholly to the disposal of my
Heavenly Father, submitting to His Divine Will.
From the bottom of my heart I forgive all enemies and
earnestly pray God to forgive them all. Some part of
Th  S  's evidence was false, but I heartily for
give him, and likewise earnestly beg forgiveness of all
persons whom I have Injured or offended. Since my
sentence I have been visited by sundry worthy ministers
of the gospel, who have discoursed and prayed with me,
among whom are the Rev. William Short of Hartford.
The Rev. William Viets of Simsbury, my fellow prisoner
on account of preaching in favor of the British govern
ment, has been indefatigable in affording every possible
assistance to prepare me for my terrible exit. He ad
ministered the sacrament of the Lord's Supper to me
the Sunday before I was put to death. To those gentle
men, as well as all others who have shewed me kindness
I give my most sincere thanks. I die in the profession

62 THE TORIES OF CHIPPENY HILL
and communion of the Church of England. Of my po
litical sentence I leave the readers of these lines to judge.
Perhaps it is neither reasonable nor proper that I
should declare them in my present situation. I cannot
take the last farewell of my countrymen without de
siring them to show kindness to my poor widow and chil
dren, not reflecting on them the manner of my death.
Now I have given you a narrative of all things material
concerning my life with that veracity which you are to
expect from one who is going to leave the world and
appear before the God of truth. My last advice to you
is that you, above all others, confess your sins and pre
pare yourselves, with God's assistance, for your future
and Eternal state. You will all shortly be as near Eter
nity as I now am, and will view both worlds in the Ught
which I do now view them. You will then view all
wordly things to be but shadows and vapours and vani
ty of vanities, and the things of the Spiritual world to
be of importance beyond all description. You will then
be sensible that the pleasures of a good conscience, and
the happiness of the near prospect of Heaven, will
outweigh all the pleasures and honours of this wicked
world. "God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy
Ghost, have mercy on me, and receive my spirit.
"Amen and Amen.
"Moses Dunbar.
"Hartford, March 18th, A. D., 1777."
The Rev. Dr. Strong's discourse, with the Dunbar
tragedy as its theme, is in part as follows:
"The occasion of our being collected here to worship

MOSES DUNBAR 63
God is one of the most solemn that can be conceived.
This day is appointed to close the life of an unhappy
person who is condemned for conspiring against his
country and all its prlvUeges. He hath been judged by
men in righteousness, the sentence of death pronounced,
the day of execution come; an event indeed awful
and affecting to every mind of humanity or religion.
Though justice to our country and reverence for its
laws forbids anything that would impede a full execu
tion of them, there is room for prayer to Almighty God
that this day's business may be blessed for our good,
and that the unhappy criminal may receive the forgive
ness of his sins from God, though he cannot have for
giveness from the State, consistent with public safety.
"For reasons, we must in charity hope, honest to him
self, he refuses to be present at this solemnity ; my dis
course therefore will not be calculated, as hath been
usual on such occasions, for a dying creature who is to
appear immediately before the Great Judge: but to
assist my hearers In making an Improvement of the
event for their own benefit. ... I will conclude with
some observations suggested by the occasion of the
day. "First. It learns us to love and revere our country, to
obey its laws, to devote ourselves to its service, and
abhor every practice which hath any tendency to in
crease the public calamities. Had the unhappy person
who is soon to be executed done this, he might now have
been prosperous, beloved, and respected. Now he Is
covered with infamy, bound In chains, surrounded with
the instruments of horror and death. From his fate let
us learn the danger of encouraging a traitorous dis-

64 THE TORIES OF CHIPPENY HILL
position, and secretly attempting practices against our
country: the mercy of men cannot pardon them, for
darkness will not cover them, hell will not hide
them. "Secondly. The melancholy spectacle which is soon
to be exhibited hath drawn together a vast concourse of
people who are doubtless influenced by various motives
to be spectators of so awful a scene. Some by true
seriousness, and many to gratify a vain curiosity.
Curiosity is but a poor motive for collecting on such an
occasion. Such awful exhibitions are designed that
others may see and fear. Death is there! justice and
judgment are there, the power of government, dis
played in its most awful form, Is there.
"One reason why it Is necessary the unhappy person
should thus die Is that others may be fortified against
temptation by the spectacle of horror and the bitter
consequences of transgression.
"Above all things, learn that we must die. Realize
the Importance of being prepared to leave the world —
how it feels to be within a few minutes of eternity! of
the bar of God ! of the solemn sentence which determines
a state of happiness or misery forever.
"With regard to the dying criminal, while you
acquiesce In the necessity of his fate, give him your
prayers. Though public safety forbids him pardon from
the state, he may be pardoned by God Almighty. . . .
God grant that the awful scene may do us good — con
firm us in holiness and virtue, in the love of God and our
country — that It may guard us against temptation, and
make us careful to live In all good conscience towards
God and men — that we may finally lay down these

