Wilton Village - a History by G
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Preface G. Evans Hubbard first published the Wilton Bulletin as a single sheet in early 1937. On March 17, 1938 it became a weekly of increased size and scope. As its editor, Hubbard began including his history of Wilton in weekly installments. These he continued through mid-1942. These installments have been extracted from microfilm copies of the Bulletin, converted to digital files and cleansed of distortions caused by the microfilming process.. They were then updated to include changes made by Mr. Hubbard in preparation for publication in book form. While this never took place, the first five chapters were published in a 60 page booklet available at the Wilton Library and which the Wilton Historical Society had for sale for many years. Not meant to be read as a book on a standard computer monitor, this presentation of Hubbard’s work is intended as a research tool providing rapid access to names, dates, places or events using the Adobe search provisions. The Adobe reader can even read it to you out loud. And, since it is in digital form, this history could also be self- published in book form after final proofreading.. A Table of Contents is included at the end to aid in visual searching and to give an idea of the topics, events and time periods covered. Adobe bookmarks have been built in to give rapid access to individual chapters. To Search, Go Edit/Search/Current Document/ Enter Term/ Click Search/ see Results with one line context. To use Bookmarks, Go Document/Add Bookmark/Select from existing Bookmarks/Click Foreword (Editorial by G. Evans Hubbard, March 17, 1937) With this number begins the publication of the story of Wilton from its founding as a village in 1726 to its incorporation as a Town in 1803. When publication has been completed it should appear in book form. This method has the great advantage of permitting criticism 1 and correction. There are many things which the editor does not know about Wilton, there are other things he knows but wrongly. As each chapter appears, he hopes to receive such aid as only those who have lived in Wilton all their lives can give him. With this assistance, the ultimate book should be an accurate account of the early days of this Town. The value of a Town history is threefold. It presents the facts in regard to persons and places so that the present generation can know the deeds of their ancestors and the places where historic events have occurred. The story of David Lambert, Taverner and "Brander and Toller of Horses", and of his grandson, the eminent merchant of New York, brother-in-law of Archibald Graicie, is an interesting one. The march of the British through Wilton in 1777 and the houses they sacked is a tale every one in the town should know. Every owner of an old homestead is interested in the date of its building and in the doings of its early denizens. A second value of a history of a small community is that it permits a study of a microcosm in which the great events of history can be checked. The Wilton records have been so fortunately preserved that we know everyone who lived here during the most interesting period of American history. They cover the period from the division of lands bought of the Indians through the conquest of Canada and the Revolution right up to the organization of these United States and the administration of the first two presidents. With these records we can prepare a study in detail which is not blurred, as it would be on a larger canvas. What were the kinds of settlers in a typical New England community? Who served in the wars, who dissented from the established church, who were the leaders in revolt and why? The answer to such questions provides the material for the syntheses we call general history. Without them, general history is boneless. Finally, local history develops local pride. It is the great problem of a democracy to reward public service by other than money. Unless public officials act from a sense of duty, as well as for reward, we cannot expect the best results. A feeling of local pride is one of the strongest incentives to self-sacrifice. In a town which has produced great scholars like Professor Isaac Stuart and the two Olmsteds, where eminent patriots like Colonel Mead and Major Comstock have lived, there is a tradition of excellence and of sacrifice that must induce emulation. Wilton can justly be proud of its past. It will strive to be proud of its future. Page 2 of 363 2 Wilton Village - A History By G. Evans Hubbard __________________________ CHAPTER I THE BEGINNINGS The area which is now the Town of Wilton was for sixty years nothing more than a part of the vast domain of the Town of Norwalk. The first settlers, who came to Norwalk in a body in the spring of 1651 owned in common all the fifty thousand acres from the Saugatuck to Five Mile River and up country “so far as an Indian could go in a day”. From this great estate there have been carved the present Norwalk, the whole of Wilton, about half of New Canaan and half of Westport as well as parts of present day Darien and Weston. The fourteen original families in Norwalk were of course unable to occupy more than a small part of their purchase. Since they were forbidden by law to live more than a mile from the meeting house, all the original homes were long clustered in a small area about the village green. In addition to these home lots of two or three acres the settlers were allowed private possession of sections in the “planting field”, but their cattle, sheep and hogs were cared for by communal herds and shepherds who roamed the neighboring woods in search of pasture. Sequest From a very early date this pasturage area became defined and the citizens were forbidden to make enclosures within which would interfere with the free passage of cattle. This common pasture was spoken of as “sequestered” and its outer bounds known as the “Sequesture Line” Indian Field To protect the planted areas around the village from roaming cattle it was necessary to build a common fence with numerous gates or “barrs,” to maintain which there were regularly elected Fence Viewers and Gate Keepers. 3 It was, however, not so easy to restrain the movements of the aborigines within the limits of the Town. The Indians were tractable enough, cultivated small fields of maize and were great fishermen. At first their plots were contiguous to those of the whites on Gregorie's Point. The settlers' hogs were, however, always getting into the negligently fenced plantings of the Indians and frequent damage claims resulted. As population increased, there was need of more land for crops. Hence it was only twenty years after the first settlement that it was thought best to segregate the Indians. They were ordered to remove to the Chestnut Hills, beyond the "Sequest Line", and in what is now Wilton. Our first settlers were therefore the Christianized Indians of Norwalk. They remained here for sixteen years, their lands known as the "Indian Field". Being so far from their accustomed diet of seafood, many must have moved away. In 1687 the remnant was permitted to move to 45 acres on Ely’s Neck in Norwalk and Chestnut Hill was opened to private ownership. These Indian plantations, meager though they probably were, offered sufficient attraction to the second generation of Norwalkers for them to be offered in the same division as that of "Over the River", what is now South Norwalk. Jackin Gregorie the elder took up land here which he sold to the Abbott brothers in 1694. So did Robert Stewart, land later occupied by his sons. Other of these earliest landowners in Wilton were Elnathan Hanford and Eliphalet Lockwood. Much time was to elapse, however, before the first homes came to be built so far from the meeting house. For those who wished to move farther afield, there were the open lands beyond Norwalk bounds. Already several Norwalk families had gone far up Norwalk River to make a new settlement at Pahquiogue, later known as Danbury. (1685) In 1697 there was a petition of ten Norwalk families to permit the purchase of Ridgefield, between Danbury and Norwalk, a petition granted ten years later, and the purchase made in 1708. These were orthodox settlements, a group of houses around a church. There were, however, even hardier pioneers who had begun to build their isolated homes beyond the Sequest Line, cleared the primeval forest from their lands and led an individual and solitary life in the wilderness. Such were the founders of Wilton. First Homestead It is curious that the first homestead in Wilton was taken up, not just beyond the Sequest Line at the shortest possible distance from the Meeting House but at the very furthest of Norwalk's bounds. This was the purchase by Jonathan Wood, a weaver from Long Island, of a tract, contents unknown, from the land of Matthew Marvin northerly "till the mountain and river comes together." It is described as "above" Page 4 of 363 4 Pimpawaug, which is Algonquin for "Narrow Place" and refers to the gorge at the entrance to what is now Cannondale. The date was April 17th, 1706, two years before the purchase of Ridgefield from the Indians. It is impossible to say what were the motives of Jonathan Wood in establishing his home at so remote a spot.