Norwalk

Mill Brook Xo. 2 (Brook b', including Beaver Brook) was only a few miles long, but its source, and a goodly portion of its length, lay in early days in such a wooded and therefore drought-deterring district, that it occasionally emerged in torrent volumes into Norwalk river east of the Stephen St. John drug store, (its site the western end of the Phcenix Block of to-day.) Mill Brook No. 2, forming a basin below the Hazel Plain, (rear of the Newtown Avenue residences of Albert Betts and St. John Merrill,) fed from early times a mill-wheel at the foot of Cider Mill Lane, (leading in 1896 from North Center SchooWiousu to Allen Betts' saw-mill,) and has long been mill-used. Tributary to it was a small brooklet from the direction of the Northeast School District that crossed the -cart path to Cranberry Plains," a little north of the residence of the late Judge Stephen Smith.' The " Lockwood well," contiguous to, if not a contingency of Mill Brook, No. 2, and which stood in the lot (now Ouintard Block) opposite said St. John's store, was reput- able for its water supply and sweetness. So full of short staddles, one-hundred-and-twen- ty years ago, was that portion of this brook's valley lying immediately north of St. Paul's Church, that a "Pudding Lane" youth therein and thereabouts, for three days eluded pursuit ; and yet so susceptible of cultivation has that same staddie-vale proven, that in 1825, the finest of Norwalk fruit was there grown. North Brook under-runs the Westport road, at the foot of the Ebenezer Church home-land. Close to it stood, prior to the Revolution, the hat-shop of Ebenezer Church - ■See bottom note, page 36. 'NVar-hv was the well known old-time Beaver dam which stood, evidently, not far from the Stephen Smith hat shop, on the cross road between the pres- ent Newtown and Blue Mountain Avenues. It i= re- membered to this dav. NORWALK. 6 Here, tradition claims, the wife of Gov. Fitch, who was aunt by marriage to Susannah,1 the first wife of Ebenezer Church, lat- found shelter, immediately after the burning of Nor- walk, in 1779. Stony Brook may properly be said to rise in the Olmstead Cranberry Plains swamp, north or northwest of the present residence of Silas Olmstead. It is difficult, however, to exactly place the source of this brook, as it is augmented by a stream, sometimes of large volume, which, starting at Chestnut Hill above the Hiram Nash corner of 1896, and thence flowing near the lower down Burwell Gregory home, crosses the Chestnut Hill and Cran- berry Plains roads somewhat below the foot of said hill, making its southeasterly way to Stony Creek proper, when the united streams flow together to the Saugatuck river, into which they empty at a point, west side, some distance below the main bridge at Westport. This stream furnishes the present Nash mill with water power. The spring water on Benedict's (now Armory) hill, is appropriated to-day by Mrs. Charles D. Matthews of West Avenue. Her residence (built by Le Grand Lockwood) is water- supplied from this excellent fountain. Hungry Spring, to-day covered by Seymour Place and immediately north of the residence of Henry Seymour, was a notable spring in old times. Shovel Hill brook formerly poured quite a large quantity of water from the height known by that name (Cedar Street of 1896) into the small creek that found its outlet at Pine Island. The hat manufactory of the brothers Geo. W. and Wm. H. Benedict stood along that stream. Before that time, in the days of James Seymour,2 it was Indian traversed. There would seem to have been Indian quarters near the hill's summit. Campfield Pond was somewhere near the site of the Seymour nursery of a few years ago. It seems to have lain northwesterly of the Consolidated road's (1896) newly built South Norwalk passenger stations. It probably took its name from Campfield Hill, in its neighborhood, and was called for Samuel, son of Matthew Campfield, the settler. The "Old Well," near the present South Norwalk steamboat dock, is alluded to on page 54. As sweet and silvery water even as that of Kitchawan's Springs, probably, was found on the crest of Flax Hill. Particular mention of the splendid orchards of said hill ■She was one of the several daughter of Samuel to the Seymour kitchen. One of these red sons, as Fitch, son of Thomas, and brother of Gov. Thomas Mr. Seymour was accustomed to relate to his child- Fitch, ren, entered on one occasion his kitchen, and whilst 2Mr. Seymour built and occupied, on the east side attendants chanced for the moment to be elsewhere, of West Avenue, and toward the southern end of the took a meal pudding from a vessel of boiling water, present Matthews property. His house, known fifty and concealing it under his blanket, promptly started or sixty years ago as the llotchkiss house, was one for home. The proprietor had witnessed the man- l'<n- " the entertainment of strangers," and sometimes ceuvre, and gave pursuit. He overtook the purloiner the meadows near it (now a section of the Matthews on Shovel Hill, and feigning affection, closely em- lawn) would he filled with cattle which, under the braced him. This, however, because of the meal's care of "drovers," were there transiently quartered. | caloric, became so oppressive that " the last of the The Indians, a remaining fraction-clan, resident in the Mohicans " was compelled to decline that particular 1X96 Hull Run proximity, evidently knew their way species of friendship-warmth. 