F 104 
 . S55 R7 
 ^opy 1 
 
 QUAKER HILL 
 
 ( LOCAL HISTOKY) 
 
 SERIES 
 
 xviL l)i$torical Candmarks 
 
 tn tbc 
 
 Cown of SDerman 
 
 BY 
 
 RUTH ROGERS 
 
HISTORICAL 
 LAN DMARKS 
 
 IN THE 
 
 TOWN OF SHERMAN 
 
 CONNECTICUT 
 
 BY 
 
 RUTH ROGERS 
 
 READ AT THE EIGHTH ANNUAL MEETING OF THE 
 
 QUAKER HILL CONFERENCE. SEPTEMBER THE 
 
 SEVENTH, NINETEEN HUNDRED AND SIX. 
 
 Published by the Quaker Hill Conference Association 
 
 Quaker Hill, New York 
 
 1907 
 
Publications 
 
 Of the Quaker Hii,i, Conference Association 
 
 , A Critical Study of the Bible, by the Rev, Newton M, 
 
 ' Hall of Springfield, Mass. 
 
 Tlie Relation of the Church at Home to the Church 
 Abroad, by Rev. Geotge William Knox, D.D., of New York. 
 
 A Tenable Theory of Biblical Inspiration, by Prof. 
 Irving Francis Wood, Ph.D., of Northampton, Mass. 
 
 The Book Farmer, by Edward H, Jenkins, Ph.D., of 
 New Haven, Conn. 
 
 LOCAL HISTORY SERIES 
 
 David Irish— A Memoir, by his daughter, Mrs. Phoebe 
 T. Wanzer of Quaker Hill, N, Y. 
 
 Quaker Hill in the Eig:hteenth Century, by Rev. Warren 
 ^ H. Wilson of Brooklyn, N. Y. 
 
 J. Quaker Hill in the Nineteenth Century, by Rev. Warren 
 
 ^ H. Wilson of Brooklyn, N. Y. (Second Edition). 
 
 Hiram B. Jones and His School, by Rev. Edward 1,. 
 Chichester of Quaker Hill, N. Y. 
 
 Richard Osborn— A Reminiscence, by Margaret B. Mon- 
 ahan of Quaker Hill, N. Y. (Second Edition). 
 
 Albert J. Al<in— A Tribute, by Rev. Warren H. Wilson of 
 Brooklyn, N. Y. 
 
 Ancient Homes and Early Days at Quaker Hill, by 
 
 ' ^ Amanda Akin Stearns of Quaker Hill, N. Y. 
 
 Thomas Taber and Edward Shove— a Reminiscence, by 
 
 Rev. Benjamin Shove of New York. 
 
 Some Qlimpses of the Past, by Alicia Hopkins Taber of 
 Pawling, N. Y. 
 
 The Purchase Meeting, by James Wood of Mt. Kisco, 
 N. Y. 
 
 In Loving Remembrance of Attn Hayes, by Mrs. Warren 
 H. Wilson of Brooklyn, N. Y. • -^ 
 
 Washington's Headquar'tbrs at Fredericksburgh, by 
 
 lycwis S. Patrick of Marinette, Wis. 
 
 ^'■\ 
 
 Historical Landmarks in the Town of Sherman, by 
 
 Ruth Rogers, Sherman, Conn. 
 
 Any one of these publications may be had by addressing 
 the Secretary, Rev. Bertram A. Warren, 
 
 Quaker Hill. N.Y. 
 Price Ten Cents. Twelve Cents Postpaid. 
 
 am 
 
\ 
 
 HISTORICAL LANDMARKS IN THE 
 TOWN OF SHERMAN. 
 
 Do you know Dr. van Dyke's picture of 
 the valley home of Peace? It makes you 
 think of Sherman, for in Sherman you 
 may find just such little gardens, and many 
 
 "a sheltered nook, 
 With outlooks brief and sweet 
 Across the meadows and along the brook ;" 
 
 here, too are the little, quiet, glad-flowing 
 streams, and the little fields, that bear 
 
 "a. little wheat 
 To make a portion of earth's a'aily bread. ' 
 
 In this ''green and still retreat" there have 
 been no great battles fought, nor martial 
 trumpets blown, yet there has been much of 
 the quieter heroism which is strong for the 
 daily task or the rare emergency. The 
 men who lived here in the long ago were 
 men of strong character, pure purpose, and 
 clean life, men in whose record their chil- 
 dren's children rejoice. Some there were 
 who made their impress on the outside 
 world ; merchant and missionary, soldier 
 and statesman, professor and physician, col- 
 lege founder and clergyman, have gone out 
 from Sherman. Others were content to do 
 the lowly task and ''wait in patience till its 
 slow reward is won," making history in 
 
their quiet daily life; and we who come 
 after them are quite as proud of the patriot 
 ancestors who stayed at home and milked 
 the cows and raised the grain as of the men 
 who made us Daughters of the Revolution. 
 
