The Romance of Norwalk

When coaches arrived in Norwalk from New York, the time was evening, since it took a full day to come up from the “city.” The stages made about 40 miles a day in good weather, and 25 in poor. Jovially the travelers were greeted on their arrival at the Connecticut House and forthwith supper was prepared. The customers sat at long board tables, or small square ones. Menus were varied and a good supper included roast beef, ham, cold fowl, bread, rump steaks, fish, cake, pie, tea, coffee and bread and milk for desert. A small amount of liquor was allowed with the meal. It may have been any one of a number of different drinks, for there were many. Perhaps it was rum or cider, sack (sweet wine) canary, spiced or mulled wine, “Black Strap” made of rum and molasses; or “Scotchem” made of apple jack, boiling water, and a dash of mustard. American “creaming flip” was the favorite drink. This was made in a great earthen pitcher filled two thirds full of strong beer, sweetened with sugar, molasses or dried pumpkin, according to taste and flavored with about a gill of New England rum. Into this was thrust a red hot logger head made of iron and shaped like a poker. The poker made the liquor foam and bubble and gave it the burnt, bitter taste so much desired. The flip was served in great tumblers, often without handles. Sometimes there were delicious dishes at table; curried oysters, roast duck, or perhaps calves’ head soup flavored with wine. Following a heavy supper with much meat and little desert, but plenty of liquor, the hotel guest was in fine condition to go right to his bed. Nor did he wake later, if the landlord slipped into the room, shoved him over to one side of the bed and made room for a late arrival under ROMANCE OF NORWALK 1 86 the same sheets. Breakfast was early, and included meat, fish, eggs, cider and even pies and puddings. It was gobbled in haste, for the coachman was always in a hurry to get on the long road again. Much of Norwalk’s history just after the Revolutionary War may be gained from bits of tavern records. The inns of the time were something more than just stopping places for over night stage coach guests. They were gathering centers for the entire community and mirrored much of the life of the town. Here oyster bargains and sales were made; prices of the town’s farming produce were named; news was learned; entertainments were held. On the bulletin boards, mines of information in themselves, were lists of jurors to be called, notices of sales, advertisements for lost and found dogs, cats, horses and slaves, and legal notices of all sorts. Traveling showmen stopped at the tavern to exhibit queer animals they had trapped. On Thanksgiving Day there were turkey “shoots” in the yard; little plays called “drolls” came to the tavern from time to time; last but not least the tavern was the scene of the drawing of the lotteries, lotteries which lured half the town to the inn and crowded the place with an excited, money mad mob. The lottery, which shortly became a licensed and highly approved form of gambling, was used for all sorts of things by all sorts of people. Were a church in debt, a college in need of money, a poorhouse desirous of a new addition, or if a canal, bridge, turnpike or public building had to be erected, then a lottery was announced. Norwalk, of course, was caught and held in the lottery swirl and more than one civic betterment movement was fostered by money obtained in this manner. First mention of a lottery, appears in the Norwalk town records under date of April 11, 1791, as follows: “At the same meeting, the Select Men are directed to prepare a Memorial to the next General Assembly for Liberty of a Lottery for raising a sum of Money for the purpose of Building an Arch Bridge by the Mill.” STAGE COACH DAYS 187 Two years later, in April of 1793, the townspeople again appealed to the General Assembly for their lottery, this time asking that it be allowed “for building an Arch Bridge at the Falls.” It is believed that the falls referred to, and of which mention is made in many of the old references to Norwalk, are the same which may still be seen half covered over, through the back window of Tristram and Hyatt’s dry goods store on Wall st. “resurrection” In October of 1793 Taylor Sherman was appointed to find out what it would cost to build a stone bridge at the falls. When the cost was found to be prohibitive, a wooden bridge was definitely decided upon. Between the years 1788 and 1800, the work of “resurrection” in Nor¬ walk continued in earnest. Bridges were built, new roads laid, old buildings repaired and mills erected. In March, 1788, it was voted to rent the ferry from Norwalk to Huntington, Long Island, for a term of five years. December 20, 1790, “Thaddeus Betts, John Hanford, Moses Hanford, Gersham Raymond and John Byxbee were appointed a committee to view the circumstances of five