MOSES DUNBAR 65
tabernacles of flesh in peace, trusting in the Savior's
merits, and be received to the holy presence of God.
"To Him who rules all things according to His own
pleasure and wisdom, who saves the world by his blood,
and sanctifies the ungodly, be praise, glory, and do
minion, forever and ever. Amen."
Dunbar's parting words of affection and guidance
for his children are worthy of quotation :
"MY CHILDREN. Remember your Creator In the
days of your youth. Learn your Creed, the Lord's
prayer, and the ten commandments and catechism, and
go to church as often as you can, and prepare your
selves as soon as you are of a proper age to worthily
partake of the Lord's Supper. I charge you all, never
to leave the Church. Read the Bible. Love the Saviour
wherever you may be. I am now in Hartford jail con
demned to death for high treason against the State of
Connecticut. I was thirty years last June, the 14th.
God bless you. Remember your Father and Mother
and be dutiful to your present mother."
The following incident is a curious one and note
worthy from a psychic standpoint.
"I see," said Isaiah Dunbar, In his home on Town Hill
In Northbury parish, "I see — ," (yet he saw not, for the
eyes had been dark many a long day. ) "I see a sky and a
man there. It is Moses Dunbar hanging !" His brothers
laughed and said, "It is not so." But they inquired even
as to the hour, and it was so, as he had said.
The excerpts which follow give some slight Idea of
the difference of opinion upon the Dunbar matter.

66 THE TORIES OF CHIPPENY HILL
From the Connecticut Courwnt, Monday, March 24:
"Last Wednesday Moses Dunbar, who for some time
had been under the sentence of death in this place for
High Treason, was executed agreeable to the sentence.
A prodigious concourse of people were spectators on
the occasion."
From Jones' History of New York during the Revolu
tionary War, written between 1783 and 1788. Vol. 1,
page 175.
"Early in 1777 a Captain Dunbar was taken up at
Hartford in Connecticut, for enlisting men in his Maj
esty's service; his commission and orders from Gen.
Howe were In his pocket. He was confined In prison.
There happened to be no existing law in the Colony
which made such an offence punishable with death.
A law was therefore made on purpose; upon which ex
post facto law he was indicted and tried for treason
condemned, and ordered for execution.
"No less than four expresses, at four different times,
were sent to General Howe between the condemnation
and the execution, to each of which the most faithful
promises were made, that an appHcation of such a serious
nature should be made to the Governor of Connecticut
as should insure his discharge.
"No application was ever made and while the General
was lolling in the arms of his mistress and sporting his
cash at the faro bank, the poor unhappy Loyalist was
executed. This is a fact and the General knows it. His
word, his honor, and his humanity were all sported away
in this affair. Dunbar had a young wife, big with child.

MOSES DUNBAR 67
On the day of execution the High Sheriff (by orders no
doubt) compelled her to ride In the cart and attend the
execution of her husband. This over she left Hartford,
and went to Middletown, about sixteen miles down the
river, where a number of Loyalists lived and where
several British subjects were living on parole. Her case
being stated, a subscription was undertaken for her com
fort and relief. No sooner was this hospitable act known
to the Committee at Middletown than they sent for the
poor woman and ordered her out of the town ; declaring
at the same time that if she should thereafter be found in
that town she should be sent instantly to jail.
"(Note. The chairman of the Committee at this time
was Titus Hosmer, Esq., a lawyer of note, one of the
Council of the State, a rigid presbyterian, a zealous re
publican, and a flaming rebel. He was afterwards a
delegate in Congress, and commissioned by them as
Judge of the Admiralty for the four New England
Colonies). "The unhappy wretch was obliged to leave the town In
consequence of this Inhuman order, and had it not been
for the hospitality of a worthy loyal family who kindly
took her under their roof, she would in aU probability
have been delivered in the open fields. A striking in
stance this of American lenity, which the rebels
during the war proclaimed to the world with so
much eclat."
This advertisement appeared in the Connecticut
Courant for May 6, 12, 19, 26, and June 2, 1777. The
most advertised pamphlet printed during the year.

68 THE TORIES OF CHIPPENY HILL
Just published, and to be sold by the printer hereof,
Price One ShilUng
The Reasons and Designs of public Punishments ;
A SERMON
Delivered before the People who were collected to the
EXECUTION of
MOSES DUNBAR
Who was condemned for HIGH TREASON against
the State of Connecticut, and executed
March 19th, A. D. 1777.
By NATHAN STRONG
Pastor of the first Church in Hartford.
Bloody and deceitful Men shaU not live out half
their Days.
The execution caused a great gloom among the
Chippeny HIU folk. They had with them the Infant
Moses, who was baptised at New Cambridge after the
father's death. They had also the wife and the or
phaned children left in her keeping. Impulsive Chaun
cey Jerome, he of the athletic frame who tore himself
away from the mob and the apple tree on FaU Moun
tain, and who was a brother of the first wife, married the
widow and took her to Nova Scotia until after the war.