 It is well for us that we know something 
 of our forefathers, for the burning of the 
 early town records sends us to family and 
 church chronicles for the beginnings of our 
 history. From outside sources also we can 
 glean much. 
 
 Thus the history of the Naugatuck In- 
 dians and the annals of the Moravian Mis- 
 sionaries reveal the story of Mauwehu, the 
 Indian sachem who dwelt in Potatuck, now 
 Newtown, and who claimed much land west 
 of the Housatonic River, including what is 
 now Quaker Hill and Sherman. In 1729 he 
 and twelve other chiefs signed the deed 
 granting to the colonists for the sum of 
 sixty-five pounds the territory between Dan- 
 bury and the Litchfield County line. 
 Mauwehu and his people moved, about the 
 same year, to the Indian settlement at 
 Schaghticoke, where some of his lineal 
 descendants still remain. Converted by the 
 Moravian missionaries and baptized Gideon, 
 he preached the Gospel to his own people 
 by precept and example, and the testimony 
 of the times bears witness to his rare wis- 
 dom, superior intellect, and strong, find 
 character. Of the days of Mauwehu and his 
 fathers some reminders still remain. Ar- 
 rowheads found even yet in the furrow, 
 stone pestles occasionally picked up, and 
 mortars hollowed out of rock, tell of the 
 
days when the Indian hunted deer in our 
 woodlands and his dusky squaw raised and 
 made ready the maize for his eating. On 
 West Street the legendary Indian Rocks are 
 seen, carved no doubt by the rude tools and 
 skilled fingers of the red man; while an 
 Indian grave on Green Pond Mountain has 
 been guarded a century or two by a monu- 
 ment of many stones, built up, one stone 
 at a time, by every Indian who passed by. 
 Yet perhaps the Indian's most lasting legacy 
 is in the musical names lingering yet upon 
 brook and river and valley; for as long as 
 the Wimisink and the Naromiyocknowhu- 
 sunkatankshunk wind toward the Housa- 
 tonic, their quaint appellations will recall 
 the red man's trouting days, and as long 
 as people live in the part of the town called 
 Coburn, the name of the old Indian who 
 once dwelt there will be upon the white 
 man's lips. In the new Lake Mauwehu we 
 shall have yet another reminder of the do- 
 minion of the red man and of the splendid 
 old chief whose title was the first to our 
 well-loved hills and valleys. 
 
 In the records of the General Assembly 
 holden at New Haven in 1707, we find the 
 names of eleven men of the town of Fair- 
 field, praying for a certain tract of land to 
 be for a township lying north of and near 
 to Danbury, "bounded westerly on the 
 colonic line." Fear of the Indians or some 
 misunderstanding about the exact terms 
 put off the settlement for thirty years after 
 the petition was granted, and it was not un- 
 
til 1736 or 1737 that a final survey and 
 allotment of rights were made. 
 
 About the time, then, that the pilgrims 
 from Dartmouth came riding their horses 
 all the long way to Quaker Hill, a little 
 company of men and women from old 
 Fairfield on the shore journeyed up to the 
 little New Fairfield, as yet unnamed, how- 
 ever, lying on the westerly colonic line. 
 The new township was fourteen miles long, 
 and the settlers divided it into two sections, 
 called Upper and Lower Seven Miles ; in 
 each section they speedily organized a 
 church. 
 
 For sixty years the men of the north and 
 the south voted together and were one 
 township ; but they found it not always con- 
 venient, in those days of poor roads, few 
 wagons, and no telephones, to do business 
 with fellow citizens fourteen miles away, 
 and in 1802 the people of the Upper Seven 
 Miles petitioned the legislature to set ofT 
 the north end as a separate town. Long 
 was the debate over a name for the new 
 township, until one day Representative 
 Graves arose in the Assembly and moved 
 that it be named for Roger Sherman, who 
 once had his shoe shop within our borders. 
 Immediate and unanimous approval greeted 
 the suggestion and the little town received 
 the name which is its pride. 
 
 Roger Sherman came as a young man 
 to the home of his brother, William Sher- 
 man, near the northern border line of upper 
 New Fairfield. Here he lived for a little 
 while and made and mended shoes, for he 
 
combined the shoemaker's trade with the 
 surveyor's, and was evidently master of 
 both. The story of his shoemaking fol- 
 lowed him to Congress, and was used in 
 ridicule by one of his fellow members, Ran- 
 dolph of Virginia, whose great pride was 
 his descent from Pocahontas. In a debate 
 one day, Mr. Randolph, objecting to some- 
 thing Roger Sherman had said, ironically 
 asked : 
 
 "What has the gentleman from Con- 
 necticut done with his leather apron?" 
 