62 NORWALK. was made by the late Edward St. John, of Cornwall-on-Hudson, and another departed lover of old Norwalk referred fondly to that same heights' crystal water in the days when for Norwalk youth and beauty to go a-violeting, a-butter-cuping, a May-appling, and later a-hazel-nutting and a-black-berrying, was not the faded picture that it is to-day. There were two "Captain's Springs" in old time, one near "deacon Hayt's house," and another, named for Captain Keeler, and located west of his mill-pond (Union Manu- facturing Co. site) on or near Spring Hill, which hill, because of its "circling ripples," was properly designated. Silver Mine Spring, medicinally celebrated, lay in Silver Mine, and Cheese Spring somewhat further north. There may have been two " George's " springs, one at Rocky Neck (Saugatuck river) and the other at, possibly, "George's Hill on the west side of the river." " Rock and Rockie" springs were, possibly, one and the same. There were two "Cold Springs." No. I stood on the present West Avenue Mat- thews premises, while from an incidental reference in vol. v, Norwalk Town Records, of the Cold Spring of 1728, it is inferred that this was the same fount that Moore & Durham (contractors in 1848 under Bishop & Miller for the construction of a Norwalk section of the New York and New Haven R. R.) found in the " Kellogg Swamp cut " between Nor- walk and Westport. This spring, if not obliterated, seems now to lose its " cooling draughts" along the same road's enlarged bed of [896. Fruitful Spring, "behind Pine Hill,"' was one of the pioneers' best known water- wells. Like " y" old well,"' and the Rogers Shippan Point spring, it lay close to the salt water, but singularly unlike the other two, its specific gravity was such that, at times, it floated salt water. As far back as the days of Thomas, son of Richard Seymour, the set- tler, it was evidently a coveted treasure. Its later seaside neighbors would fill their small boats with firkins wherein to carry away the beverage. It took its name, so it is claimed, from the fact that its surface, in past time, would often be covered by the fruit of a beach 'Pine Hill, seat to-day, at its northern and south- break oil for dinner. As, therefore, the ray of verti- ern extremities, of the Keyser, Staples and Marvin 1 cal sunlight striking the notch cut in the door-sill or lirothers residences was, in all probabilitv, the pro- prietors' sirs dial. It unquestionably derived its primal name from its native pine or cedar features, but as the expressive cognomen " noon," was also applied to it, and that of "behind noon " to its rear vicinitv. the only reconcilable theory in relation to stoop-fioor at home, intimated that noon had come, so the vertical shade of Pine Hill told the " down in the neck " watcher and worker that 12 o'clock had arrived. This lends an archaic interest to a spot, the modern site and salubrity advantages of which are, with difficulty, exaggerated. this second appellation is, that in the Founders' By reason of its soil's grain-adaptation, the Sau- . lays, when time-pieces were scarce, the shadows of j gatuck ancestors of the present Marvin Bros., pur- the pines, cast straight down, indicated meridian. chased and worked the southern slope of Pine Hill. 1 here were no mails to close or banks to shut or trains \ This arable stretch (between the residences of the two to catch and on these accounts, consequently, there brethren named) has always kept its grain productive Be -tn°„ T' TT*\ ieVCvi T 1 Sti"' SU'Phen "P""10"- Jading handsome returns to-day. Salub- ^ and m-n I 1 7 ?% riShtI* Pi"e Hi» is Merest-historic « — and Loeo ha^r e'd td ht^ d" n eL "p' " T 1", *d"» * ™*~ « «»»'' prised of the hour at which to c'a \n he " erd V r T e Z JZ^" ^ ^ * ^ ^ NORWALK 63 grove, a portion of which overhung it. The interesting settlement-memento remains to be visited to-day. The middle section Strawberry Hill springs, unquestionably, were the heads of Mill-Brook Xo. I . The Jabez Gregory spring has deserved reference in another connection in this work. The spring in "Rattle Snake- pasture lot," (Sticky Plain road, head of Harriet Street,) was probably the source of the stream that formerly coursed near the present Union Ceme- tery, forming, partially, the "Captain Lamb pond," and discharged itself in Norwalk river. Darrow's pond has no visible inlet or outlet. It is in the rear of the Treadwell and McLean North Avenue residences of 1896.