LITCHFIELD COUNTY. BY WILLIAM KNAPP. THE first white settlers of Litchfield County in the State of Connecticut, came from Stratford, on Long Island Sound, in the spring of 1673, and took possession of the fertile valley of the Pomperaug River, named after a chief of the Pootatuck tribe of Indians. Their emigration to this place resulted from ecclesiastical controversies between the Rev. Israel Chauncy and the Rev. Zechariah Walker, ministers of Stratford. At length Gov. Winthrop advised Mr. Walker and his church and people to remove to a tract of land which should be allotted to them for the settlement of a new town. In the spring of 1672, accordingly, the General Court having granted to Mr. Samuel Sherman, William Curtiss and others, liberty to erect a plantation at Pomperaug, subsequently named Woodbury, some of Mr. Walker's church-members came to the new town in the wilderness, and he, with most of his followers, removed there the next year. Following the Ousatonic River, formerly called the Pootatuck, till they came to a large river flowing into it from the north, they finally reached a sightly elevation overlooking the beautiful valley of their search. The first white person who came to this place, not a proprietor, was John Noble, in 1707, from Westfield, Mass. The town was incorporated in 1712, with a population of about 70 persons, the first minister settled here being the Rev. Daniel Boardman of Wethersfield, the same having been ordained over the Congregational Church and society in 1716. The second meeting-house built in the county was erected here in 1719. Col. John Read had studied for the ministry in his youth, and the first sermon the settlers heard here was preached by him. This town was first represented in the General Court, in 1725, by John Bostwick and Capt. Stephen Noble; and it may be remarked that the first bridge built across the Housatonic River was erected here in 1737. When the first white people came to this county in 1672, the Indian tribes occupied the valley of the Housatonic River chiefly. Here they found congenial places for their wigwams and villages, and good opportunities for fishing, and for the culture of maize and beans, their chief vegetable food. At this time the Pootatucks were the most powerful tribe in the western part of the Colony, with clans in the present county at Nonnewaug, Bantam, Weantinogue, and on the Pomperaug River. Their principal seat, however, was on the north-east side of the Housatonic, just below the present line of this county, at Southbury, in New Haven County, with a central The increase of population at the new settlement was rapid, and a few years after it commenced, in 1686, the town was incorporated by the General Court, the first in the county. The new town was represented in the General Court for the first time, in 1684, by Capt. John Minor and Lieut. Joseph Judson; while the first meeting-point at Woodbury. But this tribe soon commenced to house built in the county was erected here in 1681. Col. Robert Treat, Thomas Clark, Jonathan Baldwin, and 110 others, chiefly of Milford, Conn., by authority of the General Court at the October session in 1703, purchased of the Colony, at a cost of about $484, a tract of 84 square miles of land, called by the Indians Weantinogue, and situated in the south-western part of the present county on the Housatonic River, which was at that time named New Milford by the General Court. *This chief had his wigwam on a high bluff near the Great Falls on the Housatonic River, near the present village of New Milford. The abrupt bluff at these falls is now known as Lover's Leap. The most authentic tradition of the origin of the name is, that the lovely daughter of the chief had given her affections to a white settler, while her father had, with great care, selected a brave warrior to receive her hand, whom she, however, did not love. One fine day, the lovers remained on this migrate to the north and west, either to escape their enemies, or to find better fishing and hunting grounds, until they became absorbed in other tribes, and finally utterly disappeared. The chief Pomperaug was buried in Woodbury, as was his brother, a powwow, and the places are designated by heaps of stones. The last chief of the tribe was Mauquash, who died about the year 1758, and was buried in Woodbury. About the year 1735, Weraumaug, or Raumaug,* a cliff till long after sunset, and she successfully besought her father to allow her suitor to lodge at the palace that night, which so excited the jealousy of the warrior that, in the morning, he told her he would have the scalp of his rival before nightfall. The two lovers met again at the same romantic place, where they were found by the enraged warrior, and, to make a sure escape, with clasped hands, they leaped from the giddy height into the surging waters. Pootatuck chief, and a great councillor at the principal A tribe of Schaghticoke Indians, occupying an interval on the west side of the Housatonic River, came under the influence of the Moravian missionaries about the year 1742, and Gideon, their chief, was the first convert, and was baptized in 1743, as were 150 others very soon afterwards, and many hundreds still later.