Norwalk After Two Hundred & Fifty Years

ORRIS SANFORD FERRY, son of Starr Ferry, was born in Bethel, August 15th, 1823; graduated at Yale College in 1844 > studied law in the offices of Hon. Thomas B. Osborne at Fairfield and Hon. Thomas B. Butler at Norvvalk ; was admitted to the bar in 1846 and began practice in Norwalk, where he always afterwards resided. In 1849-50 he was Judge of Probate for the District of Norwalk ; in 1855 and 1856 he represented the 1 2th District in the State Senate, and was chairman of the Judiciary Committee; and from 1856 to 1859 he was State's Attorney for the County of Fairfield. From 1859 to 1861 he represented the 4th District in Congress. On the breaking out of the Civil War he was appointed Colonel of the 5th Regiment, Connecticut Volunteers ; in the following year was made brigadier general, served in that capacity through the war, and was brevetted major general for meritorious services. He returned to the practice of law in 1865, was elected United States Senator in 1866 and re-elected in 1872. He died while Senator, November 21, 1875. Soon after his admission to the bar he married Charlotte C. Bissell, daughter of Col. Clark Bissell, who with one daughter, Mary Bissell Ferry, survives. His home in his later years was on East Avenue, in the house built by himself. He was a man of vigorous intellect, an able lawyer, and an orator of great power, at the bar, in the Senate, and before popular assemblies. He had, in a remarkable degree, the "clear- ness, force and earnestness." which according to Webster are the qualities that produce conviction ; and with his manifest sincerity and high personal character, exercised a wide influence among his acquaintance in the commun- ity where he lived, and in the national councils. NELSON TAYLOR was born in South Norwalk, June 8th, 182 1, and died there January 16th, 1894. 285 When a young lad, he removed with his parents to New York City. In the Mexican War he was a captain of Volunteers, and was sent with his command to California. He remained there several years after the close of the war, engaged in business and accumulated a handsome for- tune. He then returned East, studied law and was admitted to the New York bar. In the war of 1861 he again volunteered, was Colonel of a New York Regi- ment, and in 1862 was promoted to brigadier general. After the war he served one term as representative in Congress from New York City. In 1867 he returned to South Norwalk and engaged in the practice of law, having for several years as a partner his son Nelson Tay- lor, Jr. Gen. Taylor was a public-spirited citizen, served as a selectman of the town of Norwalk and held other important local offices. JOSEPH FORWARD FOOTE was born in South- wick, Mass., in 1828; graduated with high honors at Yale College in 1850; studied law at Norwich with Hon. Lafayette S. Foster and at Norwalk with Hon. Orris S. Ferry ; was admitted to the bar in 1853, and practiced law in Norwalk until his death, which occurred Decem- ber 5th, 1883. He was Executive Secretary under Gov. Minor in 1855 and 1856. He practiced but little in the courts. He was for many years the justice of the peace before whom most of the justice cases, civil and criminal, were tried, for several years one of the selectmen of Nor- walk, and held numerous other positions of trust. He married Jennie Middlebrook, daughter of George B. Middlebrook, Esq., but left no children. JOSEPH WARREN WILSON was born in 1827 at Natick, Massachusetts ; graduated at Yale College in 1854; taught for a time at the Collegiate and Commer- cial Institute in New Haven ; studied law in the office of Josiah M. Carter, Esq., in Norwalk, and was admitted to the bar in 1857. He went to Minneapolis, Minnesota, with a view of settling there, but soon returned to Nor- walk and became a partner of Mr. Carter. He was for many years an active and leading member of the Board of School Visitors, and held various other local offices. He married Miss Julia Phelps of New Haven and left two surviving sons, one of whom is Robert G. Wilson. He died February 26, 1887. In addition to the above, Roger Minot Sherman, afterwards of Fairfield ; David C. Sanford, afterwards of New Milford, and Sidney Burr Beardsley, afterwards of Bridgeport, all of whom were eminent at the bar and sub- sequently judges of the Supreme Court of Errors, prac- ticed for a time in Norwalk ; Israel M. Bullock, who rep- resented Nor walk in the General Assembly in 1869^, and in the same year removed to Bridgeport, where he had a successful career, ended too soon by death ; Lewis F. Beers, who was representative in the General Assembly in 1871, and died early in 1872; George R. Cowles, who was a member of the bar, but devoted his life to business pursuits, represented the town four successive years in the legislature, and died, much respected, in 1897. From Wilton may be named Charles Jones and Samuel Jones, brothers, prominent members of the New York bar, and doubtless others of