SALEM.-In May, 1728, a parish was constituted from sections of the towns of Colchester and Lyme, to which the name of New Salem was given. This was incorporated as a town in May, 1819, and received the name of There is no village in the township of magnitude. There are three houses of public worship-Congregational, Methodist and Episcopal. Agriculture is the principal business of the inhabitants. The population in 1870 was 717. BOZRAH.-Bozrah was constituted a society within the limits of Norwich in May, 1737, with the name of New Concord. It was incorporated a town in 1786, with the name of Bozrah. Among the early settlers the names of Waterman and Hough and of Fox were prominent; names not uncommon at this date. The face of the township is generally uneven, consisting of hills and valleys; its geological character is granitic; the soil is gravelly loam, moderately fertile. Fitchville, located near the centre of the town, and Bozrahville, two miles above, are both manufacturing villages, and both situated upon the Yantic River. The central part of the town is 14 miles from New London and 33 from Hartford. The population in 1870 was 984. LISBON was originally included within the limits of Norwich. It was constituted the north-east parish of the parent township in May, 1718, and received the name of Newent in October, 1722. It was incorporated as a town in 1786, and given its present name. The Indian name of the locality was Shetucket. Agriculture is the leading business of the inhabitants. The population is consequently scattered. The number of inhabitants in 1870 was 582. WATERFORD was incorporated as a township in 1801, including all the remaining territory of New London except the city. The Indian name was Tawawaug. A valuable quarry of granite is extensively worked in the south-western section of the town. A small village, to which the name of Graniteville has been given, is located near the quarry. Agriculture is the principal business of the inhabitants. The population in 1870 was 2,482. TOLLAND COUNTY. BY MRS. EUNICE F. ANDERSON. which rise out of the Connecticut Valley about 12 miles east of Hartford, and extend beyond the eastern border of the county. TOLLAND COUNTY, the youngest and the least in area, | part of it, at the base, and a larger part among the hills except one, of the Connecticut counties, was incorporated by the General Court, at New Haven, in October, 1785, and included Tolland, Stafford, Bolton, Somers, Hebron, Willington, Union and Ellington. The act establishing the county was conditioned upon the building of a suitable court-house and jail in the town of Tolland. In May, 1786, the General Court re-enacted the act of 1785, and added Coventry to the lists of towns. This number of towns has been increased to thirteen by the creation of Vernon out of Bolton in 1808; by the transfer of Mansfield and Columbia from Windham County in 1827, and by the organization of Andover out of Coventry and Hebron in 1848. All of the towns were settled long before the county was organized, and most of them were incorporated before its organization. About one-quarter of this county was bought of Indians-Joshua, a Mohegan sachem, and others. Some of it was sold by the Colony. The county lies, a small Many of the early settlers came from Norwich and vicinity, and from the Connecticut Valley, as those regions became more thickly populated. Among the earliest were many from eastern Massachusetts. The original settlers were of the Pilgrim and Puritan stock, and brought with them the purpose to make their settlements religious communities. Their first care, after finding habitations for themselves, was to establish the regular weekly worship of God, and to provide a house for this worship. The next public care was to open a school. The earliest industries of the county were principally farming-clearing tracts of land and getting the soil in proper condition to raise produce for the maintenance of the family-and the manufacture in each home, of handspun and hand-woven woollen and linen cloth for the wear of the family. The streams of this county give numerous facilities for manufacturing, and, in later years, they have been utilized, and have furnished water-power for factories which have drawn to themselves that domestic manufacture which before was scattered over the hills, and gave activity to every household. It may be said of this county, as a whole, that it has well improved its manufacturing facilities. In 1870 there were only two counties -Windham and New Haven-that had a larger ratio than Tolland County of capital invested in manufacturing, in proportion to the total valuation of property. The brooks and rivers of the county gather a portion of the waters that unite at Norwich to form the river Thames. The Willimantic is the principal river in the county, and has contributed much to the support of the inhabitants. In early times shad and salmon were caught in large quantities up as far as Tolland, and probably higher. Large tracts of heavy woodlands remained in this county 30 years ago, especially in the eastern part of it. It is estimated that full one-half of the forest trees then standing have been since cut