Leading Business Men of Fairfield County

The Pequonacks, that part of the Paugausetts tribe which occupied the present position of Bridgeport, and from which the river obtained its name, has been proven by the valuable researches of Orcutt, the historian of this part of the State, to have numbered somewhat more than five hundred, thus constituting the largest and most powerful division of the parent tribe. There is little doubt, as the historian Orcutt has shown, that this tribe was rep- resented in the general council held by all the Indian tribes in the western part of the State with the settlers of Hartford in. March, 1638, at which the Indians made an amicable treaty with the English; but, in general, the influence of the tribe on the early history of the State was hardly appreciable. The earliest historical account which has been preserved directly bearing upon this locality relates to the time of the Pequot wars. This implacable tribe, after many cruel massacres of the whites, had been gradually driven back by the settlers from their old camping grounds in the east toward the western end of the State. In June 1637, the final expedition was made against this tribe, under the leadership of Lieu- tenant Davenport. Flying before their relentless pursuers, the last bleeding remnants of the Pequot tribe collected in a swamp on the outskirts of Bridgeport towards Fairfield. When the English had arrived and surrounded the swamp, word was sent to the Indians through an interpreter, that life would be granted to all who were not guilty of English blood, if they would come out peacefully. Of the three hundred Indians including women and children in the swamp, all now came out save about a hundred Pequot warriors, who, though by no means all guilty of English blood, resolved with almost heroic stoicism, to die rather than surrender. Now a battle of extermination, hardly equalled in the annals of the State, was begun. The musketry of the English played upon the little band of savages from 14 BRIDGEPORT, PAST AND PRESENT. every direction and with deadly effect. A charge was made, but the Indians repell- ed it successfully. Evening came on before the battle was yet decided. In the midst of a fog which came on in the early part of the next morning, the Indians ven- tured to break through the English lines. In spite of the most desperate resistance about half of them succeeded in dashing through and escaped. Many of these were were immediately followed up and put to death. Others, among whom was their renowned chief Sassacus, at that time succeeded in getting away. But, within a few months, the scalps of Sassacus and all but a dozen or two of the fated tribe had been handed in at the English headquarters by their Indian allies. The swamp between Fairfield and Bridgeport, where the battle took place, was found thickly strewn with the bodies of the brave but ruthless savages. The Eng- lish also led back to the colony about a hundred and fifty Pequot women and children, as slaves. Thus the first scene after the curtain has been drawn away from this lo- cality by the advent of a civilized race, is a dark tragedy. Much as we regret the lack of mercy which distinguishes this, as most of the other Indian wars, the fact that the war was necessarily one of self-preservation explains, though it may not justify, the unrelenting punishment which the English visited upon the Pequot tribe, probably the fiercest of all their enemies before the time of King Philip. The report concerning this region, made by those who had gone on the expedi- tion against the Pequots, aroused the attention of the colonists and within two years time a considerable number of settlements had been made here. In 1839 this entire region was purchased from the English crown by a Mr. Fairfield, who came directly from England and was vested with the civil authority of the district. That part of the purchase now designated as Bridgeport was then entirely contained within the limits of the town of Stratford, named after the Lord Stratford, then in the zenith of his power at the English court. A few final references to the aboriginal inhabitants of Bridgeport may be perti- nent here. As the whites continued to settle in this region, the Indians became " small by degrees and beautifully less." .Many drifted off toward the west, and, although kindly treated, the internal disintegration and decay continued. In 1659, what were left of the " Indians of Pequonack " were given, as a special reservation, " Golden Hill," one of the loveliest spots in modern Bridgeport, and from this time they went by the name of the " Golden Hill Indians." Incidentally, it is surmised from the name that the early settlers expected to discover golden treasures in this particular hill, but like many other of their hopes, its realization never came. In 1710, about fifty years after receiving their reservation, the Golden Hill tribe had dwindled