Norwalk

The early Norwalk dwellings would seem to have been substantially but simply built, and as to any distinction between the same, it is more likely that the structure's size, rather than style, indicated its owner's rating. There is nothing to show that Thomas Fitch, the wealthiest man in the plantation, had any other than a plain dwelling-house. Whether there was a solitary conventional "Cape Cod house" in the Norwalk of the past it is impossible to state, but anything much more elaborate is hardly suspected. There was not, in all of old Norwalk, probably, a single example of the colonial enclosed two- story porch. There were a few such in New England at the end of the seventeenth century (notably at Hartford and Windsor), but their Norwalk substitute, then and later, was the old-fashioned lean-to, which afforded the extra dormitory accommodations in the rear rather than in front. There is doubt as to the pretentious character of. perhaps, any of the oldest hearthstones/ The little hand of man, which the Hindoo declares is omnipo- tent, was here hard employed in digging under the rocks, draining the swamps, driving the saw that spliced the tough logs, hammering the metal into spikes and nails, and in keeping the red man at a distance and the wolf at bay. Hard working Norwalk hands were heavily employed betwixt 1650 and 1700. We read, indeed, of one "comely porch" of that day. The Reed house, of Reed's Farms, may have attracted notice, and possibly "my mansion house in Norwalk," mentioned by James Brown in his last will and testament, bearing date 1766, had been inherited from his father, and was, therefore, standing before 1700 ; but severe dwelling, dress and demeanor-simplicity was the rule from which the "four," not "forty-acre" men of 1650 did not, in the majority of instances, deviate. As we come down from that period a gradual change is observed, and still we must 1" At a meetinge holden the 21st of January, 1655, ! householder shall of live shillings to (he use of l>v the inhabitants of Norwake, voted and agreed that the town." every householder shall provide, erect, and sett up a good and sufficient ladder reaching up to the chimney 2Madame Knight, in her 1704 Diary, thus records : above the house, the said ladder to be made and sett " Wee hasted forward, only observing in our wav the up'wlthin one mounthe after the date hereof, and that town ( Norwalk) to be situated on a navigable river, if any householder shall he defective herein, the -aid wth indifferent buildings." 4^ look a house generation yet farther on before is found the connecting link between the primitive double front-door' of the closing seventeenth and the picturesque Norwalk abodes of the ending nineteenth century. The town's mid-period architecture was heralded by the rearing of the homes of the Rev. RosweU Swan, Jonathan Fitch, Lewis Mallory, Wm. and Stephen St. John, Wm. Maltby Betts, William and Eliphalct Lockwood, Jonathan Knight, Samuel, James and John Cannon, Thomas and Ebenezer Hoyt, Jarvis Street, Jabez Gregory, Richard Bryan, Eben- czer Phillips, Alfred Chichester, James Quintard, Ralph Isaacs, John and Isaac Belden, David Lambert, Abijah Comstock, Elisha Silliman, Samuel St. John, Matthew Marvin, * Joseph Scribner and Jacob Jennings. The Swan , Kliphalet Lockwood, William St. John and Scribner houses were more or less elevation-imposing. The Samuel Cannon and Thomas Hoyt dwell- ings have been deprived of their "colonial stoop," but are to-day fine specimens of Norwalk building medievalism. The Ebenezer Phillips' house has been tastefully modernized. The Abijah Comstock home exhibits one of the finest specimens left of Norwalk's middle- period " halls." The Eliza Selleck house on West Avenue is comfort-historic. The John Cannon house, although externally changed, shows the "central hall" of the period next before the "middle," and still preserves its rare super-mantel hand-work ornamentation. The Samuel St. John mansion, one of the best specimens of the fathers' house erections, has •History so far repeats itself as that the fathers' double front-door is almost a "fad" to-day. The uses of the same in past time were several. After the breakfast-table was "cleared away,"' the morn- ing's milk, "set," the back stoop and well-stones swept, the men gone down to "the fields," and thi- boys had driven the cows to "the neck," and while the girls were bringing out the spinning-wheel and the wool for the noon stent, there was likely to be the mother's knickerbocker like lookout for a few mo- ments at the bough shaded front door, a "down town " practice of as recent observance as fifty years ago. The picture of Gov. Fitch's grand-daughter, Mr.