TWO CENTURIES OF NEW MILFORD,
CONNECTICUT

One thousand copies of this book have been
printed from type and the type distributed.

TWO CENTURIES OF
N E W M I L F O R D
C O N N E C T I C U T

AN ACCOUNT OF THE BI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION
OF THE FOUNDING OF THE TOWN HELD JUNE
15, 16, 17 AND 18, 1907, WITH A NUMBER
OF HISTORICAL ARTICLES AND
REMINISCENCES

PREPARED UNDER THE DIRECTION OF THE HISTORICAL COMMITTEE BY VARIOUS CITIZENS OF NEW MILFORD AND BY THE EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT OF THE GRAFTON PRESS

THE GRAFTON PRESS
PUBLISHERS NEW YORK

Copyright, 1907
By THE GRAFTON PRESS

CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS

PART I
THE PAST AND PRESENT

INTRODUCTION

TWO hundred years ago, in the summer of 1707, the pioneer John Noble, with his little daughter, made his way through the wilderness from Westfield, Mass., and set up his rude cabin in the beautiful valley of Weantinock, on the west side of “Stratford” River, under the shadow of Fort Hill, near neighbor to the Indians, with whom he became very friendly. He trusted their friendship so much that he left his daughter in their care while he went on a journey, following the Indian trail through the wilderness to Albany, to pilot some gentlemen; and, on his return, he found her well taken care of.

He subsequently built a log house on the east side of the river on land now occupied by the residence of Levi P. Giddings.

The next year his son, John Noble, Jr., came and made a settlement, and, before 1712, twelve families had settled here on sites purchased by the Milford Company from the Indians, the purchases having been ratified by the Colonial Legislature; but, strange to say, only two of the twelve, Samuel Prindle and Isaiah Bartlett, came from Milford town.

Some thirty years previous, Henry Tomlinson and others of Stratford, Conn., had purchased from the Indians who assumed to be owners, this tract of land, and Mr. John Read, joint owner, representing them, came and laid claim to it.

It is said that Zachariah Ferriss, a brother-in-law of Mr. Read, came here in 1706, before any other white man, and plowed a piece of land where Roger Sherman Hall now stands, in order to claim title to the land under the deed of the Stratford Company.

He was sued for trespass by the Milford Company, but won his suit, Mr. John Read being his counsel.

Mr. Read built a house on or near the site of the Knapp residence, in which he lived, meanwhile prosecuting his claim to the title of the land. He obtained a verdict in his favor fifteen times, but the sixteenth time the General Court ruled against him; and he, being discouraged, soon after removed to Lonetown, now Redding, named for him.

The Colonial Government soon set off to him a large tract of land in what is now the town of Kent, of which the Scaghticoke Indians long after held possession, Mr. Read having exchanged it for territory in the town of Redding.

Mr. John Read was a notable man: He was well educated in theology and in the law, being a graduate of Harvard College, and is said to have preached the first sermon in this place. He was under thirty years of age when he came here. He married a daughter of Major John Talcott, was held in high esteem by the Governor of the Colony, and was appointed by him to many important positions. He held the office of Queen’s Counsel under the reign of Queen Anne. His son, widely known as Colonel John Read, was for many years very prominent in the Colony.

Other settlers came through the wilderness and erected their rude houses. The next thing these pioneers and pilgrims did was to petition the Assembly for the power and privileges of a township, which were granted, conferring authority relating to ecclesiastical matters. They then formed themselves into a church, and called a minister to settle over them.

“What sought they thus afar?
Bright jewels of the mine?
The wealth of seas, the spoils of war?
They sought a Faith’s pure shrine.

“Ay, call it holy ground,
The soil where first they trod.
They left unstained what there they found,
Freedom to worship God.”

They called Mr. Daniel Boardman to be their minister, and built the meeting-house and the schoolhouse, for these two institutions went hand in hand throughout New England and formed the characters of their descendants.

These early settlers of our town were busy men. They had

hard work to perform in those early days to subdue the wilderness, to plant and cultivate the corn and the rye for their sustenance, to raise the flax and the wool which the womenfolk made into garments. Mechanics, artificers, and wheelwrights were at a premium. The village blacksmith was a most important and necessary person, and concessions were made and land given to induce blacksmiths to settle in the community.

Small manufactories were soon established on every considerable stream. The grist mill, the saw mill, the flax mill—these were important institutions. The spinning wheel was in every house, and the loom was set up in every neighborhood. It remained for our day to develop the immense manufactories situated near the large marts. Those were days that developed brawn and brain—two hundred years ago.

What were the deeds our fathers performed in those strenuous times? They have told us but little; a few things were recorded in the town books of record. They were too busy making history to expend much time in writing it. They cleared and fenced the fields; they built the town and the village.

They did not pretend to great academic learning, but they had good common sense which served them well. They went out to drive off the French and Indians who harried their borders in their peculiar savage way. They rallied to defend their liberties in the great War of the Revolution, for which they poured out their blood and treasure, more than two hundred and twelve from the town serving in that war.

Referring to the founders of this country, a noted orator said, “How little did these rulers of the Old World—James the First seeking to strangle the liberties of England, or Richelieu laying his plans to build up a kingly despotism—realize that a little group of English yeomen were founding a colony in a Western wilderness, from whose vigorous loins would spring a mighty nation to dominate the world when the Stuart and the Bourbon were alike forgotten!”

Of these Puritans and their English brethren, King James had scornfully said, “I will make them conform, or I will harry them out of the land.” He did indeed drive these Pilgrim Fathers from his land; but within five generations thereafter their descendants had harried the English Government from these shores, and, within another five generations, had compelled not only England, but the whole world as well, to conform to America’s principles of free government, to America’s ideas, to America’s commercial predominance.

Those early days of New Milford produced some noted men, whose lives and example did much to mould the characters of the inhabitants. The names of Boardman, Taylor, Noble, Gaylord, Bostwick, Canfield, Baldwin, Griswold, Sherman, Sanford, Mygatt, Marsh, Hine, Turrill, and others of the same stamp will be recalled as those of leaders in the affairs of the town and the church.

The greatest and the most celebrated man that ever honored the town with his citizenship was Roger Sherman. He came from Newton, Mass., in 1743, at the age of twenty-two years, and was active and influential in affairs of the town and church; but the town could not retain him long. Of him Edward Everett Hale said: “They say dear Roger Sherman was a shoemaker. I do not know, but I do know that every central suggestion in the American Constitution, the wisest work of men’s hands, that was struck off in so short a time, is the suggestion of this shoemaker, Roger Sherman.”

It was said that Roger Sherman was placed on every important committee while in Congress, and that no law, or part of a law, that he favored failed to be enacted. John Adams said that Chief Justice Ellsworth told him that he made Roger Sherman his model in youth.

The Fathers of New Milford wrought wisely and well in establishing the religious and civic institutions. They built well the town and wide the streets, and their descendants have enlarged and improved so much that this little village has the name far and wide of being one of the most beautiful spots in New England.

Remembering these hardy pioneers, their devotion to righteousness, their perseverance amid discouragements, and their

many virtues, we all—the loyal sons and daughters of New Milford, those who went forth to make homes for themselves elsewhere and have now returned hither, and the strangers from foreign shores who have settled here—join together this beautiful month of June to celebrate the founding of the town, two hundred years ago.

Minot S. Giddings.

GLIMPSES OF OLD NEW MILFORD HISTORY

Contributed by Charlotte Baldwin Bennett

FEW contrasts could be more striking than our beautiful village of to-day against the background of the place John Noble, the first white settler, found two hundred years ago. An unbroken wilderness met his eye, save for the Indian settlement across the river on Fort Hill, where the smoke, curling from many wigwams, marked the homes of over two hundred warriors with their families.

Even four years later, when the white man’s plantation included twelve settlers and about seventy souls, we find it a rather dismal picture. An irregular cart path, winding in and out among stumps of newly cut trees, formed the Main Street. A narrow road led from the north end of this street to the river, then followed the river bank a mile north to the rapids, the general crossing place. The first bridge over the Housatonic was built at New Milford, but not until 1737.

John Noble’s house, the first in the town, stood on the site of Mr. Levi P. Giddings’ present residence. At the time it was built, it was the last house this side of Albany, and fourteen miles from any white man’s dwelling. The original “Town Plot” was on Aspetuck Hill, our forefathers evidently being impressed even then with the beauty and healthfulness of the hilltops. What is now Park Lane was also in the first century of the town a more populous neighborhood than the one in our village. But the valley offered more shelter and protection in the rigorous winters, and doubtless the toilsome life of the pioneer made the hill-climbing a heavy burden; so the valley triumphed at last, and claimed the larger population.

In 1712 the “New Milford Plantation” became a town, the inhabitants having petitioned the General Court to that end. In this year, also, “Mr. Daniel Boardman was called to preach ye gospel at New Milford.” Previous to this, except for occasional preaching here, the people had been obliged to go to Woodbury or Derby for church services. John Noble became a member of the Woodbury Church in these first years. When we recall what was meant by that long journey of twenty-eight miles through the wilderness, in which the narrow Indian trail was the only path, we bow in reverence before the faith and sturdy manhood that laid a sure foundation for the blessings that have come down to us. John Noble was a tower of strength to the little community during his brief life here.

He was evidently a modest man, who did not exalt his own deeds; but we may read between the lines a story of noble service and heroic courage. He fortified his house as a refuge for the people in times of danger from hostile Indians. He was the first town clerk elected by the town, and a surveyor of lands. When he died, in 1714, there must have been sincere mourning in the little community. He was the first adult person to be buried in the little graveyard. All honor to John Noble, our first citizen!

The first sermon preached here was by John Read, who had studied for the ministry, and who resided here from 1708 to 1711. His house, where Ingleside School now stands, was used, for several years after he left, as a meeting-house.

In 1713 the town voted to pay the expense of a minister; also to layout a pastor’s lot, and to dig and stone up a well for Mr. Boardman, if he became a settled minister. This recalls one of the first necessities of the new community—pure water. Strangely enough, this well is the only vestige now remaining of that earliest settlement. It is on the lawn of Mrs. W. D. Black’s residence.

The town, meantime, allowed five shillings and sixpence a week for the minister’s board. His salary was to be paid one-third in grain and two-thirds in labor, linen, or pork. This gives a pitiful glimpse of the slender resources of the people, but we remember with pride that there is no record of the church here ever receiving aid from any outside source. In 1716 the church was organized, and, on November 21 of that year Mr. Boardman was ordained. The first meeting-house was commenced in 1718, but was not open for worship till 1720, and was then quite unfinished, the floor not being laid till 1723. It stood on the highway on Aspetuck Hill, a little north of the Knapp house.

Until 1745 the Congregational Church was the only one in the town, and every person was taxed for its support.

There was no Ecclesiastical Society till after 1750. The town was the Society, and provided for all expenses of public worship. It has been remarked of these early New England towns that “one might almost say that the church had selectmen and the town had deacons, so closely were the two united.” From 1750 to 1790 those who aided in supporting other churches were relieved of the tax for the support of this one, and, from 1800, only members of this society were taxed for its benefit. The renting of pews began in 1854.

Before this, committees had “dignified the meeting-house.” All persons of the age of fifty-six years and upwards were assigned to the first rank of seats, and all others were seated “according to the taxes they have paid toward building said Meeting-House.” We are told that in the early days of the colony the “dignifying the meeting-house,” that is, the seating people by certain grades of wealth, was unknown. It became common only after slavery was an established institution.

The people were for many years called to church by the beat of the drum. An appropriation was made for this when the church was organized, and, annually, the town appointed a person to beat the drum, and voted to pay him for the same.

This method may have been employed to remind the people that they belonged to the church militant. Certain it is, that the marching with measured tread to the martial sound was a fitting prelude to the grim and lengthy service awaiting them.

The meeting-houses were not heated till 1823, when two box stoves were put in the second meeting-house. No wonder our forbears developed strong and decided traits of character under such Spartan training!

The tithing man was an important factor in church work. As early as 1729 it was voted in town meeting “that James Hine have oversight of the female sex during exercises on the Sabbath.” We are left in painful doubt as to whether the “female sex” needed more oversight than the men. But a later vote recorded relieves our minds, for “two men were appointed to oversee the youth (males), and one for the female sex;” during service. So we may conclude our foremothers needed only half as much watching as the fathers and sons.

The law requiring the appointment of tithing men was passed in 1721. Earlier, it was customary in New England to appoint an officer to keep people from sleeping during the delivery of the sermon.

In 1745 the town voted that “any farmers, inhabitants, have leave to build a small house to repair to on the Sabbath Day, on the common land, provided the public is not damnified thereby.” This building was “north of the meeting-house on the side of the hill.” After the second church was built, in 1754, on “The Green,” opposite the spot now occupied by Mrs. Henry Bostwick’s residence, the Sabbath Day house was built on the site of Mr. James Orton’s present home on Bridge Street. These “Sabba’ Day houses,” as they were called, were an important institution in the Sunday life of those old days.

Here those living at a distance stored loads of wood and barrels of cider, refilled their foot stoves and rested between services.

This little intermission, in which the settlers took breath after the two hours’ sermon of the morning, and gained strength for the ninthlies and tenthlies of the afternoon, is a pleasant picture in the midst of the rigorous Sabbath. We like to think there was a little relaxation for the housewives in exchanging their doughnuts and Indian bread, and comparing receipts for the same, and, perhaps, indulging in a little week-day gossip, when James Hine was not at hand to “oversee.”

The most notable figure in the town was always the minister. He was the person, the “parson.” Even the “divinity that doth hedge a king” commands hardly more reverence than that which was paid to the early New England minister. The very children were taught to make obeisance to him as he passed along the street. An early rule of the New England churches read as follows: “If any person or persons shall be guilty of speaking against the minister, in any shape, form or manner, or of speaking against his preaching, said person or persons shall be punished by fine, whipping or banishment, or cutting off of ears.”

Mr. Orcutt, in his “History of New Milford,” says that Episcopal Church services were held here as early as 1742, perhaps earlier, Rev. Mr. Beach of Newtown conducting occasional meetings. The first resident Episcopal clergyman was Rev. Solomon Palmer, who came in 1754. The second Episcopal church stood on the lower end of “The Green.” It was consecrated in 1793, though begun many years before.

The Separatists, or Strict Congregationalists, as they were called, built a house of worship in 1761, near the entrance to the present cemetery. They disbanded in 1812. The Baptists had a small church in “The Neck,” now Bridgewater, in 1788, but soon moved away. The Baptist Church in Northville was formed in 1814. In 1825 the Methodist Church was established at Gaylordsville. The Methodist Church in this village was erected in 1849.

The Quakers were early in the field, their first meeting-house in the south part of the town being built about 1742.