 Whereupon Roger Sherman answered 
 with unmoved dignity: 
 
 ''Cut it up to make moccasins for the 
 descendants of Pocahontas !" 
 
 By the way, Edward Everett Hale has 
 apparently not heard this bit of quick- 
 wittedness, for he seems almost to doubt 
 the shoe-making story. *'They say,*' he 
 wrote not long ago, ''dear Roger Sherman 
 was a shoemaker. I do not know, but I do 
 know that every central suggestion in the 
 American Constitution, 'the wisest work of 
 men's hands that was ever struck off in so 
 short a time,' is the suggestion of this shoe- 
 maker, Roger Sherman." 
 
 Roger Sherman moved from upper New 
 Fairfield to New Milford and afterward to 
 New Haven. He was the only man who 
 helped to draft the four great documents of 
 our national history — the Declaration of 
 Rights, Declaration of Independence, Ar- 
 ticles of Confederation, and the Constitu- 
 tion. In the Constitutional Convention at 
 the close of the Revolution, when the As- 
 
sembly seemed on the point of going to 
 pieces in a storm of controversy, Roger 
 Sherman and his fellow members from Con- 
 necticut came forward with the proposition 
 known as the Connecticut Compromise, 
 which saved the Constitution and made pos- 
 sible a federal government. Of Roger 
 Sherman, Thomas Jefferson said: "There 
 is a man who never said a foolish thing." 
 The building on the Jonathan Giddings 
 homestead, by the Wimisink brook, which 
 is said to have been Roger Sherman's shoe 
 shop, is typical of the rest of our land- 
 marks, standing not so much for hours of 
 dazzling triumph as for days of simple duty 
 rightly done. 
 
 Between the granting and the settling of 
 the New Fairfield township, the strip of 
 land known as the Oblong, which was in- 
 cluded in the original grant, had been ceded 
 to New York State in exchange for the 
 seacoast land called Horseneck, and Con- 
 necticut lost her claim to Quaker Hill. Yet 
 something more than mere propinquity en- 
 tered into the bond between Quaker Hill 
 and Sherman in the years that followed. 
 There was easy and natural communication 
 between the two places, connected as they 
 were by the old turnpike to Poughkeepsie. 
 To the store on the Hill, kept in Revolu- 
 tionary days by Daniel Merritt, and after- 
 ward by James Craft, Sherman people 
 came for groceries. Especially at the 
 Thanksgiving season, so many customers 
 mounted the hill that the storekeeper knew 
 beyond a doubt the Yankees were going to 
 
 8 
 
keep Thanksgiving. ''Sugar and spice and 
 all things nice," they carried home with 
 them, particularly tea, for Quaker Hill tea 
 had a high reputation. 
 
 Moreover, there were excellent families 
 just over the Yankee border line who paid 
 no military tax, used the plain speech, and 
 wore the quiet colors. To the old Meeting 
 House on meeting days they turned their 
 faces, and in the burial plot yonder some 
 of them were laid to rest. 
 
 In at least one of these households over 
 the line lingers a happy childhood memory 
 of bright August days and the 
 
 "Cavalcade as of pilgrims, 
 Men and women, wending their way to the quar- 
 terly meeting 
 In the neighboring town." 
 
 Here were friends and relatives among 
 the pilgrims, and the people stopped as at 
 the house of Elizabeth in Longfellow's 
 poem, for rest and refreshment. The com- 
 ing of the aunts and uncles and cousins, 
 and the festal preparations for dinner after 
 meeting was over, must have made the 
 Quaker Quarterly almost equivalent to the 
 Puritan Thanksgiving, in the households 
 nearest the meeting house. 
 
 It is also a family over the line, which 
 was, like most of the Quaker Hill families, 
 of Dartmouth descent, that preserves the 
 tradition of the first pair of boots on 
 Quaker Hill. The boots, being a proof of 
 particular prosperity, were borrowed in 
 turn by every man who went back to Dart- 
 
mouth to visit. The owner of the boots is 
 not positively remembered, but is believed, 
 rather mistily, to have been Peter Akin. 
 Peter Akin must have had large and gen- 
 erous feet, or else the Quaker Hill pioneers 
 must all have worn the same size of foot- 
 wear. At least he bad a large and generous 
 heart, for few men would have been willing 
 to lend thus freely their cherished treas- 
 ures. Generosity and goodwill belong to 
 the Quaker, however, in nothing more evi- 
 dent than in his gracious, tender treatment 
 of friend and family. Very sweet is the 
 beautiful care of the Quaker for his beloved 
 wife, so apparent in copies of the last will 
 and testament that have come down to us. 
 From large things to little, the same loving 
 thoughtfulness is manifest, whether it is the 
 legacy of bank stock, the good cow, the 
 ''beast of horse kind and sadle and bridle,'* 
 ''the youse of the pleaser carage during her 
 nateral life," or the careful provision for 
 the accommodation of her friends when they 
 come to visit her, for the son's "assisting 
 his mother to and from meeting and to go 
 visiting," even for the furnishing of wood 
 cut and fitted for her fire. 
 
