Tag Archives: Litchfield

Connecticut Tercentary Signs

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Travelers entering Litchfield from the west encounter this tercentary sign as they pass Stop and Shop.

In 1935, Connecticut celebrated the tercentenary of its European settlement. It was an enormous undertaking, with over 3,000 events attended by more than 4 million people (the total population of the state was 1.6 million,which ranked it 29th in the country; in 2012, with 3.5 million residents, Connecticut still ranks 29th!).


The State Legislature created the Connecticut Tercentary Commission in 1929 to plan and oversee the commemoration.  Among its sponsored activities were special exhibits and ceremonies, musical events, pageants and parades, activities for schoolchildren, and special license plates.  Special coins were minted, and special stamps created.


Two undertakings of the Commission continue to serve their original purpose more than three quarters of a century later.  The first is the series of sixty pamphlets on Connecticut history published by Yale University Press for the Commission.  These pamphlets, authored by various Connecticut writers including Commission chairman Samuel Herbert Fisher, are all available at the Connecticut State Library.  Of particular interest to Litchfield are The Settlement of Litchfield County, The Litchfield Law School, 1775 – 1833, and Connecticut Portraits by Ralph Earl.

The east side of the sign between Stop and Shop and the Webster Bank. It bears Connecticut’s state motto, which translates to “He who transplanted still sustains” and the state seal, which shows three grapevines, one representing each of Connecticut’s three earliest settlements, Windsor, Wethersfield and Hartford.

More noticeable on the Litchfield landscape are the roadside historical markers erected by the Commission.  Thousands of cars pass Litchfield’s four signs every day, yet there is no indication on the signs about who put them up, when they were put up, or why.  There were 139 known signs erected to inform motorists about important episodes or people from Connecticut history.  However, as many of these signs were duplicate (for example, nine signs in Hartford told the passerby about a nearby 17th Dutch fort), there were 71 different historical sites marked by the Commission.

The west side of the sign located between Stop and Shop and the Webster Bank.

All the signs were 1.5 feet by 2 feet, and painted in the distinctive brown with white letters.  However, while most hung from poles, there was no uniform method for hanging the markers.

It is interesting to ponder, what sites were marked? What sites weren’t? In keeping with the historiographical attitudes of the time, it is not surprising to learn that many identified sites of military importance.  However, eleven of the signs identified sites of educational importance, and sites of literary importance were also well represented.  Litchfield’s markers reflect these trends.

This sign marking the Beecher homestead is located at the intersection of North Street and Prospect Street.

Signs mark the Litchfield home of the literary and theological Beechers …

Located along North Street. Note: If any town officials are reading, the tree around this sign needs to be trimmed!

… and Litchfield’s educational pioneers Sarah Pierce …

Located in front of the Tapping Reeve Home and Law School on South Street.

… and Tapping Reeve.  Yet no signs (at least no extant signs) mark the sites of homes of Revolutionary heroes Oliver Wolcott or Benjamin Tallmadge, further evidence that what is considered significant in history changes over time, and isn’t always cast in stone, or metal.

Alain and May White Memorial Boulder

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Here is among the most hidden in plain sight of Litchfield’s many monuments and markers.  How many hundreds, if not thousands, of hikers and bikers pass by this engraved boulder near the intersection of White Memorial’s Mattatuck and Beaver Pond trails without seeing it?

The boulder honors two of Litchfield’s most distinguished residents, Alain (1880-1951) and Margaret “May” (1869-1941) White.  Together they preserved nearly 9,000 acres of land that today comprise the White Memorial Foundation, Mohawk State Forest and Mohawk Mountain State Park, Kent Falls State Park, Macedonia Brook State Park, the People’s State Forest, Campbell Falls State Park, and portions of the Steep Rock Preserve.

The Whites were the children of John Jay White, a New York City real estate magnate who built Whitehall, a Victorian summer estate in Litchfield that today is the main building of the White Memorial Foundation.  Alain was educated as a botanist at Harvard in the era of Theodore Roosevelt’s presidency, a combination that may have led to his first impulses of conservation.  (It is interesting to note that White was a champion chess player, who is credited in some circles with breaking the German code in World War I, which was based upon a pattern of chess moves.)