The present Congregational Church edifice was built in 1833. In 1883 the beautiful new St. John’s Episcopal Church, which is one of the chief ornaments of our Main Street, was completed. All Saints’ Memorial Episcopal Church was organized in 1880. The beautiful church building was erected later on Aspetuck Hill, in memory of the late Judge David C. Sanford, by his wife. It was consecrated in 1888. The Church of St. Francis Xavier, Roman Catholic, was built about 1860, and has a large and flourishing congregation. The most recent addition to our list of churches is the Advent Church, which has done an excellent work already in our community. It was built in 1901.

From very ancient times it seems to have been ordained that harmony and discord should go hand in hand in the churches, for no subject was more prolific of disturbance than the singing. In the first days of New Milford the deacons led the singing, standing in front of the pulpit. There seems to have been a difference of opinion as to any change, for, in 1739, a meeting was held “to consider about the singing of God’s praises in the congregation,” and it was voted “that we should ‘half’ the time; that is, to sing one day all the old way, and the next Sabbath all the new way, for the space of one year, and then have a reconsideration of the matter.” Samuel Bostwick was chosen chorister for the new way, and “Nathan Botsford second, in case of the other’s absence.”

The difference continued, for the following year a meeting was called to “agree about the singing in church.” It was put to vote that all in favor of singing all together the old way should go to the east end of the meeting-house, and those for the new way to the west end. On being counted, thirty favored the new way, against sixteen for the old. They peaceably voted that the majority should rule.

Eight years later a new trouble arose as to using Dr. Watts’ version of the Psalms. It was voted “that Dr. Watts’ version be sung the last singing in the afternoon on the Sabbath and at lectures.” The next year it was voted to sing from the old version in the morning, and from Dr. Watts’ version in the afternoon, for one year, and then altogether from Dr. Watts. Who could imagine Dr. Watts as a dangerous innovation!

Up to this time no reference is found here to any musical instrument but the pitch pipe. The bass viol and the rest of the stringed instruments must have come into use in the church services soon after. How the old fugue tunes, with the parts chasing each other all the way through, must have shaken the rafters and waked all the sleepers, without the help of the tithing man!

This town very early began to uphold morality and order. In that first century it fined certain persons “for bringing into the town unwholesome inhabitants.”

The care with which the town guarded its temporal interests is shown by an early vote, “that a black bonnet, a red woman’s cloak, and a worsted gown belonging to Hannah Beeman, deceased, be kept for her daughter till she is of age; if she die under age, the town to have them.”

The cause of education went hand in hand with that of religion in those early days. When there were but twenty-five families in the town, a public school was ordered. In town meeting, September, 1721, it was voted that a school be maintained for four months, the town to bear half the charge. The next year a committee was appointed to raise money to hire a schoolmaster three months in winter, and a schoolmistress three months in summer. One of these early schoolmistresses was the little daughter of John Noble, who had come hither with him alone through the wilderness. Deacon Sherman Boardman, son of the Rev. Daniel, mentions going to school to her, and says she was an excellent teacher. The “little red schoolhouse” was preceded by the log schoolhouse, which was soon a frequent landmark through the town. The town was often divided into new districts. In 1782 there were twenty-one school districts. In 1787 a new building for townhouse and schoolhouse together was erected at the north end of the Main Street.

The singing schools were a pleasant feature of early days, and, in a time of few pleasures, afforded a harmless enjoyment. They were usually held in the schoolhouses, but sometimes at a dwelling in the neighborhood. In 1792 Mr. Cyrene Stilson is recorded as beginning a singing school at a private house. There are to-day treasured in many of our homes, brass candlesticks that were kept bright by our grandmothers to carry to the schoolhouse for the evening singing school. They suggest many bits of romance. When the boys were privileged to walk home with the girls, they carried the candlesticks, we hope, and they doubtless lingered on the broad doorstep sometimes, in spite of zero weather.

One of the brightest spots in New Milford history is the patriotism the town has shown through all its generations. This sentiment seems to have been a perennial spring in the hearts of the inhabitants, ready to burst out into action whenever a crisis arose.

The long list of soldiers in the wars is proof of this. The War of the Revolution called out a host of brave men from New Milford. Not less patriotic was the minister, Rev. Nathaniel Taylor. He had long before served as chaplain in the French and Indian War, and, in 1779, he remitted his entire salary to alleviate the suffering caused by the war. It is inspiring to read that in this same year the county treasurer at Litchfield received the sum of ninety-four pounds sixteen shillings, by the hand of Col. Samuel Canfield—money contributed by the first Ecclesiastical Society of New Milford, for the relief of the distressed inhabitants of the towns of New Haven, Fairfield, and Norwalk.

The actual conflict came no nearer than Danbury. A large number of our citizens participated in that battle. The sending out of troops, and the mourning in many households for those who did not return, must have kept the war very near to the hearts of all the inhabitants of the town. Furthermore, the presence of three brigades (nearly 5000 men) in camp on Second Hill, for nearly a month in the autumn of 1778, brought the war atmosphere almost to their very doors.

Once during the war Lafayette and Rochambeau were entertained over night here; Rochambeau, at the home of Rev. Nathaniel Taylor, north of the present Congregational Church, and Lafayette, at the house of the son of Rev. Nathaniel, Nathaniel, Jr., south of the church.

There was a pretty romance of the war here also. Major Jones of Virginia, in charge of the commissary stores kept here the summer after the burning of Danbury, fell in love with pretty Tamar Taylor, the minister’s daughter. We have the story from Mrs. Helen Carr, the granddaughter of Tamar Taylor, as she heard it from the lips of her grandmother. The Major’s affection seems to have been returned, but her parents frowned upon the affair for the sole reason that they could never let their daughter go to that far country—Virginia. The wooer was said to be “a very fine man, who won golden opinions from everyone,” the question of distance being the only obstacle to parental consent.

Four years later Major Jones wrote to Daniel Everett of New Milford, his sweetheart’s brother-in-law and his near friend, from Yorktown, during the siege, shortly before the surrender of Cornwallis. Even that exciting and arduous time seems not to have made him forget the young lady, for he says: “She is never out of my mind, though it seems Fortune has not been so favorable as to allot us to the possession of each other in this short transitory life, or if she has, parents seem to clash.... I wish I had time to write you fully on a subject that floats in my head, the last when I go to bed and the first when I awake, but must omit it till a future opportunity.”

After the war was over and the country had become settled, Major Jones, with his body servant, journeyed on horseback from his Virginia home to New Milford; but the journey was in vain, and he went sorrowfully home alone. Pretty Temmie Taylor seems not to have been inconsolable, for she was happily married later to the Hon. Nicholas Masters of this place. Mrs. Carr still cherishes the ring and locket given her grandmother by the earlier lover; and when we touched the ancient tokens, the long years fell away, and we, too, seemed to live in the love story of olden time.

New Milford was on one of the regular post roads from Philadelphia to Boston, and, if the old highways could speak, they might tell many stories of distinguished men who have travelled over them. We read in the letters of John Adams of his going through this town on his way to the Congress in Philadelphia. During the war there was frequent passing through the place of both British and Continental troops.

When the war was over there was still further expression of the patriotic sentiments of the people in a vote “that none of those persons who have voluntarily gone over and joined the enemy, shall be suffered to abide and continue in the town during the present situation of our public affairs.” A committee was appointed to carry out these resolutions, with the result that several never came back, and their lands were confiscated by the State.

We learn of much pleasant social life in the peaceful days following the war. There were the “assemblies.” An invitation card for one of these functions is for “Friday Evening, July third next, at six o’clock.” What would the young people of our day think of that? Another is for a “Quarter Ball, at Mr. G. Booth’s Assembly Room, on June 3d at three o’clock, P. M.”! In winter there were merry sleighing parties to neighboring towns. Often large companies in twenty or thirty sleighs enjoyed an early supper together, getting safely home before ten o’clock.

Afternoon teas were frequent; not like yours, dear up-to-date woman of to-day, but “tea-drinkings,” where the women took their knitting work and spent long afternoons in visiting. Mrs. Nathaniel Taylor had on one occasion such a company. The parson, in his study overhead, was greatly interested in the fragments of conversation that floated up to him. Each woman had some exciting tale of her domestic experiences to relate. One quiet sister, unable to hold her own in the babel of tongues, tried again and again to tell her story, beginning, “My goose——.” But each time the quiet voice was drowned, and the story never proceeded further.

When good Parson Taylor was summoned to the tea table he said: “Ladies, I have been so interested in your conversation, I thought it worth preserving. So I wrote it down and will read it to you.” Great was the amusement when he read the persistent efforts of their friend to tell the story of “My Goose.” After all, human nature is much the same in all generations.

The town enjoyed in the old days quite a reputation for good living, and many were the notable feasts cooked over the great fireplaces and in the huge brick ovens before the days of stoves and ranges. What an amount of seasoned hickory logs went up the chimney in smoke to cook them! Forty cords of wood, the record gives, as one item of the minister’s salary for the year.

The means of transportation in early times furnished one of the most serious problems. The Housatonic Railroad was not completed till 1840. Before this, all transportation of produce and merchandise was by wagons to Bridgeport, and thence by sloop to New York. The mail also came in much the same way, being brought here from Bridgeport by a carrier on horseback. Our old friend, the late Colonel Wm. J. Starr, remembered the postman of his childhood days, who announced his arrival by shouting as he rode, “News! News! Some lies and some trues!”

We owe to Colonel Starr a vivid picture of the Main Street of the village nearly a century ago, as he recalled it. It is not an agreeable picture. Pigs were kept in the street, and before almost every house was a long trough, where twice a day they were fed. We can hardly wonder that fevers broke out mysteriously. Geese also roamed at will, and mischievous youths were known to play a practical joke on some unpopular man by penning all the geese in the village into his front porch during the night.

Many of the front yards were adorned with huge wood-piles. A part of the street was a swamp, through which ran a crooked water course that, after a shower, left pools of mud, in which pigs and cattle cooled themselves, for “The Green” was also a cattle pasture. The story is told of a dignified gentleman of the old school, who, dressed in immaculate white on a summer Sunday, was hastening across “The Green” to church, making his way among the puddles, when a large hog, frightened from a pool, ran violently against him. He had an unsought ride on its back across the street, and was deposited in a puddle, in full view of the waiting congregation gathered on the church steps.

In 1838 the open-paved watercourse through “The Green” was constructed and was regarded as a grand improvement.

The Village Improvement Society as organized in 1871,

and, a little later, under its auspices, “The Green” was put in its present attractive condition, a covered brick sewer being laid to replace the open-paved watercourse which previously ran through the center of the street. This was accomplished on the initiative, and largely though the instrumentality, of Mr. and Mrs. William D. Black, whose efforts and energies were always directed for the benefit of the village. A large and successful fair to raise money for this purpose was held in a tent on “The Green” in July, 1872, and the residents of Main Street accepted a voluntary assessment of a large amount to perfect the work.

A familiar and welcome sight of long ago was the village doctor on horseback with his saddlebags. He was the friend of everyone, beloved and venerated next to the minister. His store of huge pills and herbs and simples carried healing and comfort to all the countryside. Dr. Jehiel Williams was the last of these old-time doctors in New Milford. He is still remembered by many with reverent tenderness. His kindness knew no bounds, and his hearty laugh carried cheer wherever he went. A cautious man he was. Even his most cherished opinions were always prefaced with “I ’most guess.” He was cautious also in his remedies, and the overworked woman of this busy age would hardly accept his cure for nerves and sleeplessness: “Take a hop, put it in a teacup and fill the cup with hot water. Drink it at night and I ’most guess you will feel better.” It was whispered that his huge pills were often made of bread, when he felt none were needed.

He rode up and down the hills for a lifetime, charging twenty-five cents for a visit, fifty cents when the journey was long—afterwards sixty-two and a half cents! On one occasion he rode five miles to find that his patient had been already relieved by some housewife’s simple remedy. He declined any fee, merely saying, “What I have learned in this cure is worth far more to me than the trouble of coming.”

He was friend and helper to three generations, and when, at last, full of years and honors, he went to his well-earned rest, every household of the town mourned his departure.

Slavery existed here, as elsewhere in New England, in the first century of the town. A written advertisement for a runaway slave, offering a reward for his capture, and signed, “Gideon Treat, New Milford, September, 1774,” is still in existence. It sounds strange enough to twentieth century ears. Judging from the records, slaves were generally well treated in New Milford, and many owners freed their own negroes long before the days of slavery were over.

A woman is recorded as the first in our town to free a slave. Mary Robburds, in 1757, gave her negro servant Dan his freedom. Partridge Thatcher, a lawyer here, was especially noted for his kindness to his slaves. Judge David S. Boardman wrote concerning him: “He had no children, but a large number of negroes whom he treated with a kindness enough to put to shame the reproaches of all the Abolitionists of New England.” And he freed them all during his lifetime.

But the sins of old days in this matter were somewhat atoned for in after years by the zeal of the Abolitionists of New Milford in aiding runaway slaves to reach Canada and freedom. In the later days of slavery in the South there were several stations of the Underground Railroad in this vicinity. Mr. Charles Sabin’s house in Lanesville was one, and the house of Mr. Augustine Thayer on Grove Street in this village was another. Mr. Thayer and his good wife devoted their lives to the Abolition cause. They helped many poor slaves on their way, rising from their beds in the night to feed and minister to them, and secreting them till they could be taken under cover of darkness to Deacon Gerardus Roberts’ house on Second Hill, from there to Mr. Daniel Platt’s in Washington, and so on, by short stages, all the way until the Canadian border was reached.

The spirit and courage of the fathers have descended to the sons through many generations. This has been proved again and again in later years, notably in our Civil War. During all the dark four years from the terrible day when the flag fell at Fort Sumter to the memorable rejoicing over the fall of Richmond, there were not wanting brave sons of this old town

to offer their lives, and fathers to give of their substance. The daughters of the town vied with each other in loyal labors for their country, and, gave their time with their hearts to loving ministry.

In recent days the courage of our citizens has been “tried as by fire.” The great conflagration of May, 1902, swept away the entire business portion of the village; yet the Puritan fathers could not have met disaster more stoically than our brave men of to-day. The cheerful optimism that built “Shanty Town” on “The Green” while the ruins were still smouldering showed that the stout hearts of old New Milford were the same in the new, and that noble lives have been its inheritance through all its years.

We smile as we recall the old days and ways, but we bare our heads reverently before those godly men and women whose hardships meant a better way for us. Two hundred years hence others will read our record, and smile, perhaps. Will it be as worthy?