down to about twenty-five families. Another fifty years, and in 1765, only three women and four men remained on Golden Hill. A question now arose between the white settlers and the Indians, as to which had the better right to the hill. The Legislature decided in favor of the Indians, but being bought off by the whites for thirty bushels of corn and three pounds worth of blankets, they vacated the land and vanished from this region, as permanent residents, forever. The whites, however, did not proportionally increase. Soon after 1639, the set- tlement at Pequonnack came to be called Stratfield, but so slowly did it grow in numbers, that it was more than fifty years later before it possessed a church, always one of the first objects of the planters' longing and endeavors. BRIDGEPORT, PAST AND PRESENT. 15» ■■■ ■ "' ■ ' — " FAIRFIELD AVENUE, FROM PARK AVENUE, LOOKING WEST. The data concerning the first settlers of Bridgeport is very meagre. In the his- tory of Bridgeport, by the Rev. Samuel Orcutt, the historian quoted above, the- names of Henry Summers, Sr., and Samuel Gregory are given as the heads of the- first two families who settled in this region An ancient cut of a primitive log cabin, erected here about 1665, near the junction of the present Park and Washington avenues, has been preserved. At that time very little clearing away had been doner and no regular roads had been laid out. The records of Fairfield, in 1669, show the names of the following freemen, who- voted in that town, but resided within the limits of Stratfield: John Odell, James- Bennet, Matthew Sherwood, Richard Hubbell, James Wheeler, Thomas Morehouse,. Nathaniel Seeley, Thos. Bennet, Nathaniel Burr, Mr. John Burr, John Burr, John Cable, Sr., John Cable, Jr., Mr. Daniel Burr and Henry Rowland. It is not probable that these constituted all the settlers dwelling at Stratfield, as- some might not have been church members and so, necessarily, not voters, and a considerable number probably attended church at Stratford. These few names are all that now remain to show who laid the foundations of modern Bridgeport. It is highly creditable to these men, along with their compan- ions, whose names are now forgotten, that in spite of the smallness of their numbers, the colony was not abandoned, as was the case in many similar settlements in the State- Though compelled to battle alone against all the discouragements and hardships- of the early settler's life, they unfalteringly maintained the few simple homes they had carved out here from the " wilderness;" and thus, amid the dark and bitter years- from 1650 to 1690, the first stones of that structure which was destined to rise with such strength and beauty, were being laid. 16 BRIDGEPORT, PAST AND PRESENT. CHAPTER II. OLD COLONY LIFE. The tinge of romance which colors many of the tales of the olden time in New England that have come down to us, sometimes tends to lessen in our minds the practical value of true accounts of the early colonial life. It is safe to say, that there is not an influential cause of the prosperity of our country during the Nine- teenth Century, which cannot be traced back to its remote beginnings in the first century of our national life. Beyond all other potent factors, the greatness of the present was being foreshadowed and assured in the communities which were springing up all over New England during the latter half of the Seventeenth Century. The history of this period in the growth of Bridgeport should portray, as far and as accurately as possible, first, the people of the colony themselves, their life and customs; second, the crystalization of their lives and characters in the principles of government and united action which underlie and explain the present. With the total lack of biography, an appreciative analysis of the characters of the early settlers of Bridgeport is rendered impossible; but one marked characteristic deserves emphatic mention — the unflinching courage of the first few families that had gathered around the mouth of the Pequonnock before 1639. Whatever want of broad outlook or charitable toleration we may discern in the mental makeup of the Puritans, it remains that they were fitted as no others were or could have been for the colonization of New England. That spirit of reverence toward God, of rectitude toward men, which was the ruling principle of the Puritans, enabled the early settlers of Bridgeport to maintain a steadfast position, where less sturdy souls would have faltered and failed. As the settlement grew slowly, it was more than fifty years before they were able to have a church of their own at Stratfield, and every Sunday all the able-bodied persons in the village were obliged, rather than omit church-attendance (which course did not present itself to the mind of a Puritan as possible), to tramp across the wild country for four or five miles either to the church at Fairfield or at Stratford.