CHAPTER IX.

 

BUSINESS PROSPERITY. —A GRANDMOTHER’S MEMORIES.

 

To be born where great and good men have had their nativity, to live where they have lived, to be allied to them by kin, si, as it were, a patent of nobility.—Cu.~Lg~ CARZ.KTON Corns.

 

IN vol. 1. of the ancient Land Records at Windsor, Conn., is found the following entry, under date of November 4, 1679, the last part of which seems to be a confirmation of the former grant of ~ “A parcel! of woodland that John Drake makes over to his son-in-law John Higley; it is out of that laud he formerly bought of Richard Lyman, it Lyes towards Hartford Bounds; he is to have out of it fifteen acres of the South end of said Lott.” [Here follow boundaries].

“Alsoe, he has a parcel! of Land whereon he has but his Dweling house, the land was set out to him by his Grandfather, Deacon Moore, it is one acre and half of the Land Called Cow­feud.” [Here follow boundaries].

“Alsoe, he bath a Small parcell of Land Granted him by The Town on the North side of the ferry by the Rivulet to bud a warehouse upon; it is set out below the widow Marshels’s which Lyes between it and George Griswold’s, and this of John Higley’s is in length on the top of the bank against the River, thirty foot in length downward and in breadth twenty-four foot.”’

He is now found in possession of other lands, a new dwell­rng, and a’ business house. After this period his life had to do with many diverse interests. His warehouse, which was the beginning of his commercial transactions, proved a channel for his genius in business and was an element of success and wealth.

Windsor at this time was not merely a village on the foreline of western civilization, but was a chief center for trade, and a port, of entry. Sailing vessels of sixty, and up to seventy tons, ascended the river to this point, and there was not only a thriv­ing coastline trade, but an extensive commerce carried on be­tween England and the West Indies.

It was a day of bustle and excitement in the streets when a ship arrived from England. The townspeople turned out en masse to hear the news from the old home-country, and spectators lined the shores. The docks presented a lively scene, men hurried to and fro, and business at the warehouses was active. Two neighbors, with whom John Higley is found closely associ­ated in the following years (Benjamin Newberry and George Griswold), owned warehouses close by.

In the record of items left on the pages of his account-book, in his own handwriting, it appears that he held the appointment of Officer of the Customs, and there is some evidence that he possessed an interest in vessels plying between this coast and Bermuda. The latter, however, is not quite clear.

Much of the busitiess of the warehouse had to do with the importation of rum.’ The island of Barbadoes, with which there was much communication at that time, “was the first sugar colony which the English possessed, and was a place of consider-able importance. In 1684 the distillation of rum from the cane juice was extensively carried on, and there were not fewer than 358 sugar works in operation.”

But there were obstructions to trade In the colony, as reported to the House of Lords by a committee appointed to make in­quiry into the state of the colony, “for Want of men of estates to venture abroad, and of money at home for the management of trade, and labor being so dear.”

John Higley turned his attention in this direction. According to old MS., he made two voyages to the West Indies and some coastwise trips. His name is also found in the return passenger list as follows:

“Persons of Qualitie who went to the American Plantations,” sailing from Bar. badoes in 1678: viz.

“Ticquetts granted out of the Secy’ Office of the Island of Barbadoes for the departure off the Island, March the 24th, John Higley on the ketch Mary for Boston. John Gardener, Commander.”¹

 

 

The commodities shipped direct to Barbadoes and Jamaica were “there bartered for sugar, cottonwood, and rumme and some money.” At this time in the history of the colony, “the chief staples for trade were wheat, peas, hemp, ‘Ry,’ barley, Indian corn, ‘Porck’ beefe, ‘woole,’ flax, cider, staves, and horses.” The great forests supplied materials for shipbuilding. These were “good timber—oak, pine, and spruce for masts, ‘ tarr’ and pitch.” The wearing apparel of the colonists was procured by shipping the provisions they raised to Boston, which were ex­changed for goods “to cloathe with.” There were now “about thirty black slaves in the Connecticut Colony.”

