595 66 Anniversary Ball. "The compliments of the Managers are respectfully proffered to Miss Zeruiah Brainerd, Soliciting her attendance at the Ballroom of Daniel Smith on Tuesday the 4th of July at 5 o'clock P. M. "Haddam, 28, June 1815." Probably what is known as the old Smith house, below the school of the centre district, was the tavern of Daniel Smith, though no signs of such use remain ; but, two doors further down the street, stands a plain, peaked roofed dwelling, where in Revolutionary days, was a tavern, and here is still to be seen the bar window, such as is often still in use in English inns. At the upper end of the street, close upon the turnpike in its days of prosperity, but now, by the laying of the new road over Walkley Hill, left stranded in the fields, is the last of these hotels. Its front is weather worn, its roof and cornice show their age, but dreariest of all, from the upper story of the long ell, the four windows of the assembly room, show melancholy, never opened shutters to the passers by. With the coming of the railroad went the stage lines, and with them THE MARSH PLACE. REV. DR. JOHN MARSH. most of the call for such houses of entertainment, while within the last decade, enactment has taken from the town, the last encouragement to the business. Half the suits for Middlesex County Middletown, half at Haddam, the halfbefore the Superior Court were tried at shire-town. With the growth of the city of Middletown, this arrangement has grown more and more irksome to lawyers and judges, till it has at length been done away. The upper story of the stone building. standing where the turnpike bends sharply westward, held the room of the Superior Court. On the ground floor still beats that heart of the Republic, the town meeting, and here, with honesty or with dishonor with wisdom or with thoughtlessness, men settle the details of government 596 and in them, unwittingly, its most far But the courtroom reaching measures. above, where have spoken the greatest of Connecticut's jurists, is deserted. Here, full of pranks and raillery, remembered among the well known names on the re- A memento of the one execution that has shadowed the fair place exists in a time browned pamphlet which, one must by his hostess half in admiration, half wrathfully, came Brainard, the young poet, calling the law his profession. Here came John Trumbull whose "McFingal" was to touch the nation's sense of humor, and here Zephaniah Swift, compiler of the first American law treatise, sat as judge. Senator Roger S. Baldwin who so magnificently defended his State against the attack of Senator Mason of Virginia tried causes in this room, and one who was then a little girl tells how she used to run to the window as he passed for a glimpse of his fine, white features and stately carriage; Daggett, last of the top boot and knee breeches gentry, Wait, Hosmer and Storrs, Chief Justices of the State, were familiar figures. Roger M. Sherman, Leman Church, and more of recent date, McCurdy and LaFayette Foster are confess, bespeaks as much of curiosity as horror. It is entitled, A SERMON Preached at Haddam, June 14, 1797 On the day of the Execution of By.. THOMAS STARR Condemned for the murder of his and here follows a vivid description of the manner of the deed. Quarrying, which to the present time has been the principal business carried on in Haddam centre was begun on the west side of the river in 1792 by the brothers Nehemiah and General John Brainerd. The stone is like that of the Neck and largely used for curbing, paving and foundations. In the village the house built by some of Mr. Nehemiah Brainerd's family, the town hall, the county jail, jailer's house and the academy are of the finely colored material and prove that it would be a satisfactory building stone. In 1839 it was, that these brothers who had given business to the place gave it also its most valued possession, the Academy. With the dark side of Isinglass Hill behind, the steep, sunny slope to the street before, its grey stones were the pride of the place. We peer through the foliage of heavy trees for a glimpse of its bare windows. Its halls resound to the footfalls of the chance visitor and the green desks stand in melancholy order awaiting occupants who never come. We turn away regretfully, feeling robbed of some good thing that our fathers enjoyed. The catalogue of 1841 shows the school in its days of With the coming of the freight train the. stone cutters moved to the sand by the Shailerville stations, and "General's Wharf" lies deserted. Tall elms grow from the carpet of stone chips and bits of flagging, and the sound of the water lapping the timbers is no longer mingled with the ringing of the hammers. Among the hills bluffs of broken stone peer out from the young woods and the wanderer comes suddenly on old quarries, like amphitheaters, where saplings cling to the roughlyhewn seats and steps. Arnold's, on the CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH, HIGGANUM. prosperity. One hundred and eighty-five pupils are on the roll, from Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania and Mississippi, as well as from its own state. Its days were numbered however, and no faithfulness of teaching could save it. The high school was taking the place of all such