Norwalk

As this good woman was about to sit at her supper-table on the evening of Jan. 13, 1840, she observed that her cottage walls were red from lurid gleams which entered the southwest window-panes. Springing to the door her eye caught, from over Mamachimons Island, the reflections from the burning steamboat Lexington. The wind was blowing freshly from the west. The weather was intensely cold, but while the Norwalk and New York steamboat was ice-locked at Old Well, (South Norwalk) yet was the bay off Half- Mile Isle as unobstructed as in summer. There was a small boat at the island, and the first thought was to launch it, but the craft w as unrigged and in winter quarters, and so out of service. The burning steamer, as watched from the island, threw such brilliant flames upward that, when off Goose Island, the machinery was plainly seen. There was a strong ebb tide, and, as it appeared from Half-Mile Island, the Lexington sank when about abreast of Old Field Point. Half-Mile Island remained largely in the possession of the Gregory's (old Mrs. Gregory's son. Charles E., lived at the west end) for many years. On Jan. 15, 1873, Louisa Byxbee sold a portion of it to Woodbury G. Langdon, and six days afterward Mr. Lang- don bought another section of the island from Charles W. and Wm. H. Hoyt. On Feb. I , 1873, Nancy Gregory, (widow of Charles E. and daughter-in-law of '•grandmother" Gregory) who had, through different vicissitudes, for a series of years, possessed her water- side half-acre home (now the site of the Langdon gate-house), disposed of it to Mr. Lang- don, and on the 7th day of the same month James Mitchell sold the balance of the property, for several thousand dollars, to the same new proprietor. Mr. Langdon non- built his summer villa and laid out its beautiful lawn, where Elijah Gregory once raised his corn which attained the height of fourteen feet, and a few rods south of one of the most prolific peach patches of the olden "down town." Mr. Langdon increased his Norwalk acreage by the purchase, May 8, 1874, from L'has. W. and Wm. H. Hoyt, of Sprites Island, and on June 15, 1874, from Henry A. Smith. <»f Campfield's Islands thirty-four acres, and Aug. 20, 1874, of Calf Pasture Island, and April 16, 1X75. of Goose Island. Campfield's Island, in the immediate vicinity of Half-Mile Island, and separated from it by Campfield Creek, rightly bears the name of its early proprietor, the only Norwalk set- tler who had the honor of being a Connecticut charterer, and whose remains now, it is supposed, rest beneath one of the public buildings in the city of Newark, N J The town granted the island to Matthew Campfield soon after he came to Norwalk. Its owner removed to New Jersey and made over his Norwalk property to his son Samuel. In March, ,672, Samuel Campfield sold a part of the island to Ephraim Lockwood, who. just before he died m , 685. deeded ,t to his son James, great-grandfather of Chancellor James Kent. A well- defined turf-divided road traversed the island 1 , , ,. , r , aversea tne island, and paymg crops have there been secured. A de hghtfu, use to which the same was formerly put was that of an annual after-harvest ..c,a. gathenng-ground for the old ..down town" (East Norwalk) fathers, mothers and NORWALK. 53 children. The island, one day in the year, was alive with numbers, vocal with cheer, and spread with laden tables, the memory of which is one of the happiest of Norwalk remin- iscenses. In high summer and at full moon and full sea Campfield's Grove was a fascinating spot. It forms to-day a part of the Langdon Marina, being connected by a bridge with Half-Mile Island. From Campfield's Island a small creek led to Stephen's Island, which was not dis- tant from the main land. Here, for some time, lived the parent, a silver-craftsman, of the late Alfred Jackson of Norwalk, and his brother Le Grand, now the Wall Street jeweler. East of Campfield's Island skirted a coast-line to the extreme southeast point of the Ludlow purchase. This line has been broken in modern days by the Westport ship canal, built years ago by the U. S. Government, under contract with Silas Meeker of Norwalk, which canal is the site of the Norwalk pioneers "hithermost wading place" at Great Marsh, to which Elbow Creek was the entrance. Between the canal and Campfield's Island was a small creek (Smith's Beach Creek) which connected Campfield's Island and Stephen's Island creeks. Above the southeast point (Bluff's Point) of the coast line under descrip- tion, the land retreated westerly so as to form a bay in Saugatuck harbor, the sides of which were known as Saugatuck Playne. The plain attracted the attention of the first planters of Norwalk, and after their day of the Harson's, of Manhattanville, N. Y., who there landed (while cruising through the Sound) and built and remained. This