off. The New York and New England, and the New London Northern are the principal railroads in the county. The Boston and New York Air Line runs into the borders of two of the southern towns, and there are besides two or three short branch roads. There are now in Tolland County 22 Congregational, 6 Baptist, 12 Methodist, 3 Episcopal and 3 Roman Catholic churches, and one of the Universalist denomination. There are also in this county four national banks, four savings banks, and three weekly newspapers. When the last census was taken there were 238 manufacturing establishments. The people of Tolland County have always been law-abiding and orderly. There have been less crimes and fewer criminal trials than in any other county in the State. Only one person has ever been executed for murder in the county, and only four capital trials have occurred from its organization to the present time. The first of these occurred about 38 years after its incorporation. The criminal was convicted of murder, and publicly hung in the presence of a vast concourse of people, who had come from every town in the county to witness so unusual a spectacle. The execution took place on an eminence near the county jail. town-wise that the people act as citizens of the Commonwealth of Connecticut. The history of the county is therefore to be found in the town records, and we turn to the towns for the history of the civil and religious life of the county. These were so much one in the colonial period, that any history of Connecticut would be partial and incomplete which should attempt to separate the civil from the religious history, and give one without the other. Indeed, the dominating religious purpose of the Colonies necessarily makes any faithful history largely a religious history. The population of the county in 1790 was 13,106. The present population is 22,000. TOWNS. MANSFIELD was originally a part of Windham. Settlements began to be made as early as 1690, several years earlier than in any other town in the county. From that time the inhabitants gradually increased in numbers until they began to petition the General Court of the Connecticut Colony to make them a distinct town on account of the great difficulties and hazards to which they were exposed by reason of the "deep and dangerous river" between them and the meeting-house in Windham. In May, 1703, the Court granted the petition, and the town was incorporated. Among the original grantees are the names of Shubael Dimmock, Joseph Hall, Samuel Storrs, Robert Fenton, Peter Cross, John Royce and Peter Crane, nearly all of whom have lineal descendants in the place at this time. Mansfield was incorporated on condition the petitioners should settle over them an "able and orthodox" minister of the gospel. Worship was regularly held and a pastor sought continuously until in 1710 Mr. Eleazer Williams, son of Rev. John Williams of Deerfield, Mass., accepted a call to settle. The church was organized and the pastor ordained the same day. The second pastor was Dr. Richard Salter, whose ministry extended into and through the war of '76, and who helped to give the tone of patriotism which distinguished eastern Connecticut in the early days of that conflict. Mansfield was divided into two parishes-the north and south-in 1737; and in the same year that Mr. Salter was ordained over the first church, Mr. William Throop was ordained the first pastor of the second church, Sept. 19, 1744.* It is noteworthy that the second and third pastors of the second church were father and son,─Daniel Welch and Moses Cook Welch,— whose united ministry covered 70 years. It is an interesting fact that The county in Connecticut has no legislative functions. It is empowered to establish roads, and to prosecute offences against the laws. As a county it has no representative in the General Assembly, and has no political and it is not county-wise but pastor of the same church. He served as chaplain during the late war. life. The tow town je is the unit, another member of the Welch family,-Moses Cook Welch,—a grandson and namesake of the second Mr. Welch, has been in recent years a About the time that Mr. Salter and Mr. Throop were representatives to move in the General Court that a ordained Mansfield had its experience of the troubles proper number of men be levied and equipped for the produced by the Separatist movement.* A Separatist defence of the Colony; and in October they were directed church was organized in Mansfield, consisting in large to move the Court to dispose of lands belonging to perpart of members of the two established churches in sons inimical to the cause of liberty. town; but as it was the first church of the kind in that section of the State, seceders from the established churches in adjoining towns united with them, and Mansfield gained a certain notoriety as being the headquarters of the Separatists in that vicinity. This church called itself Congregational. It was not in any sense an active protest against Congregationalism; it was a protest against the want of tolerance in the colonial laws and in the spirit of the churches. But the protest, as is usual in such cases, was urged with an intolerance which emulated