* At the time of the first settlement of Salisbury there was an Indian village at Weatog, the Indian name of the town, consisting of about 70 wigwams. Their trail through Cornwall to the Bantam clan at Litchfield was well known.† from the Colony to John Marsh of Hartford, and John Buel of Lebanon, and 57 associates, of a tract of land ten miles square, and named Litchfield by the General Court in 1719, and incorporated a town in 1724. None of this tract appears to have been purchased of the Indians, and, in consequence, the early settlers had some experience of the ferocious native character of the red man.‡ Rev. Timothy Collins was ordained the first minister of the people here in 1723, and the first house of worship, the third in the county, was finished in 1726. HOUSATONIC RIVER-RAPIDS NEAR WERAUMAUG'S PALACE. About the time that Litchfield was settled, three families one English, and the other two Dutch-settled at Weatog, or Salisbury, in 1720. In 1740, eleven English and five Dutch families settled in different parts of the town. In 1732, most of the township was surveyed. It was sold by the Colony at IIartford in 1737, and the charter was given in 1745. The town took its name from a man named Salisbury, who lived in about the centre of the purchase. The Rev. Mr. Lee was their first settled minister, and a meeting-house was built about 1748. In this house there were two watch-tow against the Indians. These first settlers came from the manor of Livingston, in the Colony of New York. The lands of this county were generally purchased of ers, with sentries placed in them on Sundays, to guard the Indians by the settlers, together with the Colony title, as appears by the names of the chiefs appended to deeds on the records of many, if not all, of the earlier settled towns. The Indians were friendly to the first settlers, and supplied them with provisions in many instances, and defended them from hostile attacks. The next settlement by whites in the dense western woods of the county was at Bantam in 1720, by a grant Harwinton, which derived its name from Hartford, Windsor and Farmington, was settled in 1731, was named a town in 1732, and was incorporated by the General Court in 1737. Their first minister was the Rev. Andrew Bartholomew, who was ordained about 1736. John Watson and others came from Hartford in 1733, and married daughter are the only representatives of the race in Winchester and Barkhamstead. * There are now about 54 who are considered as belonging to this tribe, scattered around in different towns, and are the only remnants of the red-men left in this county. Eunice, a grand-daughter of their renowned chief, died in 1860, at the great age of 103 years. They now possess about 300 acres of land situated on Schaghticoke Mountain, and a fund of $5,000; and are under the charge of an overseer appointed an-guns, his arms still pinioned, and made his escape safely to his home. nually by the District Court in the county. + Chaugum, the last man of a small tribe in New Hartford, lived till near the close of the last century; and his descendants in the female line kept up the council-fires till quite recently. The descendants of his Capt. John Griswold, in 1722, was suddenly rushed upon, pinioned, and carried far away into the thick woods. While his enemies were asleep around a fire, however, he disengaged himself, and scized their That same year, Joseph Harris, while at work in the woods, was attacked and shot by the Indians. There was a monument erected to his memory in 1830, in the town, not only to perpetuate his name as a martyred citizen, but to record the first death among the early settlers. settled at New Hartford, which was named and incorpo rated a town that year. The Rev. Jonathan Marsh, their first minister, was ordained in 1739. It was in an evergreen region, where there were extensive forests, called the "Green Woods." One of the seven companies of the inhabitants of Windsor that bought townships in 1732 was the Torrington Company, named after a hamlet in Devonshire, Eng. The patentees were Matthew Allyn, Roger Wolcott and Samuel Mather, Esqrs. A survey of the town was made in 1734, and there were three divisions of land. The last one was completed in 1750, in which two hundred and twenty acres were appropriated for schools. Ebenezer Lyman, Jr., was the first permanent settler of the town, and came from Durham about the year 1737. Torrington was made a town in 1740; and, becoming an ecclesiastical