property was that of the present Enos's and Ketchum's. In earlier times the descendants of Joseph Ketchum, the Norwalk pioneer, possessed the river-bordered Saugatuck Playne, and the Ketchum children from the " N. Y. province-line vicinity" (northwest New Canaan) there fished and frolicked. Later still, the New York City Harvey's and the Dana's of the New York S//ir, passed the summer season at that bay side, above which rose Rocky Neck, now the Cockcroft place, hard by which last locality was the Indian meadow, named for Mam- achimon, and the Disbrow ferry, across what, in 1 704, a distinguished traveler called a •'difficult river" (the Saugatuck). To the north of Rocky Neck, and along the west bank of the Saugatuck, was a beautiful river side as far up as the mouth of Stony Creek, and even beyond, to what may justly be denominated Fatherford, the settlers Saugatuck crossing place in 1650. THE PARTRICK PURCHASE COAST-DIVISION. Beginning at the head of Norwalk river, the "ship-yard" was the first locality, an- ciently, of note in the west or Partrick section of Norwalk. This yard was a little below "Kecler's Hollow," and somewhere near the present freight depot of the Danbury and Norwalk R. R. It originated, probably, in the days of the Whitney milling enterprise, and there is record of the building of water-craft thereat down as late as Ebenezer Hoyt's day. The wharf (next that of the 1896 Leonard coal yard) was built in the fall of 1796, a season "most remarkable for drought and clear cold till long in winter." "Tinker's NORWALK. Point" lay next below, a stretch of salt meadow filling the intervening area. Pine Island has always been a prominent west coast elevation. Here, in more modern times, was a ship-yard. Below Pine Island (a favorite bathing place in late years) the coast was in- dented by Rusco Creek. This was formerly a small estuary of some importance. Its head (west of 1896 corset factory) was selected by Eliakim Smith, Sr., of Hadley, for a home- site, and here the Norvvalk ancestors of the many Smiths of his line were born. His first house was consumed in 1779. but the building that supplanted it still stands.' South of the mouth of Rusco Creek was "Liberty Point," the site in old time of Norwalk's first pottery, and to-day of Messrs. Hatch, Bailey & Co.'s planing establishment. The ancient "ferry" place, on "The Stamford and Fairfield Path," was immediately below, if not partly inclusive of, the Norwalk Iron Works dock property of 1896. Later than its ferry use, this spot was a favorite wading and water sporting place for the Old Well children. The strip lay between Marshall and Sun (now Washington) streets. Both these streets evidently took their old names from two of the first steamboats that plyed between Norwalk and New York (see article entitled "Ancient Norwalk Commerce.") A few rods south of this miniature Partrick bay was dug the famous "old well," which gave to that section of the town its former and familiar name. The fathers' old well, quite similar in the particulars of situation and source, to the Moses Rogers well at Shippan Point, was so fed by distant streams as that its waters remained fresh and pure, notwithstanding the spring's proximity to the sea. A coast strip, upon which was a ship-yard, and below the ship-yard a strip of salt meadow, now lined the west shore as far as Barren Marsh2 (opposite Gregory's Point) and Judah (Peach) Island. A small stream here set innerward and wound southwesterly toward the rear of Bouton (now Keyser) Island. Near the head 'This venerable building, the residence to-day at [5 Ann St., of Nehemiah Brown, was raised on Sat- urday, April 23, 17SS. Its predecessor was burned July 11, 1779. The interval of nine years was partly or wholly spent by the family in Wilton, perhaps, as they thence removed at the date of the town's des- truction. Eliakim Smith, Sr. died some eight years before Tryon's visit, (Feb. 11, 1771,) but his son, Elia- kim, Jr., born Dec. 25. 1734, succeeded to the owner- ship of the family bible, which, formerly lost, has been in late years singularly found on the shelves of the New York Bible Society. This bible, of interest to the Norwalk Smiths, was printed " in 1634 by Robt. Barker, cum priveligie." The bible record is thus introduced : " This Book was 100 years old that year the subscriber was born; Eliakim Smith, Jr., born Dec. 25, 1734, of Norwalk in Connecticut, New Eng- land; who died Feb. 11, 1819." Among the bible's fly leaf mentions are (per Eliakim Smith, Jr.,) "Nor- walk burnt tl July J779and ye winter following most s( vere in y« fore part and ye summer following very- dry. " "1811, Oct. 11, the highest tide ever known in Norwalk." " i8t5 then a tide two feet higher than any before that time; up to my house (standing in Ann Street, South Norwalk, 1896) and in cellar."