the intolerance of which they complained. This Separatist Church maintained its organization an uncertain number of years, and was disbanded sometime before the end of the century. As early as 1793 there began to be Methodist services in town, and a Methodist meeting-house was built in 1797, in the eastern part of the north parish. A Baptist society was organized in this town in 1808, and the society erected a meeting-house in the centre of the town the same year. Tolland County, together with the rest of eastern Connecticut, was profoundly stirred by the arbitrary proceedings of the British Parliament in the Boston Port Bill and the Quebec Bill, and previously in the Stamp Act. In town meeting, October, 1774, the citizens of Mansfield expressed their affliction at the oppressive measures which threatened the inhabitants with total loss of liberty, and declared it to be their duty to oppose cruel and unjust measures, and to maintain freedom; and resolved that they would be faithful subjects of King George the Third, so long as the crown maintained inviolate the stipulated rights of the people; and that they would defend with their lives and their fortunes their national and constitutional rights.. As early as February, 1775, Mansfield directed her *This peculiar religious movement was the natural outcome of several causes, some of which lay far back in the history of the Colony. There had first been brought into the churches, gradually, through the half-way covenant, an element which loosened the discipline and led to decline in the piety of the churches. Along with this, and perhaps a result of this, there grew a demand for a closer union of the churches, and some judicial authority outside of the individual church. This desire found expression in the Saybrook Platform, which organized the Consociation. This was a court of judicature over Congregational churches. The General Court was in sympathy with this feeling and made the Platform the rule of the churches. Then came, in 1735, '41 and '42, powerful revivals which awakened an earnest spirit of active piety mingled with a self-confident enthusiasm. New proofs of being in a state of grace were demanded, and censorious judgments were pro Mansfield has been from a very early period a manufacturing town. There is record of a fulling-mill in 1731, and of a spinning-mill in 1734. The early raising of silk-worms, principally by women and girls, and the manufacture of silk by hand, gave distinction to the town. In 1788, thirty-two persons of this town petitioned the General Court to be incorporated for the manufacture of silk. The request of the petitioners was allowed, and silk-culture gradually became a leading industry in Mansfield. Nearly every farmer raised mulberry trees, and his wife and daughters fed the silkworms, and spun the silk. The introduction of machinery run by water-power, for spinning silk, made a revolution in domestic silk. manufacture. The first experiments in this new method were made by Rodney Hanks, and his nephew, Horatio Hanks, in 1810, with machinery invented by themselves, and made with their own hands. The Hanks family, in several generations, has been noted for its inventive genius, which has, from time to time, produced various new machines and implements for facilitating labor in different branches of industry. It was several years, however, after the Messrs. Hanks began to spin silk by water-power, before a silk-factory of considerable dimensions was built in the town. Before that time, two cotton-spinning factories were erected in the western part of Mansfield, on the Willimantic River, and the women in the town were employed to take home the factory-spun yarn, and weave it into shirting and sheeting in handlooms. After the use of water-power had become successfully established for weaving as well as spinning, the household manufacture of sewing-silk, and of woollen and linen cloth, gradually declined, and many of the girls left their fathers' houses, and worked in the mills. Then began a great change in the social life of the town.† nounced upon such church-members as were not in sympathy with the revival. Churches were divided into parties. The "New Lights," or promoters of the revival were disciplined. Laws were enacted restraining liberty of worship outside of the "cstablished order." Many of the "New Lights" paid no regard to these laws, but withdrew from the established churches and organized churches of their own. + When the girls began to leave the hillsides for the manufacturing villages, the young men and boys also sought business away from their homes, and few besides the elderly people remained by the old firesides. Farms were less widely cultivated; agriculture declined; the longestablished churches diminished in numbers and wealth, and the inherited customs and old New England habits were so changed as to forever separate the modern from the old New England life. There are now in Mansfield six silk-factories, - two in Gurleyville, one on Hanks Hill, one in Chaffeeville, one in Atwoodville, and one in Conantville; one factory in Eagleville for the manufacture of cotton cloth, one in Mansfield Hollow for the manufacture of cotton