THE OWNERS OF NEW MILFORD

NAMES OF THE PROPRIETORS IN THE MILFORD COMPANY, WHO, UNDER A DEED OF DATE OF JUNE, 1703, WERE THE OWNERS OF THE TOWN OF NEW MILFORD

Compiled and Arranged by General Henry Stuart Turrill[1]

THE following were proprietors to the amount of £1 4s.: Col. Robert Treat, Mr. Thomas Clark, Ensign George Clark, Lieut. Joseph Treat, Ensign Joseph Peck, Jonathan Baldwin, committee; Capt. Samuel Eells, Sergt. Edward Camp, Rev. Mr. Andrews, Thomas Wlech, James Prime, Stephen Miles, Barnabas Baldwin, John Woodruff, Mr. Richard Bryan, Daniel Terrell, Samuel Brisco, Timothy Botsford, Sergt. Daniel Baldwin, Mr. Robert Treat, Deacon Platt, Thomas Clark, Mr. Samuel Clark, Jr., Samuel Buckingham, Thomas Buckingham, John Buckingham, William Wheeler, Nathaniel Farrand, Sr., George Allen, Samuel Camp (mason), John Smith ye 4th, Samuel Clark, Sr., Ephraim Burwell, Joseph Beard, Joseph Camp, Samuel Camp (Lanesend), Nathaniel Farrand, Jr., Thomas Tibbals, Thomas Canfield, John Merwin, Samuel Smith (West end), William Gold, Joseph Wheeler, John Prince, Samuel Camp, (son of Edward Camp), Eleazor Prindle, Lieut. Camp, William Scone, Samuel Baldwin (wheelwright), Lieut. Joseph Platt, Sergt. Miles Merwin, Samuel Sanford, Sr., John Beard, Mr. Samuel Andrews, Sr., George Clark, Sr., Joseph Clarke, Joseph Peck, Jr., John Camp, Sergt. John Smith, Jonathan Law, Jr., John Allen, Hugh Grey, Joseph Ashburn, John Summers, James Fenn, Zachariah Whitman, William Adams, Joseph Rogers, Samuel Stone, Jonathan Baldwin, Jr.; Jesse Lambert, Frederick Prudden, Sergt. Zachariah Baldwin, Benjamin Smith, Sr., John Smith, Jr., John Platt, Josiah Platt, Richard Platt, Samuel Prindle, Sergt. Samuel Beard, Sergt. Samuel Northrope, George Clarke, Jr., Samuel Coley, Samuel Merwin, Lieut. Samuel Burwell, Samuel Miles, James Beard, Samuel Nettleton, Joseph Treat (son of Lieut. Treat), Jeremiah Canfield, Thomas Smith, Nathaniel Baldwin, Jr., Jeremiah Beard, Bethel Lankstaff, Andrew Sanford, Sr., Nath. Sanford, John Merwin, Joseph Tibbals, Billin Baldwin (in right of her father, Sergt. Timothy Baldwin, deceased), and Mr. Samuel Mather.

The following were proprietors to the amount 12s.: Mr. Robert Plumb, Andrew Sanford, Widow Mary Baldwin, James Baldwin, Nathaniel Baldwin (cooper), Henry Summers, Samuel Smith (water), John Clark, and William Fowler.

TWO HUNDRED YEARS AGO

Contributed by Sarah Sanford Black

Upon this hilltop stood the doughty priest
And bade his minions, men of brawn and bone,
To dig for water ere the frost should come
To lock the land and shroud the hill in snow,
Two hundred years ago.
And here they labored long and valiantly,
Till far beneath the sod a rill arose
And ’twixt the rocks a stream broke forth
And sparkled in the Autumn evening glow
Two hundred years ago.

“Thank God for water pure and clear,” he cried,
And in the twilight grey the good priest stood
And looking off beyond the valley fair,
To where the same hills which we love and know,
Two hundred years ago
Seemed to touch Paradise, as now, he called
On God, the wanderers’ God, to bless the well
Which was to them that day, the most desired
Of all the gifts which man or beast could know,
Two hundred years ago.

The years have passed, two hundred years,—and now
We stand beside the well, which was the first
Our village knew,—“The Ancient Boardman Well”;
To-day the bucket dips, the waters flow,
Just as they did
Two hundred years ago.
We look where purple hilltops touch the sky,
We kneel and thank our God for all the past—

They clasped His hand as we do, tho’ that day
All that their future held they could not know
As we know now,—
Two hundred years ago.

We thank our fathers’ God for all His care,
For smiling fields and busy haunts of men,—
For all the gifts of Science and of Art,—
For lives whose deeds His loving guidance show
Brave as those lives
Two hundred years ago.
All are from Him, these works of hand and brain
His love has made men wise, has kept men true,
Since first upon this hilltop life began,
And water in the wilderness did flow
Here at this well
Two hundred years ago.

THE TWO ABIGAILS

REMINISCENCES OF A TYPICAL NEW MILFORD FAMILY

Contributed by General Henry Stuart Turrill

Caleb Terrill, eldest son of Daniel and Zorvia (Canfield) Terrell, was born in Milford, Connecticut, December 3, 1717. Nearing his majority, he was given the right of land in New Milford of which his grandfather, Daniel, Sr., was the original proprietor. The first allotment to this right was made April 14, 1729, and consisted of about forty-two acres of land on Second Hill, fronting the old Bostwick place. Here, in the spring of 1738, Caleb built his house, cleared a little part of his land and planted a small garden. Late in the summer he returned to Milford. In September he married, in Stratford, Abigail, daughter of Josiah and Alice (Canfield) Bassett, his first cousin, and, in a few days, returned with his bride to the little home on Second Hill. On this spot he lived until his death, February 29, 1796.

This house was the home of his youngest son, Major Turrill, until his death in 1847. Among my very earliest recollections, is a visit to this old place. It was in 1846. I had just passed my fourth birthday, and spent my first day at school. So I, as the youngest of my name, was taken by my father to pay my respects to the oldest living member of my family. I think that this visit produced one of the most lasting impressions of my childhood. I can recall it now, sixty years after. At that time Major Turrill was seventy-eight years old. The large splint-bottomed chair in which he was seated had four enormous legs, seemingly six inches in diameter at least, the two in front continuing up to support the broad arms on which his hands reposed, the two behind extending far above his head. As he rested his head against the broad splint back, he produced the effect of a grand old gentleman in a rustic frame. Major Turrill was a broad-shouldered man of medium height, very upright even in his seventy-eighth year. He had a large, well-formed head and a strong face of a rather stern cast of countenance, while his hair, which was abundant, was steel gray rather than white. My father presented me to him as the youngest of the race, who had just commenced his life work by his first day at school. He called me to him and, placing a broad hand upon my head, said to my father, “A fine little lad,” then turning to me he said, “You must grow up as fine a man as your grandfather, and stand for your country as he stood for it.”

The marriage of Caleb and Abigail, descended as they were from some of the most important of the founder families (she, from the Baldwins, Bryans, Bruens, and Schells, he, from the Fitches, Pratts and Uffords, and both, from the Canfields, the Mallorys and the Cranes), was an event of great importance in Stratford and Milford; and, when it was known that Caleb was to take his bride to the new Plantation of the Weantinaug, the interest in the affair was much deepened. The conditions in those days were quite different from what they are at present. There were no parlor cars, nor honking autos to whisk the blushing bride, amid a shower of rice and old shoes, to the seclusion of the city hotel, there to hide her nuptial joys among the unknown multitude. So Caleb and Abigail were married in that pleasant Stratford home, she, surrounded by the friends of her girlhood, who, if the records are to be believed, were about the whole community, and he, supported by his three stalwart brothers and troops of cousins. A few days were passed in all the feasting and gayeties of the times, after which the young couple, surrounded by a band of the Stratford friends, started on their wedding journey. At the ferry across the “Great River,” they were bidden farewell on the Stratford bank, only to be received on the Milford shore by an equally enthusiastic band of Milford friends, and to be escorted to Caleb’s home in Milford. This was the founder home of Roger, and Caleb was the fourth generation to bring a bride to its shelter. His bride was a namesake of an earlier Abigail, who, ninety-nine years before, had come with her life mate to the then wilderness of Milford. Now, this second Abigail, this tenderly reared girl of scarce eighteen summers, was starting with her life mate, for another wilderness—the New Milford.

After a short stay at the old Tyrrell home, the wedding journey was resumed, up the “Great River” to the Weantinaug country. The “house plenishing,” demanded by the customs of those days, had been furnished by Josiah Bassett, and had been securely packed in a stout boat to be rowed and poled up the river, this being, at that time, the only means of conveying heavy articles to the settlements above. The various animals necessary to farming, although scarce in the New plantations, were plentiful in the older ones; and, since Daniel Terrell was a man of “much substance,” as the records say, an abundant supply had been assembled at the usual starting place for the journey up the river to the “Cove,” just above Goodyear’s Island. On a bright September morning, surrounded by brothers and sisters from both families, and a large company of friends and relatives, the newly-married pair set forth.

The accompanying friends went as far as the first “nooning,” somewhere below Derby. There, the last farewells were said, and Caleb, with his sweet girl wife on the pillion behind him, journeyed to their future home. They moved up the river, camping at night in some quiet nook, their boat, with their provisions and camp equipment, securely fastened to the river’s bank. The bright camp fires flashed out from under the dense foliage of the grand old primeval forests that lined the banks of the Great River, while this pair of children strolled in the deepening gloom, whispering their love, their plans and their hopes of happiness in their home in the wilderness. For four days they thus leisurely journeyed towards the cot on Second Hill, reaching the Cove about noon of the fifth day.

By the mouth of the little brook that falls into the Cove, just at the foot of “Lovers’ Leap,” they made their last camp, while their boat was being unloaded and a more permanent camp

established, for it would be several days before their belongings could be conveyed to their home. As the sun was sinking toward the cover of Green Pond and Candlewood Mountains, Caleb led his bride up the winding trail that mounts the southern face of the grand old cliffs of Falls Mountain to Waramaug’s Grave; and, from that sightly place, she had her first view of the beautiful Weantinaug Valley. Waramaug’s grave has ever been held an almost sacred spot by the descendants of Caleb and Abigail. In my early youth, on just such another September afternoon, I was taken by my father up this winding trail, and sitting on the grass by the side of those honored stones, was told the tale I have been relating, as each succeeding generation of the name had been told it before me.

The wedding journey ended in that rough little home on Second Hill. There, the pair lived for fifty-eight years in happy wedlock; there, they reared a family of fourteen children (eleven sons and three daughters) of whom all came to manhood and womanhood; and, thence, in 1796, at nearly four score years, Caleb went to his eternal rest. Abigail survived him more than twenty years, in the full possession of all her faculties, and, at the extreme age of ninety-seven years, seven months, and eleven days, was laid beside the husband of her youth and the loving companion of so many years.

A wonderful life was that of grandmother Abigail. She lived through four French and Indian wars, and two wars with England. She saw one son go to the last French war and return from the decisive battle on the Heights of Abraham. She saw six sons go to the Revolution, and, having faithfully performed their part in their country’s struggle—at the siege of Boston, in the battle of Long Island and White Plains, in the crossing of the Delaware and at Valley Forge with Washington, in the battles of Trenton, Saratoga, Princeton, Monmouth, and Germantown—return victorious and unscathed. She also saw Stephen and Isaac return from the successful and conclusive struggle at Yorktown. Finally she saw four of her grandsons return from the second contest with England.

It would be hard to find in American history two more remarkable women than the two Abigails of the Tyrrell family. The first, Abigail Ufford, leaving a happy English home in Essex, braving the trials and privations of the American voyage of 1632, lived through the horrors of the Pequot War, and went with her young husband to found a primitive home in Milford. She stood among that company, which, under the umbrageous trees of Peter Prudden’s home lot, listened to the stately Ansantawa, as, plucking a branch from a tree and gathering a grassy clod from the earth, sticking the branch in the clod and sprinkling it with water from the Milford River, he waved it in the air, declaring that he “gave to them forever, the earth with all thereon, the air, and the waters above and below.” In this home, thus acquired, she lived for fifty-five years, rearing eleven children; saw her sons go to King Philip’s War; and saw them when they had reached man’s estate, start off with their loving helpmates, as their father had done before them, to found other homes—in Southold, in Newark, in Stratford, and in Woodbury. Ninety-nine years after, comes into that Milford home the second Abigail, to venture forth in her turn, like the first Abigail, into the wilderness.

NEW MILFORD IN THE WARS

By General Henry Stuart Turrill

For the first fifty years from its settlement by John Noble, the town of New Milford had very little concern in the military affairs of the colonies. The Colony of Connecticut furnished soldiers in the war of 1711 and in 1713; and, in 1721, occurred a great outpouring of Connecticut colonists for foreign service. In 1745 a call came to Connecticut from the sister colonies for large numbers of troops for service outside her borders, and, again, in 1755. In response to these calls, New Milford seems not to have sent any men. The defense of their own town and of its outlying districts was about all the colonists of New Milford undertook in a military way, this being sufficiently strenuous to engage their entire attention.

We are inclined, in these later days, to smile at the train-band of the ancient times, but the train-band service of our Colonial fathers was one of exceeding severity.

The first company in New Milford was organized in 1715, and was commanded for twenty years by Captain Stephen Noble. The service for the guarding of the frontier towns in the colony of Connecticut was an exceedingly arduous one. Every male citizen, except the aged, the infirm, and the ministers, was obliged to do military duty. These militia-men had to provide their arms and equipment at their own expense, and, if any business required their absence from the town, they were obliged to provide a substitute and to pay, themselves, for his services. The arms which each soldier furnished consisted of a musket or rifle, a bullet pouch containing twenty bullets, a powder horn containing twenty charges of powder, and such an amount of cloth or buckskin as would make sufficient wadding for this number of charges. These requirements were constant, and frequent examinations were made to see that all of the men of the company complied with them.

As New Milford was, during most of these first fifty years of its existence, a frontier town, a line of guards was established which reached across the country from Woodbury to the New York boundary, and the members of the company had to take turns in patrolling this line.

The second company in New Milford was organized in 1744, and both of these companies continued to exist until the Revolution.

The first recorded service of the New Milford men beyond their own borders occurred about 1758. The greatest accumulation of men found on the record is a company raised for the French and Indian War in 1759. It was commanded by Captain Whiting and was known as the “Tenth Company of Colonel David Wooster’s Third Regiment of Connecticut Levy.” The New Milford men were First Lieutenant Hezekiah Baldwin, Sergeant Israel Baldwin, Corporal John Bronson, Drummer Zadock Bostwick. The privates were Isaac Hitchcock, Barrall Buck (there are two mentions of Buck, he being recorded also as David Buck), Martin Warner, David Hall, Dominie Douglas (whether Dominie stood for minister or was just the baptismal name, I do not know), Thomas Oviatt, Daniel Daton, Joseph Lynes, Ashel Baldwin, Elnathan Blatchford, Ebenezer Terrill, William Gould, David Collings, Joseph Jones, Moses Fisher, Zachariah Ferris, Jesse Fairchild, Joseph Smith, Benjamin Wallis, Benjamin Hawley, Moses Johnson.