simple private schools. To carry it on as is the preparatory school of recent years, called for more money than its endowment furnished, so a fine building stands unused and the triumphs and the pranks of the students are but stories for the reminiscent fireside. Connecticut Valley Railroad, opened for the convenience of the quarries on the west of the river, marks the passing of the original proprietors. During the ownership of Mr. Samuel Arnold, the business was carried on most successfully, giving large employment in the town. Mr. Arnold was a man of force and energy. For four terms he represented the town in the legislature and was a member of the thirty-fifth congress, serving on the committee on claims. Even a recent change of roof line, necessary to modern living, cannot rob the Arnold homestead, stand 598 .ing to the west of the Town Hall, of its position as the quaintest specimen of the old time structure to be found in the region. Feldspar has been quarried in several parts of the town. Lately, in Mr. Gillet's quarry on the Neck, have been found what jewelers judge the finest of the tourmaline in greens, reds, pinks, blues, lilacs, lemons, yellows and colorless. The brown, green and black tourmaline had been back from the main street, an apprentice was learning his trade of blacksmithing, with the finer work required for the forging of sword blades, and judging from the after skill of the apprentice, Hezekiah Scovil, whatever work was done in the little establishment was well done, well taught and well learned. When a young man Mr. Scovil went to New Haven, and there, from Eli Whitney, then a gun manufacturer for the United States Govern found in other districts and not far from a feldspar bed on the west side of the river are these minerals in fine doubly terminaThe town is known to ted crystals. scientists for its deposit of the rare chrysoberyl; but many other uncommon stones and more usual minerals in abundance make it a Mecca to the mineralogist, and specimens from its hills are to be found in all the leading museums of the world. Near the opening of this century, in a shop beside the Ponset road three miles ment, learned the welding of gun barrels. To the north of Cocaponset Brook runs another stream and, in the heart of its valley rises the round wooded hill, from which the hollow takes its name, Candlewood. The steep hillsides now bear elms, maples, oaks and tulips, but when the first dwellers beside the brook built their rude homes, pitch pine clothed the slopes, and gave torches and flaring house lamps to At the head of this tiny the new comers. valley Mr. Scovil built his factory and here, for many years, the principal business was the supplying of gun barrels to the various government arsenals. By the side of this first shop stands the wide brick house of the master. The woods are closing in on the home, the shop is gone, but the business, brought to its present prosperity by the sons who here learned every detail of the trade, has stretched further and further down the stream till the latest of its series of buildings looks on the main street. Some time before 1840, Mr. Daniel Scovil, travelling in the South was struck with the inferiority of the hoes then in use there. He proposed to his brother, Mr. Hezekiah Scovil, the manufacture of a hoe especially for the Southern market. It seems a commonplace scheme, yet, as one drives by the buildings, the oldest worn and blackened; the next, beside a pretty pond, the hills rising steeply behind its low red walls and white cupola; the third group, neat offices and packing rooms; the fourth and largest, with the well known look of the busy factory; all linked by wooded stream, smiling pond and foaming dam, all bearing the marks of slow growth, thrift and precise neatness, it is easy to read into manufacture the charm of true romance. It was thirty years ago that the gentle seeming water grew through a long storm to a growling flood. The saw-mill dam, far up the stream, gave way, and the water tore through the valley taking down the lesser buildings in its path and carrying away one life with a frail old structure. Since the death in 1881 of Mr. Daniel Scovil, the work has been carried on entirely by Mr. Hezekiah Scovil, the firm name remaining. The hoe without those methods of introduction and advertising now deemed necessary, supplanted the poor tools in use at the south and the Scovil name on a hoe is a guarantee of its worth. An old negro, criticising the tool on which he leaned, said to a Haddam man, then living at the south, "I wish I could git 'nother hoe such ez I hed befo' de war. It cum frum de Norf. I dunno whar, but it wuz a Scovil an' it was the best hoe ever I see." Lately another gratuitous compliment has strayed northward. This comes from the negroes on N. & J. BRAINERD'S HALL. a fruit farm. The owner, tried in vain to introduce another hoe. "They were using the Scovil," he remarked in telling. of the failure, "I could not get them to change." Such a manufactory as this of Mr. Scovil's, prosaic though its output be, should have been the delight of William Morris. It bears in every department the stamp of personality, to which, in such establishments, we are unaccustomed. Every part of the work is known accurately to the chief. In every process he is |