mile river (Rowayton) with respect to Building a Grist mill on the same and make report.” Seven years later, Samuel Grumman, Joseph Silliman and Roger M. Sher¬ man were appointed to “prepare a grant to Isaac Richards for Liberty to build a Grist Mill on Five Mile river.” Application for a corn mill had been made a few years previous to the above, in 1793, by Abel Belknap, who wanted to erect his building “on the river between the Mill called Thatchers and That Called Keeler’s mill.” Repairing old roads and building new, constantly taxed the town treasury. There was the new road to Fairfield; later, a new one to New Canaan; still later, a new one to Wilson Point. And all the time, leveling, widening and draining of the old roads went on. In order to meet a 1 88 ROMANCE OF NORWALK constant financial deficiency, the selectmen levied highway taxes. Every year at the annual December meeting, when town elections took place, the highway tax, two or three pence on the pound was laid. The townspeople might work out their taxes on the road if they saw fit. In fact, the town preferred such method. PIGS CAUSE TROUBLE Of all the troubles, which the Norwalkers experienced from the year 1788 to the close of the eighteenth century, the one which appears most insistently in the town records, concerns the nuisance of swine, geese and cows which were running at large about the town. If we recall correctly, the great William Shakespeare and his friends thought nothing of having chickens in the parlor, pigs in the dining room and cows in the kitchen, and evidently the Norwalkers were of one mind with William. The selectmen seem to have had a very difficult time regulating traffic among the various animals which arrogantly roamed the streets. Every two or three years they found it necessary to pass yet an¬ other law in a hectic effort uto do something” to curb the nuisance. In 1790, they met in solemn conclave and decided “that swine may go at large on ye Common in the Town having a ring in the Nose.” During the next 60 years the matter of proper discipline of swine, geese, cows and horses was constantly brought before the town meeting. At various times the selectmen decided: “that all swine with a ring in the nose and all geese which one wing is clipped will be permitted to go at large on the Common in this town. That sucking piggs shall be exempt for being pounded by the Hayward (keeper). That all sheep, swine and geese may go at large provided sheep be fettered with good leather fetters, swine be well rung in the nose with a good ring and geese have one wing clipped. That the law of 1830 allowing swine to go at large provided they be well rung in the nose be repealed” it having proved useless. STAGE COACH DAYS 189 Lastly “that horses be restrained from going at large on highways and commons.” SLAVES ARE FREED « Slavery became particularly distasteful to the colonists in the north during the latter quarter of the 1 8th century. The War of the Revolution was a great educator and to the New England colonists curtailment of freedom in any form for anyone, black or white, seemed abhorrent. Con¬ necticut people owned many slaves. As a matter of fact there were more beings in servitude in the year 1790 in this state, than in all the other New England states com¬ bined. At that time there were no less than 2,764, the number being reduced during the next ten years to 951. Norwalk residents owned slaves, plenty of them. But after the Revolution the fairer-minded of the people here came to the conclusion that the blacks had just as much right to the ordering of their own lives, as had the whites. Accordingly, many of the Norwalkers, voluntarily set their servants free. By the year 1800, there were still 41 slaves in Norwalk. By 1810, the number had been reduced to 12; by 1830, to two; and in 1840 Norwalk was declared free of all slaves. METHODISM INTRODUCED HERE The last few years of the 1 8th century in Norwalk were notable for the fact that Methodism gained a firm foot¬ hold here. Under a great apple tree on the corner of Main st. and North ave., Jesse Lee, minister, preached the first Methodist sermon in New England, in the little town of Norwalk. This occurred on the sunny afternoon of June 17, 1789. When Lee came to town he met rather a cool reception. He had reason to believe that one Hezekiah Rogers who lived on the corner of Cross st., would allow the meeting to be held at his home. Mr. Rogers was away at the time, however, and Mrs. Rogers feared to allow the congregation inside. So Lee went to the house 190 ROMANCE OF NORWALK next door, where lived an elderly lady and asked permission to bring his gathering into her orchard. But she objected on the ground that so many people would trample down her lawn. Nothing daunted, Lee went into the street and there by the wayside, under a great apple tree before a handful of people, gave his first Methodist sermon in New England.