Norwalk

yond the former's home. " Captain, what's to pay," inquired Mr. Nash after ten miles riding. "O noth- ing," replied the Captain, " I have had your com- pany." "And I have had yours," was the grateful good-bve of the New Knglander, who, as the day was bright and the snow clean, plodded on. He arrived at Stamford soon after sundown, pressed on, pass- ing through Norwalk about nine o'clock, and entered his own house (now the home of his grandson IJoyd Nash) in Westport, as the clock was striking ten. This remarkable man was the grandfather of Hon. Daniel Nash Morgan, the present Treasurer of the United States. "It was not altogether without reason that Phoebe Bouton (Mrs. Eliakim Warren) expressed from a Hudson River vessel's deck to a Norwalk kinswoman- the desire that the new St. Paul's, Troy, N. Y., (cor. Third and Congress Streets,) might be patterned after the mother Norwalk church, as indeed in size, shape and style, it quite resembled it. 58 NORWALK. From the head of Pampaskashanke the Partrick- purchase Coast-Division followed the water line to the pioneers Roaton Poynt, (southeast rocky extremity, at this time, of Bell Island,) and winding to the west, embraced the present Bell Island shore, Pine Ledge and Roton Point, ending (after crossing the mouth of the Indian " Xoewanton " of early Norwalk time) at Butler s (Contentment) Island, which is now laved, on the east, by the sparkling Row.ilton. NORWALK FRESH WATER SYSTEM. That it was a " land of brooks of water that spring out of valleys and hills," was a commendation to the fathers of the territory known to them under the Indian name of Norwake. The whole region was well watered, and portions of it quite exceptionally so; a fact that determined certain settlement-sites.' That Wilton should originate at Pimpe- waugh is thus easily comprehended, and that Silver Mine should have been such an early suburb is now a matter of no more difficult solution. It is mentioned that the springs west and northwest of Smith's Ridge2 gave rise to habitations along the "Government line," and its handsome water sheets early attracted attention to The Oblong.3 The Saugatuck, Norwalk and Five Mile rivers all lay within the bounds of the ancient plantation, the thither side of the first and last of which streams having been owned and occupied by the Norwalk " proprietors." The Norwalk and Saugatuck rivers seem to part from their parent source near the Ridgefield southeasterly and Redding west- erning boundaries. The Saugatuck skirted, if not entered, the 1650- 1700 Norwalk limits to the east of Poplar Plains From thence it flowed southeasterly to the sea, being con- trolled, on both sides, as it reached its mouth, by the Norwalk fathers. The Norwalk river had two, so-called, branches, known in the early times as the east and west branches, which met, where they meet to-day, at Broad River. The east branch is, properly, Nor- walk river itself. The west branch, flowing through Silver Mine, headed in reality where heads the east branch, not far from the southern base of Ridgefield Street. Its recorded 'The fathers exhibited a propensity to found hab- itations along water-courses. -The very depths of Luke's %voods were, for this reason, Keeler-appropriated, and its pure water sup- ply suggested the Sui onion Warren house-site in said woods' vicinity in northwestern New Canaan. Be- tween Smith and Canaan ridges, and somewhat south of the present New York State line, is a perpetual or his son, pitched beside one of them, about one- half mile south of Trinity Lake, and another of rare purity bubbled up in the New Canaan Aaron Miller meadow of the present day. It has been wondered why the proprietors built in some cases near swamps. Wells were not always dug, but the water was taken from springs, hence priug accessibility was a desideratun spring, once deemed medicinal, which is now the i iTrinitv r ,1 ' r 1 v u > ji , . , ' lu" tlle I -Urinitv Lake, Lake Kitchawan, (Cross pond) l,u„li l\t flip V ,.„■ i „n..iin ,.-.,1.... ... head of the New Canaan water-works reservoir. It waters, from the days of the Indian occupancy of Mount Misery.* to the present time, haye been re- markable for their clarity. There seemed to he a belt of such springs in this local latitude. Heckett, and the three Waccabucs, are fine sheets of water. Near the first-named of these waters, some of the best grain in the whole Norwalk region was once grown, and near the second is the grand-view sum- mer home site of the Crafts family of Boston. »>1 at the „pp,.r „,j of Canaan Ridee. NORWALK 59 head was at Michael Lockwood, Jr's. mill,' on the road leading, in 1896, from Bald Hill to Vista, which branch to-day is crossed by "Hop-Meadow Bridge," on the Ridgefield road above North Wilton. Another feeder to Norwalk river was the present Westchester stream which runs into the upper reservoir of the Norwalk water-works. This reservoir is sup- plied largely by springs lying, perhaps