equal rank. 287 SOME OLD HOUSES IN NORWALK By Angelme Scott. LTHOUGH Norwalk is two hundred and fifty years old, we may look in vain for picturesque relics of its first hun- dred years in the shape of quaint buildings such as exist in some Massa- chusetts towns of similar age. Every- thing of that period is gone. General Tryon did much, in his historic raid, towards obliterating earliest Norwalk, and our spirit of modern progress has carried on the work until there is almost nothing left of ante- Revolutionary Norwalk. There is no evidence to show that any of the one hundred and thirty-five houses burned by Tryon in 1779 had any architectural pretensions. Even the inhabitants of substantial fortunes for the times, and aristocratic con- nections, contented themselves with homes of the comfortable farmhouse type, with plain gabled roofs, shingled sides and a low, sloping lean-to at the rear or side of the main building. The doorways, often supplied with the Dutch doors opening in half, opened directly on a broad, rough-hewn stone step, as a rule, while a few houses had small porches supported by simple pillars, with narrow seats on either side. The well is often the last vestige of an old homestead. You will notice every- where in the country that buildings and gardens and fences and dooryard trees disappear from a homestead before the well of the "Old Oaken Bucket" gives way. In East Norwalk, in the lot next the railroad track, is one of the old wells ; that of the Rev. Thomas Hanford, first minister of the old First Church, and for forty years a leader in town affairs. Here, in Revolutionary days, lived Hezekiah Hanford, the soldier father of Grace Han- ford who married Capt. Hezekiah Betts. The quaint little gray house on the corner of Fitch street, whose yard is gay with phlox and tiger-lilies in midsummer, was built by Josiah Hanford Fitch. He subsequently removed to the Prowitt house across the way, which was built for Mr. Fitch early in the century. The site is that of the original Marvin home-lot "the one nearest the meeting house." Founder's Stone, Bast Avenue. Lieut. Samuel Marvin Mouse. Fitch Street. Fountain Smith's Farm, East Norwalk. ^OuU'Vv^vV^ SA -j}jA VtfV^- \+-L»* CtX></ Fitch's Point. Gov. Thomas Fitch House, East Avenue. }■■%) * vi ■ *?■ .- "j| **-»vy^-if>^ -l[ u"Wf-!»«i«nw ^m*,^ J^MPMmh ■>.—-.. Home of " Vankee Doodle. ( ; rumman 's I I il !. Pausing by the founders' stone, we can see two interesting houses on Fitch street. On our right is a house built by James Fitch, 3d, just after the Revolution. He was a grand nephew of Gov. Thomas Fitch, a soldier of the Revolution and a man of means and influence. Quite a notable old house commands the head of the street where the old Fairfield Path joins Fitch Point Path. It was built by Lieut. Samuel Marvin, on the home-lot of one of the first settlers, Thomas Barnum. The„schoolhouse under the elms is, perhaps, not vener- able in age, but it is a relic of the days of the district school and the three Rs in Norwalk, and as such is cer- tainly picturesque. Of course we shall find no Revolu- tionary houses on East avenue, although the lots are all historic sites, because this was the highway down which Tryon's troops marched to Fitch's Point in 1779, and not a house escaped the torch of destruction on their way. After the war the Government made restitution to the sufferers from the fire in grants of land in the Connecticut Western Reserve in Ohio, known in Connecticut history as the "Sufferers' Lands," a half million acres being dis- posed of in this way. An inventory of Fountain Smith's losses by Tryon's raid serves to show the contents of a house of that period. Probably it is a typical list except- ing the material for making barrels, Fountain Smith being a cooper. FOUNTAIN SMITHS LOSS BY BURNING OF NOR- WALK, JULY YE 11, 1776. £ s. d. One house 28 by 26 one story and a half well finished below 65 o o One shop 20 feat by 18 wide finished 4 10 o Two loads of good English hay two tun 4 10 o One chest of curld Maple Draws 2 o o Two square Table one Walnut and one White Wove 100 Eight Black Chears part Worn 0 16 o One Brass Cittle of 30 We 1 10 o One Large Pott Iron about 4 Gallons 012 o One Large Iron Cittle about 2 Gallons o 6 o One pair of Styllards o 3 o One Frying Pan o 6 o One Small Looking Glass 010 o Two good new corn baskets o 4 o Two good Dutch Whealls at 15 per peas 1 10 o One Reall o 4 o One Large Reall o 6 o Two beadsteads and 2 cords at 10 o 12 o Two puter plates and 2 porringers . .-- 0 4 0 One dozen of Spoons o 2 o Two Wooden Beds o 12 o Two good pillows filled with Feathers o 8 o One Iron Ladel o 3 o One Brass Skimmer o 4 o Six Butter Tubs at 3 pr. peas 018 o One Hundred weight of fish 019 o Three Pork Barrels at 012 o One Barrell of Tobacco about 60 We 1 10 o Two good Sedar Tubs 010 o Twenty-two flax Seead Casks at 1-6-2 5 12 6 Six Hundred White oak Staves and heading 1 10 o Eight Sets of Barrells Trushoos 1 4 o One Thousand Black Oak Sheaves 1 o o