 A house still to be seen in Leach Hollow 
 brings back the picturesque story of one of 
 these Yankee Quakers of Revolutionary 
 days, John Leach. His doctrine of non- 
 resistance was misunderstood, and attempts 
 were made to arrest him as a Tory. It was 
 going hard with Connecticirt Tories in those 
 days, and John Leach, not cari»g to risk 
 an interview with the authorities, disap- 
 
 10 
 
peared. It is believed that he was concealed 
 in a nearby cave and that his wife, known 
 as Aunt Molly, carried him food in the 
 ni«-ht-time. When the searchers came, 
 thSugh they held their pistols at her head, 
 the plucky wife refused to give up her 
 secret, and her husband escaped mto Can- 
 ada, where he stayed till the war was over. 
 Skill and strength and sweetness shme from 
 the pictures of Aunt Molly that still remam 
 to us— Aunt Molly at her loom, weavmg 
 enough each day to pay the men employed 
 by her husband to tunnel through Green 
 Pond Mountain; Aunt Molly grown al- 
 most blind, yet knitting by night stoclangs 
 for her grandchildren; and Aunt Molly, 
 cooking day after day through the season 
 a kettle of corn in the fireplace, to give a 
 treat to the children in the nearby school- 
 house. _ , ^-..„ , 
 
 Had John Leach lived on Quaker Hill, he 
 would have had no such romantic experi- 
 ence Most of his fellow citizens, however, 
 belonged to the same stock as Putnam and 
 Hale and Jonathan Trumbull, and believed 
 as honestly in the duty of defence as John 
 Leach in the evils of rebellion. A goodly 
 number of men went out from the little 
 town in answer to the nation's call. Jona- 
 than Giddings, who lived on the northern 
 border line of the township, was an officer 
 in the army, valiant and resourceful. Sent 
 into the enemy's country at the head of a 
 scouting party, he was for nine days with- 
 out any food save roots and herbs. No 
 doubt he could have had plenty of game for 
 
 II 
 
the shooting, but the firing of a gun would 
 have betrayed him to the enemy. Jona- 
 than's cousin and neighbor, William Gid- 
 dings, who was a captain in the Revolution- 
 ary army, received his commission from 
 General Washington. A commissary in the 
 army, Stephen Barnes, who lived on what 
 is now the Alexander Barlow place, was 
 intrusted with colonial funds and had a mil- 
 lion dollars of continental currency in his 
 possession when it was discredited by the 
 government. He was once captured by the 
 British and taken into camp, where the sol- 
 diers proceeded to pump him for informa- 
 tion about the colonial forces. When he re- 
 fused to answer, they began pricking him 
 with their bayonets, but Stephen Barnes 
 unflinchingly kept silence. If the Britons 
 thought the bayonet could weaken the loy- 
 alty of these ''yeoman soldiers," they knew 
 not yet the men they were dealing with. 
 
 Not all the patriotic service was given 
 on the battlefield. According to the records 
 of Connecticut during the Revolution, Alex- 
 ander Stewart, of the north parish of New 
 Fairfield, was for several terms chairman of 
 the Committee of Safety and Correspond- 
 nece; this committee was *'to collect and 
 care for certain stores and munitions of 
 war and to deliver them at certain points 
 as directed by the Governor and his coun- 
 cil." Alexander Stewart himself had charge 
 of some of the stores, and kept them in the 
 garret of his house, a large two-story man- 
 sion with much carving, said to be the most 
 pretentious in the district. This house was 
 
torn down within the last century, and an- 
 other, where Mr. George Barnum now hves, 
 was built over the same cellar. It is be- 
 lieved that some of the lead stored in the 
 old attic came from the leaden statue of 
 King George the Third on Bowling Green, 
 which was torn down after the signing of 
 the Declaration of Independence, moved to 
 Litchfield, Connecticut, by woodpath and 
 byway, perhaps through New Fairfield or 
 over Quaker Hill, and made into colonial 
 bullets. 
 