society, the Rev. Nathaniel Roberts was ordained in 1741, when there were but fourteen families in the place. Wolcottville may be said to have been commenced in 1751, when Amos Wilson purchased of the town the mill-privilege on the west branch of the Naugatuck River. Its great business prosperity may be said to date from about 1813, when manufacturing first began. A considerable area of territory on the Housatonic River was sold at auction at New London in 1738, and settled by John Franklin and others. The town was named Canaan by the General Court that year, and incorporated in 1739. Their first clergyman was the Rev. Elisha Webster, ordained in 1740. The tract of land known as Kent was sold in 1738, and settled that year by Mr. Platt and others from Colchester, Mr. Comstock from Franklin, and Mr. Slauson and others from Norwalk. The town was named in 1738, and incorporated the following year. The first minister was the Rev. Cyrus Marsh. Goshen was settled, named and incorporated in 1738. The Rev. Stephen Heaton was their first minister. The territory of Sharon was purchased in 1738, and settled and incorporated the following year. The first settler was Daniel Jackson, from New Milford. In 1740, thirteen families moved into Cornwall from Massachusetts, and from Colchester and Litchfield in this State. It was named in 1738, and incorporated two years afterward. The Rev. Solomon Palmer was their first minister. Settlers from Windsor came to Norfolk in 1744. When incorporated, in 1758, there were thirty-seven families within its limits. The Rev. Ammi R. Robbins was their first pastor. The first settler in the present town of Barkhamsted came in 1746, and was the sole inhabitant for more than ten years. The town was incorporated in 1779. The Rev. Ozias Eels was their first minister. Winchester was incorporated in 1771, and the next year the Rev. Joshua Knapp was ordained minister. Ebenezer and Joseph Preston, and Adam Mott, from Windsor, were the first settlers. In 1799, there were only about twenty families within the present limits of Winsted. In 1832, the west village was incorporated as the borough of Clifton. In 1858, the two sections of Winsted became united, and the place has since been known as Winsted. The first settlers of Colebrook came there in 1765, and others soon followed. The town was organized in 1786, and the Rev. Jonathan Edwards, son of the renowned minister of that name, was their first pastor. The ecclesiastical society of Westbury was formed from the society of Northbury in the town of Waterbury, made a town in 1780, and named Watertown. The Northbury society was organized in 1739, and became a town in 1795. It was named Plymouth, and was annexed to this county. The first settlement in Northbury society was in Wooster Swamp, now Thomaston. The Northbury community was finally located on the hill up the river, where many settlers preferred to locate above the fogs and malaria of the swamp, and where the first meeting-house was built. Henry Cook, one of the first settlers of Plymouth, came in 1728. Samuel How was the first child born in the town. Roxbury was created a town in 1801, and taken from Woodbury; and Bridgewater Society was taken from New Milford and made a town in 1856. Two years later, North Canaan was separated from Canaan. Morris, from the town of Litchfield, was incorporated in 1859; and the twenty-sixth and last town in the county was taken from Plymouth, made a town, and named Thomaston, in 1875. The increase of population and rapid colonization were such that in the year 1751, after about ten years of agitation in town meetings and in the assembly, a new county was created and named Litchfield, with Litchfield as the shire town. The territorial area was the same as at present, with the exception of the towns of Hartland and Southbury, and a portion of Brookfield, all of which then belonged to the county. Watertown and Plymouth, with Thomaston, have since been annexed. William Preston, Esq., of Woodbury, was the first chief justice; Isaac Baldwin, Esq., first clerk. Samuel Pettibone, Esq., of Goshen, was chosen king's attorney, and Oliver Wolcott, Esq., sheriff. For nine years from 1774, the valley of Wyoming, Pa., belonged to this county. It was declared by a convention held in this county Feb. 11, 1776, and represented by most of the towns, that the Stamp Act was unconstitutional, null and void, and that business should go on as usual; and town meetings were held quite frequently to consider the public safety. When the war cloud burst, Litchfield County was thoroughly aroused for any emergency. At the time of the Boston alarm, Sept. 3, 1774, quite a number of soldiers went from Woodbury, where there was the most population, and joined companies from other towns. Col, Ethan Allen, claimed to have been born in three towns in the county, and at all