Norwalk

■The very first Norwalk "milling" was, it is J water from the stream now issuing into the East possible, simple pounding or crushing. The set- Norwalk tide-mill pond at the foot of the burying tiers, it may reasonably be imagined, not only brought ground hill w as held back somewhere in the rear of something of a meal supply with them, but obtained the present Hendricks lot, and when the bowl was corn of the Indians. These sources, nevertheless, 1 full, made thereat to flow over a small wheel, is not a were limited, and consequently, before the; could j groundless supposition. Close perusal of the records select their mill site and build a basin, dam and mill- suggests this conclusion. The pioneers did not re- house, they had, perchance, to resort to the "bruis- I quire, wen were they prepared to at once provide, ing" process; a state of things, however, that could extensive facilities in this direction, but us sc-tller not have been of long duration. The mill w as de- j after set I let arrived and acre after acre fell under cul- manded, and was accordingly among the earliest in- ! tivation, it became necessary to enlarge their mining dustries projected. As to the exact site of the parent j and sawing accommodations. This juncture would establishment there may be some Uncertainty, but appear to have been reached when the vote of Jan. 6, there is no uncertainly whatever that the establish- 1654 w as passed. The first apparatus was insufficient ; ment itself was of primitive construction. That the the stream perhaps proved disappointing, and the 36 NORWALK Wassacussue lived at Shippan Point, but Ponus' hill-top home lay farther north, a little way across the boundary-line, at that day, of Norwalk, at a point nearly two miles west of the present business street of New Canaan. Standing two hundred odd years since at the summit of what the. Norwalk fathers, with fine poetic sense, called "the homeward end" of Haynes' Ridge, now the handsomely graded Church-hill, in the center of New Canaan, and looking northward and westward the eye beheld as goodly a representation of a foreign " Waldegrave," edged by rolling meads and enriched by a bit of "moor and fen and crag," as the entire colony, perhaps, exhibited. Between the Sagamore Ponus' precincts in the southwestern portion of this landscape and his red brother Heckett's rural wekuwhum, about a league north, and backed by Wood- pecker's Ridge in the distance, and fronted by the near-by William Haynes English wold, the seat of the later St. John, Silliman and Mitchell residences, and of the still later Parker, Bright, Rogers, Bond, Skiddy and Childs summer haunts, stretched a charmingly diversified expanse, which to-day, surveyed from the twin New Canaan spires, forms a lovely picture. Within the limits of this romantic tract began the sylvan serpentine Ponasses Path, which for some ten miles wound on, through, over and past Ponus Hollow and White Oak Shade and Spring Hill, and Keeler's slave-quarters at the head of Belden Avenue, and the Benedict and Seymour domains, (near the present Norwalk Armory) until it finally terminated not far from the thither edge of what the settlers styled the "great meadow on the other side of the river," the level center to-day of the city of South Norwalk. This path, Nonvalk's oldest path, had perhaps political significance. Ponus was a warrior, and his three sons— Onox, Taphance and Owenoke — were, as regards warfare, to the manor born. Mahackemo, Noxanowe. Proxanowe, Poranhunne and Womansunne were Norwalk braves who, with Ponus, were compelled to pay tribute to the stronger tribes of the north. There were times when this tax-payment was delayed. This incensed the upper chieftains, who made fierce descent upon the Sachemdons near the Sound, and dis- porarily utilized at the new dam. The town's term? about this time to Jonathan Marsh, a newcomer, might possibly be construed to so intimate. A proposition seems now to have been made Marsh " to build a corn mill sufficient for all purposes." Articles of agree- ment were drawn tip and the work began and finally finished. Jonathan Marsh " ran " the establishment for six or so years, and then, with the town's consent, sold everything out to Nathaniel Richards. The population grew ; " mill-brooks," - and h,- although considerable streams in that day, were, after all, in- termittent, and beyond doubt, insufficient, and the problem of eight or ten years before, again confronted the founders. It is unfortunate, in the interests of Norwalk of it. It is indicated as mill-brook (b) to distinguish it from the first-named brook, which is lettered (a). committee seem convinced that the contemplated and already commenced improvements would, after all, prove inadequate; hence the order that "the mill must desist," and " not be carried on," and that its three " undertakers, " without delav, advise with Lieut. S.vayh (brobablv Samuel Swayn who built the Stamford mill) and make the best terms possible with him for labor and material up to that time per- formed and employed. Having done this Thomas Fitch, Nathaniel Richards and Richard Olmstead proceed to erect a " damne " either farther down the same stream, or more probably, at the mouth of mill brookb (see page 35, line 6). This would flood a greater surface and furnish a larger water supply. It is barely possible that the remains of the first mill were tem- «On page .i;, line 6, mill-brook (b) is designated as Allen Belt,' brook, because -aid Bolts controls, in 1S96, such a portion NORWALK. 