 About the Stewart house at night used 
 to prowl spies from the old Tory Hole at 
 Webatuck, for there was more or less sus- 
 picion of the location of the stores. Under 
 the sloping attic roof, however, the barrels 
 of powder and bars of lead were safe from 
 all but the mischievous ten-year-old of the 
 family, little Tom, whose delight it was to 
 appropriate slivers of lead for sinkers and 
 grains of powder for his horn. Brigadier 
 General Henry S. Turrill, who is authority 
 for most of these facts about Alexander 
 Stewart, tells also a legend of the boy's in- 
 ventiveness, which stopped effectively the 
 meddling with the stores. The father, go- 
 ing away from home one day, left the boys 
 to split \^rood, promising them that they 
 might go fishing when the task was done. 
 It wa? hard to split logs with those magni- 
 ficent trout waiting for them up in the 
 ''Wintergreen Woods," and little Tom sug- 
 gested to the other boys that the powder in 
 the garret would bring a speedy release. 
 By knocking up a hoop on one of the bar- 
 
 13 
 
rels, and making a small hole in the side, 
 a piece of wire could be pushed in, and a 
 tiny stream of powder forced out. After 
 the hoop was knocked down, no one was 
 the wiser for the leaking of the powder. 
 The little lads overdid the matter, however, 
 and so heavily did they charge the first log 
 that the woodpile was scattered all over 
 the yard and three lengths of new fence 
 were utterly destroyed. 
 
 The most stirring period of the Revolu- 
 tion to the towns of western Connecticut 
 was the time of the burning of Danbury. 
 In Danbury was stored a large share of 
 Connecticut's ammunition, and to destroy 
 this General Tryon came with two thousand 
 men from New York and fired the town, 
 marching back to the shore with such 
 plunder and burning and massacre that 
 General Howe declared the raid disgraceful 
 to the name of Briton. With the invasion 
 of Danbury, mounted messengers were sent 
 post haste to the towns roundabout, asking 
 for help, and a special despatch to Alex- 
 ander Stewart ordered the removal of the 
 stores in his charge to the patriot camp at 
 Peekskill. The summons was not in vain, 
 for with the very spirit of "Old Put," men 
 and boys were ready to leave their plows 
 in the balmy April weather if their country 
 needed them. Alexander Stewart's eldest 
 son, a boy of twenty, went with the rest, 
 leaving at home his fair young bride of four 
 months. Any but a man of resources would 
 have been in despair over the Peekskill de- 
 spatch, for all of the men and most of the 
 
horses available had gone to the defense of 
 Danbury. Alexander Stewart, however, 
 was equal to the occasion, and mustering all 
 the oxcarts he could find, he loaded them 
 with ammunition. In the soft hush of the 
 April twilight, the sleepy twitter of the 
 birds and the fragrant peacefulness of the 
 springtime at strange variance with the 
 tragic rumors from Danbury, the little pro- 
 cession moved slowly up the north road, 
 past William Henry Taber's, and across 
 Quaker Hill, toward the Peekskill camp, 
 where the stores were safely delivered. 
 
 Through the north part of the township, 
 called in early days New Dilloway, runs 
 perhaps the most historic bit of road in 
 town. By its side stood Roger Sherman's 
 shoe shop, where this boy of twenty made 
 and mended shoes in quiet preparation for 
 the glorious work before him. Stretching 
 from the the New York State line to the 
 Wimisink brook, it passed the homes of 
 Captain Joseph Giddings of the French and 
 Indian war. of Captain William Giddings, 
 and of the valiant scout, Jonathan Giddings. 
 As it lay in the sunshine it must have been 
 a silent witness to the farewells of these 
 gallant soldiers as they went away to fight 
 their country's battles. The proudest day 
 the road ever knew, however, was the brac- 
 ing October afternoon in 1778, when Wash- 
 ington and his army came marching down 
 from Quaker Hill on their way to Boston 
 town. Their day's march was almost done 
 and a mile or so farther on, just over the 
 line in Gaylordsville, they halted for the 
 
 15 
 
night, Washington and his officers in the 
 tavern kept by Deacon Benjamin Gaylord, 
 and the body of the army in the fields near- 
 by. It is beheved they encamped there sev- 
 eral days. Jonathan Giddings's wife Mary 
 could show her patriotism as effectively at 
 home as Jonathan on the field, by baking 
 bread for the army. With six vigorous 
 young children, the eldest twelve and the 
 youngest two, this sweet Revolutionary 
 dame must have found those days in early 
 November all too short for the tasks to be 
 accomplished in them. If those were Jona- 
 than's scouting days, no doubt the young 
 wife sighed as she despatched the fresh 
 brown loaves to the encampment over the 
 river and vainly longed that some of them 
 might find their way to her hungry soldier 
 far in the enemy's country. 
 
 In the Gaylord Tavern, Lafayette and 
 Rochambeau are also said to have been en- 
 tertained. About one minute's walk south 
 of this building, which is still wonderfully 
 well preserved, stands a magnificent oak 
 tree, where, according to tradition, Wash- 
 ington halted on his line of march, to ad- 
 mire no doubt its wondrous symmetry and 
 ''patient strength," its ''gnarled stretch," 
 and" depth of shade." Never did he fail 
 to appreciate the glory and grandeur of 
 beautiful trees. 
 