MOSES DUNBAR 69
Years afterward she pointed out the spot on Gallows
HiU near which Trinity CoUege now stands, where her
husband was hung. The story of the arch-traitor swept
throughout the State and was told and retold for many
years by the family fireside. In one family on Town
Hill, Plymouth, where the Dunbar brothers lived, chil
dren were afraid at night to pass the cupboard in which
Dr. Strong's pamphlet was known to rest and this was
only sixty years ago!
I have failed to find any of the old Inhabitants of
Plymouth, either Dunbars or their friends, who have
aught to say of Moses Dunbar, or remember him, other
than as one that should not be remembered.

Chapter VIII
THE WANING OF TORYISM
THE execution of Moses Dunbar in March 1777, did
much to dampen the ardor of the loyalist cause in
Connecticut. But the raid on Danbury and the drunken
debauch of Tryon's men, followed by the consignment
of the town to flames, in April of the same year, injured
it still more, and, in fact, hastened a crisis. Dr.
Strong's sermon had been published and very widely
read. Washington had withdrawn from New York
and was encamped for the winter at Morristown, New
Jersey, and while the best men of Connecticut were away
with the army, the Tories guided the British to Dan
bury; but escaped the destruction that followed, by
marking a white cross upon their doors; and they re
mained comfortable in their houses, while old men and
women, and children gathering what scanty clothing
they could, and shunning the soldiers, ran, crawled, or
were carried upon their beds, into lonely lanes, damp
pastures and leafless woods. Feeling ran to fever heat.
Sympathizers of England were arrested on the spot.
The excitement was not long in making itself felt on
Chippeny HIU. "Last Friday," says a volunteer corre
spondent to the Connecticut Courant, "fifteen prisoners
taken to Danbury were brought to this town and deliv
ered to the care of the Committee. Same day seven
teen tories belonging to New Cambridge, a society in

THE WANING OF TORYISM 71
Farmington, were taken up and committed to gaol in
this place. They are a pack of feUows who were
connected with the late Moses Dunbar, whose infamous
end is well known ; some of them had actually engaged
to serve under him in the ministerial army. The gentle
men, by whose authority they were apprehended, gave
them free liberty to go over to the enemy, but they
rather chose to accept of their present confinement,
where they remain for trial at the next Superior Court
for High Treason against the State."
Wliat thoughts our seventeen friends of the Hill must
have had as they awaited their fate at Hartford, we
can not say. There is a poem, which, in view of later
events, I surmise may have expressed their ideas. It is
a parody entitled: "The Pausing American LoyaUst."
"To sign or not to sign.? That is the question,
Whether 'twere better for an honest man
To sign, and so be safe ; or to resolve.
Betide what will, against associations.
And, by retreating, shun them. To fly — I reck
Not where ; and by that flight, t'escape
Feathers and tar, and thousand other ills
That loyalty is heir to : 'Tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To fly — to want —
To want ? Perchance to starve : Ay there's the rub !
For In that chance of want, what Ills may come
To patriot rage, when I have left my all —
Must give me pause : — There's the respect
That makes ijs trim, and bow to men we hate.

72 THE TORIES OF CHIPPENY HILL
Who would bend to fools.
And truckle thus to mad, mob-chosen upstarts,
But that the dread of something after flight
(In that blest country, where, yet, no moneyless
Poor wight can live) puzzles the will.
And makes ten thousands rather sign — and eat
Than fly — to starve on loyalty —
Thus dread of want makes rebels of us all."
The following quotation from the public records of
Connecticut continues the history of the seventeen men
from New Cambridge:
"On report of the committee appointed by this As
sembly to take into consideration the subject matter
of the memorial of Nathl Jones, Simon Tuttle, Joel
Tuttle, Nathaniel Matthews, John Matthews, Riverlus
Carrington, Lemuel Carrington, Zerubbabel Jerom
junr, Chauncey Jerom, Ezra Dormer, Nehemiah Royce,
George Beckwith, Abel Frisbee, Levi Frisbey, Jared
Peck, and Abraham Waters, all of Farmington, shew
ing that they are Imprisoned on suspicion of their being
inimical to America; that they are ready and willing
to join with their country and to do their utmost for
its defense; and praying to be examined and set at
liberty, as per said memorial on file, reporting that the
said committee caused the authority &c of Farmington
to be duly notifyed, that they convened the memoriahsts
before them at the house of Mr. David Bull on the 22nd
of May, instant, and examined them separately touch
ing their unfriendliness to the American States, and
heard the evidences produced by the parties ; that they

