Norwalk

Thus. Hanford of Norwalk. Norwalk reported twen- tv-fonr estate holders in T654. The entire valuation at that time was £2309. The next year Norwalk sent in no returns, and was fined forty shillings. 4'1'he day after the Court sat Rk-h'd Olmstead, "it- was appointed Sergeant, and deputed to " exercise *' the Norwalk soldiers and to "examine their arms," etc. A " parade ground " was early laid out. NORWALK. 25 The tradition that the immigrants' driving their live-stock ahead and crossing at the fordable confluence2 of the salt water estuary and the fresh water stream known as the Saugatuck River, made their western way over the country to the vicinity of The Rocks, from which spot was first sighted the Xorwalk Valley, adown which, piloted perhaps by one who had previously gone over the route, or following an Indian's path,' they prospect- ingly proceeded until the plain " neare to the sea" (now East Xorwalk) was finally halted upon, seems reasonable and is possibly reliable. That little band was composed, for the most part, of men of simple tastes and simple traits and simple truthfulness, but of strong men nevertheless, because men of principle and purpose. It appears to have been their "plan" of settlement to concentrate at a convenient point. One idea of the "home-lot" was that of closeness and co-operation, while its general area-uniformity, (four acres) be- sides being a fair acreage-distribution of previously-cleared Indian land, may have implied the idea, also, of co-ordination. Unquestionably the one settlement-conviction regnant with the founders was that of community-compactness ; and yet, w hile this may be a just remark, as the Xorwalk tow n- plot was at first comprehended by its constituency, critical study is likely to discover that the eventual conclusions as to the magnitude of the territory embraced in the actual town- plot militated against the centralization theory. One does not get far along in one's perusal of Norwalk records before discovering the settlers "hither" tendencies, as shadowed in expressions similar to these : "the cart-path to Cranberry Plains," "the path to Soactuck," "my residence on Haynes' Ridge," "home-lot in Wilton Parish," " Bouton path to Smith s Ridge," "the Danbury Road," etc., before discovering how soon there were those among the Piatt's and Fitch's who removed to Chestnut Hill, and among the Hanford's who went to Xew Canaan, and the St. John's, Smith's and Keeler's to Ridgefield, and the Brown's to Salem, and the Barnum's, Benedict's and Hoyt's to Danbury. It may be fairly assumed that the planters' primitive project (see dotted limitations-line on Hall's map of Xorwalk) was in a measure so thwarted by the acreage temptation of the grant as to furnish one explanation of the town's cradle (East Norwalk) remaining for two hundred years scarcely more than an outlying district ; a singular exception in this particular of central growth to the sister settlements of New Haven, Fairfield and Stamford. 'These appear to have been well provided with oxen and carts. Someone says that in 1637 there were only five or fix carts in the colony. Norwalk, how- ever, in 1651, appears to have been well supplied with the article. One of the earliest pioneers to die, Rich- ard Seymour, made special bequeathment of his «c;. cart. Probably few horses, at the first, were brought to Norwalk. After a no long time, however, the number had so increased that the " horse-pound" was established, and provision made for "stray jades." »Westport upper bridge, 1896. Ludlow, ten years previously, and the Stamford pioneers before Lud- low's day, crossed the Saugatuck at, presumably, the present Cockcroft place, on Saugatuck river, (an- ciently Rocky-Neck.) The one lived in Fairfield, and the others went to Stamford from, it is probable, New Haven. The Norwalk pioneers, however, in coming from Hartford, would naturally take a some- what shorter route than from Hartford south to New Haven and thence west to Norwalk. Their travel- line, it is to be inferred, was more that ut the tri- angle's hypothenuse. 3A tradition as old almost as the Partrick family, was that Norwalk, at the time of its selllement, "was full of Indian trails." 