Fishing the Bantam River with his friend William Mitchell Van Winkle in 1908, Alain commented “Wouldn’t it be wonderful to preserve this river, lake and countryside as we see it now?”  With his sister May he would devote nearly the next half century to acquiring additional lands for a preserve dedicated to the memory of their parents, including the Babbit farm along today’s Route 63, on which this boulder stands.

Their goal was not simply to allow nature to run its course on these lands, however; rather, they hoped to “make shoreline available for youth camps, simple vacation home and convalescent retreats” (Rachel Carley, Litchfield, p. 225).  This, then, was practical conservationism.  Nor were their philanthropic impulses limited to nature; Alain was deeply involved in the establishment of the Connecticut Junior Republic, and in fact collaborated with Cass Gilbert, the architect of New York’s famed Woolworth Building, on its design.  He also wrote a detailed history of Litchfield in 1920.

May was a Sunday school teacher and avid theater aficionado who began a series of children’s performances at Whitehall, and who worked to turn the Lakeside Hotel into a summer getaway for children from New York City, a forerunner of the Fresh Air Fund.


Still, they are rightly best remembered today for their remarkable contribution of a 4,000-acre backyard for Litchfield, a refuge not only for animals but for hikers, bikers and kayakers.  As real estate development infringes upon more and more open spaces, the words carved on the boulder are increasingly appropriate:

In most grateful memory of

ALAIN AND MAY WHITE

brother & sister who loved

the quiet and beauty of the

forest and who saved these

thousands of acres for us.

To find the monument, park in the small parking area near the intersections of Routes 63 and 61.  Walk east on the Beaver Pond Trail (white blazes) until the trail intersects with the Mattatuck Trail (blue blazes).  Follow the fork to the left, the Mattatuck Trail.  The monument will soon appear, set in the woods on your left.

One Hundred Fifty Years Ago This Month …

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Marker identifying the location of the recruiting tent for the 19th Connecticut Infantry on the Litchfield Green.

On April 15, 1861 – within days of learning of the Confederate firing on Fort Sumter – President Abraham Lincoln issued issued a call for 75,000 volunteers to serve for 90 days in order to put down the rebellion.  Much has been made of this as evidence that Lincoln perhaps had his head in the sand or was ignorant about the realities of the manpower needed to win the Civil War; however, under the existing Militia Act, the 75,000 men were all that Lincoln was legally allowed to call out.  Regardless of the technicalities of the law, Northern enlistment offices were overrun by volunteers – in fact, some men were actually sent home.

The battles at Bull Run, Shiloh, and on the Virginia peninsula made it clear that significantly more Union troops would be necessary to vanquish the Confederacy.  Therefore, in July 1862, Lincoln issued a call for 300,000 additional volunteers to serve for three years.


Lincoln’s call inspired James Sloan Gibbons to write the war hymn, “We are Coming, Father Abraham”:

We are coming, Father Abraham, 300,000 more

From Mississippi’s winding stream and from New England’s shore.

We leave our plows and workshops, our wives and children dear,

With hearts too full for utterance, with but a silent tear,

We dare not look behind us but steadfastly before.

We are coming, Father Abraham, 300,000 more!

 

We are coming, we are coming, our Union to restore,

We are coming Father Abraham, 300,000 more!

As patriotic songs alone did not ensure the volunteers the Union army needed, the Lincoln Administration assigned each state a quota for the number of volunteers to be raised.   Connecticut was thus required to raise 7,153 men for the Union cause.  The state in turn assigned quotas to each town based upon population and number of men already in the service; if these quotas weren’t met, a state draft would follow.  Based upon the calculations, Litchfield needed to raise 48 men in August 1862.