THE WANING OF TORYISM 73
found said persons were committed for being highly
inimical to the United States, and for refusing to assist
in the defence of the country; that on examination it
appeared that they had been much under the Influence
of one Nichols*, a designing church clergyman who has
instilled into them principles opposite to the good of
the States; that under the influence of such principles
they had pursued a course of conduct tending to the
ruin of the country and highly displeasing to those who
are friends to the freedom and independence of the
United States ; that under various pretences they had
refused to go in the expedition to Danbury; that said
Nathaniel Jones and Simon Tuttle have as they suppose
each of them a sop gone over to the enemy; that there
was, however, no particular positive fact that suf
ficiently appeared to have been committed by them of
an atrocious nature against the States, and that they
;were indeed grossly ignorant of the true grounds of
the present war with Great Britain ; that they appeared
to be penitent of their former conduct, professed them
selves convinced since the Danbury alarm that there
was no such thing as remaining neuters; that the
destruction made by the tories was matter of convic
tion to them; that since their Imprisonment upon
serious refiectlon they are convinced that the States
are right in their claim, and that it Is their duty to
submit to authority, and that they will to the utmost
of their power defend the country against the British
army; and that the said committee think it advisable
that the said persons be liberated from their imprison-

*Rev. James Nichols

74 THE TORIES OF CHIPPENY HILL
ment on their taking an oath of fidelity to the United
States : RESOLVED by this Assembly, that the said
persons be Uberated from their said imprisonment on
their taking an oath of fidelity to this State and paying
costs, at £22 7 10; and that the keeper of the gaol
in Hartford is hereby directed to liberate said persons
accordingly." Whatever were the feelings of those on Chippeny
HiU, outward manifestations of their loyalty were per
emptorily checked.
"Thus dread of want makes rebels of us aU."

St. Matthew's Church at East Plymouth
Built after the War by the loyal churchmen of Bristol, Plymouth, and Harwinton.

Chapter IX
EAST CHURCH
DESPITE the submission in affairs political that
followed the Danbury raid, the Church of Eng
land or, as Joseph Roberts wrote it, "the Chruch of
Englon," lived on. Poor Joseph Roberts was not as
learned as his feUows, but he was not afraid to stand
up for his religion and his King. In the latter days
of the Revolution, when the church record book at New
Cambridge was devoid of entries, he inscribed in it this
sentence. "I, Joseph Robarts Now make a Prefeslon of the
Chruch of Englon". The complete church record,
aside from the baptisms, from the time of the last
vestry meeting which was held at the Church, May 9,
1774, until his entry in 1781, was as follows:
1776, Feb. 6. Jered Peck profest himself a member
of the Church of England.
1777, April 1. Jude Leaming declared his conform
ity to the Church of England.
1778, April 6. Ethan Curtis profest himself a mem
ber of the Church of England.
1781, Jan. 19. I, Joseph Robarts Now make a
Prefeslon of the Chruch of Englon.
Later in 1781, there was recorded a vestry meeting
held at Jesse Bunnell's.
With the success of the American arms, signs of

76 THE TORIES OF CHIPPENY HILL
toleration became evident. "There Is reason to believe
from general reports," says the Society for the Prop
agation of the Gospel in the report for 1781, "that the
condition of the missionaries in New England is much
better than it has been, and they live more quietly,
though their churches are stIU shut up."
It was not, however, until November 17, 1784, that
the members of the Episcopal church at New Cam
bridge formed themselves into a legal church society,
and voted to repair the church house. Voting to repair
the church house, however, was easier than repairing
it. In fact it could not be repaired. It "had lain
desolate on account of the persecution of the times,"
and although meetings were held In the old building, a
new church was a necessity. Where it should be located
was the question. Few if any churchmen were now
Uving at New Cambridge. The church center had
moved westward, into Northbury, and the churchmen
of that place and Harwinton were clamoring for
recognition. There were fifteen Episcopal families in
northeastern Northbury near the Hill, and five miles
of rough and uneven road lay between them and St.
Peter's Church at Northbury. At least ten Harwinton
families must travel four and a half miles over a most
Intolerably rough mountainous road to go to church
at Harwinton center. A union was the logical solution
of the situation. It was voted by the New Cambridge
people, in 1790, "that we was desirous of having the
east part of Northbury and the south part of Har
winton to join us in making up a society." The
petition for the establishment of the new society was
prepared by the clerk, signed by the inhabitants of

EAST CHURCH 77
Northbury and Harwinton, and was granted by the
General Assembly.
Thus was formed the parish of St. Matthew, or,
as it was originally called, the Second Episcopal So
ciety In Northbury. The first vestry meeting was held,
with Captain Nathaniel Jones in the chair as modera
tor, at Ensign Ozias Tyler's new house In Northbury,
April 4, 1791. The church edifice. East Church, was
built in pursuance of a vote taken December 1, 1791,
was ready for use in 1794, and was consecrated by
Bishop Seabury, October 21, 1796, the same year that
the town of Plymouth was born. The people were
indeed happy when their well beloved bishop, who had
been consecrated at Aberdeen, Scotland, preached to
them. The ordination of their priest and the consecra
tion of their church were the last official acts recorded in
his register before death claimed him. How fond
their descendants have been of the church all these years
is evidenced by the fact that no other sect has been
known to hold a service within its walls. The changes
that have been made have been made reverently and
little has been done to break the lines as they were
originally laid out.
I can almost see them now, filing Into their stiff
backed pews, with all the pride which only the farmers
of their faith could have. There were Capt. Nathaniel
Jones, the sea captain, and Capt. Zebulon Frisble. They
were members of the committee that called Nichols to
New Cambridge, and, with Capt. Abel Matthews, they
were the ones who took steps to form the legal society
after the war. The Matthews family was there, you
could depend upon it; Caleb Matthews the clerk,