26 N O RWALK. The founders had no sooner comprehended the situation than they distinguished the east and west sides of Xonvalk river as divisions one and two, and thus commenced their work of Xonvalk nomenclature. Their new home was not a cleared-up domain, but largely a wiklerness-tract. It is broached that their advent had been anticipated, but not so nu- merically as to have materially changed the existing state of things. Primitive conditions so confronted them that there is a sort of irony in the tradition-statement that their first days were passed in "the hollow."' The generous geography of the spot necessitated the immediate naming of its diverse localities. It is true that the grant itself had a native title,3 of the appropriateness and dignity of which its sons and daughters have occasion ever to be grateful and proud ; true, that its three rivers also, the '■ Nocwanton," the " Norwalke" and the "Soackuck" admirably bore their original appellations, and that the red man's "Xaramake," (Belden Point) " Runckingheage, (Roaton Hill) " Pampaskcshanke," (Roaton Hrook) " YVinnipauk," ( a ridge near the Oblong) " Mamachimons " and " Cockenoes," (Islands) were loyally acknowledged. This, however, was about the extent of the matter. Almost every other portion required to be designated. That there was the exhibition, less of poetry than of practicality in these designations, is evident ; and still, while the local cognomens : Campfield's Hill, Calf Pasture, Casa's Pond, Cold Spring, Cranberry Swamp, Duck Pond, Fitch's Point, Fort Point, Fruitful Spring, Gregory's Point, Hayncs' Ridge, Half- Mile Island, Haynes' Sw amp, Hungry Spring, Indian Brook, Indian Field, Oyster- Shell Point, Pine Hill, Ponasses Path, Stony Hill, Spruce Swamp, Stamford Path, Straw- berry Hill, The Ballast, The Coast-Banke, The Cove, The Heath, The Hithermost Plain, • Uela Si. John tradition. Hall, page 304. -Norwaake — legitimately Indian. Note 3, page 5. Conceding that the meridians of an extant map, (Hol- ton's) which shmvs the aboriginal occupation in 1609, of Norwalk, arc correctlv indicated, a line drawn twciuv-five miles due east from the ancient New York Wall Street bastion, and from thence the same dis- tance north, would cut the inland-; in Long Island S'nind put down in the year 1640 as " neare " the ri\ er of " Noruake." Norwake, (waake. walke or wak) is. beyond successful gainsay, the original Indian designation of that " fertile wheat country" (vide Dr. Morse'- Eighteenth Century American (ia/eteerj which, lying between the "Noewanton' and the "Norwalke," and the "Norwalke" and *' Sauga- tuck " rivers, is flanked and backed by a parted prong of (see YVoodbridge and Willard's Gengraphv) the ( 1 re en Mountains. To the undulating valley lying within these cleft semi-highlands, the designation " Chichester " would, *lu the [Mx.-e~.iim of the Rev. William J. sh.cnra, pastor In ■ V* of M.Mary-. Church, N.-rwalk, and loaned by him at the exhibition of Norwalk relics in iS^f. f A ■Chich,-.itr Inn" U alluded 1.1 in old Norwalk Land lli-^i-cer-. from an old map* seem also to have at one time been applied. A> a family patronymic, this term anciently obtained in this vicinity. t Still, looking elsewhere for a possible explanation of its appearance, the re- mark may be ventured that as, according to Camden, Chester is derived from the Latin Castrum, a citadel, and that as (see Appleton's Encyclopedia, old series) Cissanceaster, the name of an important citadel, is a corruption of Chichester, it may be argued that the descriptive Chichester signifies a fort or forts. The pioneers of Norwalk came to a section to which the resident savages had been driven from other localities by outnumbering forces, with whom " might makes right" was a governing principle. Here, for the purpose of self-defence, the weaker partv threw up the fortification (or a series of Indian castles}) at " Fort Hovnt," upon the level east from which the founders' first dwellings were erected. Which fact, it is not, perhaps, entirely unreasonable to suggest, may account for Nor walk's old-time tentative cogno- men of Chichester. (O'Calliffhan, in describing one of these Indian fortresses some miles wesi from Norwalk, states that they " were built of ti\ 1- inch plank, nine feet high, hound around with thick beams, and studded With port-holeS." The old Norwalk fort is to-day supplanted by the t"i msnlidated road's bridge improvement. NOR W A L K 27 The Neck, The Pasture, The Pease, The Plantinge, The Rocks, The Water-Glen, Toilsome, might have, to some extent, been lacking in speech- elegance, yet were they models of natural exactness, and a few of them of natural eloquence ; which statement holds true when this naming system is followed down somewhat.