 Aside from Revolutionary reminders, 
 there are other quieter landmarks which 
 stand for the beginnings of a New England 
 town. One of these is the old tavern at the 
 center, now Mr. Henry Briggs's house, 
 
 i6 
 
which was both postoffice and hotel, the 
 center of information in the Httle town. 
 Here were posted notices of all kinds, here 
 the stage stopped for refreshment on its 
 weekly trip between New Milford and 
 Poughkeepsie, and here the people gathered 
 to get the weekly newspaper and rare let- 
 ters and to hear the news that stage and 
 traveler brought. Here also came traveling 
 showmen, exhibiting occasionally in the 
 great ballroom. Mrs. Laura Stuart Sher- 
 wood remembers going to this tavern to see 
 a display of waxworks, walking the mile 
 from home alone at the mature age of five. 
 The day was memorable for the new pair 
 of green morocco shoes she wore and the 
 new plaid linen dress, home spun, home 
 woven, and home made, from home raised 
 flax. Ranged on all sides of the ballroom 
 the wax figures went through their mar- 
 velous representations of the Sleeping 
 Beauty, Captain Cook devoured by the Can- 
 nibals, Pocahontas Saving the Life of John 
 Smith, and above all, the Witch of Endor 
 raising Samuel from the Dead. The life- 
 like images of the awful-looking witch and 
 the gray-bearded patriarch made this scene 
 of Old Testament history more real than 
 any other to the eyes of the five-year-old 
 child. 
 
 Of the days of tavern, turnpike and toll- 
 gate, Sherman has a lasting reminder in the 
 pass at the foot of Briggs Hill, known as 
 the Narrows, a precipice of rock on each 
 side of a narrow road, where all travelers 
 paid their toll. No wonder the visitor from 
 
 17 
 
New York State said that Yankees knew 
 where to put a toUgate, for one could 
 neither run past this nor go by it, and could 
 never get out of paying his sixpence per 
 horse everj^ time he went over the road. 
 The first stage-driver on the Poughkeepsie 
 turnpike was Captain Elihu Stuart, whose 
 typical old-time coach was modeled after 
 Washington's, well braced in front and 
 rear, and swung on each side with stout, 
 swaying straps of leather. Four horses he 
 drove, the leaders, a brown and a bay, 
 named Morris and old Jack, and the other 
 two a team of grays named Trotter foot and 
 Charlie. In the days of the last stage- 
 driver, Isaiah McKibbin, the trip was tri- 
 weekly, McKibbin leaving Poughkeepsie 
 every other morning and returning the next 
 night, spending the night between in New 
 Milford. This man of the sturdy Scotch 
 name had all the indomitable pluck of his 
 sturdy Scotch blood. Through drifts and 
 storms that would subdue anyone else he 
 could break his way, and in a term of many 
 years he is said to have missed but one 
 trip. He is still remembered as a notable 
 stage-driver of the olden type, large of fig- 
 ure, florid of face, and ready of tongue, 
 with a fund of stories to tell. Can any-" 
 thing be more picturesque than an old-time 
 journey in a swaying, four-horse coach, 
 through fresh country air sweet with cinna- 
 mon roses and clove pinks, over the hills 
 and valleys we know so well, with a jolly, 
 gossipy driver to beguile the long miles by 
 fascinating stories, and at the end of the 
 
 i8 
 
day a night of rest in the great, curtained 
 four-poster of some country tavern? 
 
 Another place which should be kept in 
 memory is the level field at the center in 
 front of Charles McDonald's house, where 
 training and general muster were held. Ac- 
 cording to the New England custom, every 
 man was compelled to train for the militia 
 under penalty of fine, and each town had 
 its company, which was annually reviewed 
 and drilled. In the words of an old-time 
 song: 
 
 "The first Monday ii» May 
 
 Is Training Day, 
 And nothing can be grander; 
 
 Brother Bill 
 
 Is corporill, 
 And father, he's commander." 
 
 In the autumn came regimental training or 
 general muster, held in a different place 
 each year, a regular circuit being made of 
 the towns in the district. Town and dis- 
 trict officers and sometimes state officers 
 were there, as well as many spectators, in- 
 cluding the families of the military men and 
 guests from out of town. In 1830 general 
 muster was held in Sherman. The stirring 
 sounds of fife and drum, the superb horses 
 of the officers, the gorgeous uniforms of the 
 men — red-banded blue coats, white trous- 
 ers, and stiff cockade hats — and the march- 
 ing and counter-marching and maneuvers 
 of the battlefield must have made a real 
 pageant to the quiet little town. Each com- 
 pany sent rations for its men, and for the 
 officers a sumptuous feast was spread in the 
 
 19 
 
nearby tavern; General Hinman, Connecti- 
 cut's commander of militia, being chief 
 guest of honor. No picture of Training 
 Day would be complete without mention of 
 the gingerbread, which was as indispensable 
 to Training Day as firecrackers to Fourth 
 of July. In the memory of those who have 
 known the festival still linger visions of 
 those squares of gingerbread, creased across 
 the top, glazed with molasses, sweet, spicy, 
 and delicious. 
 