A “grand convention” of citizens from all over Litchfield County met on July 22nd at the Litchfield court house to discuss how to best meet the quotas, at which it was decided to raise a County Regiment comprised of volunteers from across Litchfield County.  Leverett Wessels, “one of the best and most popular men of the county”, was selected to be the colonel of the regiment.  The convention also recommended that each town offer its volunteers a bounty of $100 for enlisting, a sizeable increase over the $7 bounty that 1861 volunteers received! A town meeting in Litchfield ratified this recommendation on July 25th, and it was reported that “the utmost enthusiasm and good feeling prevailed.”  (All told, the town of Litchfield would award more than $50,000 in bounties over the course of the war; a dollar in 1860 would be worth more than $25 today. And these bounties were in addition to bounties offered by the state and federal governments.)

A recruiting tent in New York’s City Hall Park.

Almost immediately, a recruiting tent appeared on the Litchfield green, with A. B. Shumway supervising the operation from an office at the Litchfield Enquirer.  By July 25th, Shumway could state that he had “already enlisted several men, and expects to enlist many more before the regiment goes into camp.”  The newspaper reported on August 7th that “Litchfield will fill up its quota during this week.  The work goes bravely on, and the Regiment will be full, we trust, before the 20th of August.”  Another article stated that “recruiting is going on briskly in Litchfield.  Our people are becoming aroused to the true appreciation of their duty in these times.  The prospect of an early draft creates excitement.  (Draftees received no bonus)  We shall take our full town quota in the regiment into camp as soon as it is formed.”  The paper went a step further, predicting that Litchfield and Goshen alone would fill an entire company of 100 men.

The enlistees from Litchfield and across the county reported to Camp Dutton on Litchfield’s Chestnut Hill (a site that will be explored in a later post).  Whether its citizens were motivated by patriotism, financial incentive, or fear of being drafted, Litchfield exceeded its quota, sending nearly 70 men off to war in the summer of 1862, nearly all of them in the 19th Connecticut Infantry, which would gain fame on fields including Cold Harbor as the Second Connecticut Heavy Artillery.

Questions remain about this marker.  It appears that at one time something was attached to the top of this marker.  What was it?  When was this marker erected?  Who put it up – the Village Improvement Society?  The 2nd Connecticut Heavy Artillery Veterans’ Association?  More research is needed/  Stay tuned!

Jedediah Strong’s Milestone

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It’s easy to miss.  Traveling past Litchfield Bancorp on Route 202, the modern motorist is often too concerned with navigating traffic to notice the small marker on the bank’s lawn.  However, when it was erected 225 years ago, travelers only as fast as their horse or feet could take them almost certainly saw the engraved stone:

33 miles to Hartford

102 miles to New York

J. Strong AD 1787

It remains today, a reminder of the ingenuity of early Americans as well as one Jedediah Strong, one of Litchfield’s more unusual characters.

Roman milestone

Milestones have existed since at least Roman times, and dozens of milestones – bearing the name of the emperor under who rule they were erected and the distance to Rome – remain scattered across what was once the Roman Empire.  Milestones serve to mark the route and distance to a site.  As such, they provided reassurance a traveler that he was on the right road, and gave him an idea of how much longer his journey would last.

Franklin’s odometer

In our age of satellite navigation and laser-guided surveying, it is interesting to ponder how these measurements were made in a much simpler time.  Assuming that Jedediah Strong measured these distances himself, he likely did it by attaching an odometer to one of the wheels of his wagon.  The Romans possessed this technology, but like many of their innovations, it was lost as Europe entered the so-called Dark Ages.  The technology was rediscovered by Benjamin Franklin who, as Postmaster General, was desirous of knowing the shortest routes for sending the mail.  His odometer kept count of the number of revolutions made by the wagon wheel; by multiplying the number of revolutions by the circumference of the wheel, he arrived at the distance traveled.  (Incidentally, Google Maps states that the distance from Strong’s milestone to Hartford is 33.1 miles, and to the Bowling Green in Manhattan is 101 miles, testimony to the accuracy of the odometers of the time.)

Jedediah Strong was born in Litchfield in 1738, and graduated from Yale College in 1761, making him the second Litchfield resident with a college degree.  Like many of his era, he studied divinity but, perhaps inspired by the tumult of growing opposition to Britain, turned to law and politics.  He served as a selectman of Litchfield and town clerk, as a state judge and representative, and as a member of the Continental Congress and the Connecticut convention to ratify the Constitution.