thread, and one stockinet factory at Merrow Station. The oldest burying-ground in Tolland County was laid out in 1696, in what was then called the Ponde-place, now the first parish of Mansfield, seven years before Mansfield was made a distinct town. Here was buried Samuel Storrs, who came from England, and who was one of the original proprietors of the town, the great ancestor, not only of the families of Storrs in Mansfield, but of Rev. Mr. Storrs of Longmeadow, Mass. ; of Dr. Richard Salter Storrs, of Braintree, Mass.; and Dr. R. S. Storrs, of Brooklyn, N. Y. In fact, he is the common ancestor of nearly all of the numerous families of Storrs in the United States. The second parish of Mansfield, through the munificence of Mr. Charles Storrs, of Brooklyn, N. Y., has an unusually large and beautiful cemetery, enclosed by a substantial stone wall. From the rear of this cemetery, which is the highest ground in Mansfield, a view is obtained such as few inland towns furnish.* In 1864, Mr. Storrs became desirous that a school should be established in Mansfield of a higher grade than the district school. By his earnest solicitations and liberal aid, Mr. Edwin Whitney, of the Reform School in Providence, was induced to open a boarding and day school in the north parish in 1865. Mr. Whitney was well adapted for the work, and the school started with every prospect of success, but before the close of the first term it was broken up by a fire, which destroyed the principal's dwelling. Mr. Whitney built anew, but before the house was ready to be opened for scholars he offered it, with the farm, to the State, for use as a soldiers' orphans' home. Mr. Whitney had been prevented by physical disqualification from volunteering, and said that, as he could not offer himself to his country, he must do something that should be of service to the common cause. The State accepted the gift, and so the Connecticut Soldiers' Orphans' Home was established in Mansfield. The present population of the town is 2,401. sons from East Windsor and Bolton. The eastern part of the township is crossed by a range of mountains, forming the eastern boundary of the Connecticut Valley. The considerable streams are, the Hockanum and the Tancanhoosen, which supply water to many mills and factorics. Rockville, the principal manufacturing village, obtains its water-power from the Hockanum. It contains nine woollen-mills, three cotton-mills, a silk-factory, machine-shops, and various other industrial establishments. A cotton-factory was in operation in this town shortly before the year 1800. In 1811, Peter Dobson erected machinery for spinning cotton in Vernon. He conducted the business of cotton manufacturing for 50 years, and in connection with his family, for nearly 70 years. The business is still continued in the vicinity. The war of 1812 created a necessity for making cloth for soldiers. Our ports were blockaded, and all trade outside the States cut off. A piece of cloth from a tailor's bench was shown Mr. Dobson. Closely examining it, he found the warp cotton and the filling woollen yarn. He then made a jack and jenny for spinning wool, having seen similar machines in England. In a short time the facilities for spinning wool for filling, and cotton yarn for warps, produced a cloth called satinet. This cloth was blue mixed for soldiers' wear, and was made in a variety of colors. Satinets were made in Vernon from the first until 1841. The first cassimeres in Rockville were made in the New England mill, burned soon after its construction, and rebuilt in 1841-2. The population of Vernon is about 5,500. The town contains nine churches, four of the Congregational order. STAFFORD, on the Massachusetts line, and incorporated in 1808, was settled in 1719 by Robert White and Matthew Thompson from England, Samuel and John Warner from Hadley, Mass., David and Josiah Blodget from Woburn, Daniel Colburn from Dedham, and others from towns in Connecticut and Massachusetts. The first minister, Mr. Graham, was settled in 1723. There are several minerals in the town, of which iron ore is the most important. The ore which is principally used is the bog ore, and is of an excellent quality. In 1779, John Phelps and others built a blast furnace on a large VERNON, incorporated in 1808, was first settled by per- scale. Hollow-ware, cannon, cannon-shot, and a great variety of patterns for manufactures and description of * Rev. K. B. Glidden, who has written a valuable history of the first church in Mansfield, In 1796 another large furnace of machinery were cast. that perhaps no church in the State, according Says to its membership, hag was erected, and from that time until 1820, an immense and he gives the business was carried on. Since the latter date the many more have demand has been too great to be supplied from the orcbeds, and pig-iron has been used for machinery castings three other number, have sent names bech churche gone of trained in twenty-two. out more ministers of the Gospel than that; Aside from these, quite as up for the ministry in connection with the school-teachers, almost without town. brth from And Mansfield everywhere. The locality of the old furnace was called with