The Colonial Records do not show where this regiment was used. Colonel Wooster had a long Colonial service and marched with several expeditions toward Canada. How far these men marched is not on record. They were enlisted in the spring, and seem to have returned to their homes in the fall. Whether they went as far as the expedition of that year toward Canada does not appear. Possibly family traditions might throw some light on the matter.

In the Eleventh Company of the Second Regiment, Colonel Nathaniel Whiting commanding, Ruben Bostwick was ensign, and the records show that Private James Bennett went from the town in 1760.

In the calls from New Milford of 1759 and 1761 occur the names of Hezekiah Baldwin, Second Lieutenant, Second Company, Third Regiment (Lieutenant Colonel Hinman commanding), Israel Baldwin, and Josiah Baldwin. The records show that, in the same year, Ashel Turrell, son of Nathan, with his brother Nathan, went from the town to the army in New York or Canada. Caleb Turrill, Enoch Turrill, Isaac Turrill, sons of Caleb Terrell, also went in the same organization. John Terrell is mentioned as being in the war (1761), but I judge that to be a mistake, as there was no John Terrell in the town of New Milford of age sufficient to answer that call.

The Eleventh Company of the Fourth Regiment was commanded by Captain Josiah Canfield, the Regiment being commanded by Colonel Wooster. There appear the names of Ashel, son of Nathan Terrell, and of Enoch, son of Caleb Turrill.

In the Tenth Company of the Second Regiment (Colonel Nathaniel Whiting’s) commanded by Captain Gideon Stoddard, the name of William Drinkwater appears. The following New Milford names are scattered through the Second, Third and Fourth Connecticut regiments: Bronson, Baldwin, Beach, Bardsley, Beebe, Bennett, Boardman, Booth, Buck, Buell (David, afterward a Revolutionary soldier) Bostwick, Camp, Comstock, Couch, Crane, Curtis, Drinkwater, and Ferris.

Captain Joseph Canfield raised a company in 1758, of which Jeremiah Canfield was the drummer. The last edition of the Colonial Records (issued only a year or so ago), the best existing authority upon the period, gives merely the names of the members of this company and the length of their service, with dates of enlistment and of discharge. Exactly what rôle they played it is impossible now to find out. There are many traditions in the families of their doings, but these family traditions are not as full as those of the Revolution, which, following so quickly, effaced memories which would otherwise have survived. There are some tales of Bill Drinkwater, of Stephen Terrell, and Thomas Drinkwater, but they are so indefinite that all which can be gleaned from them is that these men went as far as Quebec, and were in the battle on the Heights of Abraham, and, possibly, in some of the others.

Most of the members of this company must have returned, as their names appear in the town affairs after this period. There is no record of any loss of life, so far as I have been able to find, among the New Milford men who participated in the French and Indian War. Very little disturbance from Indians occurred in the vicinity of New Milford during this war; there is but one instance of trouble, I think, recorded. A very good understanding with the Indians was attained by the warm friendship between Waramaug, chief of all the tribes of the region, and the New Milford minister, Rev. Mr. Boardman, who attended old Waramaug on his deathbed. Quite an interesting tale is told of his death, but that will probably be recorded in another place. After the close of the French and Indian War there seems to have been little military activity in New Milford, except the keeping up of the two companies under the rigorous acts of the Colonial Guard. These were officered and drilled as they had been from their formation. It is not till the period of the Revolution is reached that the town takes on very much of a military character.

Canfield, Bostwick and Noble seem to have been the most prominent names in military affairs during the Colonial period.

The first company of which mention is made in connection with the Revolution is that of Lieutenant Ebenezer Couch, who served in the regiment of Colonel Andrew Ward. This company does not appear at all in either the Connecticut War Book or the rolls of the Connecticut Historical Society. The first notice of Ebenezer Couch in the Connecticut War Book is of his commanding a company of Colonel Canfield’s regiment at West Point and Peekskill in 1777. The only record of the company is in a roll which was in the possession of the late Colonel William J. Starr of New Milford, and which, I suppose, was among his papers when he died. It was raised in May, 1775. The names of its members are given in the roll of New Milford men in the Revolution, which is appended to this article and need not be repeated here.

Its history is rather indefinite. It seems to have been raised for the Lexington alarm, but, being too late for that purpose, it probably went to the Sound or to New York. The date of its discharge does not appear on any record, but most of the men are soon found on the rolls of other companies in the service.

In July, 1775, a company was formed in New Milford, commanded by Captain Isaac Bostwick, who was first commissioned on the sixteenth of that month and, later, was recommissioned at Boston. It joined the regiment of Colonel Charles Webb, under the name of the Seventh Connecticut Levy, served along the Sound, and then went to the siege of Boston. Its term of service was to expire in December, 1775. About the time it was to be discharged, it was reorganized as the Nineteenth Regiment of Connecticut Line, enlisted for one year. Most of the men of Captain Bostwick’s company, as well as those of Lieutenant Couch’s company, appear in the new organization. The company and regiment remained at the siege of Boston until after the evacuation of that place by the British, when they accompanied General Washington to New York, going by land as far as New London and thence by boat. They were put to work at first upon the fortifications of New York, then, on the completion of that work, they were taken over to Brooklyn, and were employed, on the left of the line, in completing the fortifications there. They were not engaged in the battle of Long Island, but they covered the retreat, after that disaster, and played an important part in the subsequent movements about New York. They rendered some aid to the Brigade of Connecticut Militia in the disastrous affair of Kipp’s Bay, moved with the army across the Harlem to Westchester, and were hotly engaged, with considerable loss, in the battle of White Plains.

After this battle, and before the capture of Fort Washington, they were brought down to Spuyten Duyvil creek, just at its junction with the Hudson, and were kept there furnishing guards, orderlies and escorts for the movements about the fort. While the Jumel mansion (then the old Morris house) was being used as the American Headquarters, many of Captain Bostwick’s men were frequently on duty about the place as guards and orderlies. The following is a tradition for which the only authority is the stories told by the old soldiers around John Turrill’s fireside many years after: During the engagement of the British with Fort Washington, a sergeant’s guard under the command of David Buell of New Milford, which had been placed at a picket station near the base of Inwood Hill, were separated, by the rapid advance of the Hessians up the Harlem River (a movement, which, but for the quickness of a soldier’s wife at the Morris house, would have resulted in the capture of General Washington), from their regiment across the creek and obliged to fall back to Fort Washington. Being hotly pursued by the advancing enemy, they were forced to take cover under the banks of the Hudson, to avoid the fire of almost an entire regiment. A small party of the Hessians endeavored to cut off their retreat to the fort and one of them succeeded in jumping down the bank in front of the New Milford men. Roger Blaisdell was in the advance, and, as the German stumbled down the bank in front of him, pushed him with a thrust of his bayonet into the river and the party reached temporary safety in Fort Washington.

The Fort was soon captured by the British, however, and our New Milford men found themselves in the unfortunate position of prisoners of war.

The prisoners, according to the stories told by them afterward, were moved down to a point about where Union Square is now, and were there confined in a barn, for three days, before any food was given them. Then, wagons from the British slaughter-houses arrived, loaded with the hock bones of the cattle killed for the British troops. These wagons having been backed up to the door of the barn, the hock bones were shoveled in on the floor, while the prisoners scrambled for what they could get. It is said that their hunger was so great that they seized the bones and gnawed them as a dog would. They were kept for three days in this barn, and were then conveyed down to that much-dreaded place of confinement, the Old Sugar House Prison, a sugar store-house, which was between Ann and Fulton streets. It was a building with a large central portion, and had two wings which projected on either side of a little courtyard. There were no cellars and the floor was of puncheons (hewn logs eight or ten inches thick) laid loose on the floor timbers. It was very strongly constructed in order that it might sustain the weight of the heavy casks of sugar and molasses which came from the West Indies.

The place where our twelve New Milford men slept was just inside one of the doors. The two projecting rooms on either side were occupied by the guard of the prison and the officers, respectively. A sentry paced up and down the front from the guard room to the room of the officers. The provisions furnished to the prisoners were exceedingly scanty and of so poor a quality that they had been condemned as unfit for the use of the soldiers and sailors of the British army. Their rations consisted mainly of moldy and wormy pilot bread. This régime, following the “bone diet” of the barn, soon reduced them to the verge of starvation. These poor Continentals had little or no money with which to purchase favors and they were soon in a very bad way. The British profited by this situation to try to get the Americans to renounce the Patriot cause and enlist in the British army. A guinea a head was offered to each British soldier who would induce a rebel to join their cause. The English guard was well fed and it was very tantalizing to our New Milford men to see the burly Englishmen enjoying their abundant repasts. Necessity is the mother of invention, however, and our men soon formed a plan to obtain some of the much coveted food. The cooking for the guard was done in the room occupied by them and a limited amount of provisions was, from time to time, brought there. Late one afternoon, a half-barrel of mess pork was brought in and opened for use, and left standing under the charge of the sentry for the night. This was our boys’ opportunity and, as soon as the other prisoners were sound asleep, they very quietly raised one of the logs in their floor space and scooped out a little hole in the sand underneath. A place having been thus prepared for their expected booty, they then proceeded to get the much desired pork. The night was so dark that a man could not be recognized at any distance and this was much in their favor. Roger Blaisdell quietly approached the sentry and, explaining that he was tired of starving, asked to be told where he could go to enlist in the British army, adding that he did not dare to come when the other prisoners were awake. The sentry, overjoyed at the prospect of the guinea, and fearing that, if he let the man go, some other would secure the much-coveted prize, told Blaisdell to walk up and down his beat with him until he should be relieved, when he would take him to the officer of the day. Accordingly, they paced up and down the sentry’s beat until, when a good opportunity occurred at the point farthest from the quarters of the guard, Blaisdell hit his companion a blow behind the ear which would have felled an ox and which knocked the sentry senseless. The men, who were on the watch, rushed to the pork barrel, scooped out an armful of pork each, quickly deposited it in the hole that they had prepared, replaced the plank, and dropped down upon it, snoring to beat a bass drum. Of course an alarm was raised and the prisoners were turned out, but the sentry was too much shaken up by the blow to be able to tell much about the matter. The loss of the pork was not discovered that night, if at all, so there was nothing to direct attention to the men, and they escaped detection. Each night, while the other prisoners were sleeping, the enterprising twelve would quietly raise the plank and have a meal of raw salt pork. In after days, those of the group who survived the prison experiences (particularly Sergeant David Buell) used to refer to their prison pork as the sweetest food that they had ever eaten, and for years the standing toast at their reunions was, “To Roger Blaisdell’s pork barrel.”

Within the last few months I have compared my recollections with those of other descendants of these men and have found that the traditions of these events agree so nearly as to warrant the belief that there was much truth in the stories told by the old veterans.

After being confined for a number of weeks in the sugar house, the prisoners were taken to the prison ship Dutton. Two hundred of them were transported to Milford and put ashore there. Twenty were dead before the vessel arrived and twenty more died very soon after. All the forty are buried in the graveyard of that place. Of the twelve men of New Milford, tradition narrates the return of only four, Roger Blaisdell, David Buell, William Drinkwater and Lyman Noble. Through friends in Milford, they were able to secure a horse, and thus worked their way back to New Milford, reaching there about March, 1777. This group was eliminated from Captain Isaac Bostwick’s company and did no further service until their companions came home from the successful fields of Trenton and Princeton. Shortly after the fall of Fort Washington, the regiment containing Captain Bostwick’s company was ordered to Philadelphia. It was with Washington at Germantown before the army went into winter quarters at Valley Forge. Its term of service was to expire December 20, 1776. But Washington was then planning the move which ended in the crossing of the Delaware at Trenton, and many of its members remained in service, at his personal request, for a six weeks’ campaign.

Most of the men of Captain Bostwick’s company were with Washington and crossed the Delaware on the twenty-fifth of December, 1776, and, on the early morning of that day, they were in the battle of Trenton, where they assisted in the capture of the Hessian regiment. They were engaged in the succeeding battle at Princeton, January 3, 1777, and were finally discharged on the first of February, 1777, when they returned to New Milford.

Captain Bostwick appeared as a leader in the Danbury alarm. With him was John Terrell and David Buell, who had so far recovered from his prison experiences as to join his old companions on that occasion. Roger Blaisdell does not appear, but Bill Drinkwater does. With them was a New Milford man who had been in Captain Couch’s first company, one Ruben Phillips. Ruben Phillips was a colored man, living in New Milford, who had evidently been the cook in Captain Bostwick’s company. The descendants of Ruben Phillips were living, in my time, in the little house where the road goes up Chicken Hill toward Bridgewater, and this family knew that their ancestor had been in the Revolution with my grandfather. A descendant of this Phillips, Chester Phillips by name, volunteered in the Twenty-ninth Connecticut Infantry in the War of the Rebellion and was killed in front of Petersburg, Virginia. Truly the Revolutionary blood of New Milford was as good in the black man as in the white.

The group from Captain Bostwick’s company were engaged four days in the Danbury alarm. The following story regarding this little band is extant: The British had commenced their retreat from Danbury by way of Ridgefield and these men were following them up very earnestly, pressing close upon a grenadier regiment which was the rear guard of the British force. John Terrell, William Noble, Bill Drinkwater and David Buell rushed together up one side of the famous rock in Ridgefield, while the grenadiers were still on the other side. One of them (which one I do not know), showing himself imprudently, was shot by the British grenadiers. Of the truth of this story I have never been able to learn. It is firmly believed in and about Ridgefield and also in New Milford. There is a plate on the rock, I think, commemorating the death of one of the company.

A number of men from New Milford were in the company of Captain Daniel Pendleton of Watertown, which belonged to the regiment of Colonel Judthon Baldwin, a regiment of artificers that served under the direction of the Quarter-Master-General as a Construction Corps. This regiment was in all the engagements of the war except those about Boston and those of the northern army above Albany, in more engagements, in fact, than any other body of Connecticut troops. In 1780, when General Green took command of the Southern Department, he requested that Captain Pendleton’s company be sent to him. The company joined him, as requested, and was the only body of Connecticut men that served south of Virginia. It was on duty there until the disbanding of the army in November, 1783.

This was the only considerable group of men that went as a body from New Milford after the first two companies; perhaps it might be called the third company. The enlistments were for short periods and the changes were quite frequent, until 1778 and 1779, when enlistments began to be made for three years or the war.

New Milford is credited on the Connecticut War Records and the Connecticut Historical Society’s rolls with two hundred and eighty-five men in the war, many of whom served two and three, and some even four terms of enlistment.