Of Strong, one writer commented, “a diminutive figure, a limping gait, and an unpleasant countenance were, however, in some measure atoned for by a certain degree of promptness and tact in the discharge of public business.”

When the Revolution broke out, Strong donated a gun, bayonet, and a belt that was carried into war by William Patterson, and a second gun that was carried by Benjamin Taylor.  In 1780, at the peak of his political powers, Strong welcomed Noah Webster as his student.  He also served as the driving force behind Litchfield’s first Temperance Association.

Tapping Reeve

His life soon took a dramatic turn.  Strong’s first wife, Ruth Patterson died after giving birth to a daughter and, in 1788, the widower married Susannah Wyllys, daughter of Connecticut’s Secretary of State.  Less than two years later Strong was arrested and brought before judge Tapping Reeve.  Accused of beating his wife, pulling her hair, and kicking her out of bed, Strong also allegedly “spit in her face times without number.”  Reeve granted Susannah an immediate divorce, and required Strong to post a 1,000 pound surety.  His career collapsed, and Strong increasingly turned to alcohol.  He was soon on public assistance, and when he died on August 21, 1802, at the age of 64, he was buried in the West Cemetery without a stone.

Despite these travails, Strong’s milestone remained, serving passersby for more than two centuries.  Still, the modern explorer is left to ponder, why did he build it in the first place?  We might speculate that it was perhaps his interpretation of his civic duty, or that he was looking to boost Litchfield’s commercial prospects.  Regardless, the stone has been a silent witness to most of the town’s history.

Litchfield’s Water Monument

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Litchfield enjoyed a so-called “Golden Age” from 1784 to 1834.  In these fifty years the small town was a center of education -with both Tapping Reeve’s law school and the Sarah Pierce Academy bringing young, intelligent and often well-to-do men and women to town – and of commerce.  In 1810, the population of the town was approximately 4,600, making it, according to the Litchfield Historical Society (http://litchfieldhistoricalsociety.org/history/index.php), the fourth largest settlement in the state.

Litchfield, 1836

However, beginning with the United States’ Fourth Census in 1820, the number of residents in Litchfield began a steady decline, with the overall population dropping in nine of the next ten censuses.  By 1910, the town’s population stood at 3,005, a staggering drop of 35%.  There were many reasons for the exodus of Litchfield residents.  Across New England, populations fell in the aftermath of the American Revolution as farmers gave up their rocky lands for the promise of new lands in the west; the migration was so severe that editorials appeared in the Hartford Courant asking who would tend to the graveyards of Litchfield County in the aftermath of the departure of so many residents.  The drop in Litchfield’s population was due to perhaps a simpler cause – it was very difficult for those who lived in town to obtain an adequate supply of water.

Litchfield was first laid out along elevated lands, initially along the ridge marked by present-day North and South Streets, then spreading to the Chestnut Hill area. While this allowed for plots away from swamps and wetlands, it made for great difficulty in digging wells.  A solution to the town’s water problem would be arrived at only with great difficulty and after decades of planning and work.

Fox Brook, Goshen

After discussions of how to solve the water crisis – and the continued decline in the town’s population – the Litchfield Water Company was established in 1891.  The company proposed damming Fox Brook in Goshen to create a reservoir.  While water was brought to Litchfield in 1891, within a few years the source was proven to be inadequate, for it was later written that Fox Brook “could not properly be called a brook, as it practically dried up soon after a rainfall.”

Professor Henry S. Munroe, of Columbia University’s Department of Mining was brought in to solve the problem.  Munroe, whose other contributions to the Litchfield County landscape included the tower on Mount Tom, oversaw the construction of a new pumping plan in the valley below the reservoir, with wells 90 feet deep.  These wells, as Alain White wrote in his history of Litchfield,

“have provided an unfailing supply of pure water ever since, so that however dry the season or how near a water famine many of the surrounding towns were, Litchfield people … had no cause for worry.”

The Litchfield Water Company soon after purchased 500 acres of the surrounding watershed of the reservoir, which they allowed to return to a natural forested state – excepting, that is, the fences they erected to keep out cattle.  Filters were added to the pumps in 1914 to help ensure the purity of the water supply.

