The Romance of Norwalk

The city was in the midst of a prosperous era. Her 4651 inhabitants in 1850, were for the most part engaged in profit¬ able occupations and found little cause for complaint. In 1850 there were in Norwalk, 774 dwelling houses occupied by 961 families. The village boasted 485 school pupils in¬ structed by ten teachers; a first Congregational church seat¬ ing 100; a second Congregational church seating 500; a Baptist church seating 600; a Methodist church seating 600 and an Episcopal church seating 800, and a fire engine com¬ pany which had its own permanent quarters. Wages were very good, although to the workers of 1929, they would appear little short of pitiful. Farmhands were paid $13 a month with board. Day laborers might earn $.62^2 a day with board or $.87^ a day without board. Carpenters were among the aristocracy, rating $1.37 Per day. The poor female domestics didn’t make out so well for one dol¬ lar a week with board was considered plenty and sufficient for them. Of factories and mills there was an encouraging number. The boot and shoe industry, which employed nearly 500 men and women, was the largest manufacturing interest in the village at the time. The smallest was a shovel, spade, fork and hoe factory, which employed but two people and was capitalized at just $100. In addition there was a comb factory with three employees; a cotton mill with 16; a screw factory, 7 employees; metal button, five workers; tanneries, seven laborers; “Snuff, Tobacco and Segars,” 11 employees. A tiny watch making establishment employed two people, and a saddle, trunk and harness factory found the same number of workers quite sufficient for its needs. The manu¬ facture of hats and caps, another large industry, employed 83 persons. Other articles made in Norwalk at the time included: coaches, wagons, sleighs, tallow candles, chairs ROMANCE OF NORWALK 264 and cabinets, tin articles, felt cloth, stone and earthen-ware articles, confectionery, and marble monuments. POTTERY TRADE The making of stone and earthen-ware articles, a flourish¬ ing industry in Norwalk in 1850, has an interesting history. Absalom Day of Old Well village (South Norwalk) was supposed to have been the first to establish himself. In¬ volved in the story of the growth of pottery, is the tale of Half Mile Island, which, because of its historic interest, must here be given. Half Mile Island, off the shores of East Norwalk, was once the scene of a thriving pottery trade. The island, which is no longer known, was divided from Campfield or Canfield island, which has also passed into oblivion, by just a creek. Canfield island is now a part of Shorehaven, East Norwalk, connected to the mainland by a bridge on its eastern end. Part of the western end is now included in the home of William D. Crawford of Shore- haven. Half-Mile island, in the days when it was acknowledged, lay right next to Canfield. A portion of it now comprises part of Shorehaven filled-in land. In the beginning Half- Mile Island was owned by Stephen Beckwith, later falling into the hands of John Ruscoe the Huguenot. The finest of corn, full 14 feet high, was once grown on the fertile ridge of land which was the backbone of the island, while the best peaches and plums in the village bloomed there in summer-time. The island was mute witness in the year 1821 of the “great September gale” which sank Uriah Selleck’s boat “Slow and Easy” in the Sound. A second terrific storm in 1833 shifted the sand from east to west of the island; the high tide of December, 1833, m^de three islands out of one; the blizzard of February, 1845, piled banks of snow, six and seven feet deep across the island. The year 1831 found Mr. and Mrs. John Betts Gregory living on the island. Mr. Gregory bought Half Mile island NORWALK IN 1850 265 from Samuel Hanford for the small sum of $325 and im¬ mediately built his kiln for pottery. He had previously established a pottery in Clinton, New York but had returned to his home town in 1831 to try his luck here. Mr. Greg¬ ory learned his trade under Absalom Day. He continued in business until 1840, dying in 1842. On the night of January 13, 1840, which was intensely cold, Mrs. Gregory was about to sit down to supper when she noticed bright gleams of red light across the table. Rushing to the door she peered out and there, past Mamachimons Island, now Chimons Island, she saw the reflections from the burning steamboat Lexington. What to do? It was bitter weather, so bitter that the Norwalk-New York steamboat was locked in ice at Old Well. It might have been possible to launch a boat from Half-Mile Island since the front of the island was clean of ice, but the only boat available at the time was not rigged and in winter quarters. Finding there was noth¬ ing at all they could do, the islanders merely watched the burning ship, until its last brilliant tongue of fire had been snuffed out beneath the crest of the waves. The boat sank just as it came