While these soldiers of the Revolution were in the field doing military duty, their fathers and brothers were at home laboring for their support; not so easy a task when it is remembered that in the first three years of the war the Colony of Connecticut paid for the maintenance and equipment of her troops in the field, for the damage to her people in the British raids of Danbury and Norwalk, the immense sum of £516,606. During the last four years of the war the Continental Congress fixed Connecticut’s share of the expenses of the war at $1,800,000 a year. At times the tax rates were three shillings on the pound. The eight years of the war were years of toil and suffering to those on the sterile hill-farms, where the striving and stress were about as great as in the midst of the dangers of the battle-field. Indeed, much of the war had come to these farmers’ very doors, for the Tories of Squash Hollow and the Quakers of Quaker Hill and Straits Mountain had not proved themselves exactly the men of peace that they professed to be.

The leading family of New Milford in the Revolution was the Bostwicks. There were ten of the name in the service during the war—Amos, Benjamin, Elijah, Elisha, Ebenezer, Isaac, Israel, Joel, Oliver and Solomon. The next was the Turrills, of whom there are nine on the records—Ashel, Caleb, Ebenezer, Enoch, Isaac, Joel, John, Nathan and Stephen. The Canfields have seven names to their credit—Amos, Ezra, John, Josiah, Moses, Nathaniel and Samuel—and the Baldwins, four—Jared, John, Jonas and Theodore.

It would be impossible to give all the actions in which New Milford men were concerned during the Revolution without giving a history of the entire war. Some of the marked battles in which they were engaged were those about Philadelphia, the Mud Forts, Germantown and Monmouth. They participated in the crossing of the Delaware from Princeton and, later, were at the surrender of Germantown. New Milford men were with Morgan at Saratoga and tradition says that they were at the capture of Ticonderoga and Crown Point, with Ethan Allen. Colonel Warner of Roxbury, the companion of Allen, who was well and favorably known in New Milford, had many friends, some of whom may have gone with him on that expedition. There may be some truth in this story, therefore, as it is extant.

According to one of the legends current in Western Connecticut, a troop of New Milford and Roxbury men on their way to the Hampshire Grants to join Ethan Allen, assembled at New Milford. Their first morning’s march was up the Housatonic to a little spring which comes out near the present railroad a short distance below Merwinsville. There, they were met by Deacon Gaylord, who had crossed the river from his place in a canoe, with a lunch, which included a bottle of applejack, and a jug of hard cider. He distributed these liquid refreshments so freely, deacon though he was, that the party were quite jolly before they moved on to their night camp, which was to be at Bull’s Bridge. Whatever may be the truth of this story, it is evident that the New Milford men’s eyes were turned very much toward the Northern Department, and that many of them served in the operations of that department.

New Milford men were present at the famous charge of Mad Anthony Wayne at Stony Point. A company of pioneers was selected to go forward and cut away the pickets in order to facilitate the advance of the charging column up into the fort. There is a tradition that Lieutenant David Buell was one of these pioneers, and, as he was in the engagement, the tradition is probably correct. The pioneers, having cut away the pickets, scattered to the right and left, in accordance with their orders, leaving the way open for the charging column, which began the ascent. The cannoneer of the fort was swinging his linstock to fire a cannon which pointed right down the line. History gives it that, at this critical moment, one of the pioneers rushed forward with his axe and knocked the cannoneer over before he was able to apply the linstock, thus saving the expedition; and legend claims that this pioneer was Sergeant David Buell. Legend goes on to say that, in the fort at Stony Point, the Continental soldiers found a number of Tories (some from the vicinity of New Milford) who had retired thither for protection. These Tories were paraded about the fort with ropes around their necks and David Buell, as a mark of distinction, led the procession, holding a rope around the neck of the most valiant and troublesome Tory. David Buell received a pension for his services and was long a resident of New Milford, where, I believe, he is buried. His house was on Second Hill, and, in his advanced years, he did little but travel about among his friends, frequently stopping for some time with a sister who lived in “Pug Lane” (now Park Lane). His favorite resort, when he was with his sister, was Mr. Cushman’s Tavern, which is still standing on the road going up to Second Hill and Northville. It was his morning custom to go over to the tavern and meet his friends there. It was observed that, whenever an Englishman and Tory happened into Cushman’s place, David Buell immediately left. He would go home and say “Umph! an Englishman was there; I could not stay.” Another favorite gathering place of many of these old soldiers was at the home of John Turrill, and it was there that they celebrated the anniversaries. Their habit was to gather in the morning, go and make a call on Captain Isaac Bostwick, drink a glass of wine, and then return to dinner at John Turrill’s home, where they would afterward tell their stories. Many of these stories were quite lurid, possibly by reason of the quantity and quality of John Turrill’s hard cider and applejack; for John, although extremely temperate himself, is said never to have stinted his former companions in arms either in food or drink.

Stephen Turrill was another noted man in the regiments. He belonged at first to the company of Ebenezer Couch, but, soon after drifted into a number of organizations from New Milford which served about West Point. He was in that part of the country for nearly two years. There are numberless stories of his encounters with the Tories. One of these is as follows: A band to which he was attached, while marching through the lower part of the Debatable Land, came to the house of a Dutch Tory. They wanted something to eat and asked the woman of the house if she could give them some milk or anything. She very gruffly told them that there was nothing in the house to eat, that she had nothing for the Rebels. Just then, something called her out of doors for a minute, and the soldiers saw that, over the fireplace, in a large pot, the dinner was boiling. Stephen Turrill’s inquisitive mind determined to know what was in that pot. Accordingly, he pulled off the lid, saw a fine bag pudding, pulled it out, put it in his haversack, and marched away. The woman quickly discovered her loss and came crying that the Rebels had stolen her pudding. The sergeant in command marched by his men and then told the woman there was no evidence of her pudding there; but, after she had retreated a short distance, he said “Turrill, did you get that woman’s pudding?” “Yes,” said he, “here it is in my haversack.” The company passed on and dined sumptuously.

Scattered over the Debatable Land were little guard houses, in each of which a guard was kept for a week at a time, to intercept the approach of British or Tories. These guard houses usually consisted of two rooms, a front and back one. On one occasion——

[General Turrill’s narrative of “New Milford in the Wars,” was tragically cut short at this point by his sudden death in the office of the Grafton Press, where he was dictating it. It has seemed more fitting to leave this narrative in its unfinished condition, as a sort of memorial to him, than to have it completed by another. Any inconsistencies that may exist in it may be attributed to the fact that it did not have the benefit of his correction and revision.—Editor.]

THE COLONIAL WARS

The names given in the rolls of the Connecticut Historical Society are as follows:

THE REVOLUTION

The following is the roll of men on the various records as having had service in the Revolution who are accredited to New Milford:

Muster roll of a company said to have been raised in New Milford and to have formed a part of Colonel Andrew Ward’s regiment of Connecticut Militia, as given in Orcutt’s New Milford:

Lieut. Ebenezer Couch, Lieut. Elizur Bostwick, Ensign Noble Hine, Clerk Benjamin Bostwick, Sergt. David Whittlesey, Sergt. Benjamin Weller, Sergt. Mathew Bronson, Sergt. Oliver Bostwick, Corp. Gideon Morgan, Corp. Uri Jackson, Corp. Nathaniel Cole, Corp. William Nichols, Corp. Lemuel Thayer, Drummer Eleazer Hendrix, Fifer David Ruggles, Fifer John Couch.

Privates—Nathan Averill, Benjamin Adams, Salmon Bostwick, John Baldwin, John Beach, Israel Bostwick, David Buell, Jared Baldwin, David Bosworth, Caleb Barnes, Mathias Beeman, Stiles Bradley, Joel Bostwick, John Canfield, Jesse Camp, Jonathan Crittenden, Elija Cary, Israel Camp, Samuel Copley, Ezra Dunning, Jedadiah Durkee, Caswell Dean, Thomas Drinkwater, Stephen Evitts, Asa Farrand, William Foot, Jonathan Gray, Epenetus Gunn, Elnathan Gregory, Liverus Hawley, Ashael Hotchkis, Lewis Hunt, Richard Johnson, John Keeler, Nathan Keeler, David Keeler, Jonathan Lumm, Joseph Mygatt, Lyman Noble, Ephram Minor, David Porter, Samuel Prince, Amos Prime, Ruben Phillips, William Peet, John Rood, Isaac M. Ruggles, Aziah Robbards, Nathan Rowley, Liffe Sanford, Asa Starkweather, Jonah Todd, Ebenezer Trowbridge, John Turrill, Stephen Turrill, William Whitley, Nathan Wildman, Cooley Weller, Abel Wilkins.

Roll of Captain Isaac Bostwick’s company, Seventh Company, Sixth Regiment, of Connecticut Line: Colonel Charles Webb; Capt. Isaac Bostwick; Lieut. Hulbutt; Ensign Amos Bostwick; Sergts. Gideon Noble, Simeon Porter, Simon Mills, Elisha Bostwick, Sowl. Barnum; Corps. Samuel Bennett, Harmon White, Ebenezer Barnum, Seth Hall; Drummers Eleazor Hendrix, Calvin Pease; Fifers Nathan Avery, Theodore Baldwin, David Roch; Privates Nathan Avery, Theodore Baldwin, David Beach, Elizur Bostwick, Joseph Bates, Jonathan Brown, Reuben Bellamy, Ashel Case, John D. Comstalk, Timothy Cole, Aaron Curtis, Hedekiah Clerk, Thadeus Cole, Charles Chapen, Joseph Clerk, Ashael Dean, Jeremiah Douchey, David Everist, James Gates, John Green, Hedakiah Gray, Daniel Grinnel, Amaziah Griswold, Joseph Hawley, Levit How, William Hale, Abner Kelsey, John Lewis, Simeon Lyman, David Lyon, Joseph Murray, Samuel Millar, Ruben Mager, Josiah Munger, Ruben Philips, Rufus Partridge, Howard E. Prince, Jeruel Philips, Phineas Palmer, John Smith, Cordeal Smith, Isaac Smith, Caleb Swetland, Job Tousley, Ruben Taylor, Absolem Taylor, Gamaliel Terrey, Benjamin Thomas, John Walter, Thomas Woodward, Cornelius Whitney, Samuel Waters.

Men who crossed the Delaware with Capt. Isaac Bostwick of New Milford, December 25, 1776, and were in the battle of Trenton and the succeeding battle of Princeton, January 3, 1777: Lieuts. Hulbutt, Elisha Bostwick; Sergts. Brownson, Beach; Ensign Amos Bostwick; Corps. Thayer, Grover, Bell; Drummer Gunn; Fifer Humstead; Privates Jeptha Bartholomew, Luther Bartholomew, Isaac Brownson, Moses Camp, Moses Canfield, William Cressey, Jonathan Crittenden, Hezakiah Clark, Jonathan Davidson, Francis Fields, Aaron Foot, Moses Hurd, Robert Nichols, George Norton, Elisha Phiney, Ruben Pitcher, Asa Prince, Wills Sherwood, John Turrill.

Officers and men from New Milford who served in the Sixth Company of the Fourth Regiment, Continental Line: Capt. Josiah Starr; Sergt. John Stevens; Privates Oliver Bostwick, Josiah Buck, Dar. Barns, William Beal, Asa Beal, Michael Beach, Amos Beach, Jas. Brown, Josiah Brooks, Herman Smith, Ephram Alderman, Domini Douglass, Jabes Frizbee, Oring Ferriss, Elihu Grant, Levi Hunt, Christo. Hington, Geo. Lummis, Eben Lewis, Jere McCarte, Nathan Nichols, Oliver Phelps, Jos. Phelps, Lemuel Peete, Timoth. Stanley, Benajah Smith, Geo. A. Smith, John Seeley, Nathl. Stewart, Enos Scott, Zimri Skinner, Joseph Thair, John Tuff, Ezekiel Towner, Lem Walter, Jos. Worden, Amos Mc’Kinnee, Robt. Brown, William Drinkwater, Jonathan Mayo.

New Milford men who served in Lieutenant-Colonel Josiah Starr’s Regiment, Connecticut Line: Lieut. Col. Josiah Starr, Comd. Reg. and Co.; Lieuts. Augustine Thayer, James Bennett; Ensign Josiah Buck; Sergt. Oliver Bostwick; Privates Caleb Maxfield, Leef Sanford, Eleazor Hendricks, Ebenezer Bostwick, Solomon Bostwick, David Cole, Prince Crosley, Leverus Hawley, Samuel Hubble, Prime Hubble, Sep Hubble, Titus Heart, Stephen Headges, James Higgins, William Handy, Ira Hotchkis, Benjamin Heart, Aaron Hall, Ely Nichols, Robert Nichols, Samuel Nettleton, Holan Nettleton, Samuel Phillips, Jurel Phillips, Elijah Parker, Elab Parker, Nehimiah Piffany.

New Milford men who were in Lieutenant-Colonel Samuel Canfield’s Regiment of Connecticut Militia, at West Point, in 1781: Lieut-Col. Samuel Canfield, comd.; Quartermaster Jonah Baldwin; Surgeon Dr. George Hurd; Capt. Ebenezer Couch, Comd. Co.; Privates Ruben Brownson, Elijah Hoyt, John Case, Andrew Merwin, Stephen Bennett, Benjamin Mead, Ebenezer Couch, Jr., Asa Read, Simeon Taylor, David Merwin, Henry Straight, Ruben Hurlbut.

New Milford men who served in Connecticut Regiment of Pioneers: Colonel Judthon Baldwin; Capt. Daniel Pendleton, Comd. of Co. in which the New Milford men were engaged; Sergt. David Porter; Privates Jessie Cole, John Eggleston, Isaac Turrill, Jonathan Wilkinson, Ashael Turrill, James Bradshaw, John Turner, Lyman Mott, Samuel Oviatt, Abel Wilkenson, Isaac Mott, Samuel Turner.

New Milford men who served in Col. Moses Hazen’s Regiment, Connecticut Militia: Capt. Jeremiah Parmelie’s Co.: Michael Welch, Jabes Tomlinson.

New Milford men who served in the Fifth Troop, Shelden’s Dragoons: Sergt. Liffe Sanford, David Buell.

New Milford men who served in Second Regiment, Connecticut Line: Col. Herman Swift; in Capt. Samuel Comstalk’s Co., Squire Davenport; in Capt. Richard’s Co., Ezerah Canfield, David Cole; in Capt. Belden’s Co., David Johnson, Moses Scott, Mathew Stewart.

A company of forty volunteers was raised in the towns of New Milford, Newtown, and Danbury, in December, 1776. The officers were: Capt. Benjamin Brownson, Lieut. Shadrack Hubble, Ensign Benjamin Seeley. The names of the privates are not given in the records.

In General David Waterbury’s State Regiment, Captain Charles Smith’s Company, were the following New Milford men: Sergt. Josiah Barnes; Drummer Eleazer Hendricks; Fifer Oliver Mead; Privates Nathan Murray, Benton Buck, John Ingersol, Achillies Comstalk, Amos Canfield, Daniel Davis, Jonathan Beecher, Isaac Utter, Mingo Treat, John Warner, Jonathan Jessup.