78 THE TORIES OF CHIPPENY HILL
Nathaniel Matthews and the rest of them. The Gay
lord famUy was there, and the Carringtons. There also
sat Ira Dodge of Northbury who deeded to the society
the land upon which the church was built, and Ensign
Ozias Tyler of NoiH;hbury whose new house was the
pride of the community that was growing up about the
church, and who was the first delegate to the State
Convention in 1792. And then there were Robert
Jearum, the chorister, also of Northbury, Stephen
Graves and Calvin Woodin, Jabez Gilbert who fought
the French at Ticonderoga in 1769, all of Harwinton,
Uncle Asa, too, that good old soul Uncle Asa Smith
who "felt it no disgrace, to vote for federal Brace, fall
down and skin his face," with Capt. Thomas Hunger
ford the Whig who saved Joel Tuttle's neck on Federal
Hill Green, and Joseph Smith whose father betrayed
Dunbar, and Obadiah Munson, Samuel Hawley, Jesse
Bunnell, and many others; some Hving close by the
church but many driving thither from the Hill or else
where. The list of pew holders would not be complete without
mention of the leader who was the "flower of them
a' ", and It is worth while taking a good look at him.
Isaac Welles Shelton used to sit in the front pew at
the right until he was buried in the churchyard nearby.
A short man he was, dressed in knee breeches and
pumps, with a round face and dimpled chin and grey
prominent eyes, — "bullet eyes" they called them. He
was the wealthiest landowner on Chippeny HIU, with
four or five slaves at his call, was a gentleman and
the son of a gentleman, the great grandson of Governor
Welles, and a member of the wealthy Shelton family

EAST CHURCH 79
of Stratford, who were extensive land owners. He
drove about In a gig, at a time when gigs were a
rarity, and his son Harry rode a high-spirited horse.
When Isaac Shelton was ill for seven years with soften
ing of the brain he hired a man to stay with him, as he
was afraid to be alone. Gossip said that In his younger
days he Hved in New Haven, his land surrounded by
a high board fence, and that he never went out In the
evening without an attendant. Some hinted that his
money was not procured in an honorable way. But when
he died, all paid homage to the man who had come to
spend his best days on the HiU; and they laid away
his body with loving pride, for he was a gentleman.
But go back a little and consider the records of his
native town of Stratford, July 29, 1779:
"Resolved that Isaac Welles Shelton shall not reside
in this town. Resolved that no inimical person now with
the enemy shall return and reside in this town, unless
they have the approbation of the town in their meet-
ing." And then read in Sabine's "Loyalists of the Ameri
can Revolution": "He joined the British on Long
Island, and conducted the party that burned Danbury.
Guilty of other treasonable conduct, he was arrested
and convicted and ordered to confine himself to the
county of Hartford."
And finaUy this letter from one of his descendants:
"When the war cloud arose, he joined the home
country, expecting to fight the British, but could not
suffer the humiliating treatment of his superior, an

80 THE TORIES OF CHIPPENY HILL
inferior officer of the company, resisted punishment,
struck the officer, and fled. For safety's sake he spent
some time with the British."
HE CONDUCTED THE PARTY THAT
BURNED DANBURY! Chippeny HiU did not know
that, and does not know it to this day. That was
in his younger days before he came to the Hill, and
when he did he came to visit his cousin, the wife of
Capt. Jones, he feU in love with her niece, married her
in 1780, and became a resident. He had a brother
David, who lived in Noii;hbury parish.
When Mr. Nichols left in 1784, it was Shelton who
was appointed to collect the tax for the purpose of
hiring preachers, and when the petition for the forma
tion of the new society was drawn, he was chosen to act
as the society's agent and, as their most influential
representative, to appear before the General Assembly.
With Capt. Hungerford and Lemuel Carrington he was
authorised to sell the old church edifice at New Cam
bridge; with Ensign Tyler, Samuel Hawley, and Ste
phen Graves, he set the stake where the church was to
stand and built it. He was the recognised man of
'" prominence in the new society, and yet he had con
ducted the party that burned Danbury; and Moses
Dunbar died the Traitor!
The days of Isaac Shelton were the days of the
prosperity of East Plymouth and of the building of the
homesteads which still stand, faithful to the memories
of the old famiUes that are gone. They were the days
of well kept farms and an industrious people. Ensign
Ozias Tyler's new house led to the erection by Stephen