abreast of “Old Field Point.” After the island slipped from the possession of the Greg¬ orys, it passed through the hands of Louisa Byxbee, Charles W., and William H. Hoyt, Nancy Gregory, James Mitchell and Woodbury G. Langdon who had it in 1873. John Betts Gregory was not the only Norwalker to be interested in the manufacture of pottery. The Norwalk Pottery Co., once located at Smith st., foot of Mill Hill, was established as early as 1833, by Asa E. Smith. He was succeeded in turn by Asa Smith, Hobert Smith and James Lycett. SHIPBUILDING In speaking of the industries of Norwalk which flourished in the year 1850, we should not pass by shipbuilding, which once held forth on Gregory’s or Dorlon’s Point. Mathew Campfield and John Gregory, sr., were the original holders 266 ROMANCE OF NORWALK of the Point which included some seven and one-half acres. The former later sold out to Gregory, from whom the Point took its name. Gregory deeded the property to his wife. Some time later it fell into the hands of John and James Benedict and was known for a time as Benedict’s Point. A few years before the middle of the 19th century, Gregory’s or Dorlon’s Point came into the possession of one Isaac Scudder Ketcham, shipbuilder of Huntington, Long Island. Ketcham proceeded to build a long two-story shipbuilding house on his property. On the ground floor at one end, was a square room for living purposes and for office use, accord¬ ing to Historian Selleck. Immediately overhead was a large room for making and storing models. Next to it was a lumber loft. Underneath, the ground floor provided plenty of space in which to work. After accomplishing all this, Ketcham suddenly gave up and left town. It appeared that his family objected to leaving Long Island. Deciding be¬ tween love and a career, Mr. Ketcham chose to return to Long Island. The property was idle until 1851 when it was bought by James W. Underhill of Stockton, California, for $993.5°, the property including the Point of seven acres and the house. Stockton built the first substantial dock on the Point, filling the cribs or supports of the structure with stone brought from Goose and Cockenoe Islands. After this piece of work, Stockton also gave up his plans. It is believed he returned to California for the tail-end of the gold rush. He came back to Norwalk a few years later and in 1855 sold the property to Captain John Burke for $1,500. Burke enlarged the house and improved the dock. He kept a hotel on the Point. 1859 found the property in the hands of Philip Hardenbrook of New York, who remodeled the old house for the third or fourth time. A. A. Raymond of Long Island bought the place in 1864. Henry Guthrie, George S. Bell, C. C. St. John, Melville E. Mead and Thad- deus Bell, who comprised the “Gregory’s Point Marine Rail NORWALK IN 1850 267 way Co.,” took it over in 1868. Once more, extensive ship¬ building operations were commenced only to slump when in 1873, April 1, the company leased the dock and hotel to George W. Hooper. October 2, 1874, the company sold the hotel, the dock, and the acreage to Philetus Dorlon of Brooklyn, New York, for a named consideration of $7,000. Dorlon ran a hotel on the Point for a number of years. At one time a large square old-fashioned summer hotel stood where the present Norwalk Country club is located. Nearby was a merry-go-round and a dance hall. Over to one side, just about where the end of the trolley line may now be found, was the shorehouse where dinners were served. Crowds flocked to the Point over the weekend. After Dor¬ lon, John O’Sullivan, grandfather of the present John O’Sul¬ livan, now manager of Dorlon’s, ran the summer hotel. About 1899 a great fire took place in the hotel, starting on a Sunday afternoon in a pile of shingles in the cellar. Mrs. O’Sullivan, mother of the present John O’Sullivan, barely escaped with her life, being rescued with a ladder. She saved only her wedding and engagement rings from the flames. Mr. O’Sullivan (grandfather) lost no time in re¬ building and shortly there was erected on the same site a new summer hotel, which is now the Norwalk Country Club. In 1908, John O’Sullivan (father of the present John), purchased that piece of land on which Dorlon’s shorehouse now stands. At the time the ground was rough, uneven, full of marshes and bogs and overgrown with violets. The Point was not the residential section in those years, that it is to¬ day. There were but two houses there, the home of Judge John Walsh and a little yellow house since torn down, oc¬ cupied by an Anderson family. Mr. O’Sullivan (father) persevered until he had leveled and filled in the ground and then he built the present shorehouse which has been so suc¬ cessful. On the death of his father, the present John O’Sul¬ livan took over the business. He has found it necessary dur¬ ing the past few years to make several additions to the build¬ ing to take care of the trade. 268 ROMANCE OF NORWALK COURTHOUSE SQUABBLE