Apparently the mere prospect of a clean and secure source of drinking water excited the commemorative spirit of the town.  In 1890, a year before the water system was activated, a small monument appeared on the western end of the town green bearing the inscription:

Erected by the

VIS

to commemorate the

introduction of water

October 1890.

The Litchfield Village Improvement Company (later the Village Improvement Society, or VIS) was incorporated in 1875 to oversee improvements to the town’s streets, parks, and public structures.  In erecting this particular marker, however, the organization perhaps did more than improve the appearance of their town; they may have commemorated its very survival.

A Post on Posts (or, Hold Your Horses!)

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They stand as vestiges of a bygone era of transportation, reminders of the age of the horse.  More than a dozen hitching posts remain along the streets and sidewalks of Litchfield.  They evoke, in the imaginative passerby, images of riders in the saddle, of wagons or coaches, of landaus or sleighs.

Illustration from John Barber, “Connecticut Historical Collections,” (1838) showing horse-drawn traffic entering Litchfield.

Americans were a restless people in the 18th and 19th centuries, crossing the Appalachians and pushing the frontier first to the Mississippi and ultimately to the Pacific.  This was accomplished primarily on horseback or with wagons.  The horse played a vital role in Litchfield’s commercial life; as the railroad did not reach the town until 1872 and there is no navigable waterway, all goods had to enter town via horse-drawn conveyances.

Hitched horses, RIchmond, VA, 1865.
Photo courtesy of hmdb.com

The hitching post was the parking space of the 18th and 19th century.  Most houses had them; it is likely that nearly all commercial enterprises had them.  Hitching racks secured several horses at one time.

Upon arriving at his or her destination, the rider would dismount the horse or vehicle, and tie the reins which were attached to the horse’s bridle to the post with a “hitch”, a type of knot or tie.  Hitches varied in style, and travelers could opt for the simple clove hitch if they had only a horse and were in a hurry, or the more difficult but secure rolling hitch to secure a wagon or carriage.

 


Hitching posts are of different materials and sizes, and present a variety of ways in which a rider could secure his horse.  Those that remain in Litchfield are most often made of granite, although there are examples of sandstone posts as well.  One wonders about the industries that grew up to fabricate the posts.  Were they presided over by local craftsmen, or were they brought in to Litchfield from distant manufacturers?

Most often the posts are found near the present sidewalks.  One walking the sidwalks on North and South Streets sees many examples of hitching posts.  They stand close to the sidewalks, most often as solitary sentinels.  However, the careful observer will see a house on Prospect Street with twin hitching posts.

This cast iron hitching post was likely made outside of town.  Molten iron was cast into the desired design and allowed to cool.  A simple search for “hitching post images” reveals many different designs of cast iron posts.

Why do more not remain?  Perhaps many were made of wood and eroded over the years.  Did owners remove their hitching posts when automobiles made them unnecessary?  Did the paving of the roads widen existing roadways and necessitate the removal of posts?  Are those that remain all original, or were they erected simply to be ornamental?  Many of those that still stand have house numbers posted on them.

While obsolete, there is a sort of grace and beauty to them.  It is doubtful that anyone will ever say the same about parking meters.

The Colvocoresses Oak

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A small marker sits beneath a stately oak tree on the western portion of the Litchfield Green.  It is located in close proximity to the post office, restaurants, and the historical society, yet one wonders how many people stop to read its simple text:  “The Colvocoresses Oak.  A memorial of the Battle of Manila Bay.” Upon examination, the curious passerby asks why this small monument to a largely forgotten event of American history stands in the center of a small Connecticut town.

George Partridge Colvocoresses was born in Norwich, Vermont in 1847.  His father, also George Colvocoresses, was the son of a prominent Greek businessman.  At the age of six, he, along with other members of his family, was kidnapped by Turks.  While six of his his brothers were killed, George was sold into slavery.  His father was able to purchase his freedom, and the son was sent to America.  He was adopted by Alden Patridge, who founded the Norwich Military Academy in Vermont, from which George graduated in 1831.