-. Samuel Fitch, standing in the early morn at that portal to salute a passing neighbor, or make a friendly inquiry, is a present memory. From Thanksgiving Day in the fall through to "Training Day" in the spring, the front door, lor the greater portion of the time was closed, but when the bird-* came again and the " w illows a-greening went," it was an institution. The arrangement s-rved also as a protection. With its lower half bolted there was a sense of safety should "James the Indian or any stranger James -eek admission. Later down, as in the Rogers' days, the divided portal served a v ery agreeable purpose, when, behind its shut-under but open upper section. summer afternoon teas were given at the hall table, waxen until "it shone the day to grace." A fine specimen of one of these halls is shown in the two Cannon houses on Mill Hill and The Green, and also in the Comstock hall near Vista. Mrs. Major Samuel Comstock made this apartment (different somewhat from the Cannon's) serve the purpose, in winter, of a conservatory. 'This Wilton house was modelled after the Nor- walk Stephen St. John home. IThe Phillips home was astir on at least two not- able occasions, the first being that of a military salute paid the family hy a company of United States reg- ulars, marching under command of Mrs. Mary Phil- lips' nephew, Capt. Samuel Keeler, from Fort Gris- wold, New London, to Detroit, Michigan, where they were ordered to assist in quelling Indian dis- turbances, and who, drawn up en route in line in Norwalk, splendidly gave the compliment referred to. The second occasion was that of a large evening gathering, when Mr-. Phillips' daughter Sally was wedded to William Stuart by, as the last official aft of his life, Rev. Roswell Swann, tin generous accom- modations of the old home being so taxed that " benches " were brought in for the use of the guests. „ '^vuT^miT^l ''T"' 'V"' """°St " - •■>'"< »»» or had not finally flow,, asked whether the linger vrnecnertoe TneEitel. trees were Inviting aesttinK-pI.eeg for the birds. NORWALK. 43 unfortunately been swept away by fire, while the Jacob Jennings hearthstone has suffered considerable change. When its founder,' with possibly his great-grandfather's elegant Fair- field site in mind, came to Norwalk and chose the crest of " Harry's Hill Jr." as the like seat of a dwelling, he built thereon an imposing structure for the period. The internal wood- work was of oak and the tiling was borrowed from the Yonkers Manor-House pattern. The tiling has now entirely disappeared, and its loss cannot be accounted for. Captain Josiah Thatcher had parted with sufficient acreage for the Jennings accommodation, and as the road in front encroached less than to-day upon the premises, it was, with its green western slope, and ample rear garden, and well-started plants and trees, a handsome home, to which, after all was completed, and the residence furnished, Mr. Jennings brought his welcomed Boston bride. A fair specimen of the average pre-revolutionary dwelling is still preserved in the present Henry Williams home-house at Allen Betts' saw-mill. This house was built for Josiah, son of Moses St. John. The father deeded the lot, "three acres each side of mill- brook," to his son on Nov. 20, 1770, and as the son had recently married, (Dec. 27, 1768) it is probable that the house was built at that time, making, if so, its age to-day to be one hundred and twenty-six years. The lot was bounded on the west by the old-time Piatt land (now the Camp estate and Cornwall properties.) A little northeast of the building site rose a slight eminence, of which the existing road is a part, which eminence was sur- mounted by a work-shop. It is a handed-down mention that Tryon's men, who were en- gaged in action near by, might have destroyed the, at that time, new house had not their faggots given out. In Josiah and Mary ( Fitch ) St. John's day, the brook was quite a rivulet, and the old pair utilized it. Mrs. St. John was brought up in one of the most picturesque neighborhoods of early Norwalk (southeastern New Canaan) and she never overcame her birth-place love. In visiting her childhood home and in receiving visits from her birth-spot relations and friends, she appeared to take delight. In tea-pouring and tea- partaking she also found pure comfort. Her patriotic father-in-law, Moses St. John, who lived near by, remonstrated with her for her generous use, during the war, of the taxed beverage, claiming that she was thereby promoting the interests of the royal cause, but for 'Jacob Jennings, born Dec. 9, 1730, was a son of Isaac and Phoebe Jennings of Fairfield. He married Jan. 14, 1762, Grace, daughter of Isaac and Lydia Parker of Boston. Mrs. Jennings lost her parents in early life and was brought up by an uncle. She was a lady of culture, and a prized addition to Norwalk society. Her family was large, but she entertained her friends and found time to teach her children botany. She survived her husband, and finally died from the effects of an injury received in making a misstep on a lower stiarwav in her still standing Tryon-saved dwelling. Lucretia, sister of Jacob Jennings, married Henry Marquand of Fairfield, and was only about three