It was seldom that relief was needed for the poor. “Labor is deare and provisions cheap,” continued the Report to the House of Lords. A day laborer was paid two shillings a day, and some­times two and sixpence. “Beggars and vagabond persons were not suffered,” and when discovered were “bownd out to service.”’

On the 7th of August, 1679, his daughter Katherine was born, and in x68o a son was born, to whom John Higley gave his mother’s maiden name—Brewster. This son became, in aftertime, the paternal ancestor of a long line of descendants bearing sterling qualities.

At the town meeting held December 30, i68o, John Higley was chosen a constable for Windsor, the first public office to which he was elected.

“The constable was an officer of superior dignity.” He was to the inhabitants “the right arm of the king himself; a function­ary treated with reverent awe and obeyed with implicit deference. Whoever resisted the power resisted the ordinance of God. The first constable in Windsor was Mr. Henry Wolcott, appointed in

1636.” $

About this time John iligley began to scent in the air the future fortunes in the growth and values of lands. In the years

• i68r and 1682 he purchased additional tracts at Windsor.

•     The year i68i witnessed the death of the venerable grand­mother, Elizabeth Drake, who died on the 7th of October, at the age of one hundred years.

John and Hannah Drake Higley now had a family of five chil­dren. We indulge in the fancy of seeing the eldest, John, a boy of eight years, standing beside the old armchair of his great-grandmother, listening with gaping wonder to the stories of well-nigh a century. Her life had been co-extensive with the stirring events in the rise and progress of the Puritans’ colonization.

What “grandmother tales she could tell I not old wives’ fables, but entertaining historic reminiscences. Is it any sur­prise that we have traditions? And why not give them their due weight and credence? It has recentlybecn said that “obscure memories and vague traditions are powerful forces in our social fabric.”’ The tendency of the day to original inquiry and his-

• tone facts obtained from actual record, has, perhaps, produced an inclination to underestimate the importance of this kind of material. These old lives spanned each other many years, repeating and linking together successive periods of history, and we cannot but maintain that they conveyed a vast amount of truth ; and, while we readily admit that there were many errors and inaccuracies, we recognize all the way along a stratum of well-grounded fact which deserves due regard.

Books were very scarce in the days of Grandmother Drake, and newspapers there were none; consequently the range of conver­sation upon present events was naturally limited; however, there was little room in her mind for dwelling upon the ordinary matters of the neighborhood, or upon visionary things.

Her eventful life had been made up of actual realities, which were no myth. As she sat, day after day, she must have readily recalled a thousand memories of the long, long past years—her recollections went so far back that they were beyond the reach of everybody.

We learn of no lament falling from her aged lips over past hardships. Her heroism had never failed. The sweet-winged angel, Faith, had buoyed her from first to last, and she walked through the vicissitudes of the Puritan’s life gazing upward.

She could tell of her girlhood days among the charming land­scapes of the Devonshire hills looking out upon the waters of the changing sea, of how they had, long years ago, heard strange tales from the “sea kings,” and fishermen, and fur merchants, of the wild shore beyond the great ocean; then how they were marked for persecution, and of the dark years that preceded the dawh and epoch of their religious liberty, of severing the loved ties in their native Iançl, of the remarkable sea voyage, when they were helplessly tossed in storm and wave, the fright and conjectures whenever a sail appeared upon the horizon, about supposed Spanish privateers, which were infesting the seas; of seventy-two days of continuous “feasts of devotion” which the floating, homeless church enjoyed with its voice uplifted in song above the roar of the billows—the fire of powerful sermons preached twice each day; and, finally, when land was descried, with what joy they greeted “the smell of the shore, like the smell of a garden.”

She could speak of the sense of isolation which stole s2cretly into their hearts, and the high pitch of courage required, as they neared our unfamiliar coast where

 

“the ocean eagle soared

From his nest by the white wave’s foam;

And the rocking pines of the forest roared

This was their welcome home 1”

 

Then, in our imagination, came her narratives of the dreadful pri­vations, makeshifts, adventures, and escapes through which they passed during their life among wild savages—” the heathen,” as they called them ; how these intruded themselves into their homes whenever they inclined to open the door and walk stealthily in without even knocking; meddled with everything they fancied to lay their hands upon, and wrapping themselves in their bear~­skins would lay themselves down to sleep upon the floor in front of the great fireplace.