EAST CHURCH 81
Graves of a better one, and Graves' new dwelling led
Calvin Woodin to build still better across the valley.
Each vied with the other, no longer in fleetness of foot,
in craft, and in courage of the Ledges, but in more
fruitful and harmonious rivalries. And as James
Nichols, priest In the wilderness, led them in war, so
Alexander Viets Griswold, first rector of the sanctuary,
led them in peace.
He was a gentleman, was Mr. Griswold, yet one of
the best day laborers in town. His family lived in
Cyrus Gaylord's house and Gaylord boarded with him
and knew him well, for they worked together In harvest
time. His manner of living was so plain that the
boarder at times wearied of it, and he was so polite that
when a negro came asking for charity, he sat down and
ate with him lest he feel slighted. He was so strong
that when word was brought to him that a boy was
beirig borne away by a freshet into the mill pond near
the church, he ran at top speed, plunged Into the
swollen torrent and rescued the child from the flood.
He saw a group of men about a rock tugging at it
without success, so he sprang from his horse, leaped the
fence, and although in his best dress, he seized the stone,
and with the exercise of almost herculean strength,
helped them heave it out from Its bed. Mr. Griswold's
home was in St. Matthew's parish and it was well for
him that he was not afraid of the elements, for Har
winton and Northfield were also parishes of his, and
each was six or eight miles distant from the others,
the country between was hilly and the roads bad, and
it was his duty to visit the members of his flock, attend
funerals, and hold services weekdays and Sundays.

82 THE TORIES OF CHIPPENY HILL
Much of his time was spent on horseback, for carriages
in that region were then scarce thought of. Cold and
stormy, one Sunday, it was his duty to preach at
Harwinton. He arose before his family and saddled
his horse without breakfast In order to arrive at the
service in time. The snow came and drifted and he
baffled with the tempest until he reached Harwinton at
noon. As the parishioners had already held a morning
service, he held an afternoon service and then turned
his horse toward home. It was midnight before his
horse was put out and he crawled Into bed without
supper. One time he returned to a farmhouse, wet to
the waist, from fishing. He was urged to change Ms
clothes. "Oh, no," he said, "it may as weU dry on me,"
and so he passed on.
This man was a Tory, a nephew of Rev. Mr. Viets
of Simsbury, who was In prison with Moses Dunbar
and ministered to the doomed man. When his uncle
left this country after the war to go to Digby, Nova
Scotia, he, too, was prepared to go, but he did not.
He had a wife who was but seventeen and her people
wished to keep her ; so he became a farmer and worked
his farm for ten years. Then he became a clergyman;
and when three calls were extended to him at the same
time, he passed by the parishes at Redding and at
Waterbury and took up the post of labor among the
Litchfield county hills. He was ordained a priest by
Bishop Seabury, October 21, 1795, when the church
of St. Matthew was consecrated, and was the builder of
that parish. His parishes gradually increased; and,
when he left, there were 220 communicants, most of
whom had come to the Lord's table under his ministry.

Rev. Alexander Viets Griswold, D. D., Bishop of
THE Eastern Diocese
This young Tory farmer from Simsbury, after the War,
was ordained a priest at the consecration of St. Matthew's
Church, which was the first church under his charge.

EAST CHURCH 83
He "found the people mostly religious and compar
atively free from vice. No years of his life were more
happy than those spent here in his first parish." He
died honored among men, ecclesiastical ruler of all of
New England, save Connecticut, Right Reverend Alex
ander Viets Griswold, Bishop of the Eastern Diocese.
Bishop Griswold had occasion once to depose a man
from the church. This man had left his first parish
in Connecticut an absconded debtor, and later for in
temperance was excluded from the churches in Vermont,
in 1799. His name was James Nichols. Thus lived
two men who loved the Past and taught it to their
people, and both were devoted to the cause which had
been lost. One drowned his sorrow in the cups ; and the
other labored on a New England farm. The one who
worked became a man of the Future. They caU such
men Americans.

APPENDIX

The signers of the Petition for the Establishment of
a Church at East Plymouth, Connecticut, Oct. 1, 1790,
were: Caleb Matthews, Clerk of the Episcopal Society in

New Cambridge.

Jabez Gilbert (bard)