 Like all Puritan towns, Sherman had a 
 whipping posts and stocks, standing on the 
 green near the center church, and used 
 within the memory of one now living, Mrs. 
 Sherwood, who tells of seeing, in her child- 
 hood, a man tied to the post and whipped 
 for the offence of stealing. The theft was 
 not large, but "stealing was stealing in those 
 days," and the punishment vigorously in- 
 flicted by the inflexible old magistrate. 
 Squire Beardsley. Mrs. Sherwood was but 
 a child when the last transgressor was 
 whipped at the post, yet the shrinking, 
 cringing figure, turning and twisting under 
 the smarting blows, is still a vivid picture 
 after ninety years have passed. This same 
 Squire Beardsley exacted the lawful fine for 
 swearing, one dollar for every oath. There 
 is a story told of one man who was so angry 
 over the fine that he swore the harder; the 
 old squire, however,, waited quietly until 
 he subsided, and then cooly collected a pen- 
 alty of three or four dollars for the second 
 outbreak. 
 
 The early church and schoolhouse are al- 
 
 20 
 
ways landmarks in a new community, and 
 though these have long ago been replaced 
 in Sherman by more modern buildings, 
 memory pictures of them still remain. The 
 old church, across the road from the present 
 Union Church at the center, was a typical 
 Puritan house of worship — large, bare, un- 
 heated, each pew square and roomy with 
 a door at the end and a seat around the 
 sides. In the high gallery sat the singers, 
 bass in the south gallery, treble in the north, 
 and tenor and counter together in the west. 
 Everybody went to church in early days 
 and the great meeting-house, holding prob- 
 ably five or six hundred people, was well 
 filled Sunday after Sunday. On foot, in 
 lumber wagons, and on horseback the people 
 came, to listen to two hour-long sermons, 
 one at ten o'clock, the other at one. In 
 winter they brought their foot-stoves and 
 filled them in the noon intermission with 
 coals from the neighboring houses, where 
 they ate their luncheons. Over their lun- 
 cheons they discussed the sermon thought- 
 fully and reverently, with real interest and 
 understanding, for theology was the topic 
 of the people. The beautiful ministry of 
 the beloved pastor, Rev. Maltby Gelston, is 
 a cherished part of Sherman church history. 
 Those were the days of a Puritan Sab- 
 bath. From the going down of the sun on 
 Saturday to the going down of the sun on 
 Sunday, no unnecessary work was done, 
 neither bootblacking nor shaving, nor need- 
 less cooking ; no riding or driving permitted 
 save the trip to church. Children were 
 
brought up in strictest regard for the Sab- 
 bath, and any infringement on their part 
 was ventured in fear and trembhng. Three 
 httle Sherman people, going out into the 
 orchard for apples one Puritan Sabbath day, 
 though they wanted the apples very, very 
 much, thought they must surely be as 
 naughty as the mocking Hebrew children 
 who said unto Elisha, ''Go up, thou bald- 
 head," and so they set the youngest one, 
 the little brother, to keep watch for the 
 bears and give warning if they came out of 
 the wood. 
 
 Quaint as the old-time church was the 
 first schoolhouse, with its rows of hard, 
 straight slab benches on three sides of the 
 room, its rough counters, parallel with the 
 benches, for the children's books, and its 
 great stone fireplace at the end. The school 
 was large, made up of three-year-old babies 
 learning their letters and grown young 
 people mastering the problems of Daboll's 
 arithmetic and the constructions of the Eng- 
 lish reader. The mantle of Job must have 
 been sorely needed by the young teacher, 
 who received the princely salary of seventy- 
 five cents or one dollar a week, and who 
 taught, summer and winter, six days out of 
 seven, with only one half-holiday in a fort- 
 night and only four weeks vacation in the 
 year. She had moral as well as mental 
 charge of her little flock, and misdemeanors 
 were promptly reported to her for punish- 
 ment. Coming into this old-time school- 
 house one day, a little three-year-old, who 
 is a Chicago multi-millionaire now, solemnly 
 
 22 
 
affirmed that one of the boys had been 
 swearing. The teacher, grieved and sur- 
 prised, asked what the boy had said, and the 
 child answered, in a low, shocked voice: 
 
 ''Mudpuddle !" 
 
 Of the high scholarship in those early 
 days much might be said. Modern schools 
 have no more brilliant pupils than the little 
 fellow, trained in this country schoolhouse, 
 who went through Daboll's arithmetic at 
 six, and was called years after by one who 
 knew him in his college course, the bright- 
 est man in Yale. 
 