In Lieutenant John Phelps’ Troop of Horse was Private Nathaniel Canfield of New Milford.

In Colonel Benjamin Hinman’s Fourth Regiment, Continental Line, Sixth Company, Capt. Josiah Starr, were the following New Milford men: Sergt. John Stevens; Privates Oliver Bostwick, Herman Smith, Asa Brownson, Josiah Brooks, Ephraim Alderman, Josiah Buck.

In Colonel Herman Swift’s Second Regiment, Continental Line, in Captain Kimberly’s Company, served from January until June, 1783, the following New Milford men: Sergeants Charles McDonald, Ebinezer Bostwick; Drummer Job Hawkins; Privates Isaac Lockwood, Bostwick Ruggles, and John McCoy.

The following New Milford men served under Lieutenant Colonel Canfield in the Tryon invasion: Benjamin Stone, Nathaniel Barnes, William Cogswell, Ebenezer Couch, Noble Hine, Ruben Bostwick, Adam Hurlburt.

The members of the Society of Cincinnati from New Milford were Colonel Josiah Starr, Lieutenant James Bennett, and Lieutenant David Beach.

THE WAR OF 1812

The list of men from New Milford who served in the regular army during the War of 1812, taken from the rolls of the Adjutant General’s office, is as follows:

Lieutenant Thomas Weller; Privates, Hedekiah Baldwin, Theopholus Baldwin, Joseph C. Barnes, Rufus Beeman, Samuel Bunnel, Charles H. Crampton, Kneeland Edwards, Philo Gregory, Joseph Hawley, Stephen Hawley, Abram Hunt, Warren Hyde, Ithamer Lane, Benjamin Lee, James Lee, Stephen Lyon, Seth Nelson, Ebinezer Reynolds, John Saxton, Stephen Seignor, Caleb Shelden, Peleg Slocum, Levi Smith, Eliakim Stow, Samuel Summers, Jonathan Tharrs, Benjamin Warner, Harry Wakelee, William S. Wakelee, Thomas W. Way, Squire Whitney, Shelden Wooden.

The War Records of Connecticut do not give the places from which the Militia and Volunteers came, so it is impossible to tell exactly how many New Milford men participated in the war. The names of Baldwin, Barnes, Bartholomew, Bassett, Beech, Buck, Buell, Bostwick, Booth, Canfield, Comstock, Noble, Starr, Taylor, Turrill, and many other New Milford names are upon the rolls, but just how many are to be credited to the town it is impossible to say.

THE MEXICAN WAR

The names of the men from New Milford who served in the Mexican War, taken from the rolls of the Adjutant General’s office, were:

Henry Burrhants, Sherman Crosby, Albert Morey, Abner M. Philips, Ruben W. Phillips, Warren S. Tenbrok, James Schemmerhorn.

Two other men from the town were, I believe, in that war: Henry Soul, son of John Soul, who lived at the point of Buck’s Rocks, and Charles Ford, who afterwards served in the war of 1861.

THE CIVIL WAR

• Allen, Charles J., Mus. Co. I, 8th Inft., Dis. Disa., R. E. Co. D, 28th Inft., deserted.
• Allen, William, Pvt. Co. A, 8th Inft., deserted.
• Anderson, Charles F., Sergt. Co. H, 2d h. Art.
• Atkins, James, Pvt. Co. D, 6th Inft.
• Bailey, Andrew E., Mus. Co. H, 2d h. Art.
• Bailey, Joseph A., Pvt. Co. D, 28th Inft.
• Baldwin, David A., Pvt. and Lt. Co. I, 8th Inft.
• Baldwin, Francis E., Mus. 4th Penn. Cav.
• Banker, Miles N., wagoner, Co. E, 12th Inft.
• Banker, Philo, Pvt. Co. I, 13th Inft., R. E. V. Co. B, died in service May 6, 1865.
• Bartram, Andrew, Pvt. Co. I, 17th Inft., deserted.
• Bartram, Ashbel E., Pvt. Co. I, 8th Inft., Dis. Disa.
• Bartram, Charles E., Pvt. Co. D, 28th Inft.
• Bartram, Charles M., Pvt. Co. I, 14th Inft., missing at Chancellorsville, May 3, 1863, supposed dead.
• Bartram, Ferdinand, Mus. 4th Penn. Cav.
• Bartram, Oscar F., Pvt. Co. I, 8th Inft., Dis. Disa.
• Beardsley, Daniel S., Petty Off. U. S. Navy.
• Beeman, Charles E., Pvt. Co. H, 2d h. Art.
• Beeman, John A., Pvt. Co. H, 2d h. Art.
• Beeman, Rufus, Pvt. Co. H, 2d h. Art.
• Benedict, William E., Pvt. Co. C, 17th Inft., died at Folly Island, S. C., Nov. 17, 1863.
• Bennett, George D., Pvt. Co. I, 2d h. Art.
• Bemus, Charles F., Pvt. Co. D, 28th Inft., killed at Port Hudson, La., June 14, 1863.
• Bennoit, Antone, Pvt. Corp. and Sergt. Co. H, 11th Inft.
• Birch, George, Pvt. Co. I, 8th Inft., killed at Sharpsburg, Md., Sept. 17, 1863.
• Bishop, Orange P., Pvt. Co. I, 11th Inft., deserted Apr. 4, 1863.
• Booth, Charles M., Mus. Band 4th Penn. Cav., Lt. Co. D, 28th Inft.
• Booth, Henry, Pvt. Co. D, 28th Inft.