events to have been a native of this county, and Col. Seth Warner, a native of Roxbury, with nearly 100 volunteers, assisted in the capture of Fort Ticonderoga May 10, 1775. Col. Hinman of Woodbury commanded 1,000 men sent to garrison this fort and Crown Point. After the Lexington alarm a full company was sent from Woodbury. The thirteenth regiment of militia was formed from that town, New Milford and Kent, at the commencement of the war. By an order of June 10, 1776, a draft was ordered, which, with former calls, had made such a drain upon the laborers that there was hardly sufficient provision to supply the people during the winter. Upon a sudden call for troops at Danbury in April, 1777, the militia of this county marched to the scene of conflict. Soldiers from this county participated in the battle of Bennington in 1777, under Col. Seth Warner, and others fought at Saratoga and White Plains. Woodbury being the oldest and largest town in the county, with a population of 5,313 in 1774, was represented on all the battle-fields of 1777. There were eight companies of militia in the town ready to rally at a moment's warning. New Milford furnished the next largest quota of men for the war. The old Indian warrior, Tom Warrups, a Schaghticoke, and a resident of Cornwall in his early life, participated in the battle of Long Island. Gen. John Sedgwick of Cornwall, Cols. Canfield and Starr of New Milford, Tallmadge of Litchfield, and many others, were brave officers in the war. There were, however, some Tories within the borders of the county; and committees of inspection were formed, who summoned before them those who were suspected of disloyalty to the cause of liberty. * Party spirit ran so high in this county during the war of 1812, and the administration at Washington met with such opposition from the State-rights or Federalist party, that enlistments into the regular army were greatly discouraged; and the conflict between the national and State governments, as to which should have the command of the drafted militia, caused riots in some places in the county, where efforts were made to fling the State flag to The Rev. John R. Marshal of Woodbury was one of these, and was put on the limits. The riflemen, passing through the county, took a man in New Milford, made him walk before them twenty miles, and carry one the breeze, and to cut down the liberty-poles flying the stars and stripes. This opposition caused Congress to refuse the necessary appropriations and supplies for the maintenance of the militia of Massachusetts and Connecticut for the year 1814, thus forcing these States to defend their own coasts from invasion, which resulted in the Hartford Convention of December, 1814, of which the Hon. Nathaniel Smith of Woodbury, and others of the most distinguished and upright characters were members. The whole number of men who served in the war from this county was probably about 2,000. At the commencement of the late Rebellion, volunteer companies were immediately formed at Winsted and the other larger towns in the county, which soon rendezvoused at New Haven. During the war the county furnished nearly 4,000 men. The nineteenth regiment, enlisted principally in this county, and reorganized into the second heavy artillery in November, 1863, experienced some very severe service in the army of the Potomac; and it was at the head of the assault at Cold Harbor, Va., June 1, 1864, that its gallant commander, Col. Elisha S. Kellogg, lost his life. Schools. -A short time after the close of the Revolutionary war in 1784, the first law school of any note in the United States was founded in the town of Litchfield. Its projector was Tapping Reeve of Long Island, a brotherin-law of Aaron Burr. There were then no professors of law connected with any American college, nor was the science treated as a liberal one. Judge Reeve, after having conducted the school from the commencement until his appointment to the bench of the Supreme Court of the State in 1798, then invited James Gould, Esq., a graduate of Yale College, who was in the practice of law at Litchfield, to take part in the instruction of the school. These gentlemen carried it on together, as partners, for a period of 22 years, when, on account of advanced age, Judge Reeve retired. Judge Gould continued the school until a few years before his death, when he associated with himself Jabez W. IIuntington, afterwards a U. S. senator, and judge of the Supreme Court of the State. Prior to 1833 there had been educated at this school men from all parts of the country, more than 1,000 in all, and as many as 183 from the Southern States. They numbered fifteen United States senators, five cabinet officers, ten governors of States, fifty members of Congress, forty judges of the highest State courts, and two judges of the Supreme Court of the United