 Firmly laid in the plain bare schoolhouse 
 were the foundations of learning and cul- 
 ture, by bright, conscientious teachers. One 
 who faithfully taught the little ones their 
 A. B. C's and the older ones their rhetoric 
 and logic was afterward Connecticut's wise 
 and honored Governor Andrews. 
 
 Perhaps more important than all the rest, 
 because at the root of all, are the early 
 homes, those Puritan homes of vigor and 
 vitality, simplicity and strength, honor and 
 uprightness. Dear to our hearts to-day is 
 the slightest plenishing of a house of the 
 olden time, whether it be the bit of blue 
 china, the heirloom of silver, the fiddleback 
 chair, the grandfather's clock, or the spin- 
 ning-wheel, that has seen the people and 
 the life we can only read and write and 
 wonder about. The very houses are at- 
 tractive, bare and empty though some of 
 them may be. Great fireplaces and capa- 
 cious brick ovens still tell the story of the 
 old-time hospitality, and the great rooms 
 
 23 
 
seem to thrill even yet with the happy, busy 
 stir of the throng of children who had their 
 work to do even then, and were brought up 
 in the way they should go, trained in the 
 nurture and admonition of the Lord. Some 
 of them worked for the nation in after 
 years, helping to make the world wiser and 
 better and safer, and a few have gained 
 more or less distinction. 
 
 Thus Ammi Giddings, born on his 
 grandfather's homestead, living afterward 
 in Ohio, was clerk of the House of Repre- 
 sentatives, member and president pro tem 
 of the Senate, and Justice of the Supreme 
 Court of Montana. Marsh Giddings, who 
 went from Sherman to Michigan in his boy- 
 hood, was appointed Consul General to In- 
 dia by President Grant, but refused the 
 appointment; he was afterward made Gov- 
 ernor of New Mexico, and was said to 
 have filled the trust "with great credit to 
 himself and the people of the territory." 
 Franklin Giddings, born in the old tavern 
 at the center when it was kept by his grand- 
 father, Revilo Fuller, is professor of soci- 
 ology at Columbia University, a man of 
 whom we have a right to be proud. Only 
 the other day a Japanese student in America 
 gave the name of Professor Giddings as 
 one of the six Americans best known and 
 most admired in Japan ; when asked which 
 of the six he considered the greatest, he 
 answered: "Professor Giddings." Profes- 
 sor Giddings was invited several years ago 
 to deliver a course of lectures at the Uni- 
 versity of Tokio. Of his sociological books 
 
 24 
 
at least one has been translated into Japan- 
 ese, French, Russian, Spanish, Bohemian 
 and Hebrew. Philo Penfield Stewart, a 
 grandson of Alexander Stewart, went as a 
 missionary to the Choctaw Indians in Mis- 
 sissippi when he was twenty-three years old, 
 making the horseback journey alone 
 through two thousand miles of wilderness. 
 Though he refused to accept any salary 
 from the Board, he was called the most 
 useful man on the field, his Yankee skill 
 helping in many ways, especially by con- 
 structing a grist mill to grind the corn, 
 which before this the children in the school 
 had pounded in mortars. After coming 
 back to the East he invented the Stewart 
 stove, from which, it is said, everything of 
 value in the modern cooking stove is taken. 
 The story of his struggle and poverty be- 
 fore the stoves were put upon the market, 
 sometimes his only fare being corn meal 
 and water, sounds like the life story of in- 
 ventors the world over. When the tide 
 turned and his hands were filled with money 
 he sought the best possible use for it. So 
 it came about that he founded Oberlin Col- 
 lege, a pioneer institution in co-education, 
 manual training, and open doors to the col- 
 ored race. Oberlin is the mother of twenty 
 other colleges, and more than twenty thou- 
 sand students have gone in and out at her 
 doors and called her blessed. As pioneer 
 missionary, abolitionist, inventor, philan- 
 thropist, and founder of Oberlin, Philo Pen- 
 field Stewart brings lasting honor upon the 
 town of his birth. 
 
 25 
 
The church and the school and the early- 
 homes are our landmarks and our pride. 
 Of the Puritan type and the Puritan stock, 
 they yet belong to a day when Puritanism 
 was mellowing into a broader toleration, 
 though losing none of its grandeur and 
 principle, relaxing a little in judging the 
 neighbor's deed, but abating not at all in 
 the standard set for self. 
 
 The Puritan and the Quaker dwelt side 
 by side, one in the valley, the other on the 
 hilltop. In outward forms they differed, 
 but in the great things of men's souls they 
 were not far apart. So long as we who 
 come after them live our faith as they lived 
 theirs, in love to God and goodwill to man, 
 the future of Quaker Hill and of Sherman 
 will be as glad and beautiful as the past has 
 been strong and heroic. 
 
 26 
 
LIBRPRY OF CONGRESS 
 
 014 076 293 3 # I 
 
\ 
 
 LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
 014 076 293 3 %