• Breen, John, Pvt. Co. K, 15th Inft., Trans. to Co. K, 7th Inft., Sub.
• Briggs, Daniel, Pvt. Co. D, 13th Inft., R. E., Pvt. Co. K, 2d h. Art., Dis. Disa., May 4, 1862, Wd. Cedar Creek, Oct. 19, 1864.
• Bingham, Charles, Pvt. Co. D, 6th Inft., Sub., deserted Nov. 9, 1864.
• Bright, John, Pvt. Co. A, 7th Inft., Sub., deserted March 23, 1865.
• Breunel, Charles, Pvt. Co. H, 2d h. Art., Dis. Disa. May 29, 1865.
• Bronson, Andrew A., Pvt. Co. H, 2d h. Art., deserted Aug. 11, 1865.
• Bronson, Doctor, Pvt. Co. H, 2d h. Art.
• Bronson, Charles R., Pvt. Co. C, 3d Inft.
• Bronson, Francis H., Pvt. 14th Reg. Inft., U. S. A.
• Bronson, William N., Pvt. Co. D, 28th Inft., died in service July 28, 1863.
• Brown, Jackson J., Pvt. Co. I, 8th Inft.
• Brush, Joseph, Pvt. Co. I, 8th Inft.
• Buck, Andrew N., Pvt. Co. I, 8th Inft., Dis. Disa. May 11, 1862.
• Buckingham, Andrew, Sergt. Co. I, 11th Inft., Dis. Disa. Oct. 24, 1862.
• Buckingham, Clark, Band 4th Penn. Cav.
• Buckingham, Earl, Band Leader, 2d Lieut. 4th Penn. Cav.
• Buckingham, Irwin C., Corp. and Sergt. Co. H, 2d h. Art., Wd. Oct. 19, 1864, Cedar Creek, Va., Dis. Disa. May 23, 1865.
• Buckingham, Orlo H., Mus. and Corp. Co. H, 2d h. Art.
• Burk, Joseph, Pvt. Co. A, 10th Inft., Sub., deserted June 15, 1865.
• Burke, Nicholas, Pvt. Co. M, 2d h. Art., deserted March 25, 1865.
• Burns, Edward C., Pvt. Co. C, 8th Inft., Sub., deserted to enemy March 21, 1865.
• Burr, Thomas, Pvt, Co. B, 29th Inft., Col’d., Dis. Disa. May 28, 1864.
• Cady, Cyrell, Pvt. Co. I, 11th Inft., Dishon. Disc. Dec. 28, 1863.
• Caldwell, Smith P., Pvt. Co. K, 13th Inft., Dis. Disa. Jan. 19, 1863.
• Calnen, Thomas, Pvt. Co. F, 2d h. Art.
• Camp, Edwin, Pvt. Co. D, 28th Inft.
• Camp, Edwin T., Pvt. Co. C, 13th Inft., Dis. Disa. Feb. 17, 1863.
• Campbell, James, Pvt. Co. A, 5th Inft.
• Canfield, William E., Pvt. and Corp. Co. H, 2d h. Art.
• Carman, George, Pvt. Co. C, 5th Inft., Sub., deserted Nov. 1, 1863.
• Carpenter, George E., Sergt. Co. F, 29th Inft., Col’d., Dis. Disa. May 21, 1864.
• Carroll, Edward, Pvt. Co. H, 5th Inft., deserted from 14th Inft. March 29, 1863; Sub., deserted Oct. 5, 1864.
• Clark, Titus, Corp. Co. D, 28th Inft.
• Cleggett, Louis A., Corp. Co. K, 29th Inft., Col’d., died Dec. 25, 1864, Point of Rocks, Va.
• Cole, Ferdinand, Pvt. Co. H, 2d h. Art., deserted July 27, 1865.
• Cole, Henry S., Pvt. Co. D, 7th Inft., deserted Nov. 11, 1864.
• Cole, Hobert, Pvt. Co. D, 28th Inft.
• Conlon, John, Pvt. Co. K, 14th Inft., Dis. Disa. Dec. 12, 1863.
• Conley, Daniel, Pvt. Co. K, 2d h. Art., Dis. Disa. May 11, 1864.
• Copley, George D., Band 4th Penn. Cav.
• Corcoran, William, Pvt. Co. D, 20th Inft., Sub., deserted Oct. 5, 1864.
• Conkwright, Alexander, Pvt. Co. D, 28th Inft., died July 13, 1863, at Barancas, Fla.
• Cummings, James P., Pvt. Co. G, 28th Inft.
• Disbrow, David B., Pvt. Co. I, 8th Inft., R. E., Pvt. Co. H, 2d, h. Art., Dis. Disa. Jan. 15, 1863.
• Disbrow, Henry S., Corp. Co. I, 8th Inft.
• Disbrow, William E., Corp. Co. H, 2d h. Art.
• Dix, William, Pvt. Co. E, 8th Inft., Sub., shot for desertion Jan. 8, 1865.
• Doane, Edward, Corp. Co. D, 13th Inft., Dis. Disa.
• Dodge, Robert, Pvt. Co. D, 28th Inft., injured at Port Hudson, La., July, 1863.
• Driscoll, Cornelius, Pvt. Co. G, 1st Reg. Cav., Sub., deserted July 1, 1865.
• Dubois, Hiram, Corp. Co. K, 2d h. Art.
• Dunham, Benjamin F., Pvt. and Corp. Co. H, 2d h. Art.
• Durand, William, Pvt. Co. I, 11th Inft., Sub., deserted Aug. 25, 1865.
• Dutcher, William P., Pvt. Co. I, 8th Inft., Wd. May 7, 1864, Walthall Junc., Va., Dis. Disa. July 15, 1865.
• Erwin, George S., Corp. Co. H, 2d h. Art.
• Erwin, Robert, Reg. Qm. Sergt. and Co. Qm. Sergt. Co. H, 2d h. Art., Wd. Oct. 19, 1864, at Cedar Creek, Va.
• Evans, James H., wagoner Co. C, 13th Inft.
• Evits, Oliver B., Pvt. Co. H, 2d h. Art.
• Farrel, John, Pvt. Co. I, 8th Inft., Sub., deserted Feb. 18, 1865.
• Farrell, William, Pvt. Co. A, 6th Inft., Sub.
• Ferris, Hilliard, Pvt. Co. I, 8th Inft., died in New Milford July 27, 1862.
• Ferris, Jay, Pvt. Co. D, 28th Inft., died at New Orleans, La., June 1, 1863.
• Ferris, John, Pvt. Co. C, 13th Inft.
• Ferris, Robert, Corp. Co. I, 8th Inft., killed at Sharpsburg, Md., Sept. 17, 1862.
• Ferris, Stephen, 1st Sergt. Co. D, 28th Inft.
• Finn, John, Pvt. Co. I, 10th Inft., Sub.
• Fisher, James, Pvt. Co. I, 14th Inft., Sub., deserted Aug. 14, 1864.
• Ford, Aaron N., Mus. Co. D, 28th Inft., died at Brashier City, La., May 22, 1863.
• Ford, Charles, Mus. Co. I, 8th Inft., Dis. Disa.
• Franklin, Henry J., Pvt. Co. K, 29th Inft., Col’d.
• French, Francis L., Pvt. Co. H, 2d h. Art.
• Fuller, Alfred E., Mus. Co. D, 28th Inft.
• Garlick, Charles, Pvt. Co. I, 8th Inft., Wd. at Antietam, Md., Sept. 17, 1862.
• Gaylord, Charles H., Sergt. and 1st Sergt. Co. C, 13th Inft.
• Goodsell, Jerome, Pvt. Co. D, 28th Inft., deserted Nov. 16, 1862.
• Graves, Franklin S., Corp. Co. B, 2d h. Art.
• Green, George A., Pvt. Co. K, 28th Inft.
• Gregg, John, Pvt. Co. H, 5th Inft.
• Gregory, Charles B., Corp. Co. D, 28th Inft., died at Baton Rouge, La., July 30, 1863.
• Gridley, Henry S., Corp. Co. H, 2d h. Art., Wd. Oct. 19, 1864, Cedar Creek, Va.
• Griffin, Edward, Pvt. Co. K, 2d h. Art., killed June 1, 1864, at Cold Harbor, Va.
• Harrington, George W., Pvt. Co. K, 2d h. Art., died Feb. 25, 1864, at Alexandria, Va.
• Hartwell, Willis, Pvt. Co. H, 2d h. Art., died Oct. 28, 1864, at Martinsburgh, Va.
• Hatch, Calvin B., Sergt. and Lieut. Co. A, 2d h. Art., killed at Cold Harbor, Va., June 1, 1864.
• Heacock, Richard, Pvt. Co. K, 29th Inft., Col’d.
• Healy, James, Pvt. Co. A, 10th Inft., Sub.
• Hess, Christian, Pvt. Co. G, 10th Inft.
• Higgins, John, Pvt. Co. I, 5th Inft., Sub., deserted Oct. 1, 1863.
• Hill, Samuel R., Pvt. and Corp. Co. H, 2d h. Art.
• Hine, Frederick R., Pvt. Co., 11th Inft., died Feb. 1, 1864, at Alexandria, Va.
• Hoag, David D., Capt. Co. D, 28th Inft., killed at Port Hudson, June 14, 1863.
• Hoag, George W., Pvt. Co. I, 6th Inft., Wd. at Drewry’s Bluff, Va., May 16, 1864.
• Hodge, Homer W., Pvt. Co. K, 2d h. Art., Wd. at Cold Harbor, Va., June 1, 1864.
• Hoffman, Herman, Pvt. Co. H, 2d h. Art.
• Hoyt, Charles A., Pvt. Co. K, 2d h. Art., Wd. at Cold Harbor, Va., June 1, 1864.
• Hoyt, Denman, Pvt. Co. D, 28th Inft.
• Hoyt, Henry R., Corp. and 1st Sergt. Co. H, 2d h. Art.
• Hoyt, Horatio S., Pvt. Sergt. and 1st Sergt. Co. H, 2d h. Art.
• Hunt, Gideon L., Pvt. Co. G, 23d Inft.
• Hunt, Merritt, Mus. Co. G, 28th Inft.
• Hurd, Charles A., Pvt. Co. H, 2d h. Art., Wd. at Cedar Creek, Va., Oct. 19, 1864.
• Hurd, Robert B., Pvt. and Corp. Co. E, 1st h. Art., deserted July 28, 1865.
• Hutchinson, John, Pvt. Co. I, 2d h. Art., Wd. at Cold Harbor, Va., June 1, 1864, at Cedar Creek, Va., Oct. 19, 1864.
• Irwin, Charles N., Sergt. and Lieut. Cos. I and E, 8th Inft., Wd. at Antietam, Md., Sept. 17, 1862, killed at Chapin’s Farm, Va., Sept. 29, 1864, he having Vol. to remain for that battle after Exp. of his term of service.
• Jacklin, Philip H., Pvt. Co. I, 8th Inft., died at Newbern, N. C., Sept. 23, 1862.
• Jackson, Charles W., Pvt. Co. H, 2d h. Art., killed at Cold Harbor, Va., June 1, 1864.
• Jackson, Henry F., Pvt. and Corp. Co. C, 29th Inft., Col’d.
• Janks, August, Pvt. Co. B, 11th Inft., Sub., deserted Sept. 6, 1865.
• Jennings, Alvin H., Pvt. Co. I, 8th Inft.
• Jennings, David J., Pvt. Co. A, 2d h. Art.
• Jennings, Jay, Pvt. Co. I, 8th Inft., Dis. Disa. Dec. 11, 1862.
• Jones, Horace E., Pvt. and Corp. Co. H, 2d h. Art.
• Judson, Charles, Pvt. Co. D, 28th Inft., died, Aug. 10, 1863.
• Karge, Earnest, Pvt. Co. C, 11th Inft., Sub.
• Kinney, Andrew S., Pvt. Co. H, 2d h. Art., Dis. Disa. Feb. 6, 1863.
• Knowles, David W., saddler Co. C, 1st Cav.
• Lake, David, Corp. and Sergt. Co. I, 8th Inft., killed at Antietam, Md., Sept. 17, 1862.
• Lampson, Charles E., Pvt. Co. H, 2d h. Art.
• Lampson, Frederick G., Pvt. Co. I, 8th Inft., R. E. Pvt. Co. C, 2d h. Art., Dis. Disa. Feb. 3, 1863.
• Lampson, William, Pvt. Co. G, 28th Inft., died July 21, 1863, at Port Hudson, La.
• Lapoint, Joseph, Pvt. Co. E, 6th Inft.
• Lathrop, Herman S., Pvt. Co. A, 2d h. Art.
• Lathrop, Orrin F., Pvt. Co. F, 6th Inft.
• Lathrop, William G., Pvt. Co. D, 28th Inft.
• Law, Sidney A., Pvt. and Corp. Co. K, 2d h. Art., died Jan. 29, 1865.
• Lawrence, Thomas, Pvt. Co. E, 8th Inft., Trans. to Co. A, 10th Inft., Sub.
• Lefever, Adolph, Pvt. Co. D, 10th Inft., Wd. at Ft. Gregg, Va., Apr. 2, 1865.
• Logan, Frederick J., Pvt. Co. H, 2d h. Art., Dis. Disa. Apr. 12, 1863.
• Logan, George E., Pvt. Co. I, 8th Inft., died at Weaverstown, Md., Nov. 15, 1862.
• Loverage, Joseph R., Pvt. Co. H, 2d h. Art., died at Washington, Sept. 12, 1864.
• Loverage, Remus, Mus. Band 4th Penn. Cav.
• Loverage, Romulus C., Sergt. and Lieut. Cos. H and B, 2d h. Art.
• Loveridge, Royal T., Pvt. Co. E, 1st h. Art.
• Lyon, Edward F., Corp., Sergt., and 1st Sergt. Co. H., 2d h. Art.
• Lyon, James, Pvt. Co. D, 1st h. Art., Sub., deserted May 21, 1865.
• Mallett, Henry W., Pvt. Co. H, 2d h. Art., Wd. at Winchester, Va., Sept. 19, 1864.
• Malloy, William, Pvt. Co. L, 2d h. Art., died Aug. 22, 1864.
• Marsh, Albert N., Pvt. Co. H, 2d h. Art.
• Marsh, Charles N., Corp. Co. D, 1st Cav., Wd. and Cap. at Gordonsville, Va., Aug. 7, 1862, Cap. at Thoroughfare Gap, Oct. 7, 1862, awarded Medal of Honor.
• Marsh, Daniel E., 1st Sergt. and Lieut. Co. H, 2d h. Art.
• Marsh, Decater D., Corp. Co. D, 28th Inft., died at Barancas, Fla., Apr. 12, 1863.
• Marsh, Edward W., 2d Lieut. Co. H, and Capt. Co. M, 2d h. Art.
• Marsh, George W., on Orcutt’s Rolls as being from New
• Milford, but on the Conn. Offl. Rolls, as a deserter from Co. A, 7th Inft., and a Sub. from Southbury, and as an unassigned recruit to 18th Ill., who failed to report.
• Marsh, Irwin G., Band 4th Penn. Cav.
• Marsh, Philip G., Pvt. Co. I, 5th U. S. Art., on Orcutt’s Rolls, not on Conn. Rolls.
• McBath, David, Pvt. Co. A, 2d h. Art., Wd. at Cold Harbor, Va., June 1, 1864.
• McHenry, Hugh, Pvt. Co. A, 1st h. Art., Sub., deserted July 29, 1865.
• McKeagany, William, Pvt. Co. C, 1st h. Art., Sub., deserted July 10, 1865.
• McLoy, John, Pvt. Co. C, 8th Inft., Sub., deserted Jan. 15, 1865.
• McMahon, Joseph, Pvt. Co. G, 28th New York Inft., Sergt. Co. A., 2d M. R. of N. Y., died in Serv. in N. M., July 17, 1864.
• McMahon, Michael, Pvt. Co. F, 2d h. Art., Wd. at Petersburg, Va., Aug. 31, 1864.
• McMahon, Michael, 3d, Pvt. Co. F, 2d h. Art., Wd. at Winchester, Va., Sept. 19, 1864.
• Mehan, John, Pvt. Co. H, 11th Inft., Sub., deserted, confined, escaped.
• Meney, Francis, Pvt. Co. A, 13th Inft., Sub., Wd. at Winchester, Va., Sept. 19, 1864, deserted Oct. 31, 1864.
• Merwin, Garwood R., Sergt. Co. H, 2d h. Art., died Jan. 25, 1863, at Alexandria, Va.
• Mintsch, John L., Pvt., Co. D, 28th Inft. and Pvt. Co. A, 2d h. Art.
• Monroe, Edward, Pvt. Co. K, 2d h. Art., Dis. Disa. Jan. 25, 1864.
• Monroe, John, Pvt. Co. A, 11th Inft., Sub., Dis. Disa. Nov. 11, 1865.
• Moore, Frank, Pvt. Co. I, 10th Inft., Sub., deserted March 8, 1865.
• Morehouse, Frank, Pvt. Co. D, 28th Inft.
• Morehouse, Lyman F., Pvt. Co. A, 2d h. Art., Wd. at Cold Harbor, Va., June 1, 1864, Dis. Disa. June 21, 1865.
• Morehouse, Henry S., Pvt. Co. H, 2d h. Art.
• Morgan, William, Pvt. Co. C, 5th Inft., Sub., deserted Nov. 1, 1863.
• Morrison, William E. L., Sergt. and Pvt. Co. I, 29th Inft. Col’d., Wd. at Kell House, Va., Oct. 27, 1864, died Nov. 12, 1864.
• Mosher, James D., Corp. Co. C, 13th Inft., died at Brasier City, La., Aug. 6, 1863.
• Mosher, Lewis W., Corp. and Sergt. Co. H, 2d h. Art., Wd. at Cold Harbor, Va., June 1, 1864, Dis. Disa. May 24, 1865.
• Munson, John, Pvt. Co. K, 2d h. Art., Wd. at Cold Harbor, June 1, 1864, died from wounds, Aug. 30, 1864.
• Murphy, Michael, Pvt. Co. C, 5th Inft., Sub., deserted Nov. 1, 1863.
• Nichols, Ezra L., Pvt. Co. K, 29th Inft., Col’d.
• Nichols, Orlando, Pvt. Co. G, 10th Inft., Sub.
• Noble, Andrew B., Pvt. Co. D, 28th Inft.
• Noble, Henry C., Corp. and Sergt. Co. H, 2d h. Art., Dis. Disa. Feb. 4, 1865.
• Northrope, Lawrence, Mus. Band 4th Penn. Cav.
• O’Callaghan, Timothy O., Pvt. Co. F, 2d h. Art., killed at Winchester, Va., Sept. 19, 1864.
• Odell, John, Pvt. Co. C, 13th Inft.
• O’Niel, William, Pvt. Co. E, 10th Inft., killed at Fort Gregg, Va., Apr. 2, 1865.
• Parkes, Joseph P., Sergt. and 1st Sergt. Co. A, 2d h. Art., killed at Cold Harbor, Va., June 1, 1864.
• Phillips, Chester, Pvt. Co. K, 29th Inft., Col’d., killed at Petersburg, Sept. 23, 1864.
• Phillips, Henry, Pvt. Co. I, 11th Inft., deserted Dec. 16, 1861.
• Pike, Luther M., Corp. Co. D, 28th Inft.
• Plumb, Alonzo, Pvt. Co. D, 28th Inft., died Aug. 21, 1863.
• Plumb, Harvey G., Pvt. Co. D, 28th Inft.
• Plumb, Henry, Surgeon 2d h. Art.
• Plumb, Harvey G., Pvt. Co. I, 123d New York Vol.
• Potter, George D., Pvt. Co. H, 2d h. Art.
• Potter, George H., Corp. Co. H, 2d h. Art.
• Purdy, Charles, Pvt. Co. I, 8th Inft., Wd. at Fort Huger, Va., Apr. 19, 1863, Dis. Disa., Apr. 4., 1864.
• Randolph, Harvey J., Pvt. Co. K, 29th Inft., Col’d.
• Read, Herbert H., Pvt. Co. H, 2d, h. Art., Pris. at Ford’s Mills, Va., June 14, 1864, died in Andersonville, Ga., July 3, 1864.
• Rice, Levi, Pvt. Co. H, 2d h. Art., appears on Orcutt’s Rolls, but not on Government Rolls.
• Roach, Thomas, Pvt. Co. D, 8th Inft., Sub., deserted Dec. 2, 1864.
• Roberts, Andrew, Pvt. Co. I, 8th Inft., died at Newbern, N. C., Apr. 1, 1862.
• Roberts, Henry M., Pvt. Co. I, 8th Inft., died at Newbern, N. C., Apr. 6, 1862.
• Roberts, William J., 1st Lieut. and Capt. Co. I, 8th Inft. Wd. at Fort Harrison, Va., Sept. 29, 1864, Dis. Jan. 31, 1865.
• Rogers, Austin V., Pvt. Co. K, 2d h. Art.
• Root, Nathan H., Corp. Co. H, 2d h. Art.
• Ruby, Eli, Pvt. Co. D, 13th Inft., Dis. Disa. Sept. 29, 1862.
• Ruby, George M., Pvt. Co. D, 13th Inft., deserted Aug. 27, 1864.
• Sanford, Isaac L., Pvt. Co. A, 2d h. Art.
• Savage, Edward P., Pvt. Co. G, 8th Inft., deserted Aug. 19, 1865.
• Shultz, Myron, Pvt. Co. I, 8th Inft., Dis. Disa. Feb. 24, 1863.
• Sherman, Lucius S., Pvt. Co. H, 2d h. Art., Wd. at Cedar Creek, VA., Oct. 19, 1864.
• Sherwood, Asahel, Pvt. Co. D, 28th Inft.
• Sherwood, Reuben H., Pvt. Co. H, 2d h. Art.
• Schook, Louis, Pvt. Co. E, 8th Inft., Sub., deserted July 24, 1864.
• Shove, Henry, Sergt. Co. D, 28th Inft.
• Smith, Charles H., Corp. Co. K, 11th Inft., Sub.
• Smith, William, 1st, Pvt. Co. F, 10th Inft.
• Soule, David E., Corp. Co. H, Lieut. Co. F, 2d h. Art.
• Soule, Henry, Band 4th Penn. Cav.
• Sparks, Edwin, Pvt. Co. I, 8th Inft.
• Spengler, Edward, Pvt. Co. E, 8th Inft., Sub., killed at Fort Harrison, Va., Sept. 29, 1864.
• Stephens, Edgar, Pvt. Co. K, 2d h. Art.
• Stephens, Henry L., Pvt. Co. D, 28th Inft.
• Stephenson, William, Pvt. Co. A, 5th Inft., Sub., deserted July 11, 1865.
• Sterling, Homer, Pvt. Co. H, 2d h. Art., Dis. Disa., Apr. 18, 1864.
• Stevens, Franklin B., Pvt. Co. B, 2d h. Art., killed at Cold Harbor, Va., June 1, 1864.
• Stevens, George, Pvt. Co. E, 6th Inft., Sub.
• Stevens, William H., Pvt. Co. K, 2d h. Art., Wd. Cold Harbor, Va., June 1, 1864, Dis. Disa., June 6, 1865.
• Stokes, Henry, Pvt. Co. A, 5th Inft., Dis. Disa, Jan. 30, 1862.
• Tallman, Martin N., Corp. Co. K, 29th Inft., Col’d.
• Tarr, James, Pvt. Co. E, 11th Inft., Sub., deserted July 7, 1865.
• Taylor, Joseph, Pvt., Corp., and Sergt. Co. C, 13th Inft.
• Thayer, Edward A., Pvt. Co. B, 20th Inft., deserted Sept. 29, 1862.
• Thayer, John Q., Pvt. Co. I, 8th Inft.
• Thompson, Edward E., Pvt. Co. H, 2d h. Art.
• Tibbetts, Charles E., 2d and 1st Lieut. Co. C, 13th Inft.
• Treat, Frederick M., Pvt. Co. D, 28th Inft., Wd. at Port Hudson, La., June 14, 1863.
• Turrill, Henry S., 1st Lieut. and Asst. Surg. 17th Inft., Cap. and held Pris. in Macon, Savannah, and Charleston.
• Van Anden, William, Pvt. Co. D, 28th Inft.
• Vanderwater, William G., Pvt. Co. H, 13th Inft., Wd. at Irish Bend, La., Apr. 14, 1863.
• Van Lone, Peter, Pvt. Co. D, 8th Inft., Sub.
• Vorey, Charles, Pvt. Co. D, 11th Inft.
• Walden, Edward, Pvt. Co. F, 2d h. Art., Wd. at Winchester, Va., Sept. 19, 1864.
• Walker, Albert, Pvt. Co. D, 7th Inft., died on Morris Island, S. C., Sept. 18, 1863.
• Warner, William C., Pvt. Co. H, 2d h. Art., died at Washington, D. C., Dec. 23, 1862.
• Waters, Alexander, Pvt. Co. C, 3d Inft.
• Waters, Frank, Pvt. Co. G, 17th Inft., Sub.
• Way, Charles A., Pvt. Co. H, 2d h. Art., Wd. at Winchester, Va., Sept. 19, 1864, at Salors Creek, Va., Apr. 6, 1865.
• Welch, Patrick, 1st, Pvt. Co. F, 8th Inft., Trans. to U. S. Navy.
• Weller, Chester A., Band 4th Penn. Cav., Pvt. Co. H, 2d h. Art.
• Wentworth, Jacob, Pvt. Co. K, 2d h. Art., Wd. at Cold Harbor, Va., June 1, 1864, died June 20, 1864.
• Wenzenger, Daniel, Pvt. Co. B, 8th Inft., Sub., killed at Ft. Harrison, Va., Sept. 29, 1864.
• Wiedmore, Paul, Pvt. Co. D, 8th Inft., Sub., deserted Sept. 10, 1863.
• Wiley, James, Pvt. Co. D, 8th Inft., Sub. deserted Dec. 1, 1863.
• Williams, Burr, Pvt. Co. H, 2d h. Art., Dis. Disa. March 27, 1865.
• Williams, George S., Capt. Co. H, 2d h. Art.
• Williams, James, Pvt. Co. A, 5th Inft., deserted Oct. 3, 1863.
• Williams, John F., Pvt. Co. H, 2d h. Art.
• Wilson, John, Pvt. Co. C, 20th Inft., Sub., deserted Oct. 5, 1864.
• Wentworth, Hiram, Pvt. 1st Conn. Lt. Batt., deserted Jan. 24, 1862.
• Wooden, Charles E., Pvt. Co. D, 28th Inft., Wd. at Port Hudson, La., June 14, 1863, died of wounds, July 17, 1863.
• Woodruff, Theron M., Pvt. Co. I, 2d h. Art., Wd. at Cedar Creek, Va., Oct. 19, 1864.
• Worden, Richard T., Pvt. Co. I, 8th Inft., killed at Walthall Junc., Va., May 7, 1864.