Stephen Graves

Jonathan Tyler

Curtis Hale

Asa Smith

Calim Woodin

Noah Welton

inhabitants of Herington

Ozias Tyler

Ezra Dodge

Moses Cowles

Thomas Curtis

Ira Dodge

Ebenezer Cowles

Isaac Miller

Ellphalet Barns

Samuel Hawley

Aner Woodin

Daniel Bowen

Jacob MaUory

OUver Loomis

Amos Wright

Robert Jerome

inhabitants of Northbury

Church Enrollment, Nov. 17, 1784

Capt. Caleb Matthews

Joel Tuttle

Capt. Nathaniel Jones

Charles Sanford

Capt. Zebulon Frisbe

Abel Frisbe

Nehemiah Roys

William Gaylord

Ensn Joseph Gaylord

John Lowry

Nathaniel Matthews

Charles Ledyard

Noah Andrews

Asabel Matthews

Dr. Abijah Schovel

Levi Munger

APPENDIX 85
Abram Brooks Cyrus Gaylord
Capt. Abel Matthews Riverus Carington
Caleb Matthews, Jr. Robert Jearum
John Matthews Chancy Jerome
Samuel Allen Eli Woods
Lemuel Carrington Ebenezer Merlam
Isaac W. Shelton
The above enrollment is a true copy of the original,
examined by Caleb Matthews, 2nd, Clerk. The follow
ing names were enrolled since our being embodied as a
society :
Daniel Johnson, Fenner Arnold, Timothy Sperry.
Oct. 13, 1785. Benjamin CornweU Jun. enrolled his
name & Joseph Spencer.
June 13, 1786. George Beckwith & Benjamin Beck
with. Sept 4, 1785. Ebenezer Edson, Abel Manross, Abel
Bunnel & Jesse Bunnel.
Nov. 4, 1786. Stephen Graves, Samuel Bracket &
Amos Bracket enrolled their names.
Dec. 4th, Israel Johnson.
" 5th, Joseph Smith Jr.
" 12, 1786. Wait Munson enrolled his name.
Sept 1st, 1789. Seth Thomas enrolled his name.
March 20, 1790. Samuel HaU » " "
Aug. 30, " Samuel Hally " " "
(Hawley) Sept. 10, 1790. Ens. Ozias Tyler, Ira Dodge, Ezra
Dodge, Isaac Morris, Jesse Schovel, Noah Upson,
Thomas Curtis & Jacob MaUory enrolled thr names.

86 THE TORIES OF CHIPPENY HILL

Sept. 28,

, 1790.

Nov. 29,

„

his name.

Dec. 20,

1790.

name.

Dec. 30,

1790.

" 8

jj

" 3

55

his name.

Jan. 19,

1791.

„ „

55

„ „

55

¦p^K ir

55

Lent Ives enrolled his name.
Capt. Thomas Hungerford enrolled
Dr. Timothy Hosmer enrolled his
Ebenezer Cowles enrolled his name.
Ellsha French enrolled his name.
Dr. Hart of Farmington enrolled
Wm. Samuel Judd enrolled his name.
Capt. Levi Clark " " "
Luke Wadsworth " " "
Ma j. Ezekiel Scott " " "

CHIPPIN'S HILL
James Shepard, in the Bristol Press.
"There Is no other place in the State of Connecticut
where such a fine and extended view can be had without
leaving the public highway. At the west the tops of a
'thousand hills' are seen which hide many villages be
tween them, leaving Terryville partially exposed to
view. The time was when the spire of the church in
Northfield could be seen from this hill. Turning north
and east we see the blue mountains supposed to be In
Massachusetts and Rhode Island. We over-look parts
of Canton, Simsbury and Avon, and plainly see
Farmington, Bristol, Plainville, ForestvIUe, parts of
Southington, New Britain and Berlin; a pine tree in
the west part of Merlden, which appears about as large
as a stove-pipe hat, the Westfield church in Middle-

CHIPPIN'S HILL 87
town, and houses east of the Connecticut river. Often
times when we villagers are laboring for breath under
a dense fog, it is all sunshine there : the fog looks like
a vast sea of water overflowing the towns above men
tioned, and sometimes the Farmington mountain pro
jects its top a little above the fog and looks like the
back of a huge whale sailing in the ocean."
LINES DESCRIPTIVE OF CHIPPIN'S HILL
By Lucy Atwater. (Born 1794.)
Ah, verdant hill, where once I loved to roam
O'er the green fields which then enclosed my home.
Thy beauteous landscape I no longer see.
Thy orchards drop their fruits no more for me;
But I can call to mind that blissful scene
Where thy rich meadows, dressed in Uvely green.
Sloping descend to meet the vale below
Where forest trees in rich luxuriance grow.
O'er thy fair top which overlooks the grove
In contemplation's walk I often rove ;
From there I see rich fields of waving grain
Extended all along the fertile plain.
Low in the glen, the cottage of the poor
Half hid by trees. Is seen with open door.
Thence Farmington, rich village, too is seen.
And many a peaceful dwelling hid between;
Far on the distant hill is seen to rise
Wadsworth's proud castle, verging to the skies ;
And smoking columns rise to mark the way
Where smooth Connecticut's limpid waters stray;
Beyond, a vast extent of green-clad fields

88 THE TORIES OF CHIPPENY HILL
To the enamored eye their varied beauty yields.
Now farther to the south I cast my eye
Where the blue ridge of hanging hills I spy ;
Description fails thy beauteous scenes to trace
And show them, as presented from this place.
I know thy rugged roads and miry springs.
Thy howling winds, and few unpleasant things ;
Yet I see beauties on my favorite hill.
And own "with all thy faults, I love thee still."
THE TORY
By Mrs. Sarah E. Royce, 1832.
A bugle note both loud and shrill, —
Its echo bounds from hill to hill.
Wildly it rings through mountain air
Warriors or huntsmen are not there.
2
The eagle hears, whose airy ring
Circles the heights with unchecked wing.
The cautious fox doth show no fear
For oft this music greets his ear.
3
The man that hears — not undismayed —
To earth doth drop his ax or spade.
Or plow is left in half-turned sod.
With oxen free to graze abroad.
4
That signal — ah! he knoweth well
A note of warning doth it tell —
"To mountain fastness haste! away
With utmost speed! 'Twere death to stay!"