Mrs. Drake could well remember these savage rovers when they became fierce and treacherous, how they tortured to death and tomahawked the settlers on the river, and “wore headbands made of the fingers and toes of their victims,” the thrilling excite­ments in the settlements when they kidnapped ahd carried off into the dark wilderness neighbors and little children, and the dreadful horrors these endured, and how stout hearted women used the musket in defense when needful.

Grandmother Drake had many a true story to relate of packs of hungry wolves and other wild beasts of the thickets close to her dwelling, howling and snarling at night, just outside the door. But her best stories must have been about real, live, so-called “witches,” who haunted the neighborhood—no mere phantoms, but women whom they believed were intimate with evil spirits, and saw and heard things supernatural, who did an endless string of things which upset the community.

Her voice no doubt trembled as she sometimes talked with the older people of the gloomy news that often reached them from the motherland in that remarkable age in the history of Eng­land, the disorder and turmoil that prevailed at periods in the political world, the insecurity of government, and the grievous suspense they endured between the long intervals of the ships coming bearing news from home—sweet /io,,,e.

But now the eventful journey of Elizabeth Drake’s life was closed. A wild informal beauty surrounded the scene as they laid her to her slumbrous rest. It was early autumn. The corn-tassels were brown, and the stocks were golden. All nature was ripe and mellow. A glorious luxuriance in color clothed the boughs of the great forest trees, and the bushes which fringed the majestic river, up~n whose banks, as “a pilgrim and a stranger,” she had found a home. Its waters glistened between the brilliant foliage in sight of her resting place. The sun reddened the western sky, and covered the summits of the rich valley with a glow. The birds, in flocks, were passing high in the air, migrat­ing to a sunnier home. The wind-breezes blew a little wild among the giant pines, and furnished the music which wafted her away in holy triumph, as she took new wing and went onward to another world and another life.

And so she parted—our last old Puritan grandmother—leaving behind her, from the blossoms her life had yielded, a rich fruitage of hope, courage, and devotion.

I am the last. Once more we are complete,

To gather round the Paschal feast. My place

Is near my Maker. My Lord I

How bright Thou art, and yet the very same

I loved on earth I ‘us worth the hundred years

To feel this bliss I So, lift me up, dear Lord,

Unto Thy bosom₁ There shall I abide.”

—SI. John, the A~çed,

·         

·        “ Windsor Land Records,” vol. 1. p. .~.

‘The following entries are extracts from John Higley’s Account-Book:

“ ~ipr*ll 25, z683. Mr. Henry Wolcott made entry of one barroil of Rum for transportation and if he did not transport it he would pay the costoin of it.”

“July zo, 1683. N~athaniel Ilissell made entry of a cask of rum of about 321 gals,, which he entered (or transportation marked NB.”

“August ~, ‘83. Mr. ‘!Fhos. Cook made entry of one hhd. of rum for transportation t mark TC [. . . some words not dedpheiedJ ye was—& mye same boats and barroll of Ruin for Thor Dewey of — Rum.”

“1683. Josias Wolcott made entry of 6 barrolls of Ruin for transportation and If he did not transport It — for costom.”

Says Eggle~ton: “There was no class in the colonies that could be called temperate, If Judged by modern American standards. . . . Drinking was universal. The birth of a child, the taking of a piece of land, the induction of a new minister, an election of officers, weddings, funerals, au~tsons, and even religious meetings in private houses, were occasiona for drinking.”—” T4~ CWoni:t a h’,rnte,” T4~’ Ce~s1ury, i884-85.

 

‘“History of Harbadoes,” by Sir R. Schoonbruck.

· “Connecticut Colonial Records,

I Hotton’s “Original Lists of Persons of Qualltie, Emigrants, and Others,” etc.

• “Connecticut Colonial Reco,~ds.”

‘Noah Porter, D. I)., President of Yale Uniterifty, In “History of Hartford County,” vol. II.

p. 306,

‘Ran. Thomas P. Bayárd, S~crcIazy of State, Speech at Holland Society Annual Meetin& New York, 1889.

‘Winthrop’s Lctt.,’i.