great success. His parents intended him for the Furnace Hollow, and it is the post-office name to-day. But the blast furnace is gone, and also the business of former years. Stafford Springs and Foxville contain six large factories, and several of lesser importance. The mineral springs in Stafford in former years acquired considerable celebrity. The Indians made the white settlers acquainted with the virtues of these springs, when in 1719, this region was first settled. It had been their practice from time immemorial, to resort to the springs in warm weather, and plant their wigwams around them. It is said that in 1766 the springs were carefully examined by Dr. Joseph Warren, who then had thoughts of purchasing the land on which they rise, with a view of establishing himself upon it. Subsequent events transformed the physician into the soldier, and Dr. Warren fell in the first great struggle of the Revolution- the battle of Bunker Hill. Dr. Willard afterwards put the plan of Dr. Warren into operation, by erecting a large hotel for the accommodation of patients and others. Stafford Springs contains three churches and several banks. The New London Northern Railroad passes through the place. About three years since a large reservoir in the northern part of the town gave way. Dams and mills were destroyed, and at the Springs, six large dwellings, a church, factories, stores, a bank, &c., were swept away, and two men, standing on the steps of the church, were drowned. Staffordville, Hydeville, and West Stafford, have important manufactures. The entire town has a population of about 3,500. COVENTRY was first settled about the year 1700, by Nathaniel Rust and others. In the spring of 1709, a number of persons, principally from Northampton and Hartford, moved here, and two years later the town was incorporated. The township was originally given by Joshua, sachem of the Mohegans, to a number of legatees in Hartford. These conveyed their right to William Pitkin, Joseph Talcott, William Whiting and Richard Lord, to be a committee to lay out the township and make settlements therein. A stream called the Skunganug runs through the town, and, uniting with other stream, forms the Hop River. Lake Wangumbog, two miles in length, is an important feature of the landscape. Coventry will ever be remembered as the birthplace of Capt. Nathan Hale, the patriot and martyr. He was the son of Richard and Elizabeth Hale, and was born June 6, 1755, being the third in descent from Rev. John Hale, the first minister of Beverly, Mass. Nathan Hale graduated at Yale in 1773 with high honor, and for a brief period taught school at East Haddam and New London, ministry, but, on the Lexington alarm in 1775, he wrote to his father, saying that a sense of duty urged him to sacrifice everything for his country, and soon after entered the army as lieutenant, but was soon promoted to be captain. He served with credit in the vicinity of Boston, and in September, 1776, when in New York, he with an associate, planned and effected the capture of a British sloop, laden with provisions, taking her at night from under the guns of a man-of-war. After the retreat of the army from Long Island, when it was important to understand the plans of the enemy, Capt. Hale answered Gen. Washington's application for a discreet and faithful officer to enter the enemy's lines and obtain intelligence. Passing in disguise to the British camp, he made full drawings and memoranda of all the desired information, but on his return was apprehended and taken before Gen. Howe, by whom he was ordered for execution the next morning. He was denied a Bible and the aid of a clergyman; the letters he had written to his father and sisters were destroyed, and he was hanged, saying with his last breath: "I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country." In November, 1837, an association was formed for the purpose of erecting a cenotaph that should fitly commemorate the life and services of Hale. The day on which it was formed was the anniversary of the evacuation of New York, and 20 Revolutionary soldiers were present. It was not, however, until 1846, that the monument was completed. It is of Quincy granite, and bears for one of its inscriptions the dying words of the youthful hero. A romantic and tender interest attaches to the last utterance of Alice Adams, to whom Hale was betrothed. She married William Lawrence of Hartford, and for many years had in her possession a miniature of Hale, beside numerous letters and his camp book. She died Sept. 4, 1845, at the age of 88. The last words of Mrs. Lawrence were, "Write to Nathan.” Coventry has produced many men of eminence. Among them may be mentioned Harlan Page. It has a population of 2,057. HEBRON began to be settled in 1704. Among the earliest settlers were Samuel Curtiss, Timothy Phelps, Stephen Post, Jacob Root, William Shipman and Benoni Trumbull, who came from towns on the Connecticut River. Hebron was made a distinct town in 1707. The earliest church was organized in 1717. The first pastor was the Rev. John Bliss, who became the occasion of the establishment of an Episcopal church in Hebron, by his own conversion to Episcopacy in 1734. |