THE TORY 89
5
Doth murder's thrice-accursed stain
Defile his hand? Doth lawless gain?
Have solemn stars — the eyes of night —
Seen him invading others' right.''
6
No victim's ghost disturbs his rest.
No helpless poor hath he opprest.
No vengeance threatens from the sky;
He hideth not from justice's eye.
7
Kinsmen and neighbors seek his blood.
They hunt his steps in soUtude.
Rebellious war-cry stirs the land.
And he will never join their band.
8
He will not heed their battle word.
For them he will not draw his sword,
In armed revolt he will not rise ;
"Honor the King," his conscience cries.
9
Behold he prays in lonely wood, —
Pause ye and Hsten, men of blood !
Let pity check your flaming zeal
WhUe he to heaven doth appeal: —
10
"Lord they have thrown thine altars down.
Denied their king his rightful throne.
Rebellion, treason, stain their hand !
Forbid Ttie Lord, to join their band!"
11
On couch of leaves he lays him down,
PiUowed his head on moss-brown stone.

90 THE TORIES OF CHIPPENY HILL
Though sad yet firm, his loyal heart
From church and king will not depart.
12
He sighs to think how reckless power
Has driven him from rustic bower.
And longs for her now left alone
As swells the note her lips have blown.
13
Hears he the rustling footsteps nigh.'' —
Through darkness bends his straining eye : —
'Tis she, the loved one, come to bless
And cheer him in his loneliness.
14
Faith kindles hope, whose heavenward eye
Fearless, on God bids him reply ; —
"These troublous times will pass away ;
For loyal souls a brighter day."
15
O 'twas a dark and fearful time
When loyalty was deemed a crime!
Was theirs indeed unknowing zeal?
Can we for hunted Tories feel?

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Welton, X. A. Package of Records concerning the
pre-Revolutionary Episcopal Church of Bristol,
Conn. In Bristol PubUc Library. (Especially the
Record of Meetings 1754-1800, copied from the
original by X. A. Welton, in 1868.)
Welton, X. A. History of the Episcopal Church at
New Cambridge and East Plymouth, to which is
appended a copy of the petition to the General
Assembly for the estabUshment of the church at
East Plymouth. M. S. in Bristol Public Library.
Welton, X. A. The Tory Den and its Denizens. M.
S. in possession of Mrs. Carlos Welton, Thomas-
ton.
Letters from and interviews with descendants of Isaac
W. Shelton and descendants of other Tory families.
(Especially letters from X. A. Welton.)
Papers of Jonathan Pond. In possession of Edgar L.
Pond, TerryviUe.
Town Records of Harwinton. Town Building, Har
winton.
Bristol, Conn. Congregational Society Records, Vol.
1. Bristol Public Library.
Records of State of Connecticut, Vol I.
Connecticut Courant, 1777. Conn. Hist. Library.
Sermon on Execution of Moses Dunbar, Dr. Nathan
Strong. Conn. Hist. Library.
Annual Reports of the Society for the Propagation of
the Gospel in Foreign Parts. Trinity College
Library.

92 THE TORIES OF CHIPPENY HILL
History of New York during Revolutionary War. A
Tory account written between 1783 and 1788 by
Thomas Jones, ex-justice of the Supreme Court of
New York. Conn. Hist. Library,
Life of Rt. Rev. A. V. Griswold, D. D. John Stone,
1844. Trinity CoUege Library.
Town and City of Waterbury, Vol. 1.
History of Bristol, Conn. (1907) including especiaUy,
Centennial Address, Peck and Atkins; History of
First Congregational Church, Epaphroditus Peck;
Moses Dunbar, Loyalist, Epaphroditus Peck; The
Founders and Their Homes, Mary P. Root, and
School District No. 10, Mrs. David BIrge.
Tories of Connecticut, James Shepard. Conn. Mag.
IV, 262.
History of Connecticut, HoUister.
Loyalists of the American Revolution, Sabine.
Diary of the Revolution, Frank Moore. Bristol Public
Library. (A source book of newspaper Items.)
Romance of the Revolution, Oliver E. Bunce.
For a good picture of pre-Revolution life in the Shelton
family at Derby, see The Salt Box House, Jane
DeForest Shelton.
Private Library of D. C. Kilbourn, East Litchfield,
Conn.
Bishop Perry's History of the Am. Episcopal Church.
Thompson's History of Vermont.
Documentary History of the Protestant Episcopal
Church in Vermont. C. R. Batchelder.
Vermont Historical Gazetteer. Hemenway.
Papers relating to History of the Church in Massachu
setts. Wm. Stevens Perry, D. D.
Dexter's Yale Biographies.

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