Recapitulation: Number of men credited to New Milford, 282; killed in battle, 17; wounded in action, 34; died in service, 35; discharged for disability, 33; deserted, 44; dishonorably discharged, 1; shot for desertion, 1. Casualties, honorable, 119; dishonorable 46; total 165.

There were thirty-seven drafted men and substitutes credited to the town; of these, twenty-seven deserted, leaving seventeen as the number of the town’s volunteers to desert their colors, and most of these were of foreign birth.

THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR

RECOLLECTIONS OF OLD NEW MILFORD HOMES

Contributed by Alice Merwin Bostwick

Indelibly stamped on my memory are pictures of the old homes of my ancestors, and the simple life within them, in which it was my privilege to share in early childhood. These houses, built before the Revolutionary War, were of the “salt box” style, two stories high except at the back, where the roof sloped from the steep gables down so low that my grandfather, a tall man, had to bow his head to go under the eaves into the stoop. This made windows necessary on but three sides of a house, and was designed to evade the heavy tax on every pane of glass used. The shrewd colonist preferred to have less light, rather than add to the King’s revenue. Every stick of timber was oak from the forest primeval, felled and hewed by the strong arms of the men who, with stout hearts, braved the perils and hardships of the wilderness for their altars and homes. Every shingle was “rived out” by hand. The laths, window sashes, doors, handles and latches, hinges and nails, were all hand-wrought.

How well our forefathers builded, these old houses, still standing in good habitable condition, after braving the summer suns, winter winds, and storms of more than a century and a half, bear witness. The great stone chimney was a tower of strength from its foundation in the cellar, fifteen feet square, up to the garret, strong as granite rocks could make it. It anchored the heavy beams and roof timbers, giving ample space for the many fireplaces needed in the large rooms growing around it. The kitchen fireplace was like those we read of, but seldom see. At one side of the crane was a bench where I, as a child, often sat watching the building of the fire—a work of skill. The big green back-log was first rolled in: then, the back-stick, fore-stick, chips and kindlings were added—a veritable woodpile, which, when kindled by the aid of the bellows, sent sparks and flame crackling and roaring up the cavernous chimney.

There may have been much poetry in “the hanging of the crane.” There surely was much prose in cooking for a family, in pots and kettles hung on its hooks and trammels, over the burning coals and smoke. Long-handled frying pans, spiders, skillets, turnspits, bake kettles, and Dutch ovens would be unknown quantities to graduates from modern cooking schools; but they, with all their science and new appliances, cannot surpass the savory dishes evolved by our grandmothers from the limited means at their command, with the aid of these same out-of-date utensils.

From out the arch-roofed old brick ovens came famous loaves of rye and Indian bread, biscuits, pans of pork and beans, cards of gingerbread, seed cookies, election and pound cakes, baked as none of our ranges can ever bake. They had a flavor all their own, a color golden-brown as the fallen autumn leaves of the maple trees, whose “fair white hearts” went up in smoke out of the doorway, while the long-handled iron peel spread the glowing coals over the worn floor of the old oven.

Those were not days of ease and idleness. From sun-up till sun-down, there was work for each and all, indoors and out. “Hired help” was scarce. Some neighbor, not so “well-to-do,” who had more children than income, spared a daughter “to come as one of the family” to work for board, clothes and winter’s schooling till of age. Then, she was paid five dollars a month, and, at her marriage, was given a black silk dress and a feather bed.

Country stores were few and far between. Every family made and kept on hand their own supplies, loaning and borrowing in time of need; exchanging spare-ribs, roasts of beef and lamb; arranging their “butchering” in rotation, to accommodate each other. Fresh meat was a luxury, salted meat, the main reliance. In the smokehouse hung hams, shoulders, beef, tongue and sausage. Under these it was my task to pile green hickory chips, pine sawdust and corncobs, which made a smoke of a peculiar, pungent, spicy quality and odor.

Tallow candles, the only light in the long evenings, were to be dipped; dozens and dozens, the whole year’s supply. To run out of candles was “shiftless.” A few, partly wax, for the tall silver and brass candlesticks on the mantels in parlor and keeping-room, were run in moulds and hung to bleach.

Soap was to be made, hard and soft. An empty soap barrel was thriftless. A cake of scented soap, brought from a distant city, was highly prized. Of spinning and weaving there was no end. The mother and daughters, instead of going to clubs and lectures, after the housework was done had their stents, so many knots of yarn to spin. No need to walk for exercise; back and forth they briskly stepped, as the wheel swiftly whirled, the rolls stretching into miles of yarn, “single twisted” for cloth, “double and twisted” for stockings and carpet warp. Then, the yarn must be scoured and dyed, not with “Diamond Dyes” from the drug store, but with vegetable dyes from fields and woods—white oak roots, butternut bark, chestnut burrs, sumach “bobs,” onion skins, and the wonderful indigo “dye pot blue.” Every good housewife was past master in the art of dyeing, and looked with pride on the line and fence draped with skeins of yarn of bright, unfading hues and shades. Flax wheels, not then strictly ornamental, hummed evenings by the fireside, while deft fingers drew from the flax-covered distaff fine linen thread for sewing, and for sheets, pillow-cases, towels, and all the underclothing of the family. The loom in the garret was never without its web of cloth in process of weaving—wool, linen, or wool and linen mixed (called linsey-woolsey). The linen was spread on the grass, bleached snowy white, then laid away in oaken chests, ready for the wedding “setting out” of the daughters, who made it up by hand, stitching “two threads over, two under,” the rule of the good seamstress.

From “homespun fulled cloth” the “every day” suits of men and boys were made, with the help of the tailoress who came spring and fall with press-board, goose, tailor-shears, and rolls of patterns supposed to fit all figures. What wonder if these home-made garments looked their name! Bedquilts were pieced in intricate patterns—baskets of flowers, butterflies, peonies, chariot wheels, log-cabin, goose chase, double and single Irish chain—and quilted in shells, circles, squares, diamonds, sawteeth and herringbone. The quilt frames in the “spare bed room” usually had one of these marvelous constructions on, ready for a “Quilting Bee,” after which the company gossipped over their cup of tea as we over ours after a card party.

The shoemaker came with work-bench, kit of tools, lap-stone and boot-trees to make the common boots and shoes for the family (strictly common sense, no French heels). A smell of leather and “black wax” pervaded the room where he hammered merrily away at the heavy shoe soles on the lap-stone, singing of “Captain Kidd as he sailed, as he sailed,” and telling stories of haunted houses. One blood-curdling tale of a ghost in a cellar, seizing the feet of everyone who went upstairs after dark, still lingers in my mind—uncomfortably, if the truth be told.

The schoolmaster came, a welcome guest, “boarding around,” a week for each scholar, and perhaps an extra week for the child of some poor widow needing kindly help.

There came homeless wanderers silently claiming lodging and food. Under the low sloping roof was the “Old Shack’s Room,” where a bed was always kept in readiness.

One whom we knew only as “Old Shiver-to-bits” had been “crossed in love” and his mind unbalanced. He never spoke, except to himself as he looked up to the sky, muttering, “The air is full of women, all shiver-de-bits.” Another would sleep only on the floor by the kitchen fire, wrapped in a blanket, cooking his own food for fear of being poisoned. He was an astrologer and philosopher. A woman came, who wore a quilted hood, never taken off and kept drawn over her face, which was always averted when she was spoken to. None of these unfortunates was ever turned away from the open doors of those hospitable homes.

The Schaghticoke Indians, who came from the Reservation with squaws and hounds on their fishing expeditions to the “Eel Rocks” at the Great Falls, always expected the privilege of sleeping in the barn. Their desire for cider was greater than their desire for food. They willingly paid for both with splint baskets. Sometimes they became quarrelsome and noisy, and then the “riot act” was read to them, whip in hand.

The visits of the parson were prized events. An atmosphere of dignity and solemnity seemed to emanate from his black clothes, high stock and white cravat. A reverence now unknown was felt for him, and he was looked up to as the fountain head of theology and religion. The doctrines of election, predestination and eternal punishment were talked of, filling my childish mind with dire forebodings of literal fire and brimstone. After a “season of prayer,” and dinner (always an extra good one), he drove away, to my great relief.

Visits in those days did not mean calls. Company came from miles away to spend the day, often uninvited, but not unwelcome. To “drop in and take pot luck” was not, as to-day, a figure of speech, but literally true, for a “boiled dish” was the regulation dinner. Corned beef, salt pork, and vegetables were served together on a big pewter platter, with a boiled bag-pudding of Indian meal. This may not sound as well as Beef à la mode, entrées and desserts; but, when well cooked, it was by no means to be despised; and on it our ancestors lived; thrived, and were content, thankful and happy. Possibly it did give them bilious and depressed views of the hereafter!

Sunday began Saturday night, when the sun went down behind the hills. With the lengthening shadows came a seeming stillness, in advance of the long day of rest to follow. The Sunday breakfast was early, giving plenty of time for the long drive to “meeting.” Come sun, come rain, snow or wind, nothing but sickness excused absence from the two long sermons, morning and afternoon, with prayer meeting between. The day was kept to the very letter of the old Sabbatical law. Dinner was prepared Saturday, and eaten cold. For Sunday reading, the leather-bound Family Bible and Psalm Book were brought out; also Baxter’s Saints’ Rest, Pilgrim’s Progress, and the Book of Martyrs. A walk beyond the garden and dooryard was not allowed, till after sundown; a drive, except in case of necessity, was never thought of. Only “York State folks” did that. A maiden aunt reproved me for cracking nuts on Sunday, giving me to read the Fourth Commandment, and Isaiah 58: 13-14, “If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day,” etc. The remembrance of those well-kept, solemn Sundays still remains; and, to this day, my inherited New England conscience never fails to accuse any transgression of the Fourth Commandment. Howells says, “The devout spirit of the old Puritans remained to their descendants long after the stern creed that had embodied that spirit had passed away.”

Fast Day, too, was strictly kept in Puritan households, without reference to Good Friday. We might ramble in the woods for wild flowers, however, gather wintergreen, birch and sassafras for root beer, and have fritters and maple syrup for supper.

Thanksgiving was the great feast day of the whole year. Then, the children to the third and fourth generation came trooping back, filling the low-ceiled rooms under the old rooftree; and for them high festival was held.

For days before, great preparations were made. The “buttery” was full of good things. On the shelves were rows of mince, pumpkin and tart pies, the last named made from cider apple sauce,—a lost art,—and pans of doughnuts and crullers, flanked by the sage cheese, ready to be cut. Baking in the brick oven was an immense chicken pie, made with cream crust,—another lost art,—and an Indian pudding rich with suet—still another lost art.

The turkey, the choicest young gobbler of the flock, stuffed with savory dressing, also a pig with an ear of corn in its mouth, were roasting in a Dutch oven on the hearth, all these together filling the house with an odor of good cheer.

Oscar, of the Waldorf-Astoria, can do mighty deeds in his line, but, with all his skill, cannot equal one of those real old-fashioned Thanksgiving dinners.

After all the kin had come and gone, there was abundant “skippin” for the worthy poor; yes, and for the unworthy, who might come to partake of the free bounty of the ever charitable.

The winters were long, shutting families indoors by themselves. Books and papers were few, but these early settlers kept abreast of the events of the day, and they had clear-cut, strong opinions, which they expressed with no uncertain sound. In the long evenings they gathered around the great fireplace, listening with never-failing interest to the oft-told tales of Indians, of Tory raids, and of hardships and suffering in camp and field.

“Shut in from all the world without,
They sat, the clean-winged hearth about,
Content to let the north wind roar
In baffled rage at pane and door;
. . . . . . . . . .
And for the winter fireside meet,
Between the andirons’ straddling feet,
The mug of cider simmered slow,
The apples sputtered in a row,
And, close at hand, the basket stood
With nuts from brown October’s wood.”