entirely, within the State of New York, but it has two distinct running supplies. In a swamp close to the State line, two miles southwest of Ridgefield, rises a brooklet which, flowing southward, passes to the east of the late Martin A. Hanford Lewisboro' farm, and enters, within a few furlongs, the northmost Norwalk reservoir. "Pike Pond," west, in 1896, of the Lewisboro' post-office, of spring origin, crosses the New Canaan and Salem highway about a half-mile above "Hayes' corner," creates the present C. A. Raymond mill-pond, and bridged by the New Canaan and Ridge- field highway at the foot of Harvey Hoyt's hill, empties, a short distance to the east, into the reservoir alluded to. In this stream, and at a little distance from said reservoir, were formerly immersed members of the Baptist persuasion in that part of the "Oblong." Five Mile river begins in the wet lands2 immediately over the Connecticut and New York State line, at Vista. It courses through a portion of the Samuel Comstock farm, and through the "Pequot Mills" woods, when, supplying the old Bouton Hoyt mill-pond, southeast of Haynes' Ridge in New Canaan, and lower down the Justus Hoyt pond, and winding east of the New Canaan street down through White Oak Shade and West Norwalk (where it is mill-utilized), finds its way finally to Rowayton and then to the Sound. Lake Siscowitz, (Warren Lake) in the northwestern part of the New Canaan of 1896, and the recent purchase for a Stamford surplus water supply, was one of ancient Norwalk's natural water-basins. It is fed by springs and streams found largely in The Oblong. Its southern precincts are to-day picturesque, but were of yore even more wild because of their remarkable tree-growth. In proximity to this water stood the wigwam of one of the trio of semi-chieftains, of which the red Heckett was, presumably, a member. Said brethren, as was the case with their fathers before them, appear to have been friendly with the English, and their portion of earlier Norwalk, on account of the hunting and fish- ing thereat, was a sort of sportsman's haunt. Trinity Lake lay to the northwest, and its •Michael Lockwood was the grandfather of the late Carmi, and the great-grandfather of the present Edward K. Lockwood. He, in the later years of the 18th century, planted a mill industry at the highest point on the west branch of the Norwalk river, and the identical spot is put to the same use to-day. Said point is about one mile northwest of Bald Mountain, Wilton, and adjoins the New York State line. Mi- chael Lockwood Ist- had a son Michael 2d-, who, after his marriage, established himself on the same stream, somewhat below his father's old mill. The mother of Michael now a widow, helped her son on in his enterprise at "The Forge," so-called, and took up her residence with him. In addition to bis iron works at this point, Michael 2d- carried on brick-kiln operations. Still further south, at the head of the present Grupe reservoir, Michael Lockwood ->i- built and ran a saw-mill. This last mill fell, finally, to Qitrmi, son of Michael who was there associated in cloth milling with Curtis Finch. Mr. Finch after- ward converted the woolen into a saw-mill. 2A rock close by these lands is the point at which the lines of three towns (New Canaan, Lewisboro' and Pound Ridge) and of two counties (Fairfield and Westchester) and two States (Connecticut and New York) and two national divisions (New England and the Middle States) meet. 6o NORWALK. banks were subdued, several quarter centuries since, by the Five Mile River Raymond family. Acres of land around this lake were Raymond-planted, and wheat there grew so luxuriantly that the owners employed as many as live men, whose duty it was to watch the grain at that stage in its growth when the tender plant was a temptation to the deer which fairly infested the Oblong confines of Norwalk at that time. One of these watchers was a Slauson, (believed to be Nathan) who built his home a short distance south of the lake, on the present road to New Canaan. A son of one of the red men last referred to, taught Mr, Slauson the art of tanning the decrs' hide, and as the latter was an apt pupil, he soon acquired the knowledge necessary to enable him to make a suit of deer-skin, in which he was proudly married in the ancient Congregational Church in New Canaan. Deer so abounded in that day in northern Norwalk as that bear-hunting became a pastime. The bear was the enemy of the deer, and the settlers, consequently, were that animal's foe. There were two principal " mill brooks," distinguished as such by the earliest comers. The older of the two flowed from Strawberry Hill, and was increased by a brook that took its rise in Thomas Hanford's upland, now the rear of the F. St. John Lockwood resid- ence. This was the stream, at certain seasons considerably swollen but at other times hardly more than a meadow-brook, that failed to meet Norwalk's first milling demand.