The U.S.S. Supply, in left background.

The elder Colvocoresses enjoyed a distinguished career in the United States Navy, achieving some fame for his exploits on blockading duty during the Civil War.  While in command of the U.S.S. Supply, Colvocoresses was joined in the service by his son, George Patridge, named for the family’s American benefactor.  Following the war, the elder Colvocoresses was made captain and retired from the service, moving to Litchfield.  He was murdered in Bridgeport in 1872.

George Patridge returned to Norwich and graduated from the school in 1866.  He embarked on a distinguished naval career of his own, serving in many foreign ports, at the Naval Hydrographic Office, and as an instructor of drawing at the United States Naval Academy.  In that capacity he designed the monument to the crew of the U.S.S. Jeanette that stands in the Academy’s cemetery.

Colvocoresses’ crowded hour came at Manila Bay on May 1st, 1898.  While Congress declared the Spanish-American War on April 25th of that year, two months earlier Assistant Secretary of the Navy Theodore Roosevelt had sent a coded telegram to US Asiatic Fleet commander Commodore George Dewey to attack the Spanish fleet in Manila Bay should war be declared.  In seven hours of fighting, Dewey (who had opened the battle with the famous phrase, “You may fire when ready, Gridley!”), had secured the surrender of the Spanish fleet and Manila Bay, at the cost of ten American casualties and one damaged ship.  When the war ended, the Philippines became an American colony, which they remained until granted independence in 1946.

At the battle Colvocoresses served as the executive officer aboard the U.S.S. Concord, which sank the Spanish vessel Mindanao.  His actions were noted by a superior, who wrote, “Each and every one of my subordinates did his whole duty with an enthusiasm and zeal beyond all praise. I am particularly indebted to the executive officer, Lieut. Commander George P. Colvocoresses, for the cool, deliberate, and efficient manner with which he met each phase of the action, and for his hearty cooperation in my plans.” He was later transferred to the Olympia, Dewey’s flagship. For his service in the battle, Colvocoresses was awarded the Dewey medal.

The Dewey Medal

There is nothing on the small marker to indicate when it was erected.  However, the following appeared in the New York Times on November 11, 1899:

Alain White’s history of Litchfield indicates that Colvocoresses himself planted the tree using a silver trowel ordered for the occasion by Mary Quincy.  Perhaps the maker was erected in connection with this event as well.

Following the war, Colvocoresses served as the commandant of the United States Naval Academy.  He retired to Litchfield.  His children and grandchildren continued the family legacy of attending Norwich and serving in the United States military.  George Partridge Colvocoresses died on September 10, 1932, and is buried in Litchfield’s East Cemetery.  His services at Manila Bay live on, however, commemorated by a small marker and a stately oak tree on the Litchfield Green.

Hidden in Plain Sight

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Welcome to Hidden in Plain Sight.  In his wonderful book Outside Lies Magic, Harvard professor John Stilgoe writes,

“Learning to look around sparks curiosity, encourages serendipity.  Amazing connections get made that way; questions are raised — and somtimes answered — that would never be otherwise.  Any explorer sees things that reward not just a bit of scrutiny but a bit of thought, sometimes a lot of thought over years.  Put the things in spatial context or arrange them in time, and they acquire value immediately.  Moreover, even the most ordinary of things help make sense of others, even of great historical movement.  Noticing dates on cast-iron storm-drain grates and fire hydrants intoduces something of the shift of iron-founding from Worcester and Pittsburgh south to Chattanooga and Birmingham.  The storm-drain grate and the fire hydrant are touchable, direct links with largers concepts, portals into the past of industrialization.” 

This crystallizes the philosophy of this blog.  There are tales of the past all around us.  By opening our eyes and asking questions, they may emerge from the shadows of the decades or even centuries.  Hidden in Plain Sight hopes to reveal the history of one small town – Litchfield, Connecticut – by exploring its landscape for clues to its past.   This is a town with a rich history, some well known, some not.  Occasionally, sites beyond the borders of Litchfield will be visited.

Look for a new post every other week or so.