States. This long list embraced the names of John C. Calhoun of South Caro of his geese; they then made him pluck his goose, and, after tarring and feathering him, drummed him out of the company, and required him to kneel and thank them for their lenity. lina, John M. Clayton of Delaware, John Y. Mason of Virginia, Judge Levi Woodbury, Marcus Morton, and many others of national renown. The school was discontinued in 1833. As soon as the first settlement of towns in the county commenced, and a minister had been settled, attention was turned to the common schools. The ancient schoolhouse in this county was a very rude affair, consisting of one room with but little furniture. The writing-desks fronted inward from the sides of the house, and there was a large shelf in one corner for the use of the scholThe teacher's table was made of rough boards. The seats for the larger scholars were made of slabs supported with three or four legs of round wood. ars. The Connecticut School for Imbeciles, located in Salisbury, was incorporated in 1861. Ecclesiastical.-For nearly 70 years after the first settlement of the county, the only churches within its limits were of the Congregational order, the result of an ecclesiastical statute of the Colony that no church administration should be set up contrary to the order already established; but finally, in 1708, and afterwards, acts of toleration were passed, till all religious denominations were put upon the same common ground of equality, although all were for some time taxed to support the regular order. The oldest church in the county of the established order is in Woodbury, and was organized in 1670, at Stratford; and the next oldest one is in New Milford, and was organized in 1716. The church at Litchfield was organized in 1721; the church at Bethlehem FIRST FOREIGN MISSION SCHOOL IN THE UNITED STATES, CORNWALL. Schools were carried on in the earlier times entirely under the district system. Afterwards for very many years they were managed under the jurisdiction of school societies, formed from towns and parts of towns. In 1869 the schools were made free by a general law, and since that time, in this county, the attendance and appropriations have greatly increased. There has been more uniformity of textbooks; better school-houses have been erected; the terms have been lengthened; all pay their share of the taxes; while the improvements in the schools over the old method have been very great. There are now in this county 277 districts, and 275 schools, employing 625 teachers. Among the first of the academics established in the county was one in the town of Morris,-then Litchfield,-in 1790, by James Morris. Afterwards two were opened in the town of Sharon; and there have been many others since those early times. The first female seminary established at Litchfield in 1792, was the resort of young ladies from all parts of the country for more than forty years. The first foreign mission school in this country was established in the county, at Cornwall, in 1817, to educate foreign youth to become missionaries, schoolmasters, interpreters and physicians among heathen nations. A farm was purchased and suitable buildings were erected; but the school was abandoned in 1827, because, after this time, the heathen could be educated at home, and also because of local opposition caused by two Cherokee Indians marrying respectable white girls of the town. in 1739; and the churches at Cornwall, Goshen and Sharon in 1740; and there are now 41 churches of this order in the county. The first Episcopal parish in the county was organized by the Rev. Mr. Beach of Newtown, in 1740. There are now 25 parishes with 2,118 communicants. The first of the Baptist churches in the county were in New Milford and Colebrook, about the year 1788, when a church was organized in the first-named town. There are very few churches of this denomination in the county at the present time. In 1790 a circuit of the Methodist Episcopal Church was formed at Litchfield, which then probably comprised the whole county and more, and Jesse Lee was appointed elder by the New England Conference. This circuit was travelled at this time by Samuel Wigton, IIenry Christie and Freeborn Garritson. There was but little sympathy, however, between the Congregational and Methodist denominations in the county in these early days. circuit preacher discoursed against pitch-pipes, steeples, ribbons and all gay equipages, to say nothing of the "five points" of Calvinism. The denomination, during the nearly 90 years of its existence in the county, has, in number and membership, increased with great rapidity. The The first Roman Catholic church in the county is. believed to have been erected at Cornwall about the year 1850, though there is no church there now. Public worship was instituted in Winsted in 1851 by the Rev. |