37 turbed, despoiled and destroyed them. It was necessary, at seasons when such danger was imminent, that adjoining- leaders should confer and co-operate. Hence one origin-explan- ation of Ponasses Path. After, however, Ponus was laid away in that pathetically lonely lot-corner found to-day in Ponus Street, New Canaan, to which burial-spot* tradition has all along cer- tified, and after he was followed hence by his favorite grandson Powahay, whose sightly grounds, a number of miles to the northwest of his grandfather's, were many years since purchased by the patriot John Jay, and now form part of the splendid Bedford-Jay estate ; after Mahackemo was known only by his namesake Norwalk meadow on the Saugatuck ; after Naramake's and Pemanante's burial-hill near Barren Marsh, on Norwalk harbor, was full, Ponasses Path became character-changed. Onox, Ponus' oldest boy, habitated, as a written reference intimates, elsewhere ; Taphance, his second son, lived under a cloud, (he was charged with murder, albeit, in justice to his memory it ought to be stated that milling history, that a record at the foot of the page of one of the "proprietor's books," should be so worn and torn as to be illegible. The record intro- duces the Whitney name, and it evidently treats upon the matter under consideration, but its full re- cital cannot now be ascertained. Mr. Whitney had, presumably, something to say upon -the subject, the sequel to which was, quite possibly, the short tenure of Nathaniel Richards (who held the property only a brief period) and the grander Whitney scheme of abandoning the former smaller accommodations, t and building a capacious structure at the "Point of Rocks'' at the mouth of Norwalk river, by " the falles." It can be imagined that at the meeting held July 29th, 1665, Thomas Fitch, Lieut. Olmstead and Mr. Fenn gladly surrendered the tentative and troublesome primal projects, and welcomed the progressive ideas of Henry Whitney. Before this meeting adjourned there was granted to Mr, Whitney a home-lot in the near neighborhood of the mill-site. The earliest mill- site passed out of existence millwise, and was suc- ceeded by John Nash's tannery, the said Nash retain- ing of the former facilities, only the water feature. It may be remarked that Henry Whitney's re- moval of the milling interest was, probably, the en- tering wedge of the success, for two centuries, of upper over lower Norwalk. Norwalk was not then out of its teens in age, but the mill was even now the magnet. The millwright drew the wheelwright, the carpenter and the blacksmith, and of course their families and shops and apprentices. There was but little or no "back country" at that tims, but the farmers from the home division (East Norwalk) and ■{-At mill-brooks **a" and "b." Previous to the building of the mill at the corner, (Hubbell estate corner 1896) there was evidently a mill at the foot of Mill-Hill, north side. A dam thereat is deed-alluded to. the second division (South Norwalk) and from Straw- berry Hill, and Saugatuck Playne, and not a great while afterward, from Cranberry and Poplar Plains, and Chestnut and Belden Hills, learned the way to Whitney's Milt. Hither they brought their produce, which created a market, and store and sloop quickly succeeded. This was the start. Had the tide-mill conception earlier entered the fathers' minds, East Norwalk's supremacy might have been less easily lost. The story of the old corner mills, Nos. 1 and 2, at The Bridget is not devoid of interest. Trvon des- troyed mill No. 1, but the age of No. 2 was great, its posts, joists, rafters and window-panes being gray with the dust of generations. Its wheels were a mar- vel to young eyes, and its music, if sometimes mon- otonous, is not an unpleasant memory. It proudly defied the ravages of many a spring freshet, and stood venerably immovable until touched by the hand of improvement, when it disappeared much more quickly than it arose. Among the names of its owners since Capt. Josiah Thatcher's day, are Gen. Joshua King, Taylor Sherman, Jabe/. Gregory, Benj. Isaacs and Samuel Cannon. John Adams had temporary quarters in its vicinity. Lafayette, if not Dr. Dwight, rode under its " bucket " overshot, and Madame Knight, 190 years ago, across its predecessor's bridge-planks. Mill No. 1 was consumed by Tryon's faggots, but a spell seemed to protect No. 2 from fire and flood, until it fell to Joseph W. Hubbell and Stephen Ray- mond to conclude, in 1854, a business that millionaire Stephen Whitney's great-grand